How would you like to see the 'War' to be fought?

[Kwinn]

Let's try to stick with what we know the Devs can do...

If we are ever going to have a war it needs to be dynamic and not limited to raids by WA forces or the Gifted doing hunts in the Blighted areas. It needs to be more than that.

Currently, the WA has no strategy, no apparant Operational direction.

I would like to see...

1) Patrols on roads leading to and adjacent to resource areas. This is a logical approach to striking the industrial base of the Gifted. The patrols could be wraith groups or kwellan groups and they should be on timers. Gifted wipes out a patrol, that road is clear until WA can transfer forces to it again.

2) Blighted Golems and Treants. They should have power somewhere about the halfway mark between the highest lvl ordinary golem or treant in the spawn and the named one. No more than a dozen or so per spawn. Put them on a very slow respawn timer.

3) We built an Outpost near Eastern Deadlands. WA should attempt to build Outposts near our towns. This might be a bit tricky to accomplish but, I think it could be done.
WA chooses a location to build an outpost and the scaffolds etc appear. WA convoys of crafters, I suggest Ogres for this, loaded with building materials start heading toward WA outpost, The convoys are guarded...the vanguard, the direct guard and the rear guard. The direct guard would be linked to the crafters making a total of 3 separate groups in the convoy. None of the these groups are linked to each other nor will they help each in battle. The Gifted can attack and attempt to destroy the convoys. Guards should have standard loot, crafters should be loaded to the gills with lootable building materials and blighted tools.
If the WA convoy(s) succeeds in making it to the WA Outpost they apply their material and recall out. The application of materials will either construct some of the Outpost, or undo what the Gifted have done to it. Yep, undo what Gifted have done to it read on...
The Gifted may also build the Outpost. Gifted applications can either build the Outpost or undo WA applications. First side to complete the Outpost wins!.
If WA completes it then the Outpost becomes a spawning ground for WA forces and a base of operations from which to launch raids. If the Gifted complete it, at the worst, it is of no use to WA. Perhaps it could become location from which future quests could be obtained.

4) Bring back the Anchors. And let's have em of all tiers. I think at most, 50% of resources should be blighted by Anchor mobs. This is a sop to the crafters. In a real war, all resource would be blighted and machines destroyed.

Futhermore, anywhere one finds resourses except Beginner Islands, should be at risk of seeing an Anchor. Saritova and Island of Ice come readily to mind.

5) Some manner of weaker mobs should be created for the Beginner Islands. Let the new folks get a taste of the war but, dont overwhelm them. Perhaps the mobs could be set to attack only when attacked. I know many high powered folks are gonna want to immediately port to the Islands to help the new folks. I dont think this should happen. Disable the function to port to Beginner Islands while mobs are up. If they are not destroyed within a given time they should despawn and porting to Beginner Islands would again be allowed.

6) Raids on Bristugo. Regular and nasty. The Withered Aegis has learned that The Vielo provide unlimited formulae and technique components to the Gifted for a price. The Withered Aegis had decided this must stop. Orders have been issued to assault Bristugo at every opportunity with the intent of killing the Vielo or at the very least, destroying their stock.
These raids should be frequent, once a day or maybe every other day. The Gifted have XX minutes to destroy the raiders or the Vielo's stock is considered destroyed. A futher passage of time of XX minutes would result in the Vielo being killed. The Gifted may ressurect the Vielo or they will respawn after a set amount of time. The Vielo's stock will return gradually, preferrably several hours to a few days.

Ok, before ya'll break out your flamethrowers consider this. We have an Alliance among the races. Why? Let's see, BECAUSE WE ARE AT WAR! Wars are nasty, dirty dangerous things. There is no such thing as a kind, gentle, peaceful, no risk Care Bear war. Everyone is at risk, everyone faces death, everyone faces disruption of normal routines, everyone can and will be inconvenienced. That is the nature of war. To think otherwise is foolish, to want otherwise is beyond my capability to express my disbelief in words.

[Tantalyr]

Nifty ideas for over-multiclassed adventurers, but would just about kill crafters who aren't as devoted to adventuring as you are. Half your numbered ideas would make gathering resources extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for any crafter who isn't all that interested in killing mass numbers of beasties to pass the time.

