Let me start off by saying I love Vanguard. It's a great game and has come a long way since launch. Vanguard's PvE is top notch and the world is so massive sometimes it's just fun to go out and explore it. Of course though, me being me, I'm never completely satisfied. 

I've been playing Vanguard for a while now and I've been itching for some excitement, which got me thinking. What if SOE gave us an actual use for those massive expensive guild halls? What if we could have guild hall sieges?

To be eligible for a siege a guild would have to have built a guild hall. And how a siege would work is that a guild could threaten to attack another guild and then a time would be set up within the server. Once the time is set up the attacking guild would have a limited amount of time, let's say an hour, to take over this other guild's hall. To successfully take over a guild hall the attacking guild would have to fight through the opposing guild's members along with the guild leader himself. The guild leader during a siege would be somewhat like a juggernaut. The guild leader would have extra power, extra health, special spells, ect. Maybe even make him larger than normal for a dramatic effect. Since guild leaders can't always be around someone else could be appointed "guild leader" temporarily for the siege. (This person wouldn't necessarily have any real power within the actual guild itself).

Anyways, to win a siege the attacking guild would have to take down the guild leader. Once the leader has been slayn the battle would instantly stop and nobody would be allowed to attack each other anymore. The rewards for a siege could be special permanent buffs that increase in value with the increase in guild halls your guild owns.

I realize having a buff as a reward would make it impossible to overtake a large guild with mutliple guild halls, but this is where alliances come into play. The larger your empire the harder it is to maintain. Alliances could form and 2 or more guilds could attack all of another guild's guild halls at once. Alliances can only be formed by the offensive guilds AND if the guild being attacked has more than one guild hall under their command. Alliances would be a good way to maintain a balanced pvp atmosphere. Alliances would not share buffs.

Just an idea. And it's not exactly complete but it should give you the big picture I'm going for. If you have any ideas or questions feel free to post them.

 I guess instead of  the guild leader being the final boss of a siege someone of the guild could be appointed "captian" which would make them the target to kill.

And maybe to make things interesting the deensive guild hallw ould be locked down until the offensive guild killed a certian number of the defensive guild's members. Example: once the attacking guild killed 20 members the gates would open and the attacking guild would then have access to the defensive guild captian. 

If you want excitement, play on the pvp server(s), oh wait thats right there are only something like 50 people playing on them at any given time.  I played this game when it first came out, it had a crap loads of potential, but it was a pve game that they decided to tack on some pvp servers at the last second because of this the classes were outrageously unbalanced (pheonix shamans, a healer class could 1 shot you with thier pet) 

Originally posted by carnage22

If you want excitement, play on the pvp server(s), oh wait thats right there are only something like 50 people playing on them at any given time.  I played this game when it first came out, it had a crap loads of potential, but it was a pve game that they decided to tack on some pvp servers at the last second because of this the classes were outrageously unbalanced (pheonix shamans, a healer class could 1 shot you with thier pet) 

I have to admit it op but Carnage is right. Unless it's completely consensual, I think people would not like to see "Sword of Justice is attacking your Guidl Hall" while they are in the middle of a raid.

I personally love sieges. But for Vanguard, only if it was either on the pvp server or if the sieges were consensual.

PVP is god awful in a mmorpg.It will NEVER work,it would be a battle of quantity and levels,nothing skill related,so why would a guild with zero chance t odefend want any part of a no win situation?PVP is ALWAYS a one side wins the other side usually has no chance scenario,nothing good comes from that at all.

It would basically be like forming a kids hockey team and asking them to defend against an NHL hockey team,whats the point?

I know many like having guild halls and look for more and more content,but PVP is not the answer.

Personally i do not like the way guild halls have been done in many games.I do not trust or like a guild bank,nor d oi like a guild storage,you never know who you can trust online,there hs been a lot of drama come of it in the past.

I can think of some real cool ideas for guild content,too bad it seems most developers are more C++ geeks than true gamers,otherwise they would come up with some cool ideas,other than just PVP.

 It would be a time set up with the server so when both guilds agreed let's say the siege would be conducted at 8pm server time. And it would be consensual. If the attacking guild would win their buff would increase in power for controlling another hall and if the defending guild won they would keep their buffs and gain an extra morale buff for let's say 12 hours or so.

The rewards would be purely to boost a guild's performance in the PvE portion of the game.

Originally posted by carnage22

If you want excitement, play on the pvp server(s), oh wait thats right there are only something like 50 people playing on them at any given time.  I played this game when it first came out, it had a crap loads of potential, but it was a pve game that they decided to tack on some pvp servers at the last second because of this the classes were outrageously unbalanced (pheonix shamans, a healer class could 1 shot you with thier pet) 

That's forced PvP. It's different than a guild siege where you're battling for PvE buffs.

PvP DOES work in an MMO alibet not always perfect.

In my opinion, Vanguard can't succeed without working towards game balance on their PvP servers.

That is why their PvP servers are dead and the community packed up and left a long time ago.

Sure the PvE is good but attracting PvP players would bring a lot more population to the game for PvP  AND PvE.

I was interested in checking this game out as I loved their concept of the Necromancer class.

My friend MKUltra, the first level 55 in Vanguard on the only PvP Server, explained to me how imbalanced the PvP was especially with the one shots.

A game like that has no future in the mainstream market of MMOs and thus will linger on a pathetic existance and eventually die out altogether.

I agree that the game in concept and the world is AWESOME!

I am sure the PvE is great but players want to have more of a challenge then scripted AI all the time.

I am sure it is a lot more stable then it was a launched.

I played in the closed beta and I was counting the days until the game came out however the more I played the more I realized the game wasn't going to work.

Even if you can't balance the PvP completely fix the obvious imbalances (specifically the one shots) and focus on the PvP more then maybe you'll have more then 20-100 people on Sartok server.

