Did you know... The unofficial history thread
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-03-23 01:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said "Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?"
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This is very cool! Ive had the nickname Rikki Tikki Tavi since I was 7 years old. I have a new found appreciation for the Rikti now
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Oddly enough, the first time I heard about the Rikti my thinking was, "Huh, sounds like what we worked on in elementary school."
I have never looked up the poem since, so my mind has morphed it into something completely different. Here is how I remember the Rikki poem, which is seriously screwed up(misspellings included! Also, I know it is not the real poem, this is just how my brain insists on remembereing it):
Rikki Tikki Tavo
No say Ravvo
Chilli chilli Sang Sang
Chitty chitty bang bang
Oy!
Please don't post the real poem in response to this; I like my version of it.
edit: Yes, I know it is not even REMOTELY like the Kipling poem. I never said it was, this is just all of my childhood memories being fused into one bastardized conglomeration.
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Rikki Tikki Tavo
No say Ravvo
Chilli chilli Sang Sang
Chitty chitty bang bang
Oy!
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*looks for one of those old fasioned straight jackets to put Pangea in* 
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- Crimson Death (a Fire / Devices Blaster) was the first player to hit maxlevel (40 at the time) two weeks after launch? Apparently s/he played 14 hours a day to get there... and exploited the slow powers in both Fire and Devices to stop enemies getting anywhere near them.
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Which is why caltrops was nerfed, and which exploits led to the AI of Knives endless spam of caltrops =P
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2) The Hydra in Perez used to be farmed for xp. 8 man teams would be constantly hydra hunting in the lake.
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... that Smoke Grenade had a misplaced decimal that caused massive debuffing (400% ?? 200% ?? can't remember the number)? Before they found the misplaced decimal, SG was considered over-powered so they added a To-Hit roll, so that you would miss someone standing right next to someone you hit. This made no sense due to how a real Smoke Grenade would work. THEN they found the mis-placed decimal and corrected it. However, they left the To-Hit roll on the power making it essentially useless. You could also stack your own SG's multiple times, which they also removed, which most players agreed with, except for those that had six-slotted it for recharge. Remember, there was no respec at that time so you were stuck with the slotting.
... that I'm too tired to think of any more of these right now?
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Even before respec, you could always trash your enhancements. You were stuck with six slots, but they could be any six you wanted.
Did you know that:
There was at one point a spot in the water north of Talos Island where pets of all types would spawn and attack each other.
It was without a doubt the weirdest thing I ever saw. I suppose it could have been a bunch of controllers hiding under the map, but I dont know why that would make the pets attack each other.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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Rikki Tikki Tavo
No say Ravvo
Chilli chilli Sang Sang
Chitty chitty bang bang
Oy!
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*looks for one of those old fasioned straight jackets to put Pangea in*
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Damn, it was the "Oy!" that did it, wasn't it?
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...that Behemoths used to spawn in Perez Park, before their minimum levels were scaled back?
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Is this a reference to the short time period where Behemoths were bugged and appearing in sub level 30 zones and missions? Around I1 or I2 I think, something went wonky, and Behemoths started appearing in all level ranges, when they were originally only a post-30 enemy (where they replaced Spectrals of all varieties).
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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Did you know...
That you used to still hear the sounds from the game after minimizing or alt-tabbing out? This was incredibly useful for people waiting for AFK players by listening to the "chat" sounds. I'm still miffed that they "fixed" this.
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I know! I want my sounds back! (but I'm too lazy to make a thread about it ^^)
Also, about the statesman spawning a monster issue: after he did that he lost all of his admin powers on the servers
Did you know -
This has to be one of the most interesting and entertaining threads I've read in a long time.
Keep the awesome information coming in! 
Did you know...
...that the Admin server was once hacked and numerous servers were forcefully shut down numerous times (Champion 4 times, Guardian twice, Pinnacle and Triumph once each I believe)? Some screenies are here and (warning, next pic contains cursing) here.
