There are several things that need "improvement", but I am not surprised given how many new and dynamic elements Warhammer introduced to the MMO world (that's a compliment by the way). There are a lot of things left to do to the game and only time will tell how Mythic goes about making it happen. I am not complaining, I love playing Warhammer, but I am just offering some ideas on how to improve it. Some of these things are being implemented / revised in 1.2 and beyond, but I wrote this prior to the 1.2 patch notes. I also understand that many of these features would require significant programming and may not be feasible given how an MMO functions, but again they are just ideas and I know Mythic has some pretty creative and resourceful people and I am not just saying that, I mean it.

I personally think that keep / fortress taking should be greatly improved and that fighting in RvR should be about strategy, not numbers. Right now all it takes is an Order/Destruction zerg to run into a RvR lake and wipe the floor (some could argue this). Fortresses have more strategy, but what really needs to happen is the ability to siege multiple keeps / forts at one time versus throwing bodies at a front door until its knocked down. It would be like fighting a world war and having to choose what's worth losing and what's worth defending. Now this is from my point of view on the Red Eye Mountain server, which just had its first City Siege last weekend, so your results/opinions could obviously vary.

Siege Weapons

How about making siege weapons more effective and playing a larger roll? Siege weapons should decimate a attacking force. If I shoot someone with a catapult, I expect bodies to fly. If I hit someone with a ballista, I expect a hole in that character. If I hit a keep wall with a boulder the size of a car, I expect to see pieces of that wall fall off. I want to see a fight like no other fight experience in an MMO. I want to see Lord of the Rings Helm's Deep type fighting and usage of siege weapons. Hell, put a character in a catapult and throw them into the keep! Why not have walls that can be destroyed? How about towers that can collapse or be set ablaze by fiery arrows? This area could have huge improvements to make the elements of a keep siege more interesting and place a greater importance on siege weapons. A force whacking on a front door of a keep without a ram should not be able to bust through. Lastly, I want to see siege towers! I want the ability to climb the walls using a siege tower, but be at the mercy of hot oil and other elements that could destroy me or the tower.

Keep / Fortress Defenses

A keep has many defensible elements. Doors, walls, towers, etc. What Warhammer is lacking is moats, arrow slits, draw bridges, upgraded doors and portcullises, deployable obstacles, and the list can go on. If a guild claims a keep, they should be able to expend gold to upgrade it. How about upgrading the doors, adding a moat, placing arrow slits in the doorway, putting a secondary door on the outer wall, or even a portcullis? These elements give more control and reason for a guild to claim a keep beyond experience. Not to mention a guild could purchase additional defenders in the form of mercenaries and attackers could do the same. How about upgrading the guards equipment and weapons to make them more deadly? What if you could upgrade a keep so much that you could have heroes guarding the inner walls? How about giving keeps and fortresses more choke points versus block off defenders from getting in a postern door? What if the strategy is to take the portal BOs and destroy or put wards on a postern door to keep defenders from entering?

Battle Objectives

Right now battle objectives really only increase the guards at a keep. What if the BOs improved supplies to the keep and reduces its operating costs? How about BOs that can be claimed and the more objectives claimed the more powerful the BOs bonuses and the keeps defenses? I think adding porters from a BO to a keep would be neat as well, but it only works if you own the keep and BO (similiar to DAOC towers). That way defenders can hold a BO and still provide reinforcements to a keep. BOs could also be used to cut off supply routes.

Victory Points and Sacking a City

This area needs some improvement. I have seen posts on this topic on various blogs and none of them have been positive, although I will admit my searching on this has been somewhat limited, so please comment!

1. Victory Points should not move up or down based on Scenarios or PQ participation in the PvE area. RvR based PQs should be created to supplement those in PvE. Scenarios are just that, scenarios and should have no bearing on the control of a zone. All VP should be earned by capturing of keeps, BOs, winning RvR based PQs, and open field battles. To me, that promotes more oRvR participation.

2. Taking a fortress should difficult and a semi-epic battle. It should be harder than storming a Keep, but easier than sacking a city. I expect multiple doors, multiple wall layers, and all the stuff I talked about above. Right now its only two doors and that's all you have to realistically take out to get to the Lord. And all it takes is a tank wall to defend against the attackers (and now standards it seems). If siege towers existed, now you have to watch the walls AND the ramp to the Lord making it a more strategic and multi-pronged fight.

3. Sacking a city should require you to break through a front fortress or some sort of obstacle and then enter the city. You can assault this fortress at any time, but its MUCH weaker if you capture the other two fortresses. Once in the defenders or attackers can blockade the city, but that does not stop defenders or attackers from using alternative routes to enter the city (e.g. taking back a fortress to provide a portal into the city or maybe running through a sewer system that acts as a dungeon). It could still be instanced, but ensure that those instanced areas have equal number of defenders / attackers if at all possible. Realistically, players should not be able to decide which instance to enter as that just introduces imbalance as players tend favor the scenarios they are winning. The gear and loot in a city sacking / siege should be the best gear available in the game and not just off gold bag drops. Many of the PQs seem to be a grind and with semi-poor loot the grind is a bit mind numbing.

4. Strategy, strategy, strategy! If there is no strategy to taking a city, then what's the point? You should be able to assault or defend a city ANY time its under siege. Take this anyway you want, but given there is a 6 hour timer on the event seems to introduce this to being a "time based" event. Possibly locking down fortresses from recapture for x hours would be better or put some sort of interval in which a wave of forces will come to "save the city" every so often. Just add a little more dynamics to this part. I could go on about other things, but you get the idea. I want Warhammer Online to try and capture the epic nature of all out, open warfare in a Warhammer, dark ages type setting. The parts are getting there they just need some more work. I welcome comments, and hope that others found this constructive and not a rant. I am not trying in any way to speak down about Warhammer, Mythic, or anyone for that matter. I just wanted to post my observations and recommendations for improving the Warhammer oRvR experience.