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Thread: The Evony Scam? Fact Or Fiction.

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  1. #1
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    Default The Evony Scam? Fact Or Fiction.

    First a little background on me. I’ve been playing various online games like Evony for years. I started playing Evony when server 2 first started, went through the entire BETA testing and got my (worthless) testing gift. The graphics (which have been changed multiple times to avoid lawsuits) were what first grabbed my attention, and the game play was similar to other games. I quit playing a week ago when the super fortifications update came out, making attacking players of equal strength pointless, and attacking weaker villages is just boring. However, there is one major difference that Evony has that no other online game I’ve played has; how the devs make money! That difference is what drives everything in not only Evony, but other games as well.

    The other two online games I play are Tribal Wars and Ikariam. Both earn money the same way. Players purchase a premium account that costs less than $3 a month (very cheap). This account gives the players greater management abilities over their villages, by allowing things to be built, researched, and trained without having to go into each village. It gives you an overview of everything going on in your cities. This is important, because both games allow you to have as many villages as you want. They both have hard caps on troop numbers, but as you can continue to expand into more cities, there is no end to the game as expansion is ALWAYS possible. Without a premium account, it becomes very difficult to keep up with your forever expanding empire. This system favors the dedicated player, as smaller players will not get any real benefits to having the account.

    Evony, on the other hand, earns money by selling items that enhance the speed of which villages grow. There is a hard cap on the number of villages you can own (10) and with food upkeep, a hard(ish) cap on troop numbers is also present. In order to continue building troops, you will end up spending most of the time gathering food from NPC villages, which turns the game into a boring resource gathering game. Even then, you will hit the troop cap. It will just be higher for you. This means that eventually you will reach the maximum level the game allows and will find no point to continuing playing. Dedicated players reach this level very quickly, within 2 months or less depending on your play style. This system REQUIRES constant growth in new players, thus the rapid addition of new servers, in order to continue to turn a profit. Dedicated players quickly find no point in purchasing game coins, as they will get diminishing returns, while the new player will have every reason to spend money as the system favors new player purchases.

    So, you tell me. Does this system imply a scam, or does the game actually have long term playability?

  2. #2
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    Evony is what it is, do enough research and you won't be surprised at what you find.
    ~Success without the possibility of failure is meaningless.~

    Queen Daisuke

  3. #3

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    Hmm i dont think its a down right spam. I think its just people wanting to make money off of a game that they do really care about. granted the way they get the money isnt really ideal for the players. And they constantly make the game less appealing due to poorly planned updates.
    The most popular forum on this site seems to be The report bug forum.Hmm i wonder why?

  4. #4

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    I wouldnt call it a scam. Except for the $30 Medium Medal Box that they wont give you when you spend $30.

    Its mostly just a rip-off. In order to run 1 +25% production buff, it costs $5/week, which is $20/month, which is more than it costs to play a pay2play game.

  5. #5
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    90% of the items you can purchase with game cents are useless to you once you have a lvl 10 city. The ability for the hardcore player to reach "end-game" as quickly as many did far exceeded the evony staff business model.

    First change was the medal drops (without notice or explanation by the game provider, to the game consumer). This change ensured game cent purchase revenue by players who were already "hooked" (but not yet fully ranked/titled) because many bought the medal boxes using game cents purchased with RL $$. I know, because I am one of them. I'm a more casual player, however I didn't wish for my weeks of hard work to fall victim to the hardcore, so I made an investment in my time.

    Next comes the mass flood of new servers being opened -after- the game mechanics of advancement and combat have been nerfed. Players who start out under the current system will find it nearly impossible to reach furstin. Ever. At least, not without buying several medal boxes and/or getting very lucky on the wheel. Justice medals (from what I have read/seen/heard) only drop from lvl 10 barbarian towns. This locks a player into a set rank for a very long period of time. For the casual player, again this tips in favor of revenue to evony, forcing the hand of the casual player to invest again to rank up. It's coded this way (medal drops at higher levels), so this is by design or working as intended.

    Another indicator of "scam" activities would be the magical disappearing game cents you bought. Multiple players report that game cents just vanish from their account over time. I am one of those players. I -know- I had cents left over from my first purchase, and over a week or so, I was down to 3 cents in my balance, yet I had not spent them. The silence from the game providers on this issue is tantamount to conspiracy..

    Lastly, the medal box "reward" hypothesis wreaks of incompetent development at best. Failing to label the reward properly is by far an indicator of faulty text editing of the particular pop-up dialog box for medals. One can further deduce, that since the text was changed from it's initial explanation of a "claim date" to what it presently states, that this can only be by design, or intention. This elevates the players suspicion beyond incompetence, and raises the suspicion of faulty advertisement. Beyond this fear, the total lack of response by the game provider on this issue (and previous stated fears/issues) escalates the theory into the conspiracy realm.

    Of course, the total lack of information by the providers, paired with the ever increasing zerg of new servers only furthers the conspiracy...

