Regarding the medal system: I am very interested in this and I have a suggestion as well.

I really like this new medal feature.  It seems to be a fun way to appreciate alliance member and team mates.  More than this, it offers a legitimate system for these rewards because players cannot "fake" having a medal by simply taking a screen-shot and posting the image.  Being in the system offers validity.  Likewise, it is neato to see the small mini medal appear in the friends list!!!  (^_^)  VERY COOL!!!!

More importantly, I love that these cannot simply be created and given out by the individual players, but are given out by an alliance to those who the alliance feels is worthy!  Wonderful!
EDIT:  Perhaps alliances should have a system where three to five leading alliance members must approve each person receiving a medal.  This would prevent the leadership from simply awarding themselves while the players get nothing.

First suggestion - Mini medal:
For tournament medals issued by the system (and other medals issued by the system), I would love to see these appear before the player's name in all chat systems (global, alliance, forum, etc.)  These should be proudly displayed and should add extra renown to players who go chat in global (much as they are all ooh'd and aah'd by the blue DEV chat names).

Observations - Medals:
If someone in an alliance is getting an award for the "BEST, MOST FANTASTIC, FABULOSO PLAYER" - and a medal is being designed once at a cost of 300+ prestige and being issued for 50 prestige, this is too high a cost.  The cost of individuality is TOO HIGH.  (~_~)  Just because someone is your MVP and you wish to honor them, it does not merit spending this much game money.  Thats about £7.50 GBP or close to $10.00 USD.  WOAH!  (0.0)  For this reason, valuable players will have to settle for generic medals handed out to multiple players at a more affordable cost.

Now imagine you want to award alliance players a special "ASSET DURING TOURNAMENT X" medal - and you create a generic medal for 50 prestige - but now you give it out to 25 members who participated...  Thats a whopping total of 1300 prestige!!!!!  Thats about £22.00 GBP or close to $35.00 USD.  WOAH!!!!!  (0.0)  For this reason, it is way too expensive to even reward the mediocre players.  (~_~)

Suggestions - Medals:
I believe many will not want to contribute to the alliance for fear that they will never be selected for a medal.  Just think about those players in your alliance who don't get on but once a week...  you mail them and they reply 5 days later.  They don't show up in chat, etc....  (some times that is even me when real life becomes hectic).  What are the chances they will be given medals?  How much would they contribute to the alliance pool?  (my guess is not a lot)  So I wonder if the alliances can set up an alliance tax on prestige?  Keep it between 1-3 per week (and if they have none, then none is collected).  When the tax collectors come to the city, they can take with them 1 prestige for the alliance pool (if one is selected).  An alliance with 100 members could easily get 100 prestige a week (400 a month) in addition to what key players may donate.

As for the medals - Lower these prices please.  I understand that this will be a feature to bring in revenue for the Dev team, but I cannot see any reason to spend such high amounts of money on something that does not enhance my gameplay in any way other than offering aesthetic value. 

What if these medal's could be imbued with special properties?  What if during the creation process the medal was enchanted with a "+3% speed boost to all units" or a "+3% food increase in all towns" or there were quests that could only be done by players with medals costing 200+ as well as others that could only be unlocked with medals costing 600+...  then you would REALLY have something going for these medals...  but as of right now, they offer very little incentive.
EDIT:  This is what I would like to see more than anything else.

I hope to see this medal system developed.  Truly, I see great potential and I am looking forward to the day when they provide something more than being a profile "paper-weight."

And to Cerberus, Luna, and Sormcrow - Great job on this upcoming update!!!

(Disclaimer:  I am not an appointed representative and I do not speak for Harmless? - I speak only for myself)

Alliance leaders have a variety of options to help their players feel valued and keep them engaged.  Probably some alliance leaders will use medals successfully for that purpose.  Others might not.

Maybe they should award medals for buying prestige (as GM Stormcrow used to do facetiously in global chat).

I like it the current way. Some richie rich guy can start an alliance and award himself or the members of his alliance many costly medals. There should be something to rejoice if the son of an oil baron starts playing Illy no? 

