The RIFT

[05:18] Will Cook, Rift Events Lead, introduces himself briefly.

• He previously worked at Mythic Entertainment on Warhammer Online.
• Some things he worked on included Public Quests and the Tome of Knowledge.

[05:49] What exactly does a Rift Events Lead do?

• He is charge of dynamic content.
• He leads the group in charge of Rift events, Invasions, Footholds.
• Try to compliment the static content, and tie both together.

[06:16] Which Rift is your favourite?

• This seems to change every day.
• Previously, his favourite involved a Shambler that you had to defend and would help you out.
• Currently he likes some of the more “defense” Rifts.
• Sometimes there will be an NPC that you don’t fight, but instead buffs a mob that you will.

[07:04] We’ve heard Rifts have stages, but how do they differ from Warhammer’s Public Quest system?

• They are not location locked. There can be thousands of locations around the world where they can be launched.
• The events have consequences on the rest of the world – for example, Footholds and Invasions.

[07:35] With Rifts now being a focal point of the game, how do they live up to this in terms of content?

• Rift is a huge game, offering a complete leveling and endgame experiance in both PvE and PvP.
• Rifts and Invasions are just a couple of the cool mechanics that help make the game shine and help compliment other aspects of the game.
• They also help create the world and the stories that you’ll hear as you explore Telara.

[08:13] What happens when you push a Rift further? How many stages are there in a “pushed” Rift?

• They can make as many stable or unstable rounds as they want.
• There will be many different lengths.
• Ideally, throughout the leveling game there will be about 5 or 6 stages in a fully “pushed” Rift.
• Rifts don’t really get in the way of progression.

[09:08] Will it be more beneficial to bring a full group or 2-3 people along to Rifts? Can a solo player complete a Rift event?

• The later stages can be very challenging.
• Solo players will be able to defeat the first boss of a Rift, but to push it farther they will need to bring some friends.

[09:40] Are the rewards for Rifts preset at the beginning, divided random, per contribution, or another system?

• There are both random and event-specific rewards, as well as plane-specific rewards.
• You do not have to worry about other players coming and taking some of your loot.
• The farther everyone pushes the Rift, the more rewards everyone will received.
• When the Rift is closed, it will choose from the event-specific, plane-specific, and tier-specific rewards.

[10:19] What type of things can you get as a Rift reward?

• Yes to all of: Gear, Collections, Crafting items, and Rift specific rewards.
• The most consistant reward being “essences” which slot into “Planar Foci”.
• Players can customize their focus, depending on how they wish to play.

[11:15] How do Rifts calculate contribution? Will healers get credit?

• Effort is the foundation of contribution. They track what players are doing at a Rift, and who they are doing it to.
• This information is then tallied and players are placed into categories.
• Categories are the primary control on loot, and are more forgiving than rankings.
• Healers will get contribution.

[12:02] Scott mentioned group-oriented Rifts, will there be specific group Rift events?

• Rifts, even minor, are phenominal for group play.
• They start as solo events, and expand into group events.
• Major Rifts are “supercharged” versions of Minor Rifts and will be targeted towards groups and will have “supercharged” loot.
• There are also endgame Rifts, which will range from elite 5-man events to full Raid Rifts.
• There are different difficulty levels of Rifts within each of the zone level ranges.
• There will be even more variations of Rifts at the endgame.

[13:00] What is the benefit of doing Rifts, apart from the item rewards?

• The most compelling reason to do Rifts (in his opinion) are Invasions and Footholds.
• The invaders are attacking regardless of your actions and it is up to those around to decide if it should be stopped.
• They don’t want to hassle the player, but have hit a balance of on-demand, player-activated content, and dynamic content.

[14:03] What are the consequences of not being able to close a Rift?

• Their philosophy has been: if you can push it to an unstable stage, you should be able to defeat that stage.
• However, you might not be able to push it to a further stage.
• If a Rift is abandoned in the middle of a stage, it will continue to produce invasions until it runs out of power and collapses.
• The loot will somehow end up in your bag, if you participated in it.

[14:50] Are there any restrictions on what can be obtained from Rifts by any given player?

• They don’t want to restrict players too much, you can bring your friend to a higher level Rift.
• There are some experience and loot restrictions for anyone who is trying to exploit the system, or doing something they really don’t need the loot from.

[15:32] What types of objectives do Rifts have?

