This week we are joined by Laughter, the winner of the Send me to PAX! contest, where Trion is sending her to PAX this week! We talk about itemization, PVP gear, PVE and more!

RIFTception - The Official Podcast of Rift Junkies

Host: Draegan
The Crew: Blitz, Ssly
Guest Interview: Jewel a/k/a/ Laughter
Direct Download: click here.
iTunes: click here.

It is now past the stroke of noon here on the west coast and voting is officially ended.

Congratulations to Laughter – YOU’RE GOING TO PAX!

We look forward to meeting the winnner, they will be contacted by the email associated with their account. To all of our other finalists – thank you so much for participating and we truly enjoyed your entries and dedication to RIFT. We look forward to other such future events and ways we can reward our awesome community – so keep your eyes open!

More video from PAX:

A new podcast this week that goes over PAX and has an interview with AutomaticZen that details his review of his experience at PAX.

Today AutomaticZen joins us. He’s a forum and IRC regular who writes for Industrygamers.com and attended PAX. Not only did he give us a really nice write up of his PAX experience on the boards — he also allowed the podcast team to kidnap approach him and drag invite him on the show to chat to us about his experiences with Rift at the show.

Check it out.

Kotaku has posted some videos and their impression of Rift from their time at PAX. If you’re an avid follower of Rift, then you won’t find any new information but the videos do show you more perspectives of the game. For those that are new to the game it introduces you to rifts, invasions and touches on the soul system.

The other distinguishing element of Rift is its dynamic content. The developers hope that players will experience an MMO world that feels like it’s living and progressing even when they are not there. This dynamism is evident by those rifts from which the game gets its name. They appear as tears in the fabric of the world. They’re the potential beachheads of invasions from forces of earth, fire, water, air, life or death. When a tear appears, players can try to seal it. If it opens all the way and becomes a rife, an invading force enters and marauds their way to towns.

Videos beneath the break.

Another interview with Russ Brown at PAX, this time by Ten Ton Hammer. Again more information on the class system, invasions and rifts. Russ also explains the Role system and how easy it is to switch between all of them on the fly.

Some reminders of what some Rogue souls can do:
Bard: Group Support Class
Assassin: Poisons!
Riftstalker: Shield and tank toys.
Marksman: Mobile shoot from range and keep moving.

In another post we’ll discuss a newly found item in Rift called a “Focus”.

Part One of the Video Interview
Part Two of the Video Interview

Arithion of Rift Podcast snagged an interview with Russ Brown, VP of Development of Rift: Planes of Telara, by proxy at PAX. Russ goes over the basics of the game and you get to see the soul system in action again! More and more detail each time they demo this for the press. In the second part you’ll see rifts, footholds and invasions in action.

And feign death will be in the game. Videos after the break.

If you jonesing for more information out of PAX, you can always take to the Official Forums. AutomaticZen took the time to write his impressions for everyone. He talks about dungeons and rifts among other things. Here’s what he had to say about the Warrior Souls.

Beastmaster - The Warrior Pet class, nothing more to say here.
Champion – This is the straight DPS warrior, the charge move Bull Rush, is in this tree.
Paladin – This is the first Warrior tank spec, focusing on blocking techniques using a shield
Paragon – The best way to put this would be Warrior/Rogue. The flavor text has a ‘Monk’ feel to it, but it mentions weapons so I’m not seeing it as an unarmed class. Lots of focus on Dodge, Parry, and Dexerity.
Reaver- The second tank spec is focused on threat generating DOTS, and has a good AOE focus is specced in a certain way.
Riftblade – I didn’t focus much on this one, wait for the video
Void Knight – The third tank class I noted. Anti-magic and some resistances.
Warlord- This is the Warrior buff class. Alot of buffs for your party, both active and passive. I’m viewing this as something a tank or dps would drop a couple of points in to give the group a helping hand in both PVE and PVP.

Massively reports on their time at PAX playing Rift: Planes of Telara. This time the reporter sits down and plays in a group to take on the instance with four other people. Here he is playing a Druid:

I hardly heard him as I frantically tried to memorize the full array of skills in front of me, rearranging my hotbar to put my heals up front and center. “Ohh, you’re a druid,” another Trion Worlds developer said over my shoulder. “They’re fun — they get a faerie pet that heals your team as well.” I followed his pointing finger and clicked on the skill to summon what appeared to be a cross-breed between Tinkerbell and a Troll doll. Fun times.

Ok so Druids get a pet; and it’s a faerie. Fun times indeed.

The rest of the article covers the basics of the game. The author admits the games was very low on his radar and new almost nothing about the game. So take this article makes for a good read from a perspective of a new player with no existing bias (we hope). Also, Massively has put together a collection of new screenshots as well.