19 Sep 2005 at 06:19 - 25
Create "Vanguard" missions at each city, all of them are connected in similar manners as the Arenas can be to each town, and are essentially divided between staging and combat areas as with missions, but with a major altering point to how one enters it. To begin, parties can be formed to enter, as well as changed within the mission itself, allowing the invitation of up to 10 players for a single party. As well, parties and players may choose which district to fight in, either waiting for entrance into specific districts, or joining one which is not yet filled to capacity or recently starting up, these would be labeled via the district you are in, so district 1 goes to vanguard 1, district 2 to vanguard 2, and you can either choose Enter District or Enter First.
"Vanguard" missions are designed with repel and attack mission structures that are unending, but allow for the gain of new faction with Dwayna, with regards to protecting the people from invasion. This works akin to how Balthazaar faction does, and may in fact better fit using the God of War, but, these are broken up in the case someone can decide how to use Dwayna to lay more in PvE territory, allowing the unlocking of character content, notice that I suppose it could purchase in-game items but am unsure of the balances towards this. Anyway, it creates district based arenas where players flow in and out on a constant mission, these do not actually finish one way or another, and include numerous small attack and defend types of quests as well as a great area for combat and the use of equipment such as ballistae, catapults, etc..
Quests will randomly spawn to repel the attack for say the Northwest Ballistae Ridge, where Charr packs will advance on them for a set period of time, percentage of damage for how much Dwayna faction you derrive from killing them, necessarily healing allies outside of your own team will also gain a small percentage of their faction gain, rounded down however, but allowing so a single monk can roam between people and offer support while gaining their own points, just so that teams do not get too damage heavy focused and so that if they do become this way, it does not leave healers out in the cold.
Anyway, this will spawn these Charr packs for an undetermined amount of time, attempting to destroy the Ballistae, Siege Captains, Siege Crews, whatever. In this case, Ballistae cannot be attacked and their destruction means one less weapon to kill actual attacking hordes, Siege Captains means faster rates of fire for the Ballistae both via players and Siege Crews themselves, while Siege Crews allow automated fire for perhaps a few more single target strikes as opposed to the normal catapult type hits. After perhaps 10 minutes, notice undetermined, a few faction altering instances have happened, first the charr hold the hill and you can be charged with retaking it while recieving no faction gain because of the defeat save what you gained from kills, second the charr have destroyed a few structures and targets, which removes from the overall faction gain, or it was a flawless victory and you gain extra faction for your efforts. Note that only parties and players fighting with quest based enemies or doing quest based objectives will recieve a portion of divided faction. Afterwards if the charr do not hold it, repairmen and replacement crew will be deployed to help if there wasn't a flawless victory, creating a secondary and minor quest where a few Charr packs may attempt to waylay them along the way, more teams for more replacements, this is a way to regain a bit of the lost faction amounts.
If the Charr take the hill, then now there are deployments to move their own fire bearers and what not there, as well as forward groups which can be slain to attempt to retake the hill, the longer they hold the hill, the more deployments come to reinforce it until a similarly difficult climb is ahead for groups attempting to retake it. Killing their deployments can delay this difficulty, while removing the Charr will stop it completely and gain faction points based on what you've done, destroying totems, removing shaman characters, full groups, etc., and at this time a similar idea of redeployment for that hill will be underway, where you'll need to protect your own deployments and help secure the area while they redeploy Ballistae and set their crews.
Another quest type are deep strikes, where you are tasked with seeking out randomized bosses in their own territories, as well as the siege and objective areas with the above that are a similar back and forth nature of what happened, only closer to the Charr encampments. These will give morale boosts to participating parties, and will be larger general groups than what single parties are used to, with the inverse being protection of your own commanders and captains. This ties into another form of quest with recon teams, you may either send your own party as recon, allowing you to start quests to take over the Southwest Totem Hill, or defeat Random Charr Necromancer Boss and Friends, notice that parties may engage them after being sent to recon in an area, though nothing may currently be active in that region, or can return for faction gains for recon work, as well as the commander shouting a new quest is available, something along the lines of "Random Charr Necromancer Boss has entered our lands! We seek heroes to strike at this scourge and remove his forces from the battle!" Which will get other parties active in it and create that second quest line.
Lastly are specialized quests offering arena-wide morale boosts, these are areas such as Statues of Dwayna located throughout, which also offer help as small healing and resurrection shrines deeper into the terrain, beginning in the hands of the Charr, who will activelya ttempt to reclaim them by defeating the priest and ghostly heroes surrounding them if left unattended. While being attacked, parties may not respawn at that area if it is the closest. When claimed, a call will go out to reclaim it from Priests of Dwayna who are located at the healing and resurrection shrines at the walls of the city, removal of fire bearers and such will retrieve it for your own side. The second form of these are relics, allowing the retrieval of relics currently in Charr hands. First you must go claim them, return them as Charr packs attempt to cut you all down and return them, or storm shrines which hold them and bring them back.
Now those are only sort of an idea of available quests, involving the Charr and ascalon, there can be others such as claiming courtyards for mage obelisks, releasing prisoners, controlling portals, etc., all taken from the tasks you've done throughout various missions, which would allow an even better experience into the idea of it continuing the missions you've already done.
As well, to control lag better, and since these areas will be as large or larger than most current Missions, portals will be in place, allowing movement between larger overall regions, as well as dividing them up, perhaps creating a Vanguard 1 a-d, which are all interconnected.
I believe experience needs to be capped for each, so t hat if you are level 10 in the Charr invasion Vanguard mission, then you gain no more experience from monsters, while taking a hit for faction but not losing it all, while not enforcing a direct cap on who can join what since I am sure I would like to experience them all a few times before remaining within the SF version, as well as not attempting to make levels that importance which ANet does not want.
Hopefully someone read that, man, I like my idea.