17. Guild Wars After two long days, the game finally completed its update and the long-awaited guild wars began.
To the north of all four major cities, a huge plot of land appeared. This new map was split into 5 enormous buildings, one in each corner and one in the centre. They far exceeded any buildings found in reality. Each building formed a beautiful and bewitching small city. (These cities followed the architectural style of the major cities nearby. Prole was in the style of European castles. Serica, Chinese palaces. Sakura was a j.a.panese castle city modelled after the Osaka Castle. Kemet after the great pyramids.) These minor cities were named after the major city that was nearby, i.e. Prole 1 to 5, Serica 1 to 5, etc.
These were where 20 guilds would wage war. Guild wars would be held every Sat.u.r.day from 7 pm to 10 pm. Those who destroy the crystal protected deep within the cities would occupy the city. Non-guild members would be teleported to the last recorded revival point.
PvP was not allowed within the outskirts in these four maps. During the time allocated for guild wars, players who enter the surroundings of the cities will enter PvP state. Players can then attack members of other guilds with no change to their name tag"s colour. Discomfort from debuffs and death will be dramatically dropped. Players will also be punished by experience loss or item drops at death, only their equipment durability will decreased.
Players who were not in a guild will be automatically considered neutral parties. They can attack and be attacked, but they cannot attack the crystal. Once the time has pa.s.sed, PvP was prohibited in the cities. The guild leader of the guild occupying the cities could decide whether to allow non-guild members to enter to the city or not.
For the first guild war, the cities will randomly generate a large number of monsters to protect themselves. These monsters range from levels 70 to 110. Successfully occupying the city would make the monsters disappear. From then on, it"s up to the players themselves to protect the city.
Guilds could form an alliance. Each guild can only ally themselves with a maximum of 5 other guilds. Alliance members cannot attack each other.
In the mean time, guilds cannot build their own cities yet. There were millions of players in AO and the top guilds in AO could only have a maximum of 1000 members. 1000 was still not enough to build a city. Forget about attacks from other players. They won"t even be able to stop the first wave of monsters attacking the city.
That"s why the game opened up these guild war maps first. They"re there to train the guilds. Once a guild occupies all 5 minor cities of a major city, the game will reward that guild with the item needed to build a city. The actual methods for players to build a city themselves and the rules of wars then will only be announced upon update after someone has achieved the item. So for now, it"s just a messy battlefield of thousands.
This time"s patch also updated a new way for guilds to raise their levels – Guild Reputation. Every time a guild shatters a city crystal, they would be rewarded with a certain number of Reputation. If they successfully defend the city until the end of Guild Wars, they will be rewarded with a large amount of Reputation. Member allowance would be automatically increased once their Reputation hit a certain value.
When the game servers opened up once more, players swarmed into the four new maps. Luckily, PvP was not allowed in these maps or there"d be a lot of abuse happening. As no guild could"ve occupied the cities before the first Guild Wars, no players were allowed to enter. Everyone could only view these gigantic buildings from outside the city walls.
One couldn"t help but sigh in awe at how extravagant it all was. Such big buildings could never have been built in reality. A rough estimate of how many could fit in them went up to tens of thousands. There"d be plenty of s.p.a.ce left even if several of the major guilds waged war within them.
After scouting out the maps, all guild scouts reached the same conclusion. The maps were far too big and they were too far. Even going from the North Gate to the closest minor city would require 3 minutes on horseback at top speed. The furthest would need over 10 minutes. With only a mere 3 hours to wage war in, every minute was precious.
“Gather all the healers and train their Teleport skill!”
It"s time for the special Teleport skill all Acolytes had to shine. Originally it was used to mark down a few of the common training grounds. While the cities" portals could transport a player to each major grinding zone, they were only sent to a town nearby. Players still needed to walk or ride over to their desired area, especially when those zones were deep within mountains and caves.
