hello everyone, i recognize some names, but most i do not. Some of you claiming to have been around since 2008, should be well aware of who i am. I won the first church world, w30, limited diplomacy, limited members, part time family in a world that lasted 4.5 years long.
4.5 years long. Everyone see that? I duked from day 1 to the Victory day. I have to tell you, winning an online game doesnt amount to much. The value i gained from that was the relationships i built and enjoyed and the people that i accomplished great things with. There is a level of commitment to a world that lasts that long, and i dont think we will see its like. I do recall when w30 ended, there were still some single digits and teens worlds left? I played on w6 for 2 years also....
Now, onto the point of this post. that background was there to enlighten those that dont know me yet. but anyways, in those days PP were used to streamline your account. I recall when w6 was still build village by village, no lists, no mass recruits, you had to handle every single village one by one by one. I think i had a couple hundred villages at the time, and it was a lot of work. So introducing pp to streamline didnt give you any real advantage, it was cheap and most people would borrow points from the well to do gamers. The real advantage was being smart enough to use the premium account and the few early scripts as efficiently as possible, and allow you the time to try to live your life around tw. Thats how we took advantage of fewer tribe members, but we also trained our guys in specific efficiencies and we spot checked accounts if we felt we needed too. I worked my ass off to make that world happen, and i spent a long time to succeed. I enjoyed the forums almost as much as i enjoyed taking your villages ingame. Proving people wrong two years after our forum arguments became the sole purpose of my continuing that world to the end. Needless to say, i look fondly on that time and remember the people i smited, the people i saved, and the tribes we ruined. THE HARD WAY.
I came back about 1.5 years ago, dabbled with some friends and made some new ones. I have always been employed, and i have never had an issue spending money on games that i enjoy. at first, i thought it was awesome i could buy resources and pay to finish buildings faster and etc etc etc. You are talking to a guy who basically played tribalwars in the stone age. These skills i had were no longer necessary, because i could purchase points and move my village along faster. This went along, as i outgrew most of my neighbors, but always seemed to be behind others... either way, being able to purchase all these events, resources, the market, etc etc etc.... people stopped playing the old way. Most villages i attacked, players never bothered to defend. When i finally got eviscerated by a well timed, organized and efficient tribe... there were no barbs to bounce my nukes off of. It became a huge hassle defending as a result. The pp finally caught up to me...
So lets look at the problems i encountered.
No barbs - direct result of everyone going crazy on events and purchasing the boosters and such to mint insanely fast. People had hundreds of nobles and not many targets their few nukes could break consistently enough, thus they nobled all the barbs.
player base - not many people stuck around. This has always been the case, incapable players being held up by the tribe until they cant be protected anymore, etc. However, the dropout rate was insane. I hardly got much of a fight before i got wiped out. I also noticed more tribes being cannibalized than i recall before. Few players would really out grow their tribe, betray their smaller tribe members, and then jump to the bigger tribe with a select few and then consume the players left behind. This occurs with great ferocity because there is such a disparity between those that spend a lot and those that dont.
another feature is that just about every world its the same people manipulating and positioning to win their worlds. Some of the dukes that were on that world were one trick ponies, but that was how things go now. It was all manipulation and very little actual fighting....
Events - i had sooo many boosters when i left. part of my skill set was from church worlds.. learning to manipulate the church targets, fake people out and then cap their church and murder their unreligious villages...... That was learned from scouting, planning, and basically knowing my enemies. Now, anything can happen with these boosters. Which, again, having boosters is like flags, and you earn them and they are a way of life and you should know to expect them. That is all fine and dandy, i have always succeeded by stretching to the limit the rule capabilities. My problem with the boosters was the frequency some people had them. Theres a player, cant recall his name... top player on a bunch of worlds. was in Burn on 104 for a few months to start before he selfishly did his move. that guy abused the hell out of pp and boosted so much, he had hundreds of villages while people were just nearing their first hundred.
im sure there were a few other issues i noticed, but that was over a year ago, and ive had to let go of my tw bug. But the moral of my story, and the conclusion of my gripe is that pay 2 win is real. Its ridiculous, and it has ruined the very game i gave up most of my real life to win.
I guess it comes down to w30 was one of my favorite things i ever did at any point in my life. We won so handily against such long odds, and i fought so many forum personalities over the years, it was actually worth something to rule the roost and outlast everyone. i admit, i was a little bit of an ass as i gloated, but come on. I EARNED IT. And now i feel like its not a valuable thing these days, winning one of these worlds. Its a joke. Winning now just means you had a good group who abused their pp.
whew! i felt strongly enough to post this wall of text.. another thing i was known for.
I miss tw and how it was, and im sorry it has become what it was. I was going to dabble this month while my business is closed, but i prefer to troll the forums and post walls of text instead.
ps. Someone posted some bullshit about 300k players existing on those older worlds.. lets be honest. there might hve been 25-50k players realistically. the rest of the numbers came from all the multi accounts people used to create for ha has. i myself had several until tw finally began cracking down around w30. So that can easily explain the huge numbers. but 25k players to start a world? wow. how full was w30??? 104 was only like 9 kds...
if you read it, thank you for your time. if you dont like, flame me for it. But its my opinion, and i have to say there is absolutely some fact behind it.
Pajuno
Iron chef of W30