RES is not using Alliance Prestige (AP) at all. We decided that Prestige is real money and AP will ultimately cause disputes among players about who is spending more RL $$ and who is taking too much from others. Unfortunately, I suspect that future tourney prizes will dump into AP instead of individual prestige prizes - I hope this does not happen.
It is a very poorly designed system in that it does not allow true transfers between players.
I think the AP and the "Medals" are HUGE steps BACKWARD for Illy in that they attempt to sow discontent within alliances as well as reaffirm that Illy is not so much a _game_ but a _social network_ that is now driving players to spend RL money to show off to the rest of the community.
Absolutely horrible developments. Medals are big reason I participate much less in GC these days.
Each player should have the ability to disable seeing other players' Medals. I block them in GC, but now they show on the player ranks, too. I try to get away but the damn things keep following me!
HORRIBLE IDEAS! Both AP and Medals.
To me, this is evidence that the business model of Illy is flawed and the business is trying to find ways to stimulate sales of Prestige while the business is incapable (probably through lack of capital) of developing long previewed game enhancements. Clearly, the current revenue stream is inadequate. This means revising the revenue sources:
1) Subscriptions to play - will greatly reduce the player base
2) Buy a "win" Prestige similar to other games - will greatly reduce the player base
3) Advertising - should have minimal effect on player base since everyone is accustomed to ignoring banner ads on the web anyway.