Discussion: The Rikti Return!

Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.

The looming threat of the Rikti Invasion Force still hangs like a dark pall over Earth. Despite the best efforts of humanity, aggressive Rikti incursions still plague the planet. Advance warning systems indicate the Rikti are massing for attacks on the following dates throughout the year:

• Sept 26th through Oct 2nd
• November 14th through November 20th

Prepare for a desperate battle to save Earth from the Rikti Invasion Force! Aggressive Rikti forces will attack Paragon City and Rogue Isle with increased frequency at any time during the above dates! Some important items to remember about Rikti Invasions:<ul type="square">[*] When Zones within the cities are under attack, a world-wide alert will be issued by Vanguard. This alert will show up in your Chat window on the Event channel, warning you in which zone attack is imminent. If you haven't already, be sure to add the Event channel to one of your chat tabs.
[*] While the invasion is occurring, players do not receive debt while outdoors in an invaded zone.
[*] Those in that zone that do not wish to be at risk of Rikti attack are asked to take shelter immediately. They can do so by leaving the zone, or moving inside buildings or under cover (overpasses, parking garages, etc.).
[*] The combative inhabitants in a zone will move off the streets and to safer locations when a Rikti Invasion takes place.
[*] Rikti bombs appear to be unstable and not 100% reliable. Some do not explode on impact and only embed themselves in the ground. These bombs have been noted to detonate after a time, so take caution when you see these. They can be disarmed or delayed by inflicting damage upon them.[/list]

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Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager

If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.

Time to roll up your sleeves and squash some Rikti.
*locks and loads*

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Oh, those Rikti. They never give up, do they? Ah well, time for more extra-dimensional invader killin'.

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BackAlleyBrawler: I can't facepalm this post hard enough.
ShoNuff: If sophisticated = bro-mantically emo-tastic, then I'm going to keep to my Shonen loving simplicity dammit.

Welcome to Earth!

*pew* *pew* *pew*

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You best believe that Bruthaman will be taking the fight to these intergalactic interlopers.

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I'm only laughing on the outside
My smile is just skin deep
If you could see inside, I'm really crying
You might join me for a weep

My Roster

W00t!

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Some days I just wake up cranky. Today might be one of those days...

Lol time to get another rikti wepon....

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Huh. Just noticed that there's an invasion right around my birthday.

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The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.

Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?

A: You crash into another one.

Yay! Rikti! Haven't seen these happy people yet.

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Time to get the invasion badges on my new fire scrapper.

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With the increased stress on the servers from the Rikti Invasions, and the obviously unstable chat system, is NCSoft looking at all to upgrade the chat servers so that global chat channels don't keep dropping?

Since CoH will be using the Vivox voice technology, I'd strongly urge you guys at NCSoft to update and upgrade the chat servers, since those will be under increasing stress.

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[ QUOTE ]
Yay! Rikti! Haven't seen these happy people yet.

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Welcome to the forums! Watch out for those Rikti as a lower level. You won't get debt if you get defeated during an invasion, but if things get too hot, just find some overhead cover to avoid any confrontation.

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[ QUOTE ]
With the increased stress on the servers from the Rikti Invasions

[/ QUOTE ]
Somewhat true, at least for any invaded zones

[ QUOTE ]
and the obviously unstable chat system

[/ QUOTE ]
Obvious?

[ QUOTE ]
is NCSoft looking at all to upgrade the chat servers so that global chat channels don't keep dropping?

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't remember the last time the system dropped channels - at least not since the new chat system for I12 went live. Weird text formatting in places, yes, but no dropped channels or global friends (at least in my experience).

Also, AFAIK, the Global Chat server is a separate server altogether, so it isn't bogged down by invasion loading and the like (although invasion lag on your game server may delay sent and received messages).

[ QUOTE ]
Since CoH will be using the Vivox voice technology, I'd strongly urge you guys at NCSoft to update and upgrade the chat servers, since those will be under increasing stress.

[/ QUOTE ]
Since Vivox will be accessible for any NCSoft game, I doubt it will use the existing chat server hardware. It will probably be hosted on one or more separate servers (as opposed to messing with the chat systems for every NCSoft title).

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I just can't get excited about this.

I feel like these invasions happen too often. I feel like they go on way, way too long. But more importantly, this long after issue 10, I feel like they happen way, way too pointlessly. Part of me really just can't believe that week-long invasions are happening eleven months after tens of thousands of us have earned the "Save the World" badge for ending the Second Rikti War.

When the Second Rikti War began, I was sure, from the clues you'd left in the text, that this was going to be a one-time event. A big-news thing that we who were around at the time could brag about to the new people. I was completely convinced that issue 11, or at the very latest issue 12, would include some minor revisions to the Rikti War Zone, to reflect the fact that Hro'dotz and his Legacy of War no longer had the full support of the Rikti people, that they were fighting on in our dimension as criminals, not invaders, and that outside of that one neighborhood, the rest of the world had seen the last of the homeworld-native Rikti, or at least of their heavy weapons and warships, for years to come. I thought, and wrote at the time in a roleplaying piece at the time, that the Second Rikti War was going to have an end.

