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14OCT14 - Prestige Scrolls

Printed From: Illyriad
Category: News & Announcements
Forum Name: News & Announcements
Forum Description: Changes, patch release dates, server launch dates, downtime notifications etc.
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=5897
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 16:15
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: 14OCT14 - Prestige Scrolls
Posted By: GM Rikoo
Subject: 14OCT14 - Prestige Scrolls
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:07


PRESTIGE SCROLLS

For a long time, transfers of Prestige between accounts have either had to go via the Alliance prestige pool or using sitting rights. With sitting rights, one player would give rights to an account, and the sitter would then buy the Prestige and step out of the account. This has led to some players reportedly being scammed ("I didn't receive the gold they promised!") or - illegal according to the TOS - players swapping sign-in and password information.

Now prestige scan be transferred directly to anyone or sold on the open market at a trade hub, by using prestige scrolls. Let's say that player A wants to give the new player B some prestige to help them along. 


All player A needs to do is go into their Library's new Resource Production area, make sure to have the correct amount of Prestige, books, mana, research and reagents and click Make - player A now instantly has a Prestige scroll that can be given or sold to player B. Player B then redeems the scroll in their Reading Room.


Be aware that items in transit, including prestige scrolls, are vulnerable to blockade, so be careful when shipping these valuable new items.

The Prestige Scroll recipes are as follows:
  • Prestige Scrap: 75 Prestige, 75 Mana, 75 Research, 1 Giant Rat Heart, 1 Pyrestone, 1 Sharproot
  • Prestige Parchment: 200 Prestige, 200 Mana, 200 Research, 1 Wild Dog Heart, 1 Claristrine, 1 Silverthorn
  • Prestige Page: 500 Prestige, 500 Mana, 500 Research, 1 Wolf Heart, 1 Deepsilver, 1 Furzion Seedpod
  • Prestige Scroll: 850 Prestige, 850 Mana, 850 Research, 1 Brown Bear Heart, 1 Rainbowstone, 1 Brownback Moss
  • Prestige Codex: 1200 Prestige, 1200 Mana, 1200 Research, 1 Giant Scuttler Heart, 1 Trove, 1 Suntree Haft
  • Prestige Book: 1850 Prestige, 1850 Mana, 1850 Research, 1 Scritcher Heart, 1 Svelaugh Sand, 1 Vistrok Flower
  • Prestige Tome: 3250 Prestige, 3250 Mana, 3250 Research, 1 Scaled Charger Heart, 1 Earthblood, 1 Ironstem Root
Prestige scrolls are regular items and will show in your towns' and hub inventories. They can be placed in hub buy and sell orders as regular craftable items, and appear in the "Exotic" category. 

Prestige scrolls can only be created from personal prestige, not from alliance prestige. 

The creation and use of prestige scrolls is recorded and is shown on your prestige history page.


SERVER-SIDE MONITORING & DIAGNOSTICS 

We have improved our server-side monitoring and diagnostics so we can be aware of a problem and try to fix it before you are aware. It also provides rich information and extra detail around issues to allow us to more quickly diagnose potential issues. We have already resolved a number of long term issues this way.

Sharing some insights, below is a graph around the time the Heart of Corruption began beating. The early response time peak is a deployment for improved  http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/illyriad/ecdd81dc-12cd-439f-9846-94e1738e89c1" rel="nofollow - Windows 8.1 support  (do feel free to vote for us in the store!) which required a full server code refresh and so a brief response time hit as the dlls were jit compiled:



You can also see the server's daily heart beat or ebb and flow of player demands (this is over a week). The later half of the graph increases in requests per second as you (the players) activate the Heart of Corruption and then in response start sending thousands upon thousands of missions to it and the corrupted temples.

