Guild castles

Ashes of Creation community empowered Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Guild castle Alpha-1 early preview.[1]

With five Castles in the world, and each having been owned by different civilizations from the far-flung past of Verra, you can expect that each Castle has its own character. Different terrains and different layouts will result in each Castle having its own advantages and disadvantages. Just because you have managed to take one Castle will not mean that your strategies will pan out in the next. Commanders will have to take into consideration the lay of the land, time of day, weather, and even seasons into account when forming their battle plans.[2]

Sword 01 - with logos.png

Five guild castles exist in Ashes of Creation.[3][2][4]

While the hard structural environment is static and not able to be- you're not building a castle if you own a castle, you're inheriting a historic ruined castle that is representative of the past because it has some tie-in to specific types of powers that we haven't gotten into from a lore perspective yet but we haven't expressed to the community. That's something that we're going to leave for the community to find out when they play. But when you place mercenaries and you place those blockades and you place those traps, that affects the level design of the castle according to the strategy you might use to defend it.[3] – Steven Sharif
These Castles are occupied when players arrive on Verra, and their current inhabitants will have to be removed before any player can claim them. Castles will be dangerous and high-level raid zones until they can be cleared, and the first group of players to do so will gain the Castle as their reward.[2]

Castle regions

E1G9zelXIAY0WNO.jpg

Guild castles influence a castle region around them.[18]

Castle taxes

Castles have direct power over the Nodes that belong to it, but also have soft power across the entire region it belongs to. All Nodes belonging to that region pay fealty to the Castle in the form of taxes paid directly to the Castle. The Monarch sets the rate, and can use those proceeds to upgrade defenses, maintain the Castle’s direct Nodes, or provide buffs and benefits to the citizens of that region, as the magnanimous ruler that you are.[2]

Guild castles impose a tax on all revenue for the nodes within its region.[23][24]

Castles have the ability to allocate taxes collected from nodes under them toward certain benefits that go back to the node. Or they can be more selfishly governed that treasury more towards the guild that owns it and that obviously is going to have some political implications, because it could- if you're not using it for the benefit of the people in the region they might rise up and help take you out from that that position of owning that castle.[23] – Steven Sharif

Benefits of guild castles

Guild castle concept art.[2]

It's a reciprocal relationship between the castle and its nodes essentially. There are benefits granted to citizens of the castle; and the longer that the castle remains in the hands of its incumbent guild, the stronger the benefits become overall. But at the same time that represents a greater incentive to attack the castle because the rewards will get greater over time also.[1] – Steven Sharif

Guild castles provide benefits and trophies for guilds that capture and control them.[1][30]

  • These benefits increase the longer a guild holds its castle.[1]

There are levers and dials that are present to both the owners of Castles as well as the elected officials of Nodes that during their administration they have the ability to impact and influence the region around them.[31] – Steven Sharif

Guild castles exert a King or Queen's presence over nodes within their region.[1][31][32]

Castle nodes

One of the 5 guild castles is located on an island, depicted with its 3 adjacent castle nodes.[12][13]

Should you be deft enough to take a Castle, you’ll now be responsible for managing it. Castles will have their own Nodes associated with them, and developing and defending those Nodes will determine the state of your Castle during the next siege. If you’ve done a good job managing your kingdom, then you’ll have more and better options available for deployment during the next siege. If you let your populace fall to ruin, you may have to rely solely on your own devices.[2]

Guild castles have three adjacent castle nodes in close proximity.[4][33] The guild must develop those nodes to enhance the defenses of the castle.[4] It will be possible, but very difficult for a single guild to fully develop these nodes. They will likely need assistance from the broader community.[34]

Once the castle is owned by a guild that's when the supporting castle nodes start to come online and spawn each week prior to the fourth week castle siege. They'll have to form alliances, they'll have to get support, they'll have to get resources, they'll be able to allocate funds that have been collected through taxation in order to strengthen the defenses as well as hiring additional NPC mercenaries.[36] – Steven Sharif

Castle nodes are leveled through questing by the owning guild or alliance guilds.[33]

  • Levelling castle nodes is a hastened process compared to regular nodes.[15]
  • At the end of each week leading up to a castle siege there is a period of time in the weekend where NPC generated caravans start moving toward one of the castle nodes carrying castle taxes from the nodes that fall under the castle's purview.[1][37]
    • During this time it is incumbent upon the owning guild, its allies, and citizens of the nodes to escort these caravans to the castle node.[1]
    • The enemies of the guild have incentive to attack these caravans to reap the rewards from the caravan and to sabotage the tax collection, which will reduce the defensive capability of the castle nodes and hence the castle itself.[1][33]
    • Citizens of nodes that fall under the purview of the castle are automatically registered as defenders of these caravans and may not participate in attacks against them.[1]
  • Completing these quests unlocks services and functions that are useful to the occupying guild and its allies as well as boosting the defenses the castle.[33]

If they fail to to level up those nodes or complete those quests within the three prior weeks before the declaration week, then the castle will be at a disadvantage.[33] – Steven Sharif

Being a member of the occupying guild automatically makes you a garrison of the castle nodes and castle itself.[4]

  • Only members of the occupying guild are citizens of these nodes.[38]
  • This citizenship is different to normal node citizenship. Castle nodes don't operate like normal nodes.[38][35]

Castle sieges

Alpha-1 castle siege gameplay.[39]

Throughout Ashes of Creation, the player has an opportunity to participate in massively multiplayer siege warfare. Since castles are likely the world’s most limited resource, it will be a task to secure and hold them. Involving hundreds of players on a single battlefield, our sieges will employ many moving parts and intricate design features. Because of the difficult nature of taking and keeping a castle there are great rewards available to the players for their efforts. Castles will allow players to exert control over nearby lands and allow for the development of unique buildings in the nearby towns.[40]

Guilds participate in Castle sieges in an effort to capture and occupy one of the five guild castles in Ashes of Creation.[4]

  • The minimum goal is for 250x250 players to be on a single battlefield. It is hoped that this can be increased to 500x500 over time.[44][45][46][47]
  • There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.[48]
  • There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[49]
    • It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[8]
    • Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[9][10][8][11]
I love castle-based gameplay. I love trophies. I like rewarding risk a lot; and for me it's very difficult to imagine a MMO that I would want to play where there is not competition of strategic prowess that determines the outcome of these types of events and there is not a meaningful reward both mechanically and from just a bragging rights perspective that players can aim for and try to achieve. I think that it brings a lot to the game when it comes to motivations, to excel, to level, to gain power, to engage those different progression loops when there is an ultimate goal or trophy that is not static and doesn't exist forever once you achieve it, but that you must constantly perform in order to maintain; and that's really the purpose of these castles.[50] – Steven Sharif

A guild that captures a castle will own that castle for a month before it is sieged again.[51][15]

Each week leading up to the siege week... is a week that's dedicated to one of the three castle dedicated nodes. So around the castle there are three nodes. They represent week, one, two, and three; and then the fourth week is the siege against the castle. Those can only be elevated up to stage three. We've discussed this in the past and there's definitely information out there on the community ran wiki.[51] – Steven Sharif
  • In the first three weeks that a guild occupies a castle they will need to level up each of their castle nodes to Village stage through questing.[51][15]
    • Each of the three castle nodes have a siege against it at the end of each of these three weeks.[15][38]
  • The fourth week is declaration week, where other guilds have the opportunity to lay down their declaration flag or to sign up as a defender of the castle.[51][15]
  • Depending on how well the guild defends their castle nodes results in better defenses for the castle.[15][38]
  • Different siege weaponry will grant the attackers the ability to destroy walls, doors and sections of the castle in order to gain access to the inner keep area.[33]
  • When castles change hands (following a siege), some taxes stay with the castle and some stay with the guild.[29]
There will be benefits to attracting people... even if they're not in your guild or alliance – a feudal like system, where you can attract other players who are just independent of this whole politic. They will have things to do there - benefits to receive - and there will be a reciprocal relationship between who you can attract, what they do for you; and how that benefits you and them.[15] – Steven Sharif

Read more...

Kings and Queens

Castle keep throne room in Alpha-1 castle sieges.[52]

Leaders of guilds that occupy guild castles are referred to as Kings and Queens.[53]

Royal stables

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Royal stables are a type of building in Ashes of Creation.[55]

  • Castles come with a royal stables.[55]
  • Mayors can choose to build royal stables within their node. Once chosen, the community will need to build the stables through quests.[55]
  • Royal mounts must be mounted in a royal stables in order to fly.[55]

The royal mounts will be the only class of mounts that can fully fly in the world; and they are will be needed to be mounted while in a royal stables. Royal stables are a building that can be built in a node if elected to be built by the mayor and supported by the community building it up through the quests to do so; and castles come with a royal stable as well. So once you have a royal stable and you become that Mayor or King or Queen, you may then mount the creature there and then take it wherever you wish.[55] – Steven Sharif

Guild housing

The term "guild housing" refers to guild buildings and not guild owned player housing.[56]

Guild halls

Summer guildhall appearance cosmetic concept art.[57]

Guildhalls are the ultimate expression of a guild's power! In Ashes these structures will serve as focal points for a guild, offering any guilds who construct them a whole host of benefits as well as customization options.[58]

Guild halls serve as a focal point for a guild, offering a host of benefits and customization options.[58]

Only a limited subset of the guild halls available around the node are available concurrently... So you might only have two that might be available at fifth level and then three at sixth level of a node; and the guilds have an opportunity to select from the six available which three are going to be active.[60] – Steven Sharif
  • The design of guild-halls is currently subject to active iteration by the developers.[62]
  • Guild halls owned by partron guilds may have the ability to confer benefits to surrounding estates within that node by speccing into passives in their guild skill tree and carrying out a lengthy quest line.[63]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • Guild halls may be placed on guild freeholds or within nodes.[64][65][66]
    • In-node guild halls may only be claimed by patron guilds of that node. These have different perks and benefits to halls placed on freehold plots.[66]
    • When a guild reaches a certain level, its guild master is granted a guild freehold certificate to enable placement of a guild hall.[64]
  • A guild hall only houses a single guild.[69]

