Looks like it may be time to increase those guild tax rates.  The Keep Upgrade system promises to give you some exciting new things to spend that money on!

So, you’ve got a recently claimed Keep and want to make sure it’s well defended? The Keep Upgrade system is coming in 1.2.1 to make that a reality!  Upgrades come in several varieties, ranging from utility upgrades, such as vault access, to upgrading your guards to champion level, and more!

Part of the 'and more!' includeds sweet delicious Door Hit Point upgrades.  Check out the full preview after the jump!

So, you’ve got a recently claimed Keep and want to make sure it’s well defended? The Keep Upgrade system is coming in 1.2.1 to make that a reality!  Upgrades come in several varieties, ranging from utility upgrades, such as vault access, to upgrading your guards to champion level, and more!

When you interact with the Guild Broker, the Keep Upgrade management window will open up.  Anyone can view this window, but only guild members with the appropriate permission levels can adjust the Keep Upgrades. (By default, the top two Ranks—Guild Leader and Guild Officer—have these permissions.)

This window has a lot of information on it, so let’s go through it bit by bit! 

In the upper-left corner, you’ll see the Keep that your guild has claimed and its current Keep Rank.  Whenever you purchase a certain amount of upgrades, the Keep Rank increases (up to Rank 10).  A higher-rank Keep has more upgrades available, but some upgrades will push your Keep’s Rank up faster than others. Upgraded doors, for instance, contribute more toward a Keep’s Rank than a Banker NPC will.  A higher-rank Keep gives more Exp. to your guild—in the future, higher-rank Keeps will also drop more Gold Bags, and give defenders more rewards for defending.

In the upper-right corner of the window, you’ll see the current Upkeep Cost for your guild’s claimed Keep.  This is how much your Guild Vault is being charged every 5 minutes for owning that specific Keep.  The default flat rate for claiming a Keep is 20 Silver every 5 minutes.  Any upgrade you purchase will be added to this maintenance cost which is shown in the bottom-left corner of the Keep Upgrade window.  Your approximate Guild Funds (accurate to the time you open the Keep Upgrade window) is shown in the lower-right hand of the Keep Upgrade window so you know what your guild can afford. (Please note this does not update on-the-fly as coins are constantly added/deducted from the Guild Vault. To see the most up-to-date Guild Funds, you will need to close and re-open this window.)

Getting to the meat of the Keep Upgrade window, let’s look at how you pick and choose your upgrades.  Each upgrade has a Rank, Cost, and Time associated with it.  The Rank is the level of the upgrade, and can be adjusted via plus or minus buttons.  Cost is how much the upgrade costs to initially purchase, and how much it will cost every 5 minutes to maintain. Time is how long it takes the upgrade to apply to the Keep.

When you hover your mouse cursor over the upgrade name, you’ll see a small tooltip window which shows you the details of the upgrade.  Details include the cost of the upgrade, a small blurb about the upgrade, its upgrade time, and Guild Rank requirement (if any).  Some upgrades, such as the Door Repair Merchant, have only one available Rank. Other upgrades have multiple levels. (Doors, for instance, range from Rank 1 to Rank 5.)

Individual Keep Upgrades can be adjusted up and down as you wish until you click the “Save” button.  Once you click the Save button, all upgrades you have purchased will incur the initial cost listed, and then the recurring upkeep cost every 5 minutes (as stated before, the Approximate Guild Funds will not show this immediate withdrawal, but if you close and re-open the window, the immediate cost reduction is shown). Also note that if you reduce the Keep Upgrade back to 0 before your Keep is charged, you are not refunded the initial Keep Upgrade purchase!

Chat window notifications are sent out when upgrades are purchased, when they are completed, and when they are removed.  Also note that maintenance fee messages are sent out, so you know exactly where your Guild Funds are going.

Taking a brief step back, the increasing or decreasing of an upgrade will take the same amount of time. During this time, your guild will still be charged the maintenance fees according to the upgrade’s Rank as it downgrades.  In the event that your guild does not have enough funds in the Guild Vault to cover the upkeep of you claimed Keep, your guild will get receive a warning message.

