I’m limping along today on minimal sleep. Like I said yesterday my wife has picked up the remnants of my illness and been trying to get over it. As a result she spent a good deal of the night coughing, which meant I didn’t actually get much sleep. As a result you guys are going to get some random news blurbs.
Rift 1.2 Hotfix #5
We’ve been getting a good number of hotfixes this week surrounding the looking for group system. It is really weird seeing a company work this way. In my own job, I am constant doing minor builds until I get everything tweaked the way I want it. It seems that Trion employs this logic of incremental improvements. It seems like each additional pass polishes the feature a little bit better.
GENERAL
* Fixed issues with usable objects in the world not respawning.
* Silverwood: The Rift ‘Red Scale’ will now count toward quests and Achievements requiring you to close Rifts in Silverwood.
LOOKING FOR GROUP
* Players added to a group as a replacement for a partially completed dungeon will no longer be stranded outside the dungeon if the leader is also outside when the match is made.
* Fixed a bug where group leaders did not correctly receive a popup offering to search for a replacement if the leader was outside of the dungeon when a group member left.
* Removed annoying LFG pop up replacement spam when an entire group is leaving one LFG-formed dungeon for another.
* Fixed lockouts not being set when finding Random LFG dungeons. Players doing Random LFG dungeons will be locked to them the first run as they would if they entered normally. The Random LFG tool will then bypass any instance locks of party members for any dungeons repeated before the lockout expires.
Create a Colossus Contest
It seems that Trion has tag teamed with everyone’s favorite indie art source, deviant art, to offer a contest. Do you have an idea for an epic elemental themed rift colossus? Now is the time to break out the sketchbook and scanner, or drawing tablet and commit your best ideas into digital glory.
All Semi-finalists win a copy of Rift and a 3-Month premium subscription to Deviant Art. Other prises include cash, wacom tablets, deviantart clothing, and deviant art points. First prize is $1500 cash, a Wacom Intuos4 tablet, 8000 deviantArt points, a dA PRO Digital Artist’s backpack, deviantWEAR hoodie of winners choice and a 1 year premium membership to deviantArt.
Full Rules and Information can be found here
You can view the gallery of submissions here
Mage Class Trailer
Trion also released today the new trailer for the Mage class. This is the follow up to the amazingly awesome rogue trailer. I have never gone in for “finger wiggler” classes, but this trailer makes me almost want to play my mage placeholder. The rogue trailer had the same effect, and made me develop some extreme Ranger/Bard pride. Either way it is fun to watch mages being badasses.
Pen and Paper Update
As I mentioned yesterday, last night was our first meeting of a new venture trying to play pen and paper online. I have to say all in all, after a bit of a late start things went very well. Always in the past when I have played or run a new campaign, the first night just ends up being devoted to administrata. However we managed to get in, get the story set and straight into action.
One of the most amazing things is that none of the players communicated over what they were planning to play, yet somehow we ended up with an extremely well balanced party. You have the soldier, who was given the unfortunate task of escorting caskets back to a dying town. There is the treasure hunter, shipwrecked on the shores, nursed back to health by the townfolk. The performer with her curious clockwork dog, down on her luck and performing for the innkeeper for rent. Lastly the teacher, out of work since the mages college closed down.
Being ever the tank, I managed to draw first blood only to pathetically botch interrogating the bandit leader afterwards. We have already begun to slide into various roles. When brutal force is needed, my character the Treasure Hunter is ever at the ready. But when we need to employ finesse, we are far better relying on the performer. The encyclopedic knowledge of the teacher, and the sturdy arms of the soldier are always there to back the party up.
I am really looking forward to next week, because we left off at an exciting point. I have to say that I did most of my tabletop gaming in high school and college, and being able to play with seasoned veterans that I have known for years is a real refreshment. I am expecting we will have a game with minimal akward moments.