Launch a major press released regarding PvP balance and see what happens.

I diagree, a game doesn't have to have PvP to survive, just look at Lord of the Rings and the Everquest games, there isn't any real PvP there and its only a small minority of players that demand PvP. Agreeing with what another post said, PvP in mmo's doesn't work, it is all about who is the higher level, who has the better gear, who has macro's and who can run in circles and still attack.

Originally posted by shakermaker0

I diagree, a game doesn't have to have PvP to survive, just look at Lord of the Rings and the Everquest games, there isn't any real PvP there and its only a small minority of players that demand PvP. Agreeing with what another post said, PvP in mmo's doesn't work, it is all about who is the higher level, who has the better gear, who has macro's and who can run in circles and still attack.

Sadly, a lot of PvP is that way. But what if these sieges could be set up more like a raid dungeon? That way it would be something PvE players would be used to and it would also satisfy the PvPer's need to hunt down other people.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by carnage22

If you want excitement, play on the pvp server(s), oh wait thats right there are only something like 50 people playing on them at any given time.  I played this game when it first came out, it had a crap loads of potential, but it was a pve game that they decided to tack on some pvp servers at the last second because of this the classes were outrageously unbalanced (pheonix shamans, a healer class could 1 shot you with thier pet) 

 

I have to admit it op but Carnage is right. Unless it's completely consensual, I think people would not like to see "Sword of Justice is attacking your Guidl Hall" while they are in the middle of a raid.

I personally love sieges. But for Vanguard, only if it was either on the pvp server or if the sieges were consensual.

Originally posted by shakermaker0

I diagree, a game doesn't have to have PvP to survive, just look at Lord of the Rings and the Everquest games, there isn't any real PvP there and its only a small minority of players that demand PvP. Agreeing with what another post said, PvP in mmo's doesn't work, it is all about who is the higher level, who has the better gear, who has macro's and who can run in circles and still attack.

Not having PvP is one of the reasons why LotR will never be taken seriously or grow to it's full potential.

I know of 100+ players personally that stayed away from that game due to no PvP.

Same with CoX. They decided to put PvP on the back burner and not give it some priority. Result? They started hemmorgaing players at an astounding rate.

They lost many *PvE* Players in the PvP exodus and the only server that is really active is Freedom.

A MMO isn't complete without some viable and decent PvP. It reduces the "buzz", the population, and the overall interest in the game. It results in less money for development, less population, and ultimate even less PvE.

I couldn't disagree more. Everquest 1 flourished as a PVE game with very little to no PVP action, you didn't see Sony trying to balance classes in PVP in that game.

Even though there wasn't much choice back then, PVPers had Ultima Online and later Asheron's Call I believe did a bit of PVP, but everyone in Everquest (which had a lot of subs for the time, marginally a much larger portion of the MMORPG community than WoW even had/has) seemed content in their balanced PVE content and having fun WORKING TOGETHER rather than Raping each other with razor-blade dildos. Although, the Velium Brawl sticks made me wonder sometimes.

Stop referencing Everquest 1. Those days are long over my friend. It was a different MMO time and a different MMO world 10 years ago. Everquest was more of a social game then an MMO anyhow.

If you don't want to doom Vanguard to a slow painful death, which it looks like it's heading, starting poking the Developers to work on game balance for the classes in PvP.

Start by removing one shots immediately.

They could make a second rule set fairly easily that reduces damage in PvP by X amount as a temporary patch.

Same with buffs and/or heals.

If you haven't noticed by the population ( or lack thereof ) on the PVP server in Vanguard, PVP is not Vanguards strong point, nor should it be. There are games for PVP players, go play one.

In fact, 99 percent of the games coming out now days are mainly PVP oriented, go play one of those. Allow PVE'rs to have this one game that is not getting nerfed every other patch to "balance" PVP, and let us kill our mobile monsters in peace.

Also, I find it ridiculous that you would call Everquest a "social" game and not an MMO. Are MMOs and Social games not one in the same?

Let's recall what MMORPG stands for. Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Role Playing Games. Notice that they are not called Massively Solo Online RPGs, because console and offline RPGs already exist and do not need to be played online.

There was plenty of PvP action back on the Rallos Zek server back in the day. Kind of petered out with Velious but was still good fun, if not entirely balanced.

As for the OP, the idea of guild hall sieges would be pretty neat. Your idea kind of reminds me of taking a towers back in DAoC, fighting into the towers past the guards and having to kill the captain at the top. Was pretty fun.

Originally posted by Jimmydean

Also, I find it ridiculous that you would call Everquest a "social" game and not an MMO. Are MMOs and Social games not one in the same?

Let's recall what MMORPG stands for. Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Role Playing Games. Notice that they are not called Massively Solo Online RPGs, because console and offline RPGs already exist and do not need to be played online.

MMO doesn't mean that the social aspect is the main focal point of the main.

MMOs that have a big social appeal are  games like the Sims, Second Life, Everquest etc.

MMOs that are mainstream and "normal" are those like WoW, Darkfall Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, etc.

Sure those games have some social interaction in them but it's not one of the main focal points.

All those games you don't need to be that social to have fun or be successful for the most part.

Even if you're in a decent guild the social aspect is very limited compared to the Sims, Second Life, Everquest etc.

Those games are more designed for RP players who want more fantasy then action.

If you build it they will come.

Build and balance the PvP in Vanguard and it still might be possible to bring players in!

Let's be honest it wouldn't take much to double the population.

Balancing the PvP could easily accomplish that feat.

Remember more PvP dollars from PvP subscribers = more PvE development as well.

Most mainstream PvP players enjoy raiding and PvEing for loot so they can gear up themselves more for PvP.