PTS Update for 10th September 2014

A large 1.36GB update hit RIFT’s Public Test Shard for the 10th September 2014. TEST-300-15-B-938768.

Datamining for this update can be found here.

Updated information shown below:

Summary:

• Earrings are now up on Rift Store.
• Minions UI now works.
• New Achievements.

Earrings on Rift Store

Earrings Slots are now up on the RIFT Store on the PTS under the Services category. It is currently priced at 100,000 Void Stones, but that is (hopefully) a placeholder. There’s no Credits option and that’s because there won’t be in 3.0. CM Ocho has mentioned previously that the earring slots can be “earned in game, however aren’t purchasable with credits”. [r]

Unlocking the Earring Slots for Void Stones will unlock the slots per character. You can also unlock the Earring Slots using a Nightmare Tide Digital Edition, which is an account-wide unlock.

Minions UI now works!

How to access Minions UI

The Minions UI that was added in last week’s PTS Update now has a working version added in. You can now properly collect Minions gained from the vendor and send them on Adventures with Adventure Cards.

How it Works

You select an Adventure Card from the top row and then select a Minion Card from the bottom-left. If your minion has enough stamina (the # in ‘firebolt’ icon), the “Send Now” button in the middle lights up. Clicking it will send your Minion on the adventure, appearing in the bottom-right area.

A few things to note:

• Minions level up with each Adventure Card. The longer the adventure card takes, the more experience your Minion gains but the more stamina it costs.
• After a few levels, your Minion will gain more stamina (notice the Minions with /11 instead of the default /10).
• Stamina is probably regained per daily reset.
• You can unlock more adventure slots in the bottom-right hand corner. The first seems to be 10 Credits, although that might be a placeholder value.

Hurry Up!

Each Adventure Card has a timer displayed in the middle which tells you how long it takes to complete the adventure. However, you can click on the “Hurry Up” button which allows you to instantly complete the adventure. This costs either platinum or Credits.

The longer the adventure is, the higher the cost. Again, these values are probably placeholder for now.

Alert

When your Minions complete an adventure, you will be alerted with the above Minions icon in the same location you find your “Enter/Leave Instance” and “Mail” alerts.

The Rewards

Each Adventure Card has its own reward type shown in the bottom-half of their card. The shorter the adventure card is, the less rewards it provides.

The above image compares two Adventure Cards that provide Notoriety rewards. A quick 15 minute adventure card gave me two types of notoriety that gave 10 notoriety each. A 10hr adventure card on the other hand gave me 10 notoriety awards that provide 100 notoriety each.

Note: I used a non-Patron character without boosts so these are base values.

Other Rewards include gathering materials and artifacts. Large 10hr Adventure Cards gave 7 different artifacts and a good 67-ish Nightmare Tide Cloth.

Minion Cards

Each Minion Card has a few pieces of information on each card, including the middle image, which is an animated model of the Minion.

• Top-left orb shows the level of the Minion as well as its progress to the next level.
• The firebolt shows its stamina. Current Stamina/Max Stamina. Max Stamina is increased with level. According to a player (identity withheld) it seems that currently if you stay logged out your Minions regain stamina. Thanks for the info!
• The other icons are their attributes. They can have two.
• Each attribute also has a level/rank. Each adventure card also has attributes.
• Minions who have the right attributes will receive better rewards.
• The above cards are all ‘white’ because they’re all ‘Common’ rarity.

You can find the vendor to obtain initial Minion cards for testing purposes on the PTS in Tempest Bay opposite the Dream Weaver Trainer. You can access the Minions UI by pressing “v” or going to the mini menu-bar, pressing the Activities/’play’ button and choosing “Minions”.

New Achievements

Overall achievements have been adjusted up 100 points to 31,827.

• Zones -> RIFT: Nightmare Tide -> Draumheim. 165 to 185.
• Zones -> RIFT: Nightmare Tide -> Tarken Glacier. 160 to 245.
• Dungeons -> RIFT: Nightmare Tide -> Return to Empyrean Core. Lost points; 110 to 100.
• Dungeons -> RIFT: Nightmare Tide -> Return to Iron Tomb. This achieve sub-category is back again with 40pts. Still no achieves.
• World Events -> Carnival of the Ascended. This achieve sub-category is back again with 95pts. Nothing new.

Play around with that Minion UI on the PTS and send feedback via the PTS Sub-Forum here.

Datamining for this update can be found here.

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining and 3.0-related news updates.
Want to know what’s coming in RIFT 2.8: Madness Wakes? There’s a few bits of information we’ve been able to obtain prior to tomorrow’s patchnotes here.