i have heard many say that the RvR is "HUGE",  does anyone know how many will be allowed in one battle? 

and if you do not, do you know how many were allowed in DAOC RvR?  this would be a good guess as to the size of WAR's RvR (only i would imagine, a bit larger)

thank you for the feed back :)

I'll answer your second question first, since it's short and sweet. There was no limit in DAOC RvR. You knew the limit was reached when the server crashed. Some of the larger fights would get up around 300+ vs 300+.

As far as the RvR in WAR, I would imagine it would be the same. Except they are approaching RvR a bit differently. In DAOC you had to go off to a certain area (the frontiers or battlegrounds) to RvR. Also, in DAOC the majority of the fighting was zerg vs zerg. WAR incorporates the fighting into every zone with at least 1/4 of the lower level zones being dedicated to PvP. There will be four different types of PvP combat, being skirmishes, instanced scenarios, battlefields and the campaign for your enemy's capital. Also, when you say RvR that doesn't always necessarily mean PvP. Mythic is also incorporating the realm war fully into their PvE system, so everything you do, whether it be PvP or questing in PvE, is driven by the war effort.

If you're talking actual scale, as in "how big is the world?", you can take a look at this image. Multiply that by 3 (for the three racial pairings) and there you have the entire world upon release. Each zone, as stated earlier, having PvP content which will scale to a higher percentage through each tier until reaching 100%. There will also be a PvP dungeon, similar to Darkness Falls in DAOC.

So, short answer...it's gonna be "HUGE".

Hopefully this has not been asked before (though it probably indeed has, and I simply cannot find it due to my own cluelessness)---do we know yet how the available allies will be able to enter their friends' lands? For example, if I play an Empire Witch Hunter, how do I run over there and meet those charming, fat dwarfs?

I suppose that the world will be 'seamless', sort of like World of Warcraft, where the different 'races' can run right into each others' territory. I hope we're not blocked off by mountains or invisible walls or whatnot and simply have to teleport back and forth (or use a 'ship' or the like as in Guild Wars).

Yes, all races in each faction will be able to travel to allied lands.

Do we know how travel will work yet, though? Will we be able to walk back and forth between lands, or will there be Dark Age of Camelot-style 'teleporting' around?

you cannot walk between the racial pairing lands for the simple motive that they are too far from each other and not connected at all. (especially the elves land that is like other side of the world in respect of the dwarves/greenskins and the empire/chaos places)

We have been told that transport will be handled in a racial appropriate way, so expect ships, airships maybe, catapult for orcs and the like.

Well, the first thing to think about with RvR in WAR is that it doesn't revolve completely around massive zerg vs. zerg like you had in DAoC, and while the zone-control portion and ultimately the looting and sacking of home-cities is the big end-game, that doesn't mean that the fight is completely between huge massive armies.  That will be a valid part of it, but the focus is also elsewhere.

PvP doesn't just start at the end levels either.  Allow me to explain:

1.  Skirmishes/Battlefields - Throughout the game as you level, some zones will be PvP-enabled, but the focus in those zones will not JUST be PvP.  You will be able to do PvE quests there as well.  In these zones, you can choose to fight incident world PvP.  You will do quests here and can also kill the opposing side that is also doing quests there while you are doing these.  You can also try to take over the battlefield objective.  In each of these zones there will be something to take over for your side and doing so will give your side bonuses in that zone (maybe your side can then harvest a rare resource there for crafting, or you get more xp, or faster morale gains, etc.)  This is the world PvP that each zone gets and the kills that you make here will reward your side with points that will ultimately help shift control over the zones.  This is the massive (or not massive depending on whether or not people show up) world PvP that is only limited by the number of players wanting to play world PvP (or wanting to do quests in that zone and having to do world PvP) in the zone.  They may, at some point, decide to cap these if performance within them is crap, but I doubt this will happen and you may simply want to move to one of the other 2 battlefronts when world PvP is taking place if you don't like lag.

