IIIlusionist [253384] —
Original article
(re-publish before part 2)
There are over 2,500 factions in Torn, varying in size, strength and activity. Factions have seen many changes over the life span of the city. The ranking system wasn't in place at the beginning, there were less organised crimes, no armories and there were also different staff positions, such as third in command and treasurer. However, some of the biggest and most discussed changes are the different warring systems, which are what this article will focus on. Factions war for many reasons; for fun, pride, grudges and to cure their boredom. But most importantly is to gain respect.
We will start at the beginning, or as close to it as possible. When factions first came about, there was no such thing as chaining, non-aggression packs or peace treaties. In fact, before Spring 2005 there was no such thing as factions. There was no faction headquarters like there is today, people would just put a "tag" in front of their name to show they were part of a larger group. For example, I am in Destructive Anomaly, so instead of my name being "IIIlusionist" it would be something like "-DA-IIIlusionist". Factions were then introduced in 2005. Respect was gained and taken with individual attacks made on the opposing faction. There were three options in war. Either you surrender and pay a fee, get declared on after refusing to wave the white flag, or fight till the other faction surrendered. In those days a typical surrender fee was around $20,000-$50,000, a bargain in today's economic climate, but in those days that amount was considered a small fortune. As there was no clear end point for wars, they could go on for months if both sides refused to surrender.
A few side notes before I continue. Back then, factions could be destroyed a lot easier than today. This was because the amount of respect gained from an attack was similar to what was lost from the other faction. There was no limit on the faction war base, so there were no shortages of targets, for a time at least. However, chaining between various factions in your war base was not implemented at the time. Attacking abroad was also not an option, which meant entire faction would attack a faction, then take to the skies straight after to avoid a counter strike. During the time mentioned above, there were no specials to spend respect on; respect was merely there to stay alive. Imagine respect being a factions health/life points, the more you have the more attacks you can endure, and when you hit zero you die.
Moving forward in time about a year (2006) chaining was introduced, marking the start of the modern system. This system worked on the principle that the longer the chain lasted, the more respect the faction gained. If timed right, or after the midnight chaining update (2007), chains would run for days, weeks and even months. This started to become an issue for some. As mentioned before, the respect gained by a faction was pretty much deducted from the other factions respect. So as you can imagine, as chains built up and respect gained per hit increased, respect would begin to disappear very quickly.
Let us take a breather, as this shall take a while to get though, to analyse what the aforementioned warring system actually meant for factions. Because factions lost a lot more respect when attacked, it was much easier to destroy factions, it was very much a cut throat period. This warring system was, and still is, much loved and missed by a lot of the older players. I'll admit even I enjoyed this warring system, though it wasn't all fun and games. The system almost forced people to fight back and war if they wanted their faction to survive, and sometimes even that wasn't enough to stay afloat. However, many of those that enjoyed this system were in top factions, which had the fire power to gain enough respect to survive and enjoy warring. It was the weaker factions that struggled. Larger factions were always searching with headlights to find smaller faction to war. This meant a lot of factions dropped to zero respect and were destroyed. Smaller factions would pay for protection from larger factions, which made it almost impossible to war a faction without another getting involved. Having strong allies was very beneficial. Alliances are not seen so much under the current system, although "guest chainers" fill that gap nicely. Alliances also made it impossible to war one faction without other factions getting involved, so generally wars involved several factions rather than just 1 vs 1 battles. Larger factions would extort smaller faction, and if they refused they would be obliterated. You may have noticed that I don't say "stronger factions". This is because strength was not as important as numbers; more members meant more attacks, which means bigger chains and more respect. There was a lot more of a political side to warring in those days. Factions would have to discuss terms of surrenders which would include surrender fees, weapons and not attacking members, an aspect of warring that has been lost in later warring system.
Another side note. Bots in IRC were used to help time the five minutes allowed between attacks to help stop the chain breaking. This system highlights why HT reaching 100,000 respect back then was such a big achievement. Today 100,000 respect can be gained in a month, and can be maintained without warring. There were also no drugs in the early factions day, so no 25 energy attacks and no Xanax stacking.
