Keeps and Sieges

As promised I am going to delve deeper into the Keeps and Sieges information given in yesterday’s February Newsletter.   To start us off I want to talk about Keeps.  I’m very pleased to see that Mythic is keeping close to everything from DAOC that worked and decided to ditch the stuff that sucked (No ladders!).  Each keep is laid out with the same general idea that there is a 1st floor, a second floor, and the roof.  The higher the tier though, the better the defenses.  For example, tier 3 keeps might have an extra outer wall to break down.  And as always, players can fortify these walls and defend their keeps.  I get chills when I think about playing a Squig Herder shooting arrows down on attackers… I better stop before I get too excited.

Each keep, based on location, sports the look and feel of the pertinent race.  When a keep is taken it will not transform suddenly to look like a keep of the conquering race.  Instead it will look like the same keep but with obvious cultural elements  “forced” upon it – dead bodies in the courtyard, banners torn and new ones placed up, graffiti, etc.  It pleases me to see they’re doing more than just replacing the banners.

Keep Lords are the key to the keep’s ownership.  The only way to transfer leadership from one realm to the other is by killing the Lord.  A very basic and somewhat disappointing concept when you think “all I have to do is kill that one guy?” but I urge you to look at the bigger picture.  The keeps will be heavily fortified by players defending, guards, personal bodyguard to the Lord, and the Lord himself will hopefully be a challenge.  Keep battles can last a very long time – DAYS even.  I’m grateful for the Keep Lord system because without it we would likely be looking at a more mundane system like capturing a flag or touching a node.

Another great feature that comes with the Keep Lord is that he is marked as a Public Quest.  PQ’s reward everyone involved, not just the person who got the kill or did the most damage.  This means that everyone has incentive to attack and work hard in a keep siege because the entire process is essentially a PQ.  I assume that means players get loot rewards for killing Keep Lords along with renown.

Siiiieeeege weapons!! wooot!  Rams, cannons, ballistae, trebuchets,  catapults, and boiling oil!  Siege weapons play a huge role in taking a keep.  Without them it might be impossible to take some heavily fortified keeps.  A few changes have been made and a lot of details have been clarified.

Siege weapons must be built on Siege pads – This is the biggest announcement thus far.  It is important to understand what this means.  Players aren’t going to be able to place a catapult anywhere they want nor will players put 8 rams overlapping each other onto one door – a ridiculous site if you ever saw it in DAOC.  There will be one pad per door and a few well placed pads surrounding each keep and placed throughout the world.  Here, and only here, will players be able to construct siege weapons.  It really is a good idea when you think about it or have firsthand experience with it.  A lot of problems occured when players would move siege or be unable to get a ram to a door.

It’s a bummer that you can’t be sneaky and place a catapult in some obscure location and begin an unexpected volley against defenders.  Siege pads do limit people’s creativity with using their environment.  I would really like to see the idea either developed early on or sometime in the near future to incorporate “siege zones” instead of single pads.  Instead of one single location allow for a general area around a keep so that the players can have a little more control.  The siege weapons can still be stationary.

Siege weapons do not require trade skills to build – Thank the gods.  I’m very happy that siege is being made more accessible to the average joe.  This means that every keep battle will probably have siege.  Players buy the siege weapons from merchants.  The cost increases based on the tier you purchase it in as does the quality of the siege weapon.  Siege weapons last 30 minutes and can be destroyed by the enemy.

Siege weapons are weightless – AND they only take up 1 slot in your inventory AND they can be traded!  I like the change from DAOC’s system.  In DAOC there were times when a player would have to strip off all his armor and leave it in the bank just to carry a few rams.  Entire characters were devoted to bringing these to the fight because they were so darn heavy and took up so much space.  A welcomed change.

Siege weapon control – Each siege weapon can only be controled by one person (except for rams) and they will have a slight learning curve.  A “golf swing” meter will appear on the UI and the more accurate the player is with the meter the more accurate the shot will be.  That’s a very cool system.

Rams are slightly different. Up to 4 players can be seated on a Ram at time and damage dealt is determined by the number of players present (one person does 25% damage, 3 people do 75% damage). Rams provide cover from attacks on high and player are shielded from 50% of all damage that rains down from above.  That sounds incredibly awesome!

I’m psyched about all these changes.  They are really polishing the flaws from DAOC and making Warhammer Online a truer RvR experience.