Want to first wish everyone happy holidays and a SAFE holiday season as we head into 2021. This has been one of the most emotionally difficult years of my life. I can honestly say that my love for gaming, and the Intelligent people that are meshed together by them, has given me a place to escape this madness we call a world today. I thank each and every player here who has given there time and energy to create a fun filled, frustrating, sever habit forming, phone insurance claim creator of an escape that i have been a part of going on three years.
I started empires when Delilah was the hero of the month. Man the game sure has changed since those days. We had good ole 8-7 farming for backpacks, the rise of Seven days departed, and the first big wrench, gravemakers entrance into the empires world. Back when Guinevere was the most feared female to walk the earth.
Subsequent heroes of the month broke molds, but not the game, and introduced interesting counters that had been scarce prior.
Then it happened. Early information was released of the hero Jean Francois. In the years I have been here, I have never in my life seen one hero cause the catastrophic results that the changing of this beta heros skills lead to.
This community had its spats, battles, bans, but this, this was something totally different. SG response to this was to follow that up by releasing Telluria the following month.
This community, game, everything that was, NEVER recovered from this event and the horrible attempt of fixing it by annihilating the usefulness of other heroes after people had spent their money.
This immediate nerf frenzy alone made it easy for me to go and follow the nospend because it was just wrong to nerf a hero after release, especially when you have a whole beta testing area and people spend there hard earned money for.
With two years invested and being a moderate spender who had made many good connections here, it was upsetting at how hard the process of pulling away was, but I am proud of myself for making sure to stick to my word and never spend another dollar after that day.
I log in, hit titans, raid mehhh sometimes, do one day of a tourney and completely forget about it. Talk to my friends but no longer have that joy we had back in the early days.
It’s this simple. The whales here are gonna stay and more power to them, but anyone ftp/c2p. IF YOU DONT PLAN ON BECOMING A WHALE your roster will be obsolete in time.
My roster is deep yet since I stopped spending I have just focused on leveling what i had to see what happens. And all I see is that each season, previous heroes become useless with the new seasons they are dropping.
None of the new players will ever know what empires was like only what it is now and that is just sad.
No matter when I have logged in I still remember the frustration of the lack of matts, horrible summoning odds, but most importantly, the fact that you could level any hero you want and one stage could take 20 damn minutes because they wouldn’t give you any gems of any color you were running.
Empires is the only hero collector I have ever played where literally nothing gets easier no matter how much work you put in.
If you are new and ftp, make this game casual only and enjoy the people around you. The attitude in the top ranks is for no better word, disgusting. The biggest mistake i made was being a competitor in a competition without a finish line that cost money to participate in.
Dont make the same.
Thank you for your time and have a safe and blessed New Year.