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The Goo event so far seems very well done mechanically. The invading creatures are all around the continent in question and definitely threatening, but not blocking any of the holy dig spots or newbie sanctuaries that people tend to get their caster pants in a knot over.

And the spread out NPCs with clues are IMO the best way yet to introduce the story elements as really part of the game world. It's not detached from the game, it's not a huge infodump, it's not something you miss if you can't log in at the right time, and it gives the players an opportunity to take some initiative.

However, I would be disappointed storywise if this turned into another case of the Goo being used by a homin faction, as it seems to be going. The Goo was introduced into the game as being a major threat on it's own, that blighted entire regions and turned peaceful animals and even homins into it's weapons. It was even said to have a primitive intelligence to it.

Quote from the lore: "A creature infected seems to become a lot stronger. It also looses its self-control and seems to be under the control of the Goo."

But in the entire history of Ryzom, everytime the Goo has been relevant it's been only as a tool in the hands of dangerous homins, as if it was just a potent toxin or deliberately ignited wildfire. This actually makes it a lot *less* scary imo.

I feel the Goo has the potential to be much more. In the Ryzom story it basically fulfils the role of what tvtropes calls "the Virus", also known as the Undead/Zombies/Zerg/Borg/etc. The drama with these entities is that it A. turns everything into enemies and B. it threatens to overrun the entire world.

Though the Goo has one big difference with all those other examples; Usually the infected creatures are the primary vector for the Virus, and the blighted landscape is just a side-effect. For the Goo, the infected landscape is the primary vector, and the infected creatures are just a side-effect.

This just makes it even more potentially chilling to me. Firstly, the landscape itself is trying to kill us, and secondly, the infected creatures we fight aren't even the primary threat, they're in fact pretty inconsequential to the Goo.

Anyways, I don't feel the Goo is living up to this potential. We've seen a bit of B, with the Goo overrunning half of the Verdant Heights last year. But also back then, it turned out it was just used as a weapon by the Marauders. So it felt more like half the forest was simply turned into a poisonous wasteland, than that it was taken over by a sentient malevolent force that might eat us all. It might just as well have been forestfired or irradiated

As for A, this was very well done in an official Ring scenario one Halloween. During the scenario we tried to find a bunch of Zoraï citizens that had tried to escape the kitin, through a trail of clues like diary pages that gave us some emotional involvement in rescuing them...

...only to find at the end they'd been turned into Goo zombies and we had to kill them.

That's what the Virus is for, for forcing characters to fight and kill their former friends and allies. Herbies and plants aren't usually aggressive, true, and gibbaï don't usually attack in groups, but we still kill them all the time, so it's not that dramatic. The real power of the Goo would be to have it corrupt something we don't usually fight. A friendly tribe, the population of a town, Kami and Karavan, event characters we've come to know and love, etc.

Or imagine if the Goo was even intelligent enough to selectively infect government officials while hiding the fact that they're infected..

Anyways, just something I wanted to get out there, though I'd actually recommend the Event Team not to pay much attention to me as I doubt many players care about the story part :P

Nah, the Goo probably isn't like the Swarm in Michael Chrichton's Prey, though it makes a neat story =)

It seems localized, unless spread intentionally, and the infected (before the current event, at least) seem concentrated in areas that already have Goo. The infected from the current event that I've seen have also been in close proximity to the existing Goo.

The future plans posted a few months ago that mentioned the new Marauder city also mentioned that the Goo was going to become dynamic. Perhaps the two are not related?

Unfortunately, the lack of information about the Goo helps foster the dismissive attitude toward it. There are occasional Goo creatures and Goo events and Karavan-aligned tribes are experimenting with it, but beyond the minimal amount of lore and other sources that discuss the Goo, it's easy to just treat it as something that hurts when you step in it and maybe an occasional plot element, and not much else.