...that Giant Monsters from Monster Isle in northern Peregrine Island could be taunted all the way to the center of Portal Court and even the ferry in PI? There are now Police Drones in Portal Court specifically because of this.
...that Devs have access to a power pool no other characters do? It's named Resistance with a power in it named Resistance. It can be seen in their info screens, just like on players'. A screenie is here.
...I hold a record? I was the first person on any server (to forumites' knowledge) to have 400.0 Rep on a character. Rep was initially bugged so taht it reset everytime you left a zone and sometimes when you logged in/out. For some reason, for about a week, mine never reset. It reset the day after I hit 400.0 Rep and verified it was the cap through screenies.
...by clicking Elude over-and-over, SR Scrappers could do endless backflips?
...50'ing a Kheldian spawns a message that says, "Epic Archetype Unlocked!"? It still does this, but may be changed by the time some of our newer players 50 one 
- Ping (@iltat, @Pinghole)
Don't take it personally if you think I was mean to you. I'm an ******* to everyone.
It's a penguin thing. Pingu FTW.
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Did you know...
That you used to still hear the sounds from the game after minimizing or alt-tabbing out? This was incredibly useful for people waiting for AFK players by listening to the "chat" sounds. I'm still miffed that they "fixed" this.
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Me too. 
I really wish they'd restore that and add an option to have it on or off.
Resistance is the Mez Resistance that AVs get. Statesman, During the end-of-CoV-beta event, also had a Statesman power pool that contained, if I remember correctly, Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Ball Lightning, and Thunderous Blast. In addition, War Witch had a power, I can't remember what it was called, but it made her randomly phase shift while still being able to attack, like Carnie Illusionists and Diabolique. She had it because she's dead. (When I first found out War Witch was one of the heroes there at the raid, I immediately thought of the Space Mutiny episode of MST3K, and said to myself, "Boy, it sure was nice of them to let that dead girl come along to the raid.")
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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3) I2 was introduced with the Ralaruu invading Pargon City. Portals would open in all the zones and Ralaruu would pour out.
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AND did you know that these Rularuu were hideously broken?
The giant eyeballs would chain-mez anyone foolish enough to come near them, while the brutes would pound them into quivering red stains. They were so outrageously overpowered that a medium size group conning green could easily slay most solo heroes. If you wanted to kill Rularuu, you had to go find grey-conning mobs that gave zero or nearly zero xp (and yet were a pain to kill).
After this became apparent, almost everyone just left them the hell alone. So Paragon City's second Alien Invasion event consisted of a bunch of bored aliens standing (or floating) around in groups throughout the zones while the Brave Defenders of Paragon just swung in wide circles around them while on their way to things that might actually give then XP.
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Untrue! Many of us went looking for the portals in the lower level areas just to keep the new folks safe.
An organized team could take on a normal portal of even cons. They could only chain mez one person and heck, that's what clear mind is for
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
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Rikki Tikki Tavo
No say Ravvo
Chilli chilli Sang Sang
Chitty chitty bang bang
Oy!
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*looks for one of those old fasioned straight jackets to put Pangea in*
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Damn, it was the "Oy!" that did it, wasn't it?
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Nope... the "bang bang"! 
Did you know... that this is one of the nicest thread we had in a long long time. Thank you to all the contributors.
*Thumbs Up*
Did you know that when the Hollows was first introduced, there was a bug in one of the missions where patrolling Outcasts would "jump into the wall" and become untargetable, but they could still target and attack you. This was a defeat all mission and you had to petition a GM to clear the mission for you. This resulted in super long petition wait times (on the order of 12+ hours).
Since then, I've noticed that there has been a stronger emphasis on software quality coming from Cryptic w/r to issue releases that has not been lost on me.
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...I hold a record? I was the first person on any server (to forumites' knowledge) to have 400.0 Rep on a character. Rep was initially bugged so taht it reset everytime you left a zone and sometimes when you logged in/out. For some reason, for about a week, mine never reset. It reset the day after I hit 400.0 Rep and verified it was the cap through screenies.
