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Not even kings are safe in Warhammer Online's player vs. player combat
No matter how much butt you kick in World of Warcraft's PvP, you're never going to storm Ogrimmar with your Alliance character. Your Uruk-hai in Lord of the Rings Online is never going to bust out of the Ettenmoors to rampage through Rivendell's Last Homely House and slay Gandalf. You simply can't do it, my friend. Player vs. player combat in massively multiplayer online games tends to be carefully controlled and often shunted off into some sort of battlegrounds instance where it won't mess with the static world at large.
Warhammer Online is having none of that. Nowhere is off limits. Presumably, the forces of Order and Destruction can terrorize each other by capturing even the most distant starting area, shutting players out of their own cities. What's more, they can even capture, imprison, and Lynndie England each other's kings:Q: Are you still planning to let us capture the enemy king? Which penalties apply to a faction without king? Which bonus for the winning side?
A: Once an enemies [sic] King has been defeated in battle, he will be sent to the invaders’ home city, where all who choose to mock and taunt the King will have their opportunity to do so. Sadly, I'll probably never be uber enough (i.e. waste spend enough time) to take part in the game at this high a level. But I love reading about how this sort of thing is supposed to work. Mythic community coordinator James Nichols explains it here.
Thanks AndrewM and syncaine.
By Marcin at 2:07 PM ON 08/28/08
Actually you *can* storm Orgrimmar just fine with 40 or so of your buddies. It's just that it won't actually change anything in the game world. Fifteen minutes later, shopping and training and crafting will go on as normal.
By mystery at 2:08 PM ON 08/28/08
never going to storm Ogrimmar with your Alliance character
Uh, why not? Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLFkipojLoM
The truth is, while in WoW, real world raiding in the main cities is pretty meaningless, it's still allowed, and many people are capable of it.
By twig at 4:22 PM ON 08/28/08
"Presumably, the forces of Order and Destruction can terrorize each other by capturing even the most distant starting area, shutting players out of their own cities."
Hate to be nitpicky, but that's not really true. You can't storm starting areas in Warhammer because 1) if you're too high a level, you get turned into a chicken at the first sign of PvP, and 2) even if you're not too high a level, the guards at the starting areas are. You can kill people out in the wild, but you can't really storm a town, 'cause the guards are just too strong.
Or at least that was the case last time I played the beta. Before the latest big patch! Maybe that's changed!
By Tom Chick at 5:50 PM ON 08/28/08
Thanks for the correction, twig. I guess you have to get to the area immediately outside the starter town before you're into contested territory, yes?
As for Marcin and mystery pointing out that the Alliance can go into Ogrimmar, that's a fair point as well. But I don't think it constitutes "storming" in the sense that I meant. As you both note, you can't affect Ogrimmar in any meaningful way beyond a temporary inconvenience to folks trying to get to the Auction House or whatever. It's nothing like the system in place in Warhammer Online.
I'm positive, however, that I'm 100% right about Uruk-hai in LOTRO being unable to get to Rivendell!
By Ian at 10:31 PM ON 08/28/08
BORING.. bring on Warhmmer 40,000 So much better and frankly I've had enough of lame WoW copies cocking about online.
By twig at 4:18 PM ON 08/29/08
"I guess you have to get to the area immediately outside the starter town before you're into contested territory, yes? "
Well, the way it works is that there are PvE and RvR zones. Everyone is flagged in RvR areas, but you don't have to be flagged in PvE zones.
Starter areas (and by that I mean literally the town where you spawn upon first creating your character) are usually pretty deep in PvE zones, to prevent excessive ganking, I assume. Which means that even if you were a high enough level to take on the guards, you couldn't actually attack anyone who didn't flag themselves. This is not dissimilar to certain areas in WoW -- including capital cities.
With each tier (basically one BIG area containing a bunch of smaller areas), the PvE area gets smaller as the RvR area grows. I think they numbers Mythic gave at one point were that in tier 1, it's 80% PvE, 20% RvR, and in the highest tier it's the other way around.
There is another server type in the works, called "Open", where everyone is flagged all the time, but I don't think it's implemented yet.
twig:
"I guess you have to get to the area immediately outside the starter town before you're into contested territory, y...More »