If you came into RIFT late in its life cycle, you missed Hammerknell. If you weren’t raiding when Hammerknell was super relevant to the game’s upgrade cycle, same deal. The point is that Hammerknell was once a favored raid, but like all endgame content subject to a themepark MMO’s ever-expanding cap, it became less relevant. But the next RIFT patch is turning that trope on its head by revamping the old dungeon, and a new post on the official site explains just what it took to update the raid for the modern game.
See, Hammerknell might be a classic, but it was designed for a different era, with very different combinations of souls and class abilities. It also had several bosses that haven’t aged quite as well, plus other fights that mechanically no longer work either because of the tools available to players or because of major changes to acceptable design solutions like falling damage. Take a look through the whole posting to get an idea of how the team behind the game took an old favorite and made it something relevant to the newer game.
[Source: 3.2 Echoes of Madness Preview – Hammerknell]
