Quitting Evony
After what must be a year of playing this game I’ve finally managed quit Evony. I was going to write a whole post about the game itself and how helps you to look at life but maybe another time. This post is more about the negative side of the game and its addictive nature. How I got dragged in and spat out the other side.
I suppose I started playing Evony in April or May 2009. I’m not exactly sure of the start date. Their advertisements are everywhere and as I had never played one of these online multiplayer games before I found the whole concept intriguing. The only thing that I had heard about these games, particularly World of Warcraft was how all consuming they could be. It was once parodied in the sitcom Big Bang Theory where the character Penny gets totally hooked. Fear of getting hooked and dying of starvation in front of my screen did keep me away. So I clicked on the ad with the big boobies and signed up.
Free Forever
Not having to pay was a big incentive and gave me the opportunity to try before I buy. But the full title of the game was Evony Free Forever. So in theory one could continue playing without ever paying. There were paid options such as buying items and special treasure chests could only be opened with keys which had to be purchased. But I wanted to see if I could do it without paying. So I started building my buildings and worked my way through the quests but once your beginner protection expires you are exposed to an attack. So I joined an alliance and that was when the fun really started. Suddenly you met a whole community of real people who were also playing. More experienced members of the alliance were full of tips and tricks with links to resources. So now when I wasn’t playing I was reading about it. All the amazing things that could be achieved when a player became more experienced in the game. Of course it could be a done a lot faster if you paid.
Evony alliances
The leader of our alliance was very experienced and helped our alliance to grow. He set up a forum for alliance members and schooled each of us in the art of the game. We had nights when our alliance would declare war on another alliance and have crippled the other alliance by the end of the evening. It was the same with defence: our alliance really stuck together. You really felt that you were part of a team and when nothing much was happening we got to know each other through the forum and through the chat. There was always something going on and so it became more and more time consuming.
Playing too much
Soon my other projects started to suffer as a result. I thought that I had it under control and that I could and would quit at any time, but that wasn’t the reality of the situation. If I didn’t play for a day I would wonder about my troops, my alliance members or if I’d been attacked. But I made things worse. Not only was it a multi-player game but it was a multi server game. Your account is allowed to access many servers. Having read articles on different kinds of town set ups I decided to start on a new server and try out some ideas. But before you know it the same thing had happened again on another server. Oh dear.
What I did was to trick myself into taking a break. I told myself that I wasn’t going to quit but simply take a short holiday. (There is even a paid holiday option where your account goes into freeze.) I asked one of my alliance members to look after my account till I came back. Initially it was two weeks and then it extended to two months. By the time I came back I was no longer in the alliance, nearly all of my troops had died but in theory I could recover. My other account was still going strong, albeit small.
Hooked back in
In early November 2009 I decided to see if my account was still active. The first one was gone thank heavens but the second one was still going. I decided to see if I could rebuild it and grow a little. My plan was to play a low key game so I joined a small alliance with no thought of moving to a bigger one. That suited me fine. I was now the experienced player. But I couldn’t stay low key for long. I played all through christmas and some more experienced players came and joined the alliance. This stepped up the pace a bit. Then it all became quiet. Which is what I wanted really. Just to log in and play for half an hour a day without any fear of getting attacked or doing any diplomacy. Our alliance split into a smaller elite bunch after the server merges and then things got really boring.
Time to quit
My work life was getting busier. More classes, more clients but still I devoted hours to Evony. Somehow I managed to get my work done and play Evony. I was keeping it under control I kept telling myself and that it was fun and that I was enjoying myself and that I needed that. But I couldn’t see the point any more. I was logging in and farming to maintain my troops and then logging out again. Just this basic maintenance would often cost half an hour. But somehow I wasn’t enjoying it any more. It felt like a chore. Just general maintenance but without any real purpose. Where was it all heading? I considered the Restart Game button many times but never got to that point. In the end I gave my account details to another experienced player and said my goodbyes. I’m out. But life is a little strange without it. Who knows how long I’ll last till I’m back in again.