Rift recently received a full expansion called Starfall Prophecy, which unfortunately did not meet expectations. In an open letter, the developers explain the debacle and also present the roadmap for further content.
In November 2016, “Starfall Prophecy” marked the first paid expansion in years for the online role-playing game Rift. Unfortunately, the players’ response was far from favorable. The expansion was full of bugs, bringing numerous issues and not even including all promised features! Many elements, such as sieges, were patched into the game only at the end of January, two months after release.
Rift – Illness, Relocation, and Hardware Catastrophe
The developers want to apologize for all these inconveniences and provide an explanation. The reasons for the lack of quality in Starfall Prophecy include a massive hardware crash that brought the team to a standstill for days. Additionally, a particularly severe flu wave hit the studio, affecting even the most dedicated staff for days.
The team coordination came to a halt. During this time, a relocation of the studio was also necessary, and the new location posed its own challenges due to inadequate technology. All these factors cost the team significant time and energy that could have been spent on the game.
Rift – Levelable Weapons, Raids, and New Zones – What Lies Ahead!
These failures and setbacks are not the end for Rift. Rather, they plan to continue working diligently on the game in 2017, planning the following innovations and features with updates 4.1 and 4.2:
- Update 4.1 will bring Eternal Weapons, which you can level up like the artifact weapons from WoW. Additionally, there will be epic quest lines.
- There will be a revamp of Planar Crafting, allowing you to craft the best helmets and ranged weapons.
- A new 10-man raid called “Tartaric Depths” will be introduced, along with new weekly quests.
- To celebrate the 6th birthday of Rift, there will be a carnival event.
- Update 4.2 will introduce a new level 70 zone called Vostigar Peaks, including an elite zone for particularly tough endgame heroes.
- Additionally, there will be new daily and weekly quests, more quest lines, new zone events, and at least two new instant adventures.
- Also in 4.2: New raid rifts, chronicles, and the final part of the Primalist souls.
Rift – Challenges Server with Unique Challenges
For the foreseeable future, the developers are possibly planning a special feature called “Rift Challenges.” This involves a special server that offers a completely unique set of rules for a limited time. For example, a hard-mode where all enemies hit much harder. Or an easy-mode where anyone could access previously unreachable regions and instances.
The respective rulesets are intended to be active for a limited time, and those who complete the respective challenge will receive rewards on their regular account, such as new armor sets or even new playable races. However, whether and how the challenges server will come is still unclear.
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