Read More]]>

We wish Dimension Addicts a very happy fifth anniversary! Let’s get to know Kitasia and how she came to create one of the most amazing resource sites for folks who are… well… Dimension Addicts!

If you’ve ever thought about building out your dream home in RIFT, you’ll know that there is an incredible array of items – many thousands, in fact! Entering your empty Dimension for the first time may also be daunting. It’s tempting to just drop all your Dim items in a pile, but you can do so much more!

Where to start? Where can you get the bits and bobs to make YOUR perfect, personal zone? Most of all, HOW can you learn to build the epic works of art you’ve seen online in RIFT? Kitasia and her site, RIFTDimensionAddicts.com are here to help!

Hi there! Tell us a little bit about the person behind Kitasia, and how she came to play RIFT.

I am just a plain ordinary mom. Nothing special. I like to make crafts. I am really, really bad at it, but that does not stop me. You know the “ugly birthday card” kid? When you were in grade school and someone had a birthday, the whole class made them a card. There was always the one kid, who for the life of them couldn’t make a nice card – that was me – I am the ugly birthday card kid. I have lots of imagination. I can visualize so many beautiful things, but in real life, they just turn out to be the ugly birthday card. That doesn’t stop me!

My husband and I played open beta for many games; we enjoyed seeing what was up and coming. Naturally, when a new game called RIFT offered open beta, we tried it. The rifts, the invasions – I couldn’t believe how amazingly interactive the world was. You didn’t know what was going on – it was chaos and so much fun. When it was over, I was sad. I wanted to play more, unlike any beta we tried before. RIFT came with a one month sub so my husband bought it for me. After that 30 days, I asked if we could afford just one more month of Rift and the other game we had played for years. Just a few days into that month I told him we needed to let our friends know we were leaving our other game. I was hooked, and knew I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I don’t remember my first character. We were up waiting for servers to come up for the first time. We didn’t go get food or anything because we were so excited. They came up we played for about 15 min before we realized we were starving. So we ran to get food. We came back, logged in and my character was standing there in her undies. I had been hacked. I couldn’t kill anything with my fists, so I put in a CS ticket, and made a new toon… ~Kitasia~

Did you start out as an adventurer in RIFT? When did you discover your deep love of Dimensions? Did you ever end up getting to max level after you were distracted by your new hobby?

Definitely an adventurer. I loved questing and I am a total quest reader.

We heard the new expansion Storm Legion was going to have player housing I was like WOOT! I love having a house. When the expansion opened on the Public Test Server I discovered I could move items exactly how I liked, not simply placing things in a house. I almost fell out of my chair! I made this giant mushroom staircase with a cute little deck on top. When Storm Legion went live, I was either building or earning reputation points for items; we had very few items to chose from at that time and many were found on reputation vendors. Grinding rep has the natural consequences of leveling you, so I always seem to get max level very easily.
What drove you to the insanity of starting up the Dimension Addicts site?

Many years back, I was sick with a fever of 105 for almost two weeks. When I didn’t die, which was amazing in itself, I very quickly discovered many things were not “right” anymore. I couldn’t control my emotions. I ended up having super high empathy, I couldn’t do simple math, my memory was completely messed up and I got confused easily.

The worst part of all was that I could no longer understand what I was trying to look for on a website if it had the wrong colors, was too cluttered, or had articles jumbled everywhere. In turn, my illness made other things pop – I see things much differently now. It is like everything had a beauty intensified. With colors and smells, I could see things anew. Looking at rings on a tree stump, for example, I could see the glimmer in the wood that I never noticed previously.

Dimension items were easy for me to look at and find other uses for, beyond the obvious. I could visualize so much to be made out of the simplest items. With Dimensions, I found something I could do that I could make as beautiful as the world around me for the first time. Then came the “Joys of Dimensions” contest by Trion. You could win these beautiful Prize Blooming Faer Cages. I wanted them soooo badly that it hurt inside thinking I couldn’t get them. At that time, you could only have one dimension per character, so I ripped my dimension apart and started over ~Sweethearts~@deepwood was born. When the contest was over I didn’t know I had won anything. I started tearing down parts of my dim to make a bathroom in it, when up pops Elrar to let me know I had won the grand prize. I got my CAGES – I was jumping for joy. I was also informed I had won a computer… which took a while to sink in.

