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Siege warfare and the caravan system.
I have not seen much on this topic, so I am guessing this might be what we see.
We will use the caravans to move things to market, but will this system be used for moving siege equipment to the battle sites?
In my mind it only makes since, after all it will take time to setup you siege, so why not the added risk of some group cutting the supply line to the battle. In fairness, the caravan for a siege war should be more heavily guarded, after all your going to war. But still have a risk of losing it along the way.
What do you guys think?
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I don't think siege equipment will be on the caravans per se.
But, the end result is the same - especially for castle sieges.
How well-guarded a caravan will be will be up to us players.
Purely for their own interest rather than a quest tells them to.
Mercenary caravan guard is a great role for an RPG.
Judge risk and do the adjustments yourself. Build pools and invest wisely.
Doesn't sound like fun to me but someone else can go for it
Seems kind of pointless to me if they don't.
I would consider it a basic aspect of the service myself.
You're not wrong. Just ignore Dygz, the relentless source of circular and bad faith arguments.
I don't see a need to pay players for that service.
But, we shall see.
Some caravans will be run for personal profit. Bringing materials from one node where they are plentiful to a different node where they are scarce and will sell for a premium.
No one at either source or destination node is going to care much about your profits.
I would care more about the safety of other people's caravans than I would about profits - and care nothing at all about the profits of some player mercenary guild.
And, of course, attack caravans in order to prevent the the rise to power undesirable rivals. But, also not to the extent that I would pay player mercenaries to attack enemy caravans.
That being said...
Shouldn't there also be some kind of mercenary insurance to ensure that enemy caravans are destroyed, when mercenaries are hired for that purpose?
If you lose your first half because the mercenaries betrayed you or in general failed, you wouldn't be out the whole sum. Also, the mercenaries would be losing half of their profits (assuming someone didn't pay them more to lose intentionally). If they make good effort and fail, they were still paid for their time.
If they betray you, it would be nice to be able to post that on town boards so everyone could read it. Their reputation would prevent them from staying in business long if they sell out one too many caravans, at least in that node.
Mercenaries should be allowed to double cross other players, that's one of the constant threats of outsourcing your protection (and always has been).
I hope that Caravan protection doesn't eventually default to everyone always/only using NPC guards.
A mercenary guild, like any guild, thrives on making a name for themselves in the community, attracting better quality prospects in regards to membership, and in the case of this thread, potential jobs.
If a merc guild/group becomes known in the community to be duplicitous, or incompetent, that bad reputation will precede/follow them, and dissuade other players from hiring them.
So, in my estimation, it would be in any guilds best interest to make sure whatever job they accept, to make sure it's done as promised. And, if they can complete the assignment above and beyond the benefactors expectations, so much the better.
I typically work with other groups by trading services and that typically builds up relationships.
If I am an animal breeder, I might very well be giving the mercenary guild/group free mounts and pets - if I like the player characters. And, the way it typically works out for me is, they would guard my caravans for free because they like me and successful caravan runs helps me make better mounts and pets.
I don't have to worry about insurance because the relationship is built on friendship and trading services, rather than monetary payments.
From my perspective, the players with whom insurance would be a factor would be way too sketchy for me. We could have friendly social interactions, but we would never have a relationship that includes insurance.
And, yes, I would expect reputation would be an important factor. The mercenaries I like would be promoted in my social media outlets. And, I would also give referrals to colleagues and associates in-game as a trustworthy and capable group to defend (and possibly attack) caravans.
But, I think that's the difference in being a cooperative player rather than a competitive player.
There might be a few extra steps to prevent fraud such as: you sign an agreement to pay 'x' amount when the goods are delivered (possibly even divide it up based on involvement, class, level, etc. - like the leader might get a higher percentage, or a certain percentage goes to the supporting guild) - and when the goods are delivered, you redeem it at the destination market. Or, if you don't show up, you don't get paid - or take the risk of not getting paid if you're not there and it gets attacked.
The more 'open' the system, and the more player controlled, the more complex it gets! And personally, the more interesting.
Anyone in range of the PvP bubble can choose to join that mobile battleground for defense or attack.
If both defenders or attackers get a piece of the goods, seems like there's no point in having the caravan defended.
Without an insurance system in place - something that I would expect a guild wanting a good reputation to offer anyway - what is stopping guilds from organizing to lose a caravan they know is worth significantly more than average?
I wouldn't expect Intrepid to put anything in place to facilitate this (although a generic escrow system of some sort could be beneficial). Rather, I expect it to be totally player driven.
I know I wouldn't hire anyone to protect a caravan of my own without some form of insurance.
I also know that if I were running a mercenary guild, I would offer insurance as an option to people that were using our services. That way, if we lose a caravan we don't take a hit to our reputation - and if we don't lose any caravans we stand to make considerably more money.
Seems like the reputation would be based on how often the mercenary guild loses.
But, really, seems difficult to have any kind of reasonable insurance without knowing how many people will show up to attack.
So, for me, I would just want to know that I enjoy traveling and fighting with the player characters and that they are reasonably good fighters.
And if my caravan fails too many times for my liking, I will add or remove defenders for future runs. See if we fair better without the "help" of the mercenaries... and then promote the usefulness of the mercenaries accordingly.
But, you know, other than hardcore time, I'm a casual player.
What is meaningful entierly deepends on the person. Farming caravan runs all over the day will be booring as f.
It will be fun maybe on the first few runs.
But a mmorpg supposed to play'd for years, it will be extremly booring and repetitive after the 100th run.
While it maybe realistic, and have economical effect, it's pretty much like eve's transport ganking, which is so popular, that if they plan on 10k player/server, they only need to maitain 2 - 3 servers worldwide, so the costs will be low atleast...
While in theory caste sieges can be fun, it will be a chore for nothing in the end...
Again the first few time it will be fun...
but soon, ppls not going to want to put effort into it, so it will be underused soon...
(not even mentioning the fact that there will be one dominant guild/alliance controlling every important area, without any challengers...)
deal with it, the overwhelming mayority of players want to brainlesly PvP, and don't care about the "meninful" part...
However, without belaboring the specific mechanics involved, Intrepid's stated intent on making pvp "meaningful" is to tie it to progression. Progression is not static, and there is also the chance for regression, as well. PvE, as well as PvP, are both interwoven into how all this plays out, and given to the players to choose how they want to make it work.
Will it be possible to progress without engaging in PvP? Yes, I imagine, for individuals. But, I believe it would be HIGHLY unlikely for a whole server to be "PvE", unless everyone on that server worked on one accord. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.
For certain nodes to progress to a desired point, it may be required of them to sack, and de-level a neighboring node. A player may come across a valuable/rare resource, out in the open world. Another player may happen upon it at the same time, and a standoff ensues...which could turn into a fight. Just a couple of simple examples. Thus, "meaningful".
As for the boring factor, most anything after a while, looses it's shine. It's the devs job to keep connected to the game/community, and try their best to keep things "fresh".
So, farming Caravans will get old but running around randomly attacking people won't?
It's a game. Hopefully a brilliant beautiful one with unlimited content. However, being realistic, if all you do is one thing you will be bored and unfortunately miss out on a lot this game offers. Regardless of the one thing you decide to farm.
I don't think a majority of players want PvP. I especially don't think a majority of the ones that do our brainless.
The primary draw of attacking caravans is to prevent rival nodes from locking out the content you hope to acquire. You want to prevent a rival node from becoming a Metropolis so that your own Node can become a Metropolis.
Or you want to stop a caravan to prevent rival cities from building the equipment they would need for a successful siege on your Node.
Most people will probably want to keep the property they've already acquired - like King-of-the-Node Dragons - and therefore work to make sure that others can't remove them from the perks they covet.
Yeah, if the only reason to attack caravans is to farm - that's going to get boring quickly. Which is why the devs are giving us other -more meaningful- reasons to attack and defend caravans.
Ashes might be out for several years before the PvP crowd starts to focus on a more meaningful, node oriented, goal. Although I know several PvP oriented players in the forums are looking for the node-war type thing as a primary and some as a secondary. So that change in mindset might appear sooner than later.
Fun doesn't need a purpose, but meaning does by definition.
Fun doesn't need to be significant, but meaning does by definition.
There is a larger purpose and significance to caravan attacks and sieges. They impact the node and even the world dramatically even if they become monotonous or not fun to do.
Trivial things can be fun without being meaningful to the overall game or progression of your character.
Yes, individuals decide what is important to them, but even if they don't think a siege is important its occurance is still meaningful to the game and the world.