trion-worlds posts

Rift was launched less than a month ago but the development team at Trion Worlds is already close to releasing the fantasy MMO's first major content update. Today Trion Worlds announced that the update will launch for the game's subscribers on Wednesday March 30.

On that Wednesday, the game's villain Alsbeth the Discordant will be generating rifts all across the game's fantasy land of Telera which will spill out tons of monsters and baddies. Players will try to fight offf the beasties over the next week and will also get access to lots of new in-game items. After the rift event, players can then go on a new 20 player raid called River of Souls to fight through undead monsters in order to get to Alsbeth herself.

Trion Worlds launched its first MMO game, Rift, just a few weeks ago but the developer-publisher has at least two more titles in the worlds. One is the RTS MMO End of Nations with Petroglyph. The other is the long-in-development sci-fi MMO being made in collaboration with the Syfy cable TV network.

This week Syfy announced that the actual title of the Trion Worlds game will be Defiance and that the game is scheduled to launch sometime in 2011. The plan is still to launch a prime time TV series that will link to the game in some way. However specific gameplay details, beyond the fact that it will be a third person action shooter game, have still not been announced.

Technically, the fantasy MMO Rift is not supposed to officially launch until Tuesday, March 1. However folks who pre-ordered the game from developer Trion Worlds can now jump into the game's online servers right now as part of the game's Head Start program. And apparently a lot more people decided to do just that. Trion had 33 servers set up for the Head Start event but that wasn't enough; some players waited a while to sign on.

Trion's official message boards have posted word that to keep up with the demand it has added many more servers for Rift since the Head Start launch began earlier today. That includes a whopping 14 extra servers just for the US players along with several more for the European countries. Trion also announced today that Rift has now recorded over 1 million players accounts that are signed on to play the game.

The fantasy MMO game Rift has been in development for a while at developer Trion Worlds. After holding a number of weekend closed beta tests for the game Trion will soon let everyone get a chance to check out the monthly subscription-based MMO before its official launch on March 1.

Starting at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time) on February 15, Rift will hold its open beta test, allowing anyone to play the game up to level 42. The open beta, which will end at 10 am Pacific time on February 21, will have two of the game's playable factions available along with several of the game's zones and three of its Player vs Player warzones. The beta will have an overall story arc as invaders from the game's inter-dimensional rifts invade the game's fantasy land of Telera. Players can go ahead and sign up on Rift's web site to participate in next week's open beta event.

Team Fortress 2 players who have also pre-ordered the upcoming fantasy MMO Rift will be getting a couple of new in-game melee weapons for Valve's multiplayer shooter. Starting today, people who pre-order Trion Worlds' MMO by March 1 will get two melee weapons in Team Fortress 2: The Sharpened Volcano Fragment for the Pryo class and the Sun-on-a-stick for the Scout class.

Furthermore, if those Team Fortress 2 players unlock the new Steam achievement "Riftwalker", they will receive a code that can be used to unlock a new hat item in Rift, the Well Spun Hat (shown above). The hat will be available for Rift players starting with the game's headstart time period on February 1. Rift will officially launch on March 1.

[Via email press release]

After several years of development, Trion Worlds is about to finally launch its first MMO game. The company announced today that its fantasy MMO title Rift will get its official launch on March 1. The game has gone through a number of changes since it was first announced (including two changes to the game's title).

As we reported last month, Trion Worlds has some special pre-order in-game items for people who want to buy the game early along with a Collector's Edition of the game with even more content. Pre-order customers can also participate in all of Rift's upcoming closed beta tests and will be able to play the final game online on February 24, five days before everyone else. The monthly subscription fee will be $14.95 a month but they are also offering a "Founder's Pricing" plan that for a limited time will let players sign up for $9.99 a month if they pay for six months.

[Via email press release]

Trion World's long-in-development fantasy MMO Rift is getting closer to its release and today the developer announced plans for a Collector's Edition of the game. In addition to the game itself the Collector's Edition will include three exclusive in-game items (the Ancient Tartagon Mount, the Collector's Satchel and the Bogling Wastrel). The Collector's Edition will also have extra items in the retail box; an 8 GB Flash drive with the Rift logo, the game's official soundtrack, a SteelSeries-made mouse pad and a hardcover collection of the recent Rift comic book mini-series The Telera Chronicles.

People who pre-order either the regular or Collector's Editions of the game can choose to get one of three in-game pets (Cockatrice Chick, Deep One Spawnling or Hellhound Pup) In addition, a number of retailers like Amazon.com, Best Buy, Steam, GameStop and Direct2Drive.are each offering their own extra in-game enhancement. You can check out the full list after the jump:

As we reported last week, developer Trion Worlds is getting close to launching the first closed beta test for Rift, the long-in-development fantasy MMO that was first known as Heroes of Telara and later Rift: Planes of Telara before its most recent name change. Big Download is now giving our readers a chance to check the beta out for themselves.

We have 200 keys for the closed beta test to give away. All you have to do is send an email to contests@bigdownload.com with the subject line "Rift Closed Beta Key". If you receive a key from us all you have to do is head to the game's official web site, sign up for an account and enable the key. The first closed beta event will be held from December 3-5 and other beta events will be held in the days, weeks and months ahead. Good luck.

Update: All the beta keys have been given out. Thanks for everyone who entered

Four years and over $100 million in outside funding later, MMO game developer Trion Worlds is finally letting outsiders try out its first game. Today the company announced that the first closed beta test event for its upcoming fantasy MMO Rift: Planes of Telera will be held on December 3-6.

The beta event will include the first 20 levels of play in the game's starting area as well as another location. You can still sign up to be picked for the open beta event, as well as future beta events, at the game's official web site.Trion Worlds will also be giving away beta keys on the game's official Facebook, Twitter and forum pages.

Update: It looks like Trion Worlds have made the decision to change this game's title ... again. First known as Heroes of Telera and then Rift: Planes of Telera, the developer, with no fanfare, has now changed it again to just Rift. So there.

If there's any kind of trailer that just bores us to tears, it's a flythrough. While we certainly appreciate the work that went into crafting an enjoyable and interesting environment, there's not a whole lot of action or excitement in a flythrough. This latest trailer for Rift: Planes of Telara is a great example. While the environment is stunning and the NPC animations are interesting, it's so plain! Still, if you want to see a neat MMORPG environment, it may be worth watching this trailer. After all, it does look nice, despite being boring without any combat going on.