I grew up with the internet being very laggy. I didn’t know it was not normal to stutter through a game. I was playing Rift at 1 frame every 1 to 3 seconds. I was here when I was there. That was normal to me and I thought everyone played that way. When I received that computer, my tech jumped 15 years in one go. I could move dim items quickly and accurately. I had to build another dimension.

Because of my memory issues, I needed to use sites to tell me where items were, and what they were. Unfortunately, I was unable to understand the sites and ended crying out of frustration. Our friend Courdilla suggested that I make my own database so I could control the colors and how the items are listed. I laughed. I thought he was being funny and trying to make me feel better. I knew that making a database was impossible because I didn’t know the first thing about it. My husband and Courdilla said they could put the hard stuff together for me and I just needed to add the items. They said that was actually the hard part because it was time intensive.

At that time a group of us had been calling each other “dimension addicts” and someone made the chat channel in game a few days before, so I said let us call it RiftDimensionAddicts for fun. At this point, it was just going to be my personal space. So I made colors that worked for me and played at making a banner. It was just something fun to decorate and set up. I started adding images and learned simple Photoshop. I was learning new stuff, with help of many sticky notes. There were sticky notes everywhere. So many that my husband found a program called Sticky Notes just so I could keep them digital and off the floor. I was having so much fun. When it was done, it looked nice, so Courd suggested I share it with people. It was ok, even though we had 2 dim item sites already; it was something I could share with my friends.

Little did I know how many items would be added in the future, how many times the prices would change, or that the item names themselves would change.

How long do you spend on the site? Do you get any support from Trion staff on info and upcoming items?

Making the initial site took about a week or two. The updates however – some take longer to add than it took to make the site itself! Some updates we’ve had consisted of double what we had in the beginning. So I spend countless hours finding and adding each item. In the beginning, I had to find EVERY item in the game on my own to add it.

My first help from Trion was Morgana. I was so scared to ask her, but I needed help with getting a guild high enough to get some images of the guild dims. My stomach was turning and I was shaking scared, but I did it, and survived! Then Morticus opened communication channels to the dimensioneers. This helped so much – we were amazed by him and his help. Then in comes Tacitus, who just threw the doors wide open with “Here I am what do you need? I’m here to answer any question you may have, to fix anything I can, and be here for all you dimensionerds.” Tacitus has been invaluable to all of us. He takes extra care to help me find or understand where something can be found so I can add it. Brasse is always there with her support and kindness anytime I need her, too. I can not even begin to describe how grateful I am to everyone on the staff who takes the time to answer my questions and needs.

Are you among the first to submit Dimension bugs? Are you part of a group of likeminded Dim folks?

I do spend a lot of time on the PTS looking for dim bugs. Sometimes I don’t realize its a bug and just say something. I am always there the second I know the PTS has been updated with dim items.

I love being part of the dimensionaddicts channel in game. It is somewhere that all us dimensionerds can get together and get help and be help for others. Anyone can join it and chat with us.

How can other players help keep Dimension Addicts going?

Be sure to send me an email through the “contact us” button if you see any wrong information. I misspell, miss items, prices change, names change. I cant catch it all!

Also, we added a donate button to the front page. Because the database is so extensive we have to use a paid hosting service. Most sites offset this by adding advertisements to their pages. With the nature of why the site was created that won’t work. If you can’t donate its ok, don’t feel bad!
I would just like to say Thank You to everyone over the last 5 years with your support and kindness. Here’s to 5 more and beyond!

What is your one piece of advice for all RIFT players?

Always remember:

[Kitasia’s Dimension Addicts are part of the Trion Creator Program, and we’re so happy to have her with us! Learn more how you can join as a videographer, streamer or fan site operator!]

Read More]]>

[Master Dimensioneer Sparklynn Wolfsbane shared this incredible illustrated writeup of the Vostigar Peaks dimension item rollout. Mechs, rocks, plants and a whole new dimension to build out! This should “peak” your interest! Over to you, Sparklynn! ~Brasse]

Before I get to the spoilers, I just want to announce the new zone drops to Vostigar Peaks, that should already be live… some neat mech scraps that will give us a hand in building our own robotics… (pictured above)

I am excited to talk about the new dimension goodie box on the very near horizon, possibly as soon as Wednesday Feb 14th’s patch. What’s better than a box of chocolates?

