Toribash Blog

As the majority of you probably now know, Toribash is finally on the Steam Greenlight system! WOAH! That’s a pretty major leap forward for Toribash, and there are undoubtedly gonna be a few changes around the community. But how? What’s next for Toribash? Will we have to pay!? What does old hamps think? What does the rest of the staff think? What the bloody hell does Greenlight even mean?

Well fear not Tori-folks, uncle Erth is here to answer all your Steamy questions… Or at least some of them.

First off I guess, I should probably explain what Greenlight means, for anyone that isn’t clued up on it. It’s a system whereby any developer of a game can post on Steam about their game, and the community can vote on it.

If the community likes it, Steam will officially release it, brilliantly simple! That means if you have steam, go vote Toribash up. Like… Right now. Before I ban you in the arse.

With such a big thing for Toribash, ofcourse there’s gonna be a big blog post. So be aware of that this has a lot of stuff to cover, it’s not a short read. I make no apologies for that Toribashians, this is a great thing for our community so requires a lot of attention.

Upon having the idea that I was gonna do this blog post after waking up at 1PM in a daze, I decided to do as little work as possible and go interview hampa because he’d know everything, right?

<Erth> hey, I was wondering if I could talk to you about the Greenlight thing, for the blog team?

<hampa> sure

<Erth> wicked, first off a big congratulations, this is surely a big step forward for toribash

<Erth> How long has this been in the pipeline?

<hampa> We have talked about it for a while, I wanted to finish with the 4.4 release before submitting it there

<Erth> There have been concerns raised with regards to the servers handling the influx of players, is everything fine on that front? In a wider sense; is Toribash prepared for an influx of players?

<hampa> Yes, I’m not too worried about that

<Erth> What do you think people will be attracted to about Toribash? It’s selling points, as it were

<hampa> A competitive online fighting game with a great community of players

<Erth> Now, you mentioned in the “ask the staff” thread about a team speak function. Is there anything else you could tell us about that? Or any other features that may be coming?

<hampa> I’m planning to add insta achievements and some dismemberment options

<Erth> Oh wow. That’s pretty major

<Erth> Another question from the ask the staff thread comes from ImmortalCow (aka Gorman):

<Erth> Speaking of steam greenlight, what effect will this have on the store?

<Erth> I remember Mojang refused the invitation to have their game on steam because they were not allowed to have their own market place.

<hampa> yes, I saw that too

<hampa> How the store will look like I don’t know at this point

<Erth> Here’s hoping it’s not a deal breaker, I know this question was answered by Solax, but an official answer would be cool; We won’t have to pay for Toribash in the future, will we?

<hampa> no

<Erth> excellent

<Erth> now, for more of a general question, with an open ended answer where you can elaborate as you feel fit; What do you think will change if toribash is released on steam?

<hampa> I hope it will bring more players and more features

<Erth> cool, thanks for your time man, any final words for the community?

<hampa> es shovel es legal

So turns out hampa is but one guy and can’t possibly know everything. Go figure. But it’s good to know we won’t have to pay anything in the future. And no worries about the servers either, so long as that Deejex asshole doesn’t come back around being all butthurt. (Probably shouldn’t mock a script-kiddie in a public blog post but whatcha gonna do). And even a word on shovelling for ya.

If any of you have any follow up questions for hampa, feel free to post them on the News thread, or pm me and I’ll do a Q&A with him soon.

So after the interview, I still had a lot of questions… Ok that’s a lie, I had an idea to interview a load of people to get a bigger word count and it was all off the cuff, but I’m a sucker for a good anecdote. First on my list was to tackle the market and the economy.

Market and staff:

And who better to tell us all about the market and economy (among other things) than the great red and black based hampa in the sky, ishi! An admin nowadays, back out of retirement to solve, ban and internetshi all over the place, he was the obvious choice…

<Erth> hey

<ishi> hello erf

<Erth> Well first off I guess, what do you think greenlighting Toribash will do to the community? Wht audience do you think Toribash will primarily attract?

<ishi> there will probably be a division of the community kind of like how it was when the game was pay to play, newer people will annoy all of the old users with questions and stuff, but it will eventually settle down

<ishi> the users it attracts will probably be decent people, the steam platform has many users so there should be a nice mix of people

<Erth> Do you think the division will cause problems around the forums? Maybe more staff will be needed to keep everyone in check?

<ishi> we will probably be very busy the first couple days if it gets greenlit, depending on the number that stick around we may require additional pylons

<Erth> Are you confident Toribash will be Greenlit?

