The charming Australian ladies of Rift Podcast have released episode six of their podcast. This week they are featuring an interview with Class and Abilities designer, Joshua Kurtz. Joshua has been with Trion for nearly a year and with the revelation of the Paladin class he agreed to discuss the class he helped design.

As we have guessed already, we learned that the Paladin is a Guardian starter soul. We also got a description of the difference between a starter soul and a heroic soul (souls you gain as you explore the world). A starter soul is typically easier to play, and easier to understand and learn. The gameplay mechanics are usually simple and not complex while it’s ability set is very generalized. Heroic souls are generally the opposite. They tend to have a complex ability set and their abilities can be very focused.

Sweet, a Developer for Rift: Planes of Telara, spoke up about class design and what kind of philosophy they follow internally.

Just want to give you a little bit of insight into what our general philosophy is regarding class design and the system itself. For starters this isn’t something like Aion or the original EQII system where you choose an archetype and then specialize out from there. For us a Calling defines what classes you have access to thier most basic mechanics e.g. do I use energy, do I use mana, do I use some kind of point? It does not grant any kind of default abilities that all classes of that Calling share. It also doesn’t prevent us from adding additional mechanics if we think it’ll make the class feel and play better.

We got a warning that a new class announcement was coming soon in the form of Rift Watch, the Rift: Planes of Telara Newsletter. We had no idea that soon was basically in two days. The new class has been announced as the Paladin.

Paladins stand as a bulwark against their foes, deflecting even the most monstrous blows with their heavy shield and divine blessings. These glorious defenders of the weak deflect incoming damage and retaliate with devastating counterattacks. Martial skill and the blessing of their patron gods let Paladins extend their protection to nearby allies.

Today’s Dev Chat was with Senior Designer for Rift: Planes of Telara, Dan Steamer. I was able to ask him some questions… I mean everyone got a chance to submit questions… to discuss the zone called Gloamwood. A few days ago we had a preview of the zone where we saw everything from concept art to video fly-throughs. Let’s take a look at what we learned this afternoon from our time with Dan Steamer.

Gloamwood is a place of corruption as a result of the Shade War that is guarded by the Hag. Full of goblins and the denizens of the Endless Court. The zone has been built out of twelve unique locations each encompassing about an hour of play. It is connected to four other zones, one of which is Silverwood. The other three have yet to be revealed. There is also an instance inside that contains a Goblin themed dungeon.

As we know, a new class will be revealed in the upcoming newsletter. Which calling do you think it will fall under? If you’ve been following since E3 you will know that there are two Rogue souls that we saw, the Assassin and Rift Stalker, that have not been officially “revealed”. So the logical answer will be “Rogue”. However we hope that Trion will release a soul of one of the other Callings so we can see something entirely new.

So if you wouldn’t mind, take a second and vote in our Poll with which Calling you think the soul will fall under in the upcoming Newsletter.

For a few weeks we’ve been asking our readers to tell us how much they think they will be playing Rift: Planes of Telara when it is released. As you can see most people will be playing twenty one or more hours a week. For a community that is still largely growing and is still populated mostly by the dedicated this is not a surprising result. I voted for the 21-30 range however I’m extremely jealous of those that get to play even more! I must be getting old.

Of course, like most people, I will probably end up taking a day or two off of work and playing way too much Rift when it releases. Oh and this was a new record; 55 people participated. Lets try to get to 100.

Two pieces of artwork have been released from the upcoming comic, “Telara Chronicles” from Wildstorm. Telara Chronicles is an upcoming four part series that “follows Asha Catari’s story [where you can] discover the war-ravaged world of Telara”.

Abigale, the Community manager for Rift: Planes of Telara, posted today on the forums that there will be a new class announcement coming soon with the next Rift Newsletter.

We are putting the final touches on our next newsletter. It should be ready to go out in the next couple of days.

So make sure you are signed up to get it! You are definitely not going to want to miss all the things we have planned for these newsletters. In fact, this one will be revealing our next class!

You can sign up for the newsletter from the front page of the official website.

Speculation is rampant however, if we had to speculate, we would probably guess one of the two Rogue souls we saw at E3; either the Assassin or Rift Stalker. We wouldn’t argue if we got another calling though! We’re looking forward to it, we get a new class drop soon and a new race drop at GameCom. Stay tuned.

Trion and Rift: Planes of Telara released to the press today a preview of Gloamwood, a zone of dark and boding creatures. This preview consists of a few screenshots and concept art, as well as a fly-through video. This information is released a few days in advance of the IRC Dev Chat with Daniel Steamer. So hit the books kids and take some notes. Also, thanks to Takyn at Rift-News for first pointing everything out.

For more information and the video fly through please continue reading.

Yesterday we commented on the ZAM interview with Scott Hartsman, Creative Director for Rift: Planes of Telara, and today we get a chance to read the second part of the interview. Let’s take a look at what we can learn about souls, money and what you might be doing in the end-game. Keeping reading and we’ll see what we’ve learned today from Scott and ZAM.