What's so good about Champion Spawns?

[Calix]

They are the only kind of PvM I ever enjoyed in UO, Oaks especially. I'm not even talking about raiding them, just actually 'working' the spawn.

My reasons:
1. The risk of PvP.
2. Working as a team
3. Reward(scrolls)

Obviously you then consider the other benefit of champ spawns; the PvP itself.

Why did champ spawns offer the best PvP experience? I talk a lot about purpose and risk vs rewards which obviously aren't the only factors, but to address that first:

Factions had purpose, but you had to have a faction char, make yourself attackable all the time and be on at the right time for raids, etc. Which obviously didn't suit most UO players. The rewards weren't that great either. Warhorses being the best thing beyond the limited scope of the bragging rights of controlling the towns.

With spawns, you didn't have to join a limiting PvP system, you could go on any kind of PvP or PvM char - and unless you were attacked by other guilds, PvM chars were actually far more useful. The system was therefore accessible to all, and actually offered advantages to PvMers over PvPers to a large extent.

Everyone wanted to be involved because the rewards were so great. All the European and American shards turned into a shard-wide battleground over spawns, simply because scrolls were so desirable. You could argue that Felucca became the busiest facet. Certainly on most American shards the majority of top 10 guilds for members in early AOS were 'spawner guilds' - PvM guilds primarily interested in Champ Spawns above all else. Later on many of these guilds were replaced by hybrid PvM/PvP 'spawn' guilds, concerned solely with controlling the champion spawn market with their PvM chars and killing off any opposition with their PvP chars.

Stopping there, and without considering any other factors. Does that not alone mean that the Factions system on Legacy was wholly unnecessary and that spawns are a strong enough system alone to keep PvPers and PvMers interested?

[Fatalist]

I think one of the things was the heightened sense of fear the futher you progressed the spawn along, it got both harder (because of the harder mobs) and riskier at the same time, since PK guilds usually wanted to raid as close as possible to the end to avoid having to work it and remain exposed.

You're exactly right when you say that they were good for PKs because blues would want to come back after being PKed, or would actually fight back to protect the oh-so-close loot rather than just running away with what they had.

They also gave rise to real alliances and a higher degree of clan rivalries that revolved around more than PvP (RP, O/C & factions previously I guess) and also brought the link between PvM and PvP closer.

This magically brought us 'have a go heroes' - the die hard pvmer who would FIGHT FOR HIS CAUSE by chasing you around with his broadsword or standing there spamming ebolt at you. For many people this was their first exciting glimpse of PvP and what you can get when you risk and fight for something - it was total genius.

On a seperate note, I don't think factions need to be implemented from scratch, it's a good event to have 3-6 months down the line to introduce them in a format that fits the shape the shard is taking naturally, ie. whether town activities need more policing, or dungeons are under-used, champs etc.