The Rift team has been hinting around for the last several weeks about big changes coming to the game beginning with the v1.6 update. In today's Tripping the Rift column, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy springboards from what has been said so far and into what he'd like to see beyond what is known already. Read on and then tell us what you'd like to see in Rift's future in the comments.

This week’s column is going to be short and sweet. 1.6 is promising to further revitalize the game’s end-game for those who can’t raid with a whole new zone, oodles of new quests, and in general just a crap-ton more content thrown into the mix. But what can the game do in 1.7 and beyond to keep itself stalwart and steady into 2012?

Read more of Bill Murphy's Tripping the Rift: What I Want Beyond 1.6.

This is what I know about 1.6 so far. There is a area on Ember Isle called Atia that if you had a great pvp dev on the Trion team you could turn into a fortress siege like Wintergrasp in a heartbeat. It is literally a defiant controlled fort that looks like a mini city and has vendors and stuff in it. These guys can definitely do pve at a crazy pace.

Ember Isle has the following that I have found:

1. New zone puzzle

2. New 5 man called Cadeucus Rise (not tested yet)

3. New tier 2 raid rifts (not tested yet)

4. New zone events that are pretty epic

5. total of about 125ishhhh quest to do

6. Full sets of gear that can be achieved from Inscribed sourcestones that are basically rewards for everything...dailies...events

7. New 10man called Rise of the Phoenix - 4 bosses tier 2 raid and is pretty fun

8. New feature called Instant Adventure

Rise of the Phoenix isn't on Ember Isle but everything else is correct.

Originally posted by Alders

Rise of the Phoenix isn't on Ember Isle but everything else is correct.

I was more filing it under stuff I have found in 1.6, but I could see how the wording says otherwise. This above statement is correct. They also added new planar essense on par with tier 2 raid stats, artifact sets, and new collectable book sets. I think there is a guy from Zam who practically lives on the pts trying to work on their guides.

RVR type zone is definitely needed, for a game now to go live with no RVR type zone is just stupid. sorry but many people enjoy consentual PVP and its about time for the Rift Devs to realize this.

make invasions the most important endgame, that is the story right to stop the other planes from invading so it makes no sense that at 50 most ignore these and sit in the main city waiting for their instances or raids to form.

I would also add "more fluff" to the list.  Fishing, small boats would be cool, raising pets (by another way than grinding stuff to level it up), taming animals and raise them to mounts...

This is just what i got in mind while typing this. I'm shure with a little time and creativity, Trion could come up with some great and fun stuff.

Originally posted by VoIgore

I would also add "more fluff" to the list.  Fishing, small boats would be cool, raising pets (by another way than grinding stuff to level it up), taming animals and raise them to mounts...

This is just what i got in mind while typing this. I'm shure with a little time and creativity, Trion could come up with some great and fun stuff.

It is mostly a EQ dev team, so I would expect more out of the box thinking also. More races would not hurt really. I am just not sure how they would do it. The guardians seems pretty damn extreme religious zealots. There entire thing on Ember Isle is the friendly spirits got in there way so they just kill them while the Defiant try and study them and become friends lol

I would take fishing in a heartbeat. Many WoW play sessions were wasted just sitting around enjoying doing this. They do seem to be having this huge push to make zone events severely worth it. Some of the gear yo can get from doing zone events and earning currency would drive the WoW hardcores insane

PLEASE, for the love of God, PLAYER HOUSING!!!!!  So many of us have asked for it, you have to know it would be a major thing to keep many many players around for a much longer time, which equals more subscription fees.  A new crafting skill (Carpentry) to make furniture items, etc, or spread recipes for home deco items among all types of crafting skills.  If any game developers out there right now could do this, and do it WELL, I know the Rift Team can.  I love this game, but without housing, I'll be jumping ship for the first good looking game that has it, and I won't be alone.  I am an old UO, SWG and Vanguard player going through severe withdrawals for this...LOL.  Seriously....let Rift be the game that has it ALL.  It's almost there, already...

Originally posted by Puremallace

Originally posted by VoIgore

I would also add "more fluff" to the list.  Fishing, small boats would be cool, raising pets (by another way than grinding stuff to level it up), taming animals and raise them to mounts...

This is just what i got in mind while typing this. I'm shure with a little time and creativity, Trion could come up with some great and fun stuff.

It is mostly a EQ dev team, so I would expect more out of the box thinking also. More races would not hurt really. I am just not sure how they would do it. The guardians seems pretty damn extreme religious zealots. There entire thing on Ember Isle is the friendly spirits got in there way so they just kill them while the Defiant try and study them and become friends lol

 

I would take fishing in a heartbeat. Many WoW play sessions were wasted just sitting around enjoying doing this. They do seem to be having this huge push to make zone events severely worth it. Some of the gear yo can get from doing zone events and earning currency would drive the WoW hardcores insane

 

Apparently they've already heard about it, and are planning a panda raid on Rift

Oh yes...FISHING!  *daydreams of owning a boat and sailing the seas of Telara, fishing away the hours....and sometimes pulling up treasures from old shipwrecks (paintings anyone?) that....hey that makes great house deco!:)  Having a nice days fat catch to take home and COOK would be awesome, too:)

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"But what can the game do in 1.7 and beyond to keep itself stalwart and steady into 2012?"

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Originally posted by Mythica11
PLEASE, for the love of God, PLAYER HOUSING!!!!!  So many of us have asked for it, you have to know it would be a major thing to keep many many players around for a much longer time, which equals more subscription fees. 

