We interviewed Trion Worlds' Scott Hartsman about Rift's first anniversary and how far they've come in just one short year.

If you could go back in time one year and implement a single feature or content update, what would it be and why?

“Instant adventure, hands-down. At the same time, I don’t think we could have had the foresight to see the need of it without going through lots of play and zone events and receiving feedback on a large scale. But the reason I think that would have been a big help early on is because it is really its own on-demand way of playing with other people that immediately eliminates the two big group-killers in MMOs: “I don’t want to be that guy who has to put the group together” and “I don’t want to be that guy who feels guilty by dropping out midway due to real life issues.” IA bypasses both; I think that’s pretty revolutionary and important. And we’ve just announced Korea and China’s Rift launches; and they will have it at launch!”

What are the challenges of setting up new launches for China and Korea?

“There’s a lot of up-front work, but it’s not nearly as difficult as our initial launch. We’re working with great folks in both locales: CJ Netmarble in Korea and Shanda in China. Those folks know their territory! They played the heck out of our game, and came back with feedback about what was perfect and what needed tweaks to help it succeed. We went ahead and made the changes to the versions their areas will be getting; but at the same time, we also made some changes here in the US. Take a look at the act of creating a character right now in the game. One of our partners did a playtest and they put a few hundred people through the newbie experience. For our western players? It was super easy, super fast, no problem at all. But in this one test they had zero people make it all the way through! The big hang-ups were around all of the choices the soul system provides. So we took a new look and made the concept of pre-set purposes; now players can say “Hey, I want to be a battle-bard. Click.” It also shows with what happens now upon receiving new abilities. Previously they would just show up in your hotbar; now you get a pop-up that says “Hey, you got a new ability! Here’s what it does; what do you want to do with it?” We’ve gotten more compliments on that tiny little convenience feature than we ever expected. So this helps out their own locale as well as the US and Europe.”

How has Rift Lite come along?

“Rift Lite has been great for us! It’s the best intro program that we’ve done by far and has created more sustained interest in the game than we’ve seen since launch. One of the other core themes you’ll see from us this year is reducing barriers to entry across the board. Picture a world where if you wanted to get into Rift, you wouldn’t have to sit through a 9-gig download. Maybe you just had to install, say, 100 MBs before the game would launch and be playable while the rest streams in the background! We’ve done a bunch of client optimizations over the past year to the point where the game runs just fine on, say, a MacBook Air, which would be an ultra-low spec machine for Rift. But I have one in my office and it runs with 25 fps even in crowded cities. So think of barriers, that either keep players from starting the game, or from playing with other players; those are what we’ll be tearing down in this next year. Because every time we do, the game ends up better for everyone!”

Tabard reward for the first year anniversary event

Can you tell us a bit about how Rift’s celebrating the anniversary in-game? What will we be seeing in the future?

“Each side has a goal to accomplish. This stage’s server goal is about crafting and gathering; later on there will be a stage about PvP, and then other stages with other goals. It’s the first time we’re doing individual goals as well as having overarching server-based goals with global rewards. We also have these literal carnival games; goofy things like the carnival horse race where you jump on the pad on the ground that represents your horse or the stampeding balloon pop, where you’re in a pen with 20 or 30 other people jumping up and down on balloons. Again, a lot of it touches on the idea of having things to do in the game with other players besides killing stuff. But if players still want to stab things, we’ve introduced a pick-up group for raids that looks back at old bosses in Telara’s past. This is one of our most unique patches yet!

We have things that we’ll be launching short term and long term. One of the medium term goals that we’ve been working on internally for a number of months is even larger and more epic-scaled PvP options. Another big one… we’ve been working on prototypes of some new types of crafting in the game because, again, we are about more than just stab! There are some other good winners, but I think those are all I’m going to allude to right now. That is pretty meaty, though, isn’t it? If anybody hasn’t taken a look at Rift in a little while, I strongly recommend they do so during this event, because it is not just great adventurous fun, it’s also hilarious fun. And we would like to invite everyone to come take a look!”

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer