| Evony | |
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 Evony's logo |
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| Developer(s) | Evony, LLC |
| Publisher(s) | Evony, LLC |
| Platform(s) | (Flash reliant) |
| Release date(s) | May 6, 2009 |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy Medieval MMORTS |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Media | Adobe Flash |
| System requirements | Adobe Flash Player 10.0, Internet access |
| Input methods | Keyboard, Mouse |
Evony (formerly known as Civony) is a browser-based multiplayer online game with graphic elements reminiscent of Civilization. The game received mixed critical reviews, and its ongoing online advertisement campaign featuring provocatively dressed women, begun in the game's inaugural year, 2009, continues to draw strong criticism.
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Like most MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy) games, the game is set in a persistent world - when a player logs out, the game continues.[1] For seven days after registering, or until the player reaches a lv 5 town hall[2] a player is given "beginner's protection" which prevents other players from attacking their cities. This gives new players the opportunity to get accustomed to and attached to the game before the challenges begin to surface. [1]
A player begins by acting as a mayor to a city. The player gives instructions on production and construction with some initial resources. The resources in the game are Gold, Food, Lumber, Stone, and Iron, and to a secondary extent the city's population. As with many real-time strategy games, one first has to increase the city's population and hourly resource-collection rates through the construction of certain buildings in the city (Cottages, Farms, Sawmills, Quarries, and Ironmines), and then start developing other aspects of their city and building an army.[3] Evony introduces straight-forward quests (usually of the form "build X" or "upgrade X")
The game has a player-vs-player (PvP) style where it is possible to attack another player's cities. A server may start and collect over 15,000 players in the few days before the next server opens, so all players begin on roughly the same days. From then on it, is a race to become the most advanced player in the local area in order to survive and continue growing. A massive setback may be difficult to recover from, so it is crucial for players to obtain as much of an advantage as possible by being efficient and utilizing all resources. During this early phase, it is also advantageous to join or create an alliance, a group of players in a particular state that can share resources and troops, to help prevent making your city easy prey for the more advanced players.
One of the most important resources in Evony is time, since all players are striving to be the best by having the most developed cities and armies in order to defeat the other players. This means that anything that can speed up a player's growth - primarily the items offered in the game's Item Mall for real money - contributes significantly to a player's performance in the game. Even though Evony is technically a free game, paying real money for the game's speed-up items is almost required for reaching the top rankings because of the competitive environment. Evony offers many items through its Item Mall, most of them in some way accelerating the player's progression through the game. These include construction speedups, resource production rate increases, and free hero experience.
The construction of buildings, researching of technologies, and training of units consume time and resources and have various prerequisites. Each building and technology can be independently upgraded from level 1 (initial construction) through level 10. Initial construction may take from under a minute to half an hour, during which the player must find other aspects of the city (or their army) to manage. Each upgrade requires double the cost of the previous level in every resource and time required. This eventually results in a situation in which players may wait up to 100+ hours for a building to complete or a technology to finish being researched.[4] The game sports over a dozen technologies, and allows the player to control up to ten cities, each of which has 74 building slots. This ultimately means that a player will take months to achieve a state in which all their buildings and technologies are fully upgraded and maxed out, and explains why the game requires very long time scales to play out. There is no end to the game.[5] Getting all the upgrades required for a couple of "good" cities involves long wait times between actions, during which there is very little for the player to do, though this system may work for the more casual-style players who log in only periodically.
Evony has two different monetary systems. The in-game monetary system revolves around gold. Gold can be obtained by completing quests and by taxing the player's population. It is also possible to sell resources (food, lumber, stone, iron) for gold on the marketplace to other players.[6] In lieu of this, a player can use real money to buy game cents with which to purchase items and resources from the in-game shop.[1]
There are queue options only for army unit production and wall defenses and not for building and research.[5] Thus, a player who wants to use all the time most efficiently would have to log in every few minutes/hours (or remain logged in), depending on the anticipated completion times of current projects/actions, so as to begin the next project with minimal down time.
Players often begin "farming", ie. pillaging, the cities of neighboring players after week one, and shortly thereafter begin "farming" NPC cities. After a few weeks, the surviving players all have armies requiring far more hourly upkeep than their cities can provide and thus must continue pillaging multiple times a day to maintain their armies.[7] This may also be done with up to nine 'teams', as referred to by players, that will farm multiple NPC's (Non-Player Characters) to accumulate food and supplies to last for longer durations when the actual player is not going to be on to maintain constant farming to feed their troops.
