I'd like to have some input on this before putting it into Idearunners. I have seen some ideas close to this but haven't seen it in quite this format so I wanted to put my idea down.

CALL TO ARMS:
A group dungeon reached through the Obelisk with each level of the 'dungeon' appearing only after the player reaches the appropriate level.

'Go To' teleportation is deactivated on the actual level (can still go to to get there from the level but not off of it or to another player on the level).

Layout:
Players enter to find themselves in a town that looks very suspiciously like Townston only the grass is all dirt. The Town Commander tells them that there's an uprising and that the town needs defending. After 30 seconds of preparation or positioning, swarms of monsters come out of the 'Algernon' and 'Horrific Dungeon of Legend' entrances simultaneously and pouring down towards the obelisk. A clock starts which is the amount of time that the players must keep the Commander alive before his troops arrive to save the day.

If the Commander dies, the players are all returned to the real Townston's cemetary and the level automatically resets (little chance to gather loot!).

Difficulty:
As the players advance in level the following added difficulties arise:
1) Harder and more numerous monsters.
2) Hero and Champions will respawn in the cemetery after a cooldown period.
3) Longer time to protect the Commander
4) Commander begins to move around the map making it harder to defend him.

Variations:
1) Randomly throughout the day, a 'church bell' will sound which is the 'Call to Arms'. Any players that are available can answer the Call to Arms and end up fighting side by side with people of their own level range to protect the Commander.
2) King's coins. Answering the Call to Arms is rewarded (by the King) with King's coins. More for success, less for failure.
3) Tag - Physically touching the Commander will make him follow you until he receives a melee hit after which he must be tagged again. Thus, you can grab him and try to move him to a safer location.
4) Other NPCS - Enlist the help of the trainers, the merchants and Audrey?

Comments:
1) No new maps would have to be created. The Townston map itself could be used for everything. Everyone would be mostly familiar with the layout.
2) Lends itself primarily to group play as no single character could defend the Commander from all sides.
3) No higher level character could get in to dominate the lower level characters in the particular dungeon as they would go to their own CTA dungeon.
4) Teleporting within the level (with 'go to' at least) should probably be prohibited to avoid players leading monsters away and then porting back to the Commander but I dunno.

Anyway, mulling over the idea for a few days now. Am ready for some feedback

Seems like the start of a great idea to me!

itll be difficult to turn the idea on, but sounds very cool!

Awesome Idea!

It would really emphasize teamwork, I can really see this as being one of the first mini-games implemented.

i like the idea

sounds very runescape like with minigames n all... although in my honest opinion most of them worked out well..

seems to be a good idea to me witha bit of tweakin easy made exellent idea.

nice thinking

as long as this does not become a raid i am cool the moment they introduce raids to dr I am gone gone gone.

Ubernoob question: I haven't played the game that must not be named, so I don't really understand the complaint about raids. I'm not even sure I understand them -- just allowing guild on guild action? Does that mean the victor gets spoils from the loser? Or what's involved, and why is it evil?

I'm so noob I don't even know what the game that must not be named with raids is (or what raid refers to). But from what I'm hearing, there wouldn't be any players raiding other players, it would be strictly monsters attacking the town and hopefully getting down to the Commander.

Group play would be very important and hopefully if on a dedicated server, could tolerate more than 10 players on a level at a time, particularly when the Call to Arms bell sounds in Townston during a busy time. It'd just be cool to be dungeoning along by your self, hear the call to arms and race to answer it and end up fighting with a bunch of other heroes and champions against hordes of attacking monsters.

I'm finding that most players (including me), wait for their buffs to recharge, get their chill bill, extra-crispy turkey leg fired up and then attack monsters with all of the advantages. In this scenario, the beasties are coming fast and furious and that players may be ready early on but then they'll be fighting with their wits and still have the Commander to protect.

I imagine that people will have to hold their turkey legs, using them when they are most needed, have a lot of AOE attacks and try to bottle neck monsters to open up CC or Putrid Penetration on but there are two main paths from the HDOL opening and really just a free-for-all from the Algernon opening.

Some help needed on:

Name for this alternate town?
Names for the openings?
Anyone think that we should have a roll for the trainers, audrey, the merchants, vraille, tilles or the amazon?

yeah can use rest of the NPC's as bait.

Call to Arms

I guess the thing to say now is: Rock the Vote!!

i like it! A great idea!
Oh and the towns name should be... No idea...
Oh come on! Ul think of something...
Or, if the idea is accepted(which i hope will happen) the dudes from NC Soft will do it... theyre good at it too ..................................................................................................................... i hope....................

I've had some town name ideas:

Sunnydale (the name of the town where Buffy the Vampire Slayer fought and there was a hellgate there)

Miskatonic (the name of the University where a lot of Call of Chthulu stories are set).

Numantia (4000 militia refused to surrender to 60,000 roman legionnaires (and resorted to cannbialism to survive!))

Alamo? (duh... Can't think of a good other name for this but a cry to defend the Alamo would get all of the Texans to answer the call immediately )

Whittlestown (the commander of the Lost Battalion in WWI was named Whittlesey who held out in the Argonne Forrest after being surround and cut off).

And my FAVORITE:

Big Littlehorn (changed from Little Bighorn where 208 US Cavalrymen were slaughtered by 1800 lakota, cheyenne and araphoe indians)

Battle of Thermopylae - Hot Gates?

HASTINGS - The MALFOSSE, an obscurely documented 'last stand' during the latter stages of the battle of Hastings(whilst all of Harold's housecarls fought to the death), whereby a formidable force/shieldwall of Saxons(fresh but too-late reinforcements?) held up and temporarily but bloodily repulsed the Norman onslaught to the north of the main battlefield as dusk fell. This would have been played down by the Norman writers, of course.

NASEBY - during the last stage of this major English civil war battle, the famously tough royalist 'Bluecoat' pikemen refused to surrender when all was lost, heroically repulsing wave after fierce wave of Parliamentarian attacks by cavalry, infantry & musket-fire upon their dense, bristling square, until they finally broke under the strain, and they were slaughtered.

One last thought, is it true that at Waterloo, as Napoleon made good his escape, his 'old guard' stubbornly refused surrender to the allies, and were blasted apart by cannon?

interesting
but i think that this would turn in to a mass farm/PL area.
with no lvl cap, and the ability of anyone entering the zone as the bell rings.
This is how i see it

1) the bell rings
2) All players in the town square rush to the commander adn get sent to this zone
3) the MOB count would scale up
4)the gnomes will be working over time and i would stop to get all my RB's
5) this would also be used for PLing

Actually, the original idea is that you go into an area of equivalent level. L<10, 10-20, 20-30, etcetera. If you follow the link, it was one of my specific suggestions that a major player come in and dominate the event since when you answer, you would only go to a level specific area, not the main one.

Ripper has suggested that everyone be levelled to 101 as we are for PVP so that there isn't a massive power-leveling effort that develops.

Does that help explain things?