Player Spotlight: Kumomoto

KumoCongrats to Kumomoto for being this month’s Player Spotlight! Let’s get to the questions!

So, you were a very early-stage Illyriad player. What’s been the biggest change over the years?

I am the oldest playing member of Illy. Biggest change? My lord! Illy has had generations of change! What is a better question is what hasn’t changed in Illy over that time? And the answer is the newbie-friendly nature of the game…

H?’s first war was against an alliance named White which stood for ganking newbies… We espoused an opposite attitude and went to war over it. We won. And then Starry started Toothless?, which was the first training alliance (training alliances are alliances where newbies can join and noone will attack them and they learn. And, most importantly, all the other alliances respect these players and stay away from them). This model took off and now there are lots of great training alliances in game. And all the major alliances have espoused the newbie protection ethos we started and, imo, the game is very different from others because of it.

Surely you have a good war story. Tell us one. Or two.

Stay tuned to GC… I tell them periodically!

Has it been challenging to keep foes guessing, or do you always rely on similar battle tactics each time you get in a scrap?

At H?, we have constantly modified our tactics based upon current game usage, game mechanics, and our strategies and tactics. We’ve won 7 and lost one (albeit the largest one! ugh!)…

In the last war (and largest war in the history of Illy), there were 42 attempted sieges on my two accounts’ cities. Not one was captured or razed. (A lot were exodused though!). Shows that when you are outnumbered 10:1 you can still “swamp fox” in Illy! Many millions of enemy troops lost their lives in those attempts…

Do you sometimes wish you could start over in Illy? If you did, would you want to know what you know now or would you want to know nothing… you know?

If I started over, I’d wish I wasn’t such an arrogant ass to a lot of people I actually respect… I regret some of the things I said and would take them back.

Who is your favorite player? Why?

Tough one! I probably have to say two people: Starry and ScottFitz. Starry for having the vision (and the huge effort she put in) to create the template for training alliances in Illy. And ScottFitz for being one of the leaders of a major alliance with the most integrity I have seen in online gaming ever…

Who is your nemesis? Why?

I don’t really have a nemesis today! Diablito was a good one at one time… Because he was all for ganking newbies and totally did not stand for what we did!

What is your greatest achievement in Illy?

I don’t have one. H?, on the other hand, under KillerPoodle and other Directors’ tutelage, greatest achievement, is fostering this culture of being receptive to new players. I think it is utterly unique in online games. Haven’t seen it elsewhere and we are really proud of starting it…

How would you like to top that achievement?

Not sure we can!

Thanks again to Kumo! 

 

GM Rikoo

Player Spotlight: Martilicious

Screenshot (1054)This month’s Player Spotlight focuses on Martilicious. She’s been a real headache wonderful player for a while now, despite her obsession with crushing sugar-based snacks.

How long have you been playing?

I founded my first city on Friday 2nd May 2014. So I’ve been here for over a year and STILL haven’t completed all research or built my first city the way I want it, because the things I need to build keep changing.

I know you came with the LoU crew… so how has Illy compared to that game now that you have played for a while?

I have played LOU, Evony and some space type game (I lasted about a week). Compared to all other games, Illy is the most complex, with so many layers. Just when I think I understand it, something else crops up…

Surely you hit players in PvP in LoU, so why don’t you kill everyone in Illy?

*Gasp* I never killed anyone. Ever. I am a peaceful crafter. Fact. Anyone who says differently will get a visit from my siege army. If I had one, obviously.

If you could add anything — and I mean ANYTHING — to Illy, what would you add?

I will take that as a promise that anything I mention here WILL be added, thanks! I’d love to see the ability to cancel trade unit movement, larger groups of simien wolves and a surprised smiley :O . Giving me control of the hammer would be AWESOME, I would not abuse that at all, definitely not.

Give me a good Illy memory.

The welcome I received on first joining always stands out. Despite not receiving a welcome message and mail from Kodabear (hard to believe, I know) I muddled through with a lot of help, and still am. One day soon (TM) I may not need to ask questions…. I also remember joining my alliance and enjoy every day in Alliance Chat – the work that goes into an alliance is amazing. The yoga classes are pretty cool too.

