Wasted Potential – Avalon Wars Review

Avalon Wars is, in essence, an interesting and addicting game. You build up your base and army over time, getting better generals, units, and equipment to become stronger and defeat other players in battle. There are also legions you can join, which allow you to learn from other players and improve as a group. Although the combat system is hands-off (you click to fight someone and see what happens), it remains interesting, and there is plenty of motivation to keep improving. Up to a point. The developers, ifree, have done a horrible job running and maintaining this game. They have implemented a legion battle system called "bounty" that has killed activity on older servers and will do the same for newer ones. Essentially, the system gives a large daily bonus (24,000 credits) to the largest legion, allowing it to grow stronger at a faster rate than any other legion. Although it is supposed to be a "legion battle" system, there is little actual battling between legions, for a legion that fights a rival one and loses gets nothing for 3 days until the next battle (they could probably settle for a smaller reward of 3k, 6k, or 12k credit/day instead of fighting a losing battle). The aggregation of monetary advantages builds up the large legion until members from other legions grow tired of getting beaten up, lose interest, and quit. Instead of fixing this poorly thought-out system, ifree attempts to placate players with poorly thought-out events meant to encourage the buying of domistals, the shortcut currency of the game that you can buy with real-life money. It doesn't work. I want this game to be great. But ifree doesn't share this desire. They seem content to squeeze as much money as possible out of one server, then move on to the next. Would I recommend playing this game? Probably not. It's very addicting, but the frustration ifree's incompetent management of this game causes will probably outweigh the enjoyment that the game can provide. However, the game is free, so feel free to give it a try. If you do choose to play, DON'T spend any money on this game. Ifree doesn't deserve the positive reinforcement, and yours will be a wasted investment when there is almost no activity on your server. tl;dr: Good concept, horrendous management. Definitely not worth spending money on.
Review by Art of Review on Avalon Wars.