The Curse team at PAX got a chance to ask some questions at the Rift: Planes of Telara booth this weekend. We aren’t sure who they talked to, but we assume the questions were answered by the Trion staff at the booths. Here are a few answers that stood out.

Crafting:

Q: Can you tell us anything about the crafting system right now?

A: Sure! The crafting system is actually fully available at PAX right now. You can have up to 3 crafting skills and we have various forms of harvisting, so you can take 2 harvesting, one production skills, or one harvesting and two productions, it’s really up to how you want to do it. You can even make all harvesting, or all production. We have all your classes like outfitters who make leather and cloth gear, mining, butchers, scavengers, artificers, runecrafters, we have loads.

Q: And will lots of the end game gear come from crafting?

A: A good amount of it will. We want to make sure that end-game crafters are important.

PVP vs. PVE Gearsets:

Q: Will there be specific PvE and PvP gearsets? Or will there just be one type?

A: They will be somewhat interchangable. There is obviously some gear that’s better for PvP and some gear that’s better for PvE. It’s going to be up to personal taste. It’s more like our class system will allow you to choose a PvP build because it’s pretty dependant on how you do your builds. You can definitely get a major difference between a character who’s built for PvP and a character who’s built for PvE. It’s really more dependent on your class build and how you spec your souls. We’re finding that people make very unique and imaginative soul combinations to do PvP.

A video from PAX showing us the Bard Soul Tree. Thanks to Autochthon on the Official Forums.

It’s 1:15 AM (EST) and Kilrathi hopped onto IRC and announced two more Mage souls he saw at PAX.

[Kilrathi|BYOC] ok the Enchanter “type” CC mage is the Dominator
[Kilrathi|BYOC] archon

Kilrathi went on to say that the Archon was only announced but not described.

Kilrathi logged into IRC tonight (8:15pm EST) and gave us a quick description of a few things he found out tonight. He stopped in briefly and didn’t have time to go into any details. He will follow up with pictures and a write-up later tonight.

Things we picked up tonight:
-Two new Mage Callings, Chloromancer (healing mage) and the Storm Caller (ice damage).
-There will be World Raid Bosses.
-There will be two Raid Zones at release. Hammerknell and Greanscale’s Blight.
-Raids will go through tiered progression.
-There will be PVP flags (saw this one coming on PVE servers).
-There will be Guild Perk buffs.
-There is an “AA” like system that gives buffs to resistances that you can slot in and out.
-Token system, or badge system like WOW.
-There are softcaps on stats.

Transcript after the break.

Just in case you guys forgot (not likely) PAX is this weekend. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it but keep your eyes peeled for all the new information that will be released. We’ll be updating the site as things are released.

Also, to our American readers, have a happy and safe Labor Day Weekend!

Arithion of Rift Podcast got a chance to speak with Cindy Bowens, Rift: Planes of Telara Community Manager, this week to clear up a few misconceptions form the newsletter and talk to us a bit about how signing up for the beta program works. We also got to learn about a few other things moving forward as we get closer and closer to “soon%trade;”.

Cindy has been incredibly busy lately (I can personally attest to this) so you know the Rift Team is busy getting ready for GamesCom, PAX and the beginning of beta. The newsletter last week talked about our first opportunity to sign up for beta at the two upcoming Cons, GamesCom and PAX. For those wondering, this isn’t the only way and there are plenty of other ways to get into beta coming up.

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.