<ishi> looking at the list of other games that want to be greenlit, i think toribash stands up to them very well, i dont know if valve has had experience with a game like ours with an already established economy, that may cause problems depending on how much control they want, but we’ll see, i think it has a good chance overall

<Erth> Yeah, Gorman mentioned a pre-formed economy causing problems for Minecraft, and hampa was unsure how that would play out

<Erth> Given the current state of the market in toribash, and assuming it stayed as it is, do you think the market would improve with more people? Or would the inflation increase?

<ishi> i think hampa likes this project too much to let steam mess with it, so if they want to do anything to fuck it up i dont think he’d go through with it

<Erth> economishi, go

<ishi> i think we would need to reevaluate some things, maybe lower prices to give newer players a taste of customization, as it stands its hard to people to get a full texture set when they first start out, and customization is one of the cornerstones of this game, but that’s just an idea of mine, i dont know how it’d play out in the long run

<ishi> also we would need a lot more servers, that may cause problems too :p

<ishi> also oh god i can just see the scam reports board already..

<Erth> mother of god… the scams…

<ishi> what have we donneeeeeeeee

<Erth> rofl, well thank you for your time

<Erth> a light hearted take to the economy from ishi there, guys

<Erth> any final words?

<ishi> erth is a better interviewer than steller. also, have faith in hampa, he is a good guy and only wants to see the game grow, he wont ace of spades it

Replays:

BUT I DIDN’T STOP THERE! OH NO! We have a sneak peek into the mind of one of the replay community’s best known stars. Oblivion, ladies and mentlegen! More exclamation marks!!!

<Erth> Now, Oblivion, first off – what do you think putting Toribash on the Greenlight system will do to the community as a whole? Both ingame and on the forums

<Oblivion> Hey! Overall I’m quite excited about it. It seems like finally we might reach to a lot more people with the kind of advertising steam can bring. The huge inflow of people might be a bit difficult to handle at first, but I can see us having an improved multiplayer experience with more tournaments, more events; well, a lot more activity in general.

<Erth> Activity sure is something that people have been concerned about for a while, what do you think the increased activity will do to the replay making community? More CnC? New frontiers? Or maybe just a load more unwatched replays?

<Oblivion> Hopefully, we’ll have some new barriers broken. I expect some different styles getting a bit more prominent, but mostly the already existing ones pushed further beyond what we see nowadays. I can see steam opening the doors of the game to a lot of more hardcore players, who invest in countless hours of editing and exhaustively, insanely, perfect replays (Jaker *wink*wink*), but also to players with new and creative ideas.

<Oblivion> Also, I hope the increased activity in replay-making get bugs spotted, reported and fixed faster than it is right now. I understand that a lot of replay-makers prefer using older version that they’ve growned accustumed to, but I can’t stress enough how important it is that we try and use the new releases to make development easier and better. Maybe the way to report bugs isn’t standardized enough, but that’s more the staff’s area than mine.

<Erth> Good point, and one we can hope to get something done about, for sure

<Erth> Now, the learning curve for Toribash is renown for being steep, so steep it wards off many who try it. Do you think that people will try it and simply think it’s too hard? Any advice for anyone brought here from steam and literally just starting replay making?

<Oblivion> Most people will probably try it and think it’s too hard, I doubt that’ll ever change. Toribash isn’t an easy game so it takes people with a certain character to venture enough through it. I can assure newcomers that after a while it pays off, it’s mind-blowing what you can do in this game.

<Oblivion> As for advice, don’t get discouraged if you have no idea what you’re doing, just try to figure it out slowly. Rarely anyone is good at the start. I too thought the game was too hard for me and even quit for a couple of months at the start, but I came back more determined and eventually as I got better things started looking easier. My best advice is to play a bit everyday in singleplayer, play with your friends, mess around with the joints trying to figure out stuff

<Oblivion> No secret formulas, unfortunately :p

<Erth> Any final words to the community before this interview ends and you head back to your ORMO throne?

<Oblivion> For the pre-steam people: Please don’t be elitist pricks. We were all new to the game at some point, flailing around in a confused manner in-game or lost in the forums, so please be sympathetic to the new guys. I don’t mean that you should go easy on them in-game, punch bags are hell of fun, just don’t be jerks about it :p

Oblivion there; his replay thread is linked at the bottom. I’d like to reiterate the new barriers thing, there have been a few notable replay makers over the years, and with the coming of Steam advertisement, there are sure to be more. Out of all the sections, I think this is probably the one I’m personally most anxious for. The replay making scene has been a bit generic for a while, if some barriers could be pushed or broken once again, we could see some seriously cool stuff appearing. Massive replay hype. #swag #HugMyNuts #Decap

You can probably see where I’m going with this, can’t you?

