Rift Live Stream Summary – January 19th – Rift PRIME

The January 19th Rift live stream reintroduced Amary as a producer on Rift, and went in-depth to answer several questions regarding Rift PRIME that the team could currently answer.  The Q&A follows.

Tok’s 2.0 is still progressing.  Simon announced it when he started working on it, so it will take a while before it gets completed, it’s done more in his spare dev time than a primary 100% focus.

 

Q: Will Rift PRIME be patron or a separate sub?

The team has been talking about this for 3 days.  This decision cannot be made by the dev team alone due to legal/accounting issues.  However, PRIME for Patron is a strong consideration (sounds like it is preferred by the dev team).

 

Q: How will Rift PRIME impact the Rift store? RNG, supply crates, etc.

No lock boxes, no gear, no token, no artifacts in Rift PRIME for credits.  Store will reflect the old pre-Free to play features.  Example: Costumes, Mounts, Weapon skins, unique dyes, hair customizations, emotes, companion pets, consumables are severely restricted.  Planar essence removal, guild rename, dimensions will be available.  

NO equipment, no bag slots, no bank slots, no artifact tracking items.  Patron artifact tracking will be given to all.  No lock box keys for unstable caches, and caches are gone.  Minions are disabled for PRIME.  This is just a draft list, more will come and be published.

 

Q: Is there concern about fracturing the playerbase?
There are some players who are playing right now that want these types of changes, and we expect these players to come play.  We expect the bulk of the audience (as seen in ArcheAge, Everquest 1/2, etc.) are the players that do not play and who did not like the business model.  This is intended to offer something to players who do not like the current model and want to revisit Rift with a subscription only model.  Hopefully the additional revenue is a win for everybody.  

 

Q: What point in Rift’s development time will the PRIME server start?

The original live builds of Rift – 1.0, etc. – no longer work with Glyph or other backend changes that have been made.  They are taking the live server/client and adjusting it to be as close to the 1-50 content as possible at launch of Rift PRIME.

 

Q: What will be the relationship between the guardians and defiants?

No changes compared to live.  Cross-faction play will remain.

 

Q: Falling damage?

No

 

Q: Will there be a guarantee of keeping a character/guild name on Prime, avoiding potential name trolling?

Good question.  A name reservation system is additional work that has not been discussed quite yet.  It is something the team might do, but no guarantees.

 

Q: What do you mean about Server lifespan?

9-12 month lifespan.  Launch at level 50 with original launch content.  Run through raid tier releases over time progressing over time to the current live level 70 content.  We mean by progression that we are releasing 7 years of content in the course of a year.  Raid progression/gearing should be faster, taking a few weeks instead of, say, 6 weeks.

 

Q: Will Primalist & DLC souls be available?

DLC souls, yes, Primalist is under discussion.  Primalist’s low level power is higher than the other souls.  This is still being discussed.

 

Q: Will there be a EU Rift PRIME server?

No, this is an experiment and will be focused on the NA servers for now.  The team will start with a single NA server, and adjust as necessary.  They hope it will not be a “one and done” experience.  EU server will probably come about if the experiment is successful.

 

Q: What happens to our characters at the conclusion of the Prime server?

At the end of life, the intent is to have the server end in a “spectacular story-based fashion”.  It will be assumed that those characters are done, that season of Rift Prime is over, and the characters would be going away.  They want to provide participation rewards that you can use on your live server characters.  The type of rewards will be cosmetic only, titles, capes, companion pets, etc.  No progress from these servers will migrate to live servers.

 

Q: Can we bring back the old world events like “Waves of Madness”?

The team has the events still scripted, but they need to check them on a case by case basis to make sure they will not break with the current version of Rift’s servers and scripting systems.  These would take time to invest in, but no promises that they can or will bring these back.  The team will at least look at it.

 

Q: How will the crucia mount be acquired?

This has not been decided yet, it’s concepted right now.

 

Q: With the introduction of zone auto-mentoring, will mentor scaling be addressed so that a level 70 mentored down to 15 will no longer be so far ahead of the power curve?

Yes, the team WANTS this, and is not a closed topic, but is a difficult topic to figure out HOW to do it right.

 

Q: Will this mentoring have opt-out?

Ideally, no, but it’s something to discuss.

 

Q: With regards to “dungeons dropping loot specific to your character’s true level” – does this mean that a level 70 player running Realm of the Fae will be able to obtain level 70 gear? If so, has it been decided what level of power this gear will be? (Expert, LFR, etc.)

Yes, a level 70 running level 15 Realm of the fae will get level 70 gear.  Still discussing what power tiers should be made available (expert, etc.).  The team does not want to have experts in PRIME drop gear that’s too powerful.  This will be a PRIME feature. (NOTE: it is unclear if this feature will make it to live servers)

 

Q: Rift PRIME alpha/beta?

No

 

Q: What will happen with Loyalty?

The team is looking at how to provide this.  Technically, this is a separate game of Rift, all account unlocks will not cross over.  Idea is to not even have the concept of Loyalty on Rift PRIME. 

Fragments, class balance, captured intel changes, eternal changes, guild changes, these are being discussed and will be answered in future live streams or on the forums.