That's the question on my mind. To me, if the king is still alive when the battle is over, then it was an outstanding attack but fell short of the goal. But technically, I'm not so sure if that is the case. There are several major reports of the events on the Averheim server and that the Destruction side got started early one morning, and several hours later had the city "sacked". This time around I'm not ringing the fire alarm (unless there is confirmation of exploits being used or just broken mechanics) so much as I'm wondering about the technical aspects of a city falling. I will say (again) that this is the product of game wide population imbalance in favor of Destruction (hence all the dedicated and well organized guilds on that side) but won't beat that dead horse any more in this article.
So...yeah. We knew it would be Destruction somewhere, as they consistently have higher numbers. As much as I don't like it, I also figured they might come like theives in the night when there was little to no opposition online, I was right. As a side note, I'd rather them come like brave warriors rather than stealthed Ninjas when most players are sleeping, but I don't get to choose the timing of when these things happen. There's no game mechanic prohibiting such ninja raids, and Mythic has said that is by design. The arguments both for and against that decision can be argued in a different post though. However, I will almost guarantee that when my guild goes on our first city seige, it will be when there's a fight to be had...because that's why we play this game. If we wanted PVE encounters with no opposition we'd be playing WoW, LotRO, EQII, Hello Kitty Online...just not WAR. Beating up on smaller kids is what the bullies do. Real men square up against people that can fight back. I hope to see more guilds "man up" and come to fight at a time when there are people to fight back. Everyone and their grandmother knows that early Sunday morning is the path of least resistance. I've strayed a bit off topic here as that's another topic for another day, but you see my point.
I'll admit that I'm writing this from a distant view as I have never participated in a capitol city seige in WAR. Yes, I was in closed beta for months and did lots of fighting in Tier 4. You can even see those battles for yourself if you like, but in closed beta city seiges were part of focused tests at specific times. I was never able to be online for those and missed the opportunity. I do however have a few alts in the Order branch of Casualties of WAR on Averheim where this happened, but the highest is a level 15 Ironbreaker right now. I actually heard about this happening that morning, but there was nothing a level 15 character could do, and I was focusing on playing my main Shaman character at the time anyway. I felt that there was nothing I could do but /shrug, but in retrospect I should have logged into the server to see some of this stuff first hand.
I still wonder though, that if the king is still alive and kicking...how is the city considered "sacked"? In my mind, it seems like the opposition should be walking around with the king's head on a stick before the losing side should admit defeat. However, it seems that a city can be "sacked" without killing the king and that just doesn't seem right in my mind. I have not yet done the research on all it takes to capture a city and I don't even know if good information is out there on the topic. I don't know the steps that must take place, and I don't know what technically happens to a city once it is "sacked". So, what constitutes a "sacked" city when the king is still alive? I've heard that flight masters get shut down, and no one can enter the city. I've heard that there are several public quests available to the attackers at some point, and that completing these can actually lower the city rank. I'm unsure as to how much of that is true, so if you have first hand knowledge of how that all works then please let us know.
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7 comments:
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October 13, 2008 12:09 PM
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October 13, 2008 2:00 PM
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October 13, 2008 2:52 PM
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October 13, 2008 4:22 PM
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October 14, 2008 12:13 AM
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October 14, 2008 8:08 AM
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October 15, 2008 4:32 PM
blog comments powered by Disqushttp://stuntystomper.blogspot.com/ has a good write up of the reqs to take a city. It was a 7 hour process to take that city so I think order had a chance to defend.
Here are the reqs as posted:
# You must capture two fortresses in tier 4 within 12 hours of each other.
# To capture those fortresses, you must seize and hold the neutral tier 4 and your opponent’s zone in two of the three racial pairings (after which you only have 60 minutes to capture said racial fortress).
# After all of this you fight in a contested, not captured, Altdorf/Inevitable City for control of the city, much in the same manner as a regular zone would be. In the case of Altdorf, after you have secured the city and the defending force is ejected from the city you have one hour to complete the Bright Wizard College and Sigmar’s Temple public quests. In the case of The Inevitable City,The Monolith and The Sacellum. Should you fail to beat these two Encounters within the hour, the city will be reopened to the defenders and they will be allowed to wipe out any attackers left in their City.
# If you complete the two Encounters as an attacker however, you lock the city down for 20 -24 hours and get access to the King Instance..
# Contribution points towards the capture of a city are scaled based on the population of both sides, not just one lump sum. This ensures that a defending force with smaller numbers has a fighting chance to hold off the invaders. However, you can overcome the scaling with a sufficiently large force.
I think I read somewhere that getting into the city takes it down 1 rank, capturing it after that takes it down another rank, and then killing the king takes it down another rank... not sure how accurate that is but that's what I remember reading.
Actually, winning all capitol city events, including the king defeat, can take the city back to rank 1. The city maintains it's rank as long as the captors are inside (to allow them to participate in all content that was opened by ranking up the city), and then the city reverts its rank when the captors are expelled from the city.
All that was explained by the developers, I believe either on a grab bag or a forum post somewhere. If I manage to find the original post I'll link it here.
I remember reading something along the lines of Anon's post. Gaining entrance to the city downed it 1 rank, gaining entrance to the King downed it another rank, and killing the King downed it 2 ranks (effectively from 5 to 1 for a full sacking).
Originally, I would have agreed with this viewpoint that the city isn't "sacked" till the king is dead. But now I'm not so sure. The thing is, there comes a point when the defenders can no longer defend. The actual killing of the king is purely PvE as far as I know. So now I think that the city becomes "sacked" as soon as the opposing side is the only one allowed in the city. After all, sacking doesn't mean you have to kill a leader. The online dictionary defines sacking as "to dismiss or discharge" meaning that as soon as the Order (in this case) could not longer enter the city, it had been sacked.
Very interesting. I happen to play Order on Averheim, but I haven't been able to log in and play for several days now. I'm sad that I missed all of the excitement. I'll have to log in today and see if anything is still going on.
crofe, in this usage "sacking" mean to plunder or loot a town. Otherwise you are exactly correct, I wouldn't think that sacking Altdorf would necessarily imply killing the king. The terminology is vague though. Hopefully, with time we will develop accepted terms for these stages. It would seem that the most accurate term for the attackers getting into the war quarter seems to be that the city is "contested". Perhaps it would be accurate to refer to the city as "captured" once they succeed in the war quarter contest and eject the defenders from the city. The city might then be referred to as "controlled" if the attackers succeed at the PQs to lock the city down and open up the king. I would, however, reserve the term "conquered" only for successfully killing the king.
@Bjorn
I like those terms much better if only because it categorizes each stage instead of lumping them all together. I get caught up on semantics sometimes. :)
I've got to ask. . .did you consciously choose all your words so they started with 'c' or did that just happen?
@crofe
Mostly just happened. As I was writing, it was contested, captured, sacked, and conquered but taking the two PQ sub-bosses down is not really the same as sacking. The sacking is really just happening on the side after the capture. (I understand that at that stage people can run around an set the buildings ablaze and kill all sorts of other npc citizens.) I then realized that we almost had some alliteration going and control seemed like an adequate fit. Better than sacked in any case.