While your ZAM Rift team has been working on quest series guides they noticed a couple of interesting game-spanning stories.  One is the story of Kira and Uriel, which also ties into the Agent of the Unseen achievement.  Our lore junkie Bludwyng brings us the entire tale:

Kira is the Master Assassin of The Unseen, the dirty works department of the Defiant, and Uriel is a princess, the only daughter of the High Chief of the Bahmi. Together they are friends and investigators, like Nancy Drew meets La Femme Nikita, and they think their boring assignment just uncovered a traitor in the midst of the Defiant! They just might be on to something...

Read more in Kira Thanos and Uriel Chuluun, a story, at ZAM Rift!

Remember last summer when a certain ZAM staff member wrote an editorial questioning whether Final Fantasy XI would crumble next to the magnificence of Final Fantasy XIV?

Yeah, so about that…

When I wrote my editorial last summer about the coming of Final Fantasy XIV, I figured many players would leave Vana’diel to check out Eorzea. I thought Square Enix was done adding significantly new content to Final Fantasy XI, and that the powers that be would rather have adventurers traipsing around Eorzea. After all, what kind of self-respecting gaming company would want its biggest cash cow chained to obsolete Playstation 2 technology?

Unfortunately, the launch of Final Fantasy XIV failed. The game is stunningly beautiful but still extremely low on content. Although the game still has a chance to rebound with a strong Playstation 3 release and continued tenacity from Naoki Yoshida, the game’s new producer, we may always wonder “what might have been” when pondering the game’s catastrophically premature release.

But today I'm wrestling with bigger questions -- could Final Fantasy XI be regarded as Final Fantasy XIV's biggest competitor? If so, would the folks at Square Enix be willing to cannibalize one game to save the other? And if the choice had to be made today, which game would be more worth saving?

Discuss this in the ZAM forums.

We're working hard to give you all the tools you'll want in our already robust database. Our latest update brings you discovery leaderboards, fully updated to the most recent data released by Trion. Search by guild, player or shard with additional filtering options for name, sort order and much more.

Check it out and drop by the forums to give us your thoughts and suggestions! Continue reading below for an in-depth description of this new feature.

Registration for Sony Online Entertainment's 2011 Fan Faire has just opened! The Fan Faire will run from July 7th - 9th at Bally's Las Vegas. Events include developer panels, tournaments, live quests and much more.

This year registrants have the choice between a Friday only, Saturday only or an All-Access pass for the entire weekend. The All-Access pass includes digital copies of EverQuest and EverQuest II's next expansion pack, special in-game items and access to special evening events at Fan Faire. All three types of passes include access to the showroom and developer panels, gift bags and daytime events.

Register for the All-Access pass by May 6th and get the Early Bird Special pricing of $119 USD! Head over to the official SOE Fan Faire website for more information.

Antonica found itself bustling with activity early on April 1st as the Far Seas caravans arrived to celebrate the Qeynos City Festival. The local specialties merchant has stocked up on four new items that are sure to please any Qeynosian. Also featured this month is the Antonica Aether Race course, which awards a prefix title to those who can master their race times. The festival will continue to run until 11:59pm PDT on April 7th.

Bristlebane Day is still being celebrated, with the main parts of the event occurring in Enchanted Lands. One new quest, Gnary a Joke to Tell, sends players off on a pirate adventure. Crafters can enjoy a new recipe book as well as a red shiny collection that harkens back to memories of old. Bristlebane Day will run until 11:59pm PDT on April 11th.

The phases of the moon will reveal the mysterious grottos again later in the month and their denizens will gladly offer you some tasks to perform. Moonlight Enchantments will run from 12:01am PDT on April 20th until 11:59pm PDT on April 21st. No new items are expected to be on the grotto merchants.

Rift Podcast episode 37 was just released, and this one features a very special guest: Cody "Micajah" Bye, ZAM's director of content! Micajah joins podcast hosts Arithion and Desikis, as well as Senior Community Manager Cindy "Abigale" Bowens and Assistant Community Manager James "Elrar" Nichols, to discuss all sorts of topics stemming from Update 1.1.

The group talks about the River of Souls world event, dailies and plaques, class changes and customer support improvements. During the discussion about the world event, Elrar made a couple interesting points. He confirmed that the other phases of the event will be shorter than the current phase, and he also discussed how the event will leave a lasting scar on Telara:

"Due to this event, there's going to be a scar left on Telara. These events, these colossi will continue to return even after the event has ended and it will be part of the rotation of invasions that players already see in-game. These rewards are going to become much more rare, but not all of them are going to be gone forever. Pretty much just what you can purchase on the vendor."

Listen to Rift Podcast episode 37 for all the details and to put a voice to Micajah's awesome avatar.

Called "Console Commands" in the game manual, slash commands can be used in chat channels or inside macros.  Use them to command your pet, equip your favorite set of gear, save raid and guild information, and control your custom chat channel.  We also cover % and @ codes.

Here's everything we know about every slash command we've found!  Please enjoy ZAM's Rift Slash Commands Guide!

GuildPortal, the internet's hottest guild website host, has joined the growing list of fansites which are using the our tooltip code, which allows sites to display item tooltips from the ZAM Rift database.  They have integrated the powerful ZAM Rift tooltip code into their WYSIWYG Editor so your guild can painlessly display your loot.

You can find complete information on this simple and elegant tool on our Rift Tooltips page, and don't forget to check out GuildPortal for all your guild's webhosting!

Like it or not, auto attack will be implemented in Final Fantasy XIV.

In a post on the Lodestone Web site, FFXIV battle lead Akihiko Matsui said auto attack is necessary to "create more interesting and strategy rich battles as well as solve the tediousness of having to spam a button." Auto attack was a cornerstone element of the battle system in Final Fantasy XI, but Matsui said the FFXIV development team is considering a faster attack delay than adventurers experienced in Vana'diel.

"The objective here is not to lower the battle difficulty," Matsui wrote in his post. "The main objective here, when thinking about battles rich in strategy, pce and exhilaration, is instead of having to time regular attacks, we will be preparing situations that require proper timing of abilities, magic, and weapon skills."

Check out Matsui's post in reply no. 194 of this thread on the Official Square Enix FFXIV forum.

Discuss this in the ZAM forum.

The River of Souls event launched Wednesday and your ZAM Rift staff, like most of you, dived in!  We've been following long-standing ZAM tradition and documenting the event as we go.  Whether you need a hint or would like to contribute, we invite you to enjoy our River of Souls Guide - a community project - at ZAM Rift!