History VideoGame / Evony

*** Another Facebook ad [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Gengar]] saying "Can you beat level 3?"

->''Play now, my lord!''

* VeryFalseAdvertising: See LadyNotAppearingInThisGame above.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: ''Evony''[='s=] advertisements frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game. Ex TropeNamer.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: ''Evony''[='s=]s advertisements frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game. Ex TropeNamer.

The game has a strong social element. You are advised to join an Alliance, who can support you in war, can't attack you, and can communicate with you via chat. Alliances are composed of the Host, who is formally in charge of the alliance and has the power to dissolve it if necessary; the Vice Host, who is second in command and has the power to boot members; the Presbyters, who function as diplomats and can form alliances with other alliances; Officers, who serve as recruitment for the alliance and have only powers of recruitment; and finally Members, who have no special powers. As for those mostly-naked women, [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame they won't be appearing]].

The ''Evony'' developers launched two sequel: ''Tynon'', which uses the same advertising strategy as ''Evony'', and ''Evony: The King's Return'', which forgoes sex appeal in its advertisements in favor of advertising it as a "pull the pin" puzzle game, though these puzzles are only present for the first few levels, and thus [[LoopholeAbuse don't technically count as false advertising]].

* NeverTrustATrailer: {{Exaggerated}}. ''Evony''[='s=] marketing campaign is notorious for the amount of misleading and false advertisement present.
** Usually, the ads will make the look like a pornographic game, though in actuality it's a clone of another Chinese browser game named ''Kingory'', which in turn is a clone of ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' where you build and fight ancient cities. The ads for the game actually did showcase things that were actually in the game in some way, such as standard pictures of armored warriors, but would later begin showing ads featuring a woman with a sword pointing into her cleavage with the caption "Save your queen!" The rest is history.

** Another one on Facebook shows a screenshot from ''[[VideoGame/CounterStrike Counter Strike: Source]]'', and has the title "Level 2 is impossible!"
*** There's another on Facebook with [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Gengar]] saying "Can you beat level 3?"
*** And another with art stolen directly from a Website/DeviantArt user. [[https://www.deviantart.com/rrward/art/Don-t-steal-my-stuff-Part-2-392825899 Busted]].
*** Still another used a (surprisingly tame) Crane courtier from ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' without authorization.
** Thankfully, later ads return toward [[http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d148/mr3urious/evony.jpg a more traditional route.]]
** ...and then for ''The King's Return'', it went with the standard misleading adverts that most mobile games utilize, featuring puzzles that don't even show up past the start of the game. This even includes some hypocritical [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPAIq6ROh4 YouTube ads]] commenting on "games that look all interesting in the ads!"

* TamerAndChaster: The still-misleading ads for ''The King's Return'' feature little to no scantily clad women and more endorsements from A-list celebrities, and puzzles. Even then, the puzzles, which the ads claims are the main feature of the title, barely appear in the game.
* ZergRush: Due to unbalanced countering and bad AI, this is the preferred method. But never with cavalry, unless that's '''all''' you're sending — they're the dumbest cavalry ever coded and will set off every single trap in their way. The typical zerg rush with cavs entails sending a legion of footmen with some ballista backup, going to sleep, waking up, then firing off hundreds of thousands of horses.

''Evony'' is a BrowserGame {{MMORPG}} where you start off in charge of a tiny village and presumably build it up into a mighty kingdom. It's best known as the source of those annoying banner ads with the random, mostly-naked women that you see on Website/LiveJournal and Website/FanFictionDotNet (and, for that matter, Website/TVTropes).

The ''Evony'' developers have now launched a sequel, named ''Tynon''. It uses the same advertising strategy. It's safe to assume it's also rife with spyware. ''Evony: The King's Return'' does not use sex in its advertisements, instead advertising it as a "pull the pin" puzzle game, but the puzzles are only present for the first few levels, and thus [[LoopholeAbuse doesn't technically count as false advertising]].

The game is also controversial for having been accused of being disguised spyware by some, including [[https://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/16/is-evony-malware/ a blogger]] who would later be sent a cease and desist order by Evony LLC, though this was dropped soon after. While the spyware accusations have not been outright confirmed, '''we would still recommend readers avoid this game just to be safe.'''

* BlindIdiotTranslation: At first, anyway, although as translation errors are reported by the playerbase it's been getting steadily better and better.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: You can buy in-game coins with real money, which allow you to purchase resources and helpful items. Can be a real GameBreaker if you're willing to pay enough, but it's not cheap. Sadly for the human race, enough people are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars to make the game pretty much pointless if you don't spend money yourself.

* {{Hypocrite}}: A few ads on [=YouTube=] call out games that employ NeverTrustATrailer. Evony runs on NeverTrustATrailer.
* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: Evony game advertisments frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game. Ex TropeNamer.
* NeverTrustATrailer: {{Exaggerated}}. ''Evony''[='s=] '''entire''' marketing campaign is false advertising.
** One ad '''did''' show a ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}''-like game. Granted, like nearly all of ''Evony''[='s=] ads, this one also had a woman in the foreground.
** Another ad has the slogan advertising for ''Evony II'': "No more bullies! No need to farm! Free Forever!" Really? So what about ''Evony I''?

** ...and then for ''The King's Return'', it went with the standard misleading adverts that most mobile games utilise, featuring puzzles that don't even show up past the start of the game. This even includes some hypocritical [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPAIq6ROh4 YouTube ads]] commenting on "games that look all interesting in the ads!"

* SexSells: The game's (in)famous ad campaign showing increasingly unclothed pictures of women [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame who don't appear in the game]]. Usually these ads will try as hard as they possibly can to make it look like a pornographic game. It's actually a clone of Chinese browser game ''Kingory'', a ''Civilization'' ripoff where you build and fight ancient cities. These ads progressed from being standard pictures of armored warriors and the like (you know, things the game actually contains), then showed a woman with a sword pointing into her cleavage with the caption "Save your queen!". After that it just got worse and worse. it got to the point that they didn't even bother putting the name of the game on some ads; ''Evony'' had become so infamous for using softcore porn as ads, they could afford to assume that people who see these ads would know it was an ad for ''Evony''. The same notoriety has led to a lot of parodies (web-based card game ''VideoGame/{{Alteil}}'' had "She is actually in our game, m'lord!", for example) from similar games and webcomics. And when your ads look like [[http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2009/07/504x_evony-ad-6-thumb.jpg this]] ({{NSFW}}), when your actual game is a ''Civilization'' clone, there's something wrong.

The game is also controversial for having been accused of being disguised spyware by some, including [[https://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/16/is-evony-malware/ a blogger]] who would later be sent a cease and desist order by Evony LLC, though this was dropped soon after. While the spyware accusations have not been outright confirmed, ''we would still recommend readers avoid this game just to be safe.''

'''Readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' It is a spyware program in disguise.'''

-->-- '''The ads for the game, showing barely-clothed women who don't even appear in the game'''

'''Again, readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' It is a spyware program in disguise.'''

!!This game, which should be avoided entirely as it is a spyware program in disguise, provides examples of:

* BigBrotherIsWatching: A game design student reverse engineered ''Evony''[='s=] client, and discovered not only is it very poorly made, but ''it harvests massive amounts of data'', including such things as your browser history, which websites you visit while the game is open, and what applications you run.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: At first, anyway, although as translation errors are reported by the playerbase it's been getting steadily better and better. It was still clearly written by someone for whom English is a twentieth language, though.

* EasyCommunication: A particularly blatant example with how fast mail can reach other players. Consider that you're role-playing lords in a medieval setting. Averted, in how long armies take to reach distant destinations.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The generals in the game are based off historical figures. As a result, it's possible to have a roster of generals from across eras and cultures.

'''Once more, in case you missed it, readers are encouraged to avoid this game '''''entirely.''''' [[RunningGag It is a spyware program in disguise.]]'''

** ...and then it shifted back into full bullshit mode in ''King's Return'', featuring puzzles that don't even show up past the start of the game. Including some slightly hypocritical [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPAIq6ROh4 YouTube ads]] commenting on "games that look all interesting in the ads!"

* TamerAndChaster: The still-misleading ads for ''The King's Return'' features little to no scantily clad women and more endorsements from A-list celebrities, and puzzles. They still managed to fuck up the advertising though, as the puzzles barely appear in the game.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: Evony game advertisments frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game.