Teleport could mark two to five spots (Players cannot mark the inside of buildings). The number increased as Proficiency did. Usually, 2 was enough. No Acolyte would specifically go train up this skill as each skill use consumed a Teleport Gem. Teleport Gems were sold for 10 silvers each. Each Teleport could only transport 20 players and lasted 10 minutes. As soon as time ran out, 20 players were teleported or the Acolyte walked through their own portal, the portal would disappear. Players could open up as many portals as they wanted, provided they have enough money and MP.
With so many battlefields, 2 points were definitely not enough unless they were only focusing on 1 city. The larger the guild, the more MP potions and Gems would be used. Just 1 Acolyte was probably not enough. Who knew how many portals they"d have to open in those 3 hours. If they were doing it alone, they"d go crazy.
“I didn"t think Asgard Online could be that humane. They"re starting us off with the most basic of guild wars.” It"s just a messy battlefield where strategy was not required and all one needed to do was just shoot off all their skills. After all, death caused no discomfort and they can even join back in.
“After a while, they"ll adjust it. At this point, if you can"t aim properly, you could hit your own teammates. Not only are the skills" range and area increased, you can"t even harm friendlies.”
“It might be a trick from the game. Let everyone have fun using skills as they please and forget about the usual strategies we use in PvE. Then it"ll be so much messier in the wars.”
“But this castle is really big. I bet I"d get lost a lot.” The preview of the City Crystal Room was as large as half of a football field. There"s no need to discuss how big the other areas would be. If one ran at full speed from the gates to the room, they"d probably get there in 10 minutes. More time would be wasted on the way by all the killing and slaughtering during the Guild Wars.
“Lil Chang"e, follow me. This big brother will show you what the City Crystal looks like.”
“Yeah, right. You just stay at the revival point and open some portals, add some buffs.”
“Hey! As the leader of the Healers Squad, how can I not personally be on the battlefield?”
“Let"s keep training according to our initial strategy. No one is allowed to throw around their skills as they please. Also, tell the a.s.sa.s.sins to raise their Stealth Proficiency. We"ll try and scout out the maps of all 20 cities in the first Guild Wars.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“I_Am_A_Poor_Man, select some low-level healers to be in charge of the portals. All potions and Gems used can be declared to the treasurer. Also, there"ll be additional salary as compensation.”
“Yes. Um…can I ask outsiders to help? Their character can be guaranteed for sure.” I_Am_A_Poor_Man thought of LuckyCat. Was he at Level 25 yet? (An Acolyte can only learn Teleport at Level 25.)
“That"d be for the best, as long as they won"t create more trouble.” That way, more of the guild"s healers could be used in the battle.
“No problem.”
“Next…” HereticKing continued to hand out a.s.signments to the other squad leaders to ensure the first Guild Wars happening that Sat.u.r.day would be a prosperous start for them.
“LuckyCat, LuckyCat.”
“Hm? Big brother Poor, what is it?” This was a nickname the two decided on sometime ago.
“Are you Level 25 yet?”
“Yup. I"m nearly at Level 30.”
“So fast! Have you learned Teleport?”
“Not yet.”
“Go learn it. I"ll pay for it. Also, can you help out this Sat.u.r.day evening? We need healers who can open up portals. Relax. You can declare all Gems and MP potions you use. You even get a salary.”
“Sure. That"s fine.”
“I"ll notify you on the time and place we"ll be gathering later.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, little Lucky. Big brother loves you.”
“Hehe. You"re welcome.”
And so the private chat ended. Bai XiaoYu turned to where he"d learn the Teleport skill from. He had thought the Zombie Cave was close enough to Prole so he didn"t need to learn it yet.
“Meow…” There"s no chance for it to show off. How tiring.
“Hehe. Behave. Once I learn this skill, we"ll go kill some monsters.”
Translator"s Notes:
Sakura = Amatsu, the Sakura city
Kemet, an old name for Egypt = Morroc, desert town near the Pyramids