Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland takes a trip down memory lane to outline the major content that's been added to Rift since launch.

Update 1.3: Waves of Madness Event, Artifact Changes and Guild Banks

Update 1.3 ended the “Spoils of War” event but built upon everything else. First, and most importantly to me, artifact-hunting underwent a huge change. Previously, artifacts appeared commonly in all zones, respawned quickly, and had a very small chance of being blue or higher quality. With 1.3 the mechanics changed; artifacts respawned much slower (at the rate of several minutes to several hours), but the chance of receiving a rare artifact was significantly increased. While this meant players could more easily find a hard-to-get artifact on the auction house, it also meant that spending hours hunting for artifacts would net you around 20% of the amount you'd see before (at least in my case). Not that I'm bitter or anything. Really. Honestly. Sigh.

On the other hand, Trion added dozens of new artifacts to the game with a catch: they were only visible as red glowing objects when the player used Quantum or Omen Sight. Suddenly a brand new artifact business arose to replace the one from before!

The patch also ushered in the next world event, called “Waves of Madness,” as death and water rifts erupted all over Telara. Similar to the previous events, this resulted in a unique currency as well as daily quests; however, it also ended in a brand-new raid, the fortress of Hammerknell, as well as some unique artifact sets and NPCs appearing all over the world. The story of Telara began to move ahead significantly during this patch. The story of Scotty, a recurring character on the Guardian side, developed to the point that he (SPOILER ALERT!) was shown to be the heir to Hammerknell, able to open the ancient fortress and confront the evil within. And the new raid ended with the second of the six dragons of the Blood Storm, Akylios.

Rift’s gameplay was growing up at this point as well. Trion introduced character and guild transfers free of charge, but with a 7-day waiting period between each transfer. This allowed players to join friends on another shard without forcing them to restart. Along with this exciting news came guild banks, although they were initially delayed.

Update 1.4: PvP Rifts and the Water Saga Story

After developing their PvE raid content for so many patches, Trion turned their sights in Update 1.4 to additional PvP fun and more solo options. This patch introduced the first PvP rifts, which would start events between the two factions with one side bringing resources to the rift and the others stopping them and closing the rifts. However, win-trading and exploits quickly became an issue... and Trion just as quickly stamped it out by rolling back the offenders. In addition to the PvP rifts, a new “alternate” warfront on weekends that added additional objectives for additional rewards was introduced. Combined with giving double favor rewards at the start of 1.4, this led to an unofficial event dubbed “Favormania” by the player base.

Back on the PvE side, a new storyline called the Water Saga Story began. This series was made for solo players or small groups and expanded the story of the Faceless Man (for the Defiants) and the Abyssal for the Guardians. As it results in a special mount and came chock full of lore, I've heard positive responses so far! Meanwhile, raiders were not completely brushed aside: a new planar sliver, the Drowned Halls, was released as well. And finally, Synergy Crystals were added to give bonuses to players wearing certain pieces of armor.

Update 1.5: Planar Attunement, Chronicles and the Ashes of History Event

And that brings us to Update 1.5, which just launched last month. This patch introduced a ton of content, including the Planar Attunement post-50 advancement system, the duo Chronicles instances, the new Library of the Runemasters Warfront, Veteran Rewards, a new Master Dungeon mode for Darkening Deeps, Warfont Accolades, the beta version of the AddOns system and the Ashes of History world event.

The features and content Trion has added to Rift after such a short time is nothing short of amazing. While not all of them were universally praised, the game is still going strong and the team remains exuberant about their game as well. Each interview we have with them reinforces the enthusiasm for their product; the team isn't made up of just the designers of Rift, but players as well. I did not have a chance to play much of 1.4, but the new 1.5 features have drawn me back in. I even stayed up for 24 hours for Rift's recent Extra Life event! See you in Telara!

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer