Thunderdome: The First Class

On the 1st December of last year, 300 announced the creation of Thunderdome, a PvP training zone in Vindorel. Over a month has gone by since then and apparently, it has been a success. Ten Kulch had the following to say in an interview with the Telegraph:

'How is Thunderdome doing?
The first class is going quite well. As with Night Squires, the new batch of students eventually separated into the truly active, and the mostly inactive. The last full moon cycle saw some intense PvP between the participants. Presently it's the new moon phase of learning and exercises. Several players have been grinding away diligently on my daily questions and timing exercises. We've had lots of great discussions so far. Some of them already had experiences with tournaments and such, so they are asking more advanced questions. Right now we are a few days away from another full moon PvP cycle starting. I expect them to put the classroom learning to good use in there.
I have also had considerable interest from people for the spring classroom. More than for winter, really. I think many players weren't able to immediately send a city in December, but it's easier to plan for spring.
I plan on publishing the questions for each classroom phase, so that people can follow along. I do see the discussions as more important, and then actually trying concepts in PvP.
Before anyone asks, I am not publishing answer keys to the questions. That would defeat the purpose of students actually considering and discussing things, and then arriving at their answers.

How many people have participated this time?
About ten. Of those, 5 or 6 are active, learning, and fighting. We had approved more, but some of those folks never showed up (which I expected, that happened a lot in Night Squires too).
This classroom is designed to accomodate that pattern. In NS we had a lot of barely active or outright inactive accounts start to pile up. We would recruit continuously, which led to a lot of repeating of information. In this method, we take people for a specific length of time, to learn the same stuff together, and there's a built-in method to clean the classroom of inactives every 3 months.

How many have looked into joining the spring class so far?
12-15 people have asked about it (or asked to join immediately, and referred to spring). What that might become in terms of actual students, I cannot predict.'

The questions that have been set can be found here

Author: Eowan The Short

Thunderdome- A new way of Training

The Phalanx[300] has recently announced  the Thunderdome, a military training area in Vindorel. In it, players are first trained in PvP for around three months and then engage in a last man standing free for all. Each cycle begins on a solstice and the ends on an equinox.
Ten Kulch had the following to say on the Thunderdome:
'Thunderdome solves two major problems in Illyriad. First, the game currently lacks a top notch military training alliance. Our new single city format is an evolution to older traditional training alliance models. Second, Illyriad desperately needs some kind of real PvP outlet that is more complex than tournaments, but less destructive than all-out warfare. People want to explore PvP without the lethality.The equinox and solstice battles should allow players to enjoy a robust PvP experience without it taking six months and consuming billions in gold.'

Phalanx are looking into creating an API scoreboard to help keep track of players' defeats and victories within the Thunderdome.

The coordinates for the Thunderdome are as follows:
x: 604 to 654
y: -2445 to -2495

For more info, visit the The Illyriad Warmonger

Author: Eowan The Short