RIFT 1.5 Hotfix #10 - 8:00am PDT 10/26/11 [NA] - 1:00am GMT 27/10/11 [EU]

GENERAL

• Marksman: Rapid Fire Shot: Fixed a bug where Rapid Fire Shot was doing more damage than normal when two or more Marksman characters used it on the same target at the same time.
• Personal Bankers are now friendly to both Guardian and Defiant characters.
• Updated the item description on Heroic and Veteran's Experience Vials to indicate that they only increase experience gained from killing creatures and players.
• Increased the experience reward from the weekly Zone Event quests.
• Fixed a case where sometimes invisible footholds would try to take over wardstones.
• Optimized a number of visual effects.
• Fixed a bug where the 'Copy to PTS' function would periodically show as disabled.

ZONES

• Notoriety in all leveling zones has been heavily revised. Many equipment items are easier to obtain, and there are multiple paths for gaining Notoriety outside of just doing dungeons.
• The Planarite reward vendors in leveling zones have been overhauled.
• - All Sourceshard (rare) planar currencies have been converted into Sourcestone (epic).
• - Rare Planar Merchant gear in all leveling zones has been re-evaluated so it is easier to obtain for leveling characters.
• - Some items have had their minimum usage requirements lowered to match the usage requirements of other items from the same vendor.
• Gloamwood: The Hag's curse will now be removed if the cursed player logs out of the game.
• Hammerknell: The Achievement 'Vengeance is Mine' now requires seven Runic Vengeances to be active when the King and Prince are defeated, down from nine.

Want to earn some Rift in-game items by showing off your creativity for Halloween? Sure you do! Trion Worlds is hosting a Halloween Costume Contest through October 31 at 10 a.m. PDT, and all you need to do is take a screenshot of your character in a bizarre, beautiful or terrifying outfit for a shot at winning Cookie the Bogling Chef, Hooty the Owl or Pauldrons of Earthen Might. You can focus on a specific category for a specific item, but keep in mind that the top three winners from each category will get all three items.

Trion has a couple tips to help make your screenshots shine. Be sure to pick a location in Telara that fits the mood of your intended category, and try using Dyes to experiment with colors. Check out the official rules and submit your entry in the corresponding category thread on the official forums. Good luck!

With the recent launch of Update 1.5 and players catching up on their sleep from the Extra Life event, I find myself looking back at the history of Rift, amazed that eight months has gone by since the game's early head start launch on February 24. Releasing five major content patches, as well as dozens of minor (and not-so-minor) hotfixes in a space of several months is mind-boggling in retrospect, and really drives home the constant effort Trion Worlds has put into their flagship game.

For those ZAM members who are new to Rift or would like to take a trip down memory lane, I'm going to look back at all of the content that's been added to the game since launch. Follow along after the jump!

RIFTS AND INVASIONS

• Rifts will now drop Sourceshards and Inscribed Sourcestones based on their opened level, preventing some Rifts opened with the Planar Attunement lures from dropping incorrectly low-level Sourceshard items.
• Due to the above change, Inscribed Sourcestones now drop from level 40+ Rifts (lowered from level 45+).
• Zone events have been updated to allow for any Rift or Invasion of a specified planar type to count toward the event objectives.
• Increased the rate at which Invasions scale in high-level zones; the Invasions should be somewhat beefier when the zones are highly populated.

GENERAL

• Hammerknell: Taught certain NPCs why killstealing is bad, to fix a case where raids could kill Akylios without getting credit.
• Hammerknell: Grugonim: Corrosive Bile and Unstable Spores have had their projectile speeds reduced, damage lowered, time between uses increased, and a new warning message.
• Fixed the Mathosian version of the Exponent's Hauberk so it looks like the version everyone else got!
• The Harbinger of Regulos companion pet item is now tradable.
• Nightblade: Blackout: No longer causes spell-based attacks to miss. Duration has been reduced to 5 seconds from 6 seconds.
• Gloamwood: A Woman Scorned: Seriously, the Hag's Curse shouldn't get stuck on people anymore.
• Quests in instances containing cross-shard LFG members (ex: dungeons) now work properly with quests that require you to use a quest item in a specific location.
• Dark Pulsing Crystals are now available for purchase with Inscribed Sourcestone.
• Fixed a bug with selecting targets for abilities cast through the /cast slash command.

WORLD EVENT

• Slightly reduced the difficulty of the first unstable stage of Ashes of History Rifts, 'Gold Tenders' and 'Forged Menace'.
• The World Event quest sticky has less blank space around the on-screen text.

CLIENT

• The client should now be able to log back in properly after recovering from a crash!

Invasions! Massive battles! Dungeons! World events! There's more to Rift than just rifts, which Trion Worlds demonstrates in this new trailer that debuted at New York Comic Con. Check it out below!

RIFT 1.5 Hotfix #7

GENERAL

• Due to popular demand, the Library of the Runemasters is now a standard warfront available full-time. Achievements and daily quests will come in a future patch.
• Removed the "You cannot preview this item" message that occasionally displayed (occasionally A LOT) when opening the Character Sheet.
• Fixed an issue with incorrect items sometimes appearing in your Off Hand on the Character Sheet.
• It is now possible to fully hatch a second Ash Strider after collecting one.

The second annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards ceremony was held last night at GDC Online, and both Rift and Minecraft took home the top honors with two awards each. Rift earned awards for Best New Online Game and Best Online Technology, while Minecraft received the Best Live Game and Best Community Relations awards. Wizard101 pick up the Audience Award, which is voted on by gamers worldwide.

It's also important to note that EverQuest was inducted into the Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame. The classic MMO is in its 12th year of operation and has a new expansion scheduled to launch next month. Last year's inductee was Ultima Online.

You can view the full list of winners after the jump.

At approximately 12:0 noon Pacific the NA region shards will be coming down for a hotfix that includes a latency bug fix that should allow us to turn the Ashes of History world event back on. The shards will be coming down at 12:00pm PDT 10/13/11 for an estimated downtime of 30 minutes.

Watch this space for patch notes!

UPDATE 3:30 p.m. PDT 10/13: The Ashes of History world event is now live on all shards.

Rift's most recent event, Ashes of History, was scheduled to go live sometime today. It briefly hit the EU servers earlier in the day and severe lag was reported. The event was then turned off on those servers and has now been announced as delayed:

Update 4:30PM PDT 10/12 – The start of the world event has been delayed due to concerns over possible performance issues that arose during the opening in EU earlier today. We need some extra time to look into it and ensure it’s ready for prime-time. We expect to be able to start the event before the weekend and will let you know once it’s been rescheduled – thanks!

We'll keep you posted when we find out more information!

Trion Worlds just made a couple of noteworthy Rift announcements coinciding with the recent release of Update 1.5 and the upcoming launch of the Ashes of History world event. Here are the details:

• New and returning players can play Rift for free this weekend. The free gameplay begins on Thursday, October 13 at 9:30 a.m. PDT and runs through Monday, October 17 at 9 a.m. PDT.
• Players can now purchase the Ashes of History Edition of the game to get Spindrel the spider mount, Moneybags the personal bogling banker, and faction tabards. You can upgrade your account for $10, or purchase the standard game and items for $14.99 during the Fall Festival Sale sale that ends on October 19.

If you're wondering what these items look like in-game, feel free to browse through the Ashes of History Edition screenshots in our gallery.