RIFT news tidbits for 19th March 2015.
General
- Budgie Madness Promo Week is Back! The Budgie Madness Promo Week is back, with a Frosty Budgie Mount available as rare chance drop from Limited Edition: Frosty Budgie Troves. You can also get Ashen, Frosty and Umbral Budgie mounts from the PRI Quartermaster for Bird Seed gained by participating in Budgie Racing dailies. Check out more information here! Ends 26th March at 3:30PM ST.
- RIFT: Tales of the Deep – The Runebound. Trion posts new lore about Valeri and Vladmal Prime in Hammerknell Fortress. Check it out here! You can check out other “Tales of the Deep” articles below:
- Hammerknell Fortress Models. Whilst you’re reading about Vladmal Prime, why not check out some models of one of Hammerknell Fortress’ iconic rooms created by Environment Artist Greg Frizzell. You can check out his blog post from back in March 11th 2013 here filled with images and other tidbits.
Hammerknell Fortress Left Wing. Room Prior to Zilas. Src: Greg Frizzell
- More on Instant Adventures in 3.2. Tacitus gave some further information on the already growing list of IA changes coming with or soon after 3.2. [r]
- Anti-Cheating Measures. The new anti-cheating measures coming to Instant Adventures in 3.2 will now have multiple systems with varying levels of penalty, including a 15min debuff preventing players from joining IAs. A past screenshot teaser shows that one of the other measures is to prevent the afker from receiving any rewards.
- Objective Ramp-up Not Linear. Tacitus revealed that the ramp-up of objectives as group size increases will not be linear, and you will be better off in larger groups. “Rule of thumb”:
- 1-2 players = 8 objectives.
- 15-20 players = 26 objectives.
- In this case, a 15-player group has 7.5x no. of players as the 2-man group, but only 3.25x the no. of objectives.
- Tacitus: “A large group can absorb a decent number of both slackers and new players trying to figure out what their buttons do and STILL be more efficient than a small group.” [r]
- Apotheosys: Crucia Hard-Mode World First! Congratulations to Apotheosys (Typhiria, EU) for downing the hard mode version of Mechanical Tyrant (Crucia) in Tyrant’s Forge! [r]
- Planetouched Wilds Info. Twinmoon on the RIFT Forums discovered a name for one of the locations for the Planetouched Wilds bordering on Droughtlands: “Sorrowsworn Wall”. The zone is still WIP. [r]
- PTS/Live Update + Datamining for 17-18th March 2015. Small updates with minimal info. The recent Shaman buffs and Reaver fixes mentioned in the past two News Tidbits are up on the PTS. Also, a “critter_corgi_goggles.ma” model has been found in the files of the latest hotfix. More info here.
No RIFT livestream this Friday. Next week should be the Wardrobe Livestream though.
Community Content
Below is a list of content created recently by the RIFT community!
- Rift Reforged Ep. 30 [Video]. The folks over at Rift Reforged held their 30th episode of their podcast, talking all things RIFT including the latest news, spec info, crafting and lore! Check out the recorded video here!
- Drunken Messmas [Dimension]. Seyler takes a tour of Pinkmink@Laethys’ “Drunken Messmas” dimension. Today’s dimension tour takes a look at a dimension filled with humour, from drunken Abyssal to snowmen partying over a campfire and much more! Check out a preview here!
Missed out on some news? Check out the full list of RIFT News Tidbits here or check out the PTS/Live Comparison Page for a summary of upcoming changes. Patch Notes, PTS Updates, Datamining and Livestream Summaries are also available.
If you’re interested in the latest RIFT contests or upcoming events, check out RiftGrate’s ‘Upcoming RIFT Events‘ page and calendar.
RiftGrate 
Great IA fixes. Instead of making them fun, just force people harder to do them.