Trion Talks Storm Legion Questing
Trion's hard-working livestream team accepts a task from a mysterious man, escorting us on a perilous journey through Rift's upcoming expansion
Questing. It’s the been the bedrock of almost every MMORPG, from the earliest tales to modern-day epic sagas. With Rift: Storm Legion rapidly hurdling towards launch, Trion used their latest livestream to detail the changes to questing in the upcoming expansion. We also heard teases of information about the new open-world puzzles, and other ways we’ll be encouraged to explore the vast continets of Brevane and Dusken
In a spoiler-laden reveal, we were taken on a tour of one of the central questlines in the City Core zone. We’ll spare you the details on the quests themselves, but they highlighted a change in approach for the quest design team. While core story quests will still be found in quest hubs, much of the additional quests have been moved out into the open world for us to discover. The biggest change was to Carnage quests, where killing one creature might spawn a quest to kill ten more, with completion and reward being performed away from hubs.
A unique aspect of Rift is something the quest team call “scuba diving”; starting out on a quest, only to be sidetracked by an invasion, rift, or some other event, and coming up for air later to discover that you’ve wandered off-path. This isn’t lost in Storm Legion, although we did see a quest that uses an on-screen overlay to direct players down a particular path. The team did mention that this effect is used sparingly, to help steer players through particular areas.
Alongside a heap of new questing content, we’re also told that each zone will have Instant Adventures for those who prefer objective-driven content. New open-world puzzles have been made even more fiendish, each requiring a completed collection of artifacts to unlock. While the artifacts themselves might give clues on how to complete the puzzle, failure will occasionally result in death. And yes, there are more hard-to-find artifacts, more jumping and climbing puzzles, and even more hidden cairns loaded with treasure.
The livestream hasn’t run dry yet, with even more episodes planned for next week. On Tuesday 16th at 2:30PM Pacific, the dungeon team will take us through the new Exodus of the Storm Queen instance. And if the recent Dimensions trailer has whetted your appetite, a further livestream reveal has been planned for Friday 19th at 2:30PM Pacific.
The second beta weekend for Storm Legion also opens on Friday 19th, with preorders guaranteeing access to the beta. Those of us who prefer ordering via Steam are also in luck, as we’re told that Valve’s store will start offering preorders from Monday 15th.
Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer, Staff Writer