Rift is currently enjoying a resurgence, thanks its free-to-play switch. But having hordes of players bouncing between dynamic quests and rift encounters is one thing, keeping them there is another. In an effort to keep their newly bolstered community engaged, developer Trion held a recent livestream in which they teased upcoming updates and features, and gave the first info on the 3.0 expansion.

Four new souls are planned: Support Cleric, Healing Warrior, Tanking Mage and Healing Rogue. You'd be forgiven for suspecting that Rift's Soul design is based around arbitrarily picking words out of a hat, but in this instance, the added roles fill areas each class has been traditionally weak. The hope is to further expand the flexibility of styles on offer.

Other improvements will see a more customisable weapon and armour upgrade system, with more scope to define your style, and an increased role for companion pets. In addition, Dimensions will get an upgrade, with Trion looking to give player-owned housing more purpose.

Image Source: RiftScene

Finally, they revealed the planned 3.0 expansion - focusing on the plane of Water. Cross-section concept art showed a multi-level environment, including a frozen lake and underground city. Previously, Trion released Storm Legion as the 2.0 expansion - adding two continents that tripled the size of the game's world. If their future plans are anything like as ambitious as that release, it should keep Rift players busy for some time.

Thanks, RiftScene (via Joystiq).

Here's a cheeky shot at certain other MMOs; ones that perhaps haven't been as generous with their free to play content. Rift is going free to play, and to make the switch Trion Worlds have released this trailer, explaining the features that free-to-players will have access to. It stops just short of going "BOOM! It's the whole game", then dropping the mic and strutting off the stage. Actually, looking at it again, that's pretty much exactly what it does.



To sum it up less provocatively, here's the free-to-play comparison chart:



The better news is that Rift is well worth trying out. We liked it back in 2011, when it had just a fraction of its current content, and continued to like it last year, when I reviewed the Storm Legion expansion.

Rift is also launching its 2.3 update today. It brings a new zone, a 10-player raid, a Chronicle, and open-world raid bosses, along with some added performance improvements.

There’s some consternation over Rift, the much-loved MMO from Trion Worlds, switching to free-to-play. While moving to a F2P business model can add life into drowning games, developers abusing the microtransaction system can quickly destroy the balance of the game in exchange for cold, hard cash.
Rift sought to calm our fears by detailing the new systems last week, and now they’re inviting former players to come back to the fold. Trion announced on Twitter that Rift will be free for five days to anyone who has ever owned it beginning tomorrow. Players are free to load up their lapsed accounts, jump back into the game, and decide if they want to resubscribe before the official free launch of June 12.
Since subscribers get special bonuses to a number of game systems, this is a chance for players to chip in for special perks just before the game launches to the masses.

Former subscribers, even players who purchased at launch and only played for the first 30 days, can get free access to the game starting tomorrow, May 30, and running until Monday, June 3. Read through the full guide to Rift’s new F2P mechanics here.

Rift is one of the few, rather excellent subscription MMOs still remaining, so its conversion to free-to-play is a little scarier than the usual case. But you can relax, okay? Things will be just fine. Trion Worlds has released an FAQ detailing the three different payment levels, and they ensure us that "free-to-play" is not a euphemism for pay-to-win—"the best items in the game will always have to be earned in Telara."

After the crossover date of June 12, Subscribers will still be a thing. Known as Patrons, they'll receive a slew of benefits for their monthly $15 payment, including a 15% increase on in-game currency earned; a daily boost to XP, PvP XP, and reputation gain; 10% faster mounted travel speed; and instant access to banks and trainers. Oh, and also a 10% discount at the Rift in-game store. These benefits will be available in the Rift store for 3-, 15-, and 30-day durations as well, for those who don't want to give the full measure of subscribing.

Ah, but what of the free players, you may wonder? Entirely new players will have their character slots knocked down to a maximum of two, and their bag slots to three. But if you've ever purchased Rift before, these slots will remain at six and five respectively—and you're still able to buy Rift any time before June 12, if you're an intended newcomer to Telara and don't want to be restricted. (The expansion's benefits, of course, will still need to be paid for, even by Subscribers.)

Finally, a loyalty program is forthcoming, replacing the previous Veteran Awards. A full preview's available in a letter from producer Bill Fisher.

We loved Rift upon release, so we're hoping that its free-to-play crossover happens with a minimum of hitches. Personally, I canceled my own subscription due to a lack of funds, so the prospect of getting back into Telara is rather exciting. Though I hear I'll still need the currency they refer to as "free time," and who knows what zone I'm supposed to farm that in.

A large number of staffers has been laid off from Defiance developer Trion Worlds. As reported by IGN, the number could be as high as 80% of the development staff, though Trion has called that number “exaggerated.”
Trion let go parts of the Rift development team in a previous round of layoffs in December. Regarding these layoffs, the company issued a statement reading, in part:

"With Defiance, we delivered a great game that more than one million gamers registered to play and continue to enjoy. As we progress from launch to ongoing development of the game, we are adjusting our staffing levels to deliver new content and improved features. RIFT, and our other titles in development, were unaffected by these changes.”

The team at the sci-fi MMO Defiance recently announced a series of DLC packs, and the TV show linked to the game was recently renewed for a second season.

And strike another one off the rapidly diminishing list of surviving subscription MMOs. If there was any sub-based game not called "EVE" or "World of Warcraft" that had a possible, maybe, oh-so-slim chance of surviving with a monthly payment model, I'd have argued for Rift. If nothing else, it had a history of providing generous new content to validate its regular toll. Alas, no, Trion have now announced that, as of June 12th, Rift will be entirely free-to-play.

Actually, scratch that - this is great news. The pretty excellent Rift will be entirely free to play!



A subscriber model remains, albeit with subscribers renamed as "Patrons" - as is customary during a free-to-play transition. Patrons will be getting additional buffs, but crucially, the world won't punish free players. "All players will have total access to the entire world," writes Rift creative director Bill Fischer. "Every dungeon, every raid, every Warfront, and every level. We won’t be locking our content or advancement behind walls – our goal is to break down every barrier. We want more people playing together and more people having fun together."

While new players will receive less starting inventory and character slots, Trion promise that for previous owners of the game - even those who no longer subscribe - nothing will be removed.

June 12th will also bring the game's 2.3 update, titled Empyreal Assault, adding a new zone, world event, Chronicle and "Stronghold" challenges.

For more details, check out Rift's free-to-play page.

DICE has put out a call for a master thesis student capable of implementing support for the Oculus Rift SDK in the Frostbite Engine, meaning the much-hyped VR headset is at least in the developer's periphery. It also answers the question: "Can university life become even further removed from reality?"

The unpaid position requires association with a university's master thesis program, and will also task the student with "modifications to better fit first person games," "reducing latency," and whatever the catch-all problem of "stereoscopic issues" entails.

Aside from Battlefield 4, Dragon Age III: Inquisition and an unnamed Mass Effect game will use the Frostbite Engine, though lack of a first-person perspective probably rules them out of potential support. Most of those who've tried the Rift—myself included—have been impressed, but I worry that the novelty may have a negative effect on performance in a competitive shooter. Nevertheless, plenty of future games will likely use Frostbite, and support from the Big Guys is more good news for Oculus' VR dreams.

Gamasutra are reporting that 40 members of the Rift development team - around one third of the game's staff - are being laid off. Trion Worlds have confirmed job cuts in a statement, but haven't commented on how many roles are being lost, or which teams are affected.

"As a response to market conditions, product timelines and the natural evolution of our company," Trion writes, "we have made some organizational changes, which include a workforce reduction. This was a difficult decision and we wish the best for those affected by these changes. At Trion, we remain focused on delivering top quality online game experiences, and are committed to supporting RIFT and launching our highly anticipated new titles Defiance, Warface, and End of Nations in 2013."

Trion Worlds launched the ace Storm Legion expansion only last month. While the MMO has retained its subscription status, despite a free light edition covering levels 1-20 and a Storm Legion trial for returning players, the company has never divulged any information on how many subscribers it was serving.

This news follows on from the 19 lay-offs at Petroglyph, who were working on End of Nations before Trion moved its development in-house.

