Yearly Archives: 2012

Felecia Day to Host Fifth IndieCade Awards

Felicia Day to Host Fifth Annual IndieCade Red Carpet Awards Ceremony

 

Felicia Day

 

Felicia Day, actress, writer, producer as well as an avid gamer, will host the fifth annual IndieCade Red Carpet Awards Ceremony, taking place Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012, in Los Angeles County. The 2012 IndieCade Awards ceremony is part of the annual IndieCade Festival, a public event that brings together independent game artists, media and consumers. The attendees take part in a weekend full of gameplay, workshops, panels, art displays and product giveaways.

 

 

Day, who recently launched her own premium Youtube channel, Geek and Sundry, is known for her work on award-winning television and in web series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as The Guild.

 


“Felicia has great synergy with the innovative spirit of IndieCade,” said Stephanie Barish, CEO, IndieCade. “Her passion, creative vision and self-starting attitude embody the ethos of the indie community. Having her host will make our award ceremony extremely meaningful.”

 

IndieCade

 

The IndieCade Red Carpet Awards recognize the best games made by independent studios in the last year, and showcases games judged to be tomorrow’s hits. Previous winners Fez, created by Polytron Corp., and LIMBO, from Playdead, have gone on to gain critical acclaim.

 

 

Tickets to the IndieCade Red Carpet Awards Ceremony are on sale now. For more information and links to where tickets can be purchased visit the Awards website.

TERA: Profiling Outlaws in PvP Paradise

TERA: Profiling Outlaws in PvP Paradise

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

DizzyPW’s TERA Popori Lancer split between his love of MOBAs and TERA’s Open World PvP

 

Original Artwork Commissioned by OnRPG, produced by Ajka Bodika. Feel free to support her work on her deviant art page here!

 

 

As many members of the OnRPG community are aware, these days I’m a die-hard MOBA fan. MOBAs provide that element of suspense and constant PvP interaction that I believe the online gaming industry was originally created for before it became side-tracked and lost its way down the PvE and “content update” sinkhole that summarizes over 90% of the online gaming market today. As such I fell into MOBA’s as the last bastion of the online gaming community where PvP was prioritized and competitive play promoted as the primary means of enjoyment, and have played them almost exclusively for the past year.

 

 

The Ingredients to Make PvP Paradise

However, MOBAs lack a key element of MMORPG’s that has almost completely disappeared over the years. Titles like Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot, though before my time, offered a rare combination of balanced open world PvP and the ability to build a legacy through your actions that could be widely known throughout your server if you dedicated enough time and effort to it. Of course what I’m referring to was the ability to be an outlaw, kill who you wanted to, and take responsibility for your actions as you build up a reputation as a ‘bad guy.’ The rise in popularity of the F2P model and WoW’s style of 2-sided faction based PvP have combined to create an endless series of titles that either restrict your actions through harsh PK penalties, the inability to kill who you want due to hard-coded faction restrictions, broken balance through overpowered and overpriced cash shop refining tools, or a combination of all of the above.

 

 

I had given up on ever seeing a title that would meet my expectations on what a Pker’s MMO should be until E3 2011 when En Masse Entertainment displayed a shining beacon within an oddly designed tree booth. The marketing team at TERA initially believed touting the game as a true action combat title was what would draw the masses in, but soon found they had created an environment for the large and unsatisfied niche of griefers and MMO PvP fanatics like myself that had found themselves without a real home in the genre for so many years. As TERA enters open beta this weekend I decided it was an opportune time to write an article introducing a few of the typical stereotypes you may come across on the PvP servers as well as discuss how the game experience is different for those who choose to live outside the boundaries of the law.

 

 

Completely open world PvP without factions ensured that the actions of PvP enthusiasts would not be restricted by arbitrary developer laws. A subscription-based system and the promise of non-RNG based gear upgrading ensured that we would not fall victim to the F2P cash shop model that has destroyed so many Asian developed open world titles that came before it. A publisher philosophy that the community should govern itself protected players from harsh penalties that would put Pkers at an unfair disadvantage against their PvE focused prey. Instead you merely are marked as what you are, an outlaw, for hunting those too weak to put up a fair fight against you in 1 on 1 combat. The final catalyst needed to make TERA the perfect open world PvP game was the highly advertised action combat that allows players the ability to utilize skill to escape from overpowered players that would be able to ensure certain death in most other titles with a simple push of the 1, 2 and 3 hotkeys. My heart was won over by this very feature in the second TERA CB test when I came within meters of a Berseker 12 levels higher than me and escaped by using a few well timed charges from my Lancer.