CHANGES TO IMAGE, CSS & SCRIPT HOSTING

We have moved where and how we host our images, css and javascript files. Hopefully, this has been transparent to you, the players, as mostly the files are cached in your browser and they aren't requested that much, per player. However, players occasional requests as a group and new players' requests do add up as can be seen on the graphs below:



The graph on the left shows when we swapped over the DNS to point at the new resource, and you can actually see the dns update propagating over the internet as the new resource slowly ramped up in requests thoughout the day. The second graph shows the now current day to day activity; do bear in mind these files should be cached for a long time for returning players so those requests shouldn't show up here, however this does include images on our out of game site (like www). 


HTTPS SECURE ACCESS

As part of the reason for the change above, we 
are now more consistent on when we can serve secure image files, so you can now use Illyriad over https if you so desire:




MAIL NEXT & PREVIOUS ITEMS

Mail items now have next and previous buttons inside individual mails to move you through the mail without having to return to the full mail list:



The next and previous buttons are category aware, so if you are in a subcategory e.g. sent or trade they will just navigate you through available mails in that subcategory.

COMBAT XML API

We've reinstated the Combat XML API system, so that you can can individually, as players, choose to share your combat reports with third parties.  You've always been able to do this on an individual report basis, by using the "XML" button at the bottom of each combat report in-game mail.

However, you can now generate an API key in the Account & Preferences area of the User Interface.  If you generate and give this API key to other players, they can then access a listing of all your combat reports since you issued your first key, and then drill down into each individual combat report just as if you'd sent them each report via in-game mail.

We can see this being useful for any builder of third party tools, an alliance that wants to track their collective members' military actions and/or any player who wants to make a killboard for (eg) the purposes of player-run tournaments.

The API key is something that an individual player can generate, and revoke (or rather, generate a new key) from their Account & Preferences page in the "API Keys" submenu.

It differs from the individual combat report XML in that it is a generic key which essentially says "I hereby grant the holder of this key the right to access all my non-covert combat event logs in XML format until such time as I revoke the key by changing it".

A player who issues a Combat API Key can then use this unique, individual key to query a page that will produce a list of combat events that can then be queried via the individual report identifier, and they can share this key with anyone they choose.

Players can pass their Combat API key to third parties (such as alliance techies, or killboard website operators) and these third parties can then query this page on behalf of the player, and retrieve the individual combat reports for every combat this player has been involved in.

ISSUING & REVOKING YOUR COMBAT API KEY

Go to your Account & Preferences page and click on the API submenu:



You will have a list of keys here - or, on your first visit, the option to issue a Combat Reports API Key for the first time.

To create a Combat Reports API Key, press the "Generate" button.

If you already have a key, pressing "Generate" will instantly disable your current key and generate a new one for you; thereby preventing access to your combat reports by anyone who knows your old key.

Account sitters can generate and/or revoke API keys.

SUPPRESSING INDIVIDUAL COMBATS FROM DISPLAYING TO KEY HOLDERS

For whatever reason (doubtless nefarious!) you might not want a specific, particular combat to appear in the Combat Report list you've made available to anyone with your API Key.

You can suppress individual combat reports from appearing on the list if you check the Is Covertoption checkbox on the "Send Army" page before you dispatch the army outbound.  You will need to have researched Covert Operations in the Military research tree to see this option.

USING THE API KEY TO GET AN XML LIST OF AVAILABLE COMBAT REPORTS - A PROGRAMMERS' GUIDE


If you're not a programmer, then the following is probably not relevant, and you can skip over the next couple of sections!

The API Key is in the format:
[Server Name]-[KeyType]-[Key]
This helps you identify which server to query (we currently only have elgea) and what page to query with the key.

