We have some early in-testing changes going out to PTS this afternoon – as always, none of these are necessarily final and they’re being evaluated and tested on PTS which means things may change before they go live!

===

GENERAL
* Good news, level 25-39s! Nimble mounts (90% speed increase) no longer require you to wait until level 40 to purchase them. They’re now available for 25 platinum at level 25.
* Item tooltips now show the stat impact comparison to the item you have equipped.
* Fixed an edge case where a player with unspent Soul Points in a role not currently active would be kicked from the LFG queue when using a Porticulum.

WEDDINGS
* More wedding presents for everyone! The Gifted buff now lasts for 1 hour instead of 2.
* Added an error message when sending a wedding invitation to a guest who is already attending the wedding.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – Feb. 21, 2012 – Trion Worlds, the leading publisher and developer of premium games for the connected era, has entered into an exclusive agreement with Asiasoft to release the award-winning title, Rift™, in six Southeast Asian territories: Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. This follows the recent announcement of exclusive partnerships with CJ E&M Games and Shanda Games to bring Rift to Korea and China respectively, demonstrating Trion Worlds’ continued commitment to growth and expansion into global markets.

“Trion has a global view when it comes to delivering premium games, and our initiatives to bring Rift to Asia through some of the industry’s biggest collaborations sets Trion apart from other Western game developers,’’ said Lars Buttler, Founder and CEO, Trion Worlds. “Asiasoft, with its deep reach into Southeast Asian countries, is an ideal partner to realize our goal of bringing original connected experiences like Rift to gamers everywhere.”

Originally posted by Atrius (Source)

---

Happy Friday everyone, I wanted to drop by and let you all know that we have the first pass of AP changes in for the Warrior calling and you will be getting to play with them in the next PTS patch. The intention of these changes is to get the Warrior AP scaling to a solid baseline foundation so that we can make sure they are scaling properly and in a balanced way to other callings. One side effect of this is that we had to pull out a lot of band aids we were previously using to scale things in a more even fashion and have had to do a lot of rebalancing to get things in order after all of that.

What does all of this mean to you? Well, because of the extent of the changes we wanted all of you to get a chance to play with it and beat on it sooner rather than later. Please be aware that these numbers are only ballpark and nothing is final, there are changes still on the way. If you get upset, we encourage you to communicate that upset in a productive way so we can evaluate it and make some changes. If you find OP builds, let us know so we can look at them, and if you find underpowered builds let us know about those as well. You will notice that the damage of just about every ability has changed to some degree, some up and some down but in the end it should result in a more balanced playing field across the DPS souls in the Warrior. The two biggest areas you will notice changes are in Elemental damage and scaling, and Dual Wield versus Two Handers. I am also providing a list of patch notes so that you know what to expect.

Originally posted by Ailion (Source)

---

Saboteur changes for 1.8
Here are the preliminary changes for the Saboteur in 1.8, with the goal of making the Saboteur a competitive AOE DPS soul.

1) All Saboteur Charges can no longer be parried/dodged/blocked/deflected.

2) High Explosives: Functionality has been changed. Your Fragmentation Bomb, Time Bomb and Annihilation Bomb cause the target to bleed for 6 seconds.

3) Combat Survival: Removed

4) Combined Arms: New talent. Your Fragmentation Bomb has a 50/100% chance to detonate all Blast and Spike Charges you have applied to your enemies.

5) Charge Booster: Functionality has been changed. Increases the damage bonus from Attack Power of your Charges by 10%. The damage bonus from Attack Power is increased by 3% for every point spent in the Saboteur Soul above 21.

6) The Trapper: Removed

7) Trench Warfare: New talent. Increases the damage bonus from Attack Power of your Bombs, Traps and Land Mines by 10%. The damage bonus from Attack Power is increased by 4% for every point spent in the Saboteur Soul above 26.

8 ) Demolition Specialist: Now affects an additional 2-4 other enemies, up from 1-2 other enemies.

9) Caltrop Charge: Functionality has been changed. It now causes the target and surrounding enemies to bleed over 15 seconds when detonated.

10) Splinter Charge: Now deals damage and applies debuff to the target and surrounding enemies.

11) Embers Charge: Now deals damage and applies debuff to the target and surrounding enemies.

12) All traps, except Land Mines, now no longer have a cooldown.

13) 2 Piece HK Synergy Crystal: Functionality has been changed. It now increases the damage of Blast Charge and Spike Charge by 30%.

14) 4 Piece HK Synergy Crystal: Functionality has been changed. It now increases the damage of all Saboteur’s AOE abilities by 15%.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – Feb. 16, 2012 – Trion Worlds, the leading publisher and developer of premium games for the connected era, announced today that players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), Rift™, set the world record for the most in-game marriages in a 24-hour period. Officially recorded for the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition®, 21,879 marriages were confirmed between 9am PST, Feb. 14 and 9am PST, Feb. 15.

