In Throne and Liberty, the first castle siege took place over the weekend. MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier has prepared for this battle for 7 weeks and clarifies whether it was worth it.
Last weekend it was finally time: The first major castle siege in Throne and Liberty was imminent. Seven weeks of preparation were behind me – seven weeks full of intense planning, hard work, and long PvP battles. But was it really worth it in the end?
Here you can learn why an active guild in Throne and Liberty is so important:
The two types of players
In Throne and Liberty, there are two types of players: Some play casually for fun, while others – like me – fight as hardcore gamers right from the start for control over the server.
Seven weeks of preparation are behind us. The siege is to be the epic and biggest event in the new MMORPG, deciding over the control of the game world and currency worth up to €25,000. We don’t want to miss that.
How do you prepare for 7 weeks?
To have any significant chance at the throne, an active and large alliance is necessary. Ideally, this means that 280 people take time off on Sunday afternoon to participate together in the PvP event. Before the MMORPG even launched, we gathered hundreds of players to work toward a common goal.
However, months before the battle, all these players also need to work on their gear, upgrade their skills, and craft all sorts of buff food. To improve my teammates’ gear and PvP skills, I fight for the PvP field bosses in the game every single day. This quickly adds up to a 40-hour week on top of my job.
Most of the time is spent in PvP fights, as every PvP boss that our players do not participate in means not only no loot for our guild but also loot for the opponents. Of course, we want to prevent that, as it decreases our chances at the castle.
In the week leading up to the castle siege, I spend my free time developing strategies for capturing the castle. I work with my guild members to establish the right route, appropriate group divisions, and alliances with other alliances to avoid getting in each other’s way.
How good the plan is and whether all preparations and my decisions work out will only become clear in the battle itself.
The epic battle approaches
As the moment finally arrives and we go into battle, I am a bit nervous. A short while before, a secret plan of the enemy guilds became known. They want to kidnap the golem necessary to tear down the castle walls. This will buy them time. We must prevent that and adjust our tactics just before the start.
As the 15 minutes of preparation time run out, it is 5:15 PM. The battle begins and the golems are fiercely contested. After several fights, however, the golem is captured by my allies and marches towards the castle walls.
The plan works out
Our golem marches towards the wall and batters it with its heavy blows. The wall gives way. Now is our time, and our announcer roars in Discord to attack. Over 200 of our players break through the wall as my adrenaline rises and make their way to capture the important points within the castle.
Everyone knows the plans for what each group has to do by heart and we take the strategically important points of our strategy like dominoes on Domino Day. My group is responsible for defending the revival point. A crucial task because if the point falls, everyone has to start from outside the castle again.
Tumbling order into chaos
While everything initially proceeds orderly, chaos grows with every passing minute. This is also the plan because we have convinced many smaller guilds to join the fight to put even more pressure on the defenders. The small guilds focus on the looting zones away from our position, but the castle is flooded with players and fighting occurs at every corner.
As chaos increases in the castle, the actual decisive battle takes place repeatedly right at the throne room. Different guilds fight there for supremacy and continually begin to seize the throne. At this point, we only focus on pushing forward, past the hundreds of players fighting in the castle.
We almost manage to capture the revival point near the throne room, which is vital for our strategy, and several times we push into the throne room itself. The battle rages until the last second, and it remains unclear until the end who will emerge victorious. But in the end, we didn’t make it. The defenders win and we have to concede defeat.
Joy despite the defeat
I actually expected my comrades to be sad about the defeat, instead, most of them had a smile on their faces. In the voice channel, I hear a lot of praise for the preparations they made, but above all, how incredibly cool this battle was.
Even a day later, players continue to reach out with praise for their own team and share how much fun the event was. Despite the defeat, everyone seems satisfied with our performance and, most importantly, with the epic battle itself.
The conclusion on the castle siege
The seven weeks of preparation that led to this battle were worth it. Not because the battle itself shone with great effects, fair fights, and special graphics, but simply because it gave the players of the MMORPG a reason to play.
Everyone knew there would eventually be a battle that would decide the fate of the server, and that day had been the goal of the journey through Throne and Liberty for many since launch. Players are certainly not going to stop playing Throne and Liberty overnight, but this event gave the game a significance.
Instead of leveling their characters at a leisurely pace and defeating the same bosses without stress, the quasi-deadline of the castle siege was a driving force that propelled the players forward.
This whole event is a competition that was confined to this timeframe and has now taken place. The MMORPG feels like it is only just completed, and until new content arrives, it will also be in a calmer mode, without directly working towards a goal.
The preparation to empower our guild for the siege is complete, and participating again every two weeks feels almost like a mere formality. As so often, the journey was the destination, and the battle at the end was a worthy finale.
Such a goal is also fantastic for community cohesion. Everyone knows what they are working on, everyone knows what they are playing for, and that creates a sense of community that motivates in the long term.
This competition feels refreshing and new to me, especially because it has been so well known to the players from the beginning. Other MMORPGs should take a cue from this and offer their players an event that gives meaning to the journey and the progression of my character. Often, other MMORPGs feel like an endless routine, a hamster wheel with no goal.
Throne and Liberty, on the other hand, created a goal with the castle siege that makes the journey feel much more like a race. The siege, therefore, doesn’t feel like just another PvP event, but like the climax of the story that my community has been writing so far. If you want to participate in the next battle with your guild, take a look here: Throne and Liberty Castle Siege Guide: How to play as an attacker and defender in the fight for the throne
