Torn City Newsletter - Spring 2017

[Torn Logo] Warring, NPC looting, Chronicles & Wiki 2.0 Volume 21 | Spring 2017 Edition In this edition --------------------------------------------------------------- [Project status](#section1) [Chronicles revamp & ongoing Torn lore](#section2) [Wiki overhaul](#section3) [Calendar feature](#section4) [Credits page](#section5) [Advanced name changing system](#section6) [New WYSIWYG editor](#section7) [NPC looting](#section8) [Torn's RMT division](#section9) [Newspaper articles](#section10) [Economic report](#section11) [The future of faction warfare](#section12) [Chaining 2.0](#section13) [Destructive warring](#section14) [Competitive warring 2.0](#section15) [Spring freebie](#section16) In other news --------------------------------------------------------------- Aerodynamics of light aircraft in Torn [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- A tragic Valentine's day [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Krastinov kindly requests peace and love [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- JFA declares Holy Crusade [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Torn's largest wedding ceremony? [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Champion's embargo [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- TheHoneyBadger turns a new leaf [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Where it all started? [Read more]( Connect with us on --------------------------------------------------------------- [Facebook]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Twitter]( Spring 2017 --------------------------------------------------------------- Hey {NAME} 15th of March, my phone reminds me that another Torn seasonal newsletter is due. "Has it really been three months already?". I fill with dread and try to ignore it before the inevitable ping several days later from Kevin (our marketing director), acting as my final reminder, "Hey, NL due this month. We need to aim to get this sent out Monday 27th March.". I desperately ponder: "What on earth am I going to write about, how am I going to fill an entire newsletter? I'll just have to shift some work around and smash something out over the weekend." Well, one thing led to another, here's the longest newsletter we've ever done... [Spring time in Torn] --------------------------------------------------------------- []Project status We've updated our main project list for your perusal! [Project status update] These main projects run alongside the usual server migrations, bugs & issues and other minor updates / changes. They enter the list on the bottom and slowly work their way up to completion. The percentage of completion is our very rough estimate and includes the entire spectrum of development including design, templating and programming. Basically, it represents how much work has been spent on the project compared to how much more work we think it'll take. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Chronicles revamp & ongoing lore Have you ever wondered why toilet paper costs several million dollars, why jail sentences are so short, and how strength has an impact on firearm damage? And while we're at it, where the heck is Torn based anyway? Well, the answers to all these questions and more are on their way, courtesy of our revamped Chronicles and Lore section. Twenty pieces have already been completed, and with these brand new stories addressing all manner of subjects including Torn's founding, factions, and finance, be prepared to learn a few surprising things about a place you thought you already knew. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Wiki overhaul We've finally found the time and resources to upgrade and improve the Torn [help wiki](. Over the past few weeks, we've hired an expert to upgrade our Mediawiki core and design a plain and simple theme. We wanted the theme to be simple to emphasise the importance of 'the content' which is due a complete overhaul and expansion; more on that later. For now, what you see is Phase 1 - Core update and clean theme. Phase 2, currently underway, will feature Single Sign-On (SSO) which will enable all players, once logged into Torn, to add suggestions to existing pages and create new help articles. Staff, with relevant permissions, will then be able to approve or reject those suggestions. We know much of the content is out of date, and we don't expect it to be updated overnight. However, we feel that you, the players, are in the best position to share your in-game knowledge, which is why we're allowing you to co-manage this. The last phase, Phase 3, is to build an improved wiki search facility to ensure the search bar acts as the preferred navigation for the entire help system, making it as useful and comprehensive as possible. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Calendar feature The calendar is a new tool that will sit alongside the notebook in the bottom right corner. Its purpose is mainly to show when community events and competitions will happen, although it'll also allow players to add their own personal events, and enable factions to add events for their members too. [New calendar features] --------------------------------------------------------------- []Credits page Our workforce is the best it's ever been, and both I and the community hugely appreciate their enthusiasm and dedication. We're adding a credits page to acknowledge all of our developers, artists and writers who work behind the scenes, often going unmentioned when their projects and updates are released. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Advanced name changing system We have noted the frustrations from some people regarding their inability to take the names of players who are no longer active. Currently, we have a set rule that the player must be under level 15 and over 365 days inactive for their name to be taken, with each case handled manually by staff. Soon, we'll be adding in a system to handle all of this automatically. Changing your name will be more expensive (costing points) and you'll only be able to change it every three months. If you want to take the name of an inactive player, our new system will determine whether your request should be accepted, and make the arrangements for you (although will also include an extra charge). --------------------------------------------------------------- []New WYSIWYG editor A brand new text editor we're working on has made it onto our project list and is under speedy development. Believe it or not, it's pretty damn hard to create a text editor that actually works, and all the engines available online have their own unique pitfalls. We've decided to start with a simple, reliable, open-source engine, before massively modifying it to our exact specifications. This editor will replace our current horrible, horrid, horrid, frustrating one in all areas where multi-line content can be entered. Here's a sneak peek of our very own custom-designed text editor below. [WYSIWYG Editor] --------------------------------------------------------------- []NPC looting Over Christmas, we trialled a new looting option which became available after making the finishing hit on the NPC Scrooge. This 'Loot' option appears in addition to 'Leave', 'Mug' and 'Hospitalize', providing a fourth option which earns the victor one of the items the NPC has equipped. Our plan is to continuously add new attackable NPCs, each with their own unique weapons, armour and clothing. Many of these unique NPC weapons will also feature special bonuses. Bonuses are similar to weapon attachments, except they are permanently affixed to the individual weapon and cannot be added or removed from them. This bonus system will reach fruition when the 'Weapon & Armor Caches' project is completed and rare legendary weapons finally become a thing. This NPC looting update will also come with a few changes to the mechanics of group attacking, which will reduce a group's ability to overwhelm a single target completely. Big targets will still be very vulnerable to group attacks, but the update will make those attacks far more interesting than they are currently. Below you can see a small selection of the NPC weapons coming your way, including the Nock Gun, Riding Crop and a delightful String Vest. Can you guess who some of these might belong to? We guarantee you've met them before. [NPC Looting items] --------------------------------------------------------------- []Torn's RMT division Real Money Trading is when players exchange in-game assets for real-life assets outside of our donation system. If you have been paying attention to the forums over the last few months, you might have noticed there have been lengthy discussions about several RMT cases recently. With the restructuring of staff, we have now formed an RMT division and we are proud of its results. Since the team was officially established in December 2016, we have tracked down 96 buyers who've bought from 174 selling accounts. In total, they have illegally attained a value of $669,328,215,196 TCD. Unfortunately for them, every last penny was removed from their accounts, often leaving the buyers with huge debt when they come back from their game bans. Players who are found to be selling are being removed from the game permanently, however in some cases (depending on their cooperation) sellers are given the chance to play again if they fully recover the maximum potential damages (based on Donator Pack prices). This is always more than they would have made, and after recovering the damages they will still receive a lengthy ban. So how does the RMT team work? We monitor in-game logs, as well as external websites. When we have evidence against a single RMT seller or buyer, this will almost always lead us to other buyers and sellers. For example, once we have confirmed a trade to be a result of RMT, we then review all other transfers of both seller and buyer. It is likely that one (or both of them) also transferred to others, and from there it is incredibly easy to tell which transfers are RMT. So even if they are very careful, it is still highly likely they will get caught. All it takes is a single buyer or seller to slip up, exposing many, even if they didn't trade directly. The biggest single 'RMT ring' we discovered in the last few months contained 20 sellers and 38 buyers and was worth $287,913,506,944 TCD. All of these went down because a single buyer was kind enough to leave us with clear in-game evidence. Moral of the story: Don't RMT, kids! The risk is simply not worth it. There are so many legal ways to make money in Torn, which do not risk your account, and also make the game a lot more challenging and fun. Isn't that what games are for? If you're going to cheat, do it in real life instead. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Newspaper articles Do you have an opinion on any of the planned changes we've mentioned in this newsletter? Perhaps you've noticed a bizarre Torn trend that nobody else has picked up on? If so, have you considered writing an article about it? The [Torn City Times]( is now welcoming citizen submissions once more, with Harley's recent piece on Rank Triggers being the first of what we hope will be many excellent articles written by you, the players. Provided they are of sufficient quality and interest, these articles will be released on Thursdays to augment the existing Monday reports, and successful publication will allow you to receive the prestigious reporter merit. Those who are interested in submitting content should first send a short description of your idea to [Sugarvalves](. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Economic report Torn's public economic report for 2016 is planned for next month. We've already been briefed on the full report and we're glad to see Torn is in good health with no major adjustments required. --------------------------------------------------------------- []The future of faction warfare I guess the time has come to disclose our initial plans for the future of faction warfare. Each warring system is being built to be as intuitive, scalable and adjustable as possible - this is because we are open minded as to where we'll eventually end up. Everything depends on how the players and factions utilize the tools made available to them, and in turn, their actions will determine the directions we take. Everyone in Torn has different opinions about content and different things they enjoy doing. Eventually, these warring systems are intended to fill the entire spectrum - if one type of warring isn't for you and your faction, there should be at least one other type that is, one that your faction can dive into head first. Please note, these details are just the initial designs and are subject to change. I've tried to include as much basic information as possible, please excuse me if I've missed anything, or if any questions are left unanswered. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Chaining 2.0 Since the release of faction territories and upgrade trees, faction warring has increased dramatically. On the current (old) system, factions require their warbase to be filled with 'filler' factions in addition to the faction they're warring to meet their chaining targets: resulting in many mid-lower tier factions being confined to the hospital for the duration of these wars. The planned update to chaining seeks to change things dramatically. Chaining will no longer be just a warring tool for faction wars; chaining will itself become its own feature. Your faction's chain will increase when any member makes an attack against ANYONE. They don't have to be in a faction, and you don't have to hospitalize or even be involved in a war. Any successful attack will increase the chain. Furthermore, chains will only be limited by your faction's chaining upgrade - there's no major incentive to stop at 100. All attacks made, even outside of chains, will increase your faction's respect - a figure which will be multiplied by many different modifiers. As an example of said modifiers we're currently working with: Initial value set based on victim level, Fair fight bonus (up to x3.0 by attacking someone closely matched to you), Retaliation (x1.5), Group attack (x1.25 per additional attacker), Overseas (x1.25), Territory war knock off (x2), Ranked war hit (x2), General chain increase (Up to x2.5) and Scaling chain bonuses at 13 intervals. All modifiers stack with each other and will be shown as a percentage for each attack within the faction news. If you attack anyone who happens to be in a faction, war or not, their faction will lose some respect. Currently, we're looking at deducting around 1/10th of the respect you gain from your opponent's faction. However, one new addition may be a chain cooldown. Once a chain is broken, it will not instantly reset, but instead decrease over time, one by one. A new chain cannot be started until the initial one has fully cooled down. During the cooldown, factions will still receive the general respect bonus for the chain at its current level as it decreases. It is expected that the chain cooldown will be fairly quick, at least initially, comprising of only 10 seconds per chain increment, for example. Chaining is awesome, but it's possible that too much of it non-stop can ruin the game for others. This cooldown system is a tool we can utilize if we ever need to ease the pressure. It's unlikely, but we don't want to fall into the same trap as we did in the very early years of faction warfare, almost a decade ago. Once a chain is broken, a full chain report will be available - much like the ones provided after a territorial war. The current warring system will most likely be removed as the new chaining system is released, as this will enable us to totally remove the old warring system to prepare the way for three new ones. Please note, it's still fairly early, so some of this is almost certainly going to be different in the final version. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Destructive warring The current (old) warring system has served us well for years now. But, with the introduction of the new Chaining system, Territories, and other ways for factions to earn respect outside of regular warring, it's time to debut Destructive Warring: a way for factions to DECREASE another faction's respect - and yes, even destroy them in extreme cases. When a Destructive War is started against another faction, both factions can begin to damage each other's respect with every hit they make. These wars have no end time, no bar to reach 100%, and no option to surrender - only the faction in the lead can end the war if and when they wish. We don't expect these wars to be common since there is nothing to gain for the attacker on paper, but when they do happen, it'll usually be for a pretty serious reason. The main incentive behind this system will be the potential for threat, risk, anger and sorrow. The stories that'll come out of it, the unique interactions, the ability to do harm, but also to unite and persevere. The formation of alliances, cold and warm-hearted factions, feared factions, admired factions, courageous protectorate factions. Total faction destruction is possible but will be very rare. The actual damage this form of warring can achieve is limited, especially with the Defender gaining passive respect from Territories, etc. and it always being at a substantial cost to the Aggressor. We have worked hard to find a balance for its strength and will monitor its release very closely. Really, they will most likely be more of a nuisance / frustration to the Defender - perhaps knocking out a few upgrades, rather than big factions pursuing the arduous potentially multi-year campaign of total destruction. It is also worth noting that a faction may only start one of these wars at a time, with new declarations prevented until the previous one has ended. Results of discussions within the committee clearly show this is something that different players will either love or hate, and there are already strong opinions on both sides. I personally feel this hardcore element needs to exist in some way or another. All wars, upon ending, will provide full 'war reports' just as territorial wars currently do. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Competitive warring 2.0 In stark contrast to destructive warring, ranked warring WILL provide respect - and lots of it for those who take it seriously! This is pure competitive warring at its finest, and, I believe, what everyone has been yearning for. The current (old) ranked warring system didn't really go as I expected. It kind of worked, but there wasn't really any advantage to being in a higher rank other than to make your faction look a bit more elite. While some factions do compete and enjoy high ranks, most don't really care, and instead just focus on their respect. This whole 'number rank' thing is going in the bin, to be replaced by something totally different. There will be around 5-7 faction tiers, on a similar scale to bronze, silver, gold and diamond. All factions will be initially assigned to a lower/mid level tier based on the information we have available, after which they can then begin progressing as they win competitive wars against those in the same tier with (hopefully) a similar amount of members. It will take several wins to increase a faction's tier. I expect your faction's current tier will exist as a large emblem with several stages showing beneath it. If you win a war you will increase by a single stage, if you lose, you will decrease. By winning multiple ranked wars in a row, you will increase stages quicker, thus earning your next tier quicker too. Competitive wars will all be about participation and winning, with the vast majority of respect credited when the war is concluded. The amount of respect received depends on your tier - if you're in a higher tier, your faction will receive more respect per win. The current plan is for one war to be arranged per week on average for every faction who wants to participate. Once you are matched with a similar faction, you can decide to accept or decline. Both factions will need to accept to trigger the war. If you decline, you will not receive a new war for a number of days and your tier stage may be reduced. If you accept, but the other faction declines, you may gain a little towards your next tier and be matched with another faction as soon as possible. If you achieve a higher tier, and decide to no longer participate in competitive warring for a long period of time, your tier will slowly begin to degrade. If both factions agree to the war, a countdown timer is started, after which the war begins. The amount of respect and tier progress you receive depends on your current tier, how much your faction participated, how evenly matched the two factions were, and whether you won or lost. Accepting member applications will be disabled after being matched up with another faction and for the duration of the war. Competitive war style / gameplay will probably be similar to how the current (old) wars work (respect gained vs respect gained), but will now utilize the new chaining system. The next warring system to tackle will be termed warring, which is a whole other ball park! Termed warring will allow factions to mutually agree to a set of customised terms that will be locked into place once both sides accept. Terms could include the following: specified start time, durations, locked rosters, weapon restrictions, a wager of money, etc. --------------------------------------------------------------- []Spring freebie As with all our quarterly newsletters, we like to give you all a little treat for being part of the best online RPG community in the world. To redeem your one-time-use +250 energy boost logout of Torn then simply [login via this link](. Enjoy... Use it wisely! You're receiving this newsletter because you registered at [www.Torn.com](. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe here](.