REDWOOD SHORES, CA – Feb. 9, 2012 – Trion Worlds, the leading publisher and developer of premium games for the connected era, has entered into an exclusive agreement with Shanda Games, a top Chinese Internet company, to release the award-winning title, Rift™ in China. The broad-scope relationship will grant Shanda an exclusive license for Rift localized in Chinese/Mandarin, and set a new bar for Western-developed games provided in the East.

“Our collaboration with Shanda is a huge step for Western premium games in China and we are proud Trion is at the forefront, setting the standard once again,” Lars Buttler, Founder and CEO, Trion Worlds, said. “The appetite for great, new original game experiences like Rift, that disrupt the existing paradigm of traditional gaming, is universal.  Shanda, with proven track record of localizing and delivering content, is the best publisher for Trion to offer gamers in Mainland China an authentic Rift experience.”

Trion’s accelerated expansion to Asia follows the unparalleled success of Rift since launching last March.  As recently reported, the company saw more than a million active accounts in just four months and North American and European revenues of more than $100 million.  Rift’s swift success proves gamers are embracing original, high-quality new properties and rich, dynamic game experiences built from the ground up for the new generation of online gaming.

“We are delighted to bring Rift, Trion Worlds’ much-acclaimed award-winning title, to China,” said Mr. Alan Tan, Chairman and CEO of Shanda Games. “Rift offers an adventurous online world with fantastic dynamic content and stunning graphics and has attracted many devoted fans worldwide. Based on our experience and expertise in the China market, we are excited about the upcoming launch of RIFT to our broad gamer audience and are confident in the success of Rift in the China market.”

The Shanda partnership showcases Trion’s commitment to a global premium online games business that defines the future of games.  Today’s announcement follows Trion’s updates of a $85 million round of strategic growth equity financing, and the company’s plans to launch an initiative which comprises both a consumer platform and a full-scale publishing and development platform, code-named Red Door, later this year.
More details regarding the launch of Rift in mainland China, including launch timing will be announced at a later date. For more information on Rift, log onto www.riftgame.com.
   

Originally posted by Zinbik (Source)

---

Stalwart Citadel: Now adds 30-90% of your Wisdom to Block.
Devout Deflection: Now adds 25-75% of your Wisdom to Parry and 25-75% of your Intelligence to Dodge.
Sovereignty: Now deals Life damage and stuns the enemy for 2 seconds.
Supremacy: Now reduces Physical damage taken by 9-18%.
Thorvin’s Law: Now causes Mien of Leadership to reduce non-Physical damage taken by 2-4% plus an additional 1.2% per point spent in Justicar above 26. No longer has an additional Spell damage reduction.

Originally posted by Hartsman (Source)

---

Hello, Ascended!

What an amazing year it’s been. As we approach RIFT’s first full birthday, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the things that have happened since launch and discuss the thinking that will shape the year to come.

If you’re reading this, chances are you already know that we think about MMOs differently than everyone else. To us, everything is about the quality of the service, the speed of meaningful updates, and the relationship that combination creates with you. We never forget that you are the reason we do everything we do.

In our last big Producer’s Letter, we talked about the kinds of themes we were aiming for. We talked about making more story-based adventure available to more people (which surfaced in the form of Chronicles and Slivers), unique and better ways to play with others as easily as possible (which took the form of Instant Adventures, Onslaughts that added new build-and-defend gameplay to Ember Isle, and the largest zone events we’ve ever created), and ongoing advancement that occurs even after you hit level 50 (which then arrived in the form of Planar Attunement).

Coming to a PTS near you! (some of these were part of builds from the last couple of days)

GENERAL
* Random Augment boxes purchased with Planarite have been moved to the Planar Voucher merchant and had their costs adjusted.
* Wardrobe slots now have toggles for armor visibility in that slot.
* Conversely, removed the Options entries for hide helmet and hide shoulderpads – if you currently have these enabled, your wardrobe slots will default to hiding these armor pieces.
* Fixed an issue in which NPCs in Rise of the Phoenix ran slower than intended.
* Added an option to automatically decline all marriage proposals under Misc options.
* Weekly Guild quests for Mining have been adjusted to require more raw ore and fewer gems.
* Fixed level requirements on various level 20-29 Earth Rift rewards, and some general 30-39 Rift rewards.
* Ascended Powers: The Defiant ‘Aura Augmentation’ and Guardian ‘Holy Champion’ quests no longer require you to stand right by the questgiver to advance the quest.
* Slightly increased the health of normal mobs of levels 41-52.
* Hammerknell: Inquisitor Garau: Fixed Arcane Porters failing to spawn in certain situations.

12►

Check out the latest screenshots of Rift’s latest content update: 1.7 Carnival of the Ascended