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Rift Update 1.5: Ashes of History is scheduled to launch next week (no, there’s not an official date yet), and we had the opportunity to attend a press conference with Executive Producer Scott Hartsman and Design Producer Hal Hanlin to learn all about the new features that are being added to the six-month-old MMO.
The duo began the press conference by outlining the major features of Update 1.5. “For Ashes of History, we are beginning to herald the rumored area that’s over the water. Part of that will be a world event where we start rebuilding some traveling stones,” Hanlin said. To be clear, the event won’t start next week with the launch of the update. He then mentioned that the new Chronicles duo instances have everyone buzzing, as well as the solo Chronicles of Attunement. As Hartsman put it, that’s the ceremony that “takes you from a level 50 to making you a super Ascended.”
Of course, there’s more to the Ashes of History update than the world event and the Chronicles. They both mentioned the Planar Attunement post-50 advancement feature, the new Library of the Runemasters Warfront, Veteran Rewards, the Master Dungeon mode and the beginning of AddOns. Keep reading after the jump for all of the details on the patch!
Chronicles
Hartsman said to think of the Chronicles instances as “mini-progression.” The goal is to hit level 50 and solo your Chronicles of Attunement, which will celebrate the fact that you’re fully Asended. Once you’ve completed that task, you can start to duo the Chronicles, which will consist of Greenscale’s Blight and Hammerknell at the launch of the patch. They’re intended to be challenging in quest gear, and you’ll ultimately be able to progress enough that you’ll be able to attempt to solo the Chronicles.
When asked why they’re developing endgame content for solo players, Hanlin simply said, “We’re making sure everyone gets to be a part of this story.” They want to open up some unique content and locations to more players than just raiders. “It’s all about accessible awesomeness,” Hartsman said.
In fact, accessibility is why Trion Worlds decided to focus on Greenscale’s Blight and Hammerknell for the first two duo Chronicles. “The big desire behind this is to expose people to key stories in the game. The natural first place to put it was in raid areas where the overarching story is being pushed update to update,” Hartsman said. However, Hanlin explained that they’re keeping their options open for future Chronicles, so they may break the trend of basing these instances on familiar raid content.
As for rewards, Hanlin said you’ll be able to get loot in Chronicles from bosses, chests and collections. Hartsman said they’re looking at expert quality loot and mentioned that some chests in Chronicles will contain consumables, which you can use in the instance or save for your raid night. “Since exp has a value to raiders as well, they will be able to get a reasonably good chunk of exp for Planar Attunement,” Hartsman said.
Continuing that discussion, Hartsman explained that “hardcore vs. casual is not a solid line.” Some casual players have unlimited playtime, while other players with a hardcore mindset don’t get to log in much. He feels that the Chronicles content can appeal to all types of players. Hanlin mentioned that attendees at Gamescom and PAX Prime were most excited about the duo instances, which makes him think that the feature will help draw new players into the game.
Veteran Rewards
As Trion announced yesterday, Update 1.5 will bring with it the Veteran Rewards system. Players will receive access to items at the following subscription milestones: 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months and 18 months. “Those are the initial intervals. The way we’re adding them allows us to add more over time,” Hartsman said.
Hanlin confirmed that the system is retroactive, so all of your previous subscription time will count. In fact, you can buy a long-term subscription and receive all of the associated prizes immediately. If you left Rift and came back, all of your subscribed time should still count. Both Hartsman and Hanlin said that Trion will be taking care of any odd cases that may arise.
Hartsman said you’ll receive your items through the in-game mail system, and they’ll also be visible in the achievement window so you can track them. “We want you to know what’s coming next,” he said. He also said that some of the rewards must be purchased at a vendor, and there will be a cost associated with them. “They’re all very unique, so we think there’s enough excitement there,” he said.
Planar Attunement
Planar Attunement is a post-50 advancement system that is themed after the six planes. Each plane has three different tiers of abilities. The first tier is being released in Update 1.5, and they’ll release details about the future tiers closer to their own updates.
