Unfortunately, Greed for Glory has stopped.

It has been a struggle to find a mobile game that really grabs me and strokes my gaming addiction like PK once did. Since getting the axe, I've seldom even logged in to PK, let alone played. Even similar games that are in active development don't give the feels I'm looking for. Of course, I'm still playing numerous games, but they're just all part of the rotation.

Except for RPGs, I don't generally play more than one title of a genre or style. I tried as many popular titles as I could within each genre before settling on one (or zero) of each. The mobile shortlist is very short: Greed for Glory, Honorbound, and Warspear Online. The last is slow going, as I'm yet to reach the "good part" of the game beyond the monotonous single-player collection quests. Honorbound is a "card battle" game, which drew me in with the art style, but runs a bit slow and buggy.

As for GfG, I've no idea how many of this type of game there are, but new ones show up every time I look. It was very fun through the lower levels of play; the progression was noticeable, and the PvP was rather balanced. At this point, logging in almost feels like obligation, as I've invested so much time into my build and community and don't want to leave it behind. However, I'm not really enjoying the gameplay anymore. It's very buggy, and more so with every update. The PvP is unsatisfying and a mess. And, above all else, the prevalence of "pay to win" nags me to quit every day.

I'd love to talk about my issues on a community forum like PK has, but there isn't one. I'd love to read into the numbers surrounding gameplay, but the wiki barely qualifies as existing. Just as well, I'd love to report problems to the devs, but Uservoice doesn't function for me (and many others I've asked) in-game. Though the problems are numerous, the disparity between their severity and my interest in playing leaves me unmotivated to seek the other avenues of support. I just figure I'm not the only one having the problems and wait for other players to say something. I'll just have my own rants here.

I would have to guess that Uservoice has a fantastic management side such that developers would choose to use it for in-game support. The user side is atrocious. Though I'm not able to submit new posts, as I mentioned, I am at least able to open the pages of the app. That is, until it crashes the game, as it reliably does just by having it open for about a minute. I can't figure how posts are sorted, and there is no option to sort them otherwise. Everything is in one long string of posts with no organization. The only hope is to try starting a new post and use that as a sort of search function (which is also missing). As if to add a little insult, this is labelled the "forum" in game. Not even close.

War has become an irritating back and forth between the top upgraded one or two players of the opposing kingdoms (or otherwise a complete mismatch and one side gets rolled). Since reaching high level play, the difference in strength between capped troops and capped defenses is quite obvious. You don't even need a very good arrangement of towers, just max them out (by paying to win) and stuff them all together and people will be lucky to get even one star. The last update was supposed to specifically close this gap by making big troops bigger, but it also came with additional levels to defenses, so nothing changed.

Regular multiplayer is pretty much a trend economy. It's rare to see strategic attacks with the goal of getting stars, even from other high level players. It's all about the money: what's the easiest way to steal resources? The answer changes with each update. Once it was griffins and phantoms; knock out the archer towers and you've got free reign. Then halflings got big, and you could drop 240 of them for all the money. Then people figured out vampires and used them almost the same way. Now, dragons got the same boost halflings did and an eight dragon army is the way to go. No thought, no strategy, just buy upgrades and drop them on the field. In pretty much all cases, the goal is to trade one worthless resource (glory) for the only one people want. Which brings me to my final point...

The name of the game is a lie. Every time an update was meant to increase the desire to up your glory score, players just found other ways to keep the status quo. If your upgrades aren't maxed out, glory doesn't matter, as the resources it can buy with spending it are more valuable then what can be earned by keeping it. For some, dropping glory isn't just a side effect or payment system; many have incentive to drop. In war, the strongest players are generally at the top of the rosters. However, a weaker player with a higher score (probably from everyone else dropping for resources) has direct incentive to explicitly drop glory for roster position. The only players with a proper greed for glory are the capped ones trying to hold the top ranks they've always had.

And with all this, I continue playing. I'm desperately hoping the "big kingdom update" this month brings major overhauls to the game. This hope is pretty much all that's keeping me playing right now. I can keep up with my new friends through third party apps, which I'm forced to do anyway given the lack of proper in-game messaging (wow, this list is long). Ultimately, I have to assume the other games like this one have many of the same issues, else people would flock from one to the other (or maybe they are, I don't know). They all felt the same to me when I tried them initially; I stuck with GfG mostly because it's another PerBlue product, so I gave it the best chance. There is clearly a huge attraction to the genre bringing in profit. We'll see in a month whether it can earn any more from me.

