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I am curious about what YOU think.

Printed From: Illyriad
Category: Miscellaneous
Forum Name: Suggestions & Game Enhancements
Forum Description: Got a great idea? A feature you'd like to see? Share it here!
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=10423
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 15:41
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Topic: I am curious about what YOU think.
Posted By: DeliciousJosh
Subject: I am curious about what YOU think.
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 16:26
Hi everyone.

For some time now it has been on my mind about the way accounts are played in Illyriad. It seems everyone is happy, but underneath the surface, if you scratch around a bit, there are lots of mysterious things going on.

First I'd like to point out that these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone. The topic I want to bring up in this poll/thread is about account allowance per player. I want to see how many people would get involved, in voicing their opinions and which way the general attitude leans. 

This thread is not about permasat accounts or the way that system works. It is about how many accounts YOU as a player think is worth having/investing in and what your thoughts are in that regard. Is it even possible to maintain that much? And if it is possible, is it the way you want it to be?

We all know, this is a long-term game and each player needs a good base to develop their empire and wealth. There are different ways to go about doing this though, and these days we can spend money on the game in form of prestige, sell that prestige for gold, which then increases our in-game wealth.

The server we all play on is now 8 years old. A lot of time has passed, players have left, some for good and others have come back. One thing hasn't changed though. The debate about this issue.
The way we veterans have looked at this has been with understanding and a little bit of a forced hand. If that player does it, then it's probably the way to go and I am "forced" to do what he/she does, to be able to compete at the level he/she is competing at.

I'm interested in getting a debate going about this. And not just the usual shouting at the devs to fix this or that. Think about the impact it will have (and already has). Think about the future players joining us. They would have to work harder to achieve what the veterans already have, but if you think about the server being 8 years old, that race is already over.

Personally, I want to play many more years because I enjoy it so much and have already invested time and money into Illy because it's entertaining and good fun. My point of view is that something needs to happen. Please give us your thoughts and put your vote in the Poll.

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Replies:
Posted By: Telios
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 16:34
Only 1 account and no account sitting would be my preference but that's never going to happen...


Posted By: Gragnog
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 16:44
So few players it makes sense to allow for more accounts even if its just for appearances. It would also be fun to try out the dwarf and orc race. It would also give players to play different roles. I would like to have the chance at a quest account and a trading account. At present I have just military accounts and even if I went peaceful there are too many old enemies to allow me the luxury of following those paths.

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Kaggen is my human half


Posted By: DeliciousJosh
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 16:48
Originally posted by Telios Telios wrote:

Only 1 account and no account sitting would be my preference but that's never going to happen...


So your vote is an "Other" vote?

It's an interesting idea. Maybe for an upcoming server, it would be better. Removing the allowance of an account from 2 to 1 now is a bit hard.


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Posted By: Tensmoor
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 16:59
I haven't voted yet as I need to spend some time thinking about this...the questions posed by Josh need careful contemplation.

I tend to play a peacable style with only one main account and alts that I normally keep at only one town not in an alliance which is used mainly for testing how DurcTools works for those with only one town (ie newbies). These alts get abandoned fairly often leaving a target for those who want a town with a fair amount of research done.


Posted By: King Sigerius
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 21:30
I like how it's 2 accounts right now, but if you have 2 accounts it's harder to terraform.  Honestly though if I could go back in time and change it I'd want only one account per player. If i could change it now I'd open a new server make this one as many accounts as you want and link them somehow so others could see who owns who and the new one only one account per player.


Posted By: Ten Kulch
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 22:47
I think Illyriad was better when the playing field was more level. Going to 11+ cities really opened the gap between new and existing accounts. Increasing from 2 to 4+ accounts would also just favor established players from big alliances. It also unreasonably favors people who are willing to make Illyriad into a second job. What benefit does that provide to the player base? I don't see any virtue to unhealthy obsession, any more than I see virtue in pay-to-win. Hours spent will just replace real money as the currency of power, both at the expense of skill.