A sample full combat API key for elgea might look like this:
elgea-COMRP-AQAAABoolkA8l0qQ7kL5Vpxmk-LwCjrv0qh5f9uB6M10saMBnAi01_0IiV4a-pnxWDUF5UcAhtw1SNQ2n0XGbgvb6gw=
This identifies this key as being good for pulling data from Server [elgea] for Combat Reports [COMRP], and the remainder of the key is an encrypted piece of data that identifies the player to us (twinned with the rights he has given to this key).
To query a key for the first time, call the following page:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Felgea.illyriad.co.uk%2Fexternal%2Fcombatreportsapi%2Felgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH0AiA-XEetZCXpuH-GfhNeuciPeQ" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreportsapi/ [insert player's full Combat API Key including the server and keytype here]

and so, using the example above, your query would be:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Felgea.illyriad.co.uk%2Fexternal%2Fcombatreportsapi%2Felgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH0AiA-XEetZCXpuH-GfhNeuciPeQ" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreportsapi/ elgea-COMRP-AQAAABoolkA8l0qQ7kL5Vpxmk-LwCjrv0qh5f9uB6M10saMBnAi01_0IiV4a-pnxWDUF5UcAhtw1SNQ2n0XGbgvb6gw=

WHAT DOES THE PAGE RETURN?

Sample (will not work in reality)

<combateventsapi>
<server>
<name>UK1</name>
<servercountrycode>gb</servercountrycode>
<serverlanguagecode>en</serverlanguagecode>
<serverlivedate>2010-02-21T21:53:01.190</serverlivedate>
<datagenerationdatetime>2014-10-13T16:30:43.040</datagenerationdatetime>
</server>

<player id="1"/>
<playerapikey id="elgea-COMRP-AQAAABoolkA8l0qQ7kL5Vpxmk-LwCjrv0qh5f9uB6M10saMBnAi01_
0IiV4a-pnxWDUF5UcAhtw1SNQ2n0XGbgvb6gw="/>

<combatevents>
<uniquecombatidentifier>
<server id="UK1"/>
<combatguid id="F94B7AC1-CFB8-4DE8-A211-044D1A4DAC18"/>
<troopmovementevent id="507040"/>
<datacomplete id="1"/>
<personalcombatkey id="AQAAACTYblel0LzEsSb7kiZcZg0hQJZCDmbi_sgo82Ej6iKr"/>
<combatoccurrencedate>2014-10-06T03:09:10.523</combatoccurrencedate>
</uniquecombatidentifier>

<uniquecombatidentifier>
<server id="UK1"/>
<combatguid id="4D389937-545A-4CC0-A7E8-4EA27487DAAE"/>
<troopmovementevent id="509341"/>
<datacomplete id="1"/>
<personalcombatkey id="AQAAAFICvEs1DXLWCN2fesfs61oCyonjDBukVnB0TxJJg2t3"/>
<combatoccurrencedate>2010-08-06T16:39:30.907</combatoccurrencedate>
</uniquecombatidentifier>
</combatevents>


Breaking it down, you have:
  • The standard Server Identification snippet, followed by
  • The PlayerID who this Key belongs to, and the exact key you just used
  • A list of combat events that this player has been involved in, along with the <personalcombatkey> identifier so you can then go off and query the specific event for the full details, using:
    http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreport/[insert <personalcombatkey> here]
You do not need to be logged in to access the Combat API listing or any individual Combat API report, so long as you have the key!

HOW TO CHOOSE WHAT EVENTS YOU NEED TO QUERY


1. You may already have the report from another player
Within:

<uniquecombatidentifier>
<server id="UK1"/>
<combatguid id="4D389937-545A-4CC0-A7E8-4EA27487DAAE"/>
<troopmovementevent id="509341"/>
<datacomplete id="1"/>
<personalcombatkey id="AQAAAFICvEs1DXLWCN2fesfs61oCyonjDBukVnB0TxJJg2t3"/
<combatoccurrencedate>2010-08-06T16:39:30.907</combatoccurrencedate>
</uniquecombatidentifier>


