Line #52 VideoGame/Evony


1	'''Readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' It has been accused of being a spyware program in disguise.'''
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5	%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1623153714081831600
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8	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1rsz_evonylogo_large_1.png]]
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10	->''"Play now, my lord!"''
11	-->-- '''The ads for the game'''
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13	''Evony'' is a BrowserGame {{MMORPG}} where you start off in charge of a tiny village and build it up into a mighty kingdom.
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15	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.
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17	The game is infamous for its banner ads featuring scantily-clad women that were common on websites like Website/LiveJournal, Website/FanFictionDotNet and even [[Website/TVTropes this very wiki]].
18	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.
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20	The ''Evony'' developers launched two sequels: ''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]].
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22	While the spyware accusations have not been outright confirmed, '''we would still recommend readers avoid this game just to be safe.'''
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24	!!''Evony'' provides examples of:
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26	%%* AllegedlyFreeGame: Like most games of its type, but taken up to eleven.
27	* AncientGrome: The Europe culture combines Classical and High Medieval aesthetics for buildings and fighters.
28	* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Some of the units are labelled this way. The "arquebusiers" and "Musketeers" are both armed with a bow and crossbow, respectively, instead of gunpowder weapons, the "Trebuchet" is just a catapult with extra spikes on it, and the "Imperial Lancers" are armed with swords, not lances.
29	%%* BlindIdiotTranslation: At first, anyway, although as translation errors are reported by the playerbase, it's been getting steadily better and better.
30	* BribingYourWayToVictory: You can buy in-game coins with real money, which allow you to purchase resources and helpful items.
31	* TheCavalry: You will be very glad of your allies when they come to bail you out. Build relief stations to make the most of this, especially if you're a long way away from your allies.
32	* EasyCommunication: Mail can reach other players very quickly considering that you're role-playing lords in a medieval setting. Averted in how long armies take to reach distant destinations.
33	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The generals in the game are based off historical figures, making it possible to have a roster of generals from across eras and cultures.
34	* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: ''Evony''[='s=] advertisements frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game. Ex-TropeNamer.
35	* NeverTrustATrailer: {{Exaggerated}}. ''Evony''[='s=] marketing campaign is notorious for the amount of misleading and false advertisement utilized.
36	** Usually, the ads will make it 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.
37	** One ad '''did''' show a ''Civilization''-like game. Granted, like nearly all of ''Evony''[='s=] ads, this one also had a woman in the foreground.
38	** Not quite a lie, but none too credible at all: one ''Evony'' ad boasts that someone (ostensibly, at first, a critic) claimed that ''Evony'' is the greatest [=MMORPG=] he'd ever played. The quote is attributed to, in much smaller font, an ''Evony'' player. His username was given, but no real name or credentials apart from "''Evony'' player".
39	** Some ads for the game have used material from other games and media, likely without permission from the copyright owners:
40	*** One ad on Facebook showed a screenshot from ''[[VideoGame/CounterStrike Counter Strike: Source]]'' accompanied with the caption "Level 2 is impossible!"
41	*** Another Facebook ad showed [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Gengar]] saying "Can you beat level 3?"
42	*** Yet another ad directly stole a pinup picture of a 3D model of a woman from Website/DeviantArt user rrward. Said user would eventually discover this and make [[https://www.deviantart.com/rrward/art/Don-t-steal-my-stuff-Part-2-392825899 a post calling out the theft]].
43	*** Still another used a Crane courtier from ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings''.
44	** ''The King's Return'' instead opts for the standard misleading adverts that most mobile games utilize, featuring puzzles that stop showing up past the start of the game. Some [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPAIq6ROh4 YouTube ads]] have also derided other mobile games that falsely advertise gameplay, with these particular ads being considered hypocritical by audiences due to the game's other advertisements also falsely advertising gameplay.
45	* OneWordTitle
46	* SexSells: The game's ad campaign is infamous for showing increasingly unclothed pictures of women [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame who don't appear in the game]]. ''Evony'' would become so infamous for using softcore porn as ads that they would leave the name of the game out on some ads, yet viewers could still recognize them as ''Evony'' ads. 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.
47	%%* SlaveCollar: For alliances. Shown above.
48	* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Though it's a bit more complicated than just matching up units, other units support each other in odd ways due to the range stat.
49	* TamerAndChaster: The still-misleading ads for ''The King's Return'' largely forgo the scantily clad women in favor of endorsements from A-list celebrities and puzzles.
50	%%* VeryFalseAdvertising: See LadyNotAppearingInThisGame above.
51	%%* 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.
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Context VideoGame / Evony