TRION has been busy posting today with numerous updates affecting specific areas of the game. The updates cover class changes, PvP balance, crafting and expert dungeons. These updates will be pushed live on the Alpha servers in a few weeks and there’s quite a lot to take in. Read on for all the planned updates…
A post from the TRION crew outlines the differences between the frequent hotfixes and more complex balance changes. The posy also outlines some of the class issues that have been identified and what they plan on changing with Warriors, Mage and Saboteurs in particular.
Hey everyone, I had a couple of random posts I wanted to get out tonight, one of them being on the differences between Hot Fixes and Class Balance patches.
There has been a lot of traffic on the forums questioning why we have been making small changes here and there but haven’t yet put out a large patch to deal with XXX or YYY. Ultimately what it comes down to is what we do via Hot Fixes and what we do via balance passes.
Hot fixes, in general encompass easy, low risk items that traditionally target a specific ability or set of abilities that are broken and not functioning as intended, or that we find are being used to trivialize specific pieces of content. Many of these are small systematic changes in response to various events in the game, and can occur on a daily basis.
Balance Passes, are less frequent and instead target larger issues that would result in the adjustment of numerous abilities in a single class, or calling. These are the types of changes that we need to do more thorough testing on both internally and our public test servers. As such these adjustments tend to occur on a longer patch cycle frequently taking a few weeks to find their way up to the live servers.
Now that I’ve cleared that specific point up I want to go into some high level points about the upcoming balance pass that will go live with 1.1
- We are aware of the concerns about DPS warriors reigning supreme, and we’ve tracked the issue down to a couple of talents that have been seriously misbehaving. In order to not swing the pendulum completely in the opposite direction we do need to tweak a variety of other DPS abilities as well.
- As promised Mages will be seeing a general bump in both survability and DPS, as well as a few additional tweaks that will be helpful in PVP. That being said please don’t expect to see a massive boost, Mages definitely needed some love, but at the same time some of that comes from tuning down other calling builds that were too good.
- Saboteurs will also be getting some tweaks, we want to keep the tic.tic…tic….. BOOM game play that makes the saboteur so interesting and exciting, but there were definitely combinations of talents and abilities that were taking things a bit too far.
While the above covers some of the high level concerns there are numerous other changes in the pipe that we are working on, and hopefully in the next couple of days Sweet and his crew will be able to stop by and fill you in with more info, and possibly full patch notes as well
Thanks!
-Gersh
TRION has been busy working on prevention measures to stop accounts being hacked and stripped of all their money. Today a new Coin Lock feature has been added which I have to say is an excellent idea. If someone logs into your account from an IP range that is way outside the your normal IP, your account will be Coin Locked which means anything to do with in-game currency is locked down and the hacker will be powerless to strip the character.You then request an email to be sent which will include a code to enter and your character will become unlocked.
There is one catch that you all need to be aware of, you will need to make sure your game password is not the same as your email password or a hacker could have access to the unlock code as they already have your email address which has enabled them to login. I know most of you won’t use the same password but some of you might, so make sure the passwords are not the same.
It is also worth noting TRION are looking at additional authentication methods such as an authenticator but we will have to wait for further news on this.
We are aware that there are still issues with some of you being hacked. This is a top priority for us here at Trion and the team has been working to address the situation. As we posted last week, there have already been a number of updates put in place. We are also introducing another function that should make it into the game early this week.
Coin Lock
Users will be coin locked if they log in from a significantly different location. When their account is coin locked, they will be sent an email to the address that they have on their account (their login email) with a code to enter into the game.
Users will see the Coin Locked icon in the spot where their tutorial button shows up. Deactivating the tutorial tips will not turn off the Coin Locked button.
While in a Coin Locked status, users will have the following limitations:
• No access to the auction house
• No ability to SEND mail. Users can still receive and view mail as well as remove items from mail
• No ability to SELL to vendors. Users can still purchase items from vendors
• No ability to salvage, runebreak or destroy items
• No ability to trade
• Users can continue to play and gain coin and items, but cannot get rid of them.If you are Coin Locked, simply click on the Coin Locked icon and enter the code found in your email from Trion.
If you log in and your account is coin locked, check your email! Someone may have logged in from another location with your account.
