PTS Update + Datamining 1.56GB – 25th June 2014

There’s a new and massive 1.56GB update up on RIFT’s Public Test Shard (“PTS”) for 25th June 2014. Below you can find out what’s been added including TehFrank’s datamining of the latest update!

As always, anything below is subject to change and some items may not end up on the Live shards.

Summary:

• The Nightmare Coast Dungeon is now up on the PTS for testing.
• New Achievements: Goboro Reef, Nightmare Rifts, Shadow From The Beyond dungeon, Mount Sharax Raid, The Rhen of Fate Raid.
• Leaderboards: Nightmare Tide Raid: The Rhen of Fate + Nightmare Tide Group: Glacial Maw and Citadel of Insanity.
• Shared Action Bars are up on the PTS now!
• Datamining:
  • More 3.0 Music Files
  • Goboro Reef Moon
  • Akylios Statues
  • Temple of Fate Models
  • Lady Glasya Model
  • Cosmic Mountain Models
  • Creature/Human Models: Matrodraum, Onir, Maelforge, Rune King Kondraum, Ice Hellbug.
  • Kitsune Mounts and Critter Models
  • Void Rift Models
  • Flag Models + Skins
  • Possible new Ash Strider Mount Skin
  • Other Models and Skins

 The Nightmare Coast Dungeon

The Nightmare Coast Dungeon, a prelude dungeon to ‘3.0: Nightmare Tide’ that will be arriving with ‘Patch 2.8: Madness Wakes’ is now up on the Public Test Shard (“PTS”) for testing. You can access just south of Fortune’s Shore in Shimmersand at (6544, 7354).

New Achievements

A bunch of new achievements are up on the PTS with the latest update:

• Zones -> Goboro Reef now has an extra 30 achievement points, although there’s only one visible achievement which uses the Ardent Domain puzzle achievement as a placeholder.
• Planes -> Nightmare has now been split up into multiple parts.
• Dungeons now has a “Shadow From The Beyond” achievement sub-category, although this may be a Chronicle rather than a Dungeon as Chronicle achievements are also located under Achievements -> Dungeons.
• Raids now has a Mount Sharax (160) and The Rhen of Fate (120), confirming the names of two of the raids for 3.0: Nightmare Tide.

Nightmare Achievements

Nightmare Rift Achievements found under Achievements -> Planes have been split into Nightmare and Nightmare I-VII making 8 categories total. These may be the replacement for 2.0’s Hunt and Great Hunt Rifts. Thus far they sound interesting enough and previous models have shown they look pretty distorted.

Thus far what we know of the Nightmare Rifts are that some of them can go up to Stage 125 and Daglar has mentioned the following:

These rifts feature scaling difficulty and nearly endless waves of foes to test your skills and determination. Twisted enemies, hectic challenges, and a surreal environment await those who are up to the challenge (and the all-new art for Nightmare rifts is absolutely wicked, bringing a brand new feel to rifts!).

[Source: Daglar]

Hopefully they involve interesting and challenging fights and some nice rewards to go along with them. Could this be one of the mobs?

The Rhen of Fate Achievements

A good few achieves are listed for the Raid, The Rhen of Fate. Along with the new Leaderboard categories shown below, there seems to be the following bosses:

• Ungolok
• Hidrac, Oonta, and Weyloz (probably a ‘Council’-like fight)
• Drekanoth of Fate
• Finric

There might be more fights, but those are the ones mentioned in the achievements and leaderboard thus far.

New Leaderboards

There’s already two new leaderboards: Nightmare Tide Raid and Nightmare Ride Group. The Nightmare Tide Raid has the four bosses of The Rhen of Fate that are known thus far: Ungolok, ‘Hidrac, Oonta & Weyloz’, Drekanoth of Fate and Finric. There’s also time leaderboards for Glacial Maw, Citadel of Insanity and Nightmare Coast.

In terms of overall 3.0 information that we’ve compiled, this finally confirms that The Rhen of Fate is a raid and Citadel of Insanity is a dungeon.

Shared Action Bars

Shared Action Bars are up with the latest PTS update. They can be found via ESC -> Settings -> Interface -> Actions Bars as a new section at the bottom. Here’s how it works:

• Basically, making an Action Bar a ‘Shared Action Bar’ will mean that all abilities on that action bar will be the same for all roles on your character.
• If you uncheck an action bar that has been previously Shared, it will revert back to its old, non-shared abilities. This means that you can place role-specific abilities on an Action Bar, and then switch it to Shared Action Bar and put a different set of abilities on it. Once you uncheck the Shared Action Bar, it will revert back to the non-shared, role-specific abilities.
• Note: ‘Bottom Action Bars’ are horizontal action bars are ‘Side Action Bars’ are the ones you’ve converted to vertical by right-clicking the action bar in the Edit Layout view via ESC -> Edit Layout.