I guess, since it spreads via sap veins, we could have it pop up in, say, Yrkanis, spread its Creep (to use your Zerg example) and pollute the city, and turn the Butcher of Thesos into Kerrigan-like super creatures =)

That would be fun =)

One reason so little is known about the goo is because those who would research its origins and possible countermeasures are viewed with extreme suspicion by many on Atys, and even actively persecuted by the Zoraii and their allies .
Thus any knowledge will be slow to make its way to those who could use it to effectively counter the goo (if such knowledge exist), and cooperation between different scientific groups is hard to establish.
Even the Matis Royal Botanist seemed wary of exploring the subject when I broached it to him a long time ago during a botanical expedition in Aeden Aeqeous, when I mentioned the goo corrupted stinga in Darkmoor to him (the existence of which was apparently unknown to him at the time).

As I understand it the goo itself is a corrupted form of sap, though what causes that corruption or how to counter/remove it I don't have a clue about.

Unfortunately, the player-controlled event "NPCs" aren't a good source of information. They're just like the rest of us, limited in their knowledge.

From the limited bits I've seen, at least in the Zorai writings (very hard to follow sometimes), the only comparison I've been able to come up with is that of Matter (everything we know) to Antimatter. When the two meet, both are destroyed. Except, the Goo continues and basically consumes the non-Goo.

The bit you quoted, Marelli, indicates that the Goo changes things (which we knew). The Silan Kami missions discuss that creatures, once infected, can't be "re-joined to Ma-Duk" or something similar. Since Kami appear to be spirits of the planet itself, that could mean something as simple as infected organisms won't decay and biodegrade, thus completing the circle of life. Anything the Goo touches becomes incompatible with the circle of life on Atys, somehow.

(Ever feel like you're on the verge of figuring something out? Sometimes it feels like I can almost reach out and touch the answer, and then it vanishes. Rather frustrating)

I agree with you you totally Marelli. It would be nice if we were able to actively pursue topics within the lore.

In light of this latest Goo outbreak, I think they they should let us rebuild a scientific outpost dedicated to the research of Goo.

Have you all been following the IC thread tying together the sightings of the planted info-bits? Gorran is making some really good points which might allow a clever events person to follow up on the obvious Marauder threat while getting the Goo involved as a "character" on its own.

One of the problems (in terms of the overall design of the game) is that a dynamic Goo presence would almost certainly involve flooding dig spots in Witherings, or having eruptions in the middle of Bounty Beaches and at that point you need to have some way of putting it down that doesn't go away like the Purified Sap used in the Marauder event in Verdant Forests last year did.

A research post to study the Goo, possibly set up in the Void Highlands, could be a great thing to build. Heck, if I needed to learn occupations to take part, I might even study those (to me) uninteresting additions.

-- B

Yeah, the Goo dynamically overtaking regions would be awesome but is just pie-in-the-sky.

I do think the original devs missed out an on opportunity by not making a high-end Goo zone though - like the Kitin Lair but with Goo being the threat. A region that's in the far stages of Goo-contamination, landscape entirely like the edges of the jungle except you don't take damage just by walking there so that we can actually explore the region. That's what I miss - actually being able to walk around a Goo-ecosystem. All creatures being Goo creatures with lots of them being advanced mutations, random goo-eruptions and goo-clouds that you have to avoid.

They could've had a zone like that in from launch, but I suppose they planned to make that later and there never came a later.

Our current owners just don't have the resources to make something like that anymore, hence why I only comment on the story part.

What kind of resources DO our current owners have to work with, and have there been any statements as to what kind of future development this game will receive? I've made a lot of suggestions since I've been back that could add new, Ryzom-appropriate content to the game, including providing much needed end-game content, but it all could need some involved developer time.

If it's already known that any future enhancements need to be scaled down drastically, then either we keep that in mind, or propose suggestions that are small and stand on their own yet can work together for something bigger over time. Some things (like the music creation system, or Kitin battlezone) might never be possible in such a situation.