2.  Scenarios - These are the "meat" of PvP as they give you a ton of cool, different objectives and they take place in instanced zones where the sides are made even by balancing the teams with NPCs.  In these zones you will fight to win certain objectives.  An example they've given in one of the demos is that you might fight to gain control of 4 downed dwarven helicopters (Either to blow them up and kill the stunties, or to rescue your dwarven comrades - depending on your perspective).  The trick here will be to play smart.  Success or failure in these scenarios will also effect the ongoing endgame zone-control as you also earn points for kills as well as overall success for winning these scenarios.  It is likely that most PvP-players will gravitate toward these as they will allow you to get challenging PvP with fair teams and cool objectives whenever you want it - unlike world PvP where you are dependent on the other side showing up or you just run around bored.

3.  Zone control - The skirmishes/battles that take place in these zones and the scenarios that are fought in instances from these zones will all culminate to allow you to gain control of zones in the endgame and thus create a campaign that moves your side of the battle forward towards the enemy's capitol city.  The ultimate goal of this, of course, is to burn down the enemy's city and to loot it.  You move towards the city by being successful in the other types of PvP shown above.  When you finally get to their city, you must "conquer" it by playing scenarios that have you doing things like tearing down the city walls.  After the scenarios are won for taking the city, you can enter it and do things like killing their named NPCs to get killer loot, and/or kidnapping their leader to take back to your town where you can place him in a stockade and players can throw rotten tomatoes at him.

Does that make sense?  World PvP is referred to as incidental PvP in Warhammer.  It could be huge armies vs. huge armies but that has traditionally been extremely laggy and somewhat boring as you have to wait for the other side to show up or you are simply overwhelming a tiny force or, if you are the ones that are out-numbered, then all you can do is try to lure some of the players in the huge opposing herd away so that you can take them on without getting pwned yourself.  The scenarios will probably be about 80% of what most players do in PvP.

There will also be players who relish world PvP because they like to "gank" or PK.  They don't really want straight-up battles with even sides, and, if you want this world PvP, then you can totally do it.  I'm just saying that most players will probably gravitate towards the content that gives you an instant battle that is fair and has objectives so that there is a clear winner or loser by the end of the scenario.

Originally posted by Empress_Jess
Do we know how travel will work yet, though? Will we be able to walk back and forth between lands, or will there be Dark Age of Camelot-style 'teleporting' around?

Paul Burnett has stated that fast travel will work like an airport and you can simply go to it and fast-travel to wherever you want to go (even if you haven't walked there before).  So expect travel to be even easier than it is in WoW.  The design philosophy is that when players are playing, they don't want to spend a bunch of time getting to where they are going to start having fun.  They want to get their NOW and have fun NOW.  I couldn't agree more. 

Thank you for the answers, guys!

Well then, I suppose this means no absurdly lengthy and time-consuming gryphon rides, a-la World of Warcraft. Whew!

I was unaware that the regions are unconnected; I haven't played the tabletop game in many years, and do not recall much about the world's geography (or even whether that was fleshed out then...I probably just wasn't paying any attention to details). The design certainly seems very interesting and quite different from many other MMORPGs.

Woot , love fighting in Snow Go Shorties!!!!

Originally posted by dink

Originally posted by Empress_Jess
Do we know how travel will work yet, though? Will we be able to walk back and forth between lands, or will there be Dark Age of Camelot-style 'teleporting' around?

Paul Burnett has stated that fast travel will work like an airport and you can simply go to it and fast-travel to wherever you want to go (even if you haven't walked there before).  So expect travel to be even easier than it is in WoW.  The design philosophy is that when players are playing, they don't want to spend a bunch of time getting to where they are going to start having fun.  They want to get their NOW and have fun NOW.  I couldn't agree more. 

 

w00t! That pwns hard, thanks alot, I hate to fly in WoW. 10-20 minutes flying because the gryphon insist on sicksacking like some sort of dumb sightseeing.

Anything but the travel system in WoW.  I hate Traveling in WoW, other than if your a mage, but even then they only are ok if your going to one of the major cities they can teleport to.