WAR's first city siege: The king is dead. Long live the king.
It was only the other day when we reported that the first Warhammer Online city siege endgame had begun. Initial reports indicated that a relatively small group of players, in average gear, managed to capture Altdorf on the EU server Karak Eight Peaks, partially due to bugs in the game. However, rumors of the death of Emperor Karl Franz have been exaggerated. More details have come to light since then; Electronic Arts contacted MMO blogger Tobold, and set the record straight.
As it turns out, Destruction didn't fully capture Altdorf. Rather, they put it in a contested state, and the would-be conquerors on the Destruction side were ousted by Order before they could complete enough public quests to reach the final battle against Emperor Karl Franz.
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The confusion about Destruction's dominance over Altdorf arose from a bug that allowed them to storm the inner Fortress and thus bypass most of the defenses which should have been in place. The end result: Destruction went further than they should have, much faster than they should have. EA states that this bug has since been fixed, preventing future blitzes like this past week's. In addition, the timer to capture both fortresses should have limited Destruction to 12 hours, but was incorrectly set for a 36-hour window.
While Destruction had a few strokes of luck in sieging Altdorf, they were less fortunate when it came to the city's public quests. They couldn't complete the requisite quests that would allow them to take on the King. The EA rep clarified what's involved in a full City capture:
You must capture two fortresses in Tier IV within 12 hours of each other. To gain access to a fortress you must seize and hold the neutral Tier IV zone and your opponent's zone in two separate racial pairings. Once you lock down one racial pairing, you only have 60 minutes to capture its fortress. Should you fail, then that racial pairing reverts back to a neutral state and you must begin anew.
You must then fight in contested Altdorf and gain control much like you would in a zone. There are two Battle Objectives, a Public Quest and opposing players you must contend with in order to accomplish this.
Should you accomplish the first two tasks, the opposing realm is ejected from the city. At this point you have one hour to cement your hold on the city. You must complete the Temple of Sigmar and Bright Wizard College Public Quests within the next hour. If you manage this feat within one hour, you then lock down the city for 24 hours and unlock the King. If you fail, then you have one hour before the city is re-opened to opposing Realm players.
If you defeat the King, then you can unequivocally say that you captured Altdorf.
It's heartening to learn that capturing the opposition's city is truly a long, involved process, and no simple endgame to achieve. Hopefully most of these bugs have now been worked out and city sieges in Warhammer Online can remain the grand, concerted efforts they were intended to be.
