If you’ve lost friends to Trion Worlds’ massively multiplayer online role-playing game Rift, prepare to get them back in an annoying fashion next week, when the 1.2 update hooks its claws into Facebook.
Now that the rifts from the Plane of Death have been sorted out, it’s time for Earth and Fire to have their go in Rift‘s second major update, The Spoils of War. Players can expect a heaping helping of story peppered with booming zone-wide alerts that the forces of Earth and Fire are invading every few seconds. There’ll be new raid rifts, a fresh expert group rift, and rifts specifically aimed at rewarding crafters for standing around all day.
There’s even a new sort of “What If?” instance called a Sliver, in which players are transported to an alternate reality in which the invading rift forces have won.
So yes, tons of new content, but the real meat of patch 1.2 lies in the new features being added to the game. Features like a Looking for Group tool, something no adventurer should be without, and a wardrobe, allowing players to store five outfits for instantaneous costume changes. Players are even being given a new Role slot they can use to swap between five different character builds on-the-fly.
And of course there’s Facebook.
Starting with Rift update 1.2, players will be able to link their Facebook account to the game, uploading screenshots, achievements, and YouTube videos from inside the game to their profile pages. It’s a feature many MMO makers are slipping into their games these days in order to keep their players in touch with the real world, sort of.
What surprises me about this new integration is I had no idea you could record YouTube videos within the game without using a program like Fraps. Lo and behold there is an option to log in to your YouTube account and hotkeys to start and stop recording up to ten minutes of video at a time.
The prelude to Spoils of War is already active on Rift servers. Look for the big patch 1.2 update to hit on May 10, and if you aren’t a player, be prepared to block Rift messages on Facebook.
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