Capturable Territories

[lord_modred]

this idea came to me in a dream! ...well not really, i actually got it while playing planetside.

anyways, here goes. why not add a few towns, outposts, fortresses, ect. in various areas and make them capturable? this realm is at war after all, and generally in long term wars territory borders tend to shift.

Now the way i would see this working is that there would be three trypes of capturable territories: Outposts, Towns, and Fortresses. outposts would simply be a small look out tower or check point or something similar maybe with a few guards, towns would be much larger and would have a number of shops and various other accessories, forts would be heavily gaurded, defensible positions usually placed in strategic areas(i.e. a canyon bottle neck).

each type of capturable point would give differant advantages, i would see the general advantages as being something like this.

-Outpost: prodives a bind point in the building only usable by members of the occupying faction, no other advantage.

-town: provides a bind point at town hall or temple. contains various merchants, healers, crafting stations. all of the above would only be usable by members of the occupying faction.

-fortress: Provides a bind point at the central keep. main gate lockable from the inside(can be destroyed however). once captured, guards from the appropriate faction would spawn on and patrol the roads in the nearby areas, allowing for safer travels. may contain weapons vendors.


additionally, a specific territory might yeild other benefits. For example, a town might possess a set of docks that would allow for instant travel to several differant points in the world or maybe a portal network that would connect to other captured towns, but would only be usable by members of whichever faction was currently occupying the town.


in order to capture a town, you would have to purchase a rift essence shard from the high priest/diviner/what ever happens to be the top dog of your faction. each player would only be able to carry one shard. the shard would essentially be a crystal that held a tiny amount of the magical essence of the factions relic. once the individual found an enemy occupied territory, he could then place the shard into the bind point of the outpost/town/fortress. the shard would then begin to "infect" the enemy bind point, eventually causing it to belong to the invaders faction. However, the invading force must hold the point for 15 minutes before it fell under their factions control.
an enemy would be able to stop this process by approching the portal and removing the rift shard(this action can not be preformed if the defender is still in combat though).

[P. Fricebottle]

I really like that idea. Might be hell for the devs though.

[Sparky]

That's a pretty darn good idea. It sounds like it could be a pretty big undertaking to implement, and as such is probably out of the scope of our current Dev staff. Things have been known to change however.

[watchwood]

A huge undertaking, for sure, but it sounds well worth it, as long as you make sure each faction has sections that cannot be taken, and that there are plenty of epic NPCs to mix things up for the 40's.

[Dynmi]

Good lord thats brilliant!

[kingfatzo]

I really like that idea. Might be hell for the devs though.

hehehe well put....poor devs

[MLoki]

You could actually use several of the areas that are already in the game. Some are faction specific areas like Krallusk, Sshanyr, the Duergar Stronghold, and the Sanctum Arcanum. Even Nuetral areas like the Monastery, Bandit Camp, and Linorah could become areas of contention. You could even do other Faction specific areas like Evenshire, Windale, Falme, or Beryn. The areas are out there to fight over we would just need the script that changes the faction of the area to the ones that captured it. Perhaps a gold reward per hour of capture. It wouldn't have to be huge just a little trickle down payment for holding an area. If each faction had there own area they had to control to get a bonus and then other nuetral and enemy areas they could capture it could lend itself to a whole lot of fun trying to hold down the fort. Good luck Devs I hope something like this can be implemented.

MLoki

[Binkyuk]

Great idea!
as an extra idea, make it so that you can only capture a territory if you have an adjoining territory. This would create real faction based areas rather than the patchwork of opportunity based captures i can see happening otherwise.

Also make it so that either a capture shard has a time limit for use, or it must be 'targetted' to a specific territory, so that a capture has to be a specific aim rather than just carrying a capture shard for the heck of it and using it when you can.

[watchwood]

Maybe make it a lesser version of the relic system, for a bonus that applies only to pre-epic toons?

[Flailer]

Nice ideas - but I wouldn't hold your breath to have them get implimented in NS4....

[Celorn]

yeah.. if this kind of thing would be great if it was implemented at the beginning, but to slap it in after the fact would just show even more how unbalanced the faction territory layout is (as the relic system has already shown).

You'd really have to redo the entire mod's maps...which probably won't ever happen. But look at NS3.5; large chunks of Aetheria have been ripped out and reworked (ie: undermountain) so who knows what the future may bring.

[P. Fricebottle]

I'd be capturing Evenshire everyday. Halflings rox my sox.

[watchwood]

Do they roxors your boxors as well? :p

[lord_modred]

i suppose i would be better off hoping this would appear in "NS5"(or whatever nwn2 PW you all are working on) rather than NS4 then?