IF
  • You already have a combat report with this <server id> and
  • You already have a combat report with this <combatguid id> and
  • You already have a combat report with this <troopmovementevent id>
THEN
IF
  • This new report has a less than or equal to ( <= ) <datacomplete id> than the one you currently have:
WHEN TRUE (YES, YOU HAVE THIS "NEW" REPORT ALREADY AND THE VERSION YOU HAVE IS AS GOOD AS, OR BETTER THAN, THE NEW REPORT) THEN
  • Don't query this report - you already have everything you need
WHEN FALSE (NO, THIS "NEW" REPORT HAS MORE ACCURATE DATA THAN THE REPORT YOU CURRENTLY HAVE) THEN
  • Query this report using the <personalcombatkey id> and replace your existing report with this one
ELSE
  • This is a new report and you should import it
The reason we have the datacomplete flag is because different players can get slightly different versions of the same combat report (eg "Your army was completely destroyed and you heard nothing of its' fate" vs "You completely whupped that guy, here's the report").

2. You don't need to query the complete player history every time, to decide what's new

Obviously we don't want you to be querying a complete player history every time you pull the API key.

So there is an additional parameter we'd like you to use when you subsequently query view_combat_reports_api.asp - this parameter is called [since].  [since] is based on the actual combat occurrence date, not the date that the army was originally sent, so it should be a historic record.

This should be set to the most recent <combatoccurrencedate> for the <player ID> whose key you are using.

If you don't have any data for this player so far, then please do not provide the [since] parameter.

Because there is a chance that you might have two combat events from the same player occurring at the same second, we will return the event(s) you already have at that datetime stamp, so please be prepared to ignore the first couple of events returned - as you may already have them (see above for how to decide).

The [since] parameter is in the same format it was provided in originally in the <combatoccurrencedate>field of the last report you have from this player, such as: 2014-08-06T03:09:10

The Date Time format is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS

So, a first API Key query might look like this:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Felgea.illyriad.co.uk%2Fexternal%2Fcombatreportsapi%2Felgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH0AiA-XEetZCXpuH-GfhNeuciPeQ" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreportsapi/elgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn
... and a subsequent one might look like this:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Felgea.illyriad.co.uk%2Fexternal%2Fcombatreportsapi%2Felgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn%3Fsince%3D2014-10-14T13%3A36%3A38&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFbQLhsn6l_r_vBdUmtHGXGHFS8Ug" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreportsapi/elgea-COMRP-AQAAAI0WUkqicWZIAoiQOP2bObRf5c2Vxr0CoiEQ3PPQNfCAXtq_ftlyXzYsNQ_dGhCAkRf_b2_C6VVn?since=2014-10-14T13:36:38
... which will only return those combat events related to the player since (and including) the event that occurred on the [since] timestamp.


HOW OFTEN CAN I QUERY A PLAYER'S API KEY?

For the purposes of development, we haven't yet set a limit.

However, we will probably impose a limit for a particular key query (from the same querying source) at some point in the future, simply to preserve server resources and bandwidth.  It all rather depends on how you player-programmers choose to use the API key system!

WHAT DATA IS AVAILABLE

Combat report data is only available from the moment that any API key is generated by a player.  You cannot access historic records from before the first API key was generated, except via the direct link provided at the bottom of your ingame mail combat report.


MOVING TROOPS

Things got a little wild around the Heart of Corruption as huge numbers of missions piled into it. Unfortunately this caused some noticable slow-downs in the browser pages getting updates to their movements when the map was focused on the HoC. 

To resolve this we throttled what was sent to the map to display a maximum of 1 mission icon (per type) per quarter square - and a maximum of 75 missions on the visible map (per type) at any time, focused around the map center. 



We hope you enjoy these enhancements to the game environment.


GM Rikoo




-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk



Replies:
Posted By: DePaul
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:11
YAY!  tyvm


Posted By: Lagavulin
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:35
Thank you!


Posted By: Arctic55
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:36
Great job Dev team!   

-------------
I'm pressed but not crushed.
Persecuted but not abandoned.
Struck down but not destroyed.


Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:39
While the concept of Prestige Scrolls is interesting, I think we should have smaller denominations available. 75 is a rather large gift to present to an individual player, about $3.50 USD. And yes, I realize that $3.50 is a pint of beer, and I would totally buy that for an acquaintance in real life, but this is the Internet and that makes it a little different.

