Trion talks Rift

Well, that number grows weekly. At present we are at over 100 events. However, the most awesome fact of our system is that we can continue to add events now and forever. So long as we are using NPCs that your computer has already (the stuff on the disk), we can make it reappear anywhere, doing anything we want, basically. What we have now is what I think of as a base coat. We will continue to increase the number of events to the point where it makes sense to stop.

More is not better. Better is better. When we reach a point where people feel overloaded, we can tune the system to have fewer active at a time. We can have some that only happen once a month and others that are very frequent. We can cherry-pick to focus on the rifts people enjoy the most... man, there's just so much we can do.

The other thing to remember is that rift events are only one piece of the puzzle. We have Invasions and Footholds as well. Planar attacks take many forms and we are lacing the various dynamic elements together all the time. We are avoiding random chaos, while still striving for a thrilling new experience each time you return to Telara.

I can make one in five minutes. To make a good one? A little longer. But the key is, our entire system from the very base tech all the way up to user interface is designed for presenting new experiences for the player.

The way we do that is, each individual AI functions on a brain of needs, wants, desires and alliances and it knows how it's supposed to work in the world. It can play off the player class ability set so you get a player experience from enemies that makes sense.

Just changing those two things, we can introduce new gameplay through the rifts very quickly, whether it's an invasion with a boss with a new ability set, new NPC adds or a change in tactics. We allow you to experience each one as a fresh challenge rather than a tank-and-spank which you've already experienced.

One of the things you can do is that you can return to previously visited dungeons and have new experiences, with new bosses and increased areas in the dungeon. There'll be more game difficulties and better loot. There will be raids, above-ground raids and rift raids taking advantage of the rift system.

You can participate in a pick-up raid and there are three in testing – there are many more coming. The great thing about our system is that if a piece of content is incredibly popular, we can build on that and introduce more content.

We also have the full crafting, we have the faction notoriety system, there is a guild levelling system where you can actually have your guild level up and give access to perks – unique guild-usable items that give you special abilities within the game, so the biggest guilds will have the highest perks. We've been doing that with our alpha build and it's a lot of fun.

Rift appeals to a lot of people who have played MMOs and want an HD experience in an MMO setting, but it also appeals greatly to people who have just a desire to always be able to go round a corridor and see something new. Our longevity is going to be better than a lot of MMOs introduced to the market, because there's always something to see that's changed. We want to maintain a level of familiarity so a zone won't be radically different but I will see things I didn't get the first time around.

Because of that I think we're going to be sitting very comfortably in 2012 and beyond. If I had to put it all into a nutshell it would be that through our ability to deliver new content seamlessly to the players, we can be more responsive to player needs and desires. Because of that, they'll tend to stick with us and bring 20-30 friends.

It absolutely makes sense and one of the most important skills a developer can have is the ability to say no – whether it's someone like myself saying something has to be done by such a point, a designer who feels something will break the vision, or an artist saying no.

Some of what we get from the community will be gems, some is simply not going to work in our world. We have a lot of latitude in our game so we can have alternating realities and be more outlandish. At the same time, this is our IP and we will not put arbitrary things in just because people are screaming for them. This is not a committee animal.