Runes of Magic unleashes guild castles

Here we are nine days before Runes of Magic is set to officially launch, and the new features just keep popping up. Case in point: today's announcement from Frogster concerning the activation of guild castles in the game. Starting today, your guild can have their very own guild castle to furnish to their likings. This gets us one step closer to the long-awaited guild battles where guilds can fight over thrones. Plus, guild castle just sounds so much cooler than guild hall or guild house, amirite?

How can you get your very own guild castle? All members of the guild must be level seven and the guild's community coffers must be stocked with enough wood, ore and gold to accommodate. The instanced castles will contain a guild bank, full furniture availability plus teleporters and gates to make travel times quicker. Once guilds obtain their own thrones, they can battle it out with other throne-holding castles for domination and loot. The complete guild battle functionality will be introduced to the game at a later date. Follow along after the cut below for the complete press release and more images of the guild castle.

Guilds in Runes of Magic can now move into their own castles

Berlin, 10 March 2009: From today players will be able to have their own castles in the fantasy world of Taborea. Frogster is activating the long-awaited 'Guild Castles' feature on the live servers of Runes of Magic that will give guilds the opportunity to move and furnish their personal guild accommodation. The next step for the Berlin publisher is to enable the guild wars function. The aim: to destroy the throne of an opposing guild.

However, building a castle isn't going to be so easy: The guild must first of all climb to level seven and must have its community coffers well stocked with ore, wood and gold. Should guilds fulfil these conditions, they will then have access to an individual fortress located in an instanced part of the game world. This will then make a range of opportunities open to the guild. For one, the guild castle will contain a central bank for its members and also the players themselves will be able to decide with what kind of furniture they wish to furnish their castle. Whether carpets, chests, tables or cupboards, everything is – as it is already in player's houses – freely movable. As a crowning, yet sinfully expensive element, guilds can even acquire a throne for their castle. Guilds can, however, also acquire practical functions in exchange for resources: upgrades such as gates or teleporters will not only shorten journey times, they will also be useful tactical elements in the planned guild wars.

In future conflicts, guilds will be able to conquer opposing castles. However, guilds may go to war only if they also possess their own throne. The goal of the combat is the opposing guild's throne. The destruction of a throne marks the end of the conflict and the defeated guild loses its dearly acquired throne as well as a part of its assembled resources. Over and above this, there is a plan to introduce guild furniture which is reserved specifically for use in the castle and which will in effect grant the guild special bonuses. The guild wars are presently in development and an exact launch date has not as yet been announced.

Runes of Magic started the open beta with an English and a German version in the middle of December 2008. All interested players can now download the online-role playing game and enter into the fantasy world after creating an account for free on www.runesofmagic.com.