Browser Based MMO's

[Tessian]

Anyone play any? I'm not talking about little Flash games-- I mean games that you play inside a browser that has MMO aspects to it. I played Utopia for the past 7 years straight before giving up on it and throwing in the towel a few weeks ago. I've since found a new game that's been interesting and fun so far.

Tribal Wars is a neat little graphical game where you build up a village and attack other vilages. An interesting twist to previous games is you can't just start taking over other villages. For most of the game you're stuck with 1 village only and upgrading it-- you can attack others to pillage and hurt them badly, but you need to get pretty high up there before you can start taking people over. You can join tribes, which are basically just a collection of villages, and war others etc. I just got out of protection and performed my first attack so I'm still learning.

I dunno, I think they're awesome little time sinks as I've had trouble finding time to dedicate just to games, so this lets me play a bit then go do other things. If anyone's interested in giving it a try I'm on World 14.

[Julius Seeker]

I like games like this because they don't require much time at all. It's much more about thought then time. I have played Utopia forever, since before there were even ages; there were three beta runs before the first age, I do think Oracle played in those early days too. In fact, a good half of us played at some point. My Kingdom is Playboys of Absalom, Eric used to play there years ago. In my opinion Playboys are the greatest Kingdom in the history of the game, but I'm a little biased =)

I also play Tribal Wars, and World 14 is where I play as well =)

I actually found this one a few months back clicking an add in Utopia =P

[Tessian]

I like games like this because they don't require much time at all. It's much more about thought then time. I have played Utopia forever, since before there were even ages; there were three beta runs before the first age, I do think Oracle played in those early days too. In fact, a good half of us played at some point. My Kingdom is Playboys of Absalom, Eric used to play there years ago. In my opinion Playboys are the greatest Kingdom in the history of the game, but I'm a little biased =)

I also play Tribal Wars, and World 14 is where I play as well =)

I actually found this one a few months back clicking an add in Utopia =P

Actually, it was my involvement in Utopia that led me here now that you mention it. I was playing Asheron's Call with a friend who got me into Utopia and Oracle dragged me here... I think.

I ditched Utopia finally this age... I played it for 7 years and this last age it finally turned into a chore to me instead of a game. They ruined wars for me... killing the effectiveness of raze's made wars way too hard to win cause then there was no clear winner. Always played with the Orphans. Up until I left I was the longest running concurrent member... but a lot of us core players left this age because of the above.

Tribal Wars seems cool and I'll definitely be hitting you up with questions. I'm worried about finding a Tribe right now because looking at my position in the ranks it seems like most are in one and I'd prefer not to get fed on.

[Julius Seeker]

Orphans? I think we have warred before, or at least have had conflict =)

Which Tribe is strongest on your continent? Or rather, what are the top 3 or 4?

[Tessian]

Orphans? I think we have warred before, or at least have had conflict =)

Which Tribe is strongest on your continent? Or rather, what are the top 3 or 4?

Tribe ranking for the continent 76
Rank Name Points Villages
1 K76 27.878 56
2 lessar 7.434 30
3 K.O.H1 7.348 24
4 *KoT* 4.579 19
5 EMPIRE 4.571 16

I just joined lessar

Yeah I think we warred you Playmates a long time back... there were a few ages where we were the ghetto kingdom that was tearing up the Top 20 kingdoms... those were the days.

[Tessian]

Gah you were right Seek... half of my tribe still lives with their parents. The fucking kid who recruited me is 12!

[Julius Seeker]

Yeah, it is rather disheartening to find out that your leaders are young teenagers =P

This is why I still cling to Utopia, at least most of the people who play are older than us.

[Tessian]

Yeah, it is rather disheartening to find out that your leaders are young teenagers =P

This is why I still cling to Utopia, at least most of the people who play are older than us.

Yeah but the game is useless now-- warring is an exercise in futility. There's no point to it all anymore. I loved the game for years, but it was just a snooze by the end. Now here I am watching my lvl 5 smithy build so I can finally get some stables... only 65 minutes left

[Julius Seeker]

Tribal Wars is certainly more fun of a game. My biggest gripe with Utopia is that it has become mostly a chore whereas Tribal Wars is one of those games where I login because I want to play!