Methinks crafters were shafted enough with the PB nerf. I really don't think the devs need to shaft them yet again.

[Kwinn]

Not really, Adventurers kill off the beasties and the crafters are safe again. At least till the beasties return. The whole point is that there is supposed to be a war.

Crafters are going to be inconvenienced. That's the nature of war. They can reduce they're risk by being a little more alert to their surroundings. If they get caught and killed due to negligence so be it. Adventurers risk it every day. And adventurers will be inconvenienced too. If a crafter hollers for help, I will be headed that way as fast as my feets can carry me. And I'll probably be in BFE ED or Satyr Island when the call comes too. That will be a huge inconvenience. But it is the nature of war, I will accept it and do my bit. I dont think I'm alone.

The bottom line is that the war can't just be out there for a select group. If it doesnt effect everyone it's not a war, it's Rock'em Sock'em Robots :/

[Tantalyr]

Well now, let's consider what happened when the Blight anchors were introduced, and respawned every 2-12 hours . . . .

They dropped no loot of any real significance, and were a bear to take out. So after about a week of them, when the call would go out over Market to please come and take care of an anchor in, say, Mithril Canyon very few, if any, adventurers would actually show up. There were many, many times I and other crafters were faced with useless blighted mithril nodes and blighted maple nodes for several days because no adventurer could be bothered with taking out the Anchor.

And I heard many a time in Market adventurers bluntly stating that they had no interest in taking out Anchors since they didn't drop "phat lewt."

So no, I daresay most adventurers would NOT be swayed to go out and kill Anchors or wandering resource field mobs UNLESS each of those beasties dropped really sweet loot. Alas, the notion of helping the community at large by slaying lootless monsters just doesn't seem to be a highly appealing one to folks . . . .

[Kwinn]

Wholeheartedly agree here. It is incumbent on the Devs to insure the loot is worth the bother. If the mobs are lootless or offer poor compensation for time and risk then there is no real point in having a war at all. One reason wars happen, especially of the medieval variety which can be loosely described as what we would experience, is the prospect of booty. No booty, no troops no troops, no war

[Tantalyr]

Wholeheartedly agree here. It is incumbent on the Devs to insure the loot is worth the bother. If the mobs are lootless or offer poor compensation for time and risk then there is no real point in having a war at all. One reason wars happen, especially of the medieval variety which can be loosely described as what we would experience, is the prospect of booty. No booty, no troops no troops, no war

Umm, I seriously doubt that's what the undead legions of the Withered Aegis are fighting for. Real life players might be, but not the undead.

[LaughingOtter]

Orders have been issued to assault Bristugo at every opportunity with the intent of killing the Vielo or at the very least, destroying their stock.
These raids should be frequent, once a day or maybe every other day. The Gifted have XX minutes to destroy the raiders or the Vielo's stock is considered destroyed. A futher passage of time of XX minutes would result in the Vielo being killed. The Gifted may ressurect the Vielo or they will respawn after a set amount of time. The Vielo's stock will return gradually, preferrably several hours to a few days.

And our incentive to stop them would be...?

[;)]

[Bori Grimbattle]

Long ago, in a thread long forgotten, I gave my ideas on how the War should be handled. bring back the Anchors, the WA Access points into this world. Have them appear not only in resource spots but also in prime hunting areas and out of the way, seldom visited points.

Then the Anchors first spawn a set of recon groups along with crafters. These first comers would be responsible for expanding the area of control around an anchor by stting up bases where any Aegis agent could get healing, supplies, and what not. As they bases progress outwards in a circle from the anchor the second wave shock troops would come forth. Their job is to protect each of the forward bases from incursions by the Gifted.

If the Gifted fail to react in time, then the first line Generals appear along with troops of their own. These troops would be the ones that start to fan outward from the bases, taking over roads and areas of resources and commerce. As they are destroyed by the Gifted more would be sent out from the bases. As the forward bases are in concentric circles from the Anchor, if left unchecked, there would soon be a formidable army to contend with.

Aegis foes that are killed would be sent back to the forward bases in much the same way as our bind stones work, where they would be healed and outfitted and sent back out. As they destroy more of the Gifted they too would gain levels and power. Once the Aegis reach a certain point of power in one of these incursions then a Prime General would be dispatched from the Anchor along with a larger group of shock troops. His job would be to head out in a random direction, along with his troops and destroy anything or anybody in their path.

