Trion Worlds Hosts Q&A Session For Rift Update 1.8
Trion Worlds recently played host to a conference call roundtable Q&A session with various media outlets. Hal Hanlin, Scott Hartsman, and Adam Gershowitz talked about Rift's first year, Update 1.8, and their future plans.
The past.
The crew learned a lot from the Hammerknell raid, which was planned and implemented before anyone — players or devs — had a solid idea of what players were capable of. They expect Infernal Dawn to be a much smoother and polished experience.
A major issue was tweaking the challenge level so as to not frustrate players by making "guildbreaking" content and also not making the raids dependent on one player's success or failure. "We don't want content that makes players angry with each other," said Hartsman.
The present.
Forget dragons — most questions were about the new trade skills of fishing and survival!
Both skills will allow players to create items that are "better than vendor items" as well as occasional unique rewards. Better fishing poles let you use more powerful lures, and the better your gear, the better stuff you can catch — including a frog pet. Who doesn't want a pet frog — besides Neville Longbottom?
The future. The marketing team's been a little quiet the past few months, but there's definitely a push planned for Q2, especially around E3, and new advances — like the upcoming mentoring system and low-level instant adventures — are also meant to appeal to new players.
The team also likes how open-world quests have increased PvP activity, even on PvE servers. They've been working on a "well-received" new version of Whitefall Steppes, new rewards, and "bigger stuff" in the near future.
As for a full expansion… Trion was maddeningly evasive, but signs point to something being in the works along those lines.
Just be glad we're not reprinting what they said about "dragon babies."