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I notice the "H" word wasn't mentioned (edit: Mythical made that post while I was typing mine, lol) but that is something I'd say about a quarter of the base seems to want (at least from my time there), housing.

The last word officially addressing that was along the lines of "at this time, housing plans are not in the works anytime soon" or words to that effect from what I remember. From what I had seen I wouldn't expect housing or fishing to be in the game anytime before Fall of next year, with housing probably much later than that.

AION took over 2 years to get around to putting housing in, and Champions Online over three I think (with their hideouts) so for most of these games if you don't have it in early, it's going to take quite awhile for something like that.

If you're waiting on housing, you'd better be prepared for a LONG wait....

Originally posted by JudgeUK

Apparently they've already heard about it, and are planning a panda raid on Rift

I think you could solve some of the qq about Rift with one smart move and that is adding new races. Just do what Everquest 2 did and Trion should know this. Add a island off to the side and call it  "the homeland" like the Rotunga rat race and have them do quest until like level 6, then send them over to Freemarch or Silverwood.

That would easily be the best addition to the game is a race where you decide before you leave the island who you want to affiliate yourself with. I am clueless as to why this has not been done yet with a EQ dev team.

1.RVR zone(s)

I mean the game is basically WAR but done 100% better. It should have RVR

2.Fluff like fishing, houses ... etc

The game feels little bit sterile without it right now

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Originally posted by Puremallace

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Originally posted by JudgeUK

Apparently they've already heard about it, and are planning a panda raid on Rift

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I think you could solve some of the qq about Rift with one smart move and that is adding new races.

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If they wait until they announce an expansion, they could add it with new zones and new starting areas. Also, Rift cannot do what WoW just did and add only ONE new race and make it "neutral" for both sides to pick; they'd automatically have to add TWO new races so that increases the pressures X 2.

Two new races, two new sets of lore, two new sets or racial type starter gear/looks, two new starting zones with two sets of unique quests. All that spells expansion content, not something people will get anytime soon before an expansion.

Considering games don't usually do expansions before at least one full year, we are looking at February the earliest for that more than likely, but more realistically months after that even.

AION took over 2 years to get around to putting housing in, and Champions Online over three I think (with their hideouts) so for most of these games if you don't have it in early, it's going to take quite awhile for something like that.

 If you're waiting on housing, you'd better be prepared for a LONG wait....

I just want to say that I played Aion before Rift, and had 3 level 50 characters there.  I waited and waited for housing to go in, but now that I've left the game....NOW....they plan to put in housing:(  Will I go back to Aion because of it?  I seriously doubt it.  Can you say "TOO LITTLE TOO LATE"?  People don't have the patience to hang around waiting and hoping for something wanted so badly when so many other games are coming up on the horizon.  One of them eventually is going to "get" what we want and give it to us.

3rd faction period ! 2 factions sucks imo ........

Housing is already confirmed and will be released in 2012.

The paragraph that starts with "An dieser Stelle".

http://rift.gameplorer.de/rift-auf-der-gamescom-2011/

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Originally posted by Mythica11

 
I just want to say that I played Aion before Rift, and had 3 level 50 characters there.  I waited and waited for housing to go in, but now that I've left the game....NOW....they plan to put in housing:(  Will I go back to Aion because of it?  I seriously doubt it.  Can you say "TOO LITTLE TOO LATE"?  People don't have the patience to hang around waiting and hoping for something wanted so badly when so many other games are coming up on the horizon.  One of them eventually is going to "get" what we want and give it to us.

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Housing is something that has been discussed and asked about in Rift from as far back as May Enter at Your Own Rift: A case for player housing (excellent article by Massively). Trion knows people want it but on it's list of imports, it's not high on the list and why they haven't said anything on a high executive level (Scott H) about it since launch. If they talk about it, it stirs up discussion so it's smart to ignore it. Notice every forum or every convention Trion attends, the question isn't brought up by "interviewers" because they already know the answer.

Housing will probably make it but seriously, do not expect it to be in this game before almost two years at least. There are too many problematic issues they would have and they don't even know if/how it will fit in with their free transfers.

It's just that it's a low priority (housing/fishing) in Rift right now because those things would not affect the economy in any positive way or advance the game in Trion's eyes. They probably think adding more dungeons/raids, and continue to fix the PA system as more important.

Originally posted by popinjay

It's just that it's a low priority (housing/fishing) in Rift right now because those things would not affect the economy in any positive way or advance the game in Trion's eyes. They probably think adding more dungeons/raids, and continue to fix the PA system as more important.

1.6 is a new island

1.7 looks to be Planetouched Wilds

There big thing it seems is adding more land mass to the game and packing it with stuff to do. I think instant adventure for sure will keep hordes of people in the old zones like Shimmersand and Stillmoor, but they really do need more land mass.

My big thing is we need another race even if there homeland is to like level 6, then you are done we need something other then then the time traveler thing. 1.7 I could NOT HOPE to tell you what in the hell they are working on over there. Me and several other people have tried for the past two months to even get a screenshot and you can not even get close to it anymore.

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Originally posted by shanert
Housing is already confirmed and will be released in 2012.The paragraph that starts with "An dieser Stelle".http://rift.gameplorer.de/rift-auf-der-gamescom-2011/

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Last I heard was this officially by an employee:

Trion employee admitting housing "not in the plans at this point" in a podcast @ 38:50.

That was last month right before 1.5 landed and it was said in plain English, which you can hear for yourself.

I find it hard to believe a Trion employee would say "it's not in the plans" without knowing that for sure. I mean, they actually WORK there, lol.