So Cyrodiil is a persistent PVP environment, nothing resets until one Alliance has won (and who knows how long that will take for each campaign, could be a week or more).

All the players in North America are on a server, Europe has another server.

Most people will probably go to sleep by 3AM.

Won't this leave keeps relatively unguarded during a period of probably 5 hours or so? I can see hardcoe guilds scheduling raids specifically at late hours so as to get around a heavy player defense. I'm sure the keep will still have NPC guards and such, but without other players there, I imagine they will fall with relative ease.

Though on the flip side, I can also see hardcoe guilds having a system set up that a text message will be sent to it's members if a keep goes under attack late at night (yes that's a thing, I know guilds in other MMO's that did something similar).

Do y'all think something should be done about this? Should Keeps perhaps have extra NPC guards late at night to maybe discourage this kind of thing? Or should this be rewarded as good strategy and dedication?

I think if players are dedicated enough to do this, then they should be allowed. But I can imagine it being extremely frustrating waking up one morning and realizing all your keeps were taken in the night by a well organized raid at 4 am.

I think this has been an issue in all games that have such a long term mass scale PVP. I know it happened in GW2 and I guess it also happened in Warhammer and DAOC. So, I assume it will happen here too.

There have been a lot of discussions about this and how to tackle the issue, but none have been satisfactory, I think. Therefore, I assume it will be just fair game, like in every of the above mentioned games, too. This kind of PVP requires factionwide coordination and having the needed manpower through the whole day is one of the issues of such coordination. The team that is more flexible and willing to dedicate more time and people, will always gain the upper hand, even though I'm personally not a big fan of nightcapping and PVDoor. But I assume people will have to live with it or pull nightshifts themselves.

The thing I'm wondering about is how the winner will eventually be determined? Is it about gaining some kind of points until a given amount is reached or is it just about capturing the imperial capital? Will some prerequesites be necessary in order to be allowed to do so? Because if not, I can see nightshifts being a real problem for this game type, since emperors could possibly change every other night then. I really hope that campaigns will require a longer effort to be finished than just one successful raid.

I don't see this as a problem because guild leaders can always ask guild members to have set days where so and so will be on guard duty early in the morning and you can always give them items as payment for getting up early.

Well this happens alot in GW2, cause theres no IP block, meaning all french Canadians playing on EU french servers can just do whatever they want during late hours.

i dont see why this would not be a trend in TESO as well

with megaserver tech, I dont see a problem to gather late night PVP fans together in one battlefield

Maybe keeps will be locked at certain hours??

Keeps will be taken at any hours.

Sorry, the war is on hold, the keep's defenders are napping. Please come try and conquer us between the hours of 8:30am and 5:00pm.

I brought something similar up earlier. If even 12,000 people are assigned to each Cyrodiil campaign (currently slotted as 2,000 though, last I heard,) that's 4,000 (666) per side. How many of those 4,000 (666) people are a) up at 3:00am and even interested in PVP?

You forgot about time zones.

That would be stupid. It is an MMO, it is a 24 hour service, and everyone no matter when they play should have the same opportunity.

Lose your keep at 3am in the morning? Tough luck. Your alliance and or Guild should try to get other people on board to have round the clock protection on your keeps.

Few things, the first is they said campaigns would last for months, not weeks, its a long battle. Next i heard when a campaign does end the keeps will not reset. They dont want people not trying and waiting for resets, they also dont want guilds to feel like they wasted resources on upgrading their guild keep just to have it reset. they want stuff to stand until the enemies take actions to change that just as it was in DAOC. From what i am hearing, its not about winning the campaign just so it starts over, its more about getting something special and or access to something.... maybe something to do with PVE like a unique dungeon. I dont know. But winning the campaigns isnt about resetting it, as nothing on the map resets, who owns the keeps and the elder scrolls remains the same. Its just about restarting the score for a winning side to get privlages.

Also the map design will really help to keep the balance in a way. Its divided into 3 territories, 1 for each side. As 1 side side pushes and invades another it becomes harder the further they push because that side has to travel further and there rienforcements and respawns take longer to get to the battle lines. the side defending is being pushed back closer to their border keep so respawns can get back faster and faster.

Each side has 2 Elder Scrolls (relics) this kinda the ultimate goal of Cyrodiil for alliances to take the enemy alliances Elder Scrolls. But once you do it will become more and more difficult to hold onto more as now your forces will be divided to try to defend them all, especially since you have 2 enemy alliances trying to get them. this is something GW2 failed to do because of theur small map setups with only 1 orb (relic) on each and their entire force could sit and defend it while only 1 enemy alliance could attack it at a time.

Yes, time zones do complicate things. An obvious advantage is given to players on the west coast. Perhaps because of this every guild will have to try and recruit west coast players for late night defense. Guilds of primarily west coast players would seem to have a leg up on everyone else, as they could raid a keep at 2 am their time and almost everyone on the east coast would be asleep.

Yay! for late-night/early-morning ninja raids!

If you can pull enough people together to get it done then you deserve the rewards for pulling it off.

Don't really see an issue long term wise for a Campaign. I mean sure a faction can go and capture a keep while its less defended, but then they have to hold that keep, so it goes both ways.

As they recently stated you are rewarded more for holding a keep then you are for capturing a keep.

I have no problem with "Alarm Clock Raids". They are a great way to overcome population disparities and boost morale.

It is all fun and games until they implement the infamous "Corpse Summoner".

This is why my PvP guild is going to be international (and why I was hoping there weren't split servers for US/EU.)

I already have a few players from the EU who are willing to try playing on the US server (depending on their latency.) If I can get enough people from different time zones, this shouldn't be a problem for my guild. It might even be a strategy that we utilize.