The thing is I forsee tribal wars becoming chorelike in the future, it might be beneficial to get multiple people online to work one account.

[Tessian]

See that's why I stopped playing Utopia-- it became a chore to play. Once Tribal Wars does that I'll move on again. Hopefully TW will last for me at least half as long as Utopia did.

[Oracle]

been a LONG time since I played utopia. Was a fun game, but I found myself sitting at the PC waiting to log in the first second I could (was a big advantage to this back in the beta, not sure about now tho), which proved a little nerve wracking :p

[Tessian]

been a LONG time since I played utopia. Was a fun game, but I found myself sitting at the PC waiting to log in the first second I could (was a big advantage to this back in the beta, not sure about now tho), which proved a little nerve wracking :p

last age I had the opposite problem-- I didn't want to log in.

[Julius Seeker]

Yeah, Utopia isn't a time sucker anymore. The main reason is that they have really taken out the elements that made it attractive in the first place, the benefit of having a lot of friends in the game. Alliances are pretty much pointless now; it's all about doing all and only what your Monarch says and that is the key to success. Seriously, if you do your own thing in the game, you're screwing your Kingdom over. While I like the idea of strong team work, that is about all that is left in the game, there's not really any reason to communicate with others anymore.

[Tessian]

Seek maybe you can respond better to this... I'm afraid the only responses I'll get in my tribe's forum will make me weep for humanity...

I've become aware of this trend and I wanted to see what some of you veterans think whether I'm off base or not...

To me it seems like TW is designed to discourage people from attacking others. Armies are very expensive and time consuming to build and it seems that unless you have overwhelming numbers if you attack someone anywhere near your size who has an army you're going to incur Heavy losses. It then appears that the only thing to do with armies is to farm inactive/abandoned villages... but is that really the point to this game? I can see that getting real old very quickly.

Why does this game not want you to attack other players? I can see 1 way they could easily fix this-- cut down on military losses. Simply put: don't make it a fight to the death every time. If I attack someone and lose, I should definitely take losses, but not 100%. Armies can and do retreat; there's few battles in history where the losing side fought to the death. A losing attacking army should still lose a lot of men, but a good number should survive to limp back home and fight another day. If the losing army are defenders it should be the same thing where they weren't able to keep the attackers from ransacking them but they didn't all get slaughtered either.

What does everyone think? I just can't imagine a game called Tribal Wars would penalize its players so much for fighting...

[Julius Seeker]

Yeah, I think it is utterly ridiculous myself that the losing army is always killed to a man. It doesn't make any sense, especially when a losing invasion army is always killed to a man as well; if 50,000 troops charge the German trenches and get caught up on barbed wire and mowed down by machine gun fire, are all of the other 20,000 going to charge as well? Let alone back in the time when people fought with swords and spears.

Troops in Tribal Wars are expensive as well. My tribal leaders don't really understand this key to success in the game, they went to war against a tribe almost as large as ours because they don't like the leader. What I dislike the most is the reason why they did it, despite my strong opposition. They did it because it just happens that my village is the largest on the continent, and it is located right in the heart of enemy territory, in fact, right by the leader; I am one of two players capable of conquering others so far on the continent. I am getting messages from 14 year old leaders of this tribe saying stuff like "Attack Enemy leader now!"

Though I will do it, but first I am trying to win some members away from the enemy tribe. The only problem is that my leaders are not thinking soberly and are all gungho "we're going to crush your whole tribe! Kill the tribe of traitors!" and stuff like that. I wish I had even an hour a day so that I could take over the tribe and steer them in a much more prosperous direction before we take out our strong rivals who won't join us.

[Blotus]

I can't believe Utopia is still around. I can remember playing that when I was a teen.

[Tessian]

Seek-- Feel free to weigh in, I brought this up in the global forum. Looks like a moderator already did.

http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?p=994740

[Julius Seeker]

Well later on you do get more villages, and troops become a little easier to expend. It still does not make sense that all armies fight to the death. The moderator also didn't address the fact that attacking armies also fight until they are killed to a man.

[Tessian]

I'm #5 in my tribe, just broke 1000pts earlier... and we won our first war.

Do you pay for premium? I'm trying it under that 7 day thing for breaking 500 and I think for $5/month it's worth it. Also at what point did you get your academy? I've heard anywhere from 2-4k points but I can't imagine waiting till 4,000 points... I mean I could get the requirements to unlock the academy in a few days, and probably a few more days to get the resources for it. I'm confused as to what I'm supposed to do between now and then.

[Julius Seeker]

I'm #5 in my tribe, just broke 1000pts earlier... and we won our first war.

Do you pay for premium? I'm trying it under that 7 day thing for breaking 500 and I think for $5/month it's worth it. Also at what point did you get your academy? I've heard anywhere from 2-4k points but I can't imagine waiting till 4,000 points... I mean I could get the requirements to unlock the academy in a few days, and probably a few more days to get the resources for it. I'm confused as to what I'm supposed to do between now and then.

I was actually just about to write you an in game message on stuff.

I just sort of raised up my Village Headquarters, resource buildings, warehouse, and farm up as required while pumping out defensive infantry and cavalry for plundering. I got my headquarters up to level 26 because I had a very large income from plundering, I got my wood and clay up to level 24 and my iron up to level 20 (I was getting tons from plundering). I slipped up a bit because my tribal leaders thought it would be a good idea to be stuck up and war people all around us before anyone except me was even close to a Noble. So everyone attacked me, considering I was the most dangerous, and I ended up having to rebuild a lot.

I was about 4000 points when my Academy was complete (the Academy gives 512 points, and the Smithy maxed out gives 600+, but it takes a LONG time to build up).

My tribe is cool, but we need some less aggressive leaders, especially when the leaders are the ones with almost nothing to lose. The problem with kids running things, they don't know how to play the game, they only know how to satisfy their egos.

[Tessian]

I'm doing a Lot of plundering myself... but I keep seeming to have trouble keeping my resources balanced. Past week I've been very low on clay, now on wood... and iron is almost full still. But yeah I see the smithy situation... mine's at level 13 and level 14 is a 5 hour ordeal. Trying to get HQ to 20 before I try any more.

What do you think of Heavy Calvary? I was reading an interesting thread on the forums earlier debating whether they're even worth researching.

[Julius Seeker]

They're expensive, not space efficient, but you'll boost defense up a lot higher when building them. It is always good to have a lot of them sitting around because when an attack is being made, it is easy to move Knights across your cities to where defense is required.

Resources are difficult to equalize, usually a good way to do it is to use markets to trade some of it away, it's a matter of beating the market prices available, otherwise you might have resources sitting there for a long time.

[Julius Seeker]

Here is something interesting I found about the Paladin:

Click on Statue and check out the weapons chamber. Here is a list of the weapons I swiped from the main forums.

ITEM LIST
Halberd of Guan Yu - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Spearman by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Paracelsus' Longsword - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Swordsman by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Thorgard's battle axe - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Axeman by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Nimrod's long-bow - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Archer by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Kalid's telescope - Scouts always see all of the villages troops including those that are not at home. (Paladin attacks normal, defends like a scout so can only be killed by scouts.)
Mieszko's lance - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Light cavalry by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Nimrod's composite bow - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Mounted archer by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%
Baptiste's Banner - It increases the offensive fighting power of your Heavy cavalry by 30% and their defensive fighting power by 20%.
Carol's morning star - Increases the damage caused by rams by 100%
Aletheia's Bonfire - Increases the damage by catapults by 100%
Vasco's Scepter - The nobleman lowers the loyalty by at least 30. It also raises the fighting power by 30% offensively and by 20% defensively (Nobleman only)

EQUIPPING ITEMS
You can equip your paladin with this item in your weapon chamber. Once you are in the weapon chamber, just click on the item that you wish to equip. Your weapon chamber is available in your Statue if you have it built. You must also have found an Item before you can equip it.

[Tessian]

you didn't know about the weapons? You gain about 3% towards finding an item each day starting on the first day you send him into battle. I'm up to about 65% I think.