 

 

Knowing Your Griefer Stereotypes

While TERA has made the environment for PvP paradise, they have also attracted the larger casual audience in mass (pun intended). Many of these players likely have never played a factionless open world PvP title before and will be in for a rude awakening when they roll a PvP server and realize what is in store for them. Just like when dealing with racism, I believe the first step towards learning to cope with each other is getting to know your enemy and understanding them as a fellow human and not just a digital anomaly that brings nothing but grief. To do this I’ve broken down the various types of griefers you will likely run into while playing TERA and what motivates them to step outside the boundaries of society and live the life of an outlaw or vigilante.

 

 

The Hitman

The Hitman typically is where the path of the Griefer starts for most PvE focused players, including myself, that decide to take a walk on the wild side. It’s the easiest transition in terms of motivation because it follows the same MMORPG logic players are used to: kill target A, receive reward B. Hitmen are motivated by server politics and only hunt a select list of targets deemed unfavorable by their faction leader, often under the guise of a KOS (Kill on Sight) list designed to eliminate potential threats to their faction’s superiority.

 

 

Most Hitmen have zero emotion tied to their assault and merely do it as a means to gain respect and political power within their organization. A screenshot of your dead corpse with their avatar dancing over it posted on their faction forum is often a valuable currency that can quickly lead to attaining officer positions and server-wide respect…or infamy as the case may be. Though these types are also the most predictable griefers and often telegraph their intention to kill you long before actually going in for the kill itself. The organized nature of their attacks though often means that they will travel in packs to maximize their chances of success. so be careful of getting zerged. If you are a casual player that doesn’t get involved in server politics, you will likely never have to deal with Hitmen and can party freely with them with no worries of attack.

 

 

The Grudge

The Grudge is an oddball among the griefer population. They usually begin a game as a typical PvE focused player with no intention of becoming a part of the open world PvP scene. This changes drastically when someone connected to you or your faction, in most cases The Troll (see below) does something to set them off on a deep emotional level.

 

 

Almost opposite of the Hitman, the Grudge seeks no personal gain other than revenge from PK. They will often enter combat alone without regard for their odds of victory, driven by hatred of Pkers and disregarding that you personally had no part in what has them so angry. This type of griefer becomes infinitely more dangerous when in a high standing position in your server’s society as they will attempt to unite their followers in a KOS declaration to unleash as much havoc as possible on those they feel wronged them. Avoiding them when possible until time heals their wounds is often the best way to deal with the Grudge, unless of course you are a Troll and seek to rile them up even further.

 

 

The Troll

The Troll is the poster-child that most players think of when imagining a griefer. Though the term become overly mainstream and is often used incorrectly by much of the online community, I’m lucky enough to have an Expert Troll for a roommate and can offer a look into the mind of this category of griefer.

 

 

At the core, The Troll is an evolved version of the Hitman that has become disenchanted or flat out bored with killing players for political power. Instead they seek something more from griefing that they have become drunk on from their time as a Hitman; what they really desire is the emotional response from players that take being killed overly serious. As such a true Troll seeks not only to kill you, but to humiliate you in a way that elicits your reaction. Some examples of this from other games involve killing your girlfriend while you’re carrying her between towns, or hitting you with a near kill shot just as a boss monster is powering up for devastating strike, resulting in a ‘mob kill’ that costs you far more than being Pked would.

 

 

The Expert Troll, though incredibly rare, is described as a highly intelligent player who does not limit himself to mere Pking. They will use psychological warfare including infiltrating factions, or lying about their position in Private Messages in order to incite full out warfare between two factions. In their mind, forcing PvE focused players to kill each other over nothing is a far greater victory than killing players one at a time. The only real defense against a troll is to identify them as such and make it known throughout your community not to ‘feed the troll.’

 

 

The Outlaw Rper

Out of all the griefers you may come across, the Roleplayer is by far the most rare. A common misconception among the Internet community is that Roleplayers are the least likely to go out of their way to grief other players as they are too busy casually enjoying PvE content while spending a good deal of time building a story with their fellow Roleplayers. Yet when that rare outlier does step into the griefing spectrum, they are a force to be feared.

