Evony Developer’s Diary #2: Facebook and Beyond

“You are my superior officer. You are also my friend. I have been and always shall be yours.” -Spock

Greetings, I’m Walter Yarbrough, VP of Production (East Coast) here at Evony. This is the second of our Developer Diaries. Darold kicked us off last week discussing the King/Queen Quests in Evony: Age II here. Our goal is to give Evony players and fans insight into our thoughts and methods behind the scenes at Evony. This Diary will cover our Facebook features introduced in Evony: Age II – in a fashion for both the Evony novice and expert.
With the launch of Evony: Age 2, we made a conscious decision and effort to improve the social aspects for the Evony player. In Evony: Age 1 the primary social interaction with other players is through the alliance system. In an alliance, players can chat with each other on a dedicated chat channel, review battle reports affecting other alliance members, reinforce their ally’s cities, and deliver resources to alliance members. Combined, these powers in an alliance give an alliance the ability to wage a successful war.

Facebook events let you share the wealth.

In Evony: Age 2, we introduced several new systems to expand these interactions with your allies, through many added features integrated through Facebook. Once you have linked your Evony: Age 2 account to a Facebook account, your ability to support and reward your allies is greatly expanded in many ways.
Like other established Facebook games, many activities that reward you in-game are published to your Facebook wall. This not only allows your allies to share in these rewards, but also lets potential new allies know about Evony. Before the Facebook connect features, most new Evony players came through direct web advertising. With the viral marketing of Facebook walls (250k posts in the last month), our fastest-growing demographic is women aged 30-45 years old. Many times, we find that these gamers are the heart and soul of many alliances, the organizers, motivators and communicators, and we’re thrilled with the success of our Facebook integration. Five months after the launch of Age 2 on Facebook, we have 561,000 monthly active Facebook users.

Gifting allows friends to help one another out.

One of the best features about Facebook allies is the ability to “Visit” your friend’s cities, which is similar to logging in to their account. While you can’t make decisions for them, it’s a great way for novice players to see advanced cities and plan their own upgrade path. Also, this allows allies to check on friend’s cities without logging in to their accounts (A violation of our Terms Of Service as well as an account security risk.) During your visit, you can also optimize their production, increasing their resource production.

There’s another real benefit of “Visiting” your neighbor’s city. More experienced players can review and mentor their friends about city construction and defense. While we have an excellent tutorial and quest system to prepare you for the wars constantly raging in the Evony worlds, your fellow players provide the most up-to-date knowledge of strategy and tactics.

Visiting a friend lets you check out their city's layout.

You can send gifts to your Facebook Friends, once per day – these gifts may be reinforcements, resources, or items that you choose. As your own rank increases, the size and power of your ability to give gifts increases.

Finally, requests for bonus resources, items, and reinforcements will regularly pop up for an account connected to Facebook. These provide a reward to the player as well as to the player’s friends who share in the reward. 83% of these bonus requests are accepted and shared by Evony players.
Many Evony players report that they give and accept gifts as the first thing they do during their Evony playtime. And the increased resources make it much easier for them to build up their cities and defenses.

That wraps up a quick look at the new social features available Evony players as part of our Facebook integration. Thanks for playing and have fun on the Battlefield!

Developer’s Diary #1: The King/Queen Quest Sequence

Hello, my name is Darold Higa, and I’m a producer at Evony.  Walt Yarbrough, Vice President of Operations (East Coast), and I will be launching a series of developer diaries on a weekly basis where we hope to give Evony enthusiasts a sneak peek under the hood and behind the scenes here at Evony.  I’ve been asked to kick off the series by talking a little bit about the King/Queen Quests in Evony: Age II.

Quests are an important part of Evony.  In Age I, quests help guide players through the complexities of mastering city building. These quests coach players as they learn about building structures, raising an army and researching technology.  In Age II we have added a number of additional quests.  These quests are easy to spot, all of the new quests in Age II have been labeled with an “Age II” icon.  The series of quests specifically known as the King Quest (if you select a female player avatar) or Queen Quest (if you select a male avatar) is what I’d like to talk about today.  We feel that the King and Queen Quests provide an additional layer of gameplay, preparing you for the ultimate challenge of expanding your empire on the massive multiplayer battlefield we know as Evony: Age II.

The King/Queen Quests guide you into the more advanced levels of the game, prompting you to perform increasingly challenging missions which are well beyond the scope of most of the city-centric quests in Age I.  As the sequence of quests (and the story of your growing romance) unfolds, you increase your title and expand the number of cities under your control.  Eventually you will be expected to engage and conquer high level Barbarian cities, proving your mastery of city conquest and preparing you to deal with multiplayer combat, where player alliances may be engaged in large-scale battles across dozens of cities.

Upon completion of the quests, you will be rewarded with a special Hero, your King or Queen.  This character has very high base Politics, Attack and Intelligence stats, and has no loyalty listed because they will never switch sides.  This hero, once activated, will appear in your Feasting Hall where it can be assigned to missions like other heroes.  This gives you the chance to create a very powerful ally by leveling and equipping your King or Queen.

So, how many people have taken the plunge and completed the King/Queen quest sequence? Surprisingly, only a little over 1% of those playing Evony: Age II have completed this series of quests.  On some of the older servers however, this number is as high as 4%.  This isn’t an easy quest, so don’t expect to instantly finish it from the very start.  If you invest a little time into the effort however, it will pay off.

The most difficult part of the quest is the conquest of high level Barbarian cities.  Here are a few of my suggestions on how to tackle these missions.  First, build a network of cities that can serve as a launchpad for your assault.  Next, build up your army, making sure to have the right mix of forces for the job.  Since there are many different ways to conquer a city, select a mix of forces that fits your unique play style.  Learning how to wear down a city’s defenses takes some practice and planning, so start by first taking over a lower level Barbarian city to get a feel for how it works.  The key in conquering a Barbarian city is to first destroy their fixed defenses with a big initial attack wave, then sending enough followup waves of attackers to dishearten its citizens and drop the city’s loyalty.  Eventually the morale of the city will break, and the Barbarians will relent and surrender making the city a part of your empire.  The challenge is tough, but well worth the effort.

That’s all the time we have for this week’s diary.  See you on the battlefield!

Welcome to the official Evony game blog!

Hello Evonians! In the past we’ve run a lot of these updates through Facebook – now we’ll have a more formal home for news, tips and strategies. We’ll provide you with an insider’s perspective to the innovative multi-player strategy game Evony directly from us, the game developers. We’ll be posting new developments and features in the game as well as news from our community of avid players.  We look forward to reading your comments and sharing your ideas with the rest of the www.evony.com community.  Hopefully, you will learn some new hints that will help you in your next conquests.   Please check in with us frequently, and we’ll see you on the battlefield!