Let’s get back to talking about a sandbox, shall we?

I recently left OTG to join up with Proxy. It was a tough decision as I liked playing with OTG and the clan is doing very well in DF:UW. I made the move because a few of the people I played most with in OTG had recently gone to Proxy, and they all seemed to enjoy the experience. The major difference is Proxy is smaller, but the leadership is more experienced in the specifics of DF and particularly the in-combat organization that is required. Much like EVE FC’ing, it’s a rare but very important skill.

Proxy is allied to Blood, a clan I played with in DF1. Blood is currently in a very heated battle with Lost Minions over their capital city; a city that has been unsuccessfully sieged 6 times now, each time resulting in a huge battle and plenty of Forumfall drama. While not direct allies, OTG is more on the LM side of the war, putting me somewhat against them when the entire server goes to war.

Until very recently, Proxy was living out of Blood’s capital city of Erinthel, but a few days ago we sieged and successfully captured the city of Izkand on Cairn. I was not able to attend the siege myself due to work, but there is an excellent video from the Proxy perspective here. The mass gravestones in the water are a pretty strong visual I must say. Also, as readers may remember, Cairn is a location OTG spent some time on in the first month or so of the game, and not only that, but we were allied to Imperium, the clan we captured Izkand from, and the major power on Cairn still. The more things change…

Finally, just yesterday we were involved in a siege for a hamlet on Cairn. Former Imperium allies Ruin owned the hamlet, and intended to give it to VAMP. Not wanting VAMP to have the hamlet, Imperium got help from NOX, who jumped into the siege as a second attacking force. How the mechanics work is simple; whoever from the attacking side does the most damage to the hamlet bind stone, without having their siege stones destroyed, wins the hamlet. As a result, the siege had two attacking forced, without a true defender.

In a funny twist, Ruin was fighting with VAMP/Proxy to help them win the siege and take their hamlet, rather than have NOX win it. Unfortunately for our side, after some very good back and forth action on both land and sea, we were routed and NOX won. In just a few days, Cairn has gone from an island completely controlled by one alliance to a hotly contested PvP area. From our perspective, being surrounded by PvP is exactly why we sieged Izkand.

As for the city itself, it was completely empty, but thanks to a lot of dedicated sea scraping for building mods (one unsuccessful trip can be seen here, starting at 2:40. The ships with two large yellow sails are the Sea Scrapers, the loot chest can be seen in the middle of the deck), we now have some key buildings, the walls, and zap towers up. Fun stuff all around, and we are just getting started.