 

 

Roleplayers have a far more personal bond with their character than the average player and will often go to extreme lengths to master their class as a means of ensuring they have control over their destiny and the lore behind their character. They will attempt to draw you into their world as a means of building back-story as to why they are attacking you, often involving generic visible traits of your character such as race or the location you currently reside in within the game world. If you’re a smooth linguists you might actually be able to add to their personal tale and even talk yourself out of conflict. This can even lead to making a very reliable friend should you go this route. But if you absolutely refuse to join into their role-playing world, it is sometimes possible to gain an advantage over them by using their personal code of conduct against them. One such example I’ve encountered was using potions in PvP against a roleplayer, who immediately taunted my cowardice and fled from combat while commenting on my lack of ethics.

 

 

The Challenger

The challenger is an unusual griefer who actually does very little PK compared to most types on this list. Instead they spend a short period of time gaining massive amounts of red hours before entering into a PvP break. Then they go about playing the game as normal for the sheer thrill of experiencing how various people react to them. The psychological aspect of this is fascinating to see who will shy away from battle, who will attack haphazardly with no chance of winning, and so on.

 

 

The challenger loves to have to constantly watch their back for signs of opponents that could strike at any minute. Every quest suddenly becomes far more dangerous and satisfying as a result. The best part of this situation of course is that challengers are often majorly into time management and now they can have combat find them rather than wasting time hunting down player after player which can be tedious and inefficient towards their character progress. They tend to share some of the characteristics of the Troll in that they find standard PvPing boring and will usually try to kill much lower leveled characters in unusual ways. When the Challenger does finally find an opponent that matches their skill level, they will often seek repeated combat with them constantly to hone their skills and for the pure adrenaline rush of finally finding an equal.

 

 

White Knight

These players tend to aim to be the bane of a griefers existence. They come in two varieties, as well as one spin-off type known as the Dark Knight. The first type I describe as players who love PvP but don’t like the stigma of being labeled as an outlaw so they choose to only pk when it won’t impact their reputation. The second is an advanced stage of the Grudge, who has decided to turn their gaze against any red name no matter the circumstances of how they got red. All reds are guilty in their eyes and they will bring them down by any means necessary.

 

 

No matter the case, the White Knight always love praise from their fellow players. This motivates them as they will tend to strike down a pker just as they begin to attack another player. This is double effective as they can force a pker into a 2 on 1 situation and also gain respect from the player they rescue.

 

 

White Knights advance from a nuisance to a server-wide threat when they become organized under the banner of an expert hitman that can unify their dedication towards PvP under a single banner. These factions tend to act as Server Police and believe they maintain order so that everyone can enjoy the game. However this comes at a price as they will become primary targets of Trolls, Challengers, and Roleplayers alike!

 

 

It is of note that a less common variation of this stereotype exists known as the Dark Knight, who more or less follows the same code of conduct except that they carry a vehement hate of White Knights and will go out of their way to specifically hunt them and prevent them from getting in the way of griefers in general.

 

 

A short disclaimer before ending this part of the article. This list in no way reflects every PvP enthusiast you will likely meet in the world of TERA, but is meant to be a brief outline of the types I have often come across in my MMO experience. Some players may be a mix of the two or offer their own unique twist on what motivates them to PvP. Feel free to comment below on your thoughts or offer major stereotypes you have come across in your gaming experience!

 

 

In part two of this column I will discuss my personal experience as an outlaw of the challenger variety in TERA. It’s a tough life to lead so it’s best to know what you’re getting into prior to stepping into the darker side of the e-community and hopefully my story can help you decide if being an outlaw is right for you.

Divina’s 72 Hour Event Details Revealed

Divina’s 72 Hour Event Details Revealed

 

 

After inviting registered players and handing out beta keys this week, Gamania Digital Entertainment is counting down the launch of Divina’s Challenge 72 beta, set for 10:00AM PDT. To get players ready, the team has released a packed 72 hour event schedule, filled with awesome activities.

 

 

The first challenge is to get Divina’s “Level Meter” to 100%, full of level 30 players. Every 24 hours, Gamania will update the number of players that have reached level 30, and if the Level Meter reaches its goal, all characters will not be wiped before the next PVP Beta – allowing everyone to keep their progress and special beta rewards.

 

 

Anyone who’s played Lucent Heart knows that Gamania is dedicated to building a lasting relationship with its community. In Divina, the team is continuing that trend. With friendly GMs who get to know players, and daily events that encourage community interaction, Gamania is once again set on delivering an unprecedented social experience.

 

 

Events Schedule: http://us.beanfun.com/divina/event/beta72/

 

Arena and Guild PvP: Nothing brings a server together like friendly competition. These heated tournaments will run throughout the beta.

