Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Fortress Dev Discussion

Late last week, WAR Producer James Casey created a new Developer Discussion thread.  This time it is to discuss the re-introduction of fortresses and their effect on the overall campaign.  This is a follow-up to the Fortress Q&A which I posted a couple of weeks ago.

First up is how Fortresses will fit in T4.  Our goal is that they are an alternate way to RvR and help in the WAR.  However, by opening up those areas again and making them active, despite them not being gated by the campaign, there will still be some effect on the campaign.    

Currently thoughts are to make the relic raid require you to go through the front gate(s), then the front door, and then take out the lords to capture the relic; at which point you'd high tail it out of there.  The questions I have for this discussion is this. 

1. What positive effect for the campaign can you envision from having this alternate RvR up all the time? 

It seems to me it would give smaller groups an objective, for both attack and defense.  It really depends on implementation, it could end up just moving all the players there instead of the Keeps.

2. Is there a negative effect for the campaign that you can envision from having this alternate RvR up all the time?

Midnight and Early morning attacks would seem to be a negative, but again it provides something for players to do during off hours.

There is also the risk of the stronger realm just dominating all of the forts.  Keeping the battles smaller would be key in preventing this from happening.

3. Are there ways to mitigate said negative effect or a way to accentuate the positives that you'd like to suggest.  

I think that the Guild/Alliance claiming of Forts couple help keep the battle small, depending on the benefits of ownership. Allowing owners only quicker access (teleport) to the forts might help encourage them to come to its defense instead of the whole realm.