Smaller tokens of 3 or 5 would make sense, as that corresponds to an amount people commonly spend: one caravan acceleration, one build queue completion, one prestige account renewal, and so forth. If that's too small, 15 or 25 would also make sense.


Posted By: Grego
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 21:47
I agree with Brandmeister. Let us work with more common scrolls, please.


Posted By: Consul Zynot
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 22:35
Clap


Posted By: ubluntu
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 23:02
Thank you so much for resurrecting the Combat Report API! 

/me runs off intently


Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 23:49
+1 to smaller denominations of Prestige scrolls.

-------------
Bonfyr Verboo


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2014 at 23:54
Thanks to the development team for their work and for sharing some of the "behind the scenes" stuff with us.  It helps me appreciate the work you're doing that might not be obvious to a player.


Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 00:04
Originally posted by Brandmeister Brandmeister wrote:

Smaller tokens of 3 or 5 would make sense, as that corresponds to an amount people commonly spend: one caravan acceleration, one build queue completion, one prestige account renewal, and so forth. If that's too small, 15 or 25 would also make sense.
if 75 is a scrap, 5 would be...a jot? (it has been observed that the denominations of the scrolls bear a curious resemblance to the denominations of prestige purchase amounts available. it seems likely that is intentional, ergo likely that smaller denominations will not be offered.)


Posted By: Merlinus
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 00:17
To the Team:

This is an amazing amount of output, and represents an unparalleled amount of input. Many players have believed, and believe still. 

Thank you very much. 

Thumbs Up


-------------
In Peace we reign. In War we RULE!

Long live the Royal House of Merlinus!


Posted By: Artefore
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 00:33
There are a few suggestions I'd like to make about this:  
1:  Instead of only allowing the making of prestige scrolls in lump sums of prestige, allowing the making in increments, like so:  
1-75 prestige:  prestige scrap
76-200 prestige:  prestige parchment
201-500 prestige:  prestige page
501-850 prestige:  prestige scroll
and so on, with the other costs being what they currently are.  
2:  to avoid exploitation with the increments, require at least 25 prestige to be left over after the creation of a prestige scroll.  


-------------
"don't quote me on that" -Artefore


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 00:37
The prestige scrolls need to be for much smaller units:-

1
2
5
10
20
50
100
200
500
1000 (!)
2000 (!)
5000 (!)

This system already works for the whole of the United Kingdom.

And whilst we are at it, mana needs to be traded in the same way as research.

Finally, I notice that some people are trying to hike the prices of the recipe ingredients on Centrum.
This will not work as all the ingredients are far too common and if some ingredients are not availbale, people will just make more of the smaller scrolls.

Also can't see anything on how long it takes to make each scroll?  Did I miss it?


Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 01:12
i beseech the devs to add the experience value of the unitcasualties to the combatevent report. this would allow player-organised hunting tournaments to be more fairly scored according to a rough difficulty value rather than merely units killed.


Posted By: Diva
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 04:06
I personally wouldn't gift someone a lot of prestige.. I would maybe 12 to 15.. so, I'll prolly be selling people who DO use this, all the supplies for the prestige rolls.. Interesting tho DEVS, waiting on the next new... 

D


-------------
"Um diva.... you are sort of acting like a .... diva...." - PhoenixFire


Posted By: Count Rupert
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 05:18
It takes as long as it takes you to hit make after entering an amount.  


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 05:54
This is a great gift for newbs, or tourny players. I worry about this becoming mandatory for surrenders, though. 

Not all players have the money to buy pres


Posted By: Marquesta
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 06:14
This is great! I love that you've shared so much. As Rill said, it lets us know what we otherwise are unaware of. 

So, is magic next? Big smile


-------------
~~Marquesta
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them...


