We here at Illyriad Games pride ourselves on allowing players to create their own content. We set out to make a game that lets players do what they want, and now we can say that our game Illyriad truly allows players the freedom to play as they see fit. With the release of the combat API key, players can share combat information with others, which in turn allows the creation of player tournaments and contests that are hosted by anyone who wants to make one.
That create-your-own-game spirit does not wait on dev-created APIs, however. Some players create tools for others to use, or come up with systems of trade that truly bring depth to the world of Illyriad. Below are three examples of player-created fun, but there are many more.
First, our players Kodabear and Digioso are currently hosting their own tournament to spread awareness for Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month. They decided to do this by using the combat API key and permanent tournament squares that were recently outfitted with new art. I asked Kodabear and Digioso some questions about the process:
GM Rikoo: So, you and your friend Digi decided to make a tournament. First, can you explain why you wanted to go through all of this work?
Kodabear: Last year during Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month, I gave out medals to about 18 people. This year I wasn’t able to do a medal and I wanted to do something different. So, I thought about doing a tournament. I sent Digioso an IGM (in-game-message) about this since he is a T? Alliance Vet and has achieved the Magic Bear rank of Coderbear. (Meaning he knew how to code!)
GMR: So, how did you actually create a tournament? I know Illyriad’s API key system was part of it, but how was it involved?
Digioso: The tournament system is based on three parts: One part is a database that is used to store data in. The second part is a database updater that stores combat reports in the database.
And the third part is the website that displays the stored data. The database has a list of all participating players, their player ID, and their Combat API key and also the valid X/Y coordinates for this tournament. The updater downloads the Combat API XML for a player, copies all the combat report links and the combat occurrence date and then does the same for the next player. When it finished doing this for all players it sorts the report by date and starts to download the oldest report.
Next, It checks the X/Y coordinates in that report against the list of valid coordinates. If the combat happened somewhere else it continues with the next one. If the battle happened on one of the tournament squares it reads deeper into the report and takes all relevant information from the report. Like, for example, who participated in that battle, troops involved, type of attack (like normal attack or an occupation force) and of course the length of the intended occupation. With this information the script determines the outcome of the battle (there is no winner mentioned in the combat report). It does that by looking at the surviving forces. If the attacker loses everything, the defender won the battle.
It also tries to keep track of the occupations. We had some trouble with this in the beginning, due to various issues. One really tough nut to crack was when armies are recalled or simply left the square when the proposed occupation duration was over. Because there is no combat report for this, so the script doesn’t get a note about that. But we found solutions for that.
So basically: Without the combat API we wouldn’t have been able to do this tournament at all.
GMR: Do you see yourself hosting a tourney in the future?
K: I am unsure if we will do future tournaments, they cost A LOT of time and resources. Plus this tournament has been very stressful which hasn’t made me really want to do another one sometime down the line. But, it has been a lot of fun as well and I am very excited about the statistics we will generate. I can’t wait to look through them!
GMR: Now that players have been participating for a while, how has the reaction to your tourney been?
K: Players have for the most part been very thankful that they have had a tourney after so long. I have gotten about 30 or so thank you IGMs from players taking part and even from some that aren’t taking part.
GMR: What would you do differently if you could host another tourney?
K: If I ever do another tournament I will have the alliance leaders collect the API keys, the playerIDs, and the names. And when I add in the API keys I will give them a list back of which ones that are working and that aren’t working.
GMR: What has been the most fun so far?
K: The most fun part hasn’t came yet. I can’t wait until the end of the tournament, when we post the statistics, to see how well alliances did and how bad some did… it is going to be pretty fun. I wanted to be part of the bloodiest battles but sadly I wasn’t able to do this due my army being killed before I can make the plans.
GBR: What has been the worst part so far?
K: Collecting API keys has been the worst part of doing a tournament and dealing with all the problems in the first half of the tournament
GBR: Last, are you really magic?
K: I really am a magic bear with great magical powers and everything.
Thanks to Kodabear and Digioso for all of their hard work. The Illyriad team will also be taking donations of Prestige to donate to the foundation that Koda is attempting to draw attention to. We will announce totals later.
Next up, we look at a player who has created a notification system for your mobile device, or any device that works with the Pushbullet app! Players can get notifications of attacks and other events, and it’s all for free! For more information, check out the following forums and posts:
This forum is for all new technology in the game:
https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/technology-data_forum15.html
And the post below details the next player-created service on this list:
https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/bejnas-push-notifications-mobiledesktop-alpha_topic6902.html
This is from the post:
“Hello!