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Talking of firsts, i was the first player to get all history badges. The last two to find was the one in the middle of a pile or rubble in boomtown and the one on the side of a building in the NE corner of the Rikti Crash Site. My teammate found the one in boomtown after about 10 hours of searching then about 5 minutes after going to the Rikti Crash Site i happened to stop to type something right in front of it. That's my pathetic claim to fame.
I remember that in at the very beginning (end of beta i think) some players were able to enter the Faultline Dam by using teleport and aiming behind the force wall.
Never seen it myself, and there was apparently nothing there, except of course the Dam. no mobs, no citizen and no contacts (of course^^).
You can still see the Dam if you go in faultline and go close to the southest wall. So the Dam trial is still there, ready to be opened. we just need the mobs to get in
The United Powers of Paragon
"Stupidity, if left untreated, will be self-correcting."
@Dr. Fyre
Liberty Server
Did you know...
... the DVD power prestige power slide (or whatever) was once able to be done in a quirky way if you had Flight?
You could have Flight on in a store or other 'inside' map, and zone, and you'd be power sliding along the ground?
I miss that. Neat visual effect.
Perez Park and Boomtown used to be very full of teams, in Update 0 and Update 1.
Did you know... that defenders were once advised never to slot or use attacks? That scrappers were considered to be gimped before sometime around Update 1? That Provoke from the Presence Pool was pretty much universally required of tanks, while Taunt was single-target and reviled as a useless power?
Currently: 50s (5), 40s (3), 30s (5)
Red and blue side, mostly Infinity, Virtue, and Freedom.
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The demons that spawn from the Orenbaga portals used to be worth XP. It was common for people to get a portal mission and form 8 man teams and stay in the mission for hours, rotating team members. The teams would stand on a slope, send in a tank to aggro the portal, and go to town on the demons. Magic origin heroes would also get great SO drops.
If you could stand the mind-numbing boredom, which I couldn't.
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...that the portals used to be really hard to kill and were worth no XP, or next to no XP?
...that the portals were changed to give XP at the time the Behemoths XP was taken away?
...after this PLing opportunity went away, people found a "glowie mission" that gave XP to every team member regardless of whether they were in the mission at the time or not? This led to Phase Shifters of any levels to be in high demand. I believe the XP was about 500/per glowie, regardless of level.
...at one point people found that the portal Banished Pantheon missions were "perma-farmable" by herding several Death Shamans together and just killing off their spawns with a auto-burn afk fire tank (sometimes with an empath granting fortitude and CM). Constant XP with noone required at the keyboard. Now the Death Shamans minions don't give any XP.
...at one point, power levelers used to only need to be lvl 41 to join in on a level 50 farm XP.
Remember when it would never ever have been considered possible that a controller could run a farm?
Remember when AVs really weren't worth the trouble of killing?
JD
@Flower Power / @Buffer Flower
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...after this PLing opportunity went away, people found a "glowie mission" that gave XP to every team member regardless of whether they were in the mission at the time or not? This led to Phase Shifters of any levels to be in high demand. I believe the XP was about 500/per glowie, regardless of level.
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Actually what made it such a nasty exploit was that the xp scaled to your level, so a level 25 hero would gain much more xp then a level 5 hero, but both were about the same percentage of xp compared to what they needed to next level.
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Super Leap was once Leap and Long Jump, the former being the height of a jump and the latter being the distance?
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Thats pretty cool. I can only imagine how that might have played out in PvP.
I am a bit foggy here but.
I remember when missions (including caves) did not have doors to open.
There was no automatic AFK in zone areas and it didn't boot you. Many said this was added because of the PI PLers??
Great thread and a lot of things I forgot since beta.
"if I am guilty for what goes on in my mind, than give me the electric chair for all my future crimes"
Pretty sure I remember seeing a red name post confirming this:
There is a picture of the Dev team behind the desk in the lobby of the hospitals Hero side.
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-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said "Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?"
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This is very cool! Ive had the nickname Rikki Tikki Tavi since I was 7 years old. I have a new found appreciation for the Rikti now