MYSTERY BOX: VOSTIGAR CURIOSITIES

THIS IS NOT REPLACING THE LANDQUARIUM BOX! The Landquarium box is purchasable for a while longer, it just won’t be the spotlighted premium mystery box. Hopefully we will get word when it is closer to its time.

Perhaps you realize that “peak” in the intro was a pun and not misspelling!

[Brasse note: The Mystery Boxes are the Dimensioneer’s version of a Supply Crate – use with caution, building out dimensions is an addicting RIFT career all on its own!]

The new Dimension key that you may gain from the Vostigar Peaks box is “Magician’s Tower. It starts with a 400 item count, so should be classified as large, able to expand to 2,800 items at tier 5!

The dimension items you can obtain from the box most definitely match.

VOSTIGAR PLANT LIFE

The plants you may find within the box…

Hey, hold up, wait a second!? what am I going to do about all these new items taking up tons of bag space?

The solution lies in the coding of the items. Dev Tacitus took the time to code many items, individually, by hand, to be right-clickable to switch between forms. So one item might really have more versions within it. With the new Mystery Box, you can still get multiple drops of the same item within the same card (of the five cards you get within each Mystery Box).

For example, this particular tree has all the variations below within it. Look at how the tooltip changes from right-click to right-click, to see what I mean.

Now that doesn’t mean all of the trees will have 6 other variations within. Tacitus has said that all available assets have been coded in, and that some items simply don’t have all the variations.

In my opinion the trees are very lovely and will be fun to work with.

Does this mean more items will be right-clickable in the future? With how much work the coding takes, I really can’t say. I know for the number of options it presents within the same number of items, and how much less bag space it took versus Landquarium, I am GRATEFUL that this set of items had the variations option. I certainly hope for more in the future.

VOSTIGAR ROCK FEATURES

Much like the trees, the following rock styles are right clickable to produce their variations.

Another type of rock formation that this box brings forth are the standing stones, found once upon a time in Gloamwood….

CRUCIA’S CREATIONS

Perhaps morphing a custom landscape isn’t quite your cup of tea?

Well, this box has more to deliver! Another subset of the box is the Storm Legion building modules, which in many cases are, again, right-clickable to change form. Some of the items will make eye catching floor details.

The box includes a handful of new dreamweaving crafting recipes…..

WAIT! Recipes? How could they??? TACITUS!!!! 
Well Dev does hold the power, after all, to eventually release the recipes in a form outside of the box…

Don’t forget about how poison bubbles and hay terrain were eventually released.

For now, you will have to start farming/running minions, and helping your friends out if you get the recipes.

Most of the recipes are fairly common and easy to get…. except the Burning Papers recipe!
So if you do get the Burning Papers, consider yourself blessed by the gods of Telara!

And I’ve saved the best reveal for last…. the new NPCS!

Now, a quick disclaimer… the big guys in the first pic are going to stay put- they will possibly shift between legs, but for the most part stationary. NOT RIGHT-CLICKABLE.

The smaller guys in the next picture can switch between stationary, snapped, and not snapped.

All items, including those from the crafting can be found on my Public Test Server dimension “Fun with Flags” (so named as it still has the affinity banners in it).

To access PTS, start by going to the character selection within NA/EU and click to transfer a toon. When that menu pops up, in the bottom right should be a choice to copy to PTS. Once your toon is copied over, exit out of game and go to your Glyph game launcher. The top right will have a dropdown where you can select PTS (rather than NA/EU).

Once you have it downloaded/patched, and have loaded PTS, teleport to the Plaza Portal in Tempest Bay and talk to the green dimension vendor guy standing nearby. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FOR CREDITS ON PTS!!! Save your credits for your home server on RIFT Live!

Hope you get what you want from the box!

ALL HAIL CRUCIA!
ALL HAIL CRUCIA!
ALL HAIL CRUCIA!
ALL HAIL CRUCIA!
ALL HAIL CRUCIA!
ALL HAIL CRUCIA!

~Sparklynn Wolfsbane

[Brasse: if you have any questions for Sparklynn and the other Dimension building wizards, please post them on this forum thread! The Dimensioneering crowd are among the most helpful and supportive groups you could ever hope for in RIFT!]