Give me a bad Illy memory.

I almost cried the day I killed 69 skinners. And the day I hit the 12 day research thinking it was 12 hours. And all those times I sent the cotters on a 16 day journey to harvest minerals.

If you can honestly predict how long you will play, in freakily-accurate numbers, tell me the date and time.
I will throw this one back at the Dev team and the Illy community…. I will play for as long as I am engaged and having fun. So keep on adding new stuff, play nice, keep me interested and I’ll be here.

Who is your in-game nemesis?

I looked up nemesis, and one definition is ‘a downfall caused by an inescapable agent.’ I have 2 candidates (details on my profile folks!) hrandjt and System.

Who is your RL nemesis?

Another definition: ‘something that a person cannot conquer, achieve, etc’. At the moment, that makes my nemesis Candy Crush Level 956.

Thanks to Marti for all of her horrible jokes and smells wonderful sense of humor and unique way of looking at things!

See you next time!

Player Spotlight: Fiona!

filterI have heard that there is a player named Fiona Withadot. Are you flattered that someone is impersonating you? Why would they do that?

There is?? Where?!?! I have heard of this upstart. She is barely a dot on my radar. I have also heard that a few dwarves like her. Shameful. She thinks she is all cute with her pointy ears… I will catch her one day and show her what orcs do to elves. 🙂 As to why she would impersonate me, obviously she has no life.

If you had one thing to say to your enemies, what would it be? (You can curse. Don’t worry, I’ll change all of the curse words to the words BUNNY BUTT.)

I have enemies? Where?? Is it that impersonater? Did she say something? Don’t listen to her, she’s nuts. I mean how can you listen to someone who claims to be a Saint? See, I didnt curse and you dont have to use Bunny Butt to cover it up. Which, by the way, totally replaces any curse word. 🙂

Be honest: You come to socialize, conquer, trade or all of the above?

haha Depends on who you ask. I want to say conquer but if you ask my alliance mates they will probably say socialize. Secretly, I want all the gold. 🙂

If you had a beeeelion dollars, what would you program into Illy?

I think a Navy would be pretty cool. Ships, subs, gun ships, battle stations. (Wait, battle stations? Is that a Star Wars reference? hehe) Could you imagine a fleet of ships 100k strong coming at you? That would look pretty awesome on the water. Green and red getting ready to clash. And ahem… Audrey’s quest more…ummm solvable…..

What do HATE about Illy? Be honest or we will know and then we will attack you with mammoths.

Rikoo…. I’m an orc, mammoths don’t scare me, now your guards… that’s another story. What do I hate about Illy? Can’t say theres anything I hate, but things that can get annoying… not being able to recall harvesters in a 90 second window. Spider NPC’s are pretty scary, I never hit them. I avoid them. I dont want spider parts in my inventory…. Spider fangs?? Ugh. I do, however, have mammoth parts…. 😀

How many times have you made a mistake in Illy? Tell us about one of those times.

Ha! If I had 1 gold for every mistake I made, I would have a few million collected by now. Recently though, (rolls eyes and a few curse words) I had a scout army that just got back home. 1 troop, 5k scouts (not the cheap ones either) I then sent an army out to a horde of rats. I realized about 10 min before they hit that it was my scouts. Sigh.. Plus side, gold was in the black for a bit. 🙂 I did a moment of silence for them, it was tragic.

Which other MMOs do you play? If you do play others, what do you like to do in those other MMOs?

Honestly, I have never really played other MMOs. Illy is my first one. I have looked for other ones since starting Illy and frankly none compare to this game. Illy has spoiled me for all other games. I also notice playing this game im a bit more fearless than I used to be. So when I look at other games, I look for ones that have good fighting. Because, it’s fun!

How many dragolichs would a dragolich drag if a dragolich could drag wood?

I pondered this question awhile. Then I got a headache, had to lie down. Got up took some asprin and still didnt know what you asked. So I googled it. I was clueless as to what a dragolich was, turns out if it weren’t for google I still wouldn’t know. So my guess is….42 🙂

Thanks to Fiona for being a great player! Congrats!

