In a recent article by Rob Crossley of Develop-Online.net, we get a quote from Trion CEO Lars Buttler about the cost of Rift: Planes of Telara.

“Rift: Planes of Telara is already very ambitious because it is over $50 million in development,”

Trion has aquired over $100 million in venture capitol that is spread over three games, Rift being the first to be released next year. Why is Rift so expensive?

“One of the first questions we asked before we started the Rift project was, ‘why cannot online games be of the quality of videogames?’ … We felt that, sooner or later, the whole [MMO sector] will have to go down this route.”

MMORPG.com’s latest article tells us all about the lore and the feel of Fire Rifts. We’ve gotten previews of the Life and Death Rifts in Rift: Planes of Telara, Now it’s time to take a look at the plane of fire and the wanton destruction it brings when a tear is opened.

Beasts rest in a glade, sipping sweet water from a trickling stream, soothed by birdsong from boughs high above. And then a glowing, orange slit opens in thin air, waves of searing heat pulsing from it in all directions.

Small volcanoes rise from the ground as grass and soil burn away, leaving cracked, ashen bedrock. Underground gases poison the tress, the smell of sulfur seeping between withered roots. Where once brooks flowed, trees bloomed, and life abounded, this Fire Rift brings streams of lava, charred stumps, and the smoldering corpses of every living thing caught in the inferno.

Every rift carries the threat of death and planar invasion, but the incendiary magic released by a Fire Rift consumes everything. Monsters rush from the rift, roaring like a flame, eager to waste the land and roast the innocent in their homes.

A few pictures taken by the team at Gamescom showing off the Trion booth today.

Another Monday and another podcast comes our way from Arithion and Desikis from Rift Podcast. This week the ladies talk with Eric Vignola who is a “Rigger” for Rift: Planes for Telara. Eric has come to Trion from the film industry. On his resume is a myriad of films like Shrek, Madagascar, Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within and Minority Report (those mechanical spiders were his work!).

Now many of you might be wondering what a “rigger” is. A rigger is a guy or gal who helps to create to tools, or the meat and potatoes of the animations in the game. A rigger works closely with the engineering team and the animators and modelers to make sure everything works the way it is supposed to. An example that Eric gave us is that he would be the guy that would pick out the best rubber for facial features on a puppet so that when it moves it looks good. A rigger would also create the strings and the controls for the puppet to move. Now take that example and imagine when he would have to do in the world of movies and video games.

Eric spent a great amount of time talking about his profession that he obviously has a lot of passion about. It was an amazing show where we got to learn about the behind the scenes of a gaming studio. Most people probably don’t realize that there are a lot of different people in a gaming studio that you typically wouldn’t think about but if they weren’t there games would never be made.

MMORPG.com has put out an in depth look at Death Rifts in Rift: Planes of Telara. Take some time and learn about Regulus and read from the journal of Maura Reinhard. Learn more about the lorn, “hollow imitations of the glorious Ascended, husks that yearn to reclaim their lost spark by spreading pain and suffering to the living”.

The Plane of Death is an endless, flat expanse of dust and bleached bone. Shadowy tendrils slither across the horizon, while vast obsidian spikes tear from the ground to claw at skies of purple and gray. The few clouds are ragged and pale, and the occasional flash of lightning sets everything into stark relief.

Things rot under pools of black oil, ready to yank prey down to a gruesome end, and mummies wait in elaborate tombs that were not built by hand, but grew from the land like cysts.

While death is the natural end to life, there is nothing of rebirth and healthful change in Regulos’s realm. The Plane of Death devours, it erodes the flesh from living bones, stealing vital energy. Its denizens spread slow, painful rot through virulent diseases, or infect the mind with fear, nightmares, or outright compulsion.

Find out more about MMORPG.com’s look at Death Rifts by visiting their site. Continue reading for a quick video showcasing a Death Rift in action.

It’s Monday so that means that another episode of Rift Podcast is out. Arithion and Desikis spoke with Larry Boles, a rift content designer for Rift: Planes of Telara, along with Abigale about the mechanics of Rifts and how they fit into the game.

During the Podcast we learned that Larry was originally from Mythic where he worked on public quests and holiday events for Warhammer. He’s been playing MMOGs since UO and on through DAOC etc. We also learned that his favorite rift type are presently Air Rifts.

Internally at Rift: Planes of Telara, they differentiate rifts as two types, “minor rifts” and “large rifts”. Minor rifts are what you see mostly during your time as you are leveling. These rifts are designed for solo and small group play. The group play allows you to complete them faster and put them in overload, which is essentially a bonus round. A solo player might have some difficulty doing this on his own. Larger rifts are for high end areas and players. Much is still yet to be determined and there is a lot of internal testing going on. However what do can gleam is that there will be raids, end game loot will be derived from them and we learned that the frequency and the behavior of high end rifts are still being tweaked.

UPDATE: Check out the website of Ricardo Sanchez, the author’s, website.

Rift: Planes of Telara’s is preparing to launch a comic book. Make sure you get this four part mini-series, called Telara Chronicles, detailing the story of Asha Catari from DC comics. For more ordering information please visit MailOrderComics.

Written by RICK SANCHEZ Art by POP MHAN Cover by MICO SUAYAN THE TELARA CHRONICLES, based on the highly anticipated MMORPG from Trion Worlds, is the story of a world being devastated by magical tears in the veil keeping it safe from the outer planes. These rifts come without warning, unleashing fantastic and terrifying invasions on a people already engaged in civil war. Telara`s champions have been forced to choose: join the Guardians and fight to restore the faith of a world that once was – or become a Defiant and embrace long-dead technologies to usher in a new age. From one of these competing factions comes Asha Catari, a plane-touched warrior with magical abilities. Follow Asha`s story and discover the war-ravaged world of Telara in this 4-issue miniseries prequel to the game. On sale SEPTEMBER 22.

Rift: Planes of Telara, like every other MMORPG, will face many hurdles when it comes down to class balance, or in the case of Rift, soul balance. When most people think of class balance they immediately think about a certain setup’s power level. Is class A better than class B? Is this spec better than the other? If class A does a better job of tanking than class B, what’s the point of class B? Those questions are always difficult to answer, let alone difficult to balance over the lifetime of any game. With such limited information released about Rift, we can’t even begin discussing class mechanics but what I do want to talk about is class balance in regards to social aspects; creating raid and guild rosters.