Permasats already make gold and supplies nearly unlimited for certain players and alliances. Cities and entire accounts become fully disposable. The slow speed of battles already makes victory correspondingly slow to achieve. Increasing the number of cities per account has slowed that further. Raising the number of legal accounts would guarantee that wars last forever, and the same account collectors always win tournaments.

One main, one alt. That formula has worked for eight years. That's the way it should stay.

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Check out my blog, http://illywarmonger.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow - Warmongering in Illyriad for self-defense techniques, military city construction, and PvP strategies.


Posted By: Eros
Date Posted: 16 Mar 2018 at 23:07
Is it broken?

Not everyone is into the phallus waving I R MILITARY GENIUS bit, it's good to be able to explore the game in other ways with a second account


Posted By: Mr. Ubiquitous Feral
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 03:09
I voted other. If any change is made I vote for a 'different?' type of account which would be used for terraforming. This account would have only needed research available and would self destruct after 2 weeks. This gives the player 1 week to make the terra and another to sell it and then the towns poof. Allow 1 or 2 but no more. I don't want more playable accounts for the same reason Ten Kulch states.

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I am a Machine.


Posted By: kodabear
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 09:00
i love how somehow 142 people votes in this poll


Posted By: eowan the short
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 09:23
Originally posted by kodabear kodabear wrote:

i love how somehow 142 people votes in this poll

 
Multiaccounters!


Posted By: AdmiralRage
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 13:16
Going to 1 account would essentially get rid of terraforming. I'm comfortable with 2 accounts but if you did want to switch it up, 3 accounts might shake up the game.


Posted By: Ten Kulch
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 15:47
I would love it if terraforming were finally eliminated.

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Check out my blog, http://illywarmonger.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow - Warmongering in Illyriad for self-defense techniques, military city construction, and PvP strategies.


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 19:22
Difficult question.
After the removal of the 10 cities limit, abig gap has been opening up between long term players and regular people. 1 account could concievably be 1 account plus 2 sat accounts.  In the old 10 city days that was 30 cities.  Now its more like 120ish IIRC. Once you get past 10 cities, I don't think you should be able to sit an account for more than a total of 90 days  regardless of whether or not you stop/start sitting rights.


Posted By: King Sigerius
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 19:51
Dung you are very right. Though I would hate to see that sitter rule implemented. I have sitters on other timezones who I keep or who may need to be reactivated. Also Ten K I would like to hear why you would like to see terraforming eliminated? I love my 5 plot forests :)


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 21:09
My view on terraforming?  It is annoyingly complicated and ought to be part of standard practice using a building slot. This would allow "corrections" to resources on existing cities.  It is strange that we can tenaril resource plots once only. I would prefer being able to both increase resources allocation AND have the ability to manipulate resources and bonuses in soveriegn squares.


Posted By: Ten Kulch
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 21:39
Terraforming encourages account churn, and it also encourages people to break the two account rule. The theory behind moving the plots is that new players shouldn't be penalized for moving their first city. Moving the plots allows the city to be moved completely intact, to a new location outside the n00b ring.

On the face of it, that idea is fine. New players might be discouraged at the possibility of losing any progress (although I would argue resource plot progress is probably quite survivable for a few plots). The problem I have with terraforming is that people are selling accounts for gold, in order to exploit a loophole to change the resource plots, resulting in very powerful fortresses. These fortresses are powerful because people have used a disposable account to remove the balancing factors to defensible tiles like solitary mountains. Accepting a 5 food square, or a particular 2/3 resource deficit, should be part of the fortress equation. Tiles shouldn't be perfectly suited. Some people even use terraforming to transform the tiles around their cities, altering the resource distributions of entire areas.