Art:

I’m just that good, I went all the way over to a different IRC channel to speak to 2 of the fields top artists. A name you all know and love, the mighty BenDover. Art mod for probably years, who knows, and an accomplished name in the “biz”. PLUS the new talents of Slycooper. A brilliant video maker that burst onto the scene without so much as a bye-or-leave. Charming…

<Erth> Right, hey there avid blog watchers, we’re talking to Slycooper and BenDover here, two big names in the artsy fartsy community

<Erth> say hello!

<BenDover> heeeey

<Slycooper> hi, how’s it hanging q:

<Erth> So, let’s crack on shall we? First off, being that it’s all about Toribash on Steam and the Greenlight shabang – What do you think will happen to the community in general now? And if Toribash gets Greenlit?

<BenDover> The more exposure the better

<Slycooper> I think the forum and ingame would explode, in a good way

<Slycooper> bring lots of new ideas and perspectives

<BenDover> the potential steam has to make a game go big is amazing

<Slycooper> sort of like the minecraft forum, the modding community there is insane

<BenDover> the more players we have, the more potential for growth there is within the community

<Erth> Yeah, some activity around this place would be nice, heh. Do you think artists would be drawn to Toribash and it’s forums? If so, why?

<BenDover> well yeah, the artists involved with steam games are fantastic, the dota 2 art community especially has had an amazing response from the steam community

<Slycooper> mhm, there’s lots of room for new ideas

<BenDover> just attracting a few of the item makers from that community would leapfrog the art scene back into what we would all like it to be

<BenDover> the standards on some of the bigger games art scenes are far higher than what we currently have, and pulling them in here would be great

<Erth> Ofcourse, get the art back into a booming board. What about in terms of videos, sly?

<Erth> Gotta be a lot of editors out there somewhere?

<Slycooper> there are lots of different styles of video editing, I think we’re just scratching the surface

<Slycooper> There are a lot of professionals out there that could do stuff I can’t even imagine

<Slycooper> also YouTube would attract a lot of new players as well

<BenDover> domino effect, big on steam, big on youtube

<Slycooper> people like Chilled Chaos that get 20,000+ views on Toribash video in one day

<Erth> Undoubtedly. Can’t wait for that.

<Erth> Do you think it’ll be harder in terms of moderation of the art board, BenD?

<BenDover> Not particularly, moderating it has become second nature, and with the influx of members from the steam community, we could potentially find new blood to moderate the board

<Erth> So far I’ve heard nothing but positive things from you guys, are there any worries you have about the influx?

<BenDover> if the scene suddenly boomed by like an extra 10 threads a day, then i guess id be pushed a bit, but with the help of our current mods, like jusmi and bostaff, i reckon it could be handled

<BenDover> obviously, the influx of new members means more noobs in the short term

<BenDover> the carry ons from that are fairly obvious

<BenDover> scams, noobs, people not reading rules

<BenDover> i do foresee a resurgence in silly dj anime cartoon heads though

<BenDover> people looking for a quick buck from the art board and market

<BenDover> typical worries one would have with lots of new members

<Erth> Do you feel some more tutorials may be necessary? ;o

<BenDover> well there are plenty, if you actually look. But i do think more will be needed

<BenDover> and bringing back the old schools and beginer friendly things would be usefull

<BenDover> like unibash, toribash art school

<BenDover> stuff like that

<Slycooper> agreed.

<Erth> I remember the art school, I was a student

<BenDover> lol really? cant remember that

<BenDover> pity about the rollback

<BenDover> lost alot of good stuff in that

<Erth> Perhaps an editting tut, sly? New edits seem to be all the rage nowadays

<Slycooper> they are popular, I’m surprised with the activity

<Slycooper> I’ve made an editing social group, where we cnc eachothers videos with complete honesty, and really try to help eachother out

<Erth> Ah awesome! Well, thanks for your time guys, it’s been a pleasure, any final words?

< Slycooper> all dem gainzz

<BenDover> all gainz

Mad, mad gains…

As you can see, there’s a lot of hope for a new age in the art world. Big names coming in from all over the Steam platform, with boundries being pushed, torn and ripped apart totally. Here’s hoping a new wave of texture artists; it raises a really good issue there, Toribash is pretty unique in it’s customization options, you can literally make your tori look like anything, even more so now with the addition of joint textures. And with the Item Forgers now buzzing around, christ… Prepare for some bloody walls folks, because your minds will be blown!

Clans:

Something of a hot topic for a clan mod such as myself. Now, ishi suggested I interview myself, but I rejected that for 2 reasons:

1. No-one knows I’m a schizophreniac and we’d like it to stay that way

2. I got camera shy as soon as I said hello to myself

Given that Fish made the toriclan system, I thought he was probably a better bet.

<Erth> Wouldst thou mind being interviewed about the affect of grennlighting shit on clans and such?

<Erth> greenlighting too

<Fish> I really have no idea how greenlighting is going to change anything

<Fish> yet alone what greenlighting is specifically

Best interview 2013.

To summarise, pretty much lean gains all over the place folks. Pretty great stuff all round, loving the positivity running throughout the community about it.

Thanks to all my guests, here are some links to their works, shameless advertisement:

Oblivion’s replay thread: http://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=162821

Slycooper’s channel: www.youtube.com/slykuiper

BenDover’s deviantart: bendover-za.deviantart.com

Erth signing off, have a good one, and go vote up Toribash!

Hey Toribashians!

So if you haven’t noticed, Ultimate has been hosting quite a few events. Events on the forum (Such as Ultimate Tori, Spring Fling, SummerBash) and monthly 50k in-game tourneys. Now, they present SummerBash 2013 with a fellow clan ally, Evolution. This event is supposedly going to be the biggest event of the year!

So, enough of talking about my clan in third person, it’s time to do a breakdown of what SummerBash is:

SummerBash is an annual event that is going to be hosted by Ultimate and more than likely, Evolution every year. This event is meant to bring the Toribash Community together and have fun, it may seem like the only point to this and way to win is playing in-game, but it is very well possible *cough* that there is an alternate way to gain points later on in the event *cough*…

The event is based on a point system, you win a game, you gain 5 points, you lose a game, you gain 3 points still. So you’re always gaining points and can still pretty much be on the top of the leaderboard even if you lost every game you played (if you play enough people). So don’t underestimate yourself and think you can’t win because there are ‘pro’ people entered too! That’s just silly!

So, onto what everybody wants to know first, the prizes:

Of course, the people with the most points by the end of the event wins.
First Place: 180,000tc – 500,000tc
Second Place: 90,000tc – 300,000tc
Third Place: 50,000tc – 200,000tc

Remember, these are not set prizes, these are flexible. I’m going to warn you, if this event doesn’t happen to pick up 64 members, then the prize will be a little bit smaller, but Ultimate and Evolution will make up for the tc not accounted for.

Some pretty nice prizes up for grabs. Remember, I am working on getting an item forged so that might be another prize for the first place and runner up;)

Now that you have a quick breakdown that isn’t intended to inform you of everything, but give you basic knowledge of the event: Here is the SummerBash 2013 Event!

Thanks to sir, Russian Translation: here

What’s up Toribashians?

Have you looked at ishi lately? His name seems to be this sort of, reddish color. He just needs half of his name to be black and he is set to go!

So, onto the important stuff, ishi is Admin! Again! Now in his previous interview for “Who is Who” brought to you by rubash, he stated that it would be hard going back to anything less than a Super Admin (Which is known as a Ninja now). Even though he isn’t quite that high, he is an Admin again!

Due to reasons of : “<ishi>i already was interviewed once”, I decided to do an interview with a respected member of the tb community, Uric:

Beta: Hey, ready for an interview about ishi?

Uric: Hit me up, yo.

Beta: Alright, so to start off, I am doing this interview with you not only because ishi does not want to do it *cough* because he already had an interview and tired of them *cough*, but also because you are a respected member throughout the Toribash community. Ex-GM Lead and still a current GM and Clan Mod if that is correct?

Uric: Something like that, yes.

Beta: So, of course you know who ishi is, as does mostly everybody. How do you feel about ishi being in power again?

Beta: Now I guess you have to kneel down to him and obey his orders;)

Uric: He never lost “power”. At his word a lot of people would have done a lot of things, is that not power? It’s just he can do it all himself once again now.

Uric: Nah, screw kneeling before him. I’ll continue to give him shit as I always have. <3

Beta: Hmm, okay. Do you think he will do a lot as Admin, or just one of those Admins that just does things when they are needed to?

Uric: I think he enjoys helping people, it’s like masturbation for him. He gets off over it. So yes, I think he will do a lot as admin.

Beta: Now that he has the power himself, do you think the ishi items will start to be given out again?

Uric: For a hefty price of badly drawn pictures in paint, sure.

Beta: Alright, I suppose that this pretty much sums it all up. Can’t really go into depth because you’re not ishi himself… Or are you? Hehe, anyway, anything else you would like to say to the community?

Uric: There is one thing.

Uric: Who cares about Solax?

Uric: And to top things off, may I ask you a question?

* Beta raises hand

Beta: I do

Beta: and yes, yes you may.

