New Midgard Frontier Layout

[Aenslaed Kasugano]

This is how the new frontier for Midgard is going to look like supposedly.

I dont' know how to interpret this one. Looks very anti zerg and very cluttered.

The mileforts infront of the RKs look to make a relic raid impossible now with any defenders about.

http://www.camelotherald.com/more/1263.shtml

[Bulor]

looks sort of fun.. more focus battles.. yes zerg wars.. but large scale zerg wars can be fun... sometimes

[Nese]

I just took some time to disect this map a little and heres what I got out of it.

Its pretty much forces an attacking army to either navigate a series of chokepoints while assaulting a relic, or take every keep in their path. Defenders also seem to have pretty much free reign in their own frontier (as it should be).

It makes going to the enemy more a game for generals instead of mindless packs of bloodthursty players. Should be really interesting especially that there are no portal keeps. Lets look a possible relic raid break down.

Gather in homeland and navigate to the outer island keep. From there, set sail for Mid. Land at the outer island keep. Now you can either take it, or avoid it but you'll aggro guards and give warning. From there you can move north and stay on the ground til point 12, the first chokepoint. Again, two choices. Cross the river to the east or navigate the woods to the north. Going east takes you past Watchers Hill and any scouts will see you coming from a mile away. Going north means dealing with mob aggro, but less chance of being spotted by defenders. Now you hit Relic Mile Gates. Get by them and your free to assault the relic.

Lets say you actually get the relic out of the RK, now you have a few exit strats. All of them lead you to a Relic Mile Gate. There are three to defend, and chances are not all three will be defended equally so you got a 33% chance if going blind of making it out with little resistance. Choice time. Stay on foot or hit the river. On foot you will have still hit at least one choke point. In the river you can zoom out, but if defenders have forces on the river they could pepper your escape.

Ok, so you got out of Mid, and your on a boat home... Naval battle time. and it goes from there.

It makes RvR like real war campagains of old. You need to secure your routes, bide your time, and plan it out. No more relic blitzes. These are gonna be full on sieges. I am really excited about it actually. The current keep/raid events are too fast, and offer few options when attacking or defending. This makes it so much more intresting.

[Tingtong]

All I can say is wow. I think these design changes are going to be great. I like the new milegate changes to defend/take relics. I think when they first designed the milegates they had blocking relic raid forces in mind but turned into a gay camping and pharming tool which I'm sure the designers didn't want.

It looks like they are eliminating all there RvR design failures and turning it into something positive. From what I can see there are some choke points that the enemy has to take to move into the frontier but they also have 5 routes to take. I think most combat will happen around the beaches because you want to defend your realm from enemy attackers.

On a side note, I think the boat landings should be protected to an extent. Otherwise you will have people patroling the beeches back and forth waiting for an enemy to step foot then instantly get ganked. I foresee it as another emain if they don't protect the landings.

My conclusion to this all is A+ for mythic. BUT Just think all the wasted man hours it took to create all the RvR dugeons that are in place today. all the new keep changes, guard changes, courier missions and whatever else they added that took devs time to create. I'm not saying thats they ALL were bad, I think some were GREAT. But I personally think that it has been a band-aid solution for a bigger problem. (Pulling people out of emain to help protect your realm.) I think it's pretty much safe to say that after a year of release these problem's have been around. After the SI expansion I think these vital changes were indeed very much needed. Before TOA. But whatever, it's finally in developement. I think if this was released before TOA you would have a bigger subscriber base to sell the PVE expansions to. I foresee a lot of people renewing their account's for a new RvR experience... after all I think this game was built on the foundation of PvP, it was something different then eq. If they do it right I think it will be worthwile.

[Aenslaed Kasugano]

Its true that the time spent creating and tweaking the existing frontiers will be thrown away with the new Frontiers, but its not like it was never on the live servers. Replacing old or undesired parts is a part of progress.

At first glance, Frontiers is gonna be brutal for the casual player as well. It looks like all of DAoC is turning into a hardcore only game. I'm not really objecting, but part of the appeal to the game was the big ZvZ battles that took place in the frontiers (cept in emain) and raising the numbers needed for a ZvZ required that you tap into the casual player pool.

But, one thing is for sure. There is going to be a L50 Battleground introduced or DAoC is going to lose alot of people.

[Tingtong]

But, one thing is for sure. There is going to be a L50 Battleground introduced or DAoC is going to lose alot of people.

Don't quite get you there, I think the frontiers have always been a lvl50 requirement after the first 5-6months of release. It was fun zerging when I was 42 when there was 1 50 in the game, but those days are over, and thats why BG's were added for the casual players.

But yea, I agree any release needs updates etc, but there was soo much added to the frontiers that was kinda pointless and a waste of dev time (example: RvR Dungeon's) The also avoided the real issue at hand and that was pulling people outa EMAIN to go fight for your Realm. Mid/Merlin is awesome at protecting the frontier's it's the BEST imo. But, when I Played Alb/Lance no one cared about the frontier's unless relics were under attack, and even then some stayed in emain.

As for the casual player, Mythic knows they have lost a lot of the casual players, hence their constant release of PVE expansions to try to suck them back in again. They also have lost a lot of hardcore gamers, with OE, and emain pharming hence a free download to revive them. But yea If you wanna compete in the RvR I think you have to be a hardcore gamer. I still beating my head against the wall to aquire an artifact, and I think I put the -core in Hardcore gamer.

[Aenslaed Kasugano]

What i mean by battlegrounds is that, alot of players and guilds are in there for the quick pvp fix. Imagine if Emain didn't exist and you had to go all the way to sauvage to get any sort of consistant RvR. Won't work.