Posted By: Merlinus
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 06:46
Do I actually see a value for Trove?? YES!! Thumbs Up

-------------
In Peace we reign. In War we RULE!

Long live the Royal House of Merlinus!


Posted By: Aral
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 06:48
Originally posted by Merlinus Merlinus wrote:

Do I actually see a value for Trove?? YES!! Thumbs Up

It almost makes the Consone war worth it!


-------------
Aral Llc is not responsible for any grievous bodily harm sustained while reading this signature. No rights reserved.


Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 12:45
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

This is a great gift for newbs, or tourny players. I worry about this becoming mandatory for surrenders, though.

That is a potential downside. However, it does make an interesting contest prize, and is a different way of providing prestige than the alliance pool.


Posted By: Jiminy Wilkestuff
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 18:26
Wow, this game gets better and better. Thanks dev team! 

One question though. Do I have to worry about prestige scrolls being stolen from my cities by thieves?


Posted By: Ammianus
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 20:14
I think this is the worst idea in a game to allow the transfer of money.

Do the DEVs want to kill Illy ?

All the games I have been playing do not allow it and for a good reason in my opinion.

It paves the way to extortion between players.

The minimum requirement would be to absolutely forbid any threat involving prestige with the penalty of immediate removal from the game with no exception.

Most likely  future peace arrangements may include the transfer of prestige (money). Which is completely unacceptable.

-------------
Qui secundos optat eventus, dimicet arte, non causa.
[Vegetius]


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 20:15
Originally posted by Jiminy Wilkestuff Jiminy Wilkestuff wrote:

Wow, this game gets better and better. Thanks dev team! 

One question though. Do I have to worry about prestige scrolls being stolen from my cities by thieves?

No, only through blockades.

Do you WANT them to be thieved? :)


GM Rikoo




-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 20:19
Originally posted by Ammianus Ammianus wrote:

I think this is the worst idea in a game to allow the transfer of money.

Do the DEVs want to kill Illy ?

All the games I have been playing do not allow it and for a good reason in my opinion.

It paves the way to extortion between players.

The minimum requirement would be to absolutely forbid any threat involving prestige with the penalty of immediate removal from the game with no exception.

Most likely  future peace arrangements may include the transfer of prestige (money). Which is completely unacceptable.

I've been asked about this several times. Of course, the ultimate decision would come from the developers, but as of yet a player CAN tell you to give them Prestige scrolls... or else. It's a gameplay mechanic. Illyriad has always been a "hardcore" game, and this falls in line with that design.

Now that I made that point, I want to make clear that a player cannot do something like "Give me prestige scrolls or I'll hack your account" or "send me prestige scrolls or I will do something to you in real life." That crosses the boundaries no matter what the price.

This solution will probably help more than anything, as it will cut down on people "selling" prestige (as they already do) by allowing a sitter to buy the prestige or to allow someone access to an account by sharing passwords.

GM Rikoo




-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk


Posted By: Ammianus
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 21:15
Sorry Rikoo, I am not so happy with your reply.

It didn't really address my concerns about the use of prestige.
The connection to Real life is independent of prestige or non prestige. and as such nothing new.
The new situation arises from trying to force a player to buy prestige (to spend money) to achieve a goal.

and this is a new intermediate quality of  threat which can be exerted on players. the high level RL threat, the spend money threat, and lowest the give cities or resources threat. In my opinion only the last one should be acceptable in a game. Actually I have been playing many games of this type and with the exception of a poor economic game they all do not allow transfer of money derived commodities and I don't think this is accidental. I still think Illyriad is the best up to now. I have no objection using some money to improve my account, which i do all the time,  but I will never tolerate to be "forced" to sponsor some one else account.

And it is a bit surprising to me you call Illyriad a "Hardcore game" as a reasoning for making it even harder on players. Already peace terms can be much worse than they are in most other games in my experience, which I wouldn't consider soft at all, if  I am in constant year long wars.

Well in any case I will not bow to any threat of the above mentioned type and rather abandon or be reduced to one city. Depending on circumstances after a petition.