Uric: If you’re lying naked in bed and there is the hottest woman from your wildest dreams lying to one side of you, and a known gay rapist on the other side of you. Who would you turn your back to?

Beta: This is a hard one…. I suppose I would turn my back to the woman… She can still reach around and give me a handjob at least.

Beta: Thank you for your time Uric:)

Uric: You’re more than welcome, Beta.

Uric: Catch you on the rebound, homie.

* Uric gang signs

Alright, so there you have it! Ishi is once again an Admin, Uric asks “who cares about Solax”, and I would turn my back on a woman of my dreams so I don’t get raped by a gay rapist. I hope you guys all have a great day.

Thanks to sir, Russian Translation: here

Hey Toribashians!

So, as some of you may know, there was a post around April Fools stating that Hampa was working on Glitch Racer again! Well… It was a false statement unfortunately. If you don’t know what Glitch Racer is, just click here and find out.

Although it’s not being developed, here is an interview with hampa about Glitch Racer (Stated as GR in part of this blog) and future plans for it. I hope you enjoy:

(22:10:34)Beta: Hey
(22:10:34)Beta: Tell me when you’re ready
(22:11:28)hampa: ready
(22:13:10)Beta: Okay, so there has been word that Glitch Racer is starting to be developed again. It was on April Fools when posted, is this true that you are developing it again?
(22:14:18)hampa: no, I’m not currently working on Glitch Racer
(22:14:48)hampa: at the moment I’m working on Toribash 4.4 and Mace Windu 0.99
(22:15:28)Beta: Ah, well some people, such as NutHug, wanted to see GlitchRacer released. Do you think you will continue it in the future?
(22:16:33)hampa: yes, I still have the codes
(22:16:51)hampa: anything for NutHug
(22:17:43)Beta: Aha, so why was the development of GlitchRacer stopped/paused?
(22:20:25)hampa: I didn’t have enough time to code on both Toribash Wii and GR
(22:20:35)hampa: if I did both none of them would have been released
(22:21:26)Beta: Did you think about getting back to GR before you did minibash or piiracer?
(22:21:36)Beta: And now Mace Windu.
(22:22:18)hampa: I was more keen on doing some 2d stuff
(22:22:36)hampa: toribash takes up most of my time so I can only work on new games a few hours per week
(22:23:46)Beta: Oh alright. When do you think you will continue with GR? Somewhere “soon” in the future, or “later on” in the future?
(22:24:08)hampa: yes, but when I don’t know
(22:24:28)hampa: I just got a oculus rift devkit, I’m prototyping with that at the moment
(22:24:49)Beta: *Cough* Nuthug says asap *Cough*
(22:25:02)hampa: say hi to Nuthug from me
(22:26:09)Beta: Will do when he’s on skype, or reads the blog, whichever is first:). Anyways, I guess this wraps it up for Glitch Racer. Thanks for your time hampa, and can’t wait to see GR come out and new things on tb as always.
(22:27:01)hampa: you’re welcome. cheers

Is it just me, or did you pretty much only get “anything for Nuthug”? Aha, well it looks like Glitch Racer will be worked on in the future, and hopefully sometime soon. Looks like a great game and *cough*Nuthug*cough* somebody should recommend hampa to get working on this game again when he has some spare time!

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this Blog, have a great day!

Thanks to sir, Russian Translation: here

In a world, where nobody knows anybody, there is one stand alone person. One person that is going to introduce one man, to the public…

What’s up guys! So most of you already know Shmevin from his instant “fame” as an Item Forger. He just kind of popped out of nowhere if you are not familiarized with current duelers in-game. Today I interviewed him so you would get a better idea of who he is and what he is doing:

Shmevin: Hello.
Beta: Hey shmev, ready for the interview? Don’t be frantic if I go a little afk. I’ll be right back if I do.
Shmevin: Sure, I’m ready.
Beta: Okay. Lets get this started. First off, this interview is all about you. You and what you do as an Item Forger.
Beta: So most of you know you as a dueler, what urged you to apply to be an Item Forger?
Shmevin: I applied for Item Forger because I loved everything they released, and I wanted to have an influence in new items and events on Toribash.
Beta: So it says that you are the Event Planner… Are you planning to host huge events hosted by the Item Forgers anytime soon?
Shmevin: We sure are. If you saw the hype video and poster included in the Magma release thread, and the Ukayden banner that was put up 4 weeks ago, you can tell something big is coming.
Beta: Want to give any hints for the people reading this blog? eh eh .
Shmevin: I don’t want to disclose too much important information, but it will be an event of a large scale. I’d like to say it is as big as the Toribash World Championships, but that sounds like I’m bragging. We are also planning on releasing a new hair that is themed towards the event.
Beta: Centurion possibly? Aha, don’t answer that, mostly because this is strictly based on you.
Beta: Now, it also says you are the in-game event hoster, are you planning to host an in-game tourney for each new release? Or just host more in general?
Shmevin: We probably won’t host an in-game event to sponsor every release. However, I have hosted events in which the prizes are Item Forger releases. Our job as Forgers are to make new items, not necessarily to replace the Game Masters.
Beta: Alright, cool cool, now how about that Manager position?
Beta: How exactly did you fall in that so fast, since you are a new Item Forger?
Beta: What exactly does it entail?
Shmevin: Manager doesn’t mean I am the manager of the Item Forgers, it means I manage events. That does seem a little confusing when you look at the Item Forger thread, doesn’t it?
Beta: Quite, should ask jusmi or some mod to change that for you. Would make a lot more sense if it was stated.
Beta: Well this has been quite fun. Anything you would like to tell the general public so they know a little more about you?
Shmevin: I’m a pretty open and playful guy, honestly. I know my identity as a dueler usually gives me a negative connotation among the ingame community, but who I am as a person is far from bitter and or ruthlessly efficient as some duelers are. I plan on making the in-game community more fun and entertaining with my position as event hoster.
Beta: Alright! Sounds good man, thanks for your time:)
Beta: You look pretty sexy in that purple babe.
Beta: See ya around.
Shmevin: Bye bye.

So there you have it people of Toribash! That’s Shmevin, one of the newest Item Forgers. Sorry it took so long to get this interview out, but here it is. Stay tuned for more information on the event that is going to be ‘huge’, as Shmevin says. Have a great day!

What’s up Toribashians?!?

So lately, as most of you already know, there has been an activity drop in the GM Trials. (GM = Gamemaster for people that are new to the forum) So a lot of us tend to ask questions such as: “Why are they still Trials? Why aren’t they just booted?” Well, today I decided to find that out by trying to get the inside scoop from EJM:

Beta: Hey EJM, ready for the interview?
EJM: You bet
Beta: Okay, so I am going to keep this strictly on the subject of GM Trials. If I go afk for a second, don’t worry. I’ll be right back.
Beta: So lets start this off. As most people know, GM’s are supposed to be quite active. Not to stray off the subject, we are keeping this strictly towards GM Trials, why are there still trials when they havn’t been active for Weeks?
EJM: If you don’t see a trial working doesn’t mean they aren’t active, there’s more to being a GM than sit in-game hosting a tourney all the time
Beta: Well, what about the trials like Fivah and Kevin?
EJM: If that’s not the case, then these trials have real life issues/exams/work to attend to
EJM: We prefer not to go in detail with particular trials
EJM: Let’s keep things in general
Beta: Alright, what about the trials that have been inactive for 2-4 weeks. Shouldn’t GM’s be actually active. I understand a few days, but what stops them from going inactive in the future for a large period of time.
EJM: Nothing does, but if you currently have to go on aa journey to find your kidnapped loved one far away, a journey that takes 2 to 4 weeks, we can’t stop you now can we
EJM: They just need to actually mention that they will be missing, which they already did
EJM: The other ones who didn’t get/got the boot
Beta: I see. So do the older trials, for example, Teague. He’s been a trial since somewhere in December if I remember (Not trying to pick out individuals, just an example), do they have just as much of a chance the newer trials have?
EJM: All trials have equal chances, it’s just a matter of who finishes the job the way we want them to
EJM: Think about it as a yes or no question
EJM: If they answer right, they get in, if not, they don’t, it’s as simple as that
EJM: However, some trials take longer to answer than others
Beta: So this summer, are the trials planning to be more active and host more things with full GM’s?
EJM: Well we can assure a boost of activity each summer
EJM: But only time will tell if the trials will actually be the ones boosting the activity
EJM: Or just us
Beta: Okay, one last question. How do you feel about the group of GM Trials as a whole?
EJM: By that, do you mean the general idea of trials GMs? Or the current group of trials we have?
Beta: Both in a sense.
EJM: Well it’s pretty self explanatory really, trials are there for us to know if they qualify or not, and we wouldn’t have accepted our current trials if we didn’t see potential in them
Beta: Alright! Seems like this pretty much wraps it up. Anything you would like to say to the people that read this blog? Any leaks or hints (That of course won’t get you in trouble).
EJM: All I have to say is don’t bother us anymore, we never liked doing what we’re doing, we only do it for the mo… uuh, oh nothing actually, ignore what I just said
EJM: Have fun playing the game guys, and stay out of trouble
EJM: I should put a thumbs up here but IRC doesn’t handle that
Beta: *Thumbs up*
EJM: o/
Beta: Aha, alright thanks EJM
EJM: Any time

Alright, so if you read through that fully, you should be able to understand why GM Trials are inactive but still trials. Hope this answers most of your questions about the trials and if you think you have what it takes to be a GM, you can send an application to any current full GM or Smod.

