Utopia is a massive multiplayer internet-based strategy game. It is a highly successful game, having won the People's Voice Webby Award for Gaming Site of the Year twice (2002 and 2003). According to the official site, the World of Legends server alone has nearly 40,000 active accounts. Utopia is free to play; the game is supported by revenue from banner and pop-up advertising. Players can either pay a small fee for each Age or a one-time fee permanently for some minor in-game bonuses and removal of all advertising in the game.
Gameplay is divided into periods called "Ages," with each Age lasting between three to four months. At the end of an Age, all accounts are reset to their initial states to give players a fresh start, any new balance and gameplay changes are put into effect, and the competition begins again. On June 27th 2007, the game entered its 36th age, which is called the Age of Bravery.
Until recently there were three game servers available: "World of Legends," where both new players and more casual players were encouraged to play, "Battlefields," where the game's most competitive players were found, and "Genesis," an experimental server where possible play changes are tested. As of Age 30, the Battlefields and the World of Legends servers have been merged, uniting both servers under the name of World of Legends. The Genesis server retained its name.
The game site no longer has the Battlefields server. Instead, another competitive server was born in its place - the Utopian Stand-Off Server. The Utopian Stand-Off is a unique one-time only tournament server in which players get randomly assigned a kingdom and have the opportunity to compete until only one kingdom is left standing. All players sign up in advance of the game starting - once kingdoms have been assigned, no more players are allowed into the game. The game is designed to get more difficult as time progresses and is expected to last no more than about 3 months.
As of May 13, the Stand-Off has been officially brought to a close. It has since been replaced by "The Great Utopian War" which offers a newly revamped style of play in that kingdoms will participate in a series of wars until one is left standing. These wars will last a random amount of time (usually 3-5 real time days) following up with a general recovery period of 2-3 days.