When asked if it’s more advantageous to follow a couple trees or max out all of them, Hartsman said there’s a fair amount of picking and choosing between convenience and stats. “We expect some people will go all in and some will dabble,” he said.
Hartsman said there is no artificial cap on Planar Attunement. “We don’t think about this as a system you will necessarily grind toward,” he said. “It’s not about that. It’s about providing a context for all of the things you’re doing in the world at level 50. You’re earning exp at level 50, and this gives you a place to put it.”
“This system is intentionally separate from the soul system,” Hartsman continued. “We expect that people will be choosing to invest in the role they play primarily. It’s slightly different gameplay from the soul system.”
Master Mode, World Event, AddOns and more on Page 2.
Master Dungeon Mode
Update 1.5 will include a Master Mode for the Darkening Deeps dungeon for elite players. “We understand there’s a desire for an ultra-hard mode. This is our experiment to see if the audience exists,” Hartsman said. He acknowledged that they’d be happy to expand the mode to raids, but said that Hammerknell is already “pretty damn hard” after looking at its completion stats.
There will not be a prerequisite for the Master Mode because they’re not part of the Looking for Group tool. “It’s a ‘bring your own well prepared group’ kind of effort. Think of it as 5-man raiding,” Hartsman said. The cooldown on the mode will be twice weekly since it can be difficult and time-consuming, so Trion doesn’t want it to take up all of your time.
Hartsman said he’s not worried that other raids may become less attractive to players once they get their hands on Master Mode. “If you look at a reasonably geared Drowned Halls group, it can take 90 minutes or less. I’m not worried about people not wanting to play more after 90 minutes. We know there’s an appetite for more of that content,” he said.
World Event
Hanlin and Hartsman didn’t talk much about the upcoming world event, but they did confirm that it won’t kick off until a couple weeks after the release of Update 1.5. “We want you to have a chance to catch your breath,” Hanlin said.
Hanlin wouldn’t give any details on how long the event will last, but did mention that it “has an interesting story.” It’s all about seeing how players are getting to a new portion of the world and will require them to rebuild some traveling stones.
“You’ll get hints with what’s progressing with the world event. It’s a story that does have a couple of different chapters over different updates,” Hartsman said.
AddOns Beta
Player-created AddOns will be available in Update 1.5, and Trion Worlds has targeted buff management as the first set of information to expose to the community. “It has a high utility value and low potential gamebreaking value,” Hartsman said.
Hartsman explained that AddOns will not need to be approved by Trion, but they do have security abilities in place to disable anything that may go wrong. “We expect users to pretty rapidly going after improving their own experience,” he said.
If you’d like to become a part of the Rift AddOn community, head over to our RiftUI sister site.
Miscellaneous Topics
- The addition of Warfront Accolades came straight from the design team. “We wanted a sense of accomplishment without constantly looking at leaderboards,” Hartsman said. “It was something we just liked a whole lot, especially since we have the ability to make callouts based on gameplay on specific maps. Hopefully it will make players aware of the map goals.”
- Trion is adding new content to make solo players feel more powerful when invaders take over an area. “We want you to look at these not as hindrances, but as opportunities to feel awesome and reap good experience,” Hartsman said.
- The rogue changes for Update 1.5 are focused mainly on PvE options. “Right now in PvE, rogues have been shoehorned into two to three specific builds. This is about giving them more options to get them to that same level of power,” Hartsman said. They also want to reduce their reliance on cooldowns in PvP and improve their energy regeneration.
- It’s not part of this update, but they’re looking at tanking in general across the game.
- The barbershop is something they’d definitely like to do, but it’s not coming in Update 1.5.
- They’re streamlining event currencies. “They can get overwhelming,” Hartsman said.
- Trion is still experimenting with the optimal rate for the pace of updates. “In general, what we’ve been setting up for the first six months of Rift are new gameplay systems that we can add content to,” Hartsman said. Now they need to hone in on the right update rate. “I don’t think we’ve honed in on that perfect number yet,” he said.
Darryl “Togikagi” Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief
Source: ZAM News (full)
