PTS/Live Update + Datamining for 17-18th March 2015

RIFT’s Public Test Shard (‘PTS’) was updated on the 17th and 18th March 2015. Live client was also updated with RIFT 3.1 Hotfix #8. Not much new stuff in the last few updates.

Patch versions are TEST-301-71-A-990137 (PTS 17th), TEST-301-72-A-990453 (PTS 18th) and STABLE-301-40-A-990163 (Live 18th).

Summary:

• Corgi with Goggles
• Class Changes – Cleric Shaman buffs and Warrior Reaver fixes.
• Other Files

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

Corgi with Goggles

A Corgi…with goggles. This was found in the Live client files with the latest hotfix patch. It doesn’t seem to be in the game yet, and it will be interesting to see if this is a companion pet or perhaps one of the upcoming dimension NPCs.

The goggles could also suggest that it is part of some kind of promotion or giveaway, since the Dwarven Smithy Goggles seem to only be available through Trion Community events and giveaways.

The Dwarven Smithy Goggles were actually given away as part of the 4th Year Infographic codes giveaway earlier this month. Could this ‘Corgi with Goggles’ potentially be part of another giveaway?

Class Changes

Small changes are up on the PTS:

Cleric Shaman Buffs

Cleric’s Shaman soul have had some buffs since March 13th; but there’s been some adjustments to Deep Freeze. I’ll list all three changes here and the latest version of Deep Freeze:

• Cold Blooded now increases damage done by 4/8%.
• Deep Freeze is instant, no GCD and now stuns your target and up to 4 other enemies within 10m of them for 3 secs. Also increases damage taken from the Cleric on all affected foes by 50%. 1min CD.
• Courage of the Panther increases damage by 12%. Also allows abilities to ignore 5% of targets’ Armor and Resistance, and reduces mana costs by 5%. Lasts 1hr.

Warrior Reaver Fixes

Two fixes for Warrior’s Reaver soul:

• Dire Corruption DoT ticks will no longer keep you in combat.
• Dire Step will remove all DoTs except Bleeds.

Other Files

The other files for the last two PTS Updates and Live Update aren’t too interesting. There’s a lot of old vfx and mesh assets from Dusk Spires, Dendrome, Cape Jule, Ashora, Ardent Domain and the Plane of Water zones. Stuff like Hailol bridges, bone femures, Storm Legion towers, ruins tower, terrace walls and the like.

It’s odd because the latest PTS Update for the 18th March 2015 required and downloaded all these files and the complete .pak files. Usually only a tiny portion of a .pak file is required (as in new or changed) and the rest are just re-downloads because they are part of the .pak file.

One explanation is that my own client might have been corrupted and needed repairing on these particular .pak files. Another explanation would be that all these meshes and vfx have been edited – perhaps reduced – for performance improvement purposes.

Levitation and Neutron

These are the only two other interesting models. The “mesh_levitation_spinning_rings_01.ma” seems to clearly be the rings around the Sun Orb in Pelladane or Cape Jule. However, just adding it up here because for some reason it was in the files. Who knows, maybe the mesh could be used for some future content. Main reason I’m putting it up here is because I hope the animation is used for the ‘mount_levitate’ thing datamined previously. There’s still some hope that it’s a mount, although chances are it’s just the “Free Camera Mode” option for Dimensions.

The second image is “mesh_neutron_01” and seems to use the same texture as the beam_necromancer. I’m guessing it’s just an inner ring of the Sun Orb. But again, it might be used for something else.

Not much new content in the last few updates that is readily visible. The main addition for recent updates on the PTS will likely be changes to Intrepid: Hammerknell Fortress as the devs respond to testing guilds’ feedback.

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