Saga of Ryzom Event

Meant to post about this earlier.... Saturday evening, there was a continent wide event run on the European Server in the MMORPG Saga of Ryzom. Luckily I was around when the event kicked off.

The event was announced throughout the continent of Fyros, with a small description about an invasion force kidnapping a number of Levier nobles. The Leviers are a band of nomadic patrollers who wander the wastelands and deserts of Fyros. The event lasted about 2 hours and at the start of it, we noticed that a lot of the resident herds of animals and insects started dissappearing. The call to arms was made, and every player in the region was asked to search out the Frahar kidnap groups and set their prisoners free. The Frahar are bat winged apes that have facial that even Noddy Holder would be proud of. Everyone started migrating to the major city Pyr, to collect up and form searching parties, and on our way to the city, we were attacked by quite a large invasion force. The way Nevrax implemented the invasion was quite effective. There seemed to be spawn points peppered all over the land and if a player or group of players approach it, the invasion force spawns. The invasion group was made up of a large number of these monkies, and their companion guard and patrol dogs. So to the players moving around, you would get a horde of angry beasts coming over the next dune and making a charge at you. Very effective. The invasion groups seemed to be quite low level at first, so we could cleave through them quite easily, but the closer you got to key event areas their level and quantity raised quite sharply. What impressed me the most was the event was continent wide, and everyone from level 1 to level 200 could take part in it. The invading forces were indeed very intimidating, and if you spotted them forming at the base of a hill, and then they detect your presence, a whole stream of these nasties amassing and charging towards was a very unsettling sight. There were three or four kidnap camps, as far as we could tell from the region chat, guilds were grouping together and performing area searches. Initial confusion slowly turned into determined searching and hunting down the camps. Once all kidnap camps had been liberated, there was a call to say that the 'boss' had arrived on the planet and was sending in more monkey patrols. We got close to the boss camp, but were swamped by really nasty monkies.

I haven't been on a MMORPG event as such, not one with a real story behind it and a continent wide level of co-operation. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and although there was little experience points to be gained at first, because the invading forces were quite low level, there was a sense of city defence and a purpose to save the Levier troops. The only downside I could see was the fact that they removed most of the normal flora and fauna, so you were more or less thrown into the event, without the choice of sticking around the area you were hunting in. I should explain the continent level of segragation. Basically, in Ryzom the four races don't get to see each other, or travel to each others cities very easily. We're emerging from our beaten down state to fight against the kitin horde. To get to the other races continents involves a nasty run and usually lots of deaths and lots of luck is needed. So the isolation is real. Nevrax seem to be running different events for the different continents. So the Matis had an event about a week ago, where they were swamped by an insurgence of starship trooper like bugs. Not sure how often these events will happen, or how they will differ from the invasion model, but I'm looking forward to the next one.