Torn City Times

UrgentAlibi [1608246] — Scrooge cancels Christmas for thousands! The infamous businessman, Scrooge [10], attempted to cancel Christmas once again for thousands of citizens in Torn. After the mayor of the city, Chedburn [1], called for a mass uprising against the public figure, hundreds of people rallied together in the streets of Torn in an attempt to bring the miser down. Snow was falling at the city gates. The forums were abuzz with Christmas competitions and gift exchanges. The entire Torn community seemed, on the whole, to be full of festive spirit and cheer. Ebenezer entered the city, taking residence in Torn's North Side (where most of the markets are located) a few days before Christmas Day. Rumours swirled and Number Ten was attacked before the public even knew of his presence - those in the know wanted Scrooge's infamous snow cannon for themselves. After several citizens turned up in hospital, brutally injured and covered in the dust of exploded snowballs, an offici...

IIIlusionist [253384] — As we have seen in previous articles, Torn's HOF factions have a remarkable and long history that date back many years. Out of the 2500+ factions in Torn today a huge, huge, portion of them will be filled with inactive members which have joined the slow road to deletion, others are peaceful and some used for keeping money safe. Take away these and you will see that there is just as much war mongering lower down the ranks, perhaps more so than in HOF these days. And so the lamp turns on Calculated. Purchased around two years ago by ghosty [1348728], Calculated have been shooting up the ranks ever since. As a rule of thumb most faction dont give away freebies, however HOF factions, with their rich owners and organised crime money, can more than provide supplies for wars. This was what inspired the name Calculated. They could not afford big cash prizes, points, drugs and FHCs that other factions could, but survived by carefully calculating, funnily enough the...

Moguai [423015] — How much is a faction worth? The question is often asked around Torn and the answer depends on a lot of factors - all of which are never definite and never certain. Faction value is exactly what this article aims to explore. Overall, a key component in the value of a faction is the total respect, made up of a combination of current respect and the faction specials bought in the past through trading respect in for specials. Steadfast, historically, has been the most coveted special, increasing gym gains by up to 10%. However, there has been growing popularity for Hermetic - responsible for reducing drug addiction gains by up to 50% - effectively lowering rehab bills when making the long trip to Zurich, Switzerland. Other popular specials include Salutary (reducing reviving energy cost to 25 energy vs. the standard 75) and Cumber (increases items that can be carried up to 10 while overseas). Another factor to consider when buying or selling a faction is the rank of t...

UrgentAlibi [1608246] — The dust has finally begun to settle. Eye-witnesses have described it as akin to watching a bomb go off. Families were shaken, lives destroyed, but Black Friday has finally passed. An annual tradition that began in the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally seen as the first day of the Christmas shopping period. Retailers came to anticipate this surge in the numbers of shoppers - competition and chaos followed. Stores embarked on a game of promotional one-up-manship, until Black Friday mutated into some kind of blood sport where consumers violently climb over one another to ensure they get the deal they want, before stocks run out. Black Friday is increasingly referred to in popular culture, and with popular online retailers maintaining a global presence, it was only a matter of time until this plague went viral. This last Friday, for the first time, Black Friday reportedly spread to the UK, France, Germany, and China, with...

IIIlusionist [253384] — Seeing as how there have been three separate threads for each dirty bomb that has been dropped, I thought "...why not get all of the information into a single location and save you the time sprawling through the endless pages of 'who dropped the dirty bomb?' or 'Evil-duck is going to destroy the world.'" We have nicknamed the first dirty bomb "Noob Bomb." The dirty bomb was dropped by that "well known" player krilitor1 [1608510] - you might have caught him during one of his 26 logins. However, disregarding the low, and very unlikely probability that any one player can gather $15,000,000,000 together in order to make (or buy) a dirty bomb in barely one hour and seven minutes, krilitor1 is most likely a multi-account. After all, who needs the merit and pride that comes with dropping a many-billion-dollar bomb - much better to hide behind a false account and remain anonymous is it not? The bomb was dropped on JFK, a w...

IIIlusionist [253384] — If you check out the "Bugs & Issues" forum, you will see a whole host of bugs that the developers are working to resolve. However, there have been some pretty big loop holes in the game that, in hindsight, could be considered bugs. This article will take a look at some of these loop holes. Most of these are well known to a lot of people in Torn, but some may not have been aware of them. So this will be a nice history lesson on what these unfortunate souls missed out on. Lets start with one of the older loop holes, the infamous old stock market. The stock market hasn't always been like it is today. Under the new market, people make their millions, under the old market, people made their billions. Of course, people can still make billions from today's market, but no where near as much as under the old one. To my understanding, people would buy a particular stock and drive the price up by buying more of the stock before the 15 minute update....

IIIlusionist [253384] — Since factions were introduced to the game in 2005, many factions have come and gone. In this series of articles we will try and unearth some of the history of the great factions of the past that are no longer around. Secret Service (SS) was one of the factions that started before factions were officially introduced. Several friends got together and starting playing Torn City, as it was then called, in a school library. Secret Service was almost going to be called Zegaba, which was an inside joke in reference to their high school group. However, the founder and members liked the military ring of Secret Service, and so the faction was named. Funnily enough, the founder of Secret Service, dj_dan [947267], is now in the military himself, serving in the Canadian Forces. Some of the members that were part of SS where: dj_dan [947267], DarK_PheoniX [3403], Misseh [5518], L4suicide [15699], DarkGhost [7012], OutsiDer [52235] and many more that are no longer playing t...

IIIlusionist [253384] — The next faction to come under my interrogation lamp is Forged Through War , aka FTW. FTW was originally known as GraveDiggas, before merging with Seven Nations Army and The Old Droogs. Many of the players joined together from another game, much like we saw with HT. Seven Nations Army, initially, had seven members and the merge happened before the merging with The Old Droogs. The merger with The Old Droogs went well, but it is the manner in which the merger came about that is most interesting. In 2012 FTW and The Old Droogs went to war, and the spoils of war were quite unexpected. "It was such a hateful war, that we ended up good friends." Para [1455847], leader of FTW. Obviously, after beating each other to a pulp, they realised that they could make more pulp out of other factions if they were to combine their strength. They all hopped over to GraveDiggas, with Gun_Ru [1075643] as their leader, and a vote was cast to decide the new name of the facti...

IIIlusionist [253384] — 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 l...

SIXSIXSEVEN [1451685] — It's that time again. You can tell even without checking your watch. By now your Nerve and Energy are topped off and you can get a quick TC "sesh" in before you head off to class. You mindlessly log in as you have the 10,000 times before; an expert now, at navigating the new mobile interface. You see the familiar glow of the Events and Mailbox buttons and try to recall if it's already been two weeks since you started LAW2890 - Public Law. You click Events. A list longer than your mobile screen reveals page after page of failed attacks, and you're not even in a Faction. With whom could you be at war, and how could you defend so many attacks? It's the beginning of the month. Panicked, now, you check your messages, looking for the telltale sign that someone disagreed with that one forum post so strongly, they've recruited their faction to make city life a temporary hell for you. But you're met with only more confusion. "CONG...