Kings and Queens

Castle keep throne room in Alpha-1 castle sieges.

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

• A King or Queen may also be elected mayor of one node.

King or Queen's crown.

Granted to those who own a guild castle, this prestigious Kaelar crown is one of a few that designate royalty in the world of Verra.

Guild leadership tools

The developers are considering a number of leadership tools for guilds:

• Recruitment tools.
• Management tools.
• Delegation tools.
• Motivational systems.
• Communication tools.
  • Guild alerts.
  • Board messages.
  • In game chat.
  • Calendar (may be available via the mobile/web companion app).
• Roster.
  • Standard guild ranks (such as Guild leader and officers).
  • Custom rank names.
  • A list of available permissions per rank/role.
  • Departments within the guild structure with an associated leader.
• Audit logs may be available to guild leaders and officers.
  • Deposits and withdrawals from the guild bank.
  • Promotions.
  • Kicks.
  • Leaves.
• Guild stats.
  • Information about guild membership, such as archetype and class makeup will be made available.
  • Access to guild stats is subject a permissions structure.

For me personally, being a guild leader of a very large guild in the past, these types of administrative functions are life savers for guild leaders... Guild leaders are a very important part of the community for MMORPGs in general and the reason for that is- think of it like a queen on the board- "I bring order to chaos". To a degree, guild leaders are that order to the chaos. They help organize- they do so through lieutenants- they delegate responsibilities. There are good leaders, there are bad leaders, but essentially it's a highly social environment and if you can find a good guild and that guild is augmented with complimentary services from the company, from the game itself, it just makes that life easier and allows them to execute better. So in my opinion that is an important aspect. – Steven Sharif

Guild castles

Guild castle Alpha-1 early preview.

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.

Five guild castles exist in Ashes of Creation.

• Castle sieges occur in the open world but may become instanced based on testing.
  • Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in a zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.
• There is one castle located on an island that is able to be affected by naval combat.

• Castles will initially be occupied by an NPC adversary. These are the primary antagonists in the storyline.

  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.

  • Guilds have a period of time to level up in order to siege these castles.
  • The attacking guilds need to fight the NPCs and kill a raid boss at the center of the castle.
  • There will not be a relic to capture, instead whichever guild had highest contributing DPS against the raid boss will capture the castle.
  • Castle nodes around NPC run castles will not be present.

Benefits of guild castles

Guild castle concept art.

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. – Steven Sharif

Guild castles provide benefits and trophies for guilds that capture and control them.

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

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. – Steven Sharif

Guild castles exert a King or Queen's presence over nodes within their region.

• Levy taxes for the purposes of defense (additional to taxes already imposed by node governments).
• Activate events and abilities that benefit node citizens under their rule.
• Establish special relationships with Mayors to help build up the three dedicated castle nodes.
• Unlock additional types of buildings in nodes.
• Exert control and pressure over one of the five economic regions.

Royal mounts

Nighthunter Gryphon royal mount.

Royal mounts are a tier 3 class of flying mounts available to Mayors of metropolis nodes and Kings and Queens of Guild castles. Royal mounts can also be dropped from legendary world bosses.

• Royal mounts are capable of true flight when utilized by Mayors of metropolis nodes or Kings and Queens of Guild castles.
• Flight capable royal mounts are also dropped from World bosses as eggs. These mounts will have a life-span likely between 15 to 30 days (online and offline time) after which the mounts will pass away.
  • Royal mounts are dropped as eggs that can be cultivated through the Animal husbandry profession for artisans with a high enough stable upgrade on their freehold. The eggs themselves also have a lifetime.
  • Royal mount eggs are able to be sold to other players.
  • Royal mounts are not breedable.
• Each server may have between 10 to 20 royal mounts based on the legendary world boss timers.

• Royal mounts are 3 or 4 times larger than gliding mounts (tier 2 mounts).
  • Certain tier 2 mount skins can be upgraded to tier 3 skins to accommodate the size difference.

Generally flying is not something that we're going to be doing in this game and there's a lot of reasons for that: Some of it is economic, some of it is ... you create this really great looking world and we don't want you flying over all the time. – Jeffrey Bard

At any given point in time you're gonna see anywhere from 10 to maybe at max I would say around 20 based off of the legendary world boss timers. Probably 20 people who have flying abilities. – Steven Sharif

There are different types of royal mounts.

• Dragons.
• Royal horses will be able to fly.
• Other types of legendary, mythical creatures.

Dragons are a class of these royal mounts. You can get different types of royal mounts. They don't have to be dragons. They could be some other type of legendary mythical creature... It will be an epic looking large-scale creature and people will notice you and it while you are approaching. – Steven Sharif

Undermounts

Wyrmling 3D render. Concepted by Ryan Richmond. Modelled by Jessica Jennings.

The guild leader of a castle can grant the use of flying undermounts (such as wyrmlings) to guild officers during a castle siege.

• These may only be granted if the castle nodes are successfully established prior to the siege.
  • Node A grants 1 undermount, Node B grants 2 undermounts, and Node C grants 2 undermounts.
• This system is subject to change during testing.

Little wyrmlings that you can grant to officers if you're a castle owner, and they can fly around too. – Steven Sharif

Visuals

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  2021-12-08
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  2021-06-03
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  2021-06-03
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  2021-05-29
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  2021-05-29
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  2021-05-11
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  2021-05-03
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  2017-11-18

See also

• Castles
• Castle sieges
• Guilds
• Guild halls