Rift's Next Patch Will Bring a Bloodbath

With each new patch, developer Trion Worlds takes the opportunity to address something missing or underrepresented in the MMO Rift. The last patch introduced a major raid area, and the patch before introduced the concept of Slivers, entrances to other elemental planes.

Patch 1.4, due sometime in the next couple of weeks, focuses on fleshing out Rift's player-versus-player content. In the three high-level zones of Shimmersand, Iron Pine and Stillmore, Patch 1.4, also known as Legacy of the Fallen, will allow players to open up special PvP rifts. The faction that opened the rift will see friendly harvesters scattered around the planar tear. The harvesters draw energy from the rift, and it's up to the side who opened the rift to defend the harvesters and carry their harvested energy to a war machine, which is basically a giant death robot. The other side must try to destroy the Harvesters or kill enemy players who are carrying energy, using it to fuel their own war machine.

As with all rifts, any amount of participation will net you a reward (win or lose). What sets the PvP rifts apart is the rewards, which often favor PvP-focused character builds. Participating will net players Planar Essences (kind of like gems in other games, but slotted in a unique piece of equipment) that bolster PvP stats, along with various other standard rift rewards. This puts some of the powerful non-PvP-centric consumables and pets within reach of hardcore PvPer's without forcing them to compromise their sense of self-worth by participating in tasks that don't involve killing other human beings.

While the patch is only introducing one kind of PvP rift, at least two others are in the works for the near future. But the rifts aren't the only new addition to the PvP scene. 

Rift's warfronts, instanced PvP scenarios, are also growing -- sort of. Trion is introducing what they call "Weekend Warfronts," an event that takes place every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, where one alternate mode of an existing warfront appears. The first set to take a bow in 1.4 is Escalation and will take place on the Whitefall Steppes map. Whitefall is normally a capture-the-flag style battle, but Escalation changes things up completely. Instead of flags appearing in each base, a crystal appears after some time near the center of the map close to the Air rift. The objective is for players to grab the crystal and bring it to a cannon located at their base. The catch is, though, even if the first Crystal is still somewhere on the map, a second one -- or even a third, fourth or fifth -- can spawn. The first team to bring three crystals to their cannon wins. This take is designed to prevent the hide-the-flag-carrier scenario that most CTF games devolve into, by forcing multiple tug-of-wars to form across the span of the map. 

Like the PvP rift, Escalation is the only alternative mode for the warfronts being introduced in the patch, but more are on the way. The developer has chosen alternative modes over entirely new battlegrounds to ensure that they don't spread PvP queues too thin. If Escalation had its own map, Trion would end up extending the average wait time for all other warfronts, as potential warfront candidates could be in any of five different queues rather than four. 

Mmm, delicious rift energy.

But what's the point of senselessly murdering your fellow players in a rift or warfront if you can't dress yourself in glowing armor for your efforts? So there are two new ranks of PvP gear to fight for as well, with strength comparable to the latest raiding gear. These ranks are tied to your character's prestige level. 

The patch also brings in a slew of new daily quests (this time tied to the Plane of Life), the second 10-player raid instance, called "Drowned Halls," and cross-server capabilities for Rift's dungeon finder. This last addition might be a point of contention amongst the Rift hardcore, as mechanisms like this tend to lower the importance of community in MMOs. World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this, where I've done dozens of dungeon runs where nary a word was spoken. 

According to Trion Worlds this is one of their "smaller patches", but it's still adding a great deal of new content to a game that is already regularly updated. Will you be participating in the 1.4 bloodbath? Let us know below.