Although, personnal buildings on player plots may not be destroyed, the mere presence of an army of that size would render that community ineffective until the army was driven off. Then the Gifted would have to band together to dismantle the Aegis war setup, piece by piece until they can finally reach and destroy the anchor.

Even if they had this happen once a month, in various parts of the world it would finally give us what everyone was /is looking for, a War!

Now those are my opinions. Take it or leave it.

[neural_hoax]

Im with you Kwinn, if we have a real war and the call for help goes out im there. When anchors were in, i was there killing them even without help sometimes, granted i didnt kill the lesser anchors merely to allow younger adventurers a chance to get in on the action. The only anchors that i can remember being in the game for very long was a few that had insane spawns, IE the battlefield one that was nonstop spawn and the one in the mithril that i think was removed when the anchors were pulled.

Anyway just my 2c.

Bring on the war, im ready for something new.

[cattoy]

Wholeheartedly agree here. It is incumbent on the Devs to insure the loot is worth the bother. If the mobs are lootless or offer poor compensation for time and risk then there is no real point in having a war at all. One reason wars happen, especially of the medieval variety which can be loosely described as what we would experience, is the prospect of booty. No booty, no troops no troops, no war

So much for king, crown and country and all that patriotic rubbish, eh?

The real reason wars happened (back in the day) is that kings, emperors and warlords declared them. These were the people who had the resources to fight them. Wars are fought by armies, and only leaders of considerable means could field an army. Armies are built from the top down, not the bottom up.

In HZ, there is no top-down political structure. In HZ, there is no political structure of any kind, at least not in evidence in actual play. Without any sort of hierarchy, there isn't any possibility of an organized, standing army, and hence, no possibility of war.

The best we can hope for is a lot of high powered thugs to be motivated enough to go beat on a bunch of highpowered ai mobs. We'll call it a war. I don't expect anything to involve the mid level characters or the lowbies. That sort of thing happens so infrequently as to be irrelevant.

[PJ]

Here's my minimum requirements for a successful war.

There are several things that I would put in the "nice to have but not necessary" section. Collision detection, 3d world model, etc. Now they would greatly enhance any war, allow for proper sieges of cities, wall/castle/gate defense, mob formations, etc. But are not fundamentally necessary. The fundamental mechanics needed are the dynamic prodcution and movement of WA troops, and the ability of those troops to take and hold territory, aka Dynamic Blight. '

Fundamental Points:
-Rewards for fighting off the WA, and pushing them back.
-Penalties for losing ground to the WA. The WA cannot be a paper tiger.
-Status of the war must be persistent, and not reset itself during a server reboot/maintenance/update.
-Intensity of the War needs to be easily tuneable, live without restartsby WM's. This isn't the type of thing that'll be easily testable on Blight. And it'll be hard to hit the nail on the head as to how fast, frequent, and hard the WA should strike, and how hard they should be to dislodge.
-Its not just important to add the war, but to integrate it into the world. Blight anchors were great (even bugged as they were). But they were completely devoid of lore, recognition by npcs, etc. There need to be quests, tasks, lore, etc. Associated with the war effort.



Now we saw a little bit of Dynamic Blight with Blight anchors. But this would take it further. There would be 3 types of areas, Clean regular territory, Contested Territory, and Blighted Territory.

Clean, regular territory would function exaclty like regular territory does now.

Contested Territory would function similar to areas that had Blight Anchors in them. It would have the Blighted Skydome, decreased spawn rate of indigenous mobs, slowly increasing % of resources in field becoming blighted, and Plot would be uneffected. If left contested for too long, the territory may become blighted.

Blighted territories would have both the Blighted Skydome, and Blighted Terrain, and blighted terrain features. All resources nodes within would be blighted, and indigenous mobs will no longer spawn.

Plots within blighted territories would be unable to have new scaffolding placed, existing scaffolding built on. Bind Shrines, Portals, Portal Pads would be inactive, and players already bound there would be redirected to Tazoon.

Building decay, of either empire and or personal structures is an optional addendum for the purposes of this implementation, given the work associated with introducing damagable structures.