Hope you all enjoyed this blog, have a great day and remember… GM’s secretly don’t like their job, shhhhh…

Hello Toribashians!

Lets start out by congratulating CoKe and Shmevin, for they have both recently become full part of staff. No longer trials! CoKe is working as a dirty undercover soda for those GM’s, and Shmevin… well, I don’t know what he is doing… Nothing?!? Maybe not! Shmevin is now a full Item Forger. He is looking pretty sexy in the purple. I like purple…

So, moving on to the real purpose of this blog. Hairs in Toribash. Recently people have been getting really excited over the new hairs that are being made in Toribash and have been putting many ideas in the Item Forgers News thread, which can be found here. Here is some inside news with Yoyo:

Yoyo: hey
Beta: I’m going to ask you a few questions that are strictly on hair, since hair seems to be the most popular and most wanted thing from Item Forgers. If that’s okay with you ofcourse?
Yoyo: of course
Beta: Okay, to start this off, are hairs the most trouble to make in Toribash? What I mean is, is it hard to determine if the people would like that hair style?
Yoyo: it depends
Yoyo: it usually starts with a small discussion about certain hair style
Yoyo: if someone else agrees, then we usually forge it
Yoyo: even if it stays non-released for a long time
Yoyo: like a bunch of currently existing hairs
Yoyo: we never really know if people will like it or not
Beta: Ah, okay.
Beta: Do the Item Forgers take every idea for new hairs into consideration?
Beta: Such as the ideas posted on the Item Forgers News! Thread?
Yoyo: we read every post in that thread
Yoyo: every non-new-colour suggestion usually gets a small discussion in our private skype convo
Yoyo: most hairs are just inside ideas though
Beta: Do you all discuss each idea on your private board or just the best ideas?
Yoyo: we mostly use the skype convo
Yoyo: it depends on what the idea is
Yoyo: but most of them get talked about
Yoyo: the private board is the place hanz0 uses to scream at us for doing stuff
Beta: Ahaha. Okay, so, last/last few questions. You don’t have to answer these, but might be nice if you gave a hint . Just as long as it won’t get you in trouble.
Yoyo: (next question?)
Yoyo: alright, go ahead
Beta: hampa is currently wearing the Centurion hair. Which appears to just be an extended version of the mohawk in my opinion. Is there any hints on the release date?
Beta: Is it going to be coming out next?
Yoyo: …I’m not really sure
Beta: Still in discussion? Or not really sure if you can state that?
Yoyo: it is on the shop for 50 usd, but that one is broken and doesn’t show up for some reason
Beta: ah
Yoyo: the one hampa is using is a different version-ish
Yoyo: we should fix that though
Yoyo: I’ll have to talk with hampa
Beta: Oh, okay. So one last thing. In my opinion, I like the spiky hair the most. What’s your favorite hair?
Yoyo: my wobbly devil horns
Yoyo: also, we just got static hairpieces added to the hair forger
Yoyo: so interesting stuff will be coming out of that
Yoyo: (unwobbly devil horns)
Yoyo: also, jusmi’s current hair is pretty neat too
Beta: Hmm, I like your hair. jusmi’s hair seemed to disappear for me, it was sort of like Sonic The Hedgehog right?
Yoyo: he said something about dragonball
Yoyo: I’m not quite sure
Yoyo: but yes, looks kind of like sonic
Beta: Okay, thanks for your time man. Anymore secret hints that you would like to state;) Or leaks? eh eh?
Yoyo: hmm
Yoyo: solax was working on a neckbeard
Yoyo: still have to check it out
Yoyo: but it sounds different from the current hairs
Yoyo: that’s really all that I can leak
Beta: Thanks man:) I’m sure the people will love it.
Yoyo: lets hope so
Beta: If not, hanz0 can just yell at you in the private board
Yoyo: you get used to it eventually
Beta: Haha, well anyways, thanks a lot. Really appreciate your time:)
Yoyo: thanks for the interview, too

Okay, so there you have it folks. Some news on the hairs and a few leaks, if you would like to see these hairs and don’t know how, just go in-game and type: /dl hampa and then /lp hampa … You can also do that with the other members of the Item  forgers, such as Yoyo and his devil horns. To submit some ideas to the Item Forgers, just click here.