Not that it was going to be a permanent feature of the game.

This is especially annoying to me because the art department has still not, eleven months later, made the changes necessary to make Paragon City look like America at war. There are no war headlines on the newspapers people read everywhere, and the newspapers that come out of the newspaper boxes still show a folk singer with a guitar at a peaceful concert. Paragon City has exactly one American flag. People on the street still talk about superheroes as if they were celebrities and sports stars whose stats they follow, not as if they were war heroes. In Paragon City in June of 2008, Earth has been at war with aliens from another world bent on our conquest and assimilation for eleven long months and it's had no perceptible effect on anything but one neighborhood in Rhode Island, no affect on the rest of Paragon City, on America, on the world. That it's eleven months later and still, every 8 weeks or so, the aliens can hit us just as hard as they did in the weeks after July 24th and not only is no end in sight, but you're making it look like the war is now the permanent status quo, it will go on forever?

Suddenly I feel like an idiot for grinning like a fool and quoting the St. Crispin's Day speech back on July 24th of last year, for being excited about the chance for my main character to become a war hero. For feeling like something actually special was going on, not just a zone event, not merely a software upgrade, but an actual EVENT.

Not a weather feature. Which is all it really is any more, isn't it? People asked for weather, and we've got it. It's what passes for, and is merely treated as, a couple of days of severe thunderstorm-like weather. It won't do any lasting damage, few if any people are going to get killed, it just means that when it clouds up all of a sudden you should run indoors unless you're an idiot who likes playing in the rain.

I'm sorry I'm disillusioned, but it's just not what I was expecting, let alone hoping for.

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[ QUOTE ]
* When Zones within the cities are under attack, a world-wide alert will be issued by Vanguard. This alert will show up in your Chat window on the System channel, warning you in which zone attack is imminent.


[/ QUOTE ]

Did this not get moved to the new hero/villain event channels with i12? Now that we have such channels that's precisely the kind of thing that should be in there.

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Shouldn't it be obvious that the "war" isn't over InfamousBrad. And if you really think about the history and how things work there is no "2nd Rikti War" It's all one war and the only reason that there is an interval between invasion forces is they are trying to recover from loses and preparing another invasion attempt. An ending to a war implies that both sides met peacefully saying the other was the winner...which to my knowledge there hasn't been

On the other hand I think things like this should be done for other groups like Arachnos and the Kheldian wars...Just my opinion.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
* When Zones within the cities are under attack, a world-wide alert will be issued by Vanguard. This alert will show up in your Chat window on the System channel, warning you in which zone attack is imminent.


[/ QUOTE ]

Did this not get moved to the new hero/villain event channels with i12? Now that we have such channels that's precisely the kind of thing that should be in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, Vanguard messages are now in the Hero/Villain Zone Event Message channels.

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Back in 2005 or so, I had a military character mention the Rikti War with the aside, "which, if you haven't noticed, is still going on." And this is before they restored contact with and got reinforced by the homeworld.

As for being able to alter the gameworld by completing a taskforce? Hah, no chance. One, that would shut out everyone who hasn't done it yet, both old characters and ones yet to be created - which is pretty much exactly what "return engagements" like this are designed to avoid. Everyone gets a shot at doing the content, not just the first team or SG to complete it.

This is the nature of a massively multi-player game: the Devs may change the setting, but you never can, except in your interaction with fellow players. No matter how many times you "arrest" an archvillain, he'll still be there the next day or even an hour from now. No matter how many gang members you defeat, you can never clean up a neighborhood. Stop Lord Recluse's plan to take over the world, and he and his lieutenants will try again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that...

(Sounds rather Sisyphean, doesn't it? )

Second, this is the same game that still treats the true nature of the Clockwork, the Rikti (and the Lost), and Nemesis as big secrets that each player must uncover for themselves. Heck, a few weeks ago Agent McQueen sent one of my characters to "Prevent a Second Rikti Invasion." I'd say he's a little late, especially since I proceeded to zone into one in progress in Talos Island. If none of this stuff has been updated, why do you think the thing you want will be?

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My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

One update to the warning potential Rikti Hunters should take note of:

* When Zones within the cities are under attack, a world-wide alert will be issued by Vanguard. This alert will show up in your Chat window on the Event channel, warning you in which zone attack is imminent. If you haven't already, be sure to add the Event channel to one of your chat tabs.

Good hunting!

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Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager

If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.

I think the scale of the Rikti invasions have gone from being a world wide event to just another thing that sets Paragon City and the Rogue Isles apart from the rest of the planet. That's my fan wank to explain all that jazz anyway. Like any game it does require some effort of imagination of the part of players to keep it interesting.

