Trion Worlds has released a new developer video previewing the new 3 faction PvP in RIFT that will feature an open-world PvP similar to Guild Wars 2 World vs. World.

RIFT three faction PvP will be available on the Public Test Shard on Thursday, 17-May @ 4:00PM PDT (11:00PM GMT).

Conquest PvP will allow players to engage in massive, cross-shard battles. Players will align with one of three new factions (Dominion, Oathsworn & Nightfall), earn rewards and bonuses for your team and earn bonuses that can be used outside of Conquest. Crafters will also play a vital role in every Conquest battle.

This looks to be very similar to the Guild Wars 2 World vs. World PvP, however that does not make it any less exciting for existing RIFT players wanting to do some cross-server PvP. Excellent job Trion, this actually makes me want to log into RIFT tonight.

Official Announcement

Public Test Shard Getting Started

Bioware has released a new trailer for their upcoming PvP warzone called Novare Coast, due to be released in Update 1.2.

Many SWTOR players have made a huge investment into their current PvP gear, just to find out that their gear sets will no longer going to be sold after Update 1.2. For players that have completed their full sets this may not be a huge deal. For other players that have their sets half done this patch may prove problematic. Today I want to summarize some of these changes and how they will affect you as a player.

First with Update 1.2 Centurion and Champion PvP gear will no longer be sold, however you will still be able to keep and equip the pieces you have already purchased. Battlemaster gear will still be available with modified stats (new purchases only). There will be also be 2 new PvP gear sets called Recruit and War Hero.

Set Name	Expertise
Centurion	469
Champion	650
Recruit	896
Battlemaster	1164
War Hero	1291

Recruit

The Recruit PvP set is going to be purchasable with credits, and it will allow fresh level 50s to quickly get geared up and have an easier time competing with other level 50s. This is perhaps my favorite change to Update 1.2 as I had a real shock the first few PvP matches I played as a fresh level 50. A full set of Recruit PvP gear will cost 320,000 credits, with the main-hand piece being the most expensive at 38,600 credits. This new set will give you 896 Expertise in total, which will give you a better PvP bonus from the now defunct Tier 1 Centurion and even Tier 2 PvP Champion sets.

Now here is the bad part, currently Tier 2 PvP gear set made for fairly good PvE gear. Not as good as Tier 2 PvE gear, but certainly better than most Tier 1 PvE pieces. Champion PvP gear was also much easier to get, and many players elected to grind Champion gear as their first post 50 PvE/PvP gear. Recruit gear will only be a blue rating 128 gear (rather than Champion purple 136) so it will no longer be as good a choice for easy PvE gear for new level 50 players. On the other hand you will be able to buy it with credits so it may be ok for very fresh level 50s.

Because of its high expertise rating the Recruit set will be fairly good for PvP so I would suggest that players with Centurion PvP gear upgrade immediately. Champion gear will be a bit tougher to call. If you keep your Champion gear you will have less expertise but more stats in total. Recruit gear also lacks the set bonus found on Champion gear. My guess is I will keep my Champion gear and immediately start earning Battlemaster gear.

Battlemaster

Battlemaster gear is getting more expertise compared to the pre 1.2 versions. Some of the other stats are getting a buff, while some other ones are lowered. However the largest change is the fact that you no longer need to have rank 60 valor in order to purchase this gear and that you can purchase this gear directly with WarZone commendations. The total cost of a full Battlemaster set is 12,475 commendations with the most expensive Mainhand piece costing 1550 commendations.

War Hero

War Hero is the highest tier PvP gear and will also not have any valor rank requirement. However it will require you to trade it your old Battlemaster gear ensuring that everyone grinds Battlemaster before getting the better War Hero set. This new PvP tier will require Ranked Warzone commendations rather than the regular Warzone commendations. There will also be a Rated version of War Hero sets that will simply look slightly different and will have a PvP rating requirement to wear. The unrated War Hero set will cost 28250 Ranked WarZone commendations with the most expensive mainhand piece costing 3475 Ranked WarZone commendations.

Conclusion

My advice is if you still have Centurion gear, dump it for the new Recruit gear as soon as possible. If you have Champion gear, keep the pieces you have but fill in the missing pieces with Recruit gear. If you have a full Champion set start working on your Battlemaster PvP gear right away. Players that currently have a full Battlemaster set things get a bit harder as the new Battlemaster gear has higher expertise from the pre 1.2 versions. It will be a tough decision to try to grind War Hero gear with existing lower rated gear or re-grind the Battlemaster gear before going for War Hero.

Joveth Gonzalez the Associate Online Community Manager for SWTOR has made a post notifying the SWTOR community that Bioware is currently working on the PVP issues indroduced in today's patch 1.1

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1790513#edit1790513

To better show the issue Republic players face here is a video that show PVP on Ilum from a Republic player perspective.

Imperial players don't see what the problem is and genaraly enjoyed the patch.