Caltrops - Reviews - Re: Evernight: Reign of Darkness

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by The Mad Scot 11/26/2011, 6:54pm PST

1. Sorry you had such a hard time with the game. I won three out of the first five games I played and placed 2nd and 3rd in the other two. Things were tough but having solid tactical and strategic skills helps and the game isn't for everyone. There are plenty of smart people who fail miserably at Evernight because they simply aren't skilled at tactical combat games. You sound like you might be one of those people.

2. Diplomacy is important and at times downright indispensable for winning or sometimes just surviving. I am not an online or computer gamer in the traditional sense but I have sampled games here and there in different genres and I would agree that many gamers do poorly in this aspect as they have looked to hone skills in finding cheats or "gaming" the system to gain whatever advantage they can over others in the game. That is not going to be effective in Evernight and if that is where your primary skills are then you are going to do poorly. The other strategy for many online gamers is the play for 60 hours a week and simple "level" your way to greatness. This doesn't require any particular skill unless you consider "how to keep your fat ass comfortable in a chair for six hours at a time" a skill. This is also not likely to produce the results these gamers hope. Evernight demands solid logic and calculating ability combined with creativity, something that is in short supply among the vast majority of online gamers I have encountered. Having weaned themselves on games that do most of the work and require little in terms of critical thinking so that most of these people improve the muscle memory of their thumbs and developed well padded posteriors while their brains are generally as soft as their burrito fed bellies. These gamers are not going to be satisfied with Evernight because the bread and butter of most computer gamers, outside of lots of actual bread and butter, is to undermine the actual challenge of a game.

3. There are no rules to diplomacy in the game. You can backstab or undermine an ally any time you want. It's just that in Evernight some other players might just decide to help that guy and come to kick your virtual ass. THAT is what I think gamers like you hate. You want to be able to cheat or bully someone without consequences as many try to do in a plethora of other online formats but in Evernight you ACTUALLY have to LIVE with your actions.

4. You are not correct in stating that you MUST make a treaty with everyone but one guy in order to either survive or do well. I have fought on multiple fronts many times and not only survived but thrived and even won. Indeed, the best players learn the tactics to take on two at a time and even three if diplomacy fails. Now, there are people who practice a style that allows them to hoard Fury and Treasure in order to hit one person and blow them out of the water but even this strategy can be beat and falls on hard times with the right counter-strategy or effective diplomacy.

5. I can't deny that there are those players who join games with friends or allies in order to dominate a game. In fact I have seen them successful and been on the opposite side of that situation once or twice and been very pissed to say the least. Even so, as time goes on the community starts to recognize patterns and these people will soon find it harder and harder to get peace with anyone thereby creating another instance where the community polices itself. No gaming environment is perfect and this is one of those areas that Evernight cannot directly address unless a player is running multiple accounts and in the past those have been ferreted out pretty effectively.

6. Lastly I would like to say that you don't have to join numerous games at once to either do well or give yourself a chance to play. I have never been in more than three games at once and many times never more than two. I played the game for five years off and on with a total of 56 games played. I had a great time and had one of the highest Skill ratings in the game when I left. I met more than a few people who also played casually who did fantastic and others who did pretty good. In the end the game is what you make of it but if you don't understand strategy games all that well then the learning curve could be steeper for you than others and that may have been the case in your personal circumstance.