The Rift Podcast

In the tenth podcast we talk to Ciovala of Rift Nexus/Telarapedia, and Kal of the Rift Calculator about their mmo history, expectations and what they think of Rift when taking everything from their past mmo experiences into account.

They also take us briefly through some pet peeves, what their favourite race would be, and is. Not to mention they talk about which calling type they’re likely to choose from their brief stint playing the game at gamescom.

And lastly, they explain a bit about their dungeon exploring experience.

In light of a week full of news emitting mainly from the fans who attended Gamescom, it’s great to have a more indepth discussion of certain aspects from two of the attendees.

Oh, and according to Abigale, the news about BETA starting in September is a MYTH.

Draegan over at Rift Junkies has a new Comic up. Go check out the funny!

All of the weeks Rift related news, including a few detailed and informative write ups by Ciovala, can be found below the cut.

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Before we go into anything, we’d just like to remind people of the disclaimer about Podcast info at the moment:

The game is still in Alpha at the moment – The information we get on the podcast is not set in stone. It is all still subject to change. Please keep that in mind – Thank you.

Now this week has been a hectic one. Gamescom has seen the release of a plethora of information (why yes, I do like the word plethora). We’re going to cover the info in some detail and provide links and the interview with Abi and Kalbuir, tells us all about Gamescom and the playable game setup.

But we do need to point out that the interview was done in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday am, and we hope that everything is coherent enough for people to understand. Lack of sleep can make Ari a little ditzy (er – depending on your perspective).

Now – it’s kind of hard to list where all the info came from this week, but we’re going to take a crack at it. And remember Takyn did a nice summary over at Rift News – and Kalbuir kept Rift Calculator regularly updated with a lot of information and screenshots as well.

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Hi everyone – it’s that time of week again. After a brief hiatus because of the rush of episode 7, we’re back. In this episode we have Eric Vignola with us to discuss rigging characters for animation in Rift.

It’s a great look at the processes that go behind building the character movements we see when we play the game and has definitely made us appreciate the games we play that little bit more than we used to.

First up he tells us a bit about himself and where he came from. Those spiders in Minority Report? Eric’s work. Most of the questions about the things he likes about the game come from the perspective of a rigger and so provide a refreshing look at gaming.

He explains the process the models go through to get from the conception stage to the animation stage and what his average day is like with all the different departments he deals with. The behind the scenes action is really quite amazing.

Make sure you listen to hear a nice little story about Simon – and the links mentioned in the podcast are below the cut.

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As we mentioned in the last podcast, some confusion arose when the most recent Rift: Planes of Telara newsletter was sent out on July 30th announcing that the chance for closed beta keys would be attainable at both Gamescom and PAX gaming conventions in August and September respectively, for attendees.

Abigale joins us today to answer the plethora of questions there are about beta, many of which arose from the newsletter.  She unfortunately isn’t able to answer every question that there was because, as with most games in early development, information is subject to change and some of it is part of a business plan, but the answers she was able to give us we believe you will like.

Abi covers some of the different mechanisms they’re using to determine beta participants and the wide range of things they’re taking into consideration.

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So, just like the title says, we sat down with Joshua Kurtz and bombarded him with Paladin related questions.

First up, he tells us a bit about himself and how he came to work at Trion. Then he goes into the Paladin class in quite a bit of detail. From what his ideal of the class was on creation and how closely the end product actually resembles the initial plan – to a Paladin’s strengths and weaknesses.

He’s very adamant about the class being a protector and not necessarily a holy warrior.

It was a lot of fun to chat with Joshua – he even answered a couple of fun questions for us, including: Who would win in a fight – a Reaver or a Paladin.

We’d like to thank him for his time.

Cindy joins us again – and talks to us briefly about the Newsletter’s Beta key chances announcement.

There will be a special extra podcast episode about half way through the week, which will address many questions about the plan for beta from the community on the Official Forums. Don’t forget to add your questions!

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This week has been another good week for Rift: Planes of Telara. Even though it’s still just drabbles of information slowly trickling out to us – we grasp at pretty much every tidbit.

Soon though, soon it’s Gamescom time, and after that there’s PAX. Definitely looking forward to the amount of information we’ll see released then.

In this week’s podcast we have Abigale sit down with us and have a nice relaxed chat. She goes over a day in the live of Abigale at the offices, and what exactly it is a Community Manager does. It’s a lot more than just sitting and browsing forums.

She also takes us through a few adventures she experiences in the game including an exciting rift encounter, wondering mobs and clarifies a few things we already know and how they apply in game. It’s the first of our relaxed chats. Get a cup of coffee and have a listen.

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This last week has seen a nice amount of information. Just a bit to sooth our thirst for knowledge about the game.

Our interview today is with Larry Boles, a content designer who works on the rift systems themselves.

He talks to us about his experience in content design to what aspects of the game he likes the most as well as which one of the rifts he favours over others.

Larry clears up some misconceptions about the rift system, such as what entering a rift means – when we enter a rift we simply enter into the altered landscape the rift has created, and not into any sort of an instance. The rifts, at least at this point in time, do not create an instance for us to go into. Rifts completely alter the landscape they cover, and it is that modified area we enter into when a rift spawns.

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This last week has been rather quiet on the information release front. MMORPG has a great piece of Lore on Asha Catari HERE. On Friday’s Dev IRC Chat Abi answered as many game playability related questions as she could without getting into trouble. For a good read go to Telara Central.  Note the information has also been wikified at – yep, you guessed it: Telarapedia.

As usual, in a quiet week, there has been a lot of room for conjecture. If it’s possible, which it always is – people will find it – and sometimes even flog that dead horse. Still, some of it is entertaining and interest in any aspect of Rift: Planes of Telara lets us know in the end – it will be worth the wait.

We hope everyone likes the new site, and I neglected to thank Faelor and Goremarr for their invaluable help, but I’ll remember next week. Thank you so much guys.

For Episode three:

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