Staff and GM Meet-ups: The GMs and Staff of Divina want to personally meet the community. They’ll be holding Q&As, running contests, and even questing with players.

Town Invasions: Players and Guilds will need to band together and drive away invading demons.

 

It’s going to be a busy 72 hours with hundreds of quests to complete, items and skills to unlock, monsters to collect, and of course, exciting events every hour.

Fiesta Social Splashes Down on Facebook

Fiesta Social Splashes Down on Facebook

 

Fiesta Social

 

Today, Outspark opened beta for Fiesta Social, the genredefining, realtime 3D Facebook RPG with true synchronous multiplayer, stunning 3D motion graphics, and lively in-game social events hosted by a cast of entertaining Game Masters. With nearly 10 million registered users and close to 600,000 Facebook fans, the arrival of this wildly popular free-to-play anime MMORPG on Facebook is a gamechanger for the industry.

 

 

“By bringing Fiesta into the realm of Facebook where many of our fans live, players can now make friends, flirt, and have epic adventures together without ever leaving Facebook. With Fiesta Social, when you meet someone in-game, you’re hanging out with them realtime, laughing at their jokes and saving them in battle. It’s a highly addictive, soul-satisfying bonding you just can’t get from the current 2D turn-based social games,” explained Philip Yun, CEO, Outspark. “Many thanks go out to our incredible partners OnsOn Soft and SpawnApps who have worked tirelessly with us to bring this rich social experience to Fiesta fans.”

 

 

Fiesta Social offers super-fun monster beach parties held weekdays at 4pm PT. Today’s beach party kicks off with exciting beta launch events including a Race To The Top, Build-A-Guild Challenge and Playtime Rewards. Play Fiesta Social at http://apps.facebook.com/fiestasocial and get a free dance and free mount when you redeem code OTTERGONBEAT here.

Cosmic Break: Simple Fun Mech PvP

Cosmic Break: Simple Fun Mech PvP

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor) OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Cosmic Break is a game that is a lot different than the general MMO’s I have played. This MMO Third Person Shooter published by Cyberstep is a game that has been out for quite some time now and is finally open for English players that enjoy bazookas, laser beams and other fancy weapons. Have you ever been a big fan of Gundam or any other tv series involving Robots and mech? Cosmic Break seems designed just to suck in players with this kind of a background. I have always been a big fan of Robots fighting it out like real machines, and I decided to try my luck with Cosmic Break.

 

 

When the player is ready to make their first character you get the choice between three unions: BRD, WIZ, and DOS; when you join one of these you will automatically play for them and earn points for their name. The game has some surprisingly deep lore behind it, even including some animated Youtube videos that are worth checking out, though they are a bit morbid. After researching each union in detail I decided to go with DOS. Based on the gameplay mechanics, the union system is vital not only for helping to build up the community but also creating back stories of fierce rivalries between each union. After speaking to the DOS leader and receiving a few starter bots I was ready to engage in my first battle!

 

 

Your mech is controlled by the default keys WASD and you have to use your mouse to look around and aim at your enemies. Luckily the game also has an auto target system that will help you around if your opponent is constantly strafing. You can also dash by double tapping one of the movement keys, and each mech unit is also able to fly for a short period of time. Your left and right weapon are controlled by your left and right mouse buttons respectively. The player is able to use three robots in a match; if one of them gets blown up you can hop on one of your backups while your primary bot slowly regenerates health over time.

 

 

The bots come in a variety of specializations, each carrying strengths and weaknesses.The four Robot types are:

Land Type – This type of Robot is superior on the ground as the name already suggests. They use their speed to avoid incoming attacks and come in handy for breaking through a strong defensive line composed of multiple beam attacks.

Air Type – The Air type of robot is superior in the air. Unlike others this type of robot can fly for a longer period of time than the others. They are also able to make good use of the beam type of weapons. They are however easily taken down by bombs and missiles.

Artillery Type – These type of robots specialize themselves in heavy firepower. They are able to use different long range weapons like missiles and are also able to use bombs. Without constant pressure from Land robots, they can usually systematically tear the opposing team apart in rapid succession.

Support Type – This type of robot is a useful asset to any team. This unit is able to repair and support her allies in battle and some of them are also equipped with a radar. They round out their portfolio with a series of status effect abilities to lower the effectiveness of their foes. However all this utility comes at the price of a heavy hit to their damage, so try to avoid the front lines of any conflict and never engage the enemy by yourself.

