Buried in last week’s news that Intrepid was delaying Ashes of Creation’s next phase of alpha one (and therefore delaying its release into next year) was the promise that the studio would be pumping out new developer diaries this month. Now it’s making good on that promise, as the first such post rolled out last night. The topic? Castle sieges.

In Ashes, castle sieges are meant to be “massive events with hundreds of people involved in a single siege,” and like some of the other in-development RvR MMOs, it’s working hard on increasing how many people can participate and be more than laggy dots on the horizon. “Our goal is to have the largest organized PVP battles of any MMORPG,” Intrepid says, and that’s a bold goal – right now, it’s up to 200, and you guys know how long it’s taken other titles to work up into the thousands.

The dev blog also tackles the downplaying of zergs, the focus on tactics and strategy in PvP, castle management, capture points, the destruction engine, siege weaponry, and how player class matters. Plus, “commanders will have to take into consideration the lay of the land, time of day, weather, and even seasons into account when forming their battle plans.” Nifty.

There’s a ton of new screenshots too, which just plum makes me happy to see from an MMO studio. Check ’em out!

This trailer for castle siege isn’t brand-new, but it’s on point too: