Hello, Ascended!

What an amazing year it's been. As we approach RIFT's first full birthday, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the things that have happened since launch and discuss the thinking that will shape the year to come.

If you're reading this, chances are you already know that we think about MMOs differently than everyone else. To us, everything is about the quality of the service, the speed of meaningful updates, and the relationship that combination creates with you. We never forget that you are the reason we do everything we do.

In our last big Producer's Letter, we talked about the kinds of themes we were aiming for. We talked about making more story-based adventure available to more people (which surfaced in the form of Chronicles and Slivers), unique and better ways to play with others as easily as possible (which took the form of Instant Adventures, Onslaughts that added new build-and-defend gameplay to Ember Isle, and the largest zone events we've ever created), and ongoing advancement that occurs even after you hit level 50 (which then arrived in the form of Planar Attunement).

In addition to those other key elements, RIFT (Rift Gold)saw more features, content and gameplay added than many games will deliver in a full-blown expansion.

We released Ember Isle, the biggest zone in the game to date, along with the largest dungeon to date, Caduceus Rise.
Ember Isle was particularly important to us, since it showed off our ability to level up the look of world zones, and demonstrated an important iteration toward a new way of doing zone content - A way where dynamic content, events, and story quests are blended together more closely than what came before.
Five new raids debuted, for groups of both 10 and 20 players: River of Souls, Gilded Prophecy, Hammerknell, Drowned Halls, and Rise of the Phoenix.
Celebration weekends that provide a way to get your friends checking out the game easily, while adding bonuses to our esteemed subscribers.
Master Mode difficulty for one dungeon (as of the time of this writing) with more on the way soon (edit: NOTE! This post was written for translation before 1.7's release)
Alternate Gameplay Warfronts and Weekend Bonus Warfronts, Post-50 soft bracketing, PvP Rifts, and world PvP bonuses. And a new warfront entirely: Library of the Runemasters
A new world event every update, each with its own new zone event and frequently its own rifts
A new Addon system that enables creators to add some really great things to the game. From buff management, to custom layouts, to outfit management, to auctions, and countless others!
A new Costume system, giving you the ability to look like what you want to look like
A Veteran Rewards program that rewards loyal subscribers, and Ascend-a-Friend that gives us a way to say thanks when you get your friends on board
That is not even counting the hundreds of quality of life and playability improvements we've brought to the core game.