The RIFT

[05:21] Arithion introduces Adam Gershowitz, the Producer for Trion World’s RIFT, back to The Rift.

[05:44] From the production side of things, how successful was the first Beta?

• Their first Beta was super successful.
• The servers were very stable, they had very little downtime, and very few crashes.
• It was the first time they got to test the Defiant zones at capacity.

[06:32] The Rift Dynamic Content System changes the number of Rifts and Invasions in the area, can you elaborate on how this works?

• He can’t go into too much detail, since they are actively changing this based off of the decent Beta feedback.
• The end result was that, even with internal and Alpha servers running, the players during the Beta cleaned up everything quite fast.
• They even had GMs throwing invasions out for people to complete, and they were still cleaning them up fast.
• They haven’t gone back to the drawing board, but they are looking at how much activity is in each area to spawn an appropriate amount of Invasions/Rifts.
• They want to make sure the Invasion going into an area takes into account the amount of activity in the area, and scales accordingly.

[09:03] What has changed in Rift that is directly related to the first Beta event?

• Most of it was the Invasion and Rift (Dynamic Content) systems.
• In general, that was the most lacking area from what they saw and what they wanted it to be.
• There was a ton of work done on the zones, and in the next Beta event (in Silverwood) they have already identified a number of bottlenecks and have started measures to prevent them.
• There was a ton of really valuable pieces of feedback on the Dynamic system.
• They learned a number of things on the Defiant side, and made changes on the fly during the event.
• During Beta 1 there were also devs working on making similar changes to Mathosia and Silverwood (Guardian zones).
• It gave them a better idea where to look and areas to focus on for Beta 2 to make it much better.

[11:16] Were there any unexpected hitches during Beta 1?

• The largest unexpected hitch (and the first server crash to his knowledge) was when the spawn rates weren’t high enough and Adam tried to spawn millions of monsters and crashed the server!
• After the server crashed, it responded quite well and also showed them their limit for spawning monsters.
• Note for future developers: Always check your Monster ID and number to spawn before sending the command!

[12:11] The second Beta event starts on December 17. Are there any different objectives for this Beta test?

• It will be very similar objectives to the first Beta test.
• They are trying to get a handle on how the new user experience is going to look and feel.
• It will also test how the starting areas will be able to handle a large number of players coming in.
• Their biggest goal will be to take the feedback from Beta 1 on the Dynamic Content and see if they can make the experience better for them.

[12:47] How else did you find that the Dynamic Content went down?

• In general, they thought the Dynamic Content was well received.
• When they cranked up the number of invasions, a lot of people seemed to be having fun with it.
• They want to take the lessons learned from Beta 1 and try to implement that more into the Beta 2 experience.

[13:22] At this stage in the game, do you believe the Soul System and your objectives for it has been obtained or achieved?

• It’s hard to say if it has been achieved.
• The Alpha, Internal, and Beta feedback has been good so far.
• This question might be better suited for Beta 7 or Launch day.
• That being said, he feels they’re doing a good job at achieving their goals.
• They are currently working heavily on the endgame on their internal/Alpha clients.

[15:05] Some souls won’t be advantageous to use from the beginning. Is the choice of only 3 souls at the start being done so those souls, such as group-oriented souls, won’t be chosen at first?

• That is 100% the reason they are doing it.
• Based off some of the feedback they have received, they have reduced the level at which you gain subsequent souls. (Within 5 minutes of gameplay, you get to choose your second soul!)
• They are still confident that restricting the souls in the beginning will help players through the content, but they are looking at ways so players don’t feel stuck with certain souls and advanced players can get the souls they would rather have, faster.
• Unfortunately, there aren’t many details on this right now since it still has a few more phases of Beta to work it all out.

[16:37] Will there be enough information on each soul before launch so people won’t have a problem choosing a soul?

• They are still working on making a lot of information available.
• They are working on an in-game manual.
• They are planning on working with fansites and others (or possibly even themselves) having the information out there (after the NDA is lifted!) and he is sure there will be Soul Calculators available shortly after the NDA is lifted.

