| Set On Stun |

A friend of mine showed me an ad for a new online browser MMO: Nodiatis.  More after some gratuitous fantasy cleavage…

I’m no fan of Evony/ Civony.  In fact it gained the honors of the worst video game marketing in 2009.  The internet exploded when we all started getting ads enticing us to “come play my lord”.   Naturally, some of us, curious, clicked and took a look.

I’ve been justifiably harsh in my criticism of Evony because they didn’t just stoop the lowest common denominator, they took the denominator, stabbed it in the eye and left it to rot in the alley.  The ads did nothing to bridge the expectation between the gamer and the game.  It created a false impression of what the game was in an attempt to capture as many users into its deceptive game.  Sure, it’s free to play… but if you want to talk to other people or pretty much do anything in that game, you gotta shell out the money.  But, enough about Evony.

There’s a new game that was brought to my attention: Nodiatis.  It’s another browser based fantasy MMO that have sprung up.  However, what caught my eye was this ad:

When I first saw this, I was ready to sharpen my talons and rip into it Evony-style.

However, the more I thought about this, the less irritated I got at Nodiatis.

One of the most common fantasy tropes is the scantily clad woman waiting to be rescued.  This is something that will probably never change.  As long as fantasy is about… well… fantasies, there will be some unrealistic and hyperbolic representation and symbolization.  There will also be some exploitation involved.

What really irritated me about Evony was that it took that biological impulse and used it to deceive people into clicking on the ad with imagery that was ripped off, modified without permission and over-sexualized to promote a game in which the game itself didn’t support the expectation of the ads.

Nodiatis falls into the cliche of hyper-sexualization and even a bit of S&M imagery (you don’t know exactly how she got into that position… do you?) yet, when the game is played, it’s a very standard browser based fantasy MMO.  It doesn’t lie to you in the way that Evony did.  Is it cheesy?  Yes.  Is it “roll your eyes bad advertising”?  Yes.  At least it doesn’t lie.

Although, I do like the “Best online RPG I have played” quote from one of its own players.  That elicited a slight chuckle from me.

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