intermittent territory warfare arena plane

[Klapaucius]

A medium sized plae that appears once every couple of weeks for 1-5 days. The area becomes a battleground with variable rules. The rules are set for the duration of each bout, but can be tuned or changed between bouts.

This essentially allows a variety of infusion/territory control mechanics to exist without stepping on each other's toes, and giving everyone a chance to recuperate between bouts. At the end of the week, the plane closes and the victor/spoils are allocated.

What would probably be constant despite changing rules:
- Points scored would be allocated on individual, factional, and alignment level, fostering competition at each level
- The plane/area could be reused
- The plane can open to visitors a day before it becomes open to combat, possibly with area restrictions so different alignments can't hang out together
- some rounds could allow respawn in the combat plane, while others might preclude we v respawning at all
- all rule sets should encourage contribution from a variety of character archetypes


Virtues:
allows play testing for 'the one true infusion mechanic'
Opt in PvP that doesn't need to be governed by gentlemen's agreements and nexiquette
Fun?

Cons
- Won't be fun if people don't participate
- Could just be a big investment of time that no-one actually enjoys once the novelty wears off. I've certainly seen arena mechanics go down this pathway in other games
Might take away from the Nexus-wide territory conflict if it's successful

Possible round mechanics are too many to count, but I think a lot of ideas could be considered. Some thoughts:

- differing conflict duration
- Permutations on Infusion (eg Infusion by physical presence, by crafting, by killing, etc.)
- Permutations on Infusion geography (eg can only be laid on tiles adjacent to your other infused tiles)
- Mechanics similar to MOBAs, that provides stronger defensive buffs close to your assignment stronghold which are reduced as your territory is lost.
- outpost- based mechanics
- different participation rules ( single/fixed number of respawns, number of alts allowed to participate)
- victory conditions (goal, points, score, treasure hunting)
- items (Crafted or found) which disappear after the arena round
- characters enter with or without items/equipment
- characters can temporarily level past 30 during the conflict