How Evony isn’t “free forever” – not by a long shot.
You have probably seen the adverts all over the Internet. The “Free” bit caught my budgeting eye when i needed a new game to play. Ive always played computer games – ever since we have had computers. Which in our house means basically as long as computers have been around. My first experience of a computer game was Colossal Caves – the first Adventure Game.
YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING.
AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND
DOWN A GULLY.
I was about 6.
Then about 19 months ago – when I had those sleepless nights dealing with stupid Immigration idiots in London, I started playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. It was quite stress relieving to take out “hits” on rival mafia, rip off the system, and generally have a blast killing things. It would only have been better if one of the jobs was “Take out the entire New Zealand Immigration Department”. But ho hum. I stopped playing that eventually, because all the “upgrades” made it unplayable. But it was free, it was entertaining and it helped.
I then moved on to Farmville. I didn’t last long on that to be honest. Sowing crops really isn’t what you need when you are dealing with Bureaucrats and blithering idiots. You need something a bit more “bloody” i think. I tried Treasure Mania, which again was free, but in the end i just got bored of it. And that was when I decided to give Evony a go.
It’s not exactly Farmville. For a start, while on FB games you do have “Allies”, in Evony you actually play the game in real time with other people. You talk to each other, you join alliances, you fight together against other alliances, and generally have a blast. And spend most of your life doing that as the addictiveness of the game kicks in.
And thats where the whole “free forever” falls down. Like all FB games you can play for free, but clearly you will get further faster if you spend money to buy “In Game Coins” to spend on items which make you stronger, help you build faster, or help you fight. Where it becomes more important in Evony is that you can basically be beaten to a pulp by other players if they are stronger than you. If you want to be one of the strongest players – you need to play a LOT in order to be able to build up without spending money.
So how do they suck you in?
Impressively I have to say. Heres me: always price checking, looking for a bargain, won’t pay more for something than I think it’s worth – and I’m whipping out the credit card – even when its close to its limit. Give Evony credit – they know how to make you spend! It starts off with a good catch – the 250 cents for $5 offer, which even gets you a Quest and Prestige points for buying it. Spend $5 (US$ so be aware – thats about $7.50 NZD) and you get 50 game coins, plus a bonus pack of items for the game worth 200 game coins. Fiendishly simple. So we did that, and then you get a buzz from being able to actually get more items to play with.
Then you get into a huge war with someone and need to move your cities – but don’t have the items to do that with – Give up and be slaughtered, or buy some coins???? Or you run out of Speed-ups to build your cities faster and just cant bear to wait 96 hours to build your Town Hall up to level 10. So you decide to buy some coins. You can’t use the pack – you need 90 coins to get an Advanced Teleport, and besides, you can only buy the special offer once. So now you have to spend $30 UD$ which is the lowest multiple you can spend. Thats about $45 NZD. And when you do that – you also send all your allies a “Free Evony Chest” which they can open with a key. How do they get the key? They have to spend $30 to get it in the “bonus pack” that comes with the 300 game coins.
You’re a gonna at this point.
How much exactly did this cost us?
Can I get the “in our defense” bit in first? We started playing just after this last Christmas, and came off the game yesterday, so this is about 7 months of gaming. And for just over the last 4 months, I was Vice Host of the ANZACS alliance on one of the servers. (Every server seems to have an ANZACS alliance fighting for Kiwi and Aussie Pride – and we really don’t give up!) Some days it was like having a full time job, and I felt an enormous responsibility towards the other guys in the alliance. Hubby also played, and we both spent a lot of our “free time” on running the game, and didn’t get as much chance to run our own cities – so game coins helped.
In total we spent $881 NZD.
That’s a helluva lot for a game that was supposed to be free.
Was it worth it?
Mostly yes. Oddly enough – it’s not the monetary cost of the game that made me give it up – it was the cost to my health and sanity having to deal with the odd exceptionally unpleasant player in the game. While $881 sounds a lot of money, that works out at about half our Sanity Allowance that was available over that time. That’s where the Budget comes from for games and entertainment. I imagine if I was brave enough to work out an hourly rate, given the late nights and early mornings I was on there, particularly in the last 2 weeks, it would be a scarily small amount per hour of gameplay.
I started playing to help deal with stress. When the game became the stress, and there was no way of stopping people being morons and crapping all over me – it was time to leave. I don’t begrudge the money – it was fun while it lasted, but when there are arseholes who prevent the game being fun, then I’m not going to waste my money on it anymore.
Do I recommend the game.
Yes and no. As long as you know what your are getting into, and can afford it – no problems. But please don’t play expecting not to spend any money. I did know people who haven’t spent money on the game, but it’s rare. By the time I left, I had over 250 “Evony Chests” waiting to be opened. Which means, above the ones I’d already opened with a key I bought, my alliance had spent $7500 USD on the game. And while we made it nearly to the top of the Alliances, before the constant wingeing of a few players started to break us apart, I’m imagining some alliances spent more than that.
It’s a great game. This is a new version of the game, and relies a lot more on being smart and intelligent rather than brute force and ignorance- something a lot of players just haven’t grasped. So if you are more than a “brute force and ignorance” kind of wargamer – it’s worth a look.
I just wish I had managed to get my prestige to 3,000,000. I was 7000 off that, but in the end the abuse from the few people who have no concept of decent behavior was intolerable. It’s a shame, they are ruining a magnificent Alliance, and a magnificent game. Tossers.
Like what Avalon has to say?
Click Here to buy Avalon's Guide or Click Here to buy the E-Book
Related posts:
- What can Evony teach you about how money works?
- What can Farmville tell you about the way money works?
- When does “interest free” mean 17.5% interest.
Comments
4 Comments on How Evony isn’t “free forever” – not by a long shot.
-
Deborah on
Thu, 12th Aug 2010 2:52 pm
-
Avalon on
Thu, 12th Aug 2010 8:27 pm
-
Deborah on
Fri, 13th Aug 2010 12:12 pm
-
Hubby on
Fri, 13th Aug 2010 10:12 pm
I haven’t a clue what Evony is, but reading your post sounds like it helped relieve the stress for you.It sounds like it can be an awful time sink.
Then I read this “In total we spent $881 NZD.”
FAR OUT!
Really? On a game in cyberspace? Really, really?
That’s nearly 240 Starbucks coffees……………. Gulp!
Yep – Really Really lol 
I can’t decide whether I’m using the money freed up from not playing to feed me those extra 240 coffees or whether I should be fair and share with Hubby and go to Logan Browns once a month.
Votes???
How about a different restaurant every month? 
Hmm
Which way to vote?!?!
Athough I do note that 8 months expenditure is being translated into a replacement monthly spend
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
Avalon’s Guide On Facebook
-
