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Please note, the views discussed in following post are the authors personal opinions and not necessarily strict fact.
Unless you have been living under a rock, here at Theria we are fond players of mobile game Evony: The King’s Return. For those that don’t know, this is a strategy PVP war game set in the medieval era that has been rocking the top of the app store charts for years. Despite Evony’s success, it has been coming under more and more scrutiny as of recently due to changes made to the game. As a result, its own community is revolting and planning to stage a protest in order to bring Top Games Inc, the company that owns Evony, to the negotiation table.
The protest and its demands
The protesting is being held in the form of a ‘coin strike’ – this is when players unite in not spending money on the game until their demands are met. Coin strikes have been held in the past, to varying success, although the leaders of this strike are calling this one “the last stand”. The demands of the coin strike at time of writing are as follows:
- “1) Restore all banned family member and friend’s accounts.
- 2) No more malicious banning of accounts.
- 3) Walk back the last TOS. Nothing can give you rights to spy on my computer.
- 4) No more warning Main accounts for rss trading.
- 5) Give us a customer representative with decision making power who we can talk to and is responsive. Once a month call at least.
- 6) Fix lag in AS and Chalons.”
The coin strike is set to start on the 2nd of September, and a Discord server for the strike has been set up: https://discord.gg/CQcXHYADjP
Why are players protesting I hear you ask – well it depends on who you ask, but the general consensus amongst the community is that Evony is being less and less player-orientated. Issues such as customer support, lag during battlefields, spyware accusations, and false / inconsistent banning of accounts are being brought to attention by players. This is largely due to an apparent recent ban wave, targeting players alts – but also players main accounts, the majority without warning. In fact, reports are arising that after a certain VIP level is when players receive warnings first before being banned – showing that players are treated differently based on their spending level (VIP levels can be increased without spending, but it is very difficult and through my 6 years of playing I do not know a single player with a VIP level that meets this apparent threshold that hasn’t spent money).
Why have accounts been getting banned?
Putting aside the disparity in in bans versus warnings, why are players receiving bans? Well this is difficult to tell, because it is borderline impossible to verify claims – some players are reporting they are being banned for using alts, for resource trading, or for simply playing the game. In Evony’s Terms of Service (at time of writing it was last updated on the 9th of August 2024), it states the following:
- “Use cheats, exploits, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any unauthorized third-party software…”
- “Use the Services in order to design or assist in the design of cheats, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized third-party software designed to modify or interfere with the Games experience;”
So in the terms of service it clearly states their stance on bots / 3rd party software – but is this fair to the players? Bots have been a part of Evony games for a long time, and some players would argue that bots just free up their time as opposed to having to play for extended periods of time each day. Other players state that bots have a negative impact on the game and ruin the experience.
In my opinion, the majority of the Evony community is pro-bot, although this isn’t to say that parts of the community and very against it and align themselves with Evony’s Terms & Conditions.
Now let’s discuss alts – this what Evony’s T&C say at time of writing:
- “Create and use multiple accounts in game; YOU MAY ONLY CREATE AND USE ONE ACCOUNT FOR EACH GAME AT ALL TIMES; FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS TERM MAY RESULT IN IMMEDIATE BAN OR SUSPENSION WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU.”
To me it is very interesting that Evony includes this in their terms and conditions, because at a certain VIP level you gain the ability to create an alternative account on a “full” server (servers become full 7 days after opening and can no longer create accounts on these servers). To some it may be seen as encouraging people to violate the Terms & Conditions, by enabling them to create multiple accounts after they reach a specific VIP level (the boundaries for this are lower than the customer support boundary, and I have personally witnessed free-to-play players meeting this boundary).
To my knowledge, through second-hand information, previous calls with the Evony team resulted in the spokesperson saying that 1 alt is fine per player – which again breaks the games Terms of Conditions – although this was said before the latest Terms of Conditions was released.
I can’t talk for the entire community, but from my personal experience the overall consensus amongst the community is that alts are positive to the game and should be allowed. They are typically viewed as players who put extra time into the game (as managing alts is time consuming) should reap the rewards. In fact, some players would argue that the only way to remain somewhat competitive if you are a free-to-play or low spending player, is to use alternative accounts.
