Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong!

It’s a tribute to the balance and quality of the guilds on Karak-Norn (EU) that we have one of the few servers where neither side dominates. On several occasions we’ve seen Destruction rampaging through the streets of Altdorf and then Order returning the favour in the Inevitable City, within 24 hours... Almost every day there are multiple fortress sieges, one day it’s Order on the offensive and then the next it’s Destruction. A frantic defence can be transformed into a major offensive, the tides of battle changing as the day goes on. We’ve had a fort falling to each side, leading to a battle for the last fort so large it brought the server to its knees.

Of course it’s great that the war flows like this and I can’t stress enough how great the battles leading up to the cities can be, but there’s a problem nagging at a lot of us. Surely Mythic didn’t plan for it to go quite so quickly?

We raided Altdorf 3 times in one day recently, 3 bloody times on a balanced server. I’ve also seen Order doing multiple IC raids in a single day. That can’t be right. Weren’t city sieges something that you would build up to slowly? Getting to the enemies city should be a big deal, an epic achievement we can gloat about for days. Yet on my server I get to do IC and/or Altdorf more often than I can sodding Bilerot Burrow.

So is this a good or a bad thing?

Pros
· You have more chances to get your hands on some Invader armour, or at the very least some Invader Crests.
· For the more casual players, it’s a lot easier for them to be involved in city sieges.
· Event organisers can plan a full offensive for one day. If it took longer it would be a lot more difficult to manage due to late night/daytime activity.
· The fast zone locking means faster renown for everyone involved.
· More zone locks means more zone capture loot for guilds with claimed keeps. This can make it worth the cost, beyond just achieving the lock.
· It stops us sitting in the same zone all week, so that we get a regular change of scenery.
· Different scenarios become available.

Cons
· It dilutes the entire campaign’s importance. It’s going to reset in a bit anyway, so why care?
· As we’re racing through with our VP locks, for me its yet another thing reminding me how small the RvR lakes are. Not that locks taking longer would prevent this feeling, but it’s still there.
· Lots of identical keeps in quick succession highlights… lots of identical keeps…
· As soon as a city is under siege, the entire campaign locks down and there’s nothing else to do (in RvR anyway).
· City sieges still have a lot of problems. It’s slowly improving, but they need a LOT of work. Do we really need reminding of this every day? Familiarity breeds not only contempt, but also a large dose of apathy.

So we have a situation that is good for material rewards (in pixel form anyway…), good for renown levelling, is accessible and provides variety. On the negative side it sometimes feels hollow and is emphasising the games weakest area (city sieges) and the copy+paste keeps.

All told I think despite it not being the pace I expected from the game, it’s actually working out better than if it were to be slowed down. The RvR lakes are too small to keep us entertained fighting in one zone for days, we need the variety to stop it being dull. That said, if the RvR lake size and quite a few other issues were to be addressed, it would make me a lot more comfortable with the feel of the campaign. That's worthy of a post in itself, so I think those issues and ideas can wait for a future write up.

Land of the Dead arrives in June; it could potentially turn a lot of the negatives above into non-issues. However, it would be hopelessly optimistic to presume it will make everything perfect. We’ve seen the forum rage enough times already after each “wonder” patch, this time we should know better and not expect the world.