Is this complaint necessary?
I am of two minds on this, especially having just become aware of the rule. (Dear Evony: I have to run to work soon and I will message you my details as it seems the rules require as soon as I can.)
My household includes my family and my business partners family.
-My children alternate between my home and their mothers home.
-My children are not allowed to use their personal e-mail for online services and games. I require that they use one of my e-mails so that I can monitor the content of the messages. There is also the point that I am online many times throughout the day and many online messages have a time requirement that would be missed since they do not have easy internet access at their mother's house. By using one of my e-mails, I am able to keep their responses current and timely while insuring that the content is appropriate.
-While they enjoy the game, they are not the best at strategy. I am often asked to sit with and advise them.
-We play to have fun, not to harrass others. Any PvP activity is only against non-responsive and apparrently inactive players.
-I provide aid to anyone within my alliance. They provide the aid they are able when they are able. This behavior is the same relationship of aid and assistance that everyone in our alliance shares.
=My business partner and I share a home to keep our expenses low and focus our available income on our business.
=She and her family also play here.
=While her children are not migrating between households, they are held to the requirement to use e-mail accounts that can be monitored for the same safety reasons I stated above.
=Their accounts have been less lucky and repeatedly raided. As the first of our household to start playing Evony, I am much further along than anyone else in my home.
*None of us are militant in our relations with other players.
*Our girls often ask me to handle the communications with hostile players because they often feel intimidated by the power-punks. Rather than have them give up on the game, I help them out since I tend to foster more friendly reactions when writing back and forth with once hostile players.
*Within our household we have 7 desktop PC's and 2 laptops. When everyone is home we often have all 9 computers up, routed through a single Clearwire home tower and burning a hole in Clearwires bandwidth.
While I can see where the potential for abuse exists, I do not view our situation as an abusive arrangement. We do not treat each other any different than we treat other members of our alliance.
As for the compliants against Evony regarding this... I have run and managed online services and several online message boards. I am also aware that MOST players here and on similar boards are here for FREE.
Evony is polite enough not to pound us with advertising, not to sell our e-mail data, or make us fill out panels of questions in order to enjoy this as a free game.
The percentage of players who are paying for services and benifits here only provides enough funds for a staff of limited size. The management of Evony must place priority on which issues will be addressed by their limited staff. Currently, it appears they have put playablity, game balance and persistancy of service as the top of their list.
I dare say that the majority of players are more interested in the quality of the product they are playing as opposed to worrying about when the Evony staff will start dropping hammers on potential rule breaking. Not to say they are not concerned about rule breaking - but they may only have enough staff on hand to address the most grievous of abuses at this time.
I would suggest that rather than flooding the boards with negative posts, that YOU follow the rules and report suspected abuses by using the appropriate channels. Then, extend the Evony staff some respect and let them address the many details of running an online service as best they can.
Trust me. They want you and everyone here to have the best and most enjoyable experience they can possibily provide for you with the resources they have available to them.