RIFT Weekly News Roundup

Today  we're going to be covering all sorts of exciting stuff such as patch 2.1, the run speed increase, World first Crucia, the new gear ranking site 'RIFT Hero' created by the one and only Tarien, the return of conquest and much more!

RIFT 2.1: Endless Eclipse - The Return of Regulos
Only 4 weeks after the launch of Storm Legion trion are already throwing at us a massive bundle of goodies, to keep us well occupied till at least 2014, Later today for north america and tommorow for europe, patch 2.1 should be hitting the live servers, suprisingly the full list of patch notes has yet to be released, even on the PTS, but from what we have already seen it looks like we have a LOT of goodies coming our way!

For the raiders, we see endless eclipse being launched, just 4 days after a couple of the very top end guilds managed to slay crucia who was the final boss in the first raid on storm legion known as Frozen tempest, this raid I believe contains either 5 or 6 bosses (Not to sure) and a mini boss or two, Which should definitely keep us occupied for the next month at minimum!, I expect with the raid being released so close to the festive period, there may be a bit of drama and controversy about who puts the most hours in over the holiday period, but I will be closely following it all and bringing you the latest, also if the first boss happens to be quite easy there may be a bit of dispute on World First entitlements as the patch is released a day earlier in NA, but we will have to see, Trion have previously stated that this is meant to be a step up from Frozen tempest in terms of difficulty, but on the same raiding tier. So the Storm Legion equivlent to Greenscales Blight and River of Souls

Here is the somewhat awesome trailer for 2.1:



Also for the non-raiders 2.1 brings an absolutely awesome solo chronicle known as 'A Hero Rising' where you must defend tempest bay from the forces of the Storm Legion and Crucia attacking and for all you lore junkies this chronicle is action packed with an awesome story, which I won't go into to much details about and let you guys find out for yourselves in the upcoming days! As well as that there is the Fae Yule world event, which introduces tons of fun winter Activities and Vanity games, including sleding, snowball fights and also for the PVP'ers a alternate Christmas themed version of Whitefall Steepes! for more info about 2.1 click here!

Finally with the launch of 2.1 we will hopefully see conquest introduced back into the game re-implemented with different currencies and rewards for Level 60 players, unfortunately the conquest still takes place in stillmoor and has pretty much the same gameplay, just revamped for level 60, but there are some very interesting upgradeable trinkets which Slipmat has more information about in this post here. Personally I would like to see a few changes to the way conquest is played, but I'm sure with all the new abilities that level 60 has bought to players, they will hopefully help to shake things up a bit in conquest.

If you're having dragon problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but Crucia ain't one

So yes... If you haven't already heard the guild you love to hate... or just plain hate, also known as the guild I currently recide in claimed the World First kill on the queen of storms herself known as Crucia, after getting a two percent wipe, we extended the raid into the early hours of friday morning, making the next day at work for the raiders of special of olympics 'oh so enjoyable'. but yes, I will try not to over-inflate my ego to much on this one and simply leave you with the kill video from my perspective.

WARNING: The following video contains somewhat cleverly timed and also in some places music that self-proclaimed hipsters may find slightly irritating, but otherwise, It is awesome. Enjoy!




Quality of Life Changes
Over the last week we have seen 3 absolutely major quality of life changes to the game, personally I love them all and I think they are a leap in a very positive direction for making the game more accessible to new players and also all around improvement to the feel of the game, the 3 major changes that have happend throughout this week are~

• Not only has the item limit that dimensions can hold has been increased by roughly 25%-65%, Dimension prices and furnishing prices has been slashed by an absolute truckload, making it easier for people to play about with dimensions to really create the home on their dreams!
• The run speed both in and out of combat has been increased by 25%, from a personal perspective I LOVE this change, everything feels a lot more fast paced and heroic, espically playing a melee mage most of the time in my scenario it feels like I'm whizzing around causing absolute carnage
• There is no longer any need to train skills or abilities, they automatically level with you, this change I thought was a brilliant move, going to the class trainer everytime you level and throwing a bit of plat away to get higher ranked skills, was just something that needed to go and I'm glad it did, not only does it mean we save a bit of plat, but it also means we don't have to dash to a trainer everytime we level!

There have been very mixed views about these changes, the only people that appear to dislike them are people who maybe 'splashed out' on a dimension, shortly before the changes became public knowledge and wanted a refund, which is somewhat understandable, but people have argue'd that it is similar to what shops do with sales and prices for stuff in 'reality' fluctuate all the time, with often very little notice, however I'd be very interested to hear your opinion of the changes above in the comments below!


Back To The Future IV
For those of you who are unaware of the lore or maybe have never played a defiant, the initial story in the defiant starting zone is that you are several years in the future at the point where Regulos and his armies have been set free and are just moments away from destroying Telera, your job in the starting area is to battle your way through Terminus and make it to the 'Time Portal' to get sent back in time and then change the future of Telera to prevent the destruction of Telera therefore saving the world.

So on a recent Q and A on Raptr, somebody asked since in Telera's time line we are swiftly moving onto that point what is going to happen? to which a unknown developer responded

"By teleporting into the past, you have irrevocably changed the future - but will we ever have a Terminus sliver that allows you to take part in the end of the world? I can't say yes or no, but there's plenty of road ahead, so who knows!? Certainly fun to think about "

Upon reading this the following image came to mind along with the theme tune of back to the future...


The concept of this and time travel and the impacts is has on future events has always been an area of great interest and excitment to myself and also if you have not already figured out back to the future is probably one of my favourite all time movies, Imagine coming through some sort of time portal and intercepting the destruction of the world moments after your earlier self has just been sent back in time to change the future of telera, set in a raiding enviroment with possibly some amazing raid encounters is just mind blowingly awesome and I for one am really hoping this becomes a reality!

Fae Yule Promotions!
If you haven't already stumbled across it, Trion are doing several Fae Yule promotions to get a handful of christmas themed goodies, including a stack of presents which can be obtained via facebook, a candy cane which can be obtained by signing up to recieve the free newsletter and also an awesome looking winter cape with can be obtained by ascending a friend and them purchasing Storm Legion, more information about how to obtain these goodies can be found by clicking this link!

Okay so I think I will round off my weekly news roundup here, so it is not 'to' long, Hope you all enjoyed it and learnt something... possibly? I probably missed out a few things which I will either later add or cover next week, so not to fear, but anyways as always Enjoy!