Rift Update 2.6 - Teasers and snippets

[Slipmat]

An interesting article appeared on Massively yesterday with some sneakie peekie hints of what's to coming in the next Rift update, 2.6, coming in February

First off seems to be a new profession called 'Dreamweaving' which looks like combining Dimension items creations by using artifacts

Dreamweaving will tie in closely with RIFT's second expansion as 3.0 is about "dreams, nightmares, and water." It's a crafting profession for people who love dimensions and artifacts, creating "all you can dream up" for dimensions. This includes not just items and special effects but also the creation of entire dimensions themselves.

The team has observed that players are absolutely nuts for artifact collecting, which is why the devs have worked to create a crafting profession based around it. They weren't saying how dreamweavers will interact with artifacts, just that those interested would do well to start stocking up on artifacts now.

Also coming will be new Raid Rifts, heard rumours of 'Nightmare Rifts' been tested, some with as many as 10-12 different stages? not sure how accurate that is though

We will be following up on the Crucia storyline again leading up to the air saga:

The tales of the Icewatch weapon and Chekeroth will be coming back (in a modified form) along with a completely new third mission chain to conclude the Crucia storyline and build up to the air saga.

All this is due to drop on the PTS maybe next month, January, Trion are letting the employees enjoy some Crimbo time with their families

Trion is targeting early February for its release, primarily because so many employees are taking time off for the holidays to be with friends and family. That said, 2.6 should arrive on the public test server in January, and the devs promise that it will be well worth the wait.

So, something to look forward to, all sounds intriguing

Full article at Source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/12...amweaving-fae/

[zito]

People are crazy for artifact hunting?

This is news to me :l

[Edge-]

People are crazy for artifact hunting?

This is news to me :l

According to one of their blog posts, it's the most engaged in activity in the game >.>

[zito]

According to one of their blog posts, it's the most engaged in activity in the game >.>

....

that is kinda sad

[Deleted]

though im constantly repeating my self, slipmat, any word on actual performance updates?, again, content dont care about that, performance performance performance, gonna be like a broken record player here, thats what most of the people here want to see alone :P

[Edge-]

though im constantly repeating my self, slipmat, any word on actual performance updates?, again, content dont care about that, performance performance performance, gonna be like a broken record player here, thats what most of the people here want to see alone :P

2.5 was supposed to have some big ones, but I didn't see anything : /

Hoping they're coming in 2.6 though. WTB multi-core support already, for fucking serious.

[Deleted]

yep, which is why i was asking, think they said it wasnt ready for 2.5, but im hoping they make a big fuss over it if something half decent is coming for 2.6, its gonna be soul crushing if they dont implement some real updates before 3.0.

entering an expansion with a consistent problem just, well its making forget that this game actually exists

[Calliso]

The stuff to come especially Dreamweaving looks great but I agree about the issue of performance updates. I understand these take time but it would be nice to get them in 2.6. But that is just a sneak peek and don't think it is meant to represent every single thing coming in 2.6. So crossing my fingers lol.

[theWocky]

2.5 was supposed to have some big ones, but I didn't see anything : /

Hoping they're coming in 2.6 though. WTB multi-core support already, for fucking serious.

Yeah - watch my Rift series - I'm getting 30fps on my 3.4~3.8Ghz Haswell with 780ti - most of the time slowing down to less than 20fps in events. I know they're working on it, but damn... it's frustrating.

[gonterf]

I think they said that multi-core support was 'mostly' in, but that they wanted to do further testing internally before putting it live because of the risk of destabilizing the game. Perhaps they will put it up on the PTS soon?

I find it somewhat mind-boggling how Rift can have such massive performance problems in highly populated areas, even with graphics set at the absolute minimum, when DAOC had massive 3 way pvp battles what? a decade ago? When it was new, WoW was never playable for me during the arathi highlands PvP, and I always had big FPS drops in 40 player raids, but that was using a rig two or three rigs before the one I'm using now (it was a laptop too). Rift has much higher resolution textures/models than either of those games, but any game designer worth their oxygen ought to know that FPS trumps graphics 10 times out of 10, and the game already has on-screen player limits and the tech to make other players invisible entirely (neither of which, notably, fix the problem). /endrant

/start-rant-again I'm finding it increasingly frustrating how little Trion (and other MMO devs) are doing to fix the glaring issues with their games. It took Blizzard 5 full expansions before they finally found a solution to make raiding accessible (talking about flex, not LFR). Rift's core gameplay feature - the dynamic events - is still tuned for only a single skill and gear level after more than 2 years, while they have progressively made the rifts themselves 'less' interesting, 'less' rewarding, and 'less' impactful over the life of the game. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to include onslaughts every which way in the play space, yet provide almost no gameplay connected to them? Who's brilliant idea was it to hand craft hundreds of hunt rifts without ever stopping to ask whether some of them should actually have, you know, different mechanics? And who is the smart person who took Blizzard's original design for dailies - a gating mechanism to extend the life of high-reward content - and overuse it to the point of absurdity? Not to mention the fact that social features haven't advanced since the original Everquest, while Blizzard has yet to even acknowledge the social problems created by LFG and the over-nerfing of small group content (I guess challenge runs were a start...). Here comes GW2 and W* claiming to return the genre to its roots and fix up the major issues, yet as far as I can tell, both games introduce a host of gnarly design decisions of their own (LAS, no tiered endgame...). At least Path of Exile's devs still know how to make a game fun and a cash shop that doesn't ruin the gameplay.

