Defend the Fortress [playtests on sunday 19th july at BD]

[dragnoor]

Defend the Fortress.

Guildwars in Planeshift are a problem. Simply put the War would lack an objective. No point in
killing one another if nothing can be achieved.
With this in mind Felinius, Sanxx & myself, came up with this idea :

Two teams, one team defends the Fortress at the Bronze Doors. The other assaults it. The winner being the team
who accomplishes its aims. Namely the defenders successfully "Holding the Fort", Or the Attackers taking it.
Either way both sides have a real objective.

The other problem with PS guildwars, is how you measure how the battle is going for your team at any given
point in time. For that we devised the Warcounter but that hasnt worked out. The beauty of "Defend the Fortress", is that
its not important. Its patently obvious whos winning. Because knowbody respawns at BD. The Victory goes to the survivors at the fort.

Another selling point is No Lag & out of prying Rp'ers eyes. We can conduct our "exercises", at BD with inpunity.

Now the details :
1) Each team has a Muster point. For the attacking team its the Ruins near Canyt (npc).  For the defenders its the Eagles head.

2) Teams must agree the numbers of each side PRIOR to battle.

3) Each participant on each side must enable "Auto Accept" for challenges.

4) Teams must agree on combat restrictions, ie no Magic etc. Or "No Rules", hehe.

5) Equipment or magical items including GM armour must be agreed with on both sides to use.

6) Form 1 group for each side. These groups will then be the 2 sides.

Once the battle is over one side will occupy the fortress whilst everyone else is in the DR. You can all then head back to BD & have
another go hehe. Yes the Battles will be short..Yes you can have as many on each side as you like. Potracted wars are boring. This wont be hehe.

We suggested using a campfire as a "Capture the flag" Icon, but this isnt nessesary.


Dragnoor - Guildmaster of Nexus of Devotion -

[kiou]

i like the idea of a different guildwar. im not sure if this is the way to do it, but if it plays well then cool!

thanks

[Nykolai Raskaniov]

Another selling point is No Lag & out of prying Rp'ers eyes. We can conduct our "exercises", at BD with inpunity.

If you really want something like that, I think the non-RP server might be better suited. Definitely less lag or "nag".

If you do decide to play on the RP server and don't want to roleplay this even the slightest, at least use /group.

Other than that, I like the idea, should be quite interesting. Capture the flag events would also be fun.

[dragnoor]

I imagine some teams will opt for Rp aspects in conjunction with other teams. The various ways of playing this are almost limitless. Anyways I wanna take this opportunity to take the names of any guilds that would be interested in taking part once the testing is done?

Warriors

Nexus of Devotion

To name but a few

[garoninja]

Now thats an idea. Sounds very exciting. From a tactical point of view the Bronze doors would be a ridiculously hard fortress to seige, but at the same time it would take extreme coordination to defend the Doors. This idea would work best once archery and many of the graphical glitches have been fixed at the Doors. Excellent idea though!!

[dragnoor]

Garoninja's point about the attackers needing numerical superiority has merit. Traditionally in medieval warfare Castles where overcome with Siege engines & Catapults/Trebuchet's etc. A besieging army would be considerably larger and suitably equipped.
In PS we dont have these weapons hehe. Archery isnt implemented, & if it were, would give advantage to the defenders. Magic (if agreed to utilise it) can be an effective archery replacement.
I recently envisaged a large dwarven army attacking the BD fortress. Countless they were hehe. Many guilds as one. Easily identified as the assaulting enemy hehe.  So yes I agree, the defending garrison should be outnumbered.

[Skrein]

This idea sounds fun, but... I doubt the two squadrons stationed at the fortress would like this idea.

[LigH]

After the event, come to the Stonehead Tavern to celebrate your success or to dispel your failure!

on behalf of Illysia and the Stonehead Tavern team

[Gohra]

To make it fitting more to RP i propose:
announce it as official maneuver. I'm sure, the sunshine squadron would use the fotress also for tactical training and simulation of war games and why not offer these to the puplic? The octarchy is interested in citizen who can fight in worst case. Of course, the death isn't realistic then, but respawning all the time isnt too. It's a good idea to make the Bronze Doors more attractive.

