Everyone on the Dungeons and Encounters team remembers fondly the dungeon crawls in DAoC and UO ? the face-offs, the race, the thrill of the tension when deciding whether or not to kill the monster that drops the loot first and then the enemy player, or vice versa.After considering everything from Keep control to entirely new control points in open RvR lakes, we came full circle to the crux of the campaign system ? Zone Control and open RvR player kills. And so the Expedition Resource system was born!
Thoughts of true action-RPG experiences crept in my mind. Visions of the Temple of Doom, Zelda, and God of War flashed through. Questionable levers, treasure that looks too good to be true, collapsing floors, swinging pendulums, spitting darts, (much) larger than life boss fights ? And, oh, what an environment it would make to RvR in.We've wanted to work on an RvR-enabled dungeon for some time.The go-ahead in September shortly after launch was music to our ears. Like Darkness Falls, we wanted dungeon access to be determined by RvR; however, Warhammer Online's campaign system is unique. Sorting out the best way to incorporate the dungeon access control mechanism into it required careful design and deliberation, throughout which we wanted to ensure both realms had equal opportunity at the dungeon, that control shifted often (but not too often!), and that neither realm would ever get 'shut out.'