Siege Warfare for Faction Bases

[Llewen]

This is an idea borrowed from Lord Chaos' thread about introducing siege warfare to UO.

I like the idea, and other mmo's have introduced the idea successfully, but the question is, how could it be done in UO? Then it occurred to me, faction bases!

For the upcoming changes to factions, instead of making them static constructions, make them dynamic, and make siege warfare and factions the focus of a "booster pack".

The idea is pretty simple at it's heart, instead of a static construction for faction bases, make the faction base a location where the factions have to build the base. There could be various buildings which each have specific uses and provide specific benefits, but the whole base can also be sieged and destroyed with siege engines which can also be constructed.

Siege engine construction and building construction could use current skills, such as blacksmithing and carpentry, or they could involve the introduction of a new skill, or some combination thereof. And of course everything would require the harvesting of resources and for something like faction artifacts (see below) ingredients.

For an example of the benefits that could be provided by building, you could have a faction forge or faction tailor shop, and faction artifacts could no longer simply be purchased they would have to be made and sold on faction vendors in faction shops which would also have to be constructed. Faction mounts would be sold in faction stables. There would still be a purpose for controlling towns, for silver, and possibly resources, but the focus of faction warfare would be the bases.

You could build walls and tower, gates, etc. etc. all of which would have to be defended and could be destroyed by siege engines.

The possibilities really are endless.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Its definitely a good idea. It could even be expanded to be PvM as well for non-faction, to expand the use of the booster.

Generally it could act like a good goldsink in the game, as castles will need to be rebuilt and siege engines built.

 

[Llewen]

Yes, I could see a pvm context like a kind of peerless where you to defeat a city or a castle to gain access to and defeat the champ. Perhaps on a penninsula that could be assaulted from land and bombarded from the sea. That might give you access to mine for a rare ore necessary for some form of crafting for a period of time before the location was "rebuilt" and could be assaulted again.

 

[Llewen]

I've been thinking some more about this idea, and discussing it with a friend. One of the thoughts I have for faction artifacts is that when a crafter creates a faction artifact a deed is created, which can be bought and sold without limitations, but it can only be redeemed by someone in a faction, and when it is redeemed it behaves in the same way as faction artifacts do now. This would give incentive for creating and maintaining crafting facilities, as well as destroying enemy facilities.

One other thing I wanted to clarify is, this idea is largely stolen from my experience in Darkfall Online. As such I am assuming that the base locations would be preset, along with the external wall locations. Now within the walls the locations of faction buildings and facilities could be dynamic in true UO fashion (ie. you can arrange buildings as you like within the walls following the same rules as housing I would assume), or building locations would be preset as well. My preference would be dynamic locations within preset outer fortifications.