Phase 2 of Carnival of the Ascended is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, March 7. During this phase the carnival will grow as new games like Place Your Bets, Drinking Contest and Fashion Show are added to the party in Shimmersand. Play these games to earn Prize Tickets to spend on merchant goods such as the balloon companions!

Dragon Parades will commence during this phase and the goal centers around upgrading the parade balloons. The parades will march through several zones as they follow their route. A title awaits those factions that are dedicated enough to meet their goals!

A bit of trouble has cropped up at the carnival in Shimmersand as Monte and his crew refuse to leave the party! Grab some friends and help clear them out to earn your Pyrite Doubloon for this phase. The Herald of Heroes is prepared to tell the story of Prince Hylas in the newest addition to the daily raid quests, Tales of the Ascended II.

On Thursday, March 8th the Return to Telara promotion kicks off, allowing previous subscribers to enjoy RIFT during a full week of unrestricted gameplay. Have fun at the carnival!

All NA shards will come offline at 8am PST on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 for 1.7 Hotfix #8. Additional backend server maintenance will occur at the same time, extending the estimated downtime to 2 hours. Here are the patch notes:

RIFT 1.7 Hotfix #8 - 8:00am PST 3/7/12 [NA] - 2:00am GMT 8/3/12 [EU]

GENERAL
* Characters below level 48 are no longer able to pick Ember Isle porticulums if they have them, since they're unable to travel to the Isle.
* PvP: Gaining Prismatic Glory will no longer break stealth.
* Scarlet Gorge: The Crucible zone event should occur more frequently.
* Rift: Visions of Death: Addressed difficulty issues with this Rift.

WORLD EVENT
* You can no longer sell Pyrite Dubloons to NPCs.
* Adjusted the prize payout from Carnival games for first and repeat plays. Don't worry, jumping parties are still valid, but there ARE other games available!
* Carnival balloons now have a more realistic and pronounced breeze-swaying motion for added cuteness!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE!

This recent weekend was RIFT's big anniversary throughout North America, Europe, and Australia! We got in on the celebrations with an exclusive interview with Trion Worlds' CCO and RIFT's Executive Producer Scott Hartsman, and we're following up with a huge Rift giveaway! If you enter now, you can win anything from an Astro A40 Gaming Headset to a Logitech G500 Gaming Mouse, all the way to a free copy of RIFT, a RIFT t-shirt, or 30-day RIFT game time cards! ZAM is also throwing in a full year of premium membership access for our lucky winners so you can keep up on all your RIFT news and information.

Remember that Phase Two of the Carnival of the Ascended is scheduled to start on Wednesday, March 7th. ZAM's got you covered with our guide to the Carnival of the Ascended festivities, including a breakdown of each phase!

In addition to ZAM's Anniversary celebrations, Trion Worlds has also released a brand new RIFT Anniversary Trailer, and it's packed with all sorts of upcoming plans for 2012! It sounds like we're getting some new mechanically-themed content in the pipeline. Also, did anyone catch that whiteboard? It looks like there will be more than a new zone on the way. Check out the trailer after the jump!

Rift has just reached its first anniversary; the mood in Telara couldn’t be more jovial! Executive Producer Scott Hartsman chatted with ZAM for a bit about the wild ride in the past year, his favorite memories, and what the anniversary world event contains.

The Rift North American shards went down at 8:00am Pacific for a hotfix. Here's the notes:

RIFT 1.7 Hotfix #7 - 8:00am PST 3/2/12 [NA] - 2:00am GMT 3/3/12 [EU]

WORLD EVENT - CARNIVAL OF THE ASCENDED

• Happy Birthday, RIFT! Welcome to the Carnival of the Ascended!
• World Event phase quest updates no longer display on the mid-screen splash text.
• Balloon pets are now Bind On Account.

GENERAL

• Riftstalker: Rift Barrier: Fixed a case where Rift Guard with points spent in Rift Barrier would still deal damage after the first tick of a DoT applied to the Rogue (and causing issues with being locked in combat).
• Ember Isle: Scouring the Dirt: Fixed this quest breaking if the Runesappers reset incorrectly.
• Hammerknell Fortress: The floor in the throne room should stop going non-visible at times.
• Fixed a case where a transferring character would get an incorrect coinlock error.
• Characters can no longer get trapped in the Guardian wedding instance.

The Carnival of the Ascended has already launched, an epic seven week event celebrating Rift's first anniversary. Earlier today, Trion has announced several bonus promotions going on throughout the month of March. Previous subscribers to Rift can check out the game again with the Return to Telara, which gives a full week of unrestricted gameplay from March 8 - March 14. After the week is over any characters above level 20 will be inaccessible without an active subscription.

To bring in the anniversary month in style, active subscribers will enjoy four bonus weekends! The first weekend is Ascended Weekend, which will run from March 2 - March 4. During this weekend enjoy a 25% bonus to adventure and planar attunement experience from kills, favor and prestige from kills, Plaques of Achievement, Marks of Ascension, Planarite and guild experience! Head over to Trion's community website to take a peek at the full schedule of the rest of these weekends.

Phase 1 of Carnival of the Ascended is scheduled to start February 29, adding new features to Rift's anniversary celebration! Portals between Shimmersand and the cities of Meridian and Sanctum have opened and some of the merchants are now open for business. Play carnival games like Mini Mounts Racing and Balloon Stomp for Prize Tickets to spend at merchants!

You can also join your faction in building Dragon Balloons for the upcoming parades! Check out the Building the Parade Floats quests; a title awaits those factions that are dedicated enough to meet their goals!

RIFT 1.7 Hotfix #6 - 8:00am PST 2/29/12 [NA] - 2:00am GMT 29/2/12 [EU]

GENERAL

• Ember Isle can no longer be accessed by characters under level 48. Characters currently in Ember Isle below this level will be teleported back to their home city.
• Updated the way Rifts and Invasions track contribution so you should be more reliably rewarded for participating.
• A number of random Bind On Equip Rift drops that incorrectly had no level requirements to equip now actually do.
• Various fixes to Vote Kick while in a raid-converted group in LFG or Instant Adventure.
• Using /target with a partial name now prefers to select living targets over dead ones.
• Instant Adventure: Jerra Loves Hillsborough: This adventure should no longer fail to complete when you kill Androj too quickly.
• Guardian wedding instance is now accessible by RIFT Lite accounts.
• Gold Wedding Rings are now able to be equipped by RIFT Lite players.

WORLD EVENT

• Piñatas that drop Hammerknell artifacts now drop a more appropriate amount of them - not multiples of the same item.
• Fixed a bug allowing characters to receive too many beads from grey-con Piñatas.
• Made some small tweaks to Piñata loot to balance out the relative frequency of 'bonus' drops.

Continue after the jump for the rest of the patch notes.

It's been almost a full year since the first Ascended arrived in Telara and its denizens are celebrating! This evening the opening phase, The Carnival Approaches, kicked off, and pinatas have popped up all over the world. Ascended can reap a variety of prizes from these pinatas such as event currency and some fun trinkets from older events.

In the coming weeks the Ascended can enjoy the carnival games, many event merchants, zone events and much more. Two unique mounts, Nebula and Tindrel, are already highly prized within the community and will be available during the event.

ZAM has been working hard on the Test shard and our Carnival of the Ascended guide is now complete! Have fun at the carnival!

The British Academy Video Game Awards nominees are up, and RIFT has made the list under best debut game! There is certainly some stiff competition to be had in this category, with games like Bastion and L.A. Noire also up for nomination, but it's great to see RIFT continuing to get those accolades as it approaches its one year birthday (that's next month!). Congratulations Trion Worlds!