People also feel free to go into GC and troll on these disposable accounts. One look at the siege page shows just how prevalent terraforming has become. I personally believe that terraforming also makes it impossible to get a true read on the number of remaining active players. That's a long list of negatives. Much like the Defy Death exploit, I believe that clever players observed a loophole in the game rules, and have been abusing teleport to the detriment of the game.

I think it would be much healthier for the game if terraforming worked like a one-time instant exodus with no building level loss. You get the plot distribution of the new tile, period.

I also believe that if terraforming is such a valuable technique, that people should be able to purchase a plot re-distribution for perhaps $5. That would cut out all the account churn and sock puppets, and pay money into the game to change the map, instead of the current underground gold-for-accounts economy.

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Check out my blog, http://illywarmonger.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow - Warmongering in Illyriad for self-defense techniques, military city construction, and PvP strategies.


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 17 Mar 2018 at 22:37
Ten Kulch, I don't like terraforming either. (I think it discourages people who do it from engaging in the game in more interesting ways with a second account, or sometimes even both accounts, not to mention multi-accounting temptation, and I agree with you that having constraints in difficult terrain like desert and jungle would make the game more interesting overall if there were not an easy way around it.)

However, the developers have been very clear that this is an acceptable game mechanic and not an exploit.  I clarified this point with them via petition several years ago, specifically with regard to churning accounts in order to terraform.  They said as long as people aren't using the prestige bonus more than once, it is an acceptable practice.  In fact, the developers made terraforming even easier by not limiting it to the capital -- previously people had to research Exodus before they could terraform, if you recall.

I don't like it, you don't like it, but apparently the developers support it.  It is not an exploit but a game mechanic.

As a point of history, I believe Tenaril was first invented when the map was changed.  (Enlarged? It happened before my time.)  The point of the initial Tenaril spell was if people didn't like their positioning on the new map (such as they were now in the middle of water) they could change it.  Then later Tenaril was limited to just the capital city.

Perhaps someone who was here during that time or one of the developers could comment on the reasoning and application of Tenaril initially.


Posted By: Robertscott
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 00:41
Agree with TK


Posted By: Blankit
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 04:17
Originally posted by Ten Kulch Ten Kulch wrote:

Terraforming encourages account churn, and it also encourages people to break the two account rule. The theory behind moving the plots is that new players shouldn't be penalized for moving their first city. Moving the plots allows the city to be moved completely intact, to a new location outside the n00b ring.

On the face of it, that idea is fine. New players might be discouraged at the possibility of losing any progress (although I would argue resource plot progress is probably quite survivable for a few plots). The problem I have with terraforming is that people are selling accounts for gold, in order to exploit a loophole to change the resource plots, resulting in very powerful fortresses. These fortresses are powerful because people have used a disposable account to remove the balancing factors to defensible tiles like solitary mountains. Accepting a 5 food square, or a particular 2/3 resource deficit, should be part of the fortress equation. Tiles shouldn't be perfectly suited. Some people even use terraforming to transform the tiles around their cities, altering the resource distributions of entire areas.

People also feel free to go into GC and troll on these disposable accounts. One look at the siege page shows just how prevalent terraforming has become. I personally believe that terraforming also makes it impossible to get a true read on the number of remaining active players. That's a long list of negatives. Much like the Defy Death exploit, I believe that clever players observed a loophole in the game rules, and have been abusing teleport to the detriment of the game.

I think it would be much healthier for the game if terraforming worked like a one-time instant exodus with no building level loss. You get the plot distribution of the new tile, period.

I also believe that if terraforming is such a valuable technique, that people should be able to purchase a plot re-distribution for perhaps $5. That would cut out all the account churn and sock puppets, and pay money into the game to change the map, instead of the current underground gold-for-accounts economy.


Note to self: Even people who write in a fancy formal tone may be wrong.

Any terraformer who doesn't want to be kicked doesn't use more than one terraforming account at a time. Or in cases like Eowan's where all he wants is gold, he can do two a week, shifting gold from one terra account to the next.