Prestige is a measure of a player's rank in the game, like points. Players gain prestige by following quests, building and upgrading structures, training armies and successfully attacking valleys and cities often during the game. Honor is also a ranking system; however, it only changes with a successful or unsuccessful attack of or defense against another player.[8] These are two of the main ways in which player rankings are visible. The overall ranking system that is displayed in the players window is based solely on their prestige compared to the remaining server population.
Units in game requires some knowledge in assembling a decent force, as any particular unit alone is pretty weak, and must be compliment with others to be of strength.
Evony allows the player to control up to ten cities depending on title, not rank. To increase the number of cities the player can control, the player must obtain higher titles through the collection of certain medals.
Reviews for Evony have praised the appearance, but have been mostly critical of its derivative gameplay.
The game was cited as doing "an amazing job at making the game look and feel appealing to all gamers" by New Zealand-based Stuff, although was criticised for the amount of time and effort needed to excel in the game.[1] Stuff also noted the shortcomings of a system like Evony's where one could essentially buy one's way through the game.[1]
The Guardian pointed out that it was so similar to Sid Meier's Civilization series that it felt like a ripoff, going so far as to essentially steal its name.[9]
Evony's 2009 online advertising campaign was criticized for featuring what The Guardian called "a string of increasingly racy images."[9] The images depicted females who, as the ad campaign continued, became more and more unclothed, culminating in an ad that was simply a bra-clad pair of breasts and were in sexually suggestive poses[10], none of which had any relevance to the game itself. A more recent ad features what appears to be a fogged shower door with what appears to be a nude woman behind it. The next two ads displayed a topless woman lying on her stomach in a bed and another woman in bed lying on her back, wearing only her undergarments. More recently, there has been a new ad of two women in suggestive poses, only wearing their undergarments, seen on download sites.[11] The slogans used to advertise the game also frequently included references to a "queen" or a "lover" to save, although there is no queen or lover within the game. Additionally, they frequently state that the user can "play discreetly".[10]
Evony has also been accused of promoting the game through "millions of spam comments left on blogs".[9]
A campaign for PopCap Games' game, Plants vs. Zombies, included online advertisements that parodied Evony's.[12] They featured cartoon images of female zombies like those featured in the game, in similar poses to the women in Evony's advertisements.[12] Similar slogans were also used; instead of "Save the queen!", one ad tells the onlooker to "Save Your Brains!"[12] AdventureQuest Worlds has also parodied the campaign. Its ad shows a warrior's shadows who is shown to be in blue boxers; it also says "play indiscreetly".
Allegations have been made that the game is linked to WoWMine, a Chinese operation known for online gold farming.[9].
On 25 August 2009, Evony's lawyers threatened to sue a critical blogger for defamation over a variety of allegations as to the game's provenance and the practices of the companies behind it.[13] The developers of Evony have denied the allegations from internet blogger Bruce Everiss, and have sent a cease and desist letter for defamation based on Australian law.[14] Everiss responded by linking to a documentary which reportedly shows evidence of Evony's fraudulent history.[15] The case would have potentially created a legal precedent over defamation charges for worldwide defamation being ordered from a domestic court had Everiss been found liable. However, shortly before the case was due to begin in Sydney, Evony parted with their legal team and asked for an adjournment of the case.[16]
Evony | Table of Contents |
Walkthrough
| Evony | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Evony |
| Publisher(s) | Evony |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | RTS |
| System(s) | Adobe Flash, Web browser |
| Mode(s) | MMOG |
Evony (formerly known as Civony) is a browser-based multiplayer online game with graphic elements reminiscent of Civilization. Like most MMORTS games, the game is set in a persistent world so that when a player logs out, the game continues while they are not around.
A player starts with a city that they act as a mayor to, giving instructions on production and construction with some initial resources. The resources in the game are Gold, Food, Lumber, Stone, and Iron, and to a secondary extent the cities' population. As with many real-time strategy games, one first has to increase the city's population and hourly resource-collection rates through the construction of certain buildings in the city, and then start developing other aspects of their city and building an army. Evony introduces straight-forward quests (usually of the form "build X" or "upgrade X to level Y") to guide new players so they do not get stuck at the beginning of the game. All of these quests yield an in-game reward, most often in the form of returning resources spent to complete the objective of the quest.
Evony/Table of Contents
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