(To be continued....)
There are over 2,500 factions in Torn, varying in size, strength and activity. Factions have seen many changes over the life span of the city. The ranking system wasn't in place at the beginning, there were less organised crimes, no armories and there were also different staff positions, such as third in command and treasurer. However, some of the biggest and most discussed changes are the different warring systems, which are what this article will focus on. Factions war for many reasons; for fun, pride, grudges and to cure their boredom. But most importantly is to gain respect.
We will start at the beginning, or as close to it as possible. When factions first came about, there was no such thing as chaining, non-aggression packs or peace treaties. In fact, before Spring 2005 there was no such thing as factions. There was no faction headquarters like there is today, people would just put a "tag" in front of their name to show they were part of a larger group. For example, I am in Destructive Anomaly, so instead of my name being "IIIlusionist" it would be something like "-DA-IIIlusionist". Factions were then introduced in 2005. Respect was gained and taken with individual attacks made on the opposing faction. There were three options in war. Either you surrender and pay a fee, get declared on after refusing to wave the white flag, or fight till the other faction surrendered. In those days a typical surrender fee was around $20,000-$50,000, a bargain in today's economic climate, but in those days that amount was considered a small fortune. As there was no clear end point for wars, they could go on for months if both sides refused to surrender.
A few side notes before I continue. Back then, factions could be destroyed a lot easier than today. This was because the amount of respect gained from an attack was similar to what was lost from the other faction. There was no limit on the faction war base, so there were no shortages of targets, for a time at least. However, chaining between various factions in your war base was not implemented at the time. Attacking abroad was also not an option, which meant entire faction would attack a faction, then take to the skies straight after to avoid a counter strike. During the time mentioned above, there were no specials to spend respect on; respect was merely there to stay alive. Imagine respect being a factions health/life points, the more you have the more attacks you can endure, and when you hit zero you die.
Moving forward in time about a year (2006) chaining was introduced, marking the start of the modern system. This system worked on the principle that the longer the chain lasted, the more respect the faction gained. If timed right, or after the midnight chaining update (2007), chains would run for days, weeks and even months. This started to become an issue for some. As mentioned before, the respect gained by a faction was pretty much deducted from the other factions respect. So as you can imagine, as chains built up and respect gained per hit increased, respect would begin to disappear very quickly.
Let us take a breather, as this shall take a while to get though, to analyse what the aforementioned warring system actually meant for factions. Because factions lost a lot more respect when attacked, it was much easier to destroy factions, it was very much a cut throat period. This warring system was, and still is, much loved and missed by a lot of the older players. I'll admit even I enjoyed this warring system, though it wasn't all fun and games. The system almost forced people to fight back and war if they wanted their faction to survive, and sometimes even that wasn't enough to stay afloat. However, many of those that enjoyed this system were in top factions, which had the fire power to gain enough respect to survive and enjoy warring. It was the weaker factions that struggled. Larger factions were always searching with headlights to find smaller faction to war. This meant a lot of factions dropped to zero respect and were destroyed. Smaller factions would pay for protection from larger factions, which made it almost impossible to war a faction without another getting involved. Having strong allies was very beneficial. Alliances are not seen so much under the current system, although "guest chainers" fill that gap nicely. Alliances also made it impossible to war one faction without other factions getting involved, so generally wars involved several factions rather than just 1 vs 1 battles. Larger factions would extort smaller faction, and if they refused they would be obliterated. You may have noticed that I don't say "stronger factions". This is because strength was not as important as numbers; more members meant more attacks, which means bigger chains and more respect. There was a lot more of a political side to warring in those days. Factions would have to discuss terms of surrenders which would include surrender fees, weapons and not attacking members, an aspect of warring that has been lost in later warring system.
Another side note. Bots in IRC were used to help time the five minutes allowed between attacks to help stop the chain breaking. This system highlights why HT reaching 100,000 respect back then was such a big achievement. Today 100,000 respect can be gained in a month, and can be maintained without warring. There were also no drugs in the early factions day, so no 25 energy attacks and no Xanax stacking.
(To be continued....)
Original article
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