Datamining and the “Quick Update” (4.2 +Summerfest spoilers)

Yesterday on the forums, Gingers posted a Quick Update, detailing the current status of the character art team.  This is a bunch of interesting and insightful information, and several art pieces mentioned in the post have been datamined.  Today, I will summarize those pieces.  The post is copied below.

We had a Producer’s Letter not long ago and I know that the community has asked for more communication so I figured I’d give you all a quick update. This update does not include everything.

 

We have a long term plan, we have things in the works and we know what we want to work on so right now we’re deep into making the final plans on scheduling what we can and can’t deliver for 4.2.

While the leads are working on the day-to-day schedule, the devs are mostly bug fixing and making tweaks based on your feedback of 4.1 as well as continuing work for 4.2.

 

Although I manage all the schedules for the RIFT team, I’m most heavily involved with the character art team so I can give you more in-depth info there.

Basic summary about this post, and details on 4.2 on the way.  It sounds like the 4.2 content is being locked down now, and will at least include Vostigar Peaks, the area currently known as “Northern Tenebrean Schism”.

We have a new armor set in the works, the Chain set of it is being modeled now. We loved Carli’s jacket and decided to make the armor using that jacket as reference.

Currently, there are 2 datamined sets of Carli armor.  One looks leather inspired,and closely resembles her in-game outfit at the end of the Ashenfell questline (complete with the bat-wing).  The other is completely new, but has a similar look and feel.

Over half the models and textures for the NPCs of Vostigar Peaks are already created, they are now in progress of being rigged and animated. Orca Skywhale and a new Tenebrean Colossus?

The new Tenebrean Colossus has been datamined, but no new mobs such as the Orca Skywhale, or any zone art.  It will be interesting to see what we get!

Summerfest is fully planned out and being worked on. The new mount is being animated and an outfit based on that mount is having concept art created. Several items such as weapons themed around Seahorses are currently getting bubble VFX added.

The icons for the seahorse weapons have been datamined quite a while ago.  Unannounced here is also a roasted marshmallow 2H staff and mace (these can be previewed on the PTS right now).

We’re also starting on plans for later this year such as Autumn Harvest (Una outfit?) and what new rewards to create for Extra Life.

None of these have appeared in datamining yet, it will be interesting to see what does arrive.

That’s all for now! Nothing new on the datamining front, but it is interesting to see how far back these things have been datamined.  All of the assets shown here were patched to PTS as of January 31st, 2017, and planned at least for 4.2.

If anything, this does show that many things in Rift are planned in advance, even if we don’t get a direct schedule on what is coming when all of the time.  Personally, I hope we continue to get more quick updates like this from the team throughout the year.