Benefits

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Guild halls unlock actions a guild can perform within a node.[70]

Guild fortresses

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Guild fortresses are siegable guild halls within Ashes of Creation. These are different from nodes and castles.[68]

  • Guild fortresses are objectives in guild wars.[67] These are contested on a regular basis.[64]
  • The developers will decide if guild fortresses will be implemented in the game or shelved.[64]
The fortress design is also something that might be on the shelf. We haven't decided yet. We're going to look into it, but the idea behind the fortress is that this is a competitive guild hall so to speak where you have to contend for it on a regular basis so to speak; or can be taken from you necessarily. Whereas the guild hall is a structure similar to freehold structure can only be taken through successful sieges against a node per-se are not taken but destroyed.[64] – Steven Sharif

Visuals

Community guides

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:39:02).
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Blog: 10 facts about castle sieges in the MMORPG.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Interview, September 10, 2023 (22:29).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 castle nodes.png
  5. ↑ Livestream, April 29, 2022 (27:42).
  6. ↑ Livestream, July 25, 2020 (1:22:40).
  7. ↑ Livestream, June 26, 2020 (1:33:10).
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Podcast, April 11, 2021 (49:40).
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 steven-siege-zone.png
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Livestream, April 30, 2021 (41:18).
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Blog: Creative Director's Letter, April 14 2021
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Livestream, October 14, 2022 (58:46).
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 steven-island-castle.png
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Interview, September 10, 2023 (24:15).
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (21:55).
  16. ↑ Livestream, January 18, 2018 (37:05).
  17. ↑ Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:31:11).
  18. ↑ castle-influence.png
  19. ↑ castle-taxes2.png
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 castle-region.png
  21. ↑ region-overlap.png
  22. ↑ castle-metro.png
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 Livestream, April 30, 2021 (1:01:10).
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 castle-taxes.png
  25. ↑ castle-power.png
  26. ↑ castle-resources.png
  27. ↑ castle-taxes3.png
  28. ↑ castle-taxes4.png
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 castle-taxes5.png
  30. ↑ Livestream, November 17, 2017 (49:30).
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Interview, May 11, 2018 (47:27).
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 Podcast, May 5, 2017 (52:32).
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 33.4 33.5 33.6 33.7 Podcast, April 23, 2018 (15:14).
  34. ↑ Livestream, July 26, 2019 (1:29:00).
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 castle-systems.png
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:41:24).
  37. ↑ castle-node-caravans.png
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 38.2 38.3 Livestream, August 23, 2017 (23:00).
  39. ↑ Video, May 28, 2021 (25:44).
  40. ↑ About Ashes of Creation.
  41. ↑ Livestream, July 29, 2022 (1:12:14).
  42. ↑ Interview, July 29, 2020 (31:05).
  43. ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (13:13).
  44. ↑ Livestream, September 24, 2021 (52:48).
  45. ↑ Interview, July 8, 2021 (57:19).
  46. ↑ Interview, July 19, 2020 (44:28).
  47. ↑ castle-siege-scale.png
  48. ↑ Twitch Bustin - Practice Sieges?
  49. ↑ Livestream, January 28, 2022 (17:50).
  50. ↑ Interview, September 10, 2023 (25:14).
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 51.3 Livestream, August 28, 2020 (1:43:03).
  52. ↑ Video, May 28, 2021 (3:41).
  53. ↑ Livestream, May 26, 2017 (37:17).
  54. ↑ steven-kings-and-mayors.png
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 55.4 Livestream, 2018-04-8 (PM) (51:49).
  56. ↑ Livestream, July 28, 2017 (18:07).
  57. ↑ Summer Leader of Men.png
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 kickstarter guild halls.png
  59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 Blog: Exploring the Boundless Opportunities of Freeholds.
  60. ↑ 60.0 60.1 Podcast, July 15, 2023 (6:25).
  61. ↑ steven-guild-hall-purchases.png
  62. ↑ Livestream, June 30, 2023 (1:48:17).
  63. ↑ steven-guild-hall-barony.png
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 64.2 64.3 64.4 64.5 Interview, April 21, 2019 (45:45).
  65. ↑ Podcast, August 18, 2018 (1:12:34).
  66. ↑ 66.0 66.1 Livestream, February 28, 2020 (1:06:51).
  67. ↑ 67.0 67.1 67.2 Podcast, August 4, 2018 (1:54:15).
  68. ↑ 68.0 68.1 kickstarter fortress.png
  69. ↑ Livestream, May 22, 2017 (56:48).
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 Livestream, May 19, 2017 (51:20).
Retrieved from "https://ashesofcreation.wiki/index.php?title=Guild_castles&oldid=88924"