On August 23rd, 2009:

“Evony Community,

Today we experienced a critical downtime of over 3.5 hours with all servers and the main website being unavailable and then some issues with the forums. We understand that this has made many of our great players frustrated and disappointed. We’re disappointed too.

Evony is a small independent online game developer and publisher, a small business which has grown exponentially due to the great community of players we have. Today’s downtime was caused by an error from our hosting partner, The Planet. This has placed us in a very difficult situation in trying to address and fix the errors; however within a few hours we were able to get all servers back online.

As we’re a small company, when problems like this arise, it affects us very deeply. We’d like to take this opportunity though to try and make something good out of it by offering a token of goodwill to all players. We are releasing to all players a Compensation Pack consisting of 10 Amulets and 100 cents, FREE. While we cannot make up for the issue that The Planet has caused, we do hope you accept our apologies and gift and still continue enjoying the game.

Please allow us 3 business days to send out this pack to all accounts. Accounts must have been created before today in order to obtain the pack. You will be able to claim the Compensation Pack in the left hand corner in the game.

Best Regards,

Evony Team”

Thanks Evony, it’s really appreciated!

Spanish Thread
French Thread

Evony is now more intent on the Scout Changes, and look to implement it a little later on:

“To help balance the upcoming change that will make it more difficult for players to gain information on other player’s cities, we are planning to make a change to scouting that will reduce one of the random elements that can hurt scout chances.

Currently, there is a small chance that scouts will fight all of the cities defenders on scouting missions, instead of just their scouts. We plan to change this, so that scouts will only fight other scouts on these missions. This will make scouting missions more likely to succeed and reduce what has been a source of frustration for some players.

We want scouts to be useful tools for gathering information and preventing other players from gathering information. We think this change is right in line with this philosophy.”

“In response to feedback from our players, we have changed some of the rules for the Queen of Evony voting to make the election more fair and free from bias. We are changing the following rules:

* Everyone who votes receives an award. No special reward will be given for people who voted for the winning candidate. We are doing this to avoid the “bandwagon” effect. We want players feel free to choose the candidate they like the best, not the candidate they think is most likely to win.

* Votes are no longer visible while the election is in progress. We will keep a tally but it will be hidden until voting is complete. Once again, this is to avoid the band wagoning.

* Because we believe the original election was unfair (due to the above reasons), we are going to reset the vote count. Everyone who voted previously may vote again in this fresh poll.

We believe these changes will lead to a more fair election in which all the candidates have an equal chance. Thank you for your feedback and we appreciate your patronage. We are all very excited about electing a queen and we hope you are too, so get out there and start voting, and may the best Queen win”

“Evony is announcing that iEvony, a very exciting application where you are able to obtain cents for free as well as credits which can be turned in for amazing in-game rewards which otherwise are unable to purchase, is being released as Open Beta.

However this Open Beta is on an invite only. Are you wanting to be one of the few who gain a special invitation code? Here are a few ways:

1. Start asking your alliance. Most likely someone there has obtained the special invitation code and software, which they can then invite you in on the Open Beta program.

2. Start asking your friends!

3. Ask on the world chat channel! Someone may invite!

4. Go to the Evony Forums, General Discussion, at the iEvony: Open Beta – Requesting Invitation Code thread. You may get selected!

I will be deleting any off-topic items here or comments. Multiple requests from a user will be met with a short vacation for that user. Your post may be deleted if you’ve been given a unique iEvony code.

Note: iEvony has nothing to do with the iPhone so please stop posting about needing one. iEvony is a client.”

I apologize for the gap between this and the last article. Unfortunately, we had a short vacation. All will be back to normal.

Now on to the good stuff! There are so many new features and updates that I don’t know where to start.

- Due to several new additions to Hods.com, the “Hods Fan Site” has ceased to exist. From now on, we shall be known as “Hods Realm of Evony”.

- The new additions to Hods.com are: a fully customized Evony Wiki, a useful Evony Top Site, and a re-formatted community forums. Please read the information at the top of the page about the Hods Realms.

* All contributions and help towards the new Evony Wiki are greatly appreciated.

- All news, updates, changes, announcements, or otherwise broadcasts, are now posted in the Hods section here on this blog. They are no longer posted on the forum.

- A Questions & Answers section has been added on the community forums. Hods will personally answer each and every one of your questions. Our answers will always be in-depth so as to help you fully understand.

- Hods.com/evony has a new banner up top. The image can be easily clicked if you wish to return to the main page.

- Hods.com has joined the Evony TopSite. Please vote for us by clicking on the top list button.

Hopefully nothing was missed,

Stay tuned,

Hods

- Over the course of 5 days, Evony released 5 new servers. For more information on this, click HERE.

- Evony then proceeded to releasing Server 15, Server 16, Server 17, World 1, World 2, and World 3. So what exactly is a World? Is it a special server that Evony has opened? In terms of the game and game-play, Worlds are no different. The servers and Worlds are exactly the same to play. The only difference is that Worlds are directed towards non-English speaking players. They’ve opened 17 English servers, so it’s only natural that they release some other language servers. I cannot say how many Worlds we can expect to see.

- Evony has changed the Walls defense so that if somebody has level 7 walls and has Rockfall, an attackers Ballista can be damaged. This makes it extremely difficult for people to farm NPCs over the level of 5, and makes players defense that much more important. To make this more realistic, Evony will re-name Rockfall to Defensive Trebuchet on June 10^th.

- The Evony forum has some new moderators. It’s great to see Zim, Alusair, Thor, and Kittiana out there to help the moderating team manage the boards.

That’s all for now, folks. Be sure to keep your eyes open for the next addition!

- Lots of new basic guides and information has been posted on the homepage. To view them, go to http://hods.com/evony.

- The Hods Freebies are nearing a soon release, so stay tuned! Make sure you’re here to get free honor, resources, valleys, and cities.

- We are now the official RSS Feed on the evonyfreeforever toolbar.

- Evony has opened several new servers for old and new players to play on. Since my last development post, Evony has released Server 6, Server 7, Server 8, and Server 9.

- Evony has selected two new forum moderators to help manage the forum boards: Cyhort & Kitiara.

- Evony has officially announced that they will be “pruning” inactive players on all the servers.

• Accounts with less than 100 prestige will be flagged inactive after 3 days with no login.
• Accounts with between 100 and 1000 prestige will be flagged inactive after 7 days with no login.
• Accounts with more than 1000 prestige are subject to being flagged inactive after 60 days with no login. We are not currently marking these accounts inactive, but we may do so in the future without further notice.
• In addition, accounts which have only one city, and that city has high grievance with 0 loyalty will be flagged as inactive after 5 days with no login.
• The only exceptions are accounts which have purchased Evony Cents. These accounts will never be flagged as inactive.
• All accounts which are flagged as inactive will be deleted during the daily maintenance period. If you do not want your account to be deleted, log in once in awhile!

- Evony has made some patches to improve your game-play:

• When a beacon tower detects enemy troops marching to one of your cities, the Reports icon will flash in red.
• When there are finished quests, the Quest icon will flash in green.
• Coordinates can now be removed from Coordinate List.
• Mail and Reports systems have been optimized.
• On the payment screen, your account email address is automatically filled in for new users, to help prevent errors processing.

- Evony made a contest called “Queen of Evony”. The goal of the contest is to give the community some fun and to reward women who are dedicated to Evony. The winner and the winner’s alliance will receive in-game rewards.

- With the release of the “Queen of Evony”, many men have been hopeful about a “King of Evony” contest. Will there be a contest for who is the greatest King? Who knows *wink*…..

That’s all for now people. Be sure to check back everyday for new guides and news!

Most importantly, the beta-game Civony changed its name to Evony, thus moving out of beta-mode. More information on this can be found HERE.

At the end of April and the beginning of May, what used to be Civony opened two new servers: Server 4 and Server 5.

In addition, they appointed more moderators to help manage the boards and community. These moderators include: AbstractAngel, terryrayc, Hods, f0zzy, Heraclius, John, Gazza, and Shinigami.

Just yesterday, on May 7^th, two more moderators were added: Lord Drasyr and logrus.

