July 4, 2009
A Return to Medievia
by Antons
The night of June 12th was a lonely night so I
decided to log out of wow, which had became boring, after a little
over a year of endless play. I sit staring at my screen wondering
how I came to this point. I had beaten the game, as I thought I had
beaten Medievia years earlier. I had set out to: lead the number one
guild on the server, get more than 50 mounts, more than 50 pets,
have all the current content on farm, and get over five thousand
achievement points. I knew having accomplished what I set out to do
that I must quit, and look for something else to do.
I
thought back to a time on Medievia when I said to myself I will do
these ten things, and when I accomplish them I’ll quit: lead the
number one clan on Medievia, have over one hundred medals, over 1
million dragon points, over five hundred million trading, over one
million fae. I don’t recall the rest of the list, but I crossed them
off as I blew through them. So I decided to log into Medievia for a
peek at what had changed.
I was immediately
ninja-enrolled in clan 69 by an old friend Aimonsorcio. I promptly
gave him my most prized possession on Medievia the fifty or so
clanitems, I had tucked away on a secret character years before. I
wanted to start over, from scratch as it were. I figured over the
years I had probably touched over a thousand clanitems, some in
trades, others bought and sold for profit, others stashed on a
secret character no one ever knew about. Hell, I even had a couple
hundred purged all at once, because I was an idiot and couldn’t stay
on the down-low with my shenanigans when I was a teenager.
Anyway, as I spoke with Aimonsorcio and the other 69ers, I began to
realize that Medievia is truly a game without “end-game”. Sure you
can set a list of goals and jet when you complete them, if you can
find the strength to leave. But, you will never beat it. You can
only accomplish what you set out to do. As you are accomplishing
those tasks, the game is growing and expanding with new features
creating new tasks that you’ll want to accomplish. I began to
understand the true genius of Vryce. Medievia was the first and
most endlessly expanding game I'd ever saw, with its primary focus
to have no end. I have played many other games, and all seem to try
to do the same through patches and perhaps the occasional new zone.
BUT. None are expanding in as many ways, and in as many directions
as Medievia is. These companies are all trying to grasp a concept
which Vryce has already mastered, how to avoid the feeling of
end-game.
For these reasons I have no reserve saying that Vryce's
ideology is sound, and Medievia can have a player base of several
thousand fairly quickly, with the right recruitment, advertising,
and retention schemes. Yes, I agree its not the fancy-pants graphics
of some of the blizzard or wii games, but let us not forget the
other thing it has going for it.. ITS FREE! Word of mouth alone will
not get us there. Creativity and thinking outside the box, to create
new ways of pulling people in will, and it can be done free.
Challenge our primary demographic directly and in mass: to try a
game with no ending, for free, with 24 hours of double xp, and see
what happens. Seek out those who would post our banners for free on
their download sites, forums, and gaming sites.. But also ponder new
avenues of grabbing people who would otherwise normally not even see
a gaming banners. Maybe those currently playing some of those
graphics games.. Anyway, I used to be one of those downers who
thought the player base would continue to decline.. I can now see a
light at the end of the tunnel as it were, and it is rapidly
approaching.
Antons
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