And if you want to get "an accurate read of the number of active accounts" you can count the number of accounts older than 2 weeks. Anyone who can't terraform a silly tile in 2 weeks (the pop is done in 4 days) should probably not be used by anyone. It will also allow to ignore the people who don't get the hang of this game.

And the "troll in GC" is just you getting mocked one time by Eros' terra alt which you accused Shells of doing (I read it in the forums). You call people worse things on a regular basis in your blog, that's nothing. And if you were referring to Biff, devs can ban him anytime they want. Anyone can make a temporary rant alt for that purpose even if terraforming was removed.

And like paying $5 for a tile distribution won't make this game even more pay to win than it already is. I can see you wisely commenting that this should only be allowed to be done on the tile which the city is on, then anyone can get newbies to make temp alts to tenaril next to them and then pay them real money to do this. It will have the exact same affect and real money will change hands. To stop this from happening is the reason I have heard the devs added gold for pres system (not sure about this one, but allowing money for one thing will give people more ideas about selling highly developed accounts). And once the real money start changing hands, the terraformers will feel this as a source of income (one which will fund their gaming needs without ever connecting their real identity).

The truth is that all this does is pay new players who haven't made any alts yet some money to spend. It is almost a viable strategy to earn gold to feed one's main (just to keep a defense army). You may rant 24X7 about those big bloated account, but other than your ascetically designed military main, you have hoarded just as much gold and adv res from your blockades as any of them.


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---E ---E Now selling pitchforks at The Pitchfork -Emporium. ---E ---E


Posted By: Almost Balanced
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 07:46
Nice to see Rill.



Scarves and canvas are in developer's hands.



Posted By: Robertscott
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 09:31
    Blankit, Ten Kulch and his reasoned persuasive writing is a great asset to this game, throwing him a shot with the "fancy formal tone" is uncalled for, his prose is a delight to read.  

    Also he does not call people names in a malicious way in his blogs.  His labeling players "carebears" or similar is funny and justified.

    You are choosing the wrong guy to Ad Hominem.  We are blessed to have his intellect here in our little game of a few hundred players.


Posted By: Ruarc
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 10:38
I kinda agree with Telios and others - a single account per player would have been best. It's very difficult to row back on the 2 accounts per player decision now though without things getting very messy. 
 
As for terras - they're not an exploit, I think the devs have clarified that (not sure about your petition Rill but they'd have surely mentioned something in the prestige referral update if they were an exploit). They're also not, entirely, bad for the game. Although they present their own problems, they open up areas of the map which otherwise would be largely ignored. Jungle, desert, and arctic terrain become significantly more viable with terraforms as an option. It would be one thing if those terrain types offered advantages commensurate with their disadvantages, but the reality is that they don't. We can already see how suboptimal areas of the map are largely ignored even with terras, just look at all the unsettled terrain which is dominated by large mountains. It's unsettled because the terrain doesn't offer an advantage commensurate with its disadvantage. Terras redress that balance somewhat. I couldn't say if they swing too far in one direction or another, but removing terras without fixing the underlying imbalance which is prompting their widespread use is just going to render more parts of the map effectively uninhabitable.
 
Now, I'm biased af because I've made widespread use of terras. I tell you what though, I wouldn't have looked twice at jungle terrain as it currently stands without terras being an option.


Posted By: Blankit
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 11:09
Originally posted by Robertscott Robertscott wrote:

    Blankit, Ten Kulch and his reasoned persuasive writing is a great asset to this game, throwing him a shot with the "fancy formal tone" is uncalled for, his prose is a delight to read.  

    Also he does not call people names in a malicious way in his blogs.  His labeling players "carebears" or similar is funny and justified.

    You are choosing the wrong guy to Ad Hominem.  We are blessed to have his intellect here in our little game of a few hundred players.


I apologize for my snarky tone. I was just trying to find something mildly offensive as his arguments were opposing my small way of playing this game. I would like to see if the same doesn't happen if someone respectable suggested that every person can only operate only one account from now and one of the accounts will have to be abandoned or the devs will do that at random.