-------------
Qui secundos optat eventus, dimicet arte, non causa.
[Vegetius]


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 21:21
Originally posted by Ammianus Ammianus wrote:

Sorry Rikoo, I am not so happy with your reply.

It didn't really address my concerns about the use of prestige.
The connection to Real life is independent of prestige or non prestige. and as such nothing new.
The new situation arises from trying to force a player to buy prestige (to spend money) to achieve a goal.

and this is a new intermediate quality of  threat which can be exerted on players. the high level RL threat, the spend money threat, and lowest the give cities or resources threat. In my opinion only the last one should be acceptable in a game. Actually I have been playing many games of this type and with the exception of a poor economic game they all do not allow transfer of money derived commodities and I don't think this is accidental. I still think Illyriad is the best up to now. I have no objection using some money to improve my account, which i do all the time,  but I will never tolerate to be "forced" to sponsor some one else account.

And it is a bit surprising to me you call Illyriad a "Hardcore game" as a reasoning for making it even harder on players. Already peace terms can be much worse than they are in most other games in my experience, which I wouldn't consider soft at all, if  I am in constant year long wars.

Well in any case I will not bow to any threat of the above mentioned type and rather abandon or be reduced to one city. Depending on circumstances after a petition.


I understand what you are saying, but it's already possible to completely destroy a player's cities -- over and over -- essentially stopping them from playing the game. This is and always has been a possibility, yet I rarely if ever hear complaint about that. Also, losing prestige can already happen to someone who has spent prestige and is then destroyed. Or, they can lose mountains of time as well.

In other words, the game is already very punishing. If someone "threatens" you (again, only in the way that is allowed by the game, not in real life) then it is simply up to you to bow to the threat, seek help or just wait to see how bad it gets. 

Again, though, if it appears to become a major issue we might -- or might not -- look into the issue. I cannot say either way right now.

GM Rikoo




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Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk


Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 22:20
Originally posted by Ammianus Ammianus wrote:


The new situation arises from trying to force a player to buy prestige (to spend money) to achieve a goal.
It's worth mentioning that prestige extortion has been an available mechanic ever since we introduced the alliance prestige pool, ie "Join my alliance and put prestige into the alliance prestige pool, then I kick you from the alliance and use your prestige... or else".

To my knowledge that's not yet happened - despite being an option for more than a couple of years.

Regards,

SC


Posted By: Grego
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2014 at 23:56
You know Codex Gigas, largest manuscript in the world? Nothing good can come out of it  LOL

Seriously, allow plebs to read something too




Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2014 at 00:20
Anyone worried about what could happen with this, read this thread:
%20" rel="nofollow - http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/tro-accepts-terms-of-surrender_topic3822.html

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Bonfyr Verboo


Posted By: StJude
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2014 at 05:41
Originally posted by abstractdream abstractdream wrote:

Anyone worried about what could happen with this, read this thread:
%20" rel="nofollow - http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/tro-accepts-terms-of-surrender_topic3822.html


Hard to say what you are exactly saying here, but it sounds like you are also on the chicken little side of things?

Or are you pointing to the backlash and pressure applied by the community that ultimately resulted in the demands for a medal (prestige) being rescinded?

Regardless, I like the idea of being able to purchase a large block of prestige and then transferring some of that prestige to my wife's account, thereby taking advantage of the discount afforded by buying in bulk.

I am not too worried that Prestige will be used as a term in surrender. However if it is used, then I imagine a similar reaction mentioned in the thread above and likely the same result.


Posted By: Ficho
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2014 at 10:15
Originally posted by GM Rikoo GM Rikoo wrote:



Be aware that items in transit, including prestige scrolls, are vulnerable to blockade, so be careful when shipping these valuable new items.




Zynga style?


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“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live.”
Charles Bukowski


Posted By: Tyrande Whisperwinds
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2014 at 12:28
Another update that involves money... why am i not suprised..?
Hmmm... 3 updates lately, 2 involved money: the cities "skins" and now this prestige scrolls thingy.