Blighted Sectors would contain structures similar to the satyr machines, say Blighted PortalsBlighted Portalswould have very high hitpoints, defenses, but would not regenerate, or be healable in the normal fashions. They would be repaireable slowly over time by specialized WA mobs.

Blighted Portals would spawn mobs at a regular rate (not like Blight Anchors did where they would either only spawn mobs to replace mobs that were killed, or would randomly spit out 100 mobs at once but only when attacked). Every so often, A party of Blight Wisps is spawned and they invade a neighboring territory (along with a selection of WA mobs), and spawn a Blight Anchor there. There would be a preference for territories with resources, plots, or existing towns.

Blight Anchors would be simply modified versions of the old blight anchors. (modified mostly in terms of bug fixes). If Left unkilled, Blight Anchors would upgrade into Blighted Portals.

When the Blight Anchors/Blighted Portals are killed, they revert to Clean status, but unless the residual undead are wiped out, they would be in danger of reverting to Contested status.

[Menkure]

In HZ, there is no top-down political structure. In HZ, there is no political structure of any kind, at least not in evidence in actual play. Without any sort of hierarchy, there isn't any possibility of an organized, standing army, and hence, no possibility of war.

There has been several instances within Horizons, where a heirarchy was set up.. and it was done so by the players of those realms.

Let me tell you of one such time.. a time when Feladan was not the beautiful capital that it is now.. a time when it was under the control of the Withered Aegis.

The Realm that I hailed from origionally was the Realm of Spirit. As a realm, we had not done as well as the other sister realms when it came to the events that were sponsored by the Empire. As a community, we had fallen behind in our goal of freeing the Satyrs, and completing the satyr mines. Worse, there was a lot of in-fighting, politics, and conflicts amongst the many Gifted. Popularity contests were rampant, and the morale of those in Istaria was rapidly declining.

The people of Spirit needed something they could look upon and be proud of. They needed a victory. It was at that time that the Empire had announced that they may have found a way of freeing the city of Feladan, and removing the blight from it completely.

Taking a risk, I got together a few friends.. and we started contacting every guildleader that we could get a hold of. Meetings were set up involving all the guildleaders we could contact, and plans were drawn. Those guildleaders.. representing thirty guilds, elected a young Saris to lead the project, and that Saris created a team of people.

Each team member oversaw a specific part of the operation. One of the teams was the "gatherers".. who harvested raw materials and brought them to the machines, where another team, the "crafters" would construct them into the needed building materials. The "Runners" would run those things to Feladan and to the machines that we had to build, where they were handed off to the "Constructors". Certain teams were also broken down into sub-teams, like the crafters were broken down into "wood", "metal", "essence", etc.. And the last and most equally crucial team.. the "Defenders", went in and bravely held off the Withered Aegis from killing those who could not defend themselves.

In one evening, over Two Hrundred and Fifty gifted swarmed over Feladan, and in one single night, the people of Spirit had constructed two of the five ethereal substanciators, and killed the blight spectres that they conjured from the blight.

If you think Lag is bad now.. If you think the game bugs and the many performance issues with the client are bad.. it was next to impossible back then.. to have done what we did in that one night.

There was no loot.. there were no drops back then. And while everyone that was there had their own personal reasons for being there.. I wasn't there for King or Country.. I was not there for the thrill of combat. I was there cause, as a community... we needed this victory.. something to look back upon and be proud of...

The Saris that led that army was not a multiclassed (3+ schools, all over level 100) tank, with an insane rating of 140 or higher.. He did not have any uber drops, or lead the largest guild. At the time, he was just a level 55 flame disciple, and largely unheard of. He was not there for fame or glory... He never asked for anything special.

He was there because he believed in the one thing that made Horizons so great, and that was the community.

And that is why people followed him.. because they believed in the same thing.


__________________________________________________ __


The things Horizons needs to have such a war:


I. The Cause

What is the cause? The most obvious answer to this is the Withered Aegis. They have come into this world to do two things.. End life, and spread destruction.

That would be all and good, but the truth of the matter is... They aren't spreading death and destruction.. They stay in their fortresses and do nothing else. If you leave them be, and avoid them.. they stay in their own areas and you can pretty much go where you want without worry. Soo.. okay.. maybe once in a blue moon they and their Ebon Guard will attack Aughendell..