Is it still possible to take down the Rikti invasion ships? I haven't heard about anybody doing that since test. If not maybe at some point they could change that back so at least there would be another extra layer of challenge to keep things fresh.

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Woo! Rikti time!

It's rather exciting when the skies turn green and Rikti start portaling in. I look forward to taking them down, even if I can't participate in the huge battles. Every little bit helps. (Though maybe I just like the sound that is made when the war walls go down. )

Thanks for the reminder, Lighthouse!

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I still enjoy them - the minute I hear that "WHOOOOSH" sound, the sky goes green, and the War Walls collapse, my first response, "OH YEAH" and the broadcast goes out for a Rikti team.

And THIS time, darn it all, I am recruiting three teams of lvl 50s on Triumph and we are taking a drop ship DOWN!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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[ QUOTE ]
As for being able to alter the gameworld by completing a taskforce? Hah, no chance.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's not even close to what I was expecting, what I was hoping for.

Let me compare and contrast two dates: September 16th, 2004, and July 24th, 2007. When Issue 2 went live, there was a global event called the opening of the Malleus Mundi. It marked the first contact between Earth Prime and the Shadow Shard, and it set up an important plot point for both the Halloween Events and the next year's opening of Croatoa. And I still hear people talking about how fun it was, and how proud they were to be there, to have helped fight off the only ever large-scale invasion of Earth by the Minions of Rularuu. And I don't begrudge them that; being present at a major turning point in history is as much of a "veteran's benefit" as anything they've added since. But nobody who joined the game after September 16th, 2004 will ever get to do that event again. (Presumably.) Does that mean that eight times a year, to be fair to the new players, they should schedule a Rularuu invasion event? No, of course not; the opening of the Malleus Mundi and first contact with a new and malevolent universe are big, game-changing events that only happen once.

That's what I thought 2007 was going to be like. That issue 10 would open, as it did, with these all-zones events where everybody banded together, regardless of level or side, to save Earth from the Rikti Invasion. It might even continue into issue 11, probably with a lot fewer zone-invasion event days. But then, I assumed, no later than issue 12 they were going to turn it off. All they'd have to do is rewrite some of the text in the LGTF, and maybe issue a differently-named badge for it from then on. They wouldn't even have had to change the RWZ; Hro'dotz and his Lineage of War could still dig in, still keep trying to conquer the Earth, still keep trying to repair that Rikti saucer. There'd still be need for an LGTF to defeat him periodically, and it would even make sense for those LGTFs to trigger single-zone invasion events, as the again-losing Hro'dotz goes into use-it-or-lose-it mode. (Not coincidentally allowing new players to earn the Watchman accolade.) It would still make sense for new heroes and villains to be able to join Vanguard, just as Vanguard continued to exist between the 1st and 2nd Rikti Wars. But only those of us who were playing during the Second Rikti War itself would be able to say, just as only people who were playing during the Rularuu Invasion can say, that we were there.

Heck, now if they wanted to, they could even offer both versions of it via Ouroboros. I know they have the tech; they accidentally almost did this with the Calvin Scott TF when flashbacks were in closed beta. I'm not asking them to lock anybody out of badges or content. I'm just asking for the game to have more visible, important, game-changing historical markers like the original Rularuu Invasion, and being not a little sad and annoyed that this didn't turn out to be one of them, like I hoped.

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I still enjoy them - the minute I hear that "WHOOOOSH" sound, the sky goes green, and the War Walls collapse, my first response, "OH YEAH" and the broadcast goes out for a Rikti team.

And THIS time, darn it all, I am recruiting three teams of lvl 50s on Triumph and we are taking a drop ship DOWN!

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that's some action I'd like to get in on

I still enjoy the Rikti invasions. I get a thrill from listening to all the poor ppl who are new to the game and don't browse the forums and have no idea what's going on just scream for mercy in broadcast chat because they just got pwned by a bomb or something - too fun! lol
keep em comin LH

*turns down graphics for imminent lag-fest*
*locks and loads*

Bring it on

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37 lvl 50s: 3 Brutes, 2 Stalkers, 2 Tankers, 7 Masterminds, 2 Scrappers, 3 Blasters, 3 Controllers, 3 Corruptors, Peacebringer, 2 SoA (Crab, Bane), 3 Defenders, Widow, 3 Dominators, Warshade, Fortunata

[ QUOTE ]
Yay! Rikti! Haven't seen these happy people yet.

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My advice: Get on, or form, a team of eight and head for the trainer in whatever zone is being invaded. As long as there is a high level emp or two in the crowd, you'll be in no danger, and the experience points will rain down on you like manna from heaven. During my first ever Rikti fight, my Rad/Rad def went from halfway between 3rd and 4th level to one or two bubbles shy of 5th. Almost a level and a half in less than 10 minutes, and she got a badge.

Beware though - Rikti are only the harbingers - the real enemy is... Lag! Dun-dun-DUN!

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(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon