Is Illyriad a Game or a Playground?

I find the playground metaphor inaccurate. People might set personal goals or enjoy specific activities within Illyriad, but everything is in the context of empires. Every building in your city is to produce troops, decrease their cost, or produce the items necessary to build and arm them. All the rare materials on the map exist to make munitions, or are presently useless. Magic, research, sovereignty, crafting, diplomacy, trade--they are all ultimately present to support armies. Players like myself might specialize in a few aspects like trade and crafting, but the whole of the game mechanics are oriented directly or indirectly around troops.

How those troops are used is the crux of Illyriad. Many enjoy hunting and tournaments, a few enjoy wars. The existence of some pacifist options doesn't change the fundamental nature of the sandbox--Illyriad is a game about empires.

War isn't the only outlet for empires to use troops. Tournaments probably consume more troops than wars.

Venita wrote: Plain and simple ,  Illy is a war game . Some may not engage in military activities,  but every aspect supports troops. From harvesting , crafting, and on.  It is all to support/build/armour your troops.

you might as easily say that illy is a game about the accumulation of wealth, and that all military units do is protect one's resources. the military endgame is the one the devs have spent the most time on. there might be many other opportunities to spend one's gold, were the devs interested in expanding illy rather than their other endeavours.

ajqtrz is attempting to build an analogy that will force the forum audience into a position that individual players, and by extension groups of players, have a "right" to play without interference from other players; i.e., to set up islands of play protected by "universally accepted" principles (e.g., the 10-square rule). i actually accept the analogy but reject his regimented view of playground activities. i do not think this argument is likely to change many minds.

Venita wrote: You all think too much, debate too much.   Plain and simple ,  Illy is a war game . Some may not engage in military activities,  but every aspect supports troops. From harvesting , crafting, and on.  It is all to support/build/armour your troops.

You think to little and debate not at all.   Plain and simple.  Illy is a playground.  Some may engage in military activities, but every aspect supports whatever goal you have, from harvesting, crafting and so on.  It is all to support/build/create whatever it is you want to support/build/create.

You see the problem?  When you only make statements without evidence or reasoning to back them up all I have to do is state the opposite and we fail to progress in our understanding.

But allow me to explain my statements.  That Illy is a complex location is obvious since we wouldn't be discussing this question if it were obvious to all.  What is obvious to you is not always obvious to all, or even to many.  I would argue that if you wanted to actually engage in the question at hand you would find that both the "game" and the "playground" descriptions have some evidence in and reasoning in support, but that you would need to actually do more thinking to comprehend that to be so.

You say "Illy is a war game" because you can make war in Illy.  That is like saying my 2008 Chevrolet Impala is a taxi because I can use it like one.  Illy is a structure of web pages in cyber space used by some to simulate wars and used by others to simulate other human (and non) activities.  It is a simulation in one sense, but an incomplete one since is sets up an imaginary world where real people can explore differing roles, from warrior to trainer, trader to merchant and so on and shape to some degree whatever it becomes.  As it is now, it is no more a "war game" than the world is a "war world."  Of course if you mean by "a war game" that you cannot exist in Illy without going to war, I would beg to differ with you as there are hundreds of players who have never gone to war, and some of us have only done so because we were attacked.

So if it is a war game, it is because you CHOOSE to make it so.  I have no problem with you doing so, so long as you leave me the freedom to CHOOSE to not make it a war game.  The point being that you can choose to make it a war game and I can choose to do otherwise just as on a playground you can choose to play basketball or choose to play hopscotch.  And if you choose to one or the other if you force others to play what it is you are playing, then you have taken their choice away.  So a playground may emphasize baseball and have baseball diamonds, but we can all choose to play Frisbee golf on it, or football or whatever.   Illy is a place of choices. 

In addition, while every aspect does support troops, every aspect also supports hunting NPC's, trade, quests, and the like.  The designers may have spent more time and energy on the warfare aspect of it, and perhaps it's because they want to attract warriors, but that doesn't mean they built it to be a war game.  I can build a playground with 200 basketball courts but that doesn't mean the skate-boarders are not allowed to skate board.

So Illy reflects a simulated playground.  A playground with all kinds of tools for real people to use with their imagination to create a whole range of things, including wars, peace treaties, harvesting, roads, forum discussions, quests, tournaments and the like.  Just like a playground its a cyber space playground.

Now how about expanding on your post and giving us some reasoning upon which to chew.

AJ