...

Right. um. Really looking forward to learning more about Nightmare Rifts, Dreamweaving, and the continued Crucia storyline. I hope they don't drop the Architect presence now that PBB has been neutralized, because they're way too cool to let go.

[Tarien]

Logged into RIFT today for the first time in ages, rode around the old zones etc. Gotta say I think vanilla RIFT was so awesome, the art style, the zones, the potential. It's quite saddening to log in a couple years later and all that is gone, the game with its 100 servers, frantic update schedule now a shell of its former self, much like the developer team.

Could really use a decent triple A fantasy MMO, WoW is casualville now, RIFT is dying a slow death (or stabilising, as some call it), seems there is a lack of decent looking, raid orientated, fantasy MMOs.

Meh.

[Edge-]

RIFT is dying a slow death (or stabilising, as some call it), seems there is a lack of decent looking, raid orientated, fantasy MMOs.

Why do you say that? As per their most recent interview with Massively (linked above) they're saying that the game is still going strong, with content patches picking up in speed again. I really don't see how the game is dying in any way at all from all the information we have access to.

[Puupi]

If you compare WoW and RIFT in terms of "dead". RIFT only has couple of servers left... BUT the key difference is the population of those servers and the world in the game.

In WoW I rarely see anyone outside of Shrine/Orgrimmar. In RIFT, Tempest Bay is full of people (obviously) and so are ALL zones, which astonished me. I saw more people out in the world in a day than I've seen in the past year of WoW.

[IIamaKing]

According to one of their blog posts, it's the most engaged in activity in the game >.>

I think you nailed the reason I cannot stay playing Rift, a complete dearth of max level, non raiding activities.

[Puupi]

I think you nailed the reason I cannot stay playing Rift, a complete dearth of max level, non raiding activities.

Yeah that's pretty true. The end game is very similar to WoW, although with minor differences. Rift has quite a few additional activities compared to WoW, but nothing gamebreaking that would hook you into it.

[Syce]

Why do you say that? As per their most recent interview with Massively (linked above) they're saying that the game is still going strong, with content patches picking up in speed again. I really don't see how the game is dying in any way at all from all the information we have access to.

well thats only really the problem with peoples opinions, they think they are talking facts and know the complete in and out and exactly how many people play any everything from the tiny inch of detail to say their opinions are the most accurate yet probably for the most part is FAR from the actual truth. But on the other hand, peoples opinions do make people talk on forums. which is why most forum posts are for the most part negative posts about one thing or another.

[Edge-]

I think you nailed the reason I cannot stay playing Rift, a complete dearth of max level, non raiding activities.

Dungeons, chronicles, zone events, battlegrounds, conquest, hunt rifts, and strongholds all provide player progression paths outside of raiding for max level characters. There is absolutely not a lack of content for max level players, nor a lack of progression paths for them to take.

[Tarien]

Why do you say that? As per their most recent interview with Massively (linked above) they're saying that the game is still going strong, with content patches picking up in speed again. I really don't see how the game is dying in any way at all from all the information we have access to.

Every time I come back to read about RIFT, I see a lot of server merge talk, I see less regular posters. I log in and there are less friends online etc. Honestly I'd rather it wasn't the case, I am sure that it's a very slow thing by now. It's not the loss of players though, it's more the loss of developers and momentum.

I dunno. RIFT never turned into the MMO I thought it could be. It had a damned good run though, for a while it was the best raiding MMO out there.

[Edge-]

Every time I come back to read about RIFT, I see a lot of server merge talk, I see less regular posters. I log in and there are less friends online etc. Honestly I'd rather it wasn't the case, I am sure that it's a very slow thing by now. It's not the loss of players though, it's more the loss of developers and momentum.

I dunno. RIFT never turned into the MMO I thought it could be. It had a damned good run though, for a while it was the best raiding MMO out there.

The mergers occurred due to Trion opening more servers for the F2P transition, and then closing them as they increased the capacity of existing servers and the population evened out. Can't comment on the other two as I don't frequent the official forums (these have remained about as active as usual) and don't have any friends that play Rift.

I don't see how it's a loss of developers though, as the Rift team hasn't been impacted by the other events on Trion. They've confirmed as much multiple times. Loss of momentum? Maybe a bit. F2P gave them a big boost, but as with all transitions it trails off and now it's in a pretty stable place.

Like, there's no available, objective data that suggests that the game is "dying" by any measure. Content release rate is picking up again (even with the holiday season slowing everyone down a bit), the quality of the game has not changed, and with the increased server capacities the population really hasn't fluctuated all that much recently (from what I've seen).

[Tarien]

Hmm, while I'm sure that they tried to protect the RIFT team as much as possible (because RIFT was the biggest revenue stream) I remember some posts that contained tons of staff that were laid off that were definitely going to affect the game. I cba to dig them out, not trying to be down on RIFT, it's a great game, I just don't think that there's much left in terms of its lifespan. It went from a promising MMO that did things a bit differently, to one that adheres quite strictly to the basic MMO content types. I really enjoyed the overpowered invasions during the first months of RIFTs launch, blowing the ability that reduced your damage by 75% and doubled your damage while you waded into the enemies. I wanted to see RIFTs take over lands, see more huge champions come through, but it never happened.

Nevermind, just ignore me, I'm just one voice regretting that the game isn't what he wanted