[18:24] If you pick a soul and decide you’ll never use that first soul; will there be some way to change that soul out?

• That is probably the number 1 request being heard internally and in Beta.
• Right now they can’t do it, but if the feedback is strong enough they will invest some time looking into.
• The first soul is handed out almost instantly, the second within a few minutes, and the third and fourth within a reasonable timeframe.
• The first soul will definitely be viable to level with. (Specifically solo)

[20:27] Global Cool Down (GCD) has been debated a few times. Why did you decide to implement this in RIFT?

• Most players either hate or love GCD.
• You are always locked out from doing some other ability – an animation timer, or a cast timer for example.
• GCD offers a slightly more action oriented feel to the game.
• It gives people a known pacing that is easy to pick up.
• It allows the developers the balance the game easier and is a helpful known quality for the player.
• In RIFT’s case, it was probably the best match for the type of audience they are trying to hit.

[22:13] Many have suggested an ability queuing system. Will Rift every have some system like this?

• They don’t plan on having a full ability queuing system.
• They are investigating ways to make the current gameplay responsive.
• If the client/server is a bit out of time, it won’t fail on you.
• Their goal is to make sure the combat, or at least the ability activations, are a bit faster paced.
• They are looking at more of a mini queue system so when you hit a button close to the end of a cast, or when the GCD is almost done, the next ability will queue up.
• He personally calls it a “Slop Queue” – it fixes up some errors, whether it be user error, server error, client error, lag error, etc.

[24:08] Are there any plans to make changes to the combat style system that RIFT currently has?

• The combat system stuff is hard to describe.
• A lot of the core stuff – GCD, etc – is pretty solid.
• Combat styles for each of the classes you pickup are actively being worked on so that they have fun and involved combat.
• The evolution of combat will be more tuning for classes so they are fun and enjoyable to play.
• Between now and launch, many abilities will come and go, many abilities will change, and “one-true-rotation” type deals will change and go.
• They are trying really hard to remove cookie-cutter builds, rotations, and classes.

[26:05] What are your plans for progression from release onwards (Day 2 on)?

• Day 2 will probably be a bug fix, Day 3 will probably be a Hotfix, and Day 4 will probably be another Bug fix.
• By Week 1 he believes there will probably be a bit of server downtime that will fix some sort of Gold exploit someone found.
• They plan on keeping it as up-to-date as they go.
• The development team is already talking about adding more instance content, what’s the next step for dynamic content, holiday content, new zones, etc.
• There will be something, fairly exciting, after launch.
• A lot of the content released afterwards will be largely determined based on player feedback (Beta being a large factor).

[28:00] Are they going to allow add-ons for RIFT, and to what extent will they be allowed?

• He isn’t very sure on the specifics/
• They are trying to have a high degree of customizability.
• There have been a large number of jumps in the UI – being able to move UI piece where they want, altering opacity.
• They just recently added in a macroing system.
• They want to have as much available at launch as possible.

[29:08] What types of servers (apart from PvE, PvP, RP-PvE, and RP-PvP) are planned for release?

• Right now they are only planning on the 4 server types for release (PvE, PvP, RP-PvE, and RP-PvP).
• They have had discussions about “hardcore” style servers between themselves, but it’s more of a joke/pipe dream right now.
• It is possible that it might happen down the line, but this will be dependent on the players in the game and the type of content they want to do.
• “Four at start, and who the heck knows six months from now!”

[30:31] What is your favourite pie?

• His girlfriend will kill him for this (because he didn’t say pumpkin!) but he likes Apple Pie.

[30:46] What is your favourite ice cream?

• He is a big favourite of Black Cherry or Chocolate Black Cherry ice cream.

[31:38] Abigale, is there anything that you’d like to add about the upcoming Beta?

• She is really looking forward to it and recommends playing both starting areas (Defiant from Beta 1, and Guardian from Beta 2)
• Definitely check out the different perspectives of the history of Telara.
• Check out the new changes that have been made since the first Beta event, especially the changes to the Dynamic Content mentioned by Adam.
• Each Beta event will have more (and different) exciting things happening.