October 2012 – Illyriad – Beneath the Misted Land

Player Spotlight: Tallica

This month’s Player Spotlight focuses on Tallica, helpful global chatter, creator of new player guides and fiction writer in our Traveler’s Tale forum. Tallica’s fellow players as well as the GMs appreciate his contribution to the Illyriad community. Learn more about the Player Spotlight program at our website and nominate players by sending an email to community@illyriad.co.uk.

GM Luna

I am Tallica, that is my online name and yes it’s short from Metallica and yes I created it when I was in high school. I live in Seattle, WA with my wonderful wife (she’d probably kill me if she knew I was putting her picture here too!) and my odd dog Pearl. I like to think of myself as a down-to-earth, logically thinking type of person and I hope that shows through whenever and wherever you encounter me. I am a very helpful person, but I also like to joke around (sometimes too much :P). Now on with the interview:

What brought you to Illyriad and how long have you been playing?

I came to Illyriad from a game ad banner posted….somewhere (I think on Kongregate Games, but I could be wrong), back in April 2011, so I’ve been playing for a year and a half (though half of it I was on vacation).

Have you played many other online games or been active in other online communities?

My first experience with online gaming was playing Diablo 2, my first actual online game was Nodiatis (an interesting game that is now broken, don’t get me started). I play here and there and everywhere, but Illy has been my longest online game.

Any hidden talents or interesting hobbies outside of gaming?

Outside of gaming? Well, I have a quite large (yeah, I’m being modest) collection of movies, I play tennis irregularly with my wife, have a quirky dog, and really love the city I live in (Seattle).

What keeps you playing Illyriad?

So many things, the community, the dev team, the game, the tourneys, the updates… I love how deep and involved Illy is and I’m hungry for more!

What’s your favorite aspect of the game?

That’s a really hard question. There is so much that really sets Illy apart from games of it’s type (are there REALLY any other games of this type?). If Illy had turned out to be another newbie farming game, I wouldn’t have stayed. The community and the game mechanics really make it so that isn’t possible, and makes Illy so great.

What’s your proudest achievement in game so far?

My Spider Slayer Award 😛 (see my profile), that was me getting revenge for GM TC. Aside from that, making so many friends in the game.

What are you most looking forward to for the future of Illyriad?

Probably the day that the devs implement one of my suggestions! Group mailing? Sequential research queues? Specialized chat rooms? GM Tallica? need I go on?

What area of the game do you think needs the most improvement?

Currently, I would say that having pathfinding will be a major improvement, it’s kind of silly that troops can freely cross oceans and such. Also, the factions have been around forever and have very little to do with anything. I know, I know, it’s coming soon.

What advice would you give a new player in Illyriad?

Have you read my newbie guides?

Illyriad Shares Some Geek Love

Illyriad designed - Slashdot Logo

The last month has been something of a geek-fest for Illyriad’s developers. Between GDC Online in Texas a couple of weeks ago, lots of games industry chat at the Game City events in the UK, Extra Life last weekend and then the Geek Media Expo in Tennessee this weekend, we’re happily talking code, design, and the joys of Illyriad to anyone who’ll indulge us, and having a whale of a time.

And it was great that today we got two nods back from the rest of geekdom.

First, our very own GM Cerberus had a logo design for Slashdot featured. To celebrate, as they put it “15 years of News for Nerds” Slashdot invited readers to submit redesigns of their logo, with selected submissions featured for one day in October. Cerberus’s design has been selected to appear today. It weaves together the conjunction of Saturn with the Sun, a font inspired by NASA, and some astronomical history – and in case you miss it on Slashdot, we’ve grabbed an image from their site, which you can see here.

Second, today we found ourselves prominently featured atop Google’s Chrome Web Store. You can see the banner below. We’d like to heartily welcome all of the new players who have joined us from the Chrome Web Store.

So, congratulations to GM Cerberus for impressing the folks at Slashdot, and many thanks to everyone at Google for featuring Illyriad.

The Illyriad Dark Harvest Tournament is Live

Press Release: October 1, 2012

Illyriad, the acclaimed massively multiplayer online strategy game, launched its 6th server-wide tournament today, entitled Dark Harvest. The tournament marks the celebration of the peaceful druidic Kildarran faction’s “Festival of the Dead” that seeks to honor the lost souls of the dead. In what could only be described as an industrious move, the magical Circle of Five faction have take the opportunity to construct beacons that will attract the wandering souls and harvest them, for unknown purposes.

During this month-long event, players will bind together with their Alliances to compete for control of 37 land squares throughout the expansive world map in order to capture and harvest the souls of the dead. Each week, the 10 “bloodiest” squares, those that have seen the most combat, will be granted a bonus that provides more souls to harvest at that location. Subsequently, the most hotly contested squares will also become the most valuable to hold as the tournament progresses. The Alliances that gather the most souls per region as well as overall will win valuable in-game prizes including:

Hundreds of dollars worth of Prestige, in-game currency
New military units called Skyclad Warriors
A one-of-a-kind tournament sword for use with troops and commanders
An Alliance tournament statue to be placed permanently on the world map in game
Custom-designed, unique medals to be displayed on the player profiles of each member of the winning Alliances

For EACH SQUARE (most souls gathered throughout the month):
1st Place: 40 Skyclad Warriors and a tournament sword to each participating player in that alliance.
2nd Place: 20 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance.
3rd Place: 10 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance.

For the OVER ALL winners (most souls gathered in total during the month):
1st Place: 6000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, an Alliance Tournament Statue, and a tournament victor’s Gold Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.
2nd Place: 4000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor’s Silver Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.
3rd Place: 2000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor’s Bronze Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.

The tournament will come to a close at midnight on October 31. Full details and rules can be found at the Illyriad official forums.

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About Illyriad:

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer

“Illyriad has a great niche…. There is plenty to do and I would suggest that everyone with a few minutes goes and checks it out.” – Vagary.tv

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.