Illyriad’s 5th birthday introduces sweeping changes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ILLYRIAD!

It’s a bit of a shocker, but it’s Illyriad‘s five year anniversary.

While the server booted up for the first time on the 21st of February 2010, players didn’t get access until the 22nd; so that’s the official start date for this grand journey.

In that time we’ve seen many, many changes to the game.

For those who weren’t around at the beginning, here’s a sample of what you missed from the early days! We started off with a “world tree” theme around the borders, with all the content placed inside large scrolls.

The town map was a very different beast:


The world map was randomly generated (rather than hand-drawn) in those days, so there were no rivers, no seas or lakes, no sprawling forests or mountain ranges and no regions; just a mish-mash of different squares. The world map, with Chat version 1 visible is seen below. Note the awesome way the arctic area blends with the rest of the map. Subtle, huh?


POP-QUIZ FACTOIDS:

During these five years, you have:

  • Undertaken some 62 million trade missions and traded 4 trillion Gold (4 thousand billion)!
  • Performed 21 million harvesting missions and nearly 12 million quests
  • Gone on 125 million military missions and nearly 40 thousand sieges for a total of 1.6 billion casualties
  • Sent 104 million ingame mails and spoken 334 million words in chat. That’s the equivalent of the entire works of Shakespeare 377 times over, or the equivalent of 425 Bibles – in chat alone. I won’t speak to the relative quality of the text 😉
  • 287,000 players have been through the gates, settling 350,000 towns across 1,300 alliances
  • You have collectively played 22,364,898.12 hours of Illyriad
  • That’s 931,870.75 days or 2,553 years!

During this 5-year period we have had just under 6 hours of unscheduled downtime, and 15 hours of downtime in total (including patches and server moves).

We’ve often stated that we are applying lessons learned from our work on Age of Ascent to Illyriad. Some things you’ve seen, some you’ve not – a lot of have been slightly abstract and based around infrastructure and capabilities. They have all made the game better and helped it to run smoother.

However, today we’d like to share something even more concrete; and hopefully a little more exciting than the existing benefits that AoA development has provided to Illyriad, such as progression graphs and private chat (even if TC thinks graphs are exciting).

Please bear in mind this is early days and there is a lot more to come and improvements to be made. We are not yet at an beta stage and taking bug reports, but…

Illyriad needs a lick of paint:

More interactivity:

1425321038townmenu
Different perspectives, showing where units are travelling to:


A grand strategic view of the whole world:


[See larger version]

Where the tactical map, strategic map and regional map are the same thing, and all full screen:


[See larger version]

Where coastline and rivers look more realistic, and where the map can be viewed from different rotational angles to better see the lay of the land:


[See larger version]

And where moving around the map is fast, and touch enabled, pinch to zoom ready, and where the data is pulled from across the entire world – all visible at once.

Exciting times ahead, for sure, but let’s look at all of the massive changes we put in for this anniversary:

Infantry and craftinghttps://forum.illyriad.co.uk/22feb15-7-day-warning-infantry-crafting_topic6166.html

Smoothing out research times: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/22feb15-trade-hides-research-exodus_topic6167.html

Building changes 1: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/22feb15-changes-to-building-effects_topic6169.html

Build changes 2: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/22feb15-build-time-changes_topic6170.html

Council meeting lore story: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-meeting_topic6173.html

UIv4 Preview: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/22feb15-uiv4-preview_topic6174.html

More than 10 cities!: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/23feb15-beyond-10-cities_topic6175.html

API and XML: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/23feb15-api-xml-notifications_topic6176.html

New medal options: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/23feb15-new-medals-options_topic6178_post85155.html

Google Wallet dies: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/24feb15-google-wallet-retirement_topic6181.html

Referral and tutorial changes: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/24feb15-tutorial-referral-programme-changes_topic6183.html

In-game mail XML feed: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/24feb15-xml-feed-for-ingame-mail_topic6182.html

Account sitter limit changes: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/24feb15-account-sitting-90day-limit_topic6184.html

Faction units!: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/25feb15-faction-unit-release_topic6186.html

Notifications tweaks: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/25feb15-more-detail-in-notifications_topic6188.html

Removing SOV: https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/03mar15-removing-sovereignty_topic6207.html

 

Stay tuned, and thanks for joining us on this journey!

