Torn City Times

IIIlusionist [253384] — The updates to player activity statuses and the inventory system are all well and good, but what more do the citizens of Torn have to look forward to in the near future? We will start with a smaller potential update: Starter Jobs. At the moment, the starter jobs' role in the game is uncertain. Should they be a stepping stone to companies where new players can boost stats quickly before jumping to companies, or should they be a viable career choice with specials that rival that of companies? The demand for more employees from player-run companies often means new players jump into companies fairly early in the game due to various specials and high pay. A little attention may be given to adjusting starter jobs in a number of ways to give them a little more meaning and competitive edge. As it stands, new players are able to choose from three of the six starter jobs before eventually unlocking all six. One proposed change may open up all six to new players righ...

IIIlusionist [253384] — People play games for all sorts of reasons - enjoyment, passing the time, socialisling. However, for some gamers a game, much like some experience whilst reading books or watching movies, is something that they can lose themselves in. Often, those that don't have an interest in games label those that do as unsociable or "geeks", which may be true in some cases, however, these labels are often far from the truth. Gaming can be considered a hobby just like reading, playing chess, cycling or extreme sports. With a game like torn you rarely get to see the faces of those player with which you communicate and play the game with, and it is easy to forget that there are people sitting at the receiving end of messages, event and discussions. Perhaps more importantly it is easy to forget what type of person you yourself are. As Torn is a role-playing game a little chest thumping and smack talk is understandable, but with torn also being a place where peopl...

IIIlusionist [253384] — Back to the hall of fame where we will see what we can learn about Evolution. Evolution was created some time in October 2012, I was unable to narrow it down to a particular day. It was the resulting faction from a merge between two HOF factions, Bad Ass Mother F**ckers (BAMF) and Random Acts Of Violence (RAoV). SlickRick [654393] and JimmyJames [581165] ran BAMF, Todd [63384] and Scott [97570] ran RAoV. Puscifer [61736] and JimmyJames then took the main lead of the newly formed Evolution. The merger took over one year to finalize and complete, and happened largely because BMAF and RAoV were good friends even before the merger, and the two factions complimented each other quite well. RAoV had the stat monsters and BAMF had the chaining stamina, and these are two ingredients you need to make a chaining machine; chainers that never stop, and big hitters too keep the other faction in hospital. BAMF was created in October 2008. They were involved in many wars, and...

IIIlusionist [253384] — The weeks seem to be flying by recently, and I barely have time to reflect on what went on in the week. So for a little fun and enjoyment I thought I would share with you fine, and not so fine, citizens of Torn what I have been doing in our city as of late. My time on Torn has, unfortunately, been rather limited lately and my events page is starting to look like this more and more regularly, which is worrying: Sometimes I see the "Events" tab highlighted with one new event only to find an event from 5-7 hours ago telling me I had taken an Xanax. However, if you looked closely at the picture above, the more observant among you will have noticed the red box in the middle of all those Xanax events, where someone tried to attack me. After dealing 498 damage and receiving 2371 damage, thought to themselves "I just might not win this attack". It happens to the best of us; the amount of times I start an attack only to be thoroughly beaten. (Hint f...

Gholden [1786423] — As an editor and editing correspondent, I rarely get an opportunity to write some headline story. Today that changed, and I received the assignment to interview a member of our community: Pand0ra [132296]. I headed out of the office to the Headquarters of the JFK faction where Pand0ra had agreed to meet me and talk about her experiences in this city. We chatted for a few hours about her humble beginnings with the faction Impact. After running a faction of her own called Chaptastic, she decided to merge with Rotton Souls and created Vae Victis (VV) which was co-lead with Z_junior [247674]. Shortly after, they both decided to merge with JFK which was being ran by Nota [68062]. This has been her home ever since, spending almost 9 years as part of JFK. Reaching level 100 was one of her most significant achievements, but she is proud of many others. She has been part of a faction at the top of the HOF, became staff and Admin, and even has her own collectible! (Pand0ras...

