PTS Datamining for 19th February 2015

PTS Datamining for the 19th February 2015. Small update, mainly to bring the PTS up to Live version. As such, there’s no PTS Update and Live Datamining for this week is included below.

PTS version is now TEST-301-45-A-983836. ~230MB update.

Summary:

• Interesting Icons. Carnival item icons and a possible 3rd Lifter mount icon.
• Interesting Text. ‘Planar_Type_Nature’ text and a possible new Minion attributes?
• 4th Zone Progress.

As always, everything below is subject to change prior to hitting Live and some things included below may never make it to Live release. Any speculation below could end being proved incorrect.

Interesting Icons

A couple of icons in the latest PTS Datamining and Live Datamining for this week. Mostly relating to the Carnival of the Ascended coming next Thursday at 3:30PM Server Time on 26th Feb 2015.

First Row

• First two are likely the Fourth Anniversary Arclight Rider Mount. This won’t be going up in the RIFT Store anytime soon, but instead be given away at the Trion PAX Party in Boston on 6th March 2015.
• 3rd and 4th represents the Carnival Duck companion pet.
• 5th and 6th represents the blue/gold version of the Wind-Up Pony companion pet.
• Last two are icons for the 4th Anniversary Cape.

Second Row

Second row of icons are all the Carnival masks and weapon skins. First four are the weapon skins and the others are masks.

Third Row

• 1st icon looks to be a brush. No clue what it is used for. Could be a new dimension item.
• 2nd icon is the most interesting out of them all since I have not seen a skin for it yet. It could be a potential 3rd Lifter mount.

If we compare this new Green/Gold icon to the Arclight Lifter and Storm Legion Lifter mount icons, this new icon could very well be a 3rd Lifter mount. It has the same ‘angle’ as the Arclight Lifter mount (middle icon) and the ‘golden wings’ design at the top-left of the icon seems to fit in with the Lifter mount design.

That said, it could just be a shield or something entirely different, but shield icons are usually not shown rotated 45 degrees to the left like that.

With the 4th Anniversary Arclight Rider mount confirmed by Archonix to not be available on the RIFT Store, could this Green/Gold ‘Lifter mount’ be the new Carnival mount?

Interesting Text

Just some interesting text found in some nondescript .gfx or .dat files in latest datamine:

Nature Type

In a file with opening line “WorldEventD”, there’s a ton of PLANAR_TYPE_[TEXT] lines. A lot of these are familiar: the various major Planes, CQ factions and Stronghold. What stands out is the “PLANAR_TYPE_NATURE”.

Is this a new ‘Plane’ that Trion is introducing as a zone event, foothold, rift or onslaught? Our Planar Attunement shows an “Attunement of Nature” which is a combination of Earth and Life. Are we finally going to see the concept of hybrids go beyond PA and lore books at the Runic Athenaeum?

Of course, this could just be some odd naming that describes something that already exists in the game – kind of like how the “mount_disc” refers to the Lifter mounts and not a mount called ‘Disc’ or how the “mount_doopah” refers to Tartagon mounts, not ‘Doopah’ mounts.

‘PLANAR_TYPE_NATURE’ could also be referring to Nightmare Rifts, since that is a specific ‘planar type’ that isn’t included in the list.

Possible New Minion Attributes

In a “0000011e.gfx” file with opening line “MinionD”, there’s a bit on minions. This particular portion of the text screenshotted above caught my attention. Surrounding text seems to indicate the highlighted portion is a list of minion attributes.

Above is the current Attributes for Minions in the game. Heck, they’re even arranged in the same order between in-game and in the “MinionD” file, further supporting the idea that the text is listing minion attributes.

What’s the difference? Well, the “MinionD” file contains two extra attributes:

• Exploration
• Prospecting

Is it possible that these are two new attributes and potential reward types coming into the game? Could be. But this could also just be scrapped attributes prior to Minions hitting Live or have some other explanation.

Not New Rewards

The two attributes don’t seem to relate to new rewards though, since the section of the file with “$Minion_Reward_[Reward]” doesn’t contain them.

It only contains the ones we already know, including Diplomacy (notoriety), Dimensions, Artifacts, Experience and the World Event rewards.

The possibility of Trion adding two new minion attributes isn’t too farfetched though – if a large portion of the player base ends up maxing out on all the optimal combinations of attributes, it might be time to add in some new attributes to mix things up and keep the minion collecting going.

Obtaining Minions

One explanation for the ‘Exploration’ and ‘Prospecting’ attributes is that these relate to how the Minion cards that have these attributes will be obtained. Think of how we obtain current minion cards:

• Any minion gained from PvP has Assassination as one of its attributes.
• Any minions gained from Artifact Sets or Puzzles seems to have the Artifact attribute.

Could it be possible that future Cairns and secret locations in the open world will reward Minions with the ‘Exploration’ attribute? Could ‘Prospecting’ attribute come from Minions rewarded as rare chance from gathering professions (like mining)?

4th Zone Progress

Okay, we now know there’s a 4th zone (excl. Tyrant’s Throne) since Game Director Archonix and Community Manager Ocho mentioned that they were working on a new zone during their interview on Rift Reforged Ep 26.

Surprisingly they stated that the new zone would not be Myrkur’s Depth and – in any case – they haven’t started development on Myrkur’s Depths.

So what’s the below zone we see in-game?

Progress of 4th Zone. Larger View.

The first two images are from datamined files in past updates. They show the environment artists have fleshed out the visible portions of the zone (in places close to Port Scuddra).

The third image is from in-game. It’s clearly been worked upon since the second image, even adding what looks like mountainous terrain to areas that players can’t see. Simpa1988 over on the RIFT Forums suggests that the blue-ish area in the bottom-half of the zone looks to be a large lake. I agree, it certainly looks that way.

It looks like an extension to Tarken Glacier because the visible portions are all ice/glaciers/snow, and it’s on the same level as Tarken Glacier. Could this be Lord Arak’s refuge and will we find the Lord Arak Raid here?

Of course, nothing is ever final  until it hits Live shards (and even then stuff on Live are subject to change), and since the zone isn’t accessible yet on the PTS, there’s likely a lot of work to be done to the area.

The biggest two unanswered questions now are: If not Myrkur Depths, then what? And when?

Small update with known items, although that ‘green disc mount’-ish icon is interesting. There’s also a select few interesting segments of text in recent files. As for the 4th zone, who knows what awaits us there.

Look forward to the Carnival of the Ascended 2015 World Event starting at 3:30PM Server Time on Thursday 26th February 2015!

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining here.