This is getting interesting. Evony is just one of a number of Chinese games that are nearly the same as each other, all being marketed by what look like different companies. Where does the original game come from?
One great thing that has come out of this whole Evony episode is the huge amount of support I have received from the public, all of which I am thankful for. Not just with comments on the blog here and contributions to the fighting fund. I also receive many supporting emails. Some of which help with evidence for my case. I now have masses of extra proof to support that what I have said is the truth. One of these emails told me that Evony originated with 321 WAN, a Guangzhou, China based company.
So now it is just a case of using Google and its built in translation service. Polish Wikipedia says that Evony was “manufactured” by 321WAN, Hong Kong. If you Google “321WAN Civony” (using Evony’s previous name) you get quite a lot of results. Including this one that looks like they called the game Civilization before they called it Civony. There is plenty more results to dig through these using the translate feature, if you want some fun.
Of course this is not conclusive. There are a web of companies around the world involved here. Remember the claim that Evony were making earlier this year which I have screen grabs of: Evony is owned by UMGE (Universal Multiplayer Game Entertainment). Founded by a small group of avid Chinese game developers, UMGE is based in Guangzhou, China and develops online multiplayer games.
If you come up with more information about these people please add it to the comments here. I am sure that there is a lot more yet to be revealed.
5 comments ↓
Have you considered that games like this might be a new front for cybercrime? I mean it’s one thing to get someone to download an IE toolbar that spies on them, but if they voluntarily log in daily, from their work computer (as it’s often suggested in the “discretely” ads) they could be exposing themselves to some serious business.
One of the best examples of this is the elusive “RBN”. Take look, man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Business_Network
Part 1
Re: 321wan.com
A number of whois bodies can prove helpful. Here is one from http://www.whoisbucket.com/view/321wan.com. Key details can be found below.
Registrant Contact:
UE Digital Co., LTD
lvguangbao lvguangbao (lvguangbao@umge.com)
guangzhoushitianhequwushanlujinyingdasha4lou
guangzhou, Guangdong, CN 510640
P: +86.2038319529 F:
Administrative Contact:
Nihao.Net Ltd
Daniel Wu (domain@nihao.net)
Room 406, Zhaojunmiao 14 Xueyuan Nan Lu Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing, CN 100081
P: +86.1062118984 F: +86.1062118241
Technical Contact:
Nihao.Net Ltd
Daniel Wu (domain@nihao.net)
Room 406, Zhaojunmiao 14 Xueyuan Nan Lu Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing, CN 100081
P: +86.1062118984 F: +86.1062118241
Billing Contact:
Nihao.Net Ltd
Daniel Wu (domain@nihao.net)
Room 406, Zhaojunmiao 14 Xueyuan Nan Lu Haidian District
Beijing, Beijing, CN 100081
P: +86.1062118984 F: +86.1062118241
Re: 321wan.com
A number of whois bodies can prove helpful. Here is one from http://www.whoisbucket.com/view/321wan.com.
As you can see the registrant details clearly shows that UMGE (The original listed owners of Evony) are the contact point for UE Digital Co. In this respect it would appear that UE Digital Co and UMGE are the same entity. Neither UE Digital Co nor UMGE appear to have a viable website, however, 321wan does.
321wan website in Chinese http://www.321wan.com/
321wan website with an English translation http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.321wan.com/&ei=SkwJS5P_MYyX4gbYi4TKCw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3D321wan%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den.
Any former Civony/Evony user that visits the 321wan website will immediately identify its artwork, in addition it attempts to offer a direct link to http://www.Civony.cn; third game down under the game tab. “cn” stands for China, so this indicates that the original Civony also bears the hallmark of a Chinese product.
The administrative, technical and billing for 321wan are dealt with by Nihao.Net Ltd. Given that an email address has been offered it has to be the following company http://www.nihao.net/. In the English section of this website here http://www.nihao.cn/english/default.asp it states:
“Vitech (www.vitech.net.cn) is an international Internet technical service provider, also known as Nihao Group(www.nihao.net).”
It also goes on to say this about Vitech (Some grammar added):
“Vitech has also set up extensive cooperation with government institutions and industry partners: SUN, IBM, HP, Microsoft, BEA, Oracle, Informix, EC-One, Coventive, NCS, Legend, TRS, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Beijing Polytech University, China Science Academy, China Telecom, Chinese Government Online, China Network Information Center, China E-Commerce Association, Ministry of Information, Industry Government Institutions, Government Online Project (China Telecom), The Ministry of Finance of PRC, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of PRC, The Supreme Procuratorate of PRC, Beijing Municipal Government, China Emigrants Association, CCPIT Beijing, National Copyright Administration of PRC, China e-Commerce Association and The State Golden Card Project.”
So it would appear that Evony LLC is actually run by UE Digital Co, formally UMGE and they are in partnership with Nihao/Vitech. Vitech claims to have a number of substantial partnerships with mainline corporations, including Microsoft that is currently in litigation with UMGE, or should I say UE Digital Co for click-fraud, civil conspiracy and eight other charges. It has also been claimed by Vitech, a partner of UMGE/UE Digital Co, that a number of Chinese academic and governmental bodies are in partnership with them.
A few days ago Market Watch released the following story http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-spying-online-curbing-market-freedoms-us-2009-11-20. As you can see the Security Review Commission has reported that cyber incidents against U.S. government web sites from China could likely rise another 60% this year.
The MMO products from these Chinese organisations that claim to be a registered US LLC differ from any MMO approach to date, these products operate solely from a browser and while they claim to be safe, they encourage them to be accessed by their users at work because they claim they leave no visible trace. Evony and products like it load material directly onto RAM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory and they claim that it also contains a RAM reading device, allegedly to prevent cheating (A similar device was introduced into World of Warcraft – now there’s a coincidence considering UMGE are alleged to be involved in gold farming). This software does not need administrative rights to load and it can bypass every browser that I know. Why am I not surprised that the Security Review Commission anticipates more cyberincidents from China this year? Perhaps they would do well to direct their attention more towards Delaware and other offshore Chinese companies. Chinese MMOs have not just gone first party; they have gone domestic in western states too.
Given the way Evony is behaving and is allowed to behave the Chinese MMO industry could be a front for intelligence gathering. In reality any MMO that promote its users to use their product at work are encouraging users to place their employers confidential material at risk. To claim that an online company has the right to read the users RAM due to prevent cheating is simply another way of saying we have the right to read everything that is open on your computer. With over ten million users, many of these in the western world it should stand to reason that Evony and other such products may already have access to some sensitive material.
It would seem that the two common reasons companies claim the right to read RAM is either to protect their copyright or to stop cheating. Any product that claims it has the right to read your RAM to prevent cheating indicates that the game itself is inherently flawed. The same is true if a MMO uses multihunters (This is the name given to people who are employed through game assets to identify multiple account users on each server). Many browser MMOs make up non-coded rules, these are explained in the forums. This means they will ban players for doing exactly what the game coding permits. It is because of this bribery is such common practice in many browser based MMOs.
AC
It all started from googling about Evony and why the queen is always showing off her art assets more.. now it has become almost like a promotional ARG, excitedly reading each new bit of info posted here…
@ AC – keep it up!
Can we conclude that Napwar, Kingory and others that I have not found yet are spinoffs from Evony but are being intentionally disguised?
If so, why would a legitimate operation do this when it so obvious that the game play is the same?
This would be tactic of those that have propensity to deceive and have ulterior, sinister motives.
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