Really though, you have to have a real threat.. something that will draw people together to fight that threat.

With Feladan, it was not about the Withered Aegis really. The cause to those of us who were working on freeing the great city was because we wanted to see it done, and to show everyone that we could. Others had different reasons as well. I remember several 'all elven' guilds that had hoped that once the city was freed, that there would be land plots placed around the city.. an Elf's dream.. to own a house near the City of Feladan.

And then there was what I felt was the greatest cause.. the cause of supporting and helping the community.. to foster growth and improve things.

If the cause is just, and one that people believe in, then anything is possible.. but this you must have first!


II. Leadership

To fight a war that you speak of, you have to have leadership. Without leadership, that army is nothing more than a very disorganized mob of vigilanties. And moreso, you have to have people who are true to the responsibilities of being a leader.

The Gifted are not conscripts of the Empire. They are not recruits in an Official Army. You are not getting paid by the Empire for your services, nor earning official rank, and there is no 'corporal punishment' for committing crimes or deserting. The Gifted are volunteers.

Therefore, to band together into an unofficial army, or even decent sized groups... you have to have a command group that consists of people whom you will support. Thus, those leaders have to be doing things for the right reasons.. the just reasons.. It's not just organization skills, it's showing compassion and understanding, and also being strong and standing your ground firmly when you absolutely have to. Having no tollerance for backbiting.. Remember, a Dictator will drive people away, and cause strife and conflict.


III. Community

Despite the many problems that Horizons had back then, it had a community.. and a large one at that. The world had people... that is something that it greatly lacks today.

back then, the 250+ people that were on the grounds of Feladan that night didn't make up half, or even a fourth of the server population that was online at that time.

And now a days.. given the server populations now.. there's no way an army of that size or magnitude could ever be formed up.

See... everyone is unique... Everyone is different... Each and every one of us do things differently, and for different reasons. Thus, while one may fight in a war in hopes of proving him or herself in combat, and get that great title they feel they always have deserved, another is fighting to protect those at home.. the ones that they love more than anything else in the world.

Becaue of the differences between people, the more people that you have in the community, the better the chance you have of getting people together to fight towards a common goal. Know this: You'll never get everyone in the community to do this or that.. you'll be lucky to get maybe an Eighth or a Sixteenth of that total population.

Thus, the larger the community, the more successful it will be to find those who are willing and able to fight for the cause. Right now though, there's not a large community to draw from.


IV. Risk Vs. Reward

When people think about doing things.. they ask themselves a lot of questions. One of those most asked is.. "Is it worth my time?"

Again, we all are different.. and we all have our reasons. For some, the reward is that staff or sword that was just dropped by that enemy. For another, it was the thrill of combat, and getting a chance to finally prove to yourself and to others what you can do. And for another, it could be that chance of getting in that final killing blow.

What is the reward? And is that reward really worth it to us?

In a way, yes.. loot can help that. We've all heard all the arguments about Loot, and how it could help or hurt Horizons, so I won't go into that.. Still, loot isn't everything. It depends on the community. Such so, that you can't focus entirely on loot, but the experience as a whole.

And then there is the Risk. To this, I ask of you.. What RISK? To die? We are Gifted! We do not die, at least.. not in that sense. Yes, if we are killed.. we can be resurrected, or return to our favored shrine.. and suffer the effects of Death Sickness (death penalty)... but besides that.. what RISK?


__________________________________________________ __

Conclusion

All four of these things are needed first before any such war could ever be carried out. And all four is dependent on each other. You can't have three of the four, or the whole thing will fail.


My apologies for such a long post..

-Menkure

[Kwinn]

So much for king, crown and country and all that patriotic rubbish, eh?

The real reason wars happened (back in the day) is that kings, emperors and warlords declared them. These were the people who had the resources to fight them. Wars are fought by armies, and only leaders of considerable means could field an army. Armies are built from the top down, not the bottom up.

In HZ, there is no top-down political structure. In HZ, there is no political structure of any kind, at least not in evidence in actual play. Without any sort of hierarchy, there isn't any possibility of an organized, standing army, and hence, no possibility of war.

