Rift News & Events & Guides

Did you have a good weekend? I hope you did. Did you spend it in RIFT like I did? Again, I hope you did.

Why do I hope you spent the weekend in RIFT? Well... for the event. Yes the event that everyone and their dog are currently bemoaning. You know what? That's perfectly fine. I still have the faith.

What is it I have faith in? Well Trion Worlds of course. Let's break it down.

Trion set out with a clever game plan. People were coming up on the end of the 30 days box subscription assuming they were there for launch. What else is there to do at that critical time but try to pull something impressive off? With that in mind they had been working on the River of Souls world event. Alsbeth is being a naughty girl and well if you're a fan of your own immortal soul, what the Endless Court were planning could best be described as "bad". Trion crafted the event, promoted it and set it on its way.

This wasn't just a bid to keep the subscribers interested, even if anything any company does tends to be just that. It was a bid to bring more into the fold. The launch weekend of The River of Souls was also the first Allies of the Ascended weekend where anyone could download Rift Gold and play for a weekend. It is a very clever stroke. They were giving players what they wanted and showing off their goods and their community to non players.

Trion also stepped up to the plate and showed us that no matter how good a job they themselves think they did, if they see a problem they will step in to fix it. The start of the event was tweaked a number of times to make it enjoyable for everyone and to get rid of the unintended side effect of everyone piling into the first zone of the game on each side, disrupting life for anyone just starting out or trying an alt.

In that, assuming they had not already, Trion Worlds won me over. They were not going to settle for a sub par event, despite what some of you know is coming in this narrative.

Fast forward a week to the weekend before last. Phase II was to start up in the game. People had been gathering the goods, dealing with the new rifts and cashing in the event currency. Phase II again was paired up with an Allies of the Ascended weekend. They had already given non subscribers a chance to see what people were like at the start of the event and they weren't being excluded from participating in its end. That is... until it was discovered by European players that it just plum didn't work. Phase II was laggy and Phase III was crashing. This could not do, so they didn't launch it. Sure this sounds like a defeat but personally, I view it as a win for the players. Why struggle through something that would have been broken? To say that you did? To complain that it was? Trion was communicating through the forums, Twitter, Facebook and through the game's server announcement system. We, the players, were not left in the dark. Zann and the community team are to be commended.