 Silent/Steadfast wrote:
A newb, according to Urban Dictionary, is
"A term used to describe a inexperienced gamer/person/etc. Unlike a noob, a newb is someone who actually wants to get better."
Newbs are responsible for Illyriad's growth. As veterans find they can no longer upgrade their cities, Illyriad is dependent on new players to provide the GMs with an income (prestige) Large players don't need to use as much prestige because their cities eventually don't need to "insta-build," so new players have to be the wind beneath the game's wings. The reason this differs from other games is that usually there is no growth limit set in the game, so players must spend continuously to keep building. This, in turn, means that newbs are "expendable", because they aren't as crucial to the GMs paycheck.
The reason above is a purely analytical approach to the matter, but there are also social reasons. New players provide new forum posts, a larger playerbase which consequently leads to more ideas for the GMs to consider (some of these might be of the "what if we changed the game into an Evony clone?" type, but many aren't). Also, new players make new alliances, which leads to more levels of complexity in the meta-game, and new players aren't viewed as "competition" because the server has no goal.
I think that sums it up pretty well. |
I agree with 90% of this. Taking prestige out of the picture, and I think we can all begin to see why this game is 100% different from the other games out there.
I've played several 'city building' games, and this one is so different because there is an obtainable end point for every player. Once you hit 9-10 towns, you are done expanding (of course there's sov, but that's limited as well). Couple that with the enormity of the world map and you have the forumla for a 'peaceful game'. Newbs aren't targetted mainly because there is no gain in doing so. In similar games, if you take down a newb, you gain area to expand in. Here (with limited exceptions) you don't gain a thing.
Now, think about all the balancing factors here. I'm proposing that newbs are mostly safe to build up from a New Settlement to a group of at least 3-4 towns before possibly being 'in trouble of attack'. I think we can agree this is true at least 95% of the time (exceptions are when a newb does something stupid, like being aggressive or placing a new town too close to someone else).
Keep in mind those balancing factors. We've seen considerable growth of the Illy community, newbs are streaming in daily. As these newbs (and the now 'young players' such as myself) continue to grow and turn into 9-10 town players, we will start to see a rapidly diminishing area of settlement. As the world map fills in with new towns, new conflicts will arise over players due to the need to expand.
This is the point that the balancing factors become unbalanced. Once we hit the point of 'over-population' where all of the 'young players' are maxxed out along with the current 'vets' and as the newbs continue streaming in, we will be forced to start eliminating new towns in order to claim new sov spots or settle new towns.
Illy is still a very young game, because of this, and the fact that there is still plenty of open map area to settle in, and that we have a limit to how large we can each grow, both as individual players and as alliances, and we have a 'safe-haven' for new players. Once you start tearing down these factors, Illy will start to change face.
In the end, it's the dev team who make Illy the way it is. If they wish Illy to continue as it has they will need to carefully monitor when the world map begins to fill up, then offer a new server or a map expansion. If growing players don't feel rushed or squished, things remain peaceful.
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