SunStorm wrote: Observations - Medals: If someone in an alliance is getting an award for the "BEST, MOST FANTASTIC, FABULOSO PLAYER" - and a medal is being designed once at a cost of 300+ prestige and being issued for 50 prestige, this is too high a cost.  The cost of individuality is TOO HIGH.  (~_~)  Just because someone is your MVP and you wish to honor them, it does not merit spending this much game money.  Thats about £7.50 GBP or close to $10.00 USD.  WOAH!  (0.0)  For this reason, valuable players will have to settle for generic medals handed out to multiple players at a more affordable cost.

 

I think the cost is okay (it's half prestige by 100 players in an alliance). If it were 3 prestige instead of 50, everyone in an alliance will be having multiple medals as soon as they are released. There will be no esteem in possessing a medal. 

The current pricing is good, where most alliances will give badges carefully, making it a prestigious thing to have. Well, there is still the alliance of the son of the oil baron which gives out sparky medals to everyone, but then the alliance tag on the medal remains.

SunStorm wrote: Now imagine you want to award alliance players a special "ASSET DURING TOURNAMENT X" medal - and you create a generic medal for 50 prestige - but now you give it out to 25 members who participated...  Thats a whopping total of 1300 prestige!!!!!  Thats about £22.00 GBP or close to $35.00 USD.  WOAH!!!!!  (0.0)  For this reason, it is way too expensive to even reward the mediocre players.  (~_~)

 

Think of it the other way, a supercool medal made with 1000 prestige that is given for exceptional service. There is some real 'prestige' to it, than the 50 odd medals granted to everyone. 

We could also expect a prestige reward to the alliance prestige pool, when the alliance wins a tournament. They can use this to grant medals to the players or spend it in whichever ways they see fit.

SunStorm wrote: Suggestions - Medals: I believe many will not want to contribute to the alliance for fear that they will never be selected for a medal.  Just think about those players in your alliance who don't get on but once a week...  you mail them and they reply 5 days later.  They don't show up in chat, etc....  (some times that is even me when real life becomes hectic).  What are the chances they will be given medals?  How much would they contribute to the alliance pool?  (my guess is not a lot)  So I wonder if the alliances can set up an alliance tax on prestige?  Keep it between 1-3 per week (and if they have none, then none is collected).  When the tax collectors come to the city, they can take with them 1 prestige for the alliance pool (if one is selected).  An alliance with 100 members could easily get 100 prestige a week (400 a month) in addition to what key players may donate.

 

What's the point in having a medal from an alliance headed by yourself or in giving out medals to members using the prestige collected from them?

I dont like the concept of a 'prestige tax'. 

SunStorm wrote: As for the medals - Lower these prices please.  I understand that this will be a feature to bring in revenue for the Dev team, but I cannot see any reason to spend such high amounts of money on something that does not enhance my gameplay in any way other than offering aesthetic value.

 

SunStorm wrote: What if these medal's could be imbued with special properties?  What if during the creation process the medal was enchanted with a "+3% speed boost to all units" or a "+3% food increase in all towns" or there were quests that could only be done by players with medals costing 200+ as well as others that could only be unlocked with medals costing 600+...  then you would REALLY have something going for these medals...  but as of right now, they offer very little incentive. EDIT:  This is what I would like to see more than anything else.

 

It is better when people cannot buy an upperhand in the game with more prestige.  (pink balloons around your town walls for 3 prestige, merry Christmas banners for 5, Christmas tree for 15)

Vanity items should not have gameplay advantages associated with it. Not everyone will be interested in vanity and such people should not be forced to buy vanity items at high prices for the gameplay advantages it bring.

I'd have loved balloons for 5 P. Brings back such good memories..

a) How would the designer of the medals know if they were infringing a particular variation, without help from the system?

b) How about "price * 2 + 500" for exclusivity of a design?

would rather see more in the Discoveries first anyway

but would like to suggest more options for backgrounds and general emblems

Round Top Kite Shield (Eye like shape)

Heart Shield

Basic Shapes (Square, Triangle, Diamond, Octagon, Hexagon)

More Font Styles (I prefer some Plain Bold and Old English styles for this) and more Placing Options for Font and for Embellishments 

More Nature Based Emblems (Animals, Insects, Fish, Reptiles, Creatures in game)

but overall great job on it!!!!

