Greetings, I have returned to offer my advice and wisdom. I have been physically separated from Toribash for most of the past years but spiritually it is and will always be a part of me. I come to de-mystify the life-cycle of Toribash -- that is to explain how Toribash rose from the obscurity of the late 2000's to reach its short but fiery peak, and from this peak I will answer what it was that lead to its state of smoldering ashes that we see today. This question goes far beyond a simple materialistic reduction (ie. economy, or server hardware); rather, the rise and fall of Toribash is an outward manifestation of its culture. It may seem odd to think of Toribash as a culture, as its strength and weaknesses both emanating from this culture, but I will prove this to be undeniably so. Make no mistake, as Toribash rose in influence every member here could feel it, the momentum was palpable and in the air, the freedom gave way to endless entertainment and near autistic levels of online activity. Likewise, when the decline set in, it was obvious what components of the culture had shifted for the worse, and who was responsible. This culture shift was the instigator for the famous struggles of 2011-2013, the greatest power struggle in the history of Toribash. I was at the peak of my power during this power struggle, I had identified the poisoning forces of Toribash as an over-zealous and effeminate moderator staff which were squeezing the fun out of the game. I formed a ragtag organization of Mod makers and pranksters and we set out to overthrow the staff and save toribash. Against all odds, and with help from secretive alliances formed from in the highest of ranks, we rose in power. In 2012 we gained access to unlimited free broadcasts, and unlimited toricredits for events. Our tournaments would be promoted on the forum banners and we gained our own sub-forum in the Mods section which is still present today, The God Team. Everything was in place for the final overthrow of the corrupt Toribash staff. Today for the first time I will reveal my first hand account of the greatest fight in Toribash history, the fight for Toribash itself. Good versus Evil. Life versus Death. Hampa versus Hompo.

good read cant wait for part 2 . i made a similar thread to yours https://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=649111

Hi, remember me?

One day, I hope we get to clown on players and bring them down with hurtful words. Not because I'm a bad person, but because we need to let them experience what being hurt feels like. Nowadays, parents are overprotective and I believe... I BELIEVE... I... B E L I E V E... that because of this, the children of tomorrow will cry over spilled milk. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, inanimate objects, furries, and other messed up thing I do not know of, please stand up. We will become the trailblazers, the new sons, the new kings of FistOfLife. We must show the Toribash community the thing FistOfLife sent before he got sent to the void. This is because I believe... I BELIEVE... I... B E L I E V E that my idea will help the world, the children, and of course... the F U T U R E. This said, you may now kiss the bride.

highly anticipated, only thegod, elgod, ricosuave or the infamouse culapou can bring this community back to its former glory

Part 1: The Rise

To understand the rise of Toribash we must understand where it rose from. The year was 2007 and the day was the second before Christmas. culapou was born. culapou is who I was before I became TheGod, I rose to become TheGod as the symbol of the ultimate sacrifice; the world which culapou entered was the one which I tried to save. Toribash in the late 2000's was different, the culture of the time could be described in one word; freedom. There was this understanding at the time, before the rise of our current SJW sentimentality that freedom of expression lead to maximum entertainment. Also there was this understanding that the purpose of Toribash was entertainment. This was the wild-west era of Toribash. You could say what you want and do what you want, you were required to protect yourself at all times and keep a vigilant eye open. You were required to form alliances for protection and brotherhood, but clans were rare and most were not easy to join. Climbing the ranks was difficult and treacherous, toricredits were rare and precious. Colors on your character back then were a badge of honor, the shine of Pharos drew praise from the lobby. The darkness of Demon was legendary. Every item earned was a remarkable achievement, tournaments needed to be won and gambles paid off. This is in stark contrast today where even the common character is over-colored, almost to the point of self-vandalization with putrid combinations of flames, trails, textures, 3d nonsense, etc. The tournaments back then were rare and high-stakes, nowadays it is the reverse, common and low stakes. The adrenaline, the passion, the emotion, the struggle, these are all the cultural characteristics of the rising toribash. Tournaments were not some back-lobby 5 person roundabout aikido tourney for 500tc, they were a once weekly 25man open bout struggle for 20k where up and coming players came to make a name for themselves, and the legends came to defend their honor.

The forums too were a place of high stakes and personal enterprise. The forum was not merely a market for buying and selling goods but truly in the fullest sense a community. The community become strong through open communication, minimal rules/censorship, and mutual entertainment. There were no rules against bullying or hurting feelings. Instead, it was understood that by allowing these affronts we will be creating rivalries between players, which can be settled in game and increase the activity of these players. And even as rivalries drew enemies together to fight it out, as a community united behind the entertainment of this game we stuck together. The foremost embodiment of the toribash culture back in these days was the raid on an enemy runescape forum. One of the admins at the time lead this effort, which really illustrates the difference in temperment between the boring do-nothing censor admins of today, and the badass army-leader admins of then. This runescape forum had made a post about our game saying it sucked and wasn't fun, so we organized a relentless DOS and Gore campaign against their forum. They retaliated of course, but eventually we came away victorious and they were knocked offline. This is toribash as a community, as a culture. Reasons like this is why people would stay attached to toribash for 10+ years. One could rise through the in-game ranks and then become a community leader. One could choose to be a bad guy, or a good guy, and neither would get banned; instead they could fight it out. Nowadays you can't be bad, you just get banned. If this were mario party, the admins would ban Bowser, and everyone would be Toads. In 2009 I saw this beginning to happen, the admins were becoming stricter and stricter, more and more regimented. Everything needed to be the same, needed to be "nice", Toribash was quickly losing its edge. Something had to be done.

lol

PREACH

this was a good one

Part 2A: Struggle for Power (culapou v. Beta Males)


In 2009 I noticed that the traditional wild-west values of Toribash had begun to be distorted by the modern sentimental "feelings before entertainment" philosophy. This philosophy had emerged from the sense of self-entitled importance of the majority of the moderator staff who needed to assert dominance on a video game community because they lacked it in real life. Likewise, it was the foolish notion that Toribash should be marketed to younger and younger children which enabled this cultural decline. The first most punishing blow was the introduction of the infraction system. This was a system which kept a tally of all your wrong doings and they could add up so that you became banned even for the most minor of infractions. When even the most minor infractions became bannable it ended the chaotic era of wild-western toribash and instigated the necessary power struggle for the future of toribash. Where we once had freedom we now were beginning to have fear, fear of being infracted, fear of being banned or muted, fear of having your tourney canceled or you clan deleted. Even in tournaments, which are supposed to be the pinnacles of excitement, if you saw an incredible move and said "HOLY SHIT" you would get muted for caps. It was the deranged self-importance of out of control beta males which had conspired together to enslave the entire community underneath their punishments and arbitrary rules. I had to my name ~400k tc, and I fearlessly risked it all in a gamble for power.

With my credits I hosted tournaments and started a grassroots campaign to become a gamekeeper (event squad equivalent). I had no personal connections with the gamekeepers at the time, and many of them despised my chaotic and entertaining style. I would host tournaments with unique mods, and unique win conditions, such as hosting tourneys with sports mods where the two players needed to work together instead of fight. I would type in all caps when excited and give small tc prