Looks like our prediction last week about Rift getting a new expansion was spot on.

"I have unlocked the secrets of The Infinity Gate." These are exactly the sort of words you don't want to hear from one of Rift's anarchic greater dragons. This one is Crucia, grand foe of the high elves of Telara, lord of the Plane of Air and commander of the Storm Legion, who look as though they're about ready to mount a full scale assault on the citizens of Telara in Rift's next big update. The colossal stone infinity gate is warming up, ready to punch holes through reality and deliver the hordes of the plane of Air right into the laps of Ascended players. It should be a mighty good fight.

We received an interesting package today at the PC Gamer offices: a wooden box labeled "A Storm is Brewing." Given that I was a world-class detective before taking the intern gig here, I was tasked with determining what it all meant. My peerless deductive skills have led me to the conclusion that these are likely the first details of Rift's next major expansion.

The box contained the following items:
Two posters: One depicting the Polesti Raid in World War II, and one depicting Stuart's Confederate cavalry raiding Pennsylvania in the Civil War.
Amazing Detective Skills say: That's two "raids." So, this seems to be MMO related...
A liquid level, with a sticker on it bearing the number 10.
Amazing Detective Skills say: 10 levels? Must be a level cap increase, which usually means big expansion
Four soles of shoes. This is what tipped me off that it was Rift I was dealing with.
Amazing Detective Skills say: Rift calls its classes "souls," and this seems to indicate that four new ones are being added.
Six rusty keys on a ring, and one golden one labeled "Port Tempest."
Amazing Detective Skills say: This likely indicates to a new capital/hub city called Port Tempest, and six new smaller cities or zones.
A felt bag containing five glass prisms, all of different sizes. No, they do not fit together (I tried that already).
Amazing Detective Skills say: There are items in Rift called Prism Fragments, five of which (the same number that came in the bag) can be combined to form an Inert Prism. These Prisms are currently only used for a few crafting recipes. Maybe they're about to become more important? Hmmm...
An incredibly stylish, red, hooded cloak.
Amazing Detective Skills say: This was probably just here to get people like me posting pictures of ourselves in it on the internet. Mission accomplished, Trion!

 


And thus I reached the conclusion that the box of mystery indicates such: A Rift expansion is coming and it will bring a 10-level increase in the level cap, two new raids, four new souls, six new areas, a new city called Port Tempest, and possibly something fancy to use those Inert Prisms for. If I'm right, we should have more details to share with you soon.

Rift's new PvP mode throws the game's rulebook out the window. Defiants and Guardians--who needs 'em? The new Conquest mode lets you join one of three factions that battle on a massive map with capturable objectives and no player cap, more closely resembling Guild Wars 2's World vs. World vs. World mode than Rift's existing PvP Warfronts.

According to the video just released by the developers, and a great interview write-up over at MMORPG.com, the 3 factions are groups from an alternate plane fighting for dominance of the instanced zone. Players will pick one of the three new factions (Dominion, Oathsworn and Nightfall) to join and will always fight on their side in the Conquest mode--although players will be able to switch factions once a week. These factions will only exist in Conquest mode and players will still be Defiants or Guardians in the rest of the game.



The map itself will be a huge open area designed to capture the feel of open world PvP--the video shows tangled environments with bridges crossing over over roads that are running between cliffs that players can run on. It's supposedly modeled after the Stillmoor zone, featuring grasslands and the interior of a castle. It's good the map is large, because there is no limit on the number of players that can fight on it. A faction can win by either capturing 40% of all the objectives on the map or by killing a total of 5,000 enemy players.

Capturing objectives means taking over areas on the map that give buffs to your entire side. Lone wolf players can also gather resources and build things that enhance the combat prowess of everyone on their faction.



The winning faction will earn PvP weapon enchants, along with unique buffs and abilities that are not only usable in the Conquest PvP mode, but out in the open world as well.

The mode is now live on Rift's Public Test Shard, where you can test it today during the planned event that runs from 4-8 PM PST.

A new three-way PvP faction war mode will land on Rift's test servers later on today. From 4pm PDT / 11pm players will have the chance to and jump into a new PvP warzone in a new version of Stillmoor to do battle for a cluster of control points (or Sourcestone Extractors, as they're called).

As a member of one of three new factions, Ascended must seize a certain number of these areas to win. "The match ends when a single team has claimed 40% of the control points or 5,000 players are killed" explain Trion on the Rift site, "once this happens a 10 minute timer will start, this is your chance to make a last grab for control."

Dominion, the Oathsworn and Nightfall are the three factions in question. Their differences are philosophical, which means any Ascended can be a member of any team as long as they're up for a fight. "Are you a Ram, guarding the flock under your iron grip? Do you protect your pride, your virtue gold as the Lion’s mane, keeping the helpless from harm? Or do you soar like a Raven into the twilight – cleansing all corruption in your wake across the universe, whatever the cost?" RAVEN FTW.