I’ve built a little service which will monitor your Illy notifications and than send them to your phone and/or desktop via PushBullet service.
I am currently testing it, but right now I need a few more people to test things out! So, if you are interested, PM me or leave a message here and I will pm you. Please note that I am using the notification service for the last several days and it works flawlessly!
Requirements
1- You must install PushBullet to either your browser or phone and create an account there. PushBullet is already great service, but it will be better with your Illy Notifications!
2- You will enter your notification API and Pushbullet API to my service. You can create an alt account if you don’t trust me with your APIs. I think time will show that I have no bad intentions.
For now I will provide link via private message and trust people won’t spread it before its ready! Also, if you are not interested in testing things out, but you think this is cool and you would use it when its finished please say so!
I’m a complete newbie who lives in the newbie ring. I’ve created my second city and trying to move out. So, I could use resource donations for leveling up my warehouse!”
Check out this handy service if you need to know what’s going on with Illyriad at all times.
Next we wanted to tell you about a player who has created the RIF, or Republic Investment Fund, a new way to sink gold into… well, we’ll just let the player explain it in the interview below:
GMR: Introduce yourself!
E: Hi, my name is Eowan The Short and I run the Republic Investment Fund (RIF). I have been playing Illyriad since the 20th of September, so about 9 months.
GBR: What is this RIF?
E: The RIF is an investment bank. When players invest with it, they buy shares called ‘Aurums’. I then use the gold they have invested to buy and sell goods for a profit, mostly cows, herbs, and horses but recently I have been able to branch out into other markets. The profit increases the value of the RIF which increases the value of the player’s aurums. I update the value of the RIF on Wednesdays and Sundays. When a player wants to get their investment back, they can either sell their aurums directly back to the RIF at their current value or they can sell them to other players for whatever price they want.
I don’t really have a goal for the RIF, it was originally set up to provide RoFC’s members with a way of investing their money instead of having it sit in their cities or in a trade hub doing nothing. Since then it has been opened up to everyone in Illyriad, so now anyone can make money out of it.
GBR: So, in a real example, I gave you 1,000 gold. What happened with my gold?
E: With your gold I bought and sold various resources, mostly in Centrum though I do buy and sell goods in Windmire and directly with other players. This then increased the value of the aurum and increased the value of your investment. When I started allowing players to trade between each other, you asked for me to trade yours for you. I did this and by buying aurums when they were being offered at low prices and then selling them to a player who wanted them at a higher price, I was able to make you 10000 gold on top of the aurums you already had.
GBR: How has the response to RIF been? Do players seem interested?
E: The response has been mostly positive. The RIF was opened to everyone because a player, I think it was Angrim, noticed it and asked about it in GC. I explained and people seemed interested so it opened. In less than a week, over 1.25 million aurums were bought by players and the RIF was filled (there is a cap of 2.5 million aurums).
There have been a few people who suspect that what I am doing is a scam designed to con players out of their gold. I have also been told by a few players that “trading for profits is not very profitable” in Illyriad. A lot of people are quite suspicious and are worried about the risk to their gold.
I try to answer people’s questions about what I am doing as best I can but sometimes people don’t feel like I am trustworthy/competent enough so they don’t invest, but that is their choice. I am thinking about setting up some kind of insurance system where players pay to have their aurums protected at a certain value to try and make people feel less worried about investing. However, in 15 weeks the RIF has never made a loss so I like to feel that the chances of anything going wrong are fairly low.
GBR: If someone else wanted to get in on the action, what should they do?
E: Currently, there are no aurums left for the RIF to sell so if they want to get involved, players should contact the list of people on my profile to see if they are willing to sell their aurums or IGM me with an offer and I can get in contact with people who might sell but don’t want to be contacted directly. In the future, I will probably create more aurums but at the moment I have enough gold to trade with.
Alternatively, people who want to get involved could set up their own versions of the RIF. I know at least one other alliance is considering starting their own fund and it would be nice to have some competition.
Thanks again to everyone for creating their own fun in Illyriad! The players in Illy make the game what it is, and as you can see from these examples, they can literally make the game! If you would like to sign up and play for free, you can do so right here: https://www.illyriad.co.uk/
GM Rikoo