I think you better take a gander at the way the feudal system worked. The King sat at the apex of the power pyramid with the peasant arrow-stoppers at the base. Armies consisted of knights, some professional soldiers and men-at-arms and masses of conscripted peasantry. Knights were nobility, professional soldiers and men-at-arms were household guards for the King and the various Lords. The peasants the unlucky bastards that made up the masses of infantry, suffered the most casualties, had the bleakest prospects for survival if captured, received the lowest pay, if they got paid at all. Buy hey, desertion was easy. They didn't fight for King and country, they fought because they were forced to and because they knew if they lived through it they had a decent chance of booty. The winner looted the bodies of the fallen. Captured Knights were ransomed, sometimes the professionals and men-at-arms were ransomed, peasants were put to death.

Bottom line is this...in a feudal system political power works from the top down. Armies are raised from bottom up.

I'll grant you we have no political system in Hz. We fight for glory and booty. Hmmmm, same reasons they fought way back when...how bout dat!

[cattoy]

armies raised from the bottom up?

So you, me and a bunch of other peons could line up and say "We're a squad!" let's go find a few other squads and make a platoon! then we could find a few of those and make a company!

Yeah, that happens.

NOT.

[Kwinn]

armies raised from the bottom up?

So you, me and a bunch of other peons could line up and say "We're a squad!" let's go find a few other squads and make a platoon! then we could find a few of those and make a company!

Yeah, that happens.

NOT.

You obviously can read. Noiw try a little comprehension of what you read. Find a history book bud and read up on the feudal system.

An army of knights and household guards is not an army. It's a big well-equipped and well-trained gang. The masses of infantry are what made feudal armires. And that old son, is building from the bottom up.

[Tantalyr]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]cattoy wrote: armies raised from the bottom up?<br /> <br /> So you, me and a bunch of other peons could line up and say "We're a squad!" let's go find a few other squads and make a platoon! then we could find a few of those and make a company!<br /> <br /> Yeah, that happens.<br /> <br /> NOT.<br />


You obviously can read. Noiw try a little comprehension of what you read. Find a history book bud and read up on the feudal system.

An army of knights and household guards is not an army. It's a big well-equipped and well-trained gang. The masses of infantry are what made feudal armires. And that old son, is building from the bottom up.

Maybe YOU should read (and comprehend) Kwinn. You plainly have but a superficial knowledge of medieval warfare.

Read up on the Battle of Agincourt about how well knights stood up against longbowmen. . . .

[PJ]

While these discussions of feudal analogies, kings, armies, knightsetc.are fascinating, theyaren't terribly relevant. Whatever the political infastructure or the lack thereof in istaria, its sorta irrelevant. Istaria is not the aggressor, its not declaring war on a neighboring country, to steal its resources, its land, its people, etc.

Istaria is being INVADED by the Withered Aegis. They are not here to steal our wealth, conquer our land, subjugate us. They are here to exterminate us, blight the lands, enslave our minds and warp our bodies, and destroy utterly all who resist.

Now immersively, the only reason our characters need to fight back is if you don't fight back, they're going to kill you, and that's it. But since this a game, some positive rewards, are good, not just the avoidance of punishment.

[Kwinn]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]cattoy wrote: armies raised from the bottom up?<br /> <br /> So you, me and a bunch of other peons could line up and say "We're a squad!" let's go find a few other squads and make a platoon! then we could find a few of those and make a company!<br /> <br /> Yeah, that happens.<br /> <br /> NOT.<br />


You obviously can read. Noiw try a little comprehension of what you read. Find a history book bud and read up on the feudal system.

An army of knights and household guards is not an army. It's a big well-equipped and well-trained gang. The masses of infantry are what made feudal armires. And that old son, is building from the bottom up.

Maybe YOU should read (and comprehend) Kwinn. You plainly have but a superficial knowledge of medieval warfare.

Read up on the Battle of Agincourt about how well knights stood up against longbowmen. . . .

Actually recent studies have shown that the unarmored peasant masses fared much better at Agincourt than previously thought. Apparantly it had rained quite a bit recently and the battlefield quickly became a quaqmire. It seems many knights died of exhaustion or even drowning. They drowned when stumbled or collapsed into mud puddles and were unable to rise.