I think the issue amongst the community, and a driving force for this coin strike, is not necessarily whether or not alts and bots should be allowed or not allowed, but instead a consistent approach should be taken. It is unfair to see players receiving inconsistent treatment – by uniting together through the coin strike, the hope is that players will be treated fairly and equally.
Why are people worried about spyware?
Some players within the community are concerned with the following part of Evony’s Terms of Service in relation to those that play on PC:
“WHEN RUNNING, THE GAMES MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER’S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAMES.”
From Evony’s perspective, they are looking at your computers RAM and CPU to monitor against the usage of software that would violate the previous Terms of Service points discussed. Some players see this as spying on their computer, and are afraid of the data being collected.
As someone who has thousands of hours playing competitive PC games, this form of monitoring is not abnormal. Lots of competitive shooter games require the installment of anti-cheat programs that monitor similar activities, with some even being more in-depth. Easy Anti-Cheat for example is available for Rust, Fortnite, and Apex Legends to name a few, collects information on your computer such as IP address, URLs of websites you have visited, and “may collect and analyze data about your computer and the software on your computer”. Overall, I am not opposed to Evony collecting this information on your PC, although I believe they should have been more transparent about the release of this and ensure users understand the data being collected (as how many of us read all of the terms of services, terms and conditions, and privacy policy every time we download a game?).
Players within the UK and EU should be able to see the data (and delete if wanted) Top Games has collected upon request under GDPR law if you are worried about the data being collected (although I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice).
Main accounts and resource trading
The demand about main accounts not receiving bans / warnings for resource trading is closely linked to alt accounts (and often bots as well), although not exclusively. Players have been receiving warnings / bans on their main accounts for plundering their alts (or purchasing resources from resource sellers), but there is also reports of players receiving warnings for using the “transport” feature in-game, that allows players to transport resources to alliance members. Furthermore, there is reports of players receiving warnings and bans for looting enemies in the game – both of these previous points are legitimate features of the game. Whilst it is hard to verify reports due to the nature of them and the little information Evony provides when warning / banning players, it does raise concerns for players.
Again I believe that Evony needs to increase the transparency in these situations. They recently started quoting the line of the terms of service you are accused of violating, which is a step in the right direction, although this could be further by including time stamps etc. One argument against this would be that this could then be maliciously used to ‘best’ the anti-cheat – other games do not have this level of transparency, although they often do not have players spending the level that some do in Evony.
Access to customer representative with decision making powers
Previously high-spending players and developers have held calls/meetings where a variety of game issues are discussed, although some players feel that often these meetings are with someone with little decision making power within Top Games Inc. A lot of players are often disappointed with the result of the call – although from what I have been told by players who have been on previous calls (as I myself have not been on one), some players often railroad the agenda with their own personal server issues.
One of the demands of the coin strike is for at least monthly discussions with a representative from Evony that has decision-making power. This would help the communication between Evony and its players, and also reduce the impact of players railroading calls with their personal agenda (as more frequent calls would mean more feedback). The hope to discuss with someone in a decision-making position is in hope that more of the players feedback and changes would be implemented. Whether this is true or not, is yet to be seen, but the general consensus is that the players feel this would improve the relationship between the community and Evony.
Improve lag during Chalons and All-Stars
Players for as long as Evony has been running has been complaining about the lag – particularly around battlefield competitions such as Chalons and All-Stars. The coin strike continues this complaint by including it in their demands. Players report they are often faced with “red wifi” – the nickname dubbed when a players screen is filled with a connection error image. This can be very frustrating when trying to launch attacks, or defend allies. It can be the difference between winning or losing matches – and when some players are spending tens / hundreds of thousands, they would hope this wouldn’t be the case. Strikes remain hopeful that Evony will improve the user experience, particularly during high-stakes competition.
Evony coin strike summarized
To summarize the situation, the coin strike will being on the 2nd of September 2024, and will last indefinitely. The demands of the strike are as follows:
- “1) Restore all banned family member and friend’s accounts.
- 2) No more malicious banning of accounts.
- 3) Walk back the last TOS. Nothing can give you rights to spy on my computer.
- 4) No more warning Main accounts for rss trading.
- 5) Give us a customer representative with decision making power who we can talk to and is responsive. Once a month call at least.
- 6) Fix lag in AS and Chalons.”
We would love to hear your thoughts on the coin strike – join the official Theria Discord: https://discord.gg/theriagames