Well that one came out of left field and the devs have certainly shaken things up. My esteemed coleague has already reposted the rules, so I won't take your time up by lsting them again.
Lets just hit on some high points instead.
10 days of competition, this is going to be a long drawn out affair. The good part though is that unlike the massively intensive Faction Wars, you can jump on and get your attacks in for the day in a relatively short space of time. All of us have real life considerations, and this format seems for more 'familly friendly'. I definately like that.
Being a circuit fight format, it does remove a lot of the bluff, formation and scout strategy that makes a faction war so exciting. You can now attack to your hearts content with no penalty. Personally, I am not in favour of that aspect having been removed, however I can see it as a positive for some. I will come back to this point later.
You can go through the whole event without having to mess about with specialists... well, apart from the mandatory rainbow fights. I have friends in the specialist hating camp who are hopefully going to love this aspect. I've stated before that they have waited a long time to be able to strut their stuff with impunity and just let their big guns do the talking. Now is their time, and while it means I'm going to get my behind handed to me in a lot of the circuits, they have waited patiently for this chance and I certainly don't begrudge them.
Worth mentioning is what you get for pure participation. 20 niodes and as much crystal as you can win for yourself. Even the clans that previously come out of a war in last place for their division gets some reward, and its a handy bonus for everyone else. I've certainly had raid payouts worth less than that.
Complaints about energy use and scoring have already been addressed by the devs, so I won't go into them here. The other complaint I have seen is that this event very much favours the larger clans. More players mean more points. Can't argue with it becuase it is true. It also puts the solo clans at a disadvantage.
Hmm.. not realy. I'll explain why. We were expecting this to be a Faction War, so all those solo clans would have had to band together with others to be able to compete. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so for this event. Get in touch with a few other solo clans. Shake out into 1 or 2 larger sized ones that can maximise the point income. With the added benefit that their friends list grows bigger because they have been introduced to new team mates, just like happens in a Faction War.
And here's the point I was going to come back to. The new clans, the solo clans at low level. Those who are still getting to grips with the game. Those ones trying to make their way up the steep learning curve of tactics for a Clan War. This event is an ideal primer for them. They get to learn teamwork, they get exposure to prize packs and raids. But they don't need all of the sneaky tactics that those of us in the higher divisions have honed over the years because this is a straight drag race and the highest number of kills wins the points. Its an ideal stepping stone between solo play and team play.
Now all that needs to happen is to get those newbies organised into clans and entered, so we can hook that new blood into the game the same way us old vets are hooked.
Submitted by David McCallum #701548