Always Break the Fourth Wall

The the openness of Parallel Kindom's game environment facilitates multitudes of playstyles. This is probably somewhere in my top 5 reasons I think PK is an awesome game. Since there is no predefined end-game, players are free to set their own goals and determine for themselves what winning entails. Soloing, pvp, group conquest, and achievement hunting are all among the many viable options, and each can be approached in different ways.

Perhaps unfortunately (some may find it fortunate), such openness allows for deviant playstyles including scamming. I find that scammers are generally looked down upon as the scum of the PK social structure. Our kingdom even has a message thread naming scammers as we encounter them (and it's rather long). Given the apparent frequency of scammers, it must be a lucrative position, albeit an unfriendly one. The social structure being integral to the game (I believe), I must wonder if there exists some scammer society; maybe I'll check through some known scammers friends lists for similarities.

As destructive as scamming can be to the game and to individuals, I still feel it adds something that only such deviant behavior can add to a social game. I am certainly no promoter of scamming; I would hate to be scammed, but simply knowing the potential is there adds to the excitement of interaction. Suppose there does exist a scammer society: imagine the impact of it crossing paths with a sizeable kingdom with a no-tolerance-we-will-hunt-you-down policy on scamming. I'd love to write that story, especially if the resulting war ended in upset.

I have equal respect for each playstyle, though I obviously like some better than others. I believe accordingly in the importance of respecting the difference between a character and a player. By this I mean that the choices made for an in game personality do not necessarily reflect the real life personality behind it. Such is the nature of a role-playing game: players can choose to establish their game presence contrary to their personal beliefs. When someone says "it's just a game," it is that separation of player and character being referenced.

Of course, there are those whose true attitude is indeed reflected in their game choices. The choices, however, are more important than the attitude on its own, as attitude has no bearing until choices are affected. The choices are what determine the relationships between characters, and in such a social game, the relationships can be more influential than the gameplay. To the individual, a good relationship can make a great game amazing, and a bad relationship can make an inactive.

A younger me might have quit on the spot if scammed. Today, I would embrace it as another chance to learn (though I would rage as much as the next guy). My friends and kingdom would know my scammer's name, and I would fight along side them to bring his comeuppance. However, I would laugh with him in chat and wish him good luck. I would remember the human behind the screen who I could watch football with, or whose kids could play with mine. I would stay civil in game because I believe players should not create in-game animosity that could carry over into real life.

It's not easy. I've known it and I've seen it. Generation gaps, cultural divides, simple personality clashes, and other barriers, though not explicitly visible in the game, would blatantly challenge the success of a real life relationship that started unsuccessfully in-game. However, I've found the solution to be the head-on preemptive one: talk to each other with understanding. When I see players exchanging unrepeatables in chat rooms, I know at least one of them is no longer having fun, and their active status is at risk. I know the situation was approached reactively, not proactively as it should have. I know one of them forgot: it's just a game.

Much of what I'm describing here is equally prevalent in similarly open mmo games across the board. The primary difference is that PK (mobile) is designed as an extension of communication and the grander technological social dynamic. We aren't restricted to the living room console or office pc. We text our address book friends, message our facebook friends, and chat with our PK friends (and every combination thereof), all from our phones. PK is a social experience with a game to run it. My hope is that more people will therefore respect it and each other. You never know who you'll bump into off the map.

Unintended Use

In the movie Apollo 13, there was an excellent line spoken by Director Krantz: "I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do." This mentality is prevalent in gaming as much as anywhere else that hosts opportunists, and PK is no exception. I've found a few examples of clever use of game mechanics to achieve various ends of which were likely not expected, even given the means to achieve them by the developers.

My favorite so far is brick sales between kingdoms. Normally, bricks are not a liquid resource, as players and kingdoms can not expends them save to invest them in their associated kingdom, usually through structure development. However, in war there is the option to surrender, and with it comes the cost of surrender: bricks. When one kingdom surrenders to another, 30% of the surrendering kingdom's and its members' bricks are lost, with half of those going to the "enemy" kingdom. Fortunately, war can be as short as the involved kingdoms like. So, after a little math and bartering: money is moved, war is declared, surrender is made, and business is business. Very clever, indeed.