Our alliance is concerned about the cost but I absolutely understand Albatross's points about the fact that these things cost, and also gameplayer's point about the fact that the medals should be something which is prized.

The problem for me and my alliance mates is that the factor which is being used to make this prized is ultimately 'money'. This is understandable as I understand the concept of people not working for free and I think we should support the game. But if you have an alliance which worked off free accounts they could get by keeping their account as a prestige account by claiming free prestige... they would have very little left to donate to medals and the like. In order to be competitive on a free to play account you do need to ensure your account is a prestige one so that you can build effectively.

So, it boils down to money as the rate limiting factor on whether an alliance can 'afford' to buy medals or not. And once other alliance prestige spends come into play this will be the case increasingly so. I do think a balance needs to be struck and I would honestly like to hear from the developers to understand why they have priced it in the way that they have, because I personally think the costs are pretty extortionate... but I may have a different understanding with some explanation.

I do think the medals are brilliant and maybe we could think about alternative ways of paying for them? Prestige is one way. There are also resources, gold etc... which could pay for medals and make them equally difficult to get for an alliance without having to go down the prestige path.

Will we be using them in Invictus?

I'm not sure, to be honest... we would love to as we have developed a new ranking and reward system for our alliance which acknowledges a range of different aspects of play and we were hoping we could attach medals to this system.

Imbuing medals with magical properties is a dangerous leap, because it would be a form of pay-to-win. Increasing your numerical advantage in-game by spending real world money must be done very carefully. Ofcourse this is already in-game via spending prestige to increase attack power, so maybe it doesn't matter. 

The price of the medals seems appropriate and right. The main concern here is that you can only earn 1 prestige a day per player without spending money. Almost seems like a slap to the face for any players that don't spend money. I think the whole community would appreciate additional ways to acquire prestige. I think weekly alliance achievements that reward alliance pool prestige would go over extreamly well. Examples: 

• 90% of Alliance members complete 5 quests in each of their towns within 7 days. - Reward (2 x #of Members) Alliance Prestige
• Alliance population grows by 20%(Total population of all alliance members 7 days ago/Total population of all alliance members today) in 7 days - Reward  (2 x #of Members)  Alliance prestige
• Alliance land owned grows by 20% - Reward  (2 x #of Members)  alliance prestige
• Geomancy production spells stay on alliance towns for 90% of the 7 days - Reward  (1 x #of Members) Alliance Prestige
• Runic Protection stays on alliance towns for 90% of the 7 days. Reward  (1 x #of Members) Alliance Prestige

I am not forsure how to incorporate diplomatic and military goals into these reward system, but I think these achievements/weeklys  would encourage gameplay and co-operation within alliances. Alliance would have a means to earn alliance prestige without paying for it, and any alliance that decides they would like prestige faster/easier can purchase it the old fashioned way. 

Also these weekly's must be semi-difficult to attain. This isn't like the 1 a day prestige that is given. These prestige points must be earned.  This effectively gives each alliance member responsibility to do their share of the work to ensure prestige gets apointed. It would then be up to the alliance leaders on how to handle those that aren't carrying their weight. It also gives a way for alliances to harass each other by sabotaging their efforts to earn the free prestige. 

Also, since the medals display as part of the player name, these are really just Vanity Plates for the big spenders to show off that they spend money on Illy.  For this reason, I GC block every vainity player.

Consider how much prestige was given out in the last tournament. 100 prestige each to 100 players in an alliance is 10,000 prestige in total for the alliance - only a small fraction of that is required to mint badges and reward the players who made the most difference. You could also expect future alliance tournaments to reward sums of prestige to the alliance pool.

If every player contribute 1 prestige each, that will be 100 prestige - which can be used to award 2 players. The idea of the medals is to honour a few players that an alliance wants to honour, not to give out badges to all players.

If a player sets out to "buy" a medal by setting up an alliance and minting and awarding a badge for himself, it is expensive. But it still wouldn't be prestigious like a medal awarded by a well known alliance like Invictus or RES.