The three-way PvP is the latest in a long series of updates that Trion have been providing over the last year. The Infernal Dawn 1.8 patch is coming up next. That'll add a new 20 man raid, instant adventures, improved 'looking for group' tools and fishing. Find out more in our look at the recent Infernal Dawn Rift developer roundtable.

The Carnival of the Ascended celebration is coming to an end as the world of Telara prepares for the next major update, Infernal Dawn. The past year, full of consistent and large updates for Rift, has us wondering what's next. I had a chance to attend a Rift roundtable discussion with Trion CEO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman, Producer Adam Gershowitz, and Design Director Hal Hanlin to gain some insight on fishing, new raid content, and what else we can expect in the future.

Face-punching content


Ask any experienced raider to name the biggest challenge Rift offers, and their answer is almost assuredly Hammerknell. The 20-man raid is the first of the Tier 2 encounters and is what Hartsman described as "face-punching content." While some enjoy the intensity of the challenge, the team noticed that it was starting to cause issues within guilds. Hartsman says that a number of the encounters in Hammerknell were guild-breakers and it's never their goal to make content that makes players angry with each other.

With their new raid, Infernal Dawn, they've taken the lessons learned from Hammerknell to make an experience with fun challenges that don't cause guild burnout. Success and failure will be more team-based to avoid situations where one person missing a cue would wipe the entire raid. They've also toned down the devastating effects of some single target debuffs to help alleviate the negative social consequences for individuals who make a mistake or have a sudden lag blip.

This doesn't mean they're taking out the difficulty. Hartsman explained that Infernal Dawn is designed with the top Rift guilds in mind, ensuring everyone will have a challenge that will bring guilds together rather than tearing them apart.

For times of peace

In a push to add more depth to the non-combat side of Rift, Gershowitz told us that fishing and survival skills were two of the most requested activities by players and developers alike. Fishing will use crafted poles and lures to snag up everything from basic supplies to mini-pets and was promised to be more advanced than similar systems in other games. Trion also plans on tying the skill into community events, such as fishing derbies, to make fishing more than just a fun sideline activity.

Survival sounds like an odd mix of cooking and the crafting of items that provide unique bonuses. Tents and bedrolls, for example, will give players a small amount of rested experience when they're not able or willing to go back to the city. The rested buff in the cities is substantially better, but it gives a nice perk to going afk on a mountainside while you replenish snacks between rift invasions.

Instant Adventures, Mentoring, and beyond patch 1.8

While not part of the upcoming patch, Hartsman, Gershowitz, and Hanlin talked openly about some features coming in the future. Instant Adventures (think instant rift events that group you with fellow players for loot and xp) are coming to lower levels. Since their release, they've been one of the best features for players looking for some action on a limited time schedule. Adding them to lower levels will make it that much easier (and more fun) to level new characters.

Towards the end of the discussion a question was asked about the letters "XP" on a whiteboard in Trion's anniversary video. Hartsman stated, "We covered up everything on the whiteboard that we didn't want people to see. Feel free to draw your own conclusions from there." It could mean an actual expansion for Rift, but the listing of their upcoming mentoring system (which allows lower levels to gain more XP and higher levels more ways to gain Planar Attunement XP) leads us to believe this image has more to do with that, and less to do with the existence of an expansion.

To learn more about patch 1.8 changes be sure to check out the public test server's patch notes and read Josh's posts on Infernal Dawn and the new skills, fishing and survival.

It's Maelforge the fire dragon's turn to menace the lands of Telara in the big upcoming Infernal Dawn update for Rift. Alsbeth and the undead were the first to make a move, but found themselves quickly pushed back by Rift's Guardian and Defiant armies. They didn't have any magical dragons made of gold, though, did they? That'll be just one of the new enemies players will have to face down in the new 20 man raid to be added in update 1.8.

The next big patch will also bring a big list of balance changes and a few new professions, including fishing. Trion have released a bunch of new images showing some high octane angling action and a huge purple pirate.

The update is due out soon. For an idea of what it'll contain, check out the patch notes fansite, Terriftic, have gathered from the test server a few weeks ago. We've also taken a look at Infernal Dawn's big red arch villain, Maelforge, and examined some of Update 1.8's more serene pastimes.

There are dragons that steal gold, dragons we train as young vikings, and dragons that eat entire worlds while backstabbing everyone close to them. Maelforge, Rift's Dragon Lord of the Fire Plane, is the embodiment of the latter. His thirst for destruction in battle can't be quenched, and he's waking up with a craving for all of Telara.



Rift is packed full of lore revolving around the Dragon Lords of the different planes. Maelforge is one of the most insane: threatening to burn his enemies, resurrect them, and burn them again just for giggles. He's like that crazy kid in school that even bullies don't want to fight for fear they might lose a vital organ. Trion Worlds has released an interesting piece of lore that dives into the twisted nature of Maelforge to mentally prepare players for the coming encounter. I'm not sure about you, but after reading this I think I'll just hang at the pub and work toward becoming the town drunk that all fire wielding maniacs ignore.

You can find more info on Maelforge's encounter and the rest of the raid in our preview.

Maelforge – Dragon Lord of the Fire Plane
Rough earth grips me, scraping my scales. Jagged teeth of stone transfix my wings, wings that once fanned flame across eternity. They have entombed me, dull gray rock for miles before my eyes. Their crude magic drains my heat, dragging it far above, to ooze from the mountain whose weight has crushed me through millennia.

These Telarans. They have forced sleep and stillness on me. How I hate them.

In long-gone eons I blazed from star to star, far ahead of my sisters and brothers, the void screaming, scorching in my wake. I would tear the cores from living worlds and gulp them down like beating hearts. And as the molten juice ran down my chin, warrior gods would come give me battle for the ashes of their dying creations. We would clash in the sky and the spaces between the planes. I slew them with great relish, and my triumphal roar blasted their brittle remains across the heavens.
Some fought so fiercely I bade them “RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN,” but Regulos, my eldest brother, held death absolute, and snatched them for his own, forever.

We came at last to this world. I had heard of Telara’s mighty god of war, and yearned to paint his death in glorious relief against a smoldering sky. But Thedeor heeded his cowardly fellow gods and hid from me as they forced us to fight worthless mortals. The frustration! One snort of flame and armies shriveled like ants, and they could not even challenge me anew before Regulos claimed them all.

Then Crucia whispered to us, “Why not turn on Regulos?” Ahh, now this would be battle! But when we fell upon his bloated form, sly Crucia hung back, as if to direct us like some upstart general. I scoured her with flame, and then turned upon the rest of them, and together we clashed through the planes.

Slaughter, agony, bright red ruin! Glorious! I lost myself amid the wreckage of kingdoms.
And then—somehow—faced with a handful of paltry mortals, I fell. They drained my heat and sunk me in the earth. Held so still that even anger seemed futile. Shameful, slothful slumber was mine through the ages. Now, their sky breaks. My children rush from the rifts and kill. As I feel their burning steps upon my mountain, my rage returns. With rage comes heat. The stone softens around me. Heat melts earth. I am coming, Telarans. To fight you, and your gods, and all my brothers and sisters. And when I alone am the Blood Storm, you will burn, and rise, and burn again. How I will revel.

Glorious.

We just talked about the brand new raid coming to Rift, and the hundreds of people trapped inside that you'd be murdering. But it's not all blood and guts in Rift's next patch: a major focus of the update is adding "non-stabby" content to the game, including competitive leaderboards and Fishing, Trapping, and Survival skills.

But the big addition, at least for competitive people like me, is the score of leaderboards being added, which will track almost everything in the game. The devs estimated there are 60-80 of them, and they tracks anything from items crafted or sold to the fastest dungeon runs to the most rare monsters killed. These leaderboards will be broken up into different divisions and ranks, much like StarCraft II's PvP ranking system. And don't worry—each of the leaderboard rankings are tracked separately, so just because you're a pro at fishing doesn't mean your PvP stats be compared against the best brawlers around.

"Best at PvP you say? Explain yourself!" Yep, Fishing is finally coming to Rift in patch 1.8, due out early April. The developers want the experience to land somewhere between WoW's simple fishing experience (click a bobber when it moves) and complex fishing sims (lean the pole left, now right, now hook!). The goal of this "auxiliary activity" is to create a casual minigame that's relaxing and rewards better playing with better rewards. In a clever change from WoW's fishing, you'll be able to purchase specific bait to catch specific types of fish/other things that you're looking for.



The other big gathering skill being added is Trapping. In a kind of bizarre twist, you'll set your traps in an area of the world that you want to collect animals from and leave them there, only checking on them from time to time to see if you've caught anything. One example given was setting traps in a forest to catch a fire squirrel. Thankfully, your traps will only be visible to you, so no one can steal your captured critters, and you won't see a forest overflowing with nothing but traps.

The final skill being added is Survival, which lets you cook those crispy critters your caught with Trapping and build tents and other utility items to "help people on adventures." I love secondary activities like this in my MMOs, so I'll definitely be trying it out, even though it's not entirely clear what exact benefits these tools will provide players on the go.

Patch 1.8 is due out in April, although the devs warned that they'll likely delay Trapping to a following update. They also teased some of their ideas for future additions to their "non-stabby" content, including more social gatherings like their recent wedding system. In particular they mentioned wanting to add birthday parties, guild taverns, and other places for celebrations and training.