IIIlusionist [253384] — Our attention turns to a faction that caught a lot of peoples eyes and had high expectation as they were rising through the ranks, The UnLeashed Sykoz (TuS). TuS was started a few years back by iiNsane [1006280]. He said the name was chosen because they want(ed) to be viewed as ruthless, although to this day I do not what "Sykoz" means. At present, whilst waiting for the factions updates, TuS war every couple of month, but it used to be the opposite, training every couple of months and chaining the rest of the time. As TuS are one of the "New generation factions", I find that their war history is quite interesting. Although they have not been around as long as other factions they have gained just as much respect as many of the HOF factions. Although TuS themselves are a HOF faction the speed at which they were able to break into HOF is a nice achievement, and are now respected in HOF. TuS's first major war was against Way Of The Warrio...

IIIlusionist [253384] — I often find myself clicking away in the city, checking on how the markets, stocks and other parts of Torn are doing. Most days go the same, I'll find a sheep plushie, browse things I can't afford...I'm living the dream! So you can imagine my surprise when I decide to click, hopefully, on the missions link in an attempt to spice up my daily Torn routine. I was greeted with something I have never seen before. Yep...stop drooling; missions have appeared on the horizon! Don't get overexcited yet though, they have just entered the testing phase. But based on what this reporter has seen so far, everything looks rather impressive. There is limited information at the moment as it is just in the testing phase and the missions available are limited, probably to ensure mission mechanics are functioning as expected. However, here are some of my initial thoughts based on the testing I have done so far. As mentioned before, there will be a number of mission...

IIIlusionist [253384] — As updates continue to roll out following the RESPO update, developers have given players many hints as to what to expect in the near, and not so near, future. This is a small coverage of the ongoing developments on potential upcoming updates. Be warned, these are not final versions and have by no means been finalized. First up, we have the introduction of specials ammunition and attachments for weapons. Special ammunition will most likely provide some benefit depending on the type of ammunition used on a weapon. Some of the ammunition that will be available is already visible in the Ammo Locker section. Attachments are also on the list of updates. There will be a variety of attachments that will add a bonus to accuracy, stealth, ammo capacity, magazines and more aspects of attacking. As demonstrated in the above image, there will be a number tiers/levels of attachments. The higher the upgrade level, the higher the benefit and harder the attachment will be to...

IIIlusionist [253384] — Memento Mori - an object kept as a reminder of the inevitability of death, such as a skull. Sounds like a nice place does it not? A gloomy place filled with rotting carcases and crushed skulls of unfortunate by-passers, or a bunch of night people holding skulls waiting for their inevitable doom to come claim them comes to mind. However, it turns out Memento Mori is just a name chosen for our next faction bio, who happen to be the complete opposite to the above description...well mostly. Memento Mori was created in 2009. It was bought by Tascon [209070] from Scampi [872103], along with UnFairlane [450963] and whiterose [365252]. The faction was initially named The Little House on the Prairie, and was to be a place of peace and tranquillity where Tascon and his close friends could relax and build on their stats. However, complaints from members that the name sounded to "wimpy" led to them changing the name to Memento Mori. Memento Mori only started t...

IIIlusionist [253384] — Over the years of Torn there have been few factions that people can say were the outright strongest faction at the time. There is normally a mix of factions fighting for top spot, which isn't a bad thing. In the past, the likes of BH, SUN, Inquest, Plague Family, Secret Service, PT-Family and 39th Street Killers have claimed, or were close to claiming, top spot for a time. However, there are even fewer factions that can say they have shown they are class above the rest for a long period of time, perhaps only two. Some would say HT dominated the faction scene in the early faction days, and now Just Fer Killin (JFK). Outkasts was where JFK stemmed from. In 2007, Outkasts were a mid-sized faction that didn't have the strongest players. Lacking the big stats and having a fair few members, made them a big target for larger factions to war and extort. So it wasn't long before Outkasts members came to the realisation that having a faction with only a few...