Player Spotlight: King Korr!

King KorrThis time, the Player Spotlight goes out to King Korr. I received quite a few nominations for the player so hopefully his answers won’t be horrible. If they are, siege him and then bring me his gold! MUAHAHA!

I’m kidding. He seems like a great guy and wonderful player!

Answers below. Thanks KK!

How long have you been playing Illy?

I have be a royal in the land of Illyriad for two and a half year’s now. In that time I saw and faced many horrors including the naked Elf Forest and discovering what a trout slap is. (We don’t want to know – Rikoo)

When you first played, what do you remember thinking first?

My very first thought was ‘what have I stepped in to?’ — as compared to the other games I had played online before Illy, they were quite simple while Illy has a lot of depth to it. There are still mysteries that have yet to be solved, and I am still learning things about the game to this day.

Why do you think people have nominated you for Player Spotlight?

I’d like to think it’s for the help I give members in Wheel of Time or Heroes of the Horn, as they are the main two alliances I have been in. I would even help members with tasks that would require me to leave the alliances for a period of time. Plus, I sort of keep the Mule Master from getting up to any trouble …

It’s more than likely I let the maidens get me in to trouble and mischief in alliance chat. As my fellow alliance members will tell you, I am a quiet and shy person and I never lead anyone astray ( /me looks over shoulders to make sure TheDiva, LadyDianna and Kylinneira ain’t in ear-shot!)

If you had developer powers…. no, scratch that – if you had MORE than developer powers and could make the game do anything, what would you like to add to it?

One simple word: DRAGONS!

Okay let me expand on that. Illy is a land with magic and fantasy creatures in it yet there isn’t a dragon in sight! We have all type of units to use spear, sword, bow and mounted troops but as of yet no aerial troops. Just think if players could assign dragons to their armies… it would add a whole new level to the game! Each race could have their own type of dragon, and humans have firebreathing (which would be good on plains. Dwarves could have drakes which suit mountains and the same with elves and orcs.)

I would also make a quest of it so players have to got through certain steps to unlock the research such as finding hidden knowledge so their saddle makers and mages could learn how to safely control the dragons without having them eating your people. You could also have a handicap so for each dragon you have, you lose a certain amount of food or cow production.

I’d also like to  allow troops to move via way points! Like, being able to send troops from A to B to C without having to go back to A would be a massive time saver and wouldn’t have a big an impact on the game.

How important do you think PvP is to Illyriad?

I’d say quite important, as it’s another layer to explore and master in Illy. If you’re attacking a player or another alliance, each involves different things to make sure you have a chance of success. Even if you are attacking, you still have to think of defense for your troops that will be sieging cities, unless your goal is not to capture but to make sure your target can’t rebuild their stockpile of troops to hit you back.

If they do hit you back and you or your alliance loses all your troops, it’s making sure to have supplies set up to make sure you can rebuild quickly enough.

Why do you play Illyriad? You can be honest with me. Go ahead.

The people, the community in Illy is great. In the time I’ve been playing I’ve meet some great people who I talk to outside of the game. Even though I have been playing for two and a half years I’ve yet to find or hear of another game that has a community that is so friendly and helpful. Newbies are sometimes wary of the great greetings they get when they start as they think we only send the res if we get something in return, which is sort of true as each player that stays and grows adds to Illy, which mean’s we all gain!

Where can Illy improve the most?

Magic! Magic in Illy is so badly under-used and developed, like we have a magetower but yet can not recruit mages to accompany troops or to bewitch cities on the far part of the map (make them like traders with increasing upkeep the more you have). It would give those that want to explore the magical part off Illy more depth from the game.

You have a choice between the biggest and most powerful armies in the game or the largest and most profitable trade business; what do you choose?

Armies every time! I have answered the call of the Viking and it’s seeped into my blood!

 

Thanks again to King Korr for answering our questions. Now, go bug him in game!

GM Rikoo