If your guild runs out of funds, the Keep will be released; however, all upgrades will remain up for a brief period of time. The amount of time they remain active depends on the Rank of the upgrade. For example, an upgrade that takes 5 minutes to spawn, will take 5 minutes to go away due to lack of funds.  If you run out of funds, but deposit money back into your Guild Vault before the next maintenance cycle, your upgrade will remain. Any Ranks lost on the upgrade will need to be reset to their higher Ranks if you went from a Rank 5 upgrade to a Rank 3 upgrade.

If another guild claims the Keep while there are upgrades currently active on the Keep, the new Keep owner will receive a warning message after claiming the Keep asking if they wish to retain the Keep upgrades, and denotes how much it would cost to do so. If your guild chooses not to keep the existing Keep Upgrades, all upgrades will be removed.

Now for the upgrades themselves!

Here are some standard Keep upgrades, which are pretty self explanatory:

• Door Hit-Point Increase: Hit Points are upgraded 20% per upgrade Rank, up to 5 Ranks.
• Door Repair Merchant: An NPC that sells door-repair wood.
• Guard Numbers: More guards for your Keep by 2 guards per Rank, up to 5 Ranks.
• Patrol Guards Upgrade: Upgrades all patrolling guards to Champion-level guards.
• Static Guards Upgrade: Upgrades all stationary guards to Champion-level guards.
• Standard Merchant: An NPC that sells guild standards.
• Siege Weapon Merchant: An NPC that sells Siege Weapons.
• Healer: An NPC that cures death penalties.
• Banker: An NPC that allows players to access their Personal Vault.
• Guild Vault Keeper: An NPC that allows players to access their Guild Vault.

Here are the non-traditional Keep Upgrades, new to WAR:

Ritualists!

• Guilds can purchase a Ritualist NPC that fires AoE abilities at enemies on the lower levels. Ritualists are different than standard NPCs—they will cast either an AoE Healing ability or AoE Lifetap, depending on the type of Ritualist you chose. These NPCs are designed to help bottom-floor defense efforts in Keep defenses.

Divine Favor Altar!

• Guilds that have reached Rank 40 can purchase the Divine Favor Altar.  This altar will be located on the Lord level and is used to unleash pure terror on any would be-attackers in the Keep area. To purchase an Altar, the guild must be Rank 40 and have purchased a Ritualist NPC as well.
• The Divine Favor Altar needs to be fueled, and what better way to appease the gods than by collecting the skulls of fallen enemies! Each enemy player, when killed, has a chance to drop a Skull.  Collecting these Skulls in the Divine Favor Altar will build up a Divine Favor charge.  Anyone can deposit Skulls into a Divine Favor Altar.
• 500 Skulls equate to 1 Divine Favor charge. Up to 5 charges can be stored in the Altar. Players with the appropriate guild permissions can fire the Divine Altar, unleashing a damaging blow to enemies in the Keep area.  Once the ability is fired, it cannot be fired again for 10 minutes. 
• All of this is tracked nicely via the Divine Favor UI.

As you can see, the Keep Upgrades offer many great additions to Keeps, and we’re just getting started!  Stay tuned for further Keep Upgrades coming in later patches. Some of these include the following:

• Guild Bind: An NPC that allows guild-mates to re-spawn inside the Keep.
• Door Spikes: Attaches Spikes to the Keep Doors so any melee attacks damage the attacker.
• Door Barrier: Doors get a magical barrier that absorbs a certain percentage of magic-attack damage.

This patch also introduces a new resource material that players in RvR can gather and trade in for deadly assault upgrades!  Scattered throughout the RvR lakes, and acquired from killing players, Ordinance is collected and traded in for various items and weapons to use in open RvR! 

These items include the following:

• Rams that have double the Hit-points of standard Rams.
• Ballista that do twice the amount of standard Ballista damage.
• Self-only Oil Immunity potions that last 30, 60, or 90 seconds.
• Caltrops which place a small PBAoE Snare/DoT field on the ground.
• Dynamite that is a direct-target DD plus a knockback, which can be used against players or siege weapons (deals double damage versus siege weapons).