Be that as it may, Agincourt is but one battle, and the discussion was not about who beat whom. It was about the make up of the armies and how the feudal system worked. Basically alligiences started at the bottom went up to ther king. Peasants to local lords, local lords to to some other lord of grerater nobility, those to yet a higher lord and eventually to the king. And add to that, each ascending step adds fewer and fewer men, albeit probably better trained and equiped.
Conversly, the king was without the support of the nobles, the nobles nothing with the support of those below then, on down to the local lords not hitting on much without the peasants. The real power lay with the peasants, they could topple the entire system, they just didnt know.

But, anywho as has been pointed out the discussion isnt feudal systems its Istarian sytems. No politics...well some maybe. No King, no lords no real war. I think at least some of us would like a real war. A dynamic, on-going struggle for supremacy over all the lands...thats what I want.

[Jayne]

Hi Kwinn! I know what your saying. Lots of good suggestions here. Yes we need war. Some need incentives for war and others would just like something new to do, but we do need war. This is a very hard one to figure out. And I know there are tons of threads mentioning this.

Anyway back to of current situation, How's the Satyr's treating you. Since you and I are the two whom make them our home in our respective shards, have you noticed any changes? I have, more mobs and ogres, lots more. Some spawn right after the other for me. And I think the mobs have got a much deserved boost. Some would complain but there is more challenge there for me now and I like it! I have actually gotten several DP's, where as before I would just walk around and make my routine passes around the isles. Now is is more cristical that I know what combos are attacking me.

Jayne

[Vignar]

Not enough time right now to read others comments, so this might be stated already.

I would like to see large pushes by the WA. Kind of like invasions that we seldom already have, only not to cities deep within our territory. We have had our chance to regain cities, I think it is their turn [try] to take some cities

The mainland is surrounded on the West, North and East by blight. Plenty of supply of undead troops. The WA and the CS should join their efforts to destroy the living, rather than try and take their cities sepperately. The ND and the WD stage simultaneous attacks. ND on the small outposts on Trandalar, WD on Kion. The Aegis posted on the Beginner Islands attack those cities as well.

(front end) These are merely distractions for the real push which I will talk about later and done by the indigenous undead of those regions. (back end) A good way to involve caracters of all ranks.

As the we are attacked from the North and the West, all of the higher ranked Generals of the WA along with their minions attack from the East. SoG, Reklar, Valkor, all the big ones. They make a push to take Harro and the cities on the NorthEast end (forget their names). If held for a certain duration, all bind points in the towns become blighted and therefore unusable. If the group is still not defeated after blighting the city, they push on to retake the Elf city.

Let's try to stick with what we know the Devs can do...

This poses a problem though as HZ has a well-known lack of manpower. I don't know what they are capable of, but I assume the raid could be set up over a few weeks.

[West set-up]The WA attempt to build a Blighted Portal near Kion. This will be their main attack point to kion.

[North set-up]Another portal is build on the mountainside on Trandalar to attack the town in the middile (near volcano, I don't know its name) and the town on the south side of the hills.

[East set-up]All of the Big Bosses suddenly disappear from their designated locations. This strange occurance is announced to all of the living races to keep their eyes open since the wereabouts of the horrendous beasts is unknown.

[West and North Attack] There is a sudden influx at the portals. Large bosses stand guard at the portals while groups led by Sergeants, Captains, whatever of undead on a static route toward towns to attack. There are periodic group spawns at the portal to keep the WA attack going. This raid should not need close attention by the devs.

The living races must defend their cities from the incoming groups and destroy the portal to stop groups from coming.

[East Attack] A group with two Uber bosses heads north from ED and a group with two ubers head to Harro from ED (sepperate the groups to try and keep lag down). The groups can be on a static track toward their destinations. Once they reach their towns, they sit and defend for say...24 hrs. If they have not been defeated before 24hrs, they head toward the next town to blight. There may need to be some attention paid during the beginning of the attack on the town to make sure the invaders don't instantly push on. And again at the end of the blighting period to make sure all of the bind locations become blighted and the invaders do head to their next town.


Other than that, I don't know. It would be epic for all level ranges. The higher level people would need to let the lower levels defend their own towns since the push from the east would be so large.