 

 

The robots also have different sizes that allow each individual robot to be customized with a different set of parts. Bots are classified by size so you will have to find properly sized weapons and armor before equipping them as upgrades to a bot. Unfortunately I was too excited to hop straight into my next match and wasted my initial pool of cash on mismatched parts so be sure to learn from my mistake.

 

 

After a couple of fights I realized that these upgradable parts play a huge factor in differentiating the strength between bots. The standard weapons are armor are terrible and make you feel quite vulnerable during your first couple of battles against more veteran players. Like me you might feel unwelcome when you’re not being that useful but it’s still a lot of fun to try out the arena for a while. For every player that doesn’t like to get a kick in the nuts for trying a new game, you can slowly build your gear up over time by running PvE missions for experience and cash. You can choose to play with others or go on a solo mode and deal with everything yourself. The choice is all yours, but I felt the PvE acted as more of a tutorial since the real core of this game is of course the arena.

 

Graphics

Cosmic Break is quite an old game and it blatantly shows when visiting the video settings. Unfortunately it isn’t possible to run any higher resolution than 800×600, which might turn of a few people. Like a saying I just read ‘A video game that looks good is impressive for a few months. A video game that plays well is impressive forever’ and that quote seriously suits this game.

 

The following computer requirements are asked of you when you want to play Cosmic Break:

CPU: Pentium 4 2.0GHz or higher
Memory: 1GB or higher
Videocard: VRAM 128MB or higher
DirectX 9.0c or more
800MB of open space

 

I think everyone is easily set to play this game without any trouble unless you are still living in the Stone Age. And even people that have a computer full of twigs and sticks is able to play this game just fine.

 

 

Conclusion

As I said in the intro, Cosmic Break lures in those die hard fans of mech battles and if you fit this criteria then you will be in for a good time. It might be hard to get into the game as a new player since you will have minimal impact in battle, but even when just supporting the more veteran players the game still brings a solid amount of fun. Since it isn’t the best looking game I do hope they spend some development time updating the graphics engine, as the gameplay itself has stood the test of time. There are very few titles in this genre to choose from, but I feel Cosmic Break still stands near the top and deserves a try if you’re shopping for that good ol’ mech experience.

Brawl Busters Releases Rumble in the Box

Brawl Busters Releases Rumble in the Box

 

Brawl Busters

 

Rock Hippo Productions announced today their highly popular free-to-play multiplayer action-combat game, Brawl Busters, is ready to think outside the box with their newest update: Rumble in the Box!

 

 

The new map, Riot Mill, is now open for brawling! Grind your opponents to a pulp on this multi-level arena like there’s no tomorrow.

 

 

From now on, players have a chance to get an elusive Lucky Key drop. Use these with a Lucky Box to acquire special items like Hero Sets and Golden Weapons that are not otherwise available for sale.

 

 

Brawl Busters

 

 

Ready for some serious shopping? The game store has been updated with beastly Wildcat costumes & weapon sets for every class. Will you beat out the competition like Kentucky?

 

 

It’s time to team up: the first phase of Crews is now available. Busters can gang up together, join other Crews, and check out Crew Rankings in the Busters Centre which is located on Brawl Busters website.

 

 

Last but not least, there’s more brawling to be done than ever before, as the level cap has been increased from 20 to 25! Players can also now refine their matches with a variety of additional customization options, including altering the number of kills required and match time limits.

League of Legends goes all out with Patch 1.0.0.138

League of Legends goes all out with Patch 1.0.0.138

 

 

After over a week of delay, Riot Games has finally released their much anticipated Hecarim patch, bringing a series of much needed bug fixes and balancing changes League of Legends along with a UI overhaul.

 

 

In addition to the launch of Hecarim, a powerful tanky jungler that gains attack strength from movement speed, the game has revamped their UI. Now damage types will be color coded, allowing players to know which type of damage their opponents are stacking so they can more easily build defenses to counter snowballing champions. In addition reworks to kill announcements have been made to make multiple kills flow more smoothly and quickly, keeping up with the fast paced speed League of Legends I known for.

 

 

Multiple bug fixes have been introduced including a fix allowing Teemo to fully utilize stacking attack speed to unleash serious poison (DoT) damage on his foes. Multiple text errors displaying the wrong values have been fixed for champions like Lux and Ziggs. Also multiple buffs were given to lesser played champions like Zilean, Sejuani, and Karma in an attempt to get them more face-time in the League! They also fixed an oddball bug in which Mordekaiser was making minions attack themselves. Talk about #1 Hue Hue Hue!

