Telara is an exciting and dangerous place. To make sure you adventure with all the knowledge you need, Trion Worlds and ZAM are excited to announce the beta launch of Rifthead.

Last year, Trion rocked the world of Telara with a huge anniversary celebration to mark a year since RIFT’s launch. With festive dragon parades, games and contests, the Carnival of the Ascended filled the cities of Meridian and Sanctum with cheer and splendor. Now that new lands have opened up in RIFT: Storm Legion, the celebration has grown to include the harbor city of Tempest Keep.

With Patch 2.2 landing on live servers today, the greater Carnival of the Ascended begins today!

Greetings Ascended of Telara! Rift will soon be celebrating it's 2-year anniversary and to commemorate the event, the return of "Carnival of the Ascended" will be arriving in Update 2.2

It's all about happy little clouds and nice trees at RIFT, with their new contest based on Storm Legion's newest feature, Dimensions, IE your own house and yard you can design. Join them on Facebook for the Joy of Dimensions contest, from now until the 12th. All particiants will recieve Dimension items, but the grand prize is an Alienware PC. 

And, by the way, there's this hilarious video too.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

The NA region shards will be coming down for 2.1 Hotfix #5 tomorrow, January 23, 2013, at 8:00am PST. The estimated downtime is 45 minutes.

Patch notes are available on the official forums.

In today's Rift patch notes Amanda "Amary" Fry published a letter to players addressing the horrific spike in botter activity over the holidays.  If you use keyboard assist software it might give you some trouble for the next couple weeks, and you are advised to not use it until further notice.

During this action Trion has addressed the needs of differently-abled gamers: should you be completely unable to play because of these temporary changes over the next couple of weeks be sure to contact Trion Customer Service.

Fry's entire post is available below.

Amary posteth:

The NA region shards will be coming down for 2.1 Hotfix #2 as well as some additional backend software updates at 8:00am PST tomorrow, 1/9/13. We're expecting approximately ** 2 hours ** downtime.

Patch notes will be updated in the morning.

To say that it's been a big year for Rift is to throw your hat in the ring of a local underground understatement competition. The launch of Storm Legion has been met with numerous accolades including ZAM's Expansion of the Year award.

By tripling the game's landmass, adding new souls to explore and including rich story and group content, Trion went all the way with its expansion.

What I like to see in an MMO is at least one element that can be a new benchmark for other MMOs in the industry to aspire to. With Dimensions, I think Storm Legion shows just how absorbing player housing can be.

We've supplied a lot of coverage on Storm Legion -- such as Gazimoff's first impressions at the start of December --and of course there's all the great content to peruse at Rift.ZAM.com, but what we'd most like to know is what you think of Trion's game.

As if Fae Yule wasn't enough, Trion's sweetening the holiday season with bonuses!  Log in and play Rift from December 24 through January 1 and get a 20% bonus on:

• Guild XP
• Planar Attunement XP
• XP from kills
• Prestige from PvP kills
• Favor
• Chance for plaques/marks
• Planarite
• Zone Event currencies

If you haven't played lately, check out our Fae Yule guide before you log in!

RIFT: Storm Legion is going to be a little bit cheaper today - as pictured above, you can clip $8 off the Standard Edition or the Infinity Edition if you order. You only have today though! 

Julian "Mirai" Williams