The Evony administrators announced that they were looking for specialists to help with the community and game. This is exactly what they are looking for:

“Evony needs qualified individuals for several teams of specialists to help improve both the game and customer service. Our goal for Evony is to continually improve the player’s experience in and out of game and emerge as a leader in the genre. Communication is handled primarily via Skype and email.

Interested parties should be:

• Discreet -You will be working with confidential material and will need to sign a NDA.
• Highly professional.
• Knowledgeable in their field. Skills in multiple fields are a bonus.
• Enthusiastic about Evony!

Benefits:

• Specialists will receive competitive compensation, according to their skill set, at an hourly pay rate.
• Specialists will also receive in-game credit for their work.

Specialists Needed:

Game Design Specialist

Graphics Designer -3D and UI.

We want to continue to improve Evony’s graphics and user interface. We need specialists with skills in one or more of the following: 3D architecture, short movies/animations and Flash-based user interface design.

Game Music and Sound
We will be adding music and sound effects to Evony and need specialists with experience creating music and sound.

Game Design, Planning and Rules

We are adding a great deal of new content into Evony ?Age Two, including thousands of famous historical figures and cities, equipment systems and PvP and PvE battleground instance systems. We need developers and planners to create avatars, provide historical information and expertise, as well as background data to keep the game both accurate and immersive.

Game Economists and Data Analysts

A properly balanced and tuned economy and data system is of key importance to the long-term success of the game. Professionals with experience in this field would help adjust finances and other data to promote a robust economy and game structure.

Web Design

We need an accomplished web designer with knowledge of Javascript, Flash and CSS to improve and maintain the official website. Experience with Google Website Optimizer is a plus.

Promotion Team

Web Ad Design

We want to draw more users to Evony with ads. We need excellent ads to generate more impressions and higher CTRs and conversion rates. Candidates should be experienced, creative and enthusiastic.

Advertising Networks

We want to advertise through as many channels as possible, including rich media advertising networks. We are looking for people with connections to such networks to get our ads as much visibility as possible.

Player Promotion

We would like to not only promote Evony ourselves through advertisements, but find creative ways of encouraging our players to promote it as well, to their friends. We are looking for a qualified candidate with a solid understanding of both the game and internet social networking to generate and manage player promotion programs.

Technical Team

Email Architecture

We presently send users a welcome email and password recovery feature via email, but we would like to expand this by giving users the option of receiving emails for certain in-game events such as being attacked. We also need to correct problems in the current system which prevent some users from receiving email. A specialist in this field should have ideas and solutions for these types of issues.

Payment Processing

We want to expand payment options to include receiving payments through mobile SMS, phone billing, credit cards and other methods to meet customer demand, and we need a specialist with experience in this field.

IDC and CDN Experts

We are continuing to add new servers and upgrade bandwidth to improve the player’s experience and need experts in the field to recommend and coordinate these centers and networks.

Community Team

Community Liaison

We need customer-oriented individuals with strong communication skills to act as representatives to the Evony community. With strong community bases in the US, Europe and Australia, we would like community managers to represent our interests in each of these areas. We presently need liaisons for Europe and Australia.
Duties include: interacting with the community on behalf the developers, carrying concerns from the community to developers and helping to address player questions and concerns.

Forum Moderator

We need customer-oriented individuals with strong communication skills to moderate the community forums. Moderators should be conscientious and professional with an understanding of game forums. A mod’s job is to steer discussion away from harmful/destructive topics while fostering useful, helpful and informative topics.

In-game Moderator

We need customer-oriented individuals with good attention to detail to foster a healthy and productive in-game environment. Specialists would moderate in-game chat as necessary, as well as generate plans and methods to best encourage a positive environment for Evony players.

Wiki & Answers Administrator

We need to an expert to set up and administer a Wiki/Answers system. The goal of this individual would be to encourage its use and make it as helpful as possible to users.

English-Language Specialists

We need individuals with very strong English language skills and an in-depth understanding of the game to help correct language flaws and increase the usefulness of tooltips and language within the game and website. Candidates should exhibit strong written communication skills and a careful eye for detail.

Customer Service Supervisor

We need an experienced, professional, customer-oriented individual with strong communication skills to oversee and assist the customer service team, ensure quality customer service and address customer service issues as they arise.”