Apart from the fact that the amounts of prestige avaiable to give this scrolls are far from being usable on a daily basis (dont see ppl shipping 75 prestige to a newbie...), like ppl already mentioned, can't help to notice that too many updates are being released with economic interest in the background.

Cool, you finally enabled lakes for claiming SOV. THAT is the kind of update the game needs.

When are the factions coming live, per example? They've been parading around the map for what? 2 years now?



Posted By: Grego
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2014 at 13:02
Rulers want to push us into war through fear and greed! Let's overthrow them and take over  server!!

Long live King Sigurd! And Me, His Royal Absent Highness Representative


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2014 at 12:33
If there are clusters of people in real life playing the game together they will bulk buy prestige and then spread it out between themselves for real money.  


Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2014 at 18:19
Originally posted by Tyrande Whisperwinds Tyrande Whisperwinds wrote:

Another update that involves money... why am i not suprised..?
Hmmm... 3 updates lately, 2 involved money: the cities "skins" and now this prestige scrolls thingy.
factions cannot be here soon enough for me. that said, the amount of money illyriad generates is not unrelated to the rate at which other changes happen. i'm happy to see additional revenue-generating changes to the game that are optional for players.


Posted By: Llannedd
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2014 at 19:09
Originally posted by Angrim Angrim wrote:

i'm happy to see additional revenue-generating changes to the game that are optional for players.

I fully agree. For those who don't know where to find the numbers (http://www.puzzleslogic.com/illy/home.html), Illy has dropped from about 7000 active accounts in March 2013 to under 5000 now. That's a significant loss (I know not all 2000 accounts spent real money, but I'm sure some did). Any business losing that much potential revenue has to invest primarily in new revenue sources and (which may or may not be happening) in marketing and promotion to grow its customer base.


Posted By: Jiminy Wilkestuff
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2014 at 19:42
I would most certainly put my fist through my computer if my prestige was thieved or captured.


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2014 at 21:48
Advanced resources can't be thieved AFAIK



Posted By: Llannedd
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 00:07
The term "advanced resources" means different things to different people. Technically I believe it refers to anything that shows on the second row of the resource dropdown. These CAN be stolen, except for horses, livestock and possibly (I'm not sure) siege blocks.

Other resource types (grapes, wine, hides, basic herbs and minerals, animal parts, rare herbs and minerals, and crafted items) cannot be stolen. Many of us also call these "advanced resources" which may be causing confusion.


Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 01:23
Siege blocks cannot presently be stolen.


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 03:11
I suggest calling the things gathered by cotters and other advanced harvesters "advanced harvestables" and the items that can be made from them "crafted items" to reduce confusion.

Neither advanced harvestables nor crafted items can be stolen at this time.


Posted By: ubluntu
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 07:06
My preferred terminology is as follows:
T1 Resources: Wood, Clay, Iron, Stone, & Food
T2 Resources: Horses, Cows, Beer, Books, Spears, Swords, Bows, Saddles, Leather Armour, Chainmail, Plate Armour, & Siege Blocks. (everything that shows in drop down with mouseover "Show Advanced resources"
T3 Resources; everything else.... except Gold, thats just Gold


Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 13:06
So much confusion about this!
The fact remains that anything remotely expensive or special can't be stolen - which sort of makes stealing less useful.  Personally, I think that thieves ought to be able to target particular resources - for example steal only gold.  It defies belief that they decide by themselves that clay was much better than chainmail.   They ought to be able to target resources based on trading categories when the mission is sent off.


Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 18 Oct 2014 at 14:41
The optimal system is as follows:
Iron, stone, clay, and all harvested minerals are "Rocks and Dirt"
Wood I call "Wittlin' material"
Plate, Leather, and Chain armors are "Threads"
Everything else falls under "Knickknacks", except for Cattle, which will be referred to simply as "The Precious".  



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