I had a small problem with seeing Rift this year in that it was yet another reminder that I still need to carve out time to play the game. I'm not normally a MMO guy but I really love what they've done with the game as the world, art style and graphics look superb.
At E3 this year the folks at Trion were showing off the Storm Legion expansion for Rift which is due by the end of the year. The team at Trion has released 8 patches since Rift launched 15 months ago but Storm Legion will be the first paid expansion for the game (pricing TBD at the moment). For your money you'll get ten new levels and four new souls to play with. Oh and they are going to triple the size of the game world.
The new levels will have a bit of a technology/gadget look but will retain the sense of corruption that pervades the rest of the game. We got to see a beautiful level filled with clock work pieces that had a few organic growths nestled within them.
After getting a walk through of some of the new levels we got to meet Volan, a new giant boss that emerged from within a giant mountain hiding place. The Trion team wants players to engage bosses like this close-up so they've added power-ups and other things like jump pads in the path of Volan to encourage players to move around rather than just sitting back and pressing buttons. These boss battles are multi-stage affairs so don't expect to just be standing in one place and taking bosses like him down.
Here's a video of the briefing that shows a good deal of the new worlds as well as the Volan boss battle.
Trio did mention that they will be announcing the Storm Legion beta in the near future and I can't imagine Rift fans not being excited about the expansion pack as long as it's reasonably priced.