Also kingdom related is a practice of banking. About to overflow your purse, but want to save up? Open an account with your kingdom! Don't see that option in the menus? Well, it's a little trickier than that. Interestingly, members with the right permissions can withdraw money from the kingdom store, but can not deposit it directly. The solution: set a flag price to your deposit amount and hop on it once. You'll have to leave the kingdom temporarily, and you'll need the help of a privileged member, but that's an acceptable inconvenience to protect your funds.

The newest dungeon, the Tower of the Golem, came with a new twist: after the final boss is destroyed, the tower crumbles and rebuilds elsewhere. Similar in a way to Hallowed Castles (though those don't respawn), it adds to the excitement of finding one, as well as the annoyance of unpredictability. If one were to spawn on kingdom land, that's quite a few bricks we could make. If only we could keep it like other dungeons... but, we can! Just leave the final boss alone, and we have a new brick generator. Great success!

While I feel none of these are in the realm of cheating, here's one that might be: faking hats. There are a few hats, such as the Slumlord Pimp Hat and the Hilton Headress, that appear to have left room for some cooperative abuse, as I've seen discussed in chats. A couple friendly players could give each other expensive flag passage, then trade flag hops all day. Fortunately, hats are nothing but status symbols of sorts; even still, such misrepresentation devalues the achievement.

I'm curious to see any sort of opportunism arising from the addition of the kingdom embassy; hopefully, it will be something positive for involved parties. In the meantime, remember to unequip your weapons when fighting silk burrowers to spawn as many as you can.

Kingdoms Get Update Love

In just over a week's span, two updates gave kingdoms two new buildings, adding some convenience and some complexity. The lesser of the two buildings, the Embassy, gives ally kingdom members a way to easily travel from their land to the others'. Basically a permanent invite, kingdoms can share land, in a way, and make brick for each other, likely by running each other's dungeons. In addition, members can request passage to kingdoms on the other side right from their own embassy, which, if it becomes popular, could increase the inflow of passage requests that a kingdom needs to field.

Some strategy and security discussion on the forum made a few interesting points. Since the Embassy rides on top of the existing passage permissions, an embassy could be built within range of a sunken city (if a kingdom has one), while keeping other kingdom structures private. Non-members could then be generating brick without any worry they might be roaming around where they shouldn't.

The likely more obvious point of the embassy, of course, is wartime management. Before, helping an ally fight off incursion involved waves of invites from individuals, interspersed with mass invites within kingdoms (once the first member traveled). Now, such "invites" can be granted ahead of time; a kingdom under siege can simply message ally kingdoms, who can then respond at their own pace. Simple invites will still occur anyway, but at a much lesser travel cost.

The bigger game changer is the new Kingdom Archive. Kingdoms can gain levels, up to 6, with their own version of pages appropriately named "kingdom pages." At each level, a kingdom can gain a new perk by spending a measly 20,000 bricks and a hefty 1,000 refined oil. Many of the perks might be expected, or even cliche: attack and defense bonuses, increased brick earning, and changes to range/distance mechanics are common. A select few did catch my eye, however, as they address interesting dynamics offered by the social nature of the game.

"Tower Watchman," a level 3 perk, grants that "Kingdom Towers take half damage when there is a single Member within its radius." The wording would suggest that additional members would negate the bonus, allowing some strategy considerations. Members could spread out across an attacked area to gain the bonus, jumping on invites when particular towers face significant opposition. Or, if the direction of a coming attack is known, members could cover a long stretch of the kingdom's border, in hopes the first attack wave is better stemmed until the invites go through.

"Favored Odds" (level 5) grants a healing bonus to the smaller opposing golem army. This could be used as another stalling tactic, like Tower Watchman, but could be devastating if the smaller army's golems are stronger. Granted, most golems brought to war will be +5, so this is mostly for balance when one side outnumbers the other.

"Shock Team" (level 6) adds a decent incentive for kingdom members to act together in real time: "When all active members are nearby, each Member receives +4 Attack and Defense." Smaller kingdoms will probably eat this up, as fewer actives means an easier time having everyone in game. The opposite is just as true, so more populated kingdoms will probably go wanting. Like Favored Odds, the wording lacks specifics on distance, and similarly acts to balance battles between differently sized forces, since smaller kingdoms will generally have greater ease gaining the bonuses. And if a large kingdom does manage to pull it off, it's a good reward for good coordination.