PTS Datamining for 18th August 2014

A large ~1.3GB update hit RIFT’s Public Test Shard for the 18th August 2014. You can check out the changes to the PTS available to testers here. Changes include new achievements, a Level 65 pot, new quest that seems to link to the Plane of Water and confirmed Return to Iron Tomb dungeon.

Datamined files for this update can be shown below:

Summary:

• More Oculons – Fire and Ice-themed Oculons on top of previously datamined Death-themed Oculons.
• Colossus Shark Rig
• RIFT 3.0 Weapon Models + Skins – Glacial, Dream Guard, Nightmare and Skelf weaponry.
• Other Models + Skins – Skull Throne, Umbral, Critters and more.

As always, everything below is subject to change prior to hitting Live and some things included below may never make it to Live release.

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More Oculons

First up, there’s some more Oculon skins, this time for both an ‘ice’ theme and a ‘fire’ theme.

There’s a death-themed ‘Oculon’ that was datamined on 7th August. These could potentially be part of how the Nightmare Rifts will differentiate themselves – via the eye that appears at the top of the Rift displaying their own Plane’s theme. These could also appear as doodads on the surface surrounding the Nightmare Rifts.

Above you can see the centrepiece of the Nightmare Rift – basically the ‘thing’ that emerges out of the Rift when it is spawned, just like you see with the normal Plane Rifts.

The different Oculons suggests that the Nightmare Rifts will be Planar-based just like Great Hunts.

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Colossus Shark Rig

Another colossus rig, this time for a Colossus Shark. This does not seem to be the Sea Colossus because the rig is different. The Sea Colossus rig is found under ‘creature/sea_colossus/rig/sea_colossus.ma and has a much larger amount of ‘bones’ to its rig.

This Colossus Shark rig has far less bones, although it seems to have what looks like a Sea Colossus’ mouth as one of its arms. What is more interesting is the ‘colossus_life_plant’ portion of its file path. We’ve seen this path before in a previous datamine: ‘creature/colossus/colossus_life_plant/rig/fleshwork_beast_head_select_01.ma’. Back then it was just a sphere.

At the very least, look forward to a humanoid-like shark colossus that seems to have some relation to life.

Looking at the rig, it is not too farfetched to think that the Colossus Shark will use the same rig as the Life Plant abomination that you see in Stormbreaker Protocol and in Bindings of Blood: Greenscale:

Of course the Shark Colossus won’t look exactly like this – but it seems (looking at the ‘bones’ on the Rig), that it will use the same rig. The ‘spewer’ will likely turn into a tentacle-like mouth instead and the body is likely to end up looking like a shark-based Skelf.

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RIFT 3.0 Weapon Models

Even more weapon models! You can check out Concept Art of 4 types of weapon sets in our 15th August Livestream Summary. For those following RiftGrate, you will notice a few of these models were not shown during last week’s livestream. These are likely either the remaining Glacial weapons that weren’t shown during the livestream, or some of the Skelf’s more tribal weaponry.

RIFT 3.0 Weapon Skins

There’s quite a few weapon skins, although clearly not all of them. It looks like Trion are starting to add them in bit by bit to the PTS like how they added the Concept Art Contest winners’ models onto the PTS over multiple updates.

Some ‘Glacial’ weapon skins. Axe, mace, dagger, sword, and perhaps a caster weapon. You can check out some concept art (not the full set) here.

Only one Dream Guard weapon skin datamined thus far. The ‘Dream Guard’ would be the ‘light’ version of the Onir People. This might actually be the only one on the PTS right now. It was also the only one shown off on the PTS during last week’s livestream:

A couple of Nightmare weapon skins. These are for the ‘darker’ side of the Onir People.

5 Skelf weapon skins. More than the three skelf weapons concept art Trion has shown off thus far. There’s an axe, mace, spikier mace (one might be tank-based, the other dps/caster-based), dagger and sword.

You can see concept art of most of these weapons from last week’s livestream here.

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Other Models + Skins

A few other models and skins datamined from this update can be found below:

Skull Throne

A throne of skulls. You can see the multitude of skulls in both the model and the skin. The skin is clearly ice-based so this is likely a throne in the Tarken Glacier zone. Assuming the skulls are human-sized, the throne is rather large. This suggests the throne might belong to Threngar, a Giant boss mob.

Goboro Reef Small Homes

A few homes found in Goboro Reef. You can see one of those (the middle one) in a part of one of the Goboro Reef Scenery screenshots shown here. It is seen behind and to the bottom-left of the big coral tree in the middle of the screenshot.

Draumheim Fountain

Just to reinforce how many mermaids there are in Draumheim, on top of all the Mermaid decor and the Draumheim Porticulum (which also has mermaids) that were datamined in the 7th August PTS update, we now have a model for a Draumheim Fountain with – you guessed it – mermaids.

Onir Hanging Flags

Two hanging flags for the Onir people. Not much shown and the designs aren’t all that amazing.

Umbral Creature

A ‘white’ version of an ‘Umbral’ creature’s rig/skeleton. No idea what it looks like although it seems to potentially have fins and might even end up looking like an ‘evil’ version of mermaids.

‘Umbral’ from a quick google search provides the following from Dictionary.com:

a phantom or shadowy apparition, as of someone or something not physically present; ghost; spectral image. [r]

And from Wiki:

Umbral is derived from the Latin umbra, meaning “shadow” [r]

So a spirit-type creature; possibly hostile. Let your imagination run wild until we find a skin or model.

Critters

Some more critter rigs and skins. Critter Fish B (as opposed to A) looks like an Angler Fish and we also have an Octopus rig. Can’t wait to kill some random, innocent octopus to get out of combat.

Quest Items

Two more ‘quest items’. A broken Akvan Totem and a ‘landmark’. Here’s a fixed Akvan totem. Perhaps one of the quests will involve restoring these Akvan Totems – they might be protective enchants/wards that keep the Akvan away/asleep.

The ‘P_CQ_landmark_01.ma’ seems to relate to the below skin:

Has the same oval shape and those small ‘rock’ bulges sticking out. No idea what it is supposed to represent outside of that. Perhaps it is the oval portion of a Skelf egg?

Death-based Outfit Skin

The skin above is slightly updated compared to the old skin datamined all the way back in April. The above image now has what looks to be a sinister ‘choker’ portion compared to the old skin.

Check it out for yourself from the old skin below:

The reason I assume this is the ‘Deathbound Steel Bundle’ skin is because it is extremely similar to the Lifebound Steel Bundle skin datamined last year.

Atragarian Well Mini-Map

The Atragarian Well – one of the mini-maps is shown on the left (‘scenery’ screenshot here). On the right is a section of an old mini-map compilation we compiled. This is a district in Draumheim called Bottom Town. Interesting to see that this circular ‘platform’ (or whatever it is) is present right around the Atragarian Well as well.

Is this just something similar to the Empyrean ‘UFO’ platforms? Each of the ‘platforms’ seem to have stairs leading up to them with the Bottom Town one having three. They could also potentially be dream/nightmare furnaces or some kind of control platform. It isn’t too farfetched to think the Atragarian Well is ‘imprisoned’ by these objects since – according to the Sirens’ Songs off the coast of Ember Isle – the Atragarians seem to be allies.

Something else to keep an eye on as more RIFT 3.0: Nightmare Tide information gets released.

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A few additions with this Public Test Shard update, mainly concentrated on a whole bunch of weapon models and skins.

You can check out the changes to the PTS that is visible to general testers here.

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining and 3.0-related news updates.