A Look Back: Datamining the Future

Welcome to a special edition of “A Look Back” with datamining as our primary topic! This will be a new, recurring feature every few months where I take a look at previously datamined files from the public test shard yet to make it to Live and go over a few ‘mistakes’ in previous speculations.

A Look Back

Datamining the Public Test Shard can often show some very obvious new additions to the game. A cannon model or a skin for a very prominent NPC like Lady Glasya are hard to miss and speculation on those files are usually right on the mark.

However, sometimes I miss the mark on even the most obvious of files.

Spectral Cyclone Mount

Back in March 2014, TehFrank datamined this ‘mount_floating_spectral.ma’ rig that clearly showed a Cyclone mount. The ‘spectral’ should have been a clear indication that this was a Spectral Cyclone mount along the lines of the Spectral Ash Strider and Spectral Crocnard mounts.

It should have used the Cyclone mount model below, but with the ‘Spectral’ skin (gray, fleshy) like the Spectral Ash Strider:

Alas the rig ended up being associated with the Volt mount. The ‘spectral’ part was simply associated with the lockbox the mount came in – the Spectral Supply Crate. Trion took us for a ride on that one.

Goldfish Mount

Above is what was originally assumed to be the skin of a ‘goldfish’ mount. This was backed up by what was assumed to be a joke about a goldfish mount in one of Trion’s Nightmare Tide livestreams.

Boy was I wrong. Although the color was correct and parts of it looks like fins and even extended armor, this skin ended up being the Morayan Tidecaller mob.

I’ll never believe Trion again! *cries* Hey, at least there really is a Boar mount coming – or was that a joke too?

Datamining the Future

We’re fast approaching December and if previous years are any indicator (2.5 Nov 2013; 2.6 Feb 2014), we’re unlikely to see Patch 3.1 until about February of next year. Still, it’s nice to know what to look forward to.

Monty & Rodney

Monty and Rodney are two new combat pets that are slated for release some time after the 3.0 expansion. No updates on ETA so it may or may not have been pushed back.

• Monty is a new Warrior Beastmaster combat pet;
• Rodney is a new Rogue Ranger combat pet.

Vladd showed these images off back in July 2014 so their models should be ready in some form or another.

The datamined rigs and skins have both an ‘epic’ and ‘normal’ version – likely referring to the Lesser and Greater versions of the two pets.

Recent datamining of the Live client also shows four new icons for the combat pets. Although there’s no ETA on when Monty and Rodney will appear on Live shards, if Patch 3.1 hits around February of next year, I reckon Vladd will probably have these pets ready by then.

Hover Bikes

Sometimes certain items just can’t be matched to anything until more information is presented, occasionally by ‘accident’ on Live.

For instance, check out this skin below. It was datamined back in January 2014 by TehFrank.

At first it was assumed to be for perhaps a robotic mob or just some mechanical device related to Storm Legion. Thus far though I don’t think we’ve seen anything that makes use of the various parts of this skin.

However, now that we know there are Hover Bike dailies thanks to new achievements appearing on Live, this could actually be a skin for a hover bike mount.

These achievements are found under Achievements (default key “h“) -> Promotions. The unicorn icon and ‘Limited Edition: Sparkle Trove’ reward for “Kicked The Tires, Checked The Warranty” is very likely placeholder.

If you take a look at the skin above you can see what looks to be one half of the ‘seat’ portion of the hover bike skin. It has a similar design to existing mount seats, like the Rokkox saddle.

You’ll also probably notice that the full skin doesn’t seem to have anything that could represent arms or legs. This backs up the guess that this is a hover bike mount skin.

Has It Been Confirmed?

Yes. The hover bike mount has indeed been confirmed and it looks like it will be attached to a brand new Promo Week unrelated to Temporal Flux (Mech) Week. Look forward to riding a hover bike mount at some point in the future!

Capes

Some capes datamined in the past take several months before they end up in the game like these ones from back in April 2014.

Trove Cape

The Trove Cape ended up arriving as a cross-promotion with Trion’s voxel-based game, Trove back in August.

Notoriety Capes

Datamined back in April 2014, the three notoriety capes for the Plane of Water zones ended up being revealed on the PTS in October and later on Live in November.

Glyph Cape

The Glyph Cape (the red one) is the only one that I don’t think has actually been added to the game yet. I suspected it would be added in with the official launch of the Glyph client back on July 2nd 2014.

Instead, the Glyph Cape seems to have fallen by the wayside. Perhaps Trion has abandoned the Glyph Cape or are holding onto it for a future promotion. We have seen Trion do cross-promos with capes before for other third-party games, such as with the Amphora Cape.

Thresher Mounts

We’ve got the Cobalt Thresher Mount on Live and Trion have stated before that other skins will become available in the future. What will those skins look like?

From previously datamined rigs – Purple and Fire Threshers! There’s skins too:

The Fire Thresher is also an elite mob floating around the Ocean Sky above Draumheim.

There’s even one for a Nightmare Thresher, although currently on Live this is used for Imaw, a companion pet rewarded for completing Nightmare V: Master achievement. This is found under Achievements -> Planes -> Nightmare.

Hopefully the Nightmare Thresher skin is used as a mount as well!

Kitsune Mounts

The Red Kitsune Mount was introduced back in August with RIFT Patch 2.8: Madness Wakes. Some players loved it and others thought its chibi paws and giant Buddha prayer beads were off-putting.

Well, guess what? There’s still quite a few Kitsune Mount skins that Trion are holding back for now.

As you can see from the above rigs and skins, there’s still the Grey, Cross, Burgundy and Arctic Kitsune Mounts. These skins were datamined back in May/July 2014.

Last year for Fae Yule, Trion added in the Snow Ki Rin Mount and – later on – the Moonstone Ki Rin Mount. Perhaps we might see the Arctic Kitsune Mount for this year’s Fae Yule?

We’ll probably see further Promo Weeks and featured sales on the RIFT Store in the coming weeks as Trion fills out the usual slower, holiday period (in terms of content releases). Perhaps a new Kitsune mount will pop up.

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Look forward to some new Kitsune Mounts, a Hover Bike Mount, more Thresher mounts, a Glyph Cape (if it wasn’t scrapped) and Monty and Rodney combat pets all found in previous PTS datamining! ETA on each are unknown at this stage.

The Live client itself recently showed off some interesting upcoming additions as well, including the possible inclusion of the Typhoon NT pack in the RIFT Store and Minion Stamina pots. You can check out further details/screens here.

Don’t forget to check out the PTS/Live Comparison Page for other future additions to the game mentioned by the devs from various sources.