Warhammer Keeps
DateTime:7/8/2009 5:21:12 PM

Any DAOC veteran will feel at home with Warhammer's keeps system as many of the core concepts are very similar. Inside each keep resides it's lord. The lord is an extremely resilient NPC boss guard and is protected by an entourage of guards that patrol both the insides and outsides of the keep. If the lord falls, control of the keep switches hands.

MOVIE: Keep Preview
MOVIE: Siege Equipment
PIC: Outside Keep
PIC: Keep Door
PIC: Keep Lord
PIC: Vendors

Before attackers can even begin to worry about the lord, however, they must bash down the keep's massive gates. To do this, they can either wail on it for several minutes with their weapons, or deploy a siege ram and tear it down in record time. (NOTE: Unlike DAOC, magical attacks do full damage to keep doors in WAR.) Of course, the defenders are not powerless to stop this. They can rain down ranged attacks from the castle ramparts, fire catapults at the attackers, destroy the ram, and even dump boiling oil on attackers near the door. Note that keeps in the higher tiers are much larger than those in the lower tiers. The higher tier keeps have outer gates and inner gates. Some are even built like medieval cities, with shops and buildings just inside the outer gate. Urban combat is seriously great stuff.

Once inside, attackers must cut through several waves of guards as they press on to the lord room. Of course, enemy player defenders may be around to make life even more miserable for the attackers. The lord must be fought in the lord room and cannot be pulled out of it. If the attackers are victorious and defeat the lord, all attackers are immediately rewarded with a sizable amount of Realm Points as they take control of the keep. In addition, the successful attacking players roll for loot public quest style - the loot obtained from keep takes is generally very high end.

Note that defeating the lord does not clear out all opposing players. Some of the keeps are incredibly large (especially those in the higher tiers) and provide many hiding spots.

Of course, not all attacks are successful. If the defending players fend off an attack, they are rewarded a fair amount of Realm Points as well - so it pays on a personal level to defend your keeps. The amount of Realm Points awarded is dependant upon how many attackers were defeated.

In addition to the incredibly large amount of Victory Points keeps are worth, the owners of a keep gain access to special vendors which sell high-end Renown Equipment.