That’s it for right now, hope you all enjoyed reading this post and have a good day!

Toribashians!

As some of you may have noticed there are two new smods joining the ranks on the forum. Sir is returning to the position after a hiatus and Erth is taking on the role for the first time. Rather than read about what I have to say about Erth why don’t you go ahead and read what he has to say for himself. Special thanks to our guest interviewer Stellar.

So if you see him on the forum give him a wave and make sure to bother him with all of your problems.

Until next time. o7

Greetings Toribashians,

We just want to wish you a merry christmas/hanukkah/kwanzaa from the Toribash Bloggers! It’s the season to be jolly, and thankful, and there’s no better way of saying thank you than blogging about it. We are so thankful for your support and positive attitudes that makes our community grow every single day. This will be one of the many christmases of this community, and let’s keep it going. Good luck, and have fun everyone.

Also, expect an interview of Jack Morris, also known as deathr0ad very soon. He makes dozens of funny, fantastic, helpful videos on youtube of toribash gameplay. Not only does he make awesome toribash videos, he has shortfilms, and gameplays of other games! If you haven’t already, check out his channel: http://www.youtube.com/manonfirefilms

Thanks again, and happy holidays!

~The Blogging Team.

As of late, Russia has been at the centre of everyone’s attention due to the recent bans, ip bans, hackers and farmers. Top dogs got involved and sorted the mess out but to what cost, and what end?
Well, that’s what I wanted to get to the bottom of.

First and foremost I guess I should explain the situation.
1) The hacking – A few weeks ago, you’ll remember the forums being down a lot, and servers going online. GM’s found it impossible to operate efficiently, and moderators unable to moderate. This was due to a hacking technique called DDOS’ing. This essentially clogs up the servers with too much data and makes everything explode. Yay explosions, boo hackers.
2) The farmers – A huge surge of farmers have risen recently in the ban list, but why? Is it somehow connected. Rumours and speculations run riot ingame, I’ll list a few of my favourites later!
3) The bans – due to all of this, lots and lots of bans have been placed on both individual users and ip’s in eastern europe and Russia. This was a huge blow to the russian community and some argue that it in part stopped functioning.

Now, I had a little chat with the big man himself to see what was goin’ on. Who were the movers, the shakers, and the losers…

<erth> Hi there, recently there’s been a huge hooplah surounding the nicknamed “russian mafia” resulting in lots of bans and updates.
<erth> We all saw the effects, forums down, tourneys down, mass ban of major players. What was the trigger for all of this?
<hampa> attacks that hog all the server resources
<hampa> the trigger, I don’t know
<erth> Recently I’ve been asked a lot about how the tourneys are different now, what exactly has been implemented to “stop farmers”?
<hampa> we did an update to prevent a specific attack
<hampa> ..
<erth> I see. There are many rumours circulating about what’s been done and why, so it’s good to have an answer. My favourite rumour being “hampa owed the russian mafia some money, so they stole the site”
<erth> Now, there have also recently been a surprising amount of farmers being banned, is that connected in any way to the recent forum attacks? Again this originated in Russia, any connections?
<hampa> no, it is only related cause we had to monitor the log files closely so we noticed more farming operations
<erth> Ah, excellent. 1 more questions, admittedly on behalf of a few russian friends of mine
<erth> *question
<erth> Those that have been banned properly, or ip banned, yet haven’t done anything; can anything be done for them, as of yet? A few major players are unable to play lately due to it yet don’t exactly seem the “hacking” type
<hampa> yes, it probably doesn’t mean that they are farming
<hampa> there have been whole subnets banned when there are multiple bots running from them
<hampa> probably infected computers
<hampa> please PM me on IRC and I’ll check the ips manually
<erth> Excellent, it’s good to see a personal interest taken in these matters
<erth> That’s everything I can think of right now, seeing as it’s a bit off the cuff, haha
<erth> Thanks for your time
<hampa> you’re welcome

It’s good to see that something can be done for the mis-banned here. Take note if you’ve been wrongly banned (but be nice about it, if you’re gonna be angry at someone, be angry at the hacker)

Now, as mentioned before, a few rumours that I hope have been cleared up after this post…
Some serious, some not…

> “hampa owed the russian mafia some money, so they stole the site”

> “hanz0 spilled coffee on the internet”

> “Russian conspiracy to take over the world”

> “farmers caused all of it”

> “shut down by america”

All of these rumours I heard ingame and all of them, as much as I wish hanz0 spilled coffee all over the internet, sadly untrue.

So to re-iterate for those banned users who want to be unbanned, pm hampa and he’ll personally take care of it!

We’ll try and keep you posted as and when the situation develops guys, so stay tuned!