This works great for action bars you use for stuff that stays the same for all roles across your character – PA abilities like summons, PvP abilities, teleports, Guild banner, Call of the Ascended, Ascended Resurrection, Soul Recall and common items like planar consumes, tonics, potions and drinks.

Test it out on the PTS, and send your feedback either in-game or in Senior UI Artist Gingers’ thread here.

RIFT 3.0 Datamining

TehFrank has been busy pulling together all the important changes that has come with the recent 25th July 2014 PTS Update. You can find the files he dug up here. I’ve pulled up the important images and information in a viewer-friendly format below.

More 3.0 Music Files

There’s a whole heap of music files – sfx, background music and the like; all available via TehFrank’s file upload here.

Goboro Reef Moon

So, the 3.0 Whiteboard from back in April 2013 showed us a “Upelluri Moon”, Upelluri being the Dreaming God in Hurrian Mythology. Now we finally have some kind of mention of the moon in the data files.

The data file is named “N_GR_moon_01.ma” and may related to this “Upelluri Moon” that the Whiteboard mentioned. The current model is highly, highly likely to be a placeholder (because it’s a shell).

Akylios Statues

Not much to show except that apparently those in the Plane of Water revered Akylios, which is not too surprising given he is the Water Dragon. There’s statues both in Tarken Glacier (oddly spelt ‘tarkin’ here; might be a spelling change) and Draum Heim zones.

Temple of Fate Models

New models, this time for Tarken Glacier (spelt ‘Tarken’ instead of ‘Tarkin’; pretty sure Tarken is the correct spelling) and Draum Heim zones. The most interesting part would be the “A_TG_temple_fate_clump_##.ma” name for two of the models. This seems to either be the Rhen of Fate or just a Temple of Fate location.

Lady Glasya Model

We’ve got ourselves a Lady Glasya model/skeleton! Clearly given the name “estrode_lady_glasya.ma” it is likely to use the Estrode model as its base. The Lady Glasya concept art does have similar proportions, including the wings and feet. You can see what we assume to be her skin here.

Cosmic Mountain Models

The Cosmic Mountain models seems to point towards an area in Tarken Glacier. A close-up shows some flat platforms and perhaps even a cave entrance. This could very well be a new dungeon entrance. These are found under file: Z:/TWN/art/project/ep2/world_objects/nature/tarken_glacier/rocks/model/N_TG_cosmic_mountain_01.ma.

Creature/Human Models

Matrodraum and Onirs and more! We’ve seen Skelf skeletons before, but now we’ve got ourselves a few others:

• The Onirs may actually be file-name-shortened for Oniri. Reason? Again, that 3.0 Whiteboard showed an “Oniri King” and Onirique is French for ‘dream-like’.
• ‘Matrodraum’ is probably Matron Zamira’s model from back in Hammerknell Fortress, but a version that is going to be used for Draum Heim. Thus ‘Matrodraum’.
• ‘Dwarf Rune King Kondraum’ is probably under a similar idea. Using Rune King Molinar’s model from back in Hammerknell Fortress, but a version that is to be used for Draum Heim.
• ‘Hellbug_Mob_Icebug’ is probably a Hellbug model used for Tarken Glacier.
• ‘C_TG_dragon_malf_rig_temp_01.ma’ is unknown. Either this is an old model that has been fixed up a bit – perhaps changes in hitbox to help with the Bindings of Blood: Maelforge encounter, or it could be something that we’ll see with the Bloodfire Army and Lady Glasya. According to the Lore of Fire, Lady Glasya eats Maelforge’s heart – so we might even be able to see this happening at some point.

Kitsune Mounts and Critter Models

Kitsune Mount and Critters! Well, we already knew something similar to this would be coming thanks to the Fox skins that were dug up previously by TehFrank. Back then we weren’t sure if they were wolves, foxes, rams or kitsunes. But now it’s certain – Kitsune mounts and critters for all! The critters may be actual critters in the open world, or companion pets which seem to also fall under Trion’s ‘critter’ data file naming system for RIFT.

Void Rift Models

There’s a whole bunch of Void Rift/Tears datafiles. No real models or skeletons to show what they are, but these might not actually be referring to Nightmare Rifts. The Nightmare Rift models and skeletons are clearly marked as ‘nightmare’. Is this another new type of rift, a ‘Void Rift’? The lore has been talking about the ‘Cosmos’ and we have a ‘Cosmos Mountain’. There’s even lore in regards to Physicians where – in the Physician’s alternate reality – they ride the Soulstream. There too they mention the cosmos so it could very well be possible that we’re getting at least two new types of rifts!