• Rifts have the same access to the scripting system used in the Quests and Raids, even though they aren’t location locked.
• There are plenty of straight “wave” Rifts (Rifts involving multiple waves of creatures).
• There are also plenty of Rifts with different mechanics, for example Defense Rifts.
• Defence Rifts happen when you have to protect something as creatures spawn around and try to take it.
• There are some prolonged boss fights with stages.
• Some are similar to a “choose-your-own-battle” or “almost-puzzle” mechanic.

[16:53] How are Rifts connected to Invasions or Footholds?

• Rifts open up, and if not attended will spawn Invasions which will try to create Footholds in the world.
• These will happen at any location they think is valuable, including player hubs.

[17:17] Do you have to be careful where you login, since hubs can be overtaken?

• Players will want to try and find safe spots where you won’t be jumped as soon as you log back in.
• They are putting some measures in place to make sure it doesn’t happen to you (often!).
• You should almost always be able to handle events happening around your quest hub.

[17:55] For each elemental type of Rift, how many types of those Rifts are there in each level range, specifically at max level?

• They are trying to tie in the Rift events with the local zone stories.
• The Rifts that open around the zones will try to relate to the quests and dungeons within that area.

[19:07] Down the road, will the Rift system be able to handle the large number of max level characters all competing for the same Rifts?

• Will is confident that their Dynamic Coordinators will be able to handle a large number of players.
• Rifts and Invasions will not have to handle this burden alone.
• Rift Raids, incredible PvP, “Expert” Dungeons – new areas and additional bosses, and some Top-Tier raiding.

[20:03] Is it possible for players to make their own tears? Or can they only force open existing tears?

• Tears are something that they would like to keep control of.
• Players can determine the type of events coming from a tear based on “openers” and “lures”.
• Raid Rifts (about the size of a football field) may not be able to jump out at you, but there will be some surprises later in the game.

[21:08] How are Raid Rifts opened?

• The “Lure” mechanic will persist into the Raid events.
• High-level lures opening high-level events will be semi-gated.
• The lures will be valuable, but it is still being discussed how they should be limited, if at all.

[21:47] Can Raid Rifts appear anywhere?

• At the moment they are limited to high-level zones.
• If there is a wide level range across a zone, they will try to restrict them towards the higher-level areas.

[22:17] How will Raid Rifts work, being described as more cooperative than contested?

• If dungeon/instanced areas are a “gourmet steak dinner”, Rift Raids are “big, sloppy cheeseburgers”.
• You can bring 100 people or 20 people, and they will try to make it fun for all.
• They can get a little crazy, sometimes a little random, but they will always try to make it fun.

[22:59] Do Rifts exist independently or are some part of quests, activities, or achievements?

• Many large quest lines will end with a Rift, or cool Rift boss fight.
• Everyone (not just the Rift team) has access to the Rift events.
• Some will trigger based on player events or quests, and some that just use the regular system.

[23:31] Are there specific places for “special event” Rifts?

• There are special places set aside for the occasional “epic” questline.
• Any potential Rift location can be used for a quest as well.

[23:54] How will player-opened Rifts affect PvP combat or a city’s function?

• They are still working on Rifts and PvP.
• Cities can be invaded, however it might be a bit harder and take a few invasions.

[24:21] Will there by any sort of Dev or GM initiated player events? (For example: Greenscale gets a foothold in Telara and massive amounts of invaders start invading Sanctum over the course of the weekend)

• There will be player events, but they won’t require a Dev of GM to initiate it.
• There will be large-scale invasions and special events happening in the game.

[25:15] Will there be any holiday or seasonally flavoured Rifts?

• If there aren’t any, then they aren’t doing their job!
• The dynamic content system is designed to do this type of job, so they will add in special events.

[25:37] What has been the greatest challenge(s) in creating the Rift dynamic content?

• Living up to the promise of dynamic content.
• They need the dynamic content to compliment the story and make it more invocative.
• After that, it was making the content was truely dynamic and not happening in the same place each time.
• They wanted to make sure there was consequences from the dynamic content, and want to continue developing the consequences post-launch.

[26:53] Will gives a quick rundown on how Rifts are only one facet of the overall game.

• They want to release a complete game – something that does not have wipe gaps, or errors, or missed bugs.
• They have an excellent dungeon system, PvP system, and amazing class system and then the dynamic content.

[27:38] What is your favourite pie?

• Growing up, lemon meringue. Nowadays, a good pecan pie.

[29:21] Beta? Soon.. Very Soon! They will be announcing it very soon!