And I would like any to tell me why my arguments are wrong. I still don't understand why terraforming is so annoying.

Btw has any such discussion ever changed how and what developers implement?


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---E ---E Now selling pitchforks at The Pitchfork -Emporium. ---E ---E


Posted By: Corwin
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 12:58
Just keep it the way it is. 2 accounts is fine and proved to keep ballance in the game for 8 years. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Personally I don't like terraforming for some of the reasons allready mentioned. Reducing the account number is not a good solution in my opinion. Terraforming would still be a possiblillty, but easier (or with relatively less loss/effort) for large alliances.  With 2 accounts new players can screw up with one without losing all progress, which is a fantastic thing to have in a game. If the edvs want to get rid of terraforming they should look for another solution. And for multiaccounting: no one has more then 24 hours in a day or more then 7 days in a week. To keep more then 2 accounts functional for longer then 2 years one has to get without a job, wife and social life. That's more punishment then a game developer can ever get you


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 16:32
Blankit, yes, the developers have sometimes taken feedback from the community into account and changed existing game mechanics or introduced new ones.  
--One example that comes easily to mind is that caravans traveling to cities under the rainbow move at two times normal speed.  
--They also reduced the time to complete the merchants guild research (although not the cost, they should have reduced the rp cost too!).  
--They implemented food sovereignty on lakes, lochs and tarns at least partially as a result of player discussions.  
--They changed terrain bonuses for infantry troop types at least partially as a result of player discussions like "why are dwarves so hard to play".  They also changed the speed of production for t1 spear and t2 bow troops. Those changes have made gameplay of orcs and dwarves substantially different, in my opinion, with a commensurate increase in the number of players in those races.


Posted By: Ten Kulch
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 18:35
Blankit, somewhere in your rant, I think you completely missed my point about the $5. I don't envision it as a one-time thing for a single city. If someone wants to slowly transform all their city tiles into 7 food plots (or whatever typical 25 point distribution they desire), then $5 per city should cover it. If the city is removed via exodus or razed, the magical terraforming spell should be dispersed.

Illyriad isn't pay-to-win. That's just a clueless thing to say.

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Check out my blog, http://illywarmonger.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow - Warmongering in Illyriad for self-defense techniques, military city construction, and PvP strategies.


Posted By: Blankit
Date Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 21:16
First, you never mentioned this new res plot redistribution should be temporary in your original post. This makes sense now, as opposed to before.

Second, like Ruarc above mentions, terraforming makes more locations playable. Look at his poisoned isles.

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---E ---E Now selling pitchforks at The Pitchfork -Emporium. ---E ---E


Posted By: white willow
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 12:18
Two accounts is more than enough the issues in my mind are how people fudge with the sitter accounts.


Posted By: DeliciousJosh
Date Posted: 20 Mar 2018 at 18:10
I am satisfied with the replies you have all contributed to this poll and discussion and I have personally become wiser in my concerns.

The conclusion is not an easy one to find and the opinions, reasonings and arguments are many... When it comes to a change in this regard, the server we currently play on will, according to the majority, not benefit from allowing one player to own 4 or more than 4. I was surprised by some of the opinions of a few people but nevertheless, I see the points you make and understand the thoughts behind them.


Some other subjects came up along the way, terraforming being one of them. I think Ruarc paints the picture nicely, even though I do see some of the other comments here as good points, the map-terrain such as mountains should provide other benefits to be worthwhile. Terraforming might also have been introduced to start with, because of all these areas on the map not being very inviting without the possibility of altering them.
The more you work, the more you are rewarded is also a way to look at terraforming; as the more food you have around your cities, the bigger your city can get and the more towns you can have.


When I had created the poll, I discovered that it's possible to vote more than once and therefore making a poll is pretty pointless. The debate is what I find important here. So please ignore the Poll, although I did find it interesting how some people continued to vote for their prefered option (myself included).