If you do not receive the email, please click on the Coin Locked icon and click the “Resend” button to have the email resent to you.
If you cannot access your email or you are otherwise unable to change your Coin Locked status, please contact Customer Service.
We’re also working on the addition of two-factor authentication at the login level, which will let you use an app or a cell phone as a way to ensure that you’re the one logging on. (You may have heard of this in other products as a SecurID or an Authenticator.) We’ll be sharing specifics on that as soon as we can as well.
I have been following the missing plat issues quite closely on the official forums this week and the situation appears to be getting worse. More and more accounts are now being compromised by what appears to be gold selling , or in RIFT’s case, plat selling companies. This morning IncGamers guild member Nexaa logged on to find all his plat had been removed as well as other bits and pieces of kit, great way to start your 21st birthday. (Happy Birthday Nexaa!)
More and more posts are now starting to pop up on the official forums from players with missing money and quite a few are getting annoyed by the response time to the support tickets. According to players trying to get assistance, telephone support are unable to help so tickets have to be raised. There are reports of tickets taking up to five days+ for a response, and while, this may be an exceptional in some cases, TRION now have a whole other issue to deal with, mass account hacking. If your account is rolled back to retrieve your gold and whatever else is missing you will also lose anything your character has gained during the rollback period.
Today TRION issued this official post in response but I think they should be responding with something a little more than a standard support response, the problem is getting worse.
If you believe your Rift game account has been compromised in any way, please contact the Rift Support Team via our Support Center. We would also recommend that everyone review the official threads below about account security and protection, and related topics.
- A Message from Trion Customer Support
- Account Security Reminder
- ATTENTION: Rift Account Phishing Scam
- Protecting Your Account
Thank you.
Account hacking is nothing new, and you have to protect your account as best you can. The frustrating fact is, most players are quite computer savvy so they will probably have some sort of protection on already so this is a problem that will not go away no matter how hard players try to protect themselves. The alternative is an authenticator similar to the ones used in WoW, and while authenticators will offer an extra level of protection, they too are not full-proof.
Right now this account hacking issues appears to be gathering pace and TRION will have to step up the support speed or players will walk away at the end of the free month which will not be good for the game at all. Players need to be very careful where they are web surfing to, the most innocent and reputable looking sites can serve all sorts of nasties into your browser which could ultimately grab all kinds of info from your PC. Follow no links from an email, always go to a browser and type in riftgame.com to logging in. Be careful!
Get ready folks, the first real patch is incoming today. A word from TRION…
Hey, everyone.
As you’ve probably noticed — We launched! Last week was four retail launches in four different territories. By and large, everything went extremely well. Nothing exploded, and we’re rapidly adjusting to the pace of being a live game.
Now that we’ve all collectively survived the process of taking a game from Beta to Live, it’s time to resume focusing on what’s coming up in the future.
In the next day, you’re going to see our first real update. (8AM PST Thursday for the NA servers, 2AM UTC Friday for the EU servers)
This first update does have some new content, and also includes a rather large collection of tweaks, fixes, and updates that come from a few different sources.
They’ve been picked out of what people have been reporting in game, as well as a number of beta-reported polish items that didn’t make it in time for head start, and also some further refinement and tuning after seeing what happens when people finally get the chance to play characters that’ll be around forever.
Some of the things to expect tomorrow are…
• Raid rifts!
• Improvements to Rift, Invasion, and Foothold experience gains
• See more quests at once in the tracker if you choose
• Better item stack management
•PvE end-game difficulty better suited to the power of real end-game characters
Making sure that we can do an update like this successfully is an important step on the road to doing even larger scale content and systems additions in the not-too-distant future.
Our team will be right here while this first update is going on. We’ll be checking out the servers alongside you, and will be here to respond to any surprise issues that do occur.
We also have a lot more in development than the first look you’ll be seeing tomorrow.
On top of ongoing new content and large feature development, many of which you’ll be hearing about on our site and others, there are some other, smaller improvements we’re working toward – I wanted to call these out specifically since they’re pretty frequently commented on.
• Mages.Yes, we’re both listening to you and paying attention to the post-launch gameplay data on our servers. While a well-played mage does do extremely well, and mages are very well represented in the overall number of active characters, there are issues with competitiveness in some low and mid level ranges and certain combinations of souls, due largely to mages’ overall fragility and cast times.