Right now I'm trying to ramp up to go for an academy... while training troops I'm upgrading smithy... freakin time requires is insane! I believe in 24 hours I'll have 3 levels (13-16)

[Tessian]

Here I was getting all excited about almost being ready to build an academy... and I then look up how much a noble will cost to train... twice as much as the academy? Fuck... so I'm building up my infrastructure so I'll be able to train shortly after getting the academy.

Currently 2288 points-- 2nd in my tribe and 35 on my continent

[Tessian]

Finally got my 2nd village yesterday! Haha I was actually being social yesterday so I had to launch the last attack via Blackberry and then start setting up the village during the Flyers game I was at

I grabbed a bonus village... but god damn if AI doesn't know how to properly build a village. WHY would you have level 23 iron and wood, but level 16 clay? I've got it queued up to 19 now, but geez...

Also I don't like that I can only have 1 paladin

[Julius Seeker]

"Yes! Fuck yes!"
"What the hell dude! We're waiting for a faceoff!" =P

At this point in time, this weekend actually, my tribe is merging with the #2 tribe on continent. We're going to take all of their top provinces, give them all of our lower point provinces, and split the leadership roles between the two tribes. I am really enjoying this game so far, it's a lot of fun when there is actual geography, unlike Utopia.

[Tessian]

I am really enjoying this game so far, it's a lot of fun when there is actual geography, unlike Utopia.

Yes... except I think the attack times are too different. They should scale slower, right now it's like unless I can see you on my map with my village in the center you're too far away to do anything.

[Julius Seeker]

Well, we are fighting our first war. My Tribe began as the #17 tribe in the game, and we declared war on the #4 tribe because they would not listen to us diplomatically. They were expanding into our continent from the South and we were afraid of the potential consequences of that. We realized that we either stand now or die a slow death in the future. Their policy was expansion and domination and they were not very diplomatically friendly, kind of audacious.

We stand and fight.

We launched our attacks last week annihilating their entire Northern army. We, of course, received huge threats from them saying that they were going to wipe our Tribe out completely, saying that we were not close to their level, etc... Their tribe included the #1 player in the game who was a part of their Northern forces. He was a tough cookie, he sent retaliatory attacks to take out much forces. My armies managed to catch his offensive troops sitting in harbour, and I killed nearly 10,000 of them (which is a huge number). My next offensive was against his capital, which I occupied. That was his first city to fall, two days later we took out the rest of his cities, and continue to march southwards against the enemy. As we discovered, they aren't very organized and have a lot of loyalty issues (they are not sending re-enforcement to their Northern provinces, and are suffering heavily because of it). We have almost driven them out of the continent; our tribe has risen to #14 in the game and theirs has dropped to 11. We will probably continue on into the continent South of us and establish a strong presence in their homeland; from our bases there we will launch attacks at the heart of their territory in the future. It is fun to win =)

[SineSwiper]

It is fun to win =)

Especially as the underdog from a response to a hostile takeover. You should completely dominate their nation and put out a message that says "That's how you do it, motherfucker!"

[Julius Seeker]

We have driven them out completely now, and have entered a 3 day ceasefire with them. They are withdrawing from their Northern territories. In the meantime, we are moving forces Southward and cutting up all the free lands now amongst our most active attack forces. Whether or not we continue at this point is being discussed, mostly based on if we feel it is more beneficial to develop our current territories and expand diplomatically on our own continent, or expand into their Continent.

We have a pledge from them right now that they will not enter our continent again.

[Julius Seeker]

Well, we have reached the point in the game now where we can not be fairly called the Underdog in any conflict. What has occurred:

We now dominate the Southern continent. We have secured Alliances with top players there and are now winning the war against the rebels.

We have made a heavy push Eastward and have so far been very successful, we met a very old and powerful tribe on the battlefield, one whose roots on other servers go back a lot longer than I have played.

One of our leading figures, a Duke, betrayed us when we discussed battle plans to take them out. We discovered this, and then he openly defied us at the first accusation, and joined them absolutely confirming it. The move proved to be his last as we quickly moved in and crushed his armies and took all of his villages.

We effectively have control over an entire continent now, and dominate two other continents, a fourth continent, to the South and East of us, we have secured an Alliance with (a very powerful tribe). As it stands, we are one of the most powerful forces within the game, we are in talks of a merger which will catapult us to near the top of the rankings in game.

Personally, during the past wars I dropped a lot in ranks focussing on the fighting; I dropped from 2nd to 9th on continent. I have begun rising up very quickly again as I have begun to focus on growth, I have risen from 9th to 5th in the past few days and I do feel that #1 is in reach.

[Tessian]

Very cool, but I take it you didn't notice I deleted my acount, eh?

Had 5-6 villages and I just got bored. I was logging in each day just to add buildings/units to queue and nothing else. Then some crazy shit happened in our tribe where one baron kicked out another baron for being a dick... but that baron was our leader so he came back in and kicked his sorry ass out... and there was some spying and just loserness all around.

Had a whole incident with a teen who was the STUPIDEST mofo on our team; he got pissed at me for some reason and decided to attack me and then quit... but instead he attacked our leader and not me (how??). So he got kicked for being a whiney bitch and left. 3 weeks later he attacks me, then after I tell him what an idiot he is he starts complaining about how it was a mistake and he's sorry and PLEASE PLEASE don't kill his army-- send all your troops out and he'll pay me back for any resources he takes... yeah, bullshit.

So yeah, I got bored, it became a chore... stuff started getting too complicated and stupid so I deleted my account.

[Julius Seeker]

Ah, too bad. if you have the urge to play again later I can get you an account on my continent in my tribe. We are very stable and organized. Get this, I am also the youngest of the leaders in there, which is RARE in this game. We are right now one of the most dangerous tribes on the server.


There's still some things to love about this game =P


max92007 today at 15:13
why u atatck me?

Logoth today at 15:46
I'm doing a tutorial on our forums about how to co-ordinate multi-city attacks to multiple targets.

[kali o.]

I made an account, just to try it out. On K50, W14. It's fun enough to screw around with, but at it's core it is a relatively simple game. Expand, queue, rinse and repeat. Combat is mostly all about who can gang up on whom... Coordination is not especially important, all that matters is that the players are active.

I'll play around with it and enjoy myself...but it's no Utopia, that's for sure.

[Julius Seeker]

Utopia players are insanely hardcore, I like the more laid-back nature of Tribal Wars where you don't have pay attention directly or indirectly 24/7.

[kali o.]

I ended up easily being number 1 on my continent and growing pretty big once I understood the game. It's still just one big time waster and not very "action-orientated".

With action speeded up across the board and a LOT more diversity in troops, it could be a pretty fun game...but not yet.

Anyway, I got banned about a week ago - lol. Think my best rank was around 300....

[Lox]

I've been playing Ikariam a lot in the last month or so.

Pretty fun. I just like it cuz I can do something, go away, and check it later.

[Shellie]

We've been playing Ikariam a lot at work. I just don't see the fun in it...

[Lox]

It's a fun background game that doesn't require a lot of time invested. It becomes more fun once you start colonizing and attacking other towns. That's where I am now. I expect it to get boring within the next 6 months though.

[Mully]

I've been playing Ikariam a lot in the last month or so.

Pretty fun. I just like it cuz I can do something, go away, and check it later.

We're on Epislon; where are you?

[Julius Seeker]

Oh yeah, I quit the server, gave my account up to the other founder. As the story ends: my Tribe (WEST) fought its way to #1 on the server. We have no rivals anymore, and the game lost its appeal to me. I knew a long time ago we were going to take #1, it was just a matter of time; I gave up my leadership position a few weeks ago (but there was no need for me to be there anymore anyway, we had all the best people on the server and trained them how to play).

Tribal Wars was a fun game at first, but it takes too much time; and therefore feels like a waste of time once you have more than 10 cities (let alone many dozens).

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Haha, I'm playing Ikariam also. I was on Epsilon but have moved to Zeta.

[Lox]

I'm on delta. A guy from work was on delta, so that's why I jumped on there.

[Julius Seeker]

I've been playing Ikariam a lot in the last month or so.

Pretty fun. I just like it cuz I can do something, go away, and check it later.

I'll have to look that one up. I would like a game that allows you to do that, but one where there isn't the need of strict schedules like Utopia and Tribal Wars.