Are these images of what the Void Rifts or Nightmare Rifts might look like from above? Possibly, but really no clue at this point!

Flag Models + Skins

The faction banners have been revealed! Here’s the above models for some of the banners. We’ve got ‘tribulation’, ‘onir’, ‘ghar’, ‘atrigarian’ and ‘akvan’ (as well as a Guardian banner). Clearly the Akvan won’t be a friendly faction unless it’s an anti-Akvan group.

The skins are below:

We’ve seen the second-last one before in a previous datamine – what is assumed to be the Bloodfire Army’s banner (the bright red flag with the skull). Things are really starting to flesh out now!

Possible new Ash Strider Mount Skin

Is this a possible Ash Strider Mount skin? Or perhaps a Raptor combat pet skin? The top-left ‘head’ skin looks extremely similar to an Ash Strider mount with its extended nose and the thick feathers. The middle-to-top-right is clearly the Ash Strider’s saddle-to-tail section. Conclusion? Very likely a new Ash Strider mount.

Other Models and Skins

There’s a couple of misc. models and skins in the latest RIFT PTS Update to go over; check them out below:

• ‘P_C_chest_11_ghost.ma’ – This could either be a lockbox (although unlikely given it’s an actual model whereas lockboxes are just icons) or it’s possibly a prop for all the sunken ships in the Plane of Water (especially around Goboro Reef’s Fortress).
• ‘A_GR_shimmersand_prison_whole_01.ma’ – Looks like they’re re-using the Shimmersand Flatyard area for Goboro Reef. This could potentially form part of the outside fort that is connected to the Goboro Reef Fortress. It may also be related to The Nightmare Coast dungeon, which involves an Infinity Gate being over the Flatyard in Shimmersand.
• ‘akylios_small.rig.ma’ – Most likely the skeleton used for The Nightmare Coast’s second boss, Shade of Akylios.
• ‘N_GR_anemone_bottom_master_01.ma’ – A bottom master. Well, given where it is located, it’s probably just a plant.
• ‘human_male_wing_fairy.ma’ – Interesting. Is this in relation to general fairies in the game, or could we potentially start seeing players with wings? Thus far we know that there’s 3 additional equipment slots coming with 3.0: Nightmare Tide – could ‘wings’ be one of them?
• ‘P_GR_skelf_egg_hatched’ & ‘unhatched’ – The Skelfs (or is it Skelves?) are one of the new mobs in RIFT’s 3.0 expansion. Now we know they can potentially spawn from these Skelf eggs. They might just be doodads, but they could also potentially be used for some dungeon/raid mechanics as well.
• ‘N_TG_comsic_tree’ – Cosmic Trees. No doubt in some way connected to the Cosmic Mountain shown previously. Or perhaps there’s just a lot of ‘cosmic’ stuff (like the Void Rifts) connected with the Plane of Water.

A Draum Heim Fountain. Haven’t seen this particular model yet – almost looks like a distorted toilet.

Cannons

Daglar mentioned new Rifts for 3.0 – and that’s to be expected, just like the new rifts (not types, just rifts) for 2.0. Thus far it looks like we’ve got information on some Water and Death cannons, including what looks to be the Death Cannon skin. Seems like some of the new rifts coming to 3.0 will contain cannons! Perhaps onslaughts that are taken over could even spawn these cannons in place of our turrets. There’s already Earth and Fire turrets/cannons in the game, so these are likely just adding to those. Perhaps we’ll see Air and Life cannons soon as well!

Statue Faces + Body

I’m calling these ‘Statues’ for now, although they could actually be one of the types of creatures that live in the Plane of Water. These may not be their final color, although at this point their marble-like texture may indicate they are from Draum Heim – perhaps palace guards? There’s also a body for these ‘statues’:

The blue sash color is the one thing that is making me believe these are not statues but actual creatures. Perhaps an ancient, underwater Dwarven race – would link up with the ‘Rune King Kondraum’ model.

Dead People

There be dead people here. Either dead or perhaps victims of ‘nightmare’. Or something more sinister.

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Hope some of these pictures have quenched at least some of your thirst for 3.0 knowledge!

Be sure to check out Trion’s 3.0 Livestream that is occuring at  1:30PM PDT on Friday, June 27th on Trion Worlds’ Twitch Channel.

You can also check out some further 3.0 information below:

• RiftGrate’s 3.0 Content Compilation
• 3.0 Nightmare Tide Reveal
• 3.0 Nightmare Tide – Maps
• 3.0 Nightmare Tide – Models