Rift: More content? Seriously?!

MMO Report visits Trion, makers of Rift

Rift is blowing my mind. I just went back over what we've gotten for new content since June. It's... well, it's a bit daunting, really. And now they're coming out with a new 20-man raid with 2 of the major lore characters (the dragons Maelforge and Laethys) for guilds to wipe on... er, do battle with!

So, just to recap, here's what we've seen since June of 2011:

• Twisted artifacts (ground spawn goodies visible with a specially purchased ability)
• The Hammerknell 20-man raid with 11 bosses introduces tier-2 raiding
• PvP rifts
• Instant adventures: a queue for ongoing world event quests
• Drowned Halls 10-man raid
• Variant warfronts introduced
• Ember Isle zone introduced with ongoing invasions to fight and its own periodic zone events with improved rewards
• Caduceus Rise 5-man dungeon (2 dungeons, actually, an upper and lower) introduced as well as a later introduction of the unified 5-man master mode version with 11 bosses!
• Planar Attunement - continuing XP progression at max-level
• Rise of the Phoenix 10-man raid (tier 2)
• 3 2-man dungeons which can be run once per day
• A re-vamp of nearly all level 50 gear stat itemization
• PvP rewards and progression revamp
• PvP soul revamp into a planar attunement tree
• Lots of world events for holidays and patch releases
• Tons of new artifacts, pets and costume gear

Sound like the description of an expansion? It does to me. Here in Rift, we just call that "a nice way to round out the first year"!

Rumor has it that an expansion is in the wings for either later this year or early next year. At this pace, I have to wonder what an "expansion" would look like. Here's hoping it won't mean ripping up most of the game and re-designing it, the way WoW does...