In the process of deciding what games we lost sleep over for all the right reasons this year, we reached out to the community and the staff at ZAM, Wowhead, LolKing, Guildhead, Torhead, BL2DB and all the other sites that make up the marvelous ZAM Network.
Congratulations to the winners and the runners up for ZAM's first three awards for 2012,
It's that time of the year again.. for Atrophinius to demand more wassail and Grandfather Frost to bestow gifts upon the Ascended. Fae Yule will make its return at 3:30pm PST on Thursday, December 13 and features new quests, dimension items and more! Players can enjoy sledding in Iron Pine Peak, holiday-themed Instant Adventure and a Fae Yule Warfront. Deck out your dimension with new items found on event merchants (one of which has limited availability at IA locations) and go dashing through the snow-filled cities to earn a mount.
Fae Yule is expected to run through early January. Check out our video featuring the new sledding quest after the jump!
Shards came down today for the RIFT 2.1: Endless Eclipse update. This update features many things including the new 20-man raid, Endless Eclipse, which pits players against Regulos himself. The winter holiday event, Fae Yule, will also make a return today. Check out Trion's 2.1 video and continue after the jump for the patch notes.
Sad news reaches us at ZAM this afternoon as it is confirmed that Trion Worlds has made the decision to lay off part of its workforce today.
Rumors began a few hours ago on twitter that 40 or more jobs have been lost and we just received an official statement from Trion:
"As a response to market conditions, product timelines and the natural evolution of our company, we have made some organizational changes, which include a workforce reduction. This was a difficult decision and we wish the best for those affected by these changes. At Trion, we remain focused on delivering top quality online game experiences, and are committed to supporting Rift and launching our highly anticipated new titles Defiance, Warface, and End of Nations in 2013."
If you wanted to take a crack at RIFT: Storm Legion, with the new 2.1 update bringing Regulos and his army, you've got an easy in - from the 14th to the 18th, RIFT is free-to-play.
Also, why not get involved with the Christmas festivities and join the Fae Yule World Event while you're at it? Grandfather Frost and the Fae will be spreading the Fae Yule cheer during the weeks as well.
Julian "Mirai" Williams
Rift has presents for everyone! First, head over to Rift's Facebook page. Find the Fae Yule Present tab and pick up a stack of presents for your Dimension! Then, while you're in your Rift account redeeming the presents code, sign up for email alerts so you can receive another Dimension decoration: a candy cane. Finally, Ascend Your Friends and get this spiffy Winter Cape if they buy Storm Legion before the end of the month.
Head to Rift's Special Fae Yule Gifts page for links and more information.
Dimensions are the intriguing take on player housing that TRION has added with their RIFT: Storm Legion expansion. Housing has been a hot topic of discussion for various MMOs with opinions swinging widely to either side of the argument, and I was more than a little curious as to how the concept would be adressed in RIFT. I finally had a chance to sit down and take a look at their system earlier this week and have some thoughts to share on my experience.
I’ve been watching the storm clouds gather for half a year now. Since the announcement back in June I’ve seen feature reveals, from new Souls to new mechanics. I’ve interviewed developers and sat on roundtable discussions. But after the eyes-on and hands-on, the weather has finally broken; RIFT: Storm Legion is here.
At ZAM we carve up our MMO reviews, sharing our experiences as we climb toward level cap and highlighting key features. After being knee-deep in planar creatures for just over a week, this is the first in a series of reports from the new continents of Dusken and Brevane. As my journey through Trion’s first expansion continues, I’ll keep you updated with what to expect in the later stages.
After having mixed opinions on classic RIFT, I was apprehensive heading into this expansion. Would a cavalcade of new features be enough to keep pace with the rapidly evolving MMO genre? Would a new story arc, a dire warning from a faraway land, be enough to lure me to adventure? Would two new continents, that triple the size of the world, dazzle and amaze me? So far, the answers to these are both yes and no.
RIFT 2.0 Hotfix #2 - 8:00am PST 11/20/12 [NA] - 2:00am GMT 21/11/12 [EU]
A couple of months ago, Senior Contributing Editor for ZAM, Gareth "Gazimoff" Harmer, was given a guided tour of Rift's new expansion Storm Legion. Leading his tour was Senior Game Designer from Trion Worlds Will Cook. The article was published and even tweeted about before the team here at ZAM noticed a couple of errors. First was that the game's released date was typed as November 18th instead of November 13th. The other error? Every mention of Will Cook was written as Woody Cook.
Like any good team, they jumped into action updating the article to reflect the date and name. If you look at the article you will see a correction section at the bottom of the page mentioning the updated date, but the update to the name the team hoped would go unnoticed and fade into the night. But Trion Worlds had other plans.
Thinking this misstep has long since passed, you can imagine Harmer's surprise this week when he comes across an NPC in the expansion named non-other than Woody Cook.
GG Trion. GG.
Matt "Mattsta" Adams
