Posts tagged scott-hartsman 
'Just getting started': Scott Hartsman rallies the RIFT faithful for 2012
"What an amazing year it has been," begins Scott Hartsman in his one-year state of the game report for RIFT. Citing Trion Worlds' ability to "think about MMOs a little bit differently than everyone else," Hartsman recalls the mountain of accomplishments of the previous year, including the seven ...
'RIFT Lite' announced, makes first 20 levels free to all [Updated]
Trion Worlds has just announced that its fantasy MMO RIFT, which released to wide acclaim just 11 months ago, will today launch an introductory version of the game known as RIFT Lite. Similar to Warhammer Online's Endless Trial and World of Warcraft's Starter Edition, RIFT Lite will allow "anyone ...
Trion plans RIFT's 2012 attack strategy
With 2011 locked in as a highly profitable year for Trion Worlds, the studio is eager to prove that it didn't pull off a one-trick-pony with RIFT by leaping into 2012 with guns blazing. Scott Hartsman emphasized that the studio's emphasis on having a responsive live team that quickly and ...
Massively Exclusive: The story and presents behind RIFT's Fae Yule
All in-game holiday festivals were not born equal, but they do seem to share a family resemblance when it comes to being merry and bright. RIFT's Fae Yule is but one of many, many Christmastime MMO holidays that we're witnessing this month, but the team at Trion Worlds is looking to make it stand ...
Scott Hartsman: RIFT going F2P would be a 'large net negative' for the game
With so many former subscription-only MMOs turning to free-to-play/hybrid business models these days, one might assume that Trion Worlds feels the pressure to do the same with RIFT -- but that is far from the case. Speaking with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman confirmed that Trion has "absolutely no ...
Enter At Your Own Rift: The big takeaways from GDC
After dining on enough beef brisket to feed an army of hungry cowboys, I returned from Austin's GDC Online to chip away at the Ashes of History world event quests. RIFT had a nice showing at the GDC Online Awards ceremony, walking away with awards for Best Online Technology and Best New Online ...
GDC Online 2011: RIFT's Scott Hartsman on surviving and thriving in today's MMO climate
Recently, we took time to look back on the past six months of RIFT's milestones, and this year at GDC Online, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman sat down for a question-and-answer session to do the same thing. While we've seen the results of Trion's post-launch efforts, Hartsman ...
Enter at Your Own Rift: A six-month retrospective
About a year ago I was on a little show called The Rift Podcast with Arithion, Desi, and Trion Community Manager Cindy Bowens. It's hard to believe, but at the time, there was just a trickle of buzz surrounding RIFT and only a few details were available about the game. We're now six months into ...
Enter at Your Own Rift: Hal Hanlin and Scott Hartsman on Update 1.5
Chronicles, Planar Attunement, Veteran Rewards, a World Event, and a hint about a brand-new area coming soon are just the tip of the iceberg in RIFT's 1.5 update. Ashes of History is due to launch next week, and Design Producer Hal Hanlin and Executive Producer Scott Hartsman offered up lots of ...
Enter at Your Own Rift: How gold farming really hurts the economy
Recently, Trion Worlds CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman talked to Gamasutra about how gold farming is a much bigger threat than we assume, particularly because of the large amount of credit card fraud. Those who played RIFT at launch probably recall the large wave of hacked accounts ...
