Competitive games are all about finding your limits and pressing on them. Online games, played out in virtual space, test limits of different kinds.
For the players, it might be the game limits -- how big an army can I build and keep? how big a hero can I grow? how big an enemy can I defeat? how big a stockpile of resources can I grow? how quickly can I grow my prestige? how much honour can I carry and how quickly can I drop it when I want to do it? I have seen ppl set themselves all kinds of personal challenges in this game. Thats part of what makes it exciting.
For some players, too, the limits are not in the game itself. And these are less healthy. How many hours a day can I play before my family life suffers? before my wife leaves me? before my children are estranged? But the game spills out into this field too.
When the competition is inside the game, the limits are set by the software and the hardware of the servers. The result is an arms-race between the players and the coders. The players are driven to find weak joints in the limits that will lead to an advantage in the game. These weaknesses show up on the coder's radar screens as glitches. The volume of play also tests the hardware limits -- hence the lag. The players are the viruses and the coders provide the immune response.
At this point, I should have all the Evony staff nodding in agreement with my insights.
But now I need to point out something else -- they are an integral part of this equation and their failure to acknowledge that is what is upsetting so many people. This game also drives the Evony coder staff to test THEIR personal limits through the game mechanics.
For years now, evony players have been screaming that This Is The Last Straw. But it never is. Sure ppl leave. There is a certain rate of attrition. When enough ppl leave, then they merge servers and turn the heat up a notch. It's like boiling frogs -- too quickly and they hop out of the water, slow enough and they get blanched. They have heard it all before and they are tone deaf to player complaints. Know it. Accept it. They would think they are doing something wrong if we didnt complain about every change.
But if you play with something long enough, it shall surely break. Brinksmanship is what it is all about, eh folks? But now I ask us all to consider how caught up in game brinksmanship are the Evony Staff themselves: how p*'ed off can we make everyone before they really DO quit? how hard can we push back before all the players quit? If we hit X, does revenue move +Y or -Z? if we erase everyone's hardwork in the dead of night, how high does the complaint-o-meter soar the next morning? How hard can we push the game software before it breaks and how hard can we push the players before they break?
While we are playing one (virtual) game down here on the servers with each other, they are up there playing another (real) game with us as the game pieces.
The coders are in competition with the players for "ownership" of the servers. But the coders see us as their personal ant-farm or hamsters with wheels. And they are the giants. It is not really even a competition -- they win by default. But the thrill of this competition and the childishness it brings out (in both sides) has blinded Evony to the threat to their own revenue. They do what they do because they CAN and not because it is logical. ToS? Rules?
A rule is only a rule if it is applied evenly and with consistency from the outset. Otherwise, it is just something that arbitrary tyrants
trot out on holidays and special occasions to harrass ppl with.
Let me describe another game that is going on here: Evony staff are laughing at the hypocrisy of the players complaining, 90% of whom technically break the "rules" (rules as defined above -- regulations that are totally ignored except when someone in authority wants a powertrip); players are laughing at the hypocrisy of Evony staff mouthing platitudes about level playing fields and enhanced player experiences, when they ignored their own rules for so long that the game morphed in irreversible ways and their efforts now at righting that past neglect is alienating many players who tried to remain honest until the choice was to evolve with the game or be forced from it by competition.
This is dysfunctional and psychologically twisted. Two poker players, both bluffing.
They know that we know that they know that they screwed up badly. We know that they know that we know most players break one or more of the "rules". They know that we know that they know they cannot ADMIT that they screwed up badly without opening several retroactive legal and financial consequences. We know that they know that we know we are all too afraid to confess to breaking any rules and so they are free to ignore our complaints when they use brutal methods of enforcing them.
So this game of pantomime goes on. With no end in sight.
It will not end until or unless one side has the courage to step out from behind their masque of fantasy and delusion and deceit and say "I have been wrong, but I will do right in the future if you will forgive the wrongs of the past."
Evony: please review all the ToS "rules", figure out which ones can be enforced without destroying the game As It Is Played (not, as you planned it should be played) and MODIFY the rules that cannot be upheld without killing the game As It Is Played. Please deal with the REALITY of the game on groundzero on the servers. It might not be what you planned 3 yrs ago, but it is what it is. Draw a line under what has passed before and move forward with what is. Then communicate your new expectations to your players. Establish reasonable rules that Players *can* respect and then commit yourselves to respecting your own rules. This is the crux of the whole thing: you have mostly ignored and disrespected your own rules for 3yrs, then express righteous shock when your players also ignore them, then affect indignation at our complaints when you try to enforce them.
Even more to the point: End the posturing and the hypocrisy. Become a company that inspires respect and then your (addicted) players might respect you.
Off my soap box. I dont post often in here. I hope I can make this one count.
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