The Rift Podcast

Berenger Fish - the instance and raid team leader Adam Hetenyi and Billy Shaughnessy - instance and raid content deisgners - made time to do a short interview with me which touches on:

* Raid Instances will be present at launch

* There are 10 standard and 10 expert dungeons

* expert dungeons are level 50 content

* some expert dungeons must be geared up before they're possible

* Instances and Raids are designed with the versatility of the soul system in mind

* And More!

Don't shoot me - I forgot to ask about Pie :(

We'll be back on the 20th

Adam Gershowitz, Producer for TrionWorld's RIFT, takes time out of his busy schedule to join us for the second time. He talks to us about a lot of things, including but not limited to:

* Some of the changes being made due to Beta 1 Feedback

* Objectives for Beta 2 testing

* Rifts and Invasions System

* Starter Souls and Soul Flexibility

* Soul System still being improved and worked on

* Global CoolDown (GCD) and its place in Rift

* Soft Ability Queues

* Server launch types

* Pie & Ice Cream!

Cindy drops by to check in too.

And yes! We're High-elfen it!

Abigale talks to the Podcast team about Beta and what it's like from the other side - ie: behind the scenes.

She touches on the following:

* VIP Invites etc

* How the servers held up

* The overall response to invites

* How the CSR programme was received

* What they learned from the process

* How what they learned can make the next events better

* Ice Cream

This week the team also welcomes Dooc to its members as our German translator.

Send in questions you have for the Trion team - Ari is going up to visit them on December 14.

The Podcast Interviews Hal Hanlin, Rift's design Producer. He talks to us about, but not limited to, the following:

* Soul system and its diversity

* Soul acquirement

* Rifts in all their forms

* Rewards from Rifts

* Endgame from Day 1

* Adding content after launch

* Pie!

Cindy also talks briefly about the First Beta event and the applicability of the NDA.

Today we also launch our final random Beta VIP Pass contest. We will be randoming off 3 VIP Beta Keys. It involves Haiku's, comments and hopefully a lot of fun. Take a listen to the podcast to find out the instructions and the topic.

It's our 20th Podcast - a longer episode commemorating Gamer Day at Trion.

We were lucky enough to talk to Darcnova, Delith and Rabbit while they were still at Trion’s Offices with Cindy. And we managed to catch up with Doc over the weekend.

Our guests go into detail about their experience meeting the devs, playing the game, pvping, Closing Rifts and playing with the soul system.

And we announce our random drawing winners for VIP Beta Event Passes

It's a Community Team Invasion! Cindy 'Abigale' Bowens, Amanda 'Amary' Fry and Erick 'Zann' Adams join us to talk about:

* Managing Community through all the different social media like Facebook, Twitter and the Forums

* Up and Coming Gamer Day and the community gathering

* The rapid growth of the Rift community

* Pie!

and more!

We also announce another random drawing contest for one or two VIP Beta Keys - just listen to the Podcast and comment with your answer.

Will Cook, Trion's Rift Events Lead, joins us to talk about everything to do with rifts. He covers many things including, and not limited to: Rift Rewards, Rift contribution, Rift dynamic content, different types of Rifts, Endgame Rifts and how rifts do differ from the WAR public Quest system.

Cindy joins us for a quick chat too - and we announce the winners of our Bumper Sticker and Create a Soul contests!

Cindy ‘Abigale’ Bowens joins us to chat about her own experiences in Alpha, the recent contention about beta on the official Forums and the up and coming Trion Gamer Day.

And - we announce our random comment contest winner for the 'When did Scott say Beta would be?" Question!

Scott Hartsman talks about game scope, dungeons, EndGame (RaidRifts), level curves, pvp, rare drop rewards and plans to deal with gold spam/bots.

Abi also drops by to say hi and we announce a short random VIP beta pass contest giveaway !

This week we meet Amanda 'Amary' Fry our Community Coordinator. Abigale talks a bit about Beta

And we launch our first two contests to win a VIP Beta Key