• Mail Spam.Chat spam protection has been going really well on the whole, which, predictably, pushed spammers into mail. We’ll be putting more protection in place there soon.
• Event Contribution. This system is being reworked to be more in line with the idea of events being massively social occurrences, and the focus on abilities themselves will be going away entirely.
• Anti-Hacker Protection. As a very high priority, we’re working on new and interesting ways to help you make sure your account is protected from password phishing and keyloggers. In the short time since head start, we’ve already banned a couple thousand spammers, hackers, farmers, and thieves. We’ll continue improving our detection and ability to take action on them well into the future.
• Dismount and Exposed. Expect some changes here as well.
Thank you all for your dedication so far – We look forward to this first small update, and a host of even larger ones in the future!
- The RIFT Development Team
You know those really annoying fraudulent email letting you know about problems with your account or asking you to login to do this that and the other. Beware, they are now hitting the RIFT community so here’s the official warning from TRION.
Greetings all,
It has come to our attention that fraudulent emails are being sent to some of our players requesting they update their Trion Worlds username and password information. If you receive an email from Trion Worlds please inspect it carefully! While the link can look correct it may take you to a completely different website.
Never click a link you don’t trust! Always copy and paste the URL directly into your browser and ensure that the site you are on is either riftgame.com, trionworlds.com, or trionworlds.custhelp.com (this is our Customer Support Knowledge Base.)
Lastly, if you are ever concerned about an email you received or the security of your account simply Contact Us or go to the Support section found on www.riftgame.com and we’ll be happy to help you, thanks!
TRION has released the official server lists for the retail and early start. Pick your server everyone. Thanks Eshne.
US Servers
Belmont PvE
Briarcliff PvP
Byriel PvE
Deepstrike PvP
Faeblight RP
Gnarlwood PvE
Greybriar PvE
Keenblade PvE
Lotham PvP
Reclaimer PvP
Seastone PvP
Shadefallen RP
Shatterbone PvE
Snarebrush PvP
Spitescar PvP
Sunrest PVP-RP
Wolfsbane PvEEurope Servers
Akala DE RP
Brutwacht DE PvE
Trübkopf DE PvP
Argent EN RP
Blightweald EN PvE
Cloudborne EN PvP
Firesand EN PVP-RP
Icewatch EN PvE
Steampike EN PvE
Whitefall EN PvP
Brisesol FR PvE
Rubicon FR PvP
Everyone is gagging to know more about the headstart and rest assured you are not being ignored. Abigale made a quick post to say more details are incoming hopefully tomorrow.
We do hear that a lot of you have questions about head start and pre-orders. Many of you are asking about how to download the game and when everything you have pre-ordered will be available for you. We are not ignoring you. We are just getting facts together and making sure we have the most up to date information for you before we address all of your concerns.
I will be making post tomorrow with answers to a lot of your questions about pre-order and head start. We are working to make sure you have a great head start experience. I’ll get everyone up to date with all of the information that I have tomorrow.
The community team has been completely focused on paying attention to the forums, helping to communicate to and from the developers and working closely with Customer Support during Beta 7. But now our focus is on getting you all into Head Start. We will do our best to keep you updated and answer your questions as quickly as we can.
We are looking forward to welcoming you back to Telara. Your new MMO home
Telara, my new MMO home, now there’s a nice thought.
PayPal payments have been a popular suggestion for monthly sub payments for quite a few months now and TRION said the option would be added in time for launch. True to their word they have come through and from the 23rd RIFT players can pay with PayPal.
Have you been waiting to buy your copy of RIFT because you like to pay with PayPal? Well, your wait is over! Starting February 23rd, just in time for Head Start, you can buy a copy of RIFT and set up a subscription using your PayPal account. If you’ve already set up a subscription using a credit card, you’ll also be able to switch to PayPal on the 23rd.
A mysterious Tweet has popped up this evening from TRION which simply reads:
“If you can read this, you just might love an announcement we’re making during Beta 7. ^Zann”
Any ideas? Some sort of Twitter feed in-game being added? The fact that you can read means you’ll be able to see the announcement during Beta 7? Mysterious indeed.
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