Month: November 2011

Why choose to play Ymir and no other game ?

Ymir, as a day by day online strategy game, can be compared to existing games such as Stronghold Kingdoms, Travian, Ikariam or Ogame. What makes this game different and worth the try instead of playing one of those games already finished and famous ?

 

• Advanced graphisms
  Ymir is one of the only games of this gender -not to say the only one – to have real graphisms at the level of a traditional game. For exemple, Travian hasn’t changed a bit in years, and why would they, considering the money they make ? They didn’t even take the time to do specific civ buildings : Romans and Goths are all using the “celtic” asterix-like buildings, when we’re talking of 10 small png drawings that would require 2 days of work to do… And if you claim “but it’s browser games!” then what about Stronghold Kingdom, a standalone game that is just re using the graphics of their first game (2001! ) placed on terrains made of static images…  Lets face it, those games produce so much money right now that they have no reason to make them better, and they’re just lazy to change anything. Ymir is a full-screen standalone game with completely animated units and graphisms, music and sounds, where you can explore a full planet with randomly generated unique regions composed of rivers, coasts, mountains, hills, tropical forests and more.

 

• Advanced management
  Ymir is a complex civilization simulation game ( imagine, the Civilization games online ) crossed with Anno, Age of Empires or Pharaoh.. In this game, you have more to do that just cumulating production buildings with levels. You will handle your civilization from beginnings of neolithic, managing its politics, stability, economy and military. You’ll be able to procedurally evolve it, choosing your architectural style, discovering new technologies. You have a Civilization like strategy world map and also a local region view where you can build like in a classical building constructor game the city of your dreams.  Battles won’t be just boards with numeric results, but actual real time battles taking really place in your cities, where you’ll be able to view and control your armies. No game allows this, and moreover no game has a fully online real-time world.  Most of the time, you can’t even visit other player’s villages, wich by the way happen to be just “points” on a map instead of an actual land surface. Here, all the world map is online and viewable, and every region is unique, offering different oportunities and ressources.

 

• No pay to win
  Most of those games sell cheats to their players, allowing them to gain an arbitrary advantage over players who don’t pay : additionnal ressources, military advantages… It’s as if you would pay for the “lumberjack” cheatcode in Age of Empires 2… Players don’t pay an actual REAL service requiring a work, but they pay a virtual ressource, a change in a txt file on a server. There will be no such thing in Ymir, ever. However, there might be micropayments, but only of real services (meaning you pay for a job done), and never for something that consists in giving an advantage to the player over the non paying ones.

 

• Hope for players not joining a server at it’s beginning.
  A major issue in those games is that player evolution is too proportionnal to time spent in the game. Players who don’t join the server at it’s beginning often have no hope to catch up the ones who started at the first day… It’s considered as egality : a player who’s been in the game for weeks would find it unfair to see a newcomer achieve in no time what he took days to get, or to lose everything to a player considered ” weaker “. In Ymir, game balance allows ingalities and give more freedom to players, meaning players will have more opportunities and more ways to evolve faster… or slower. Your sucess will depend more on how you play ( especially in diplomacy ) than for how long you’ve been playing. Moreover, newcomers in aged servers will spawn on colonies created by players, and so will inherit some population of an existing civilization, starting with technologies and achievements of the motherland instead of starting from scracth. It will be like joining a Parish of Stronghold Kingdoms, unless the capital will be an actual player’s city… Having a ‘mentor’ player will also help newcomers to evolve, in exchange for taxes payed by the colony.

 

• More freedom and tools available for players
  All those games are highly concerned about egality in their games ( except when it’s about selling cheats for money ). Result is of many limitations and very basic management options… Producing ressources, buildings increase it, and the more you have the more troops you make, players can do “guilds’ and end of story. In Ymir, you have complete freedom to act as you want, and you are given the tools to create what you want. Ymir will have a real management aspect, with your civlization’s stability, economy and politics. You will be able to unite with players within hierarchic empires, rising taxes on other player’s cities , creating empire capitals, having trade and passage agreements, demanding tributes and making your ennemies your vassals when they capitulate under your threats. You have a real complete planet where you can build anything the way you want, and attack and conquer anyone you want… Or at least try. Cause keep in mind the more power you can get on others, the more power they can have on you, isn’t it the fun of those games ?

 

• Solving gamedesign issues at their source instead of using arbitrary interdictions.
  Facing gamedesign problems, they try to solve them by creating arbitrary game rules  instead of changing game balance within the game universe to solve the problem at its source :  Its too hard for late players joining a server to start cause they get attacked and destroyed without any possibilities to resist ? Lets give them an arbitrary invincibility time of 48 hours… Instead of finding the causes of it and changing it. In Ymir players are never ‘forbidden’ to do anything. The game design will just make it so players don’t have any interest in doing it, still they will have the choice to if they really want it, paying the cost of their choice. Exemple ? Newcomers will start stronger , beeing colonies of existing ones who will also assure their protections. Also, why pillage continuously a weak player when you can just make him capitulate and demand an automatic daily tribute to be paid ? That way he can still play and develop, and you don’t need to use troops everyday…

 

• Easy to play with your friends.
  In most of those games, the spawning options are really basic, and makes it hard to spawn near your friends, while most of the people come to play in such game to share an experience with friends. Often all you can do is select a vague spawning area and try many times to randomly appear near a friend. In Ymir, you will be able to state a precise player account and spawn near it. It’s even more important as distance is very determinant in this game. Also, you players will be able to create colonies for new incoming players, so your friend will have the possibility to actually choose the region where you will spawn.