If you've let your Rift account lapse even though the recent Storm Legion expansion has piqued your interest, well here's good news: between December 14 and 18 former Rift players will be able to play Storm Legion for free. The bonus will be ushered in by the latest game update 2.1: Endless Eclipse, which goes live tomorrow. In their announcement Trion Worlds assured that "former subscribers can dive deep into Storm Legion with no restrictions, while anyone, including RIFT Lite players, can celebrate a huge new Fae Yule World Event and build in private or public, personal or guild Dimensions."

It's worth giving a go if you've got even the vaguest interest in Rift, with our review of the recent expansion promising that "the vast amount of content added makes it practically essential for Rift fans."

 

Blimey, it's big. Rift wasn't exactly slight to begin with. Set in the fantasy world of Telara, its vast continent was more than just a world to fill with quests. The titular rifts - tears in reality brought forth by the six elemental dragon-deities - were constantly haranguing the beleaguered player-faction, the Ascended. The result was a world that would dramatically shift around the efforts of the community. Left unchecked, these rifts spawned raiding parties of monsters, who'd assault strategic outposts to establish deadly footholds. It then provided regular and expansive post-launch updates, making it one of the few subscription MMOs that justified its monthly toll.

Storm Legion increases Rift's size dramatically. It isn't an expansion so much as it's a second Rift bolted onto the back of the game.

Two new continents have been added, each roughly the size of the original, to take level 50 players to the new cap of 60. But sheer acreage alone means little if there's nothing going on inside of that space. Fortunately, the new lands of Brevane and Dusken are filled with content. There are two new questlines, dungeons, raids, a PvP warfront and plenty of sidequests to discover.

Oi you! Stop that.

That said, you're not going to find anything that shakes up the formula of the base game. Storm Legion's overriding adjective is “more,” not “different.” Take the new Carnage quests. They're Kill X Things quests, and there are loads of them.

It's hardly the most innovative idea, but, to damn with faint praise, they're one of the better implementations of dull quest churn. Automatically activating whenever you kill the relevant mob, they don't require collecting from a quest hub, so there's never any wasted kills. The downside is that it's blatant content padding; an easy and rather transparent method of keeping you busy.

While technically optional, Carnage quests are a significant percentage of the potential XP gain. Levelling in Storm Legion requires that you bounce between the two continents, questing through the lower level areas of both, before being able to move on to the higher levels of either. But story quests alone won't be enough to keep you competitive. That means either taking the extra time to hunt out and complete Carnage, or grinding out dailies and PvP to make up the shortfall.

Hunt rifts put you on the defence.

A game-wide change does reduce the tedium of monster hunting quests. The 2.0 update that released alongside the expansion changes the way credit is awarded for kills. Now anyone involved in defeating a mob, be it through direct attack or healing assist, is given a share of the XP, and the kill counts toward their mission objective.

It's a clear nod to the way Guild Wars 2 handles questing, and it's a move that accentuates the shared experiences that should be at the heart of a massive online game. Playing Rift feels less like being part of a thousand separate single player campaigns running parallel. While some will take advantage of the system, one-hit tagging each mob to steal a share of XP, the positives far outweigh the actions of a few inevitable jerks.

Storm Legion seems to have been designed to focus on the ebb-and-flow of dynamic content. At one point, while attempting to clear my quest log before hopping over to the other continent, I instead spent hours closing rifts, attacking footholds, completing Instant Adventures and, yes, even finishing a Carnage quest or two. Rift's strength has always been the ability to offer you more than just quest hubs full of static exclamation marks, and here the vast majority of your time will be spent adventuring.

Groups naturally emerge to complete dynamic events.

As well as each area being full of new enemies and higher level dynamic events, Storm Legion introduces Hunt rifts. They work like regular rifts, but in reverse: with players attempting to summon a planar commander while waves of enemies attack their position. Successfully defend the rift and the commander emerges, with specific lures allowing you to choose which one you fight. They're great fun and seriously tough. Where normal minor rifts can be easily tackled solo, even the simplest of Hunt rifts requires a few players working together.

