Faction hubs: World PvP that matters

[Umbra]

Posted this on the official forums, thought I'd share it with you guys as well.

As we all know, the complaints about World PvP rage on endlessly. On one side, we have the gankers and the griefers who are solely interested in making the game worse for everyone, and on the other you have the players that consider World PvP to be the greatest plague ever set upon WoW.

If you're like me, you're somewhere in the middle. You like World PvP, but to you it's about more than RED = DEAD. For people like us, I propose an idea.

Step the first: Setting the stage
Faction hubs would be a feature for an expansion, and would therefore only exist in the new zones of the expansion. Each zone would have two to three hubs, which start out hostile to both factions. Hubs, as opposed to outposts, would not have permanent high-level Elite guards. This is the role that players are intended to fill.

Step the second: Action!
A hub can be conquered by killing its leader: an NPC either belonging to the faction that controls the hub, or of the race that inhabits it naturally. Say that a particular hub is a centaur camp, lead by one of their shamans: this shaman would have to be taken down for the hub to be conquered. If the Alliance conquer the centaur hub, the shaman would be replaced by perhaps a Kaldorei Druid, or a Darkspear Shaman.

Each hub would have a different way of taking it out, due to layout. A murloc hub could be part underwater, or only reachable by swimming, while a harpy hub could be at the top of a cliff, only reachable by a winding path. Others might have air raid mechanics set up by the gnomes / goblins, or blessings given by faction NPCs that allow you to take on a larger number of enemies at the same time, which is compensated with a larger number of NPCs.

NPCs within these hubs are considered players for resilience purposes. A leader NPC would have special abilities on the level of that of a Heroic boss, but on a non-environmental level, as they can be fought anywhere in the hub.

Once a hub is conquered, they will open up their services to their new overlords, either out of oppression or out of gratitude. For a short while, perhaps four to six hours, Elite guards at the level cap will spawn at the point, to give the controlling faction a bit of a breather to enjoy the new rewards they've unlocked, but these will quickly lose interest and return to where they came from.

Step three: Reaping the rewards
Similar to how Archaeology is divided, the rewards from faction hubs will be split up depending on the race. Say that there are four major races in the new zones: Centaurs, jungle trolls, murlocs and harpies, evenly spread out through the zones. Taking over a hub from the enemy faction earns you reward tokens: successfully defending it against an attack by them earns even more. This reward is given to anyone that participates in the takeover / defense.

These rewards can then be used at quartermasters located in the hubs, which unlocks vanity equipment (i.e. weapons and armor with cool, thematic models with rubbish stats on them, ideal for transmogrification), vanity pets, mounts, and titles.

Step four: The technical difficulties

The most obvious problem lies in Step Three; who exactly is “participating”? Well, I propose a system to handle that, as well. This borrows heavily from other games in the genre, games which I shouldn't have to name, so bear with me.

When opening the zone map, you will see any discovered faction hubs and who they belong to as icons, similar to how Tol Barad works today. You will also be notified if there are any attacks on a hub going on when entering a zone, or when checking the map.

When you're close enough to an enemy-controlled hub, and you have at least one other player of your faction nearby, the game will ask you to form an invasion group. If there is already an invasion group going on, the game will ask you to join that one. As soon as a member of the invasion group attacks a hub NPC or a player within hub boundaries, the attack starts.

At that point, a defense force is formed, consisting of all players within hub boundaries that accept the invitation. Warnings will be sent out in Local Defense to all players in the zone that an attack is going on. Away or AFK players will not be included in the defense force, but will be asked to join if they become active while an attack is happening.

An attack is over if all players in either the invasion group or the defense force are out of combat for more than thirty seconds, or if the leader NPC is taken down. The group belonging to the faction that controls the hub after the attack are rewarded for their efforts.


So, there it is, folks. A different way of inserting some World PvP into the world, and actually reward you for doing it. Please refrain from debating the current status of World PvP in here, as that is a matter for another thread.

[ohnztad]

I like your idea. You should definately post this on the official battle.net forums. Bringing World PvP back in the game would be so sweet.

[Deleted]

You sir, have a good idea!