    Another oft overlooked possible tie-in to the conspiracy is the need for 'speech' items in order to mass communicate on your server. Recently, after the npc "nerf", I attempted to send a mass email to my alliance in order to warn the members who had yet to lose ballista and were, at present, offline. I was unable to use the mass mail option, as this had been disabled. I could not click on the function button. Add to this, the fact that you need a speech item to speak in world chat, or even send mass mails at all... and well, you see the limitation of communication. Because this is something coded into the game, one can only reasonably conclude that this is by design... or as intended. Yet again.

    New players are always a better source for potential game cent revenue than seasoned, existing veteran players. Most new players have not yet found their way over to the forums (I'd assume).. most new players have yet to learn (the hard way) about any of the afore mentioned fears/concerns. New players will be forced into making purchases for advancement, because as they level up, older players will inevitably and increasingly begin to farm them thanks to the npc nerf. (As intended, yet again?) Casual players likewise will have to purchase more items to keep up with the hardcore player. Etc etc.. add nauseam... and all that jazz...

    Anyhow, the game providers sure give plenty of fuel to the fire.... in their silence.
    Last edited by ByronXAN; 06-08-2009 at 11:58 AM.

  6. #6
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    The old complaint about the defensive updates has come up agian.

    There is one element few consider in the scope of PVP: First strike.
    Let's say we have two equal opponents looking to square off - allthings being equal.
    One attacks first, losing their army but damaging their enemy's defenses (troops and forts) in the process.
    Now, the defender has a choice to make. They can sit back and rebuild or they can counter-attack. If they choose to sit back, eventually, this plan will back fire. While they rebuild and re-arm, the other player only needs to re-arm. Troops build faster than fortifications, ergo, its a slow regression for the defender until, ultimately the offender is able to do enough damage from which the defender cannot recover in time. The next wave, of course will rob the defender of resources - all but assuring their eventual defeat.

    On the other hand, if the defender counter-attacks then the playing field would be closer to level once again. This can go back and forth indefinitely, but usally a break will come when one or the other makes a mistake.

    For the perpetual naysayers: This includes level 10 defenses.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kempion View Post
    The old complaint about the defensive updates has come up agian.

    There is one element few consider in the scope of PVP: First strike.
    Let's say we have two equal opponents looking to square off - allthings being equal.
    One attacks first, losing their army but damaging their enemy's defenses (troops and forts) in the process.
    Now, the defender has a choice to make. They can sit back and rebuild or they can counter-attack. If they choose to sit back, eventually, this plan will back fire. While they rebuild and re-arm, the other player only needs to re-arm. Troops build faster than fortifications, ergo, its a slow regression for the defender until, ultimately the offender is able to do enough damage from which the defender cannot recover in time. The next wave, of course will rob the defender of resources - all but assuring their eventual defeat.

    On the other hand, if the defender counter-attacks then the playing field would be closer to level once again. This can go back and forth indefinitely, but usally a break will come when one or the other makes a mistake.

    For the perpetual naysayers: This includes level 10 defenses.
    And Kemp's constant trolling continues. Not only did you not address the point of the thread, but have yet again added more evidence to the idea of you having not played the game. You don't lose AT'S, the best fortification now, unless your entire defending army is wiped out, so the defender only has to rebuild troops. The enhanced fortifications means that you have to have massive amounts of troops MORE than the defender, so, as I said in this very thread, attacking players of equal size is pointless. STOP TROLLING!!!!!!!!

  8. #8
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    Yes it's definitely a scam. They want you to play their free game and if you want to, out of your own will, purchase items that cost $$. Someone call the BBB and shut them down!
    Server 6, Matricks

    Standard Battle Reports thread: I scouted and put these amounts into Exercise and got 0 losses. Then I attacked and all my forces died! Wtf!

  9. #9
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    This isn't a scam!

    The whole medal box thing, goes right along with a lot of their in game descriptions, null and void LOL.

    They just need to hire more people, and maybe more liasons to work with the transition from dev to customer to dev communication.

    People are quick to pull out their six shooters and label everything as a scam that involves money. Quite honestly I've played a lot of MMOs (and this isn't an MMO), that use the freeplay but pay shop business model, and this is the first one I can actually say you can get to "endgame" without buying a single cent. This is also one of the few games that actually gives you some cents through quests to buy items.

    In fact, people now make it a point to try to take down people that have actually payed RL money for it. Adds insult to injury I guess.

    If anything the whole buying into the game and losing your cities to other players may need addressed. But I don't see anything here as a scam.

    "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" ~Einstein
    "lol well wine usually helps boost the wood"~LG
    "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather."~Bill Hicks

  10. #10
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    But you are also stating that the game doesn't have long-term playability, making paying money pointless as it reduces the play time to reach that level. I have no problem paying to play a free to play game, as long as the game allows players to continue benefiting from paying. This game doesn't have that.

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