With so much focus on dynamic content, the story acts as more of a throughline between each area – a forgettable diversion for all but the hardest of lore nuts. Dragon god Crucia has roused up her storm legion to assault the two continents, and sorting the mess out involves a whole lot of fetching, delivering, destroying, escorting and helplessly watching as villains enact their plans.

Far more noticeable is the world design. While the areas in each continent are less wildly variable than Rift's Mathosia, they contain much weirder landscapes and features. Dusken is huge and barren, with its four areas themed around death. It's the less striking of the two places, but the bone graveyard of Seratos makes for an impressive centrepiece. Brevane's life theme offers the opposite: a warren of ruined buildings overgrown with creepy red tentacle plants. Both are more interesting locations to explore than the rather standard fantasy offerings that Rift originally offered.

Pile on the particle effects.

Thanks to the Storm Legion threat, Guardians and Defiants are now working together. Not only does this mean that both get to share Tempest Bay, the new island city hub, but also that grouping, dungeon running and guild registration are no longer faction specific. Players can now join up with anyone using the expansion, which helps reduce the time spent queueing.

Unless, that is, you're waiting for something specific. Rift only awards daily quest bonuses for joining random queues, and as such, that's what most players are doing. After over 35 hours of questing, my character had two of the new dungeons unlocked and, even in the launch week, the grouping system could spend hours looking for a party without ever finding a result.

The same is true of Warfronts, although the impact is much less. Finding games of Karthan Ridge, Storm Legions new battleground, takes longer than jumping in the random queue. But for me the enjoyment of Rift's PvP comes from the quick-fire bouts of action over the map objectives that cause them. The eponymous ridge makes for some nice dual-level combat, but it's an arena that fits nicely into the rotation rather than one I've gone out of my way to play.

No idea what it was, but I'm glad it's dead.

Storm Legion has less to offer players who are yet to hit the level cap, but there are still some additions available worldwide. Dimensions are self-contained homes that you can teleport to at any time and, rather than simple static locations, they let you build and place down objects. The build mode is a relatively simple drag and drop affair, but assuming you've got the talent, it's possible to create extremely detailed structures and objects.

For me and other cack-handed laymen, what saves Dimensions from being ultimately pointless is the social features. A ranking system lets the community rate public Dimensions, allowing players to easily drop in to mooch about the towering structures and fiendish jumping puzzles that others have created. It's not likely to be something you'll spend loads of time investigating, but it's a nice diversion to have nonetheless.

Character classes have had an overhaul, with each getting a new soul to expand the potential roles they can occupy. The simplest additions are for the warrior and mage, who gain ranged and melee attacks respectively, increasing their effectiveness in situations they would traditionally be weak.

The rogue and cleric have more tactical shifts to their combat style. The cleric's Defiler soul is a healing-focused subclass that works by creating links between players and re-routing damage back to themselves. It's a tricky role to get the hang of, but should be ideal for masochistic doctors everywhere.

So... eaten anyone lately?

For versatility, however, the rogue's Tactician is the best of the new styles. With it you can throw down static cores that provide AoE buffs and use torrents of flames that can heal or deal crowd-control damage. It syncs nicely with the bard soul, essentially letting you role-play a folk-singer with a flamethrower.

While the sheer amount of things to do is Storm Legion's greatest strength, not all of it works. For example, the Secrets of the Deep Event in Seratos ends in a 434,247,104 HP endurance test through Nautilian, a world boss that does a whole lot of not much except take 40 minutes of idle key-tapping to kill. Or there's the Storm Breaker Protocol dungeon, that has you piloting a mech suit with limited abilities through endless processions of bugs.

But the occasional drop in quality is balanced by the strength and size of what does work. Storm Legion brute forces brilliance through the number of things available for players to experience. It increases the ways in which Rift can be Rift, making an already great game even better.

If you've yet to hit the level cap, you're best off waiting. The new souls provide some great variation in PvP and grouping, but they're not a dramatic enough change to justify buying the expansion. But if you've hit level 50 and want even more Rift to get stuck into, Storm Legion is exactly what you're looking for.