Quote Originally Posted by ucsmb19 View Post
The thirteen1 article addresses, loosely, the desparity between paying and non-paying players, so this is remotely on topic. Evony was not designed for non-paying players to be competitive with paying players, though it is entirely possible to do so to some extent.

I challenge anyone to find any game in existence, wherein, if a pay-in option was/is made available and some players chose to use it, how said game(s) would still be balanced between paying and non-paying players.
Most other cash shop games, RPGs at least, offer increased experience items that enable the player to reach maximum level quicker, but not directly dominate in PVP. Many of them also make their cash shop items tradable between players, which essentially lets them compete with gold sellers over selling their own game's currency, without just creating it and giving it to buyers. Non-paying players can get gold or whatever currency by ingame means and buy cash items from pay players, who buy various items from the cash shop with the intent of selling them to other players for ingame currency. While Evony does have direct modifications like Excalibur and war horns that other games generally do not allow (at least in player vs player combat), they are temporary, and the main advantage of being a pay player here is the same as with other games, it lets you reach the maximum potential power quicker than other players. In that regard I don't think it is anywhere near as bad as the articles make it out to be. Evony also allows these items to be obtained without paying by means of amulet spins and occasionally as drops from NPCs or significant player battles.