ZAM had a chance to talk with Design Producer Hal Hanlin in San Francisco about Rift's upcoming patch 1.6 and Ember Isle!

An image of Ember Isle's key locations. Defiants start at Talos Landing; Guardians at Fort Zarnost.

The island is the first new zone since Beta. Hal said that the game has evolved since then, but the team hasn’t been able to try a lot of new things in the existing land, something Ember Isle gives them the chance to do. The major addition at the release of 1.6 will be Onslaughts. “We have areas called Sourcewells, which are the genesis of the sourcestone. You’ll actually see crystal deposits of sourcestone lying around that you can use to charge your planar charges up. If you find a Sourcewell, you’ll also find some old broken turrets around, both offensive and defensive. You can use your planar charges to activate and level these up, make them more powerful, and create defended areas to hold off enemies. And that’s good! Because as soon as you start leveling these up… what’s gonna happen is something we refer to as an Onslaught, which is a series of invasions that are targeted at that location. So in effect, you’re telling the game ‘All right! Bring it on!’… that’s kind of a fun, ‘push button, get to kill things’ gameplay.” Hal notes though that it really becomes critical during zone events, as the Sourcewells need to be defended to defeat the zone boss… but upgrading the defenses incites even more invasions through the Onslaught system. Thus, it becomes a strategy of “Is it worth upgrading this turret if it means another invasion?” Hal did mention that perhaps the Onslaught spawns need a bit of spacing saying, “They don’t come slowly! My first feedback point last week was ‘maybe we need to spread the spawns out just a little!’ because if you have 45 things that hit all at once…” It remains to be seen if the spawn rate of Onslaught invasions will be changed prior to the 1.6 going live!

A sourcewell being powered with planar charges

Hal also mentioned that, upon release, 1.6 will not feature a new raid; however, there will be a new Sliver in Shimmersand. “Ember Isle is the prison for Maelforge, the red dragon. Maelforge and Laethys, the gold dragon, are trying to create a race of their own. And they are something you are going to fight together in a raid that will be coming out in the not-distant future” (note, I was not able to confirm if Hal meant we’ll be fighting Maelforge and Laethys in this raid, or their new race. Presumably the Dragons, as he mentions later that Trion has no problem killing off their “gods”). Players will be able to look forward to Caduceus Rise, a new 5-man dungeon. Caduceus Rise is “our biggest 5-man dungeon yet. It is also a non-linear dungeon, and done in the same art style (of Ember Isle), and is simply amazing, absolutely beautiful. And because it’s non-linear, you get to choose the order that you’re going to attack it, and it also has not one, but TWO elite (expert) modes.” Certain bosses will only be accessible on higher difficulties, and Hal wasn’t able to immediately answer what the tier level of gear would be.

Some of the monsters in the central volcano. Hal Hanlin said 14 completely new models were added.

A lot of the discussion also centered on the new Instant Adventure mechanic. This mechanic will NOT be available immediately upon release of 1.6, but will be added before 1.7, and it sounds extremely promising. Hal’s description of them was hilarious: “Shortly after 1.6 we’re going to, in Shimmersand and Stillmoor, be unveiling Instant Adventure. Instant Adventure is… basically, adrenaline-pumping, beer-and-pretzel, facerolling across monsters. And it is for people who want to log in, press button, go kill, log off, go home and have gotten good stuff.” Hal loved it, saying it was like “alien abduction,” where he spent an hour and fifteen minutes thinking that only twenty had one by! “What it is: you log in, simple button press, you’re going to join into a group, you get a pop-up ‘Are you ready to go? You say yes, and it teleports you there.” The group gets a quest; people can add, subtract and it is scaled to the size of the group. When you complete it, a new adventure will be added, ad infinitum. “It’s some kill quests, some more complex quests and then a series of climactic quests that are significantly more difficult, where we spawn in elite enemies.” After the elite enemies, players receive rewards for completing the quest (in the form of planar currency, likely not items), and can take a breather, or even log out. The content changes constantly, going across the entire zone; the adventures are unique to the group but are not instanced, so quests in the zone can be completed at the same time. It also means that Guardians and Defiants on PvP servers can go at each others’ throats if they meet up. Hilarity and bloodshed will ensue!

An image from the temple of Atia. The crystal seen here teleports players.

Finally, Hal made some comments about other additions to 1.6; the planar attunement system will have some expansion; the Black Garden warfront will be receiving an alternate mode; Ember Isle will be a complete zone with new artifact collections and unique achievements. He also spoke briefly about how Trion uses player feedback to decide which features to continue and expand (like the Chronicles) and which to dump. An example of this would be the Ancient Wardstones. “Ancient Wardstones is a case where we had something out there… that just didn’t gel. The amount of effort it would have taken to take it from where it was to where the community felt it needed to be… we didn’t think it was ultimately going to be that much fun.” Their retooled version of it is the Onslaught: it remains to be seen if it connects with the community or not! And last but not least, we did ask about the expansion. Hal laughed, and said, deadpan: “We are committed to providing a long-term experience for our players.” Even without a look into the distant future, patch 1.6 promises a lot of fun and content for players. Stay tuned for a recollection of my hands-on experience with the 1.6 PTS server!

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer.