Chow Time
Active Member
- Reaction score
- 264
For those of you who have been living under a rock, en125 is shaping up to be a whirlwind of drama, unrelenting suspense, and of course, disappointment for everyone involved! Like the hunger games, every 25 worlds Inno switches it up a notch to dazzle the fans and serve the people. Will there be more razzle dazzle this go around?
On en100, another premium-restricted world, Inno inadvertently let some players purchase and use war packs. Perhaps history will repeat itself!
Let's chow down.
The Double War Effort
Some argue it was a bug. Some argue it was intended behavior. It wasn't new, but nobody knew... except for one tribe.
- Early successful builds on no-haul worlds like 125 aim to optimize resource production to gain a resource advantage.
- By completing an early game quest, you could receive a silver war effort consumable item to increase your production by 30% for 48 hours.
- If you restarted while this advantage was active, the effect persisted with your new village.
- Restarting resets your quest log, which allows you to receive the same quest bonus again (effectively can be done one time).
Initial representation from Inno sided with those in favor of the strategy claiming that the mechanic was publicly available for all to use, that it had been an established strategy in previous servers, and that the strategy was not as impactful as it was being presented. It was also implied that items purchased were difficult to distinguish from identical items which were rewarded from quests.
As of now:
- Following a forum proposal, it was determined that item effects would not persist in future worlds after a restart.
- XL now sits at rank 5, being the number one tribe in K55 with ten players in the top 100, but only one in the top 10.
While the strategy failed to define itself as an instant-victory, it is possible that other tactics have just been overshadowing it this whole time...
The 40 Day Rule
In addition to establishing en125 as a premium-restricted world, an additional rule was enacted directed towards "push tribes" with an objective of addressing unfair play for groups using multiple accounts to get ahead. As written, any merging of accounts before 40 days would result in disciplinary action at the discretion of the moderating staff. Dialogue ensued over the vague definition of what qualifies as a "push account" as well as how the rule would be enforced. Inno staff commented on this vagueness with claims that rules are best defined in a vague manner, as this allows moderators to take action in scenarios where players may try to skate around what is officially allowed.
All of this begs the question, have any tribes successfully skated around this rule currently? If so, will they be punished retroactively for conspiring to merge accounts but not following through until after the 40 day limit? Has this rule improved the game, or even changed it (for better or for worse)? Have any players suffered from the vague definition of this rule by facing punishment undeservingly? Have any tribes been slapped with the ban hammer for getting greedy and attempting to merge accounts days ahead of the restriction?
The questions run deep on this rule. "Pushing" has historically been a leading strategy for premade tribes. There is really just no plausible method to detect 100% of all cases. Removing premades on some worlds was suggested. The line is extremely thin in early game scenarios where one player may just give up and gift their village to a completely random, unrelated player. If their communication happened outside of game mail, then this sort of behavior initially presents itself as skating around the rules.
If a player agrees to become your basher after the world starts and then proceeds to join your account as a coplayer within 40 days, does that qualify as merging accounts in the same way as something premeditated? Inno seems to lean towards "yes", and I'm inclined to agree. That being said, recent developments suggest that even traditional co-playing may be under fire...
TW Steam Client Stock Projections
Negatively perceived board initiatives have plunged public confidence in Tribalwars Steam Client equities causing mass exodus and retail investor sell off of the platform. Major investors who rode the wave of previously consistent logins per share now forecast negative returns on investment, which has led to a rise in long-term short positions on the steam client. Public outcry and backlash over this news dominated prominent media coverage and triggered this official statement by executive leadership .
Bullish Sentiment:
- May eventually revert this change.
- Shutting off double connections between desktop and Steam may be a temporary band-aid while a direct solution towards bots is being worked on.
Bearish Sentiment:
- Pretty unlikely that they will reverse this change, definitely not in the near-term.
- Inno sentiment leans towards losing desktop players on Steam if it means combatting bots.
- The primary usage of desktop players on Steam was for co-playing, which is still not technically supported outside of forum threads.
With leadership doubling down on the company's direction, there may be additional downstream affects on all Tribalwars market verticals. For the above reasons, the Tribalwars Steam Client has officially been downgraded from a CHOW rating of 4: Moderate Buy to a rating of 2: Moderate Sell.
- In January, before the world started, Clowns/Drowns dominated conversation in the forums, with their supporters embodying the "Red Dress Fangirl Katniss" above.
- In February, for plunging icicles into the hearts of scripters who spent weeks simulating excel spreadsheets to find optimal construction orders only to get stonewalled by a tribe whose primary strategy was restarting their villages, XL is represented by "Stone Cold Killer Katniss".
- In March, for allegedly decimating a strategically significant neutral tribe between the top two current world powers, the Inno Mods can be seen as the "Renegade Sniper Katniss".
Last edited:
