I would agree. So why not make them non aggressive? They'll still be hunted, for we sure as Nil don't want Nil demons or Celestia angels in Etherwilde! If they've wandered that far, maybe they'll even not call for help.

I like the idea of having the rifts move.. that way they wouldn't be a garunteed route of attacking.. but if you did happen to find one, you could rally a force and use it for a quick attack.

Maybe have them shift every few hours or so? I think that would work a lot better with the "planar instability" bit, and be a whole lot more fun with less possibility for abuse.

The funny thing is that all of our raids are done in response to a Glom raid

But yeah, I don't think the rifts are a blanketly bad thing, I just wish they were better placed. Also, the ones in the Etherwilde and Etherglom should go to Earth/Celestia or Water/Nil, not to Earth/Nil and Water/Celestia. They should be placed a reasonable distance from things to raid as well, and not in a place where they can attack the nexus room from the rift room.

Would they be staying in the same general area though? Say the prime->cats->Earth->Nil rift would always appear in a naturally tainted area on prime for example (Spectre, SoD, Magnagora, Blasted Lands, Shallach river and castle). That leaves a good amount of area to search if one wants to find them, but it's still a little more risky for the other side, since it's close to Magnagora. Could do something like Inner Sea, Celest, Oleandir for another, maybe throw Toronada in there for good measure, although that's getting a ways out.

Even if they moved, it's still a pretty big advantage for getting into the Catacombs, because it's dead easy to find the Earth side of the rift, even with it in the Mountains right now.

I think that would make things a bit more difficult, code-wise. While you're right, it would dissuade people by providing a bit of risk (i.e. they might have to enter tainted ground to find the rift), but that's usually not much of a concern. Most people aren't afraid of entering opposing territory, so long as it's not guarded. It would narrow down the area that needed to be searched, making the rifts easier to find, and would limit their use somewhat I think. Also, it's difficult to define exactly what areas are acceptable; so far as I know there are no other naturally wyrden forests, and few other natural forests, none of which are protected by the Serenwilde.

The idea is good enough, but in practice I don't think these limitations would work out very well.

For the EtherSeren and EtherGlom rifts, why not just put them where the archways used to be? That's sufficiently far from anything important to prevent instant raidability.

And yes, as a warrior, I LOVE these new rifts.

They're only useful to city warriors in that regard, though. Commune warriors still can't get to Astral without nexus in Planar, but City warriors can get up without a taxi.

These rifts really should extend to Astral as well.

Agreed.

Forren:

Magnagora could keep trying to take down your rifts whether this was active or not. The quests to open the gate are relatively simple (whether helping Krangar, which is basically tedious low-level bashing, or killing Ur'dead), and once a Tracker is in it's a simple path to the bottom level. And if someone has a pyramid, the rifts on the bottom level are endangered for the rest of the month. I'm well aware that the same would be true if Celest wanted to wrest control of the Catacombs from Magnagora.

If the admins want to promote conflict by making raiding enemy planes much easier, I imagine they've succeeded. If not:

1) Making the rifts shift too much would probably go against the idea the admins have made here. The maximum either exit of a gateway should shift is to another point within the same local area.

2) If you want to prevent people raiding Ethereal Seren/Glom, you could just put the rifts up in Faethorn. Alternatively, put them up in locations where they can't easily attack the Maidens.

3) It would be nice if rifts generally opened up right on top of Maidens/Elemental Lords/Cosmic Beings, to prevent enemies from exploiting them to constantly raid. Before, entering Cosmic/Ethereal to do harm to another organization required a cubix. So more people can raid easily? Yes, but distorting the gate will stop most people without a cubix from entering or exiting.

Overall though, it's pretty sweet. Though rifts in the City would really help for getting city warriors up into the Ethereal realm...

In light of some feedback, the rifts have been changed. There are now 2 rifts that lead from prime to ethereal, and 2 from elemental to cosmic. While it remains possible to navigate from prime to cosmic (since the ethereal/elemental archways exist), it is no longer possible to do so without running through those planes between gates.

Wait.. you'd want (for example) a rift between Capricorn and Celestia? Well... have fun then..

Er, no. That would be silly. I would like the rifts to lead somewhere on astral though.

Agreed! Though, hopefully, I'll be getting Nexus soon

Still, it's a pain that if I'm enemied to Mag and Celest, I'm blocked from Astral.

As a note, I should point out that Shadowdancers and Moondancers can't be completely stopped from travelling to/from Astral without a cubix, even when enemied to both cities. Astrology is fun! Especially if you pair it with prize return (which I don't have, though I'm considering getting it when I next buy credits).

Bot Astroglide and Aetherships can get you up to the Astral planes without too much difficulty. Getting down is harder (read not possible) relying Astrology, but your ship will still be there when you're ready to leave, unless someone Jolts it off the dock and blows it up.