Utopia (online game) |
Utopia is a text-based multiplayer online computer game strategy game, where players take control of a province, as a member of a kingdom of 25 provinces, and compete with others for land, honor, networth and victories in war.
Gameplay is divided into periods called Ages , with each Age lasting between two to three months. At the end of an Age, all accounts are reset to their initial states to give players a fresh start, any new balance and gameplay changes are put into effect, and the competition begins again.
Until recently there were three game servers available: World of Legends, where new players are encouraged to start, Battlefields, where the game s most competitive players can be found, and Genesis, an experimental server where possible play changes are tested. As of Age 30 Battlefields and the World of Legends have been merged, effectively retiring Battlefields and uniting both servers under the name of World of Legends. Utopia is a highly successful game, having won the Webby Awards for Gaming Site of the Year twice. According to the offical site, the World of Legends server alone has over 50,000 active accounts. [http://games.swirve.com/utopia/about.htm]
=History=
Utopia came online in online multiplayer game.
Utopia s earliest rounds are often spoken of as a golden, chaotic age by the game s most experienced players. Because kingdoms were broken up after each of the betas, players initially assumed they would also be broken up, after each round, once the game officially went online. When that didn t happen, many players formed strong loyalties and attachments to their kingdommates, but this started to create minor stagnation among the game s societal structure, particularly pertaining to the upper strata of Utopia s most successful participants and kingdoms.
After Utopia s first three rounds, Patel attempted to correct the stagnation and created the sole, forced, game-wide kingdom break-up in its history. The effect was considered disastrous; wide-scale cheating resulted as players traded accounts. For some, it was to reunite with their former kingdommates. For others, to create super kingdoms, comprising the game s most competitive players.
The result was to compound the stagnation ten-fold. Although there had been some minor account trading taking place in the early rounds, it was generally unspoken of. After the shuffle, it became common knowledge and an openly-endorsed strategy by Utopia s competive players. Before the shuffle kingdoms where the individual players weren t particularly competitive, but had strong loyalties to each other, were usually able to band together to take down a harassing individual of stronger size, but less well-integrated into their own kingdom socially. With trading, having a well-socialized kingdom took far less effort and that segment of the more competitive players were enabled to take complete control of the game s hierarchy.
Patel eventually cracked down on the practice, but it still prevails among those with the technical knowledge and skills to Hack (technology slang) the server.
=Gameplay=
==Overview==
Like in many browser-based strategy games, Utopia has a real-time gaming environment. A player s province continues to grow, produce resources, and recruit soldiers even when he or she is not logged on.
Upon selecting a server and creating an account, players are given a choice of Race (Human, Elf, DWARF, Avians, Orc, Halfling, Undead, Faery) and Personalities (Merchant, Freak, General, etc). Each Personality and Race has its own strengths and weaknesses; some have access to unique spells, some have bonuses to offense or resource production, and so on. In addition, each Race has access to a unique military unit called an Elite.
Players provinces are grouped into Kingdoms; each Kingdom is a team of 25 provinces. Provinces within the same kingdom can send resources to each other, have a private forum for discussion, and can elect the leader of one province to become a Monarch. Monarchs have total control on political issues such as declaring wars on other kingdoms and moderating the kingdom forums, but otherwise do not have any direct power over other players.
In the gap between one age ending and another beginning, players are able to log in to their accounts and interact in the forums in order to plan ahead. However, this period works in freeze time , and thus no actual gameplay takes place. Once the Age proper has begun, players are given 72 real-time hours of protection, some land and a fixed amount of resources to develop their province before military attacks are allowed. New players joining later in the game also receive the 72 hours of protection, but start with more resources than they would have been given at the start of the Age.
==Strategy & Growth==
Players attempt to make their province as powerful as possible by gaining more land. Land increases the total population of a province, providing more peasants which can be taxed or drafted into the military. Buildings can be constructed on owned land to provide further bonuses, and the combination of buildings built by a province is usually a major part of its strategy.
Land can be acquired through exploring which costs gold and soldiers, by casting the Paradise spell, or through attacking another player ( landgrabbing ) which does not cost anything, but does require a powerful military, and generally provokes retaliation. While the cost of exploring is initially cheap to give players a head start, it soon becomes prohibitively expensive as the size of a province grows, and attacking other players becomes more attractive. Only specialized builds are capable of exploring to large sizes while successfully defending their land, and explorers are generally looked down upon both within kingdoms (as being a burden and taking up a space for a more team-dedicated player) and in the wider community.
Players typically specialize in any one of three aspects: military, thievery and magic. Players who specialize in military strength aim to invade other players for land, while those who specialize in thievery cause disruption through hostile thievery operations. Magic is both offensive and defensive in nature, with spells that can gather information, cause destruction or protect the caster s province. Specialization is important because the effects of many buildings, as well as the success rate of thievery and magic operations, are dependent on the percentage or land or population devoted to that aspect.
==Inter-Kingdom Relations & War==
There are five levels of relations possible between kingdoms. Relations between kingdoms can vary; usually one kingdom will be identified as the aggressor and one as the defender. Thus it is possible for one kingdom to be hostile to another whilst the focus of its hostilities has no feelings either way towards its aggressor. This applies to all relations except Ceasefire and War.
==Kingdom Stances==
In Age 30, Stances - which had been tested previously on the Genesis server - were instituted on the World of Legends server. Stances are basically packages of modifiers that effect the entire kingdom, and which can be chosen by the kingdom s monarch.
The different Utopian stances are:
None [or Normal]: This is the default status for a kingdom and has no bonuses or drawbacks. Stances automatically are inoperative during times of war and cannot be changed during protection.
Peaceful: The Peaceful stance provides the following bonuses and drawbacks:
Fortified: The Fortified stance provides the following bonuses and drawbacks:
Aggressive: The Aggressive stance provides the following bonuses and drawbacks:
==Objectives==
While there is no official objective to accomplish, players usually compete for Land, Honor, Networth, and War victories.
Utopia keeps track of the players and kingdoms with the most land, honor and networth throughout the world. Throughout the history of Utopia , becoming a top kingdom networthwise has been seen as good measure for which kingdom best managed to build themselves up from a State_of_nature to become a real utopia. At the end of each Age, the highest-ranked provinces and kingdoms are enshrined in the Hall of Honors.
=Society=
Utopia tends to encourage social interaction between players. For some, the social aspect is the main reason for play; with 40,000 possible accounts per server, and the chance to meet players from around the world, the social possibilities seem infinite.
One social aspect of the game which makes its way into play are alliances. Alliances are not officially endorsed by the game-masters, but rather accepted as an inevitability. The official game does not support them and there is no server space for alliance operations; coordination is self-motivated and usually carried out in private forums. Occasionally, alliance-wide wars will break out.
Players are encouraged to interact with other players in the same kingdom; each kingdom has a private forum that is accessible only to its members. If one does not wish to play in the kingdom they are assigned to, that player will have the option of deleting and remaking their account or defecting to another kingdom. However, defecting costs 15% of everything a player owns - land, military, honor - and is usually only used as a last resort.
Players also commonly use IRC and instant messaging, such as MSN Messenger, to aid in communication outside the game.
=Tools=
The player community has developed many free Utopia-related tools that not supported by the game developers. Most are formatters, designed to help players quickly share in-game information with each other. These tools include Utopia Angel, Utopia Prophet, and Utopia Metatron. These are third-party software that have to be downloaded and installed on the player s computer, while other tools like the All-in-One Formatter from Utopia Temple are used through a web browser.
=External links=
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