[dragnoor]

I think everyones posts are completing the scene. Now we didnt get back to gug this time. As we had issues getting players up there due to low turn out. Wrong time of year for this caper methinks.
But in all honesty those that took part will concur, it was a blast!! Totally fun! Everyone behaved according to rules and it showed a few problems we didnt anticipate:

1) Even with 2 groups formed its very hard to fight the opposition, You still need to challenge regardless of autoaccept?? Alot of us could not change stances?? Locking onto various targets was out of the question. It soon became apparent if you chase just one opponant you'll no doubt nail him. The result was fun! But chaos!!

2) Getting everyone up to BDF was a royal pain as well. Some crashed on the way. Others didnt turn up. We improvised, and Yahh, Renober, Chernyi, Dragonis, Cyaner, Menille & others filled in the empty slots.

The plusses are, that there was no lag wotsoever. That spectators on everyday matters to BDF soon got waylaid, and enjoyed the spectacle. Some complained hehe. And as for the fun aspect..Well ask anyone that took part?
My thanks to Dalot, Perlan, Leafeme, Egelorie, & the above named,  for making this event possible.

In essence the tests went well and proved this event has merit.

[gabi]

Well, apart from a few technical glitches, as mentioned by Dragnoor, this was absolute brilliant idea, much fun too and very more-ish. Cant wait to do again, well done to those whose original idea it was....curious about how it would be with larger teams..

[Gesel]

One thought I had was if there was a "flag" or two for the attacking team to capture, this would add some worth to the battle, but, it would have some drawbacks such as;
--What would happen if a defender or non-participant took the flag
   A solution to this might be to have a "flag-guard" that will not accept challenges, but will walk around the BD, with the flag, and if  a member of the opposing team walks up to him/her, the flag-guard must trade the flag to the opposing player
--Should an attacker with a "flag" be killed while returning to his start position be killed, the flag would not be dropped, and would be with him in the Death Realm
   A solution to this would be while the opponent has a bit more than 0 life, and is sitting, he/she will drop the flag, and be able to return to his/her base.
With these in mind, once we could resolve these problems, a "capture-the-flag" theme might make it more fun.
(Maybe sometime in the future the dev's and GM's could organize something like this)

[Entevir]

I would propose a few ideas on how to make this more feasible (since its a little problematic as I see it) and fun for all.

First off, because everyone is already agreed to the same terms they may as well as go out there and challenge each other minutes prior to the start of the battle. An obvious explanation RPwise for this would be a show of respect to your opponent if you take the military maneuver angle. And if not then I think it would call for a bit of function over fashion thinking.
Another great thing would be if you could just call a full on party duel (I've been away for a bit so sorry if this is implemented).

Then, on the function of the battle. I think that having a capture and hold certain points scenario would be more interesting (and it would allow for an additional rule). For the sake of clarity I will elaborate. Instead of having the eagle head marked as a flag point wouldn't it make more sense to have several points in which you have to have some form of influence or at least have them cut off from the enemy. That would make it possible to add an all out rule. If any one team holds all points at any one time they win. I was thinking onestarting point for the enemy team and three points for the attackers. One point being the very top, another the eagle head and the third the fall cliffs.

Then again this idea seems to work better with collision detection so maybe its just dreamy thinking on my part.

And then one more thing would be makeshift barricades that could be smashed. The might add a certain bit more challenge to the attacking party and more tactical thinking into the plans of the defense. Buts thats pretty much what I had to say. Thanks for listening.

[Gesel]

Entevir, the control-point idea seems great, and it is feasible, not dreamy, you would just need a "commander" to decide who wins, and a neutral player at each control point to report to the "commander" which team controls the point when the point is captured.  A commander idea would also work well for prizes, perhaps the best players from each team would be deemed "captains", and they would guard the points, and whichever captains are left alive at the end get some special prize... Well, good idea Entevir

[dragnoor]

Re last 3 posts. Some great ideas & indeed we debated some of our own not unlike those posted. But the problem is this : Getting it organised. So with this in mind, Setiting the event  up MUST be as simple as possible. Getting 2 teams together is one thing, and then  depending on neutral marshalls to hold flags and monitor tactical points...What if they dont turn up? And no doubt one of the teams will be a man or 2 short as well. And a "Flag" is missing etc etc. So we kept it simple.
One point made was about group duelling which is available on other server but not Laanx. Would be handy??