PTS Datamining – Starfall Prophecy part 3 (4.0 SPOILERS)

The night of October 15th gave us an additional 740MB PTS patch.  Looks like some folks were working hard over the weekend to get the PTS in top shape for Beta later this week.  Given the size and sheer number of files involved in these updates, we’ve been putting together some new tools to extract the files in an automated way.  This 740MB patch was our ultimate test, and it worked well! WOO! This should make obtaining the initial data much much easier.

With that, let’s get on to a few small things.  A busy weekend has prevented me from having the time needed to skin more weapons to show off.  Concept Art that has been found for Starfall Prophecy does show off the new weapons, and I can confidently say that all of the equipment on display is going to make an appearance!

Summary

  • New Sliver!
  • Revisit some maps – Planar Assault Adventure maps
  • Starfall Prophecy Alpha dev map
  • Sample of weapon skins and two new weapon models
  • Loading screens

New Sliver!
The newest PTS patch contains world data for the “Saint Taranis Daily Sliver”.  This is most likely the Gedlo Badlands Sliver for Fortress Sieges.  I say that for the Saint Taranis one because there are “daily slivers” for Xarth’s Skull (known fortress siege), Fortress of the Apocalypse (hinted at heavily), and Wyrd hut (sounds very Scatherran forest-like, and fits with the Tuath’de huts that have been datamined).

Planar Assault Adventure Maps
In the previous datamining article, we speculated that the tiny maps were the daily sliver maps.  Well, after some further investigation, they are actually the Planar Assault Adventure maps.  We compared the maps show in the September 30th live stream and compared to the fire map.

assault_adventure_confirmation.png

This PTS Patch also brought a new Life theme Assault IA map.  This one is bigger than the previous one, which hints at the possibility that there are different sized maps.  What determines the size is unknown.

Shard of Life Planar Assault

Starfall Prophecy Alpha dev map
Now this was an interesting find.  Often with Rift’s betas, a number of in-development assets or maps are available.  In this case, the compass minimap of a zone has been unearthed, but it definitely looks like an early version of the current Comet of Ahnket world map.
complete_map_small

I’m convinced this is an alpha build map, before they retooled things. Early hints from Rift Magelo showed off 3 zones – Tenebrean Hellscape, Gedlo Badlands, and Xirrthaz Mire (http://forums.riftgame.com/general-discussions/general-discussion/481409-leak-rift-4-0-toa-gedlo-tenebreans-plane-fire.html). This clearly fits, as there are 3 different ground colors, 3 potential zones in this one map.  The “TOA Test Map 3” mentioned in this post is also present in the assets, but it’s just a dumping ground for various in-game assets.

Always interesting to get a look into the early days of development.  It’s clear that the full concept was present as far back as May.

Sample of weapon skins
So I haven’t had the time to apply skins to weapons, but here’s a sampling of new 1H axe models, and the skin for the 2H sword that matches the concept art mentioned at the start of this article.

New Loading screens
As expected, there are several new loading screens.  More should arrive as Beta moves forward and zones are finalized.  Curiously, these were included as part of the UI Texture packs, but not in the EP3 asset packs.

That’s all for this 3rd part of datamining.  Join us in Ghar Station discord channel – https://discord.gg/aGjbdgN – and follow us on Twitter – @TheGharStation – for the latest in datamining!

Ghar Station, signing off!

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