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Posted By: OssianII
Date Posted: 21 Mar 2018 at 11:01



Grasshopper: "Old Man? How is it that you know this?
Shaolin Master: "Young Man? How is it that you do not know this ? Geek


Posted By: Bill Cipher
Date Posted: 21 Mar 2018 at 18:46
Originally posted by eowan the short eowan the short wrote:

Originally posted by kodabear kodabear wrote:

i love how somehow 142 people votes in this poll

 
Multiaccounters!


Actually,

not multi accounters well i guess it would be a way but not efficient, you see the poll doesn't limit you to just one vote.


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Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 22 Mar 2018 at 16:09
Originally posted by Rill Rill wrote:

As a point of history, I believe Tenaril was first invented when the map was changed.  (Enlarged? It happened before my time.)  The point of the initial Tenaril spell was if people didn't like their positioning on the new map (such as they were now in the middle of water) they could change it.  Then later Tenaril was limited to just the capital city.

Perhaps someone who was here during that time or one of the developers could comment on the reasoning and application of Tenaril initially.

Hey Rill,

Yes, I can confirm that Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportation was introduced in 2010, specifically to allow players to relocate their cities because we completely changed the world map.

The world map was originally entirely randomly generated; there were no biomes, forests, mountain ranges, jungles, deserts, water, steppes etc.  Each tile was un-related to the nearby tiles, and you could just as easily have a volcano next to a forest next to grassland next to a hill.

By way of example, here's a nostalgia-inducing screenshot from Illy v1!



And here's the Northern border of elgea, ever so subtly blended into the grasslands below.



What we did to change the map - to actually produce naturalistic-looking terrain - was generate a set of Gaussian and Perlin noise algorithms with varying seeds, to generate topographical height maps, and then assign them terrains.

Here's the topographical height map we originally generated:



Overlaid on top of this noise map were seas...



... Rivers (which were laboriously hand drawn onto the map to follow a basic flow direction from higher grounds to the sea)...



... and the application of biomes (using the WWF classification system running from Polar Ice Sheet through Tundra and Taiga, from Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests through to Xeric Shrublands and Desert)...



Finally, hand-drawn regions were overlaid.  

I found a first draft of this, including some regions names that never made it such as Erra (Ursor), Beirwan (Windlost), Parl (Ragallon), misplaced Ragallon (now Kal Tirikan), Qul (Kul Tar) and the wonderfully creative and mysterious "Elven Name" (Lan Larosh), "Orcish Name" (Mal Motsha) and "Dwarven Name" (Tor Carrock)...



Finally, rough faction placements were overlaid:



So anyway... we went from a random hodge-podge map (of the Travian-ilk) to an actual proper map; but felt it critical to allow all the existing players to move their cities to preferred locations - hence the Tenaril spell; allowing players to keep their underlying terrain.  We didn't have sovereignty at this time, so moving the city resource allocation only worked fine.

Once all the moves were done, we left a single-use Tenaril in place for each account's Capital City, simply because we felt players might wish to change their mind about a chosen location (this was pre-exodus!)

Terraforming was an unanticipated side-effect.

Hope that sheds some light!

Best,

SC

EDIT: Typo


Posted By: Neytiri
Date Posted: 23 Mar 2018 at 06:08
Two accounts is plenty.  

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"It is well that their bodies know the heat and the cold; it will make them strong warriors and mothers." - Absaroke elder (from Edward S. Curtis's book 'The North American Indian')


Posted By: Thexion
Date Posted: 23 Mar 2018 at 08:37
Norwald has turned to Norweld? Wald being too german?


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 04 Apr 2018 at 05:24
Thanks for the info, GM SC.  Your information is consistent with what I learned in my research as player council geographer, but has much more detail.  Iirc, animals appeared after the terrain change so ... was there an ark during the flood?  Or was that unnecessary?



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