No one loves you sad skeleton. That's a pity hug right there.
Anyway, I might be touching on an old sentiment right here, but no less valid. Perhaps even more valid considering the upcoming changes to forts and server populations slimming. Currently the way I see Land of the Dead, is a big sandy treasure trove that we fight like children over. One side wins it, they get to go in and get free Conq crests, then loot PvE instances for the next hour or so. The other side in the meantime is locked out, and has an easy path to RvDoor their way back to the sand pit. The importance of LotD has diminished quite a bit since launch. There's rarely some huge rush to get in there, although I typically see a warband getting their free Conq crest, and the occasional 6-man meandering their way into the Tomb of the Vulture Lord. I've ranted about the things they could do in the desert before, but it seems to be more clear to me now that the zone should simply open up to both factions all the time.
It's not like we haven't collected millions of resources already throughout the WAR. I think our flight masters know how to get to Land of the Dead by now. Opening up for a REAL RvRvE (sounds familiar...) area will bring a bit of competition for one of its competitors in particular. We can keep the Expedition Resource counter, but allow it to unlock Lairs and the Temple instead. That's where the REAL expedition is heading. We want our loot from bosses. The rest of the desert doesn't really mean a damn thing to us. Not to mention, wasn't there a mechanic to INVADE ENEMY INSTANCES that was put into the game? Wow, yeah, I've been doing that ALL the time. It's so easy... Or not.
You really don't have a chance to invade enemy instances unless you REALLY sit around and WAIT for them. The chance of being in Land of the Dead with a full party when the zone flips is rather slim to begin with. Chances are, you're already in the Temple, or you were heading to one. Now you have to deal with the Warcamp Assault, which takes a good 20 minutes or so before people start heading to their dungeons, if at all. Also, is there any tangible benefits for ruining an enemy instance short of the glee of griefing and the moderate amount of renown for spilling their blood? I know some of the guys at Mythic have acknowledged the failure of instance invasions, but I really don't think the concept has people deterred. I think it's just the lack of availability. If we had a free ride to the Land of the Dead, more or less anytime, this wouldn't be as big of an issue.
So I have to think about what would need to change then, eh? Well, the first thing for review would be the Assault on the Warcamp. I think extending the warcamp out a bit further and pushing all the merchants down there would be a good change. I still want to run in and destroy, but to give an open door, there will need to be a safe point. The back end of the warcamp would have a healer, the mirrors of teleport-me-out-into-the-damn-desert, and a couple of War-Champ-guards-of-doom for safe keeping. Aside from this bit, everything else would be attackable, flight master included. So there's your 30m lockout, Assault the Warcamp, kill the flight master, no one else gets to come into the zone for 30m until another blimp shows up and more guards are deployed. I think there should be at least an hour of invulnerability to prevent camping, but inevitably these will be heavily targeted. Might wanna add a few more objectives that just killing the boss and the ship to draw it out a bit longer.
Adding a few more options to the Teleport mirrors would be a good idea too. Once the spawn points are figured out, the can be camped. Hell, find 20 random points that are mob-free and randomly teleport people there. We have summoning stones, people could deal with it.
Another thing that I mentioned before was imposing a cap on the amount of people allowed into the zone, something akin to Fortresses but with a good reason, not a stupid one. Airships can only carry so many people, lets say 12 at a time. Charge a fee to buy a ticket to the desert. 10 gold would be a fun amount I think. When you 'use' your ticket, it queues you up for a trip to the desert. When your spot opens up, you better make your way to a flight master within the next 5 minutes or you'll miss your flight, and your 10g. So, every time there's 12 spots open for people that have logged off, or left the zone, or have suffered enough fatigue (2 hour debuff?), everyone that bought a ticket has a 5 minute window to get into the zone. This means most people will be arriving at the same time, grouping gets easier, and you're all focused on getting something done with your limited amount of time. AS ARE YOUR ENEMIES. Woo! Conflict creation!
The actual amount of people allowed on the airship at one time is debatable and flexible. I'm not saying that 48 in the zone is some magic number, but it's about how many I would expect to be spread out enough doing different things without being TOO zerg-y. There just needs to be enough people left in the vanilla RvR zones to continue battling without overwhelming the desert with floods of people along with balancing a good amount of people in the zone as well.
Anyway, it's just one of the many things that has been on my mind lately. I think something needs to change down in the desert, once I started writing, this is what came out. XD
