Rift: Planes of Telara Q&A

The folks at Ten Ton Hammer caught up with Trion World studio lead (and long-time MMORPG veteran) Scott Hartsman for a three-page Q&A about their newly renamed fantasy MMORPG Rift: Planes of Telara. Apparently there's going to be a bit of a steampunk element to the game, too:
Ten Ton Hammer: Does that steampunk or technological twist tie into your class choices as Defiants vs. Guardians?

Scott: It impacts it. Right now our class system is something that's really cool, we're love it a lot, but since we are still pre-alpha, we do have the ability to say that it's just not quite baked enough to the point where we're ready to talk about it. We've played through a lot of our classes and, as you saw, we've been demoing lots of classes. The idea is to make sure your side does impact you, it just might not be exactly through your classes.

The sides have their own cities, so it's not like everyone's in the same city and we all just happen to hate each other. The Defiants are on one side, they're southern, Guardians are northern. And the things that go on in the cities will be fairly reflective of their backgrounds and aims in life.