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 (also referred to as Lords).

• A King or Queen may also be elected mayor of one node.
• Lords of castles and Mayors unlock special high-effect abilities with long cooldowns that can be used during sieges or events.

Mayors and lords of castles have spells they can use on the battlefield with high effect and long cooldowns for their teams.

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.
  • Guild management tools are expected to be available at the start of Alpha-2.
• Delegation tools.
• Motivational systems.

• Communication tools.
  • Messaging members when offline. SMS was given as an opt-in example.
  • Guild alerts.
  • Board messages.
    • Forum connectivity.
    • Message of the day.
  • 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 (such as Knight or Squadron).
    • Each guild rank has a number of slots depending on guild progression.
    • Guild passive skills are assigned to specific ranks within the guild.
  • Member availability times.
  • Information about guild member properties such as freeholds.
  • Information about guild member family members.
  • A list of available permissions per rank/role.
  • Departments/micro-structures (such as battallions) within the guild structure with an associated leader.
    • Freehold permissions may be associated with these micro-structures.

The idea behind guild permissions for freeholds, is that within guilds there will be micro-structures of battallions etc. If we end up allowing guild permissions for freeholds it will likely only apply to the other members within the guild's micro-structure. – Steven Sharif

• Audit logs may be available to guild leaders and officers.
  • Deposits and withdrawals from the guild bank.
  • Promotions.
  • Kicks.
  • Leaves.

• Guild stats.
  • Player performance stats within events, such as guild wars.
  • 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.

• Each of the five castles has its own static layout. Castle siege defenses include deploying traps and blockades within the castle, as well as hiring mercenary NPCs to defend specific locations.

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. – Steven Sharif

• 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 are initially be occupied by level 50+ NPC adversaries. These are the primary antagonists in the storyline. Guilds have a period of time to level up in order to siege these castles.
  • 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.

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.

• It is undecided if NPCs will attack player occupied castles that are otherwise not challenged by other players during the monthly castle siege events.

Q: You had mentioned in the past that player held castles could be attacked monthly. Does this mean that if a castle is not attacked monthly by players, the NPCs, which originally held the castle, would attempt to retake their castle from these players?

A: We've we've talked about this a little bit in the past, how we want to handle kind of off-cycle sieges: whether or not we want NPCs to attack the castle. The jury's still out on that from a design perspective. The original intent was that, if you didn't have any attackers scheduled for the castle siege that the castle would enter into an NPC siege, but that might not be the case in the future. That's still something that we're actively discussing. – Steven Sharif

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.
  • For the purposes of Alpha-2, dragon mounts will be provided to Mayors of Village (stage 3) nodes and higher.

• 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 realm 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.

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

• Utilizing a royal mount during an event, such as a siege or war, will incur an upfront cost. If the mount dies during that event there will be a cooldown period before the mount can be used. The cost to use the mount must also be paid again.

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. 3D model 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