Internet Lockpick

I'm sure a lot of our readers have heard about the game Evony. Yes, the game that displays girls in their ads, without saying there is no romance whatsoever in Evony.

Well, it seems the game isn't as clear as it seems. But first off, let me show you some of their ads:

... In any case, I'm sure you all saw them at some point.

These are real ads, shown through the whole Internet. A while ago, they were almost the only ads one could see.

Now, look at the differences between the first and the third ad. First, the name changed from Civony to Evony, also, the "model" is now drawn, not blatantly taken from a lingerie magazine (I found a link to the said magazine, showing the first model, but lost the link).

Also, it has been critized for launching a spam-based advertising campaign, as if boobs weren't enough to disgust people.

Here is a message from the adSense community: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense/thread?tid=7c9ef267b8b3c01f&hl=en

But that isn't all! After doing some research on blogs, it appears that the company that made Evony is also the one that holds WoWMine - a chinese gold farming service for the game World of Warcraft, which I found out is one of the worst in its domain according to frequent buyers (again, I couldn't find the source - feel free to point it out).

This link: http://www.wowgoldfacts.com/2009/07/26/evony-and-ivory-nuthin-black-and-white-here/ explains a little more.

Next, let's talk about the game itself. In its way, it's not that bad. First off, there are three views in the game.

The first one: (inside your city/village)

The second view: (outside your city, the "outskirts")

And the third view: (the world map)

An overview of the game can be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evony

Let's move on to something that Wikipedia doesn't cover enough: paying options.

There are items that can be used for different and vast things. Such as, to speak in the world channel. Yes, it costs ten cents to speak one sentence in the world channel. Then again, there are also items which are used to make your buildings being built faster. In Evony, each building takes some time to be built and you cannot queue them. There is an item that costs around a dollar, if I recall, that removes fifteen minutes of building time. That's an awful lot of money.

However, those items can also be won by completing quests, or by playing the roulette (once per day). Still, after some levels, buildings take one hour to be constructed and the item that removes an hour of building time is pretty hard to catch.

So apparently, they want more money. Just imagine that you're possibly ten or eleven, and you got a hold of your parent's credit card. A little moment of blindness, and that's it - you spent more than a hundred dollars (which is easily done) for this game.

Lastly, the quotes are almost all taken from Civilization IV, such as this screen shot shows:(found on this article about Evony: http://www.arksark.org/blog/2009/07/05/evony-a-patchwork-of-stolen-parts/)

... But that is not all! I found out more, from this article. According to this blog, the FAQ of Evony say:

"How do I get my queen?"

There is no queen in this game, the ad you saw is for marketing purposes and seems to be highly effective by the number oftimes this question has come up." As well, the website to which the blog belongs to is the lingerie magazine, and if you read the article, you'll see they indeed stole the model picture.

I also want to apology if Evony ads appear on Internet Lockpick. Unfortunately, I have no control over the ads that appear here.

As always, feel free to comment!

Edit: Bruce, from bruceongames.com, whose articles on Evony were partly taken to make this one (only the facts - no copyright infringement) was threatened by an Australian attorney because he... said the truth.

Here is the first link, which shows the so-called libel sentences: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/08/25/evony-want-to-sue-me-for-telling-the-truth/

And here is the second part: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/08/26/why-use-warren-mckeon-dickson-to-threaten-me

Let's wish him good luck!