In February’s Grab Bag one question stood out from the rest (mostly because it was really one of the only questions not answered by the rest of the info).
Q: I believe it has been mentioned before that Public Quests will affect RvR. Would it be possible for you to give an example of how?
A: Public Quests contribute to zone control as do standard quests. Every time a PQ or quest is completed, your realm is granted Victory Points. Those Victory Points are fed into a large pool that is shared with Scenarios, open world objectives (keeps and battlefield objectives) and skirmish kills. WAR is a Realm vs. Realm game, and PvE is a part of the war, so of course we include these aspects when determining zone control.
From the rest of the newsletter we are told that taking objectives like keeps and towers will play out as public quests. However, this question and answer lead off in another direction that I had not really considered. Mythic’s use of the term “RvR” allows them to incorporate more into the “war”. RvR is realm vs. realm and I hadn’t given it much thought until now that PvE efforts can play a part in my realm fighting against another. According to this Q/A, any of the PQ’s or even normal quests completed in a zone will contribute to the victory points. If you’re not familiar with what victory points are then you should definitely brush up on some older video podcasts – they are basically required to progress into the latter RvR city sieges and such.
Very sneaky and quite honestly a brilliant move, Mythic. You have effectively brought together both sides of the table and given them a common goal whether they realize it or not. In a way, if someone wants to PvE the entire time they play then they are still contributing to the effort. I like it. Well played Mythic, well played.
It’s a pretty good way of creating wider appeal for a game going for the PvP niche. It’s also a great gateway for people who haven’t PvP’d before or aren’t into it because of bad experiences in the past.
In some ways it is the reverse of Dark Falls in DAOC. There more people needed to RvR to gain control of the Dark Falls mega-dungeon to be able to get into it and adventure, easily anyway.
I would RvR sometimes just for that, then get in, then lose the dungeon to another realm. We then set up to ambush them when they would run our side.
Good fun, good fun. I like the idea of PvE affecting the RvR as well.
I wish you would quit talking about the game so much … I am having a hard time concentrating on EQ2 and EVE!!! 😛
Yeah! It really is somewhat the reverse of DF.
I can’t help but talk about the game or else I feel like I’m going to explode. 😉
“I can’t help but talk about the game or else I feel like I’m going to explode.”
Ewww, make sure there’s plastic on the sofa.
I wonder if RvR means strictly NPC realm 1 vs NPC realm 2, or if there might be several factions to chose from or even player owned/controlled realms as well? For example, Eve has 4 Empires, which are loosely bound into two factions, but there are minor factions and regions of borderlands where player organizations are king also. Have you heard any details about player choices in that regard? And IF there are choices, then do you have to decide at character creation, or can you choose later and perhaps change sides?
WAR still seems too enigmatic to really talk about in much depth, but the bits they have revealed all look great.
RvR refers to Order Realm vs. Destruction Realm. RvR is a trademark of Mythic’s representing their unique form of PvP. This system goes back to DAOC where there were 3 main realm(or factions).
There are 3 races per realm in WAR.
Destruction
Greenskins
Dark Elves
Chaos
Order
Dwarfs
Empire
High Elves
Whichever race you choose determines your realm accordingly. Each race has class choices unique to that race.
Definitely check out the Armies of WAR page on the official site.
Once that makes sense to you then you’ll be able to make sense of why PvE being a part of RvR is a great new thing we’ve never really seen used much in mmorpgs. Having players contribute to an overall PvP(RvR) war effort by completing public quests and other quests is a great way to bridge the two playstyles (PvPers and PvErs) together.