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Review: Evony Age I and Age II by Mar Matthias Darin Evony is a free massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the medieval period around the 11th century. I've spent the last six months playing both Age I and Age II and this review is based upon my experience playing the game. The overall concept of the game is very good. BUT, yes, there it a but, there are many problems that exist that I believe will inevitably cause the game to fail if not corrected. I'll start with the good, and there is a lot of good in the game. First, the graphics are stunning, especially considering the entire game is in flash. Second, the interface is fairly easy to use and learn. Third, the concept is quite well conceived. I haven't yet described what Evony is though... So what is Evony? Evony is a war game where players can attack each other or groups of players (alliances) can attack each other. This is a great idea to have a (somewhat) historically accurate mock battle of the mideval period. Unfortunately, in all this goodness, things begin to fall apart and go horribly wrong. And that leads us to the bad... In the six months I have played the game, I have seen some very bad behavior and often illegal. The first issue is the Evony terms of service or use. The TOS is pretty straight forward, its condemns bullying and many other behaviors that could easily ruin the game for any new player. Ironically, the issue is not with the TOS, its with Evony not enforcing it. I have heard of hundreds of complaints from other Evony players about abusive, harassing and bullying players, yet Evony does nothing as long as those said players pay money each month. Did you say PAY money each month? Yes, I did. Evony is billed as being free forever, however, you will not stand a chance in the game unless you spend money. The problems get worse as many of these "power money players" openly brag about spending thousands of dollars a month. There is no realistic way the average person can have a chance to play the game in such a situation. Then these same players bully, threaten, and harass the new players. I have personally seen one player, who brags about how much she spends, openly call other people child molesters and other slanderous things. Needless to say, such accusations have a severe impact. Evony did absolutely nothing against this player. The message Evony is sending is clear, if a person pays large sums of money every month, they can do anything they want, no matter how illegal it is. Which brings me to my next point. Age I was riddle with bullies. Evony claimed Age II fixes that. It doesn't. The problem has only gotten worse because now these bullies have a way to commit extortion in the Age II through the "anti-colonization" aspect of the game. This is where Evony also failed at their history as well. They neglected the aspect of armies committing mutant and killing their commander (hero) after so many bad deeds. The bullies, now called suzerains, can now take 40,000 troops or more, and every other resource a player might have spent two weeks building in a matter of seconds without even the right to challenge it and the player can do nothing about it. This is how Evony fixed the problem of bullies, they gave them a new name. The extortion part comes in where these suzerains send constant harassing messages telling the bewildered player to pay X amount or all their hard work will be for nothing. Complaints have been files, as and above, if the bully (suzerain) pays money, nothing is done... Some fix... It is important to note that new players get seven days of "beginner's protection" to build their hearts out. After which, someone who has been there for four or five months will come along and ruin everything that new player just did... This creates and open arena for bullies. New players should choose when they are ready to enter the combat stage... seven days is not enough time to build unless you spend untold amounts of money. My final opinion on Evony is this: The concept is great and has a huge potential to be a great game fore everyone. The implementation is horrific. There are several ways that these problems can be fixed without having to rebuild the whole game, but Evony has shown absolutely no interest in listening to anyone except those that spend massive amounts of money. Evony is not child safe, its not really free (unless you simply like loosing everything you work for), and its not worth me spending any money on. If they ever address the issues in a meaningful way, perhaps Evony can recover and be the great game it could be, but I doubt it because there are other similar games coming out that have fixed all the issues Evony has without sacrificing game play. Like the mideval days, Evony's time is soon to fade. Update: Evony ranks the lowest among players. 
Top tags: evony, game, players, money, player, age, new, bullies, month, bad
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