What was The Old Crown?

I keep hearing about this thing. Why was it so special? What has changed about it?

All capture points was up on the hill. It drained brainpower from players who kept coming back just to get killed by the defenders with ease. You'd wish NS would have an ion cannon orbiting just above it to blast the area into molten rock once every 30 min.

Let me tell you what he's trying to tell you: It was 100% a grind fest that went on for hours and hours at a time.

In other words,

AWESOME!!!

Imagine a brick wall, and smacking your head against it. Now imagine smashing you head and balls against it, while punching yourself in the face between smashes, and then set fire to yourself, and now you're about half way to what assaulting the old crown was like.

It was truly Glorious! The TR made the Crown into a thing, it was the crown jewel of the game. Have Crown, farm everyone trying to take it from you.

Hell. Absolute hell.

If you can't read the text, I know I can't.. 1) There was no land bridge to Ti Alloys, 2) the spawn room was just south of the B point and not in the tower itself, and 3) There was no jump pad to get up.

The only ways up were the northern paths or the southern road. Infantry trying to get up the hill to the south (area east of the south road) were literally headed straight for the crowns spawn room (death. forever.) Alerts were totally different (read: better) back then and continent locking was not a thing. Crown fights would go on all day and all night. Back then population did not die off at night like it does now.

The only real way to take the crown was to ram a huge number of sundies into it, as there weren't any no deploy zones yet and you could deploy them anywhere and within any proximity of each other. With enough sundies in place, and of course enough population, it was possible to push the defenders back to the spawn room and take the base.

Why I liked it: No constant redeploying chasing a zerg from base to base(it was often the only fight), nearly invulnerable to a zerg, it felt like a HUGE battle....no single well-timed C4 fairy or revive nade could turn the tide, it took real effort. If you just wanted to log in and get action it was excellent.

Why I disliked it: Everybody was there to farm certs and nobody actually wanted to capture it except for the occasional serious players and they couldn't take it alone. Lack of depth: A battle of this size should have multiple accomplishments in it like a gate to open or a power generator for the turrets......things to do that give it a bit more of a sense of accomplishment.

Most days I would very much prefer the old crown back....PS2 is a watered down/simple game and I don't see why I need to dick around making an effort for something moderately rewarding(be it travelling 3km in a poor handling vehicle or spending 6 minutes redeploying to a fight that ends when I get there). The crown balanced effort to get action with the shallow gameplay.

this was how i felt about the old crown, it was one of the least fun bases to take in the game, but people loved to mindlessly farm it



glad its gone.

The Crown was a thing back when we had the hex system. In other words, it was the ONLY place to really find a fight.

SOE's level design has gotten a little better since then. They're still dropping fortifications inside craters and making them easy to spam with tank fire or ironically impossible for the home team to reclaim while likewise hellaciously easy for the the away team to take.

back then there were 2 different situations you could be in:
your empire owned the crown
your empire owned everything but the crown

Gaze into the horror of the past.

Worst part: This is not even one of the really big Crown fights. It could get several times worse than this.

It was like a Biolab but without the stupid landing pads, dome and spawn rooms ..

Mecca to the grind
Nirvana to the farmer
Heaven to the God's of bad base design


But sadly with all that being said it was and still is one of the only bases that ever gave you that " **** YEAH !!!! " feeling when you captured it ..

Because it was defended 99% of the time it was a challenge and an achievement to capture ..

Before the days of the battle nanny (lattice) players could fight wherever they wanted.

True to balance created by players and only by players, the Crown (the center of the map) became the place where the three factions would meet to decide dominance of the map.

Those that couldn't hack it cried for two things:

1: Lattice
2: Nerfing of The Crown fortress.

Now, it is little more than a legend. Let's hope that one day, players will be able to handle free choice, and things like the Crown battles of old will re-appear.

The good old crown:
Log in: fight for the Crown.
Log out: still fighting for the Crown.
Sometimes, the fight moves a bit to TI-Alloys or Crossroads, sometimes even to ceres....
It was pretty comon, that one faction only own the crown, while every other hex is under ennemy control.

When your Outfit was big enough and you want your outfitsname written in auraxium.
All you have to do was put your whole Outfit+ Friends into Galaxys,
drop several Platoons on the Crown, take it this way and be legendary
When it worked, you could proudly went to to reddit and earn some E-Fame,
if not, well noone will talk about it...

if anything it showed players were not reads for full open hex, especially if the only real fight going on was always centered around a single base on one continent well everyone else just ghost capped. you have a very rose tinted view of what was the most boring fight in PS2 beta.

I think that needs a slight correction.

It was the type of person who only wanted to have a big fight on bases like the crown who cried for lattice. Sadly that was more people than those who'd cap bases around it while everyone played the marketers game of big is better.

The greatest base of all time.

http://i.imgur.com/0GyS7.jpg
need i say more?

It was an incredibly hard base to take despite its simple design. The cap points were all at the top of the hill, and the only way to get to them was to scale it.
It was a meatgrinder like no other, especially since it existed at the time the game had the most people, most of them fresh and completely uninformed (there wasn't a tutorial back then).

It was one of the first instances of meta that this game had.
It was a goal to achieve, greater than any tech plant or bio lab or continent cap. Factions used to sacrifice every last man, vehicle, and territory to hold it even for a few hours.

It was where the fight was.
It was where the fun was.