Is RoR realisticly still a campaign game?

[wonshot]

Hello,

RoR has over the years seen many many changes, little tweeks, adjustments and full overhauls.
One area of the game which has been the red line throughout every game system, have especially changed since the Live days of AoR release with the Victory Point system where lower tiers, PQs, associated scenarios, kills, and battleobjectives all were required to be dominated for zonelocks to happen and the campaign moving on.
Later iterations on both AoR & RoR have changed the game towards are less hardcore concept for the main replay loop. But here comes my question and topic for this thread:

"Have the Campaign become too meaningless and no longer serve as the main motivator?"

A few RoR changes that I personally think either directly, or indirectly took importance away from the Campaign are the following:
- Scheduled Citysieges absolutely disconnected the Crown Jewel of the Campaign, from the actual Campaign. Very very few players care about winning a fortress for the sake of their realm's campaign status, and instead it is more so seen for a kill-farm oppotunity, avenue to action-on-demand, or personal progression. (Direct impact)

- Removing the Carrot from Citysieges to make them sought after, unique, and important. (Direct impact)

- Ranked gamemode allowed you to fight your own realm in endgame. Ever since we create our level 1 characters we are told by cutscenes, gamemechanics, promotional videos about this is an RvR game where you fight on two factions against the enemy realm. But due to lifesupport attempt, Ranked was allowed to break this foundation and removing immersion of what we are even fighting for - and against. (indirect impact)

Now, some of these are honestly too late to reverse and I do understand the arguments of why these changes happend wether I agree or disagree with them.
For example the part where players would "throw" fortresses to allow their capital to get besieged, so they could get Sove gear. Yeah, thats not exactly a good example of how realmpride is at is peak
And now that the changes with scheduled cities, detached almost fully from the campaign, and unified warcrests are implimented we cant really go back to how things were or that would be unfair on new players coming in having to catch up. So the damage is done, lets look forward

I would urge and love for the RoR tealm to prioritize making RvR and the Campaign especially the main focus of 2026, pretty please!
We could really do with some systems that realisticly understand how BiS endgame guilds, warbands, 6mans will probably never be the biggest of the campaign heroes and die to hold a box nor a flag. But if the game had rvr systems and a campaign where majority of the new players, progression players and brutally honest the "food" for the veterans, are incentivized to play the game systems by holding flags, playing for the zones, coordinating sieges. Then you shift the playground landscape and therefor also the Veteran kill succesmessurement by moving the action.

I and others have posted plenty of ideas over the years, and I do hear that the RvR team is working on making their job easier for the future, which is all great!
But....
Can we please, please, please see a massive effort push where all the available hands(coders, ideamakers, community, CMs, polls etc) comes together in 2026 and really makes a push to put the Campaign back into RoR, and we move away from the Kill messurement endgame. Because all this does, is bread and teach the next waves and "generation" of players coming in. So I urge you, RoR team, please address the RvR & Campaign with modern systems. Well, that is. If YOU actually still want to brand RoR a campaign RvR game..

[Pahakukka]

There is very little to this game other than kill farm atm. Even the keep sieges are pretty much avoided. As 80% of them are actually just waiting for the door to go down, either playing the click on time minigame or just chatting away while others do it.

Fortresses might even do more harm than good for the game atm, as when captured they lock the pairing so the remaining ones will be utterly overcrowded. With luck its ostland where you can nearly shoot with cannons from camp to camp . The zones mostly progress only after other side loses their org WB's and aao tips to 100%+

[M0rw47h]

You know that majority of players don't even want to play City Sieges, no matter if they are scheluded or not? At this point, even if sieges would be end of campaign, people wouldn't care, unless you force them to care by adding new BiS that drops only there OR be completly reworked.

People want fun content, CS never was fun for majority of players, thats why during prime time you see only 2 instances of CS, while lakes remain crowded. It's easy to force people back to care about CS... but first, please - make them enjoyable for majority of playerbase.

Just compare CS to LOTD. Always crowded, despite rewards being easy to get in just two runs.

[Lion1986]

game is campaign no more since most of community just log in to zerg then logoff and developers removed any meaning to make campaign from the game in the first place.

[Aluviya]

- Ranked gamemode allowed you to fight your own realm in endgame. Ever since we create our level 1 characters we are told by cutscenes, gamemechanics,

I can understand and respect the effort to highlight issues within RvR and the campaign. However, I strongly disagree with bringing Ranked into this discussion — the comparison simply does not hold.

Ranked has nothing to do with ORvR or the campaign. From a long-term perspective, it is one of the most sensible solutions RoR has. When population is low, Ranked still provides fights, which in my view should be the core idea of this game — far more important than any “realm hero” mentality.

Every veteran I know — including you — plays both factions. In a game with heavily oscillating population numbers, full realm commitment is neither realistic nor healthy, especially when certain content only functions if players are willing to log in and fight against the odds. Ranked’s idea of pooling players who simply want to fight helps keep people engaged instead of logging off or quitting.

Ranked has arguably been harmed far more by constant class-balance complaints and ORvR-centered design decisions than by anything Ranked itself has ever caused. It is optional content, yet those claiming ORvR to be the “main content” have ironically done significant damage to a mode that was once relatively balanced — often without actively playing it themselves. This has long been a recurring theme: criticism of Ranked frequently comes from players with little to no actual experience in the mode.

Ranked does not replace ORvR, nor does it compete with the campaign. Ironically, it has largely become dead content due to community perception and narrative — and your post may even serve as an example of that. The real issues with the campaign lie elsewhere, and using Ranked as a scapegoat only distracts from addressing the actual problems.

Short version: If we want to have a serious discussion about the state and relevance of the campaign, it should be done clearly and separately from Ranked.

[gyps]

Fully agree with you on this.

If we really want this to have meaning, we need a true endgame, and that means bringing City Sieges back to their original purpose and design.

In Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, City Sieges were never meant to be just another instanced scenario. They were the culmination of the entire RvR campaign, the final objective after long, coordinated realm-wide efforts. Capturing zones, pushing the frontlines, and winning battles across the map all led to one decisive moment: the assault on the enemy capital, not an appointment for the Dr. at 2000hrs on any given day, no thats not how an unexpected siege should feel like.

Originally, City Sieges felt different because:
They were strategic and persistent, not isolated matches.
They involved multiple stages (outer defenses, gates, inner city, and finally the king).
They blended large-scale PvP with meaningful PvE, including city public quests and unique encounters inside the capital.

What we have now — City Sieges functioning essentially as structured scenarios — may be balanced and accessible, but they lack the weight, scale, and sense of consequence that made the original system memorable. Winning a scenario feels good in the moment, but it doesn’t feel like you’ve helped your realm conquer the enemy’s heartland.

Considering the solid work being done on PvE lately and the positive results it’s producing, this feels like the perfect opportunity to revisit that original vision. Reintroducing city public quests during sieges, multi-phase objectives, and a clearer link between the open RvR campaign and the final city assault would go a long way toward restoring that epic feeling and off course for more than 24vs24, wide open for everyone crazy enough to join.

In short, if we want the endgame to matter again, City Sieges need to stop being just another scenario and return to what they were meant to be:
a realm-wide effort, a payoff for sustained RvR, and a truly epic event that defines victory in Warhammer Online.