As you read this, all of Telara's most powerful defenders are busying themselves stomping on balloons and throwing plastic rings at tiny seacaps scuttling inside a fence. The Carnival of the Ascensed is a fun, whimsical event celebrating the game's first anniversary--but it's about to come to a screeching halt, replaced with fire and brimstone as patch 1.8 introduces the next large-scale raid, the Infernal Dawn.

What I liked most about the Infernal Dawn, from everything I saw in my brief walkthrough last week, is how diverse the enemies are. The basic premise of the dungeon, located on Ember Isle, is that dragons are jerks, but not always brightest--as the dragons cause chaos, the Golden Maw (cultists obssessed with wealth and greed) plan to use their armies to take advantage of the situation to gain more for themselves. It's your job to dive down into one of their big lairs and stop them before they organize and mobilize.



The cultist's expansive cavern is broken up into three wings: Earth, Fire, and Gold. As you break into the Earth wing, you'll battle through tight caverns stuffed with glowing blue crystals, and have to down the massive baddies that have formed their scary-looking armor out of those crystals. Past that, we get to my favorite fight showcased in the demo, which stars Captain Dreadberry of the Dread Fortune warship.

The dev team said they designed the encounter to play like the fights in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and pirate lore, where the Captain often has an almost-magical link to his or her ship. So you're not so much fighting the captain herself, as you are trying to avoid the chains reaching out to tangle you and the cannonballs being shot at you on the deck of the Dread Fortune. It sounds like a fun movement-heavy fight with a focus on reaction times and quick-thinking, over ability spamming.



Next, you descend into the fire wing through circular corridors leading down with broken stone walkways and lava pouring out of cracks in the walls. Grisly statues and grotesque beasties are par for the course down here. Up first, a 30-foot-tall magma satyr demon will hoof-stomp as many people in your raid as he can before you take him down.

A few more trash mobs later—the team made sure there were less trash mobs in this raid, as they want to keep the action coming quickly—you're facing the Wanton Council, a terrifying group of the leaders of the makeshift kobold, demon, and goblin alliance.



Take down those three baddies and you've unlocked the final wing of the game: housed behind two gigantic golden doors that swing open to reveal the largest treasure room you've ever seen. Gold is everywhere, and it's yours for the taking. Oh, well, I guess you should kill the gigantic dragon that's made entirely of gold before you start swiping her stuff. It's going to be tough, though. Being made of gold, you see, has some major benefits when you're in a room filled with nothing but gold.

Moneybags McScaley will be able to teleport around by using other pieces of gold to form her shape and possess her greedy spirit, and can manipulate the gold around the room to wrap up players or bolster herself with extra armor during the fight. The developers described the encounter by asking "What would happen if you fought the sandman?" and the answer appears to be: you would drown in gold and wipe repeatedly.



Now I bet you thought that was the final fight of the raid. Well, so did I. And then the devs showed me an even more epic dragon fight, as Maelforge burst onto our tiny platform of land, surrounded by lava in the base of an active volcano. The boss mechanics are pretty straightforward dragon stuff, but its' the environment you have to watch out for: the lava will rise throughout the entire fight. Maelforge is able to ride the burny stuff, but our fleshy bodies won't last two seconds in it, so players have to find a safe way to continually climb up the edges of the volcano interior while fighting the dragon and the additional enemies that come out to slow your progress.

About halfway through the fight, you deal a big hit to Maelforge and the first encounter will end, giving you a full set of rewards and allowing to to take a break before continuing into the second encounter with Maelforge, where you deal the killing blow and send his scaly hide packing for good.



In whole, Infernal Dawn will have 7 different bosses, all with multiple phases and complex encounters that often rely on environmental hazards to keep players engaged. Each fight is designed to take about 4-5 minutes for an organized group of 20 players, and the dev team plans to add a new 10-person raid in patch 1.9.

Outside of raid content, new Instant Adventures are being added to Ember Isle (the Kelari homeworld added in patch 1.6), along with a new Looking For Guild tool to help you find some friends to run this new dungeon with when 1.8 launches in early April.

As a part of Rift's anniversary celebrations, Trion Worlds is re-activating the accounts of all past subscribers today. If you've ever subscribed to this fantasy MMO that's fueled by dynamic content, you can play all of your characters for free until March 14—no restrictions, no questions asked.

Download the game client, and be sure to check out the Carnival of the Ascended—the once-a-year in-game event stuffed with silly minigames and exclusive rewards. For those of you that have never played Rift, you can still take advantage of their Rift Lite program that allows you to play forever up to level 20.

Oh, and if you feel like making a big commitment, find someone special and get married.