 

 

Recent game changes intended to make games end more quickly have been doing just that, and much to the detriment o f players who find the game nearly impossible to successfully come back from early losses. To make epic come backs more likely, they have boosted the max amount of gold players earn from killing champions on killing sprees from 500 to 600! Furthermore, killing champions higher of a higher level than yourself will grant bonus exp now, while killing champions lower than you will provide less experience. Also to make games more active early on, multiple defensive runes have been nerfed while offensive runes (primarily AP based ones) have been buffed. This adds a bit more variety to the center lane as defensive and offensive choices should be more equivalent to each other now.

 

 

Stay tuned to OnRPG later this month as Hhean covers how all these changes are impacting gameplay, as well as offers his insight into Hecarim, The Shadow of War!

The Secret World Announces The Secret War

The Secret World Announces The Secret War

 

 

Funcom is excited to announce the launch of ‘The Secret War’, a browser-based online social experience inspired by the conflict between the secret societies in Funcom’s upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game ‘The Secret World’. Starting today ‘The Secret War’ will run as a campaign where players get to actively spread the influence of their secret society in a highly interactive experience that tracks each secret society’s level of power in the world.

Players start by taking a unique personality to determine what secret society they belong to. After joining a secret society, players are immediately placed in the middle of the secret war and can start recruiting agents to their cause through their Facebook friends list. Players will have to deploy agents to different countries to increase the influence of their secret society in those regions.

As you assist your secret society in their bid for world domination, you will climb their ranks and unlock a wealth of exclusive rewards that can be used in‘The Secret World’ MMO at launch, such as clothes, weapons, elixirs and more. Players can also unlock guaranteed access to the upcoming Beta Weekends, and can win a trip to Montreal to meet the developers of ‘The Secret World’. One of the more exclusive prizes is the opportunity to have your name embedded into the game at launch.

“One of the most interesting features of ‘The Secret World’ is the three profoundly different secret societies that players can join,” says Funcom SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “Since we first announced the game we have gradually revealed more details about them, and what we have seen is that hundreds of thousands of gamers in our community have come to identify with them and form a loyal bond to other community members belonging to the same society. With ‘The Secret War’ experience we are excited about the prospect of allowing for even more community interaction and engagement.”

MEAD: RIFT Carnival of the Ascended Week Six

MEAD: RIFT Carnival of the Ascended Week Six

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

Did you take advantage of that extra week of phase 5? I did. Getting myself ready for 1.8, making sure I’ve bought everything I want. Oh yeah and destroying some more Guardians because why not? We’re at war with eachother. At least we were. Now we’re just a few days into the final phase of the Carnival of the Ascended event. And the war that was breaking out has been halted. Why you ask? Because everything has changed. The planes of Earth and Fire have come out in force. This is all part of the build up to 1.8 which is only days away at this point. But before we say hello to 1.8 we have a final week of the 1.7 event to get through.

Quests

This week the quests have gone back to what we would consider more traditional. The pvp and crafting quests are gone. Though they were enjoyable and I hope we see them again. We still have the traditional daily quests, the one off quest for a doubloon and raid quests. The battle with the opposite Telaran faction is long forgotten as two planes assault the forces. One contact even makes mention of the fact that in a way we are fortunate that the troops were already gathered. Of course as an ascended we are asked to do much more than any other. Defeating generals, defeating rifts from the plane of fire or earth and helping your entire faction take on zone wide invasions. The faction wide quest has been at least partially broken which is why the number needed is set to a rather low 60.

Merchants and Money

This is the last week the carnival merchants will be available. That includes the currency converter merchant. So now is the time to get all those awesome things before they go away. Or even get some old things. Not that the event merchant is going anywhere. But the access to more currency is. In addition to that important news, a new merchant and currency has made an appearance in phase 6. This new currency, Molten Gold Ingots, will be prominent throughout 1.8 so start gathering it now! So far the merchant seems to just have a bunch of runes and planar essences but who knows what else will come out in the next few weeks.

The lead up to 1.8 is killing me. I am so excited to try out all the new things coming our way. Admittedly the fishing is my favorite thing announced so far. 1.8 is already looking to be more amazing than anything Trion gave us in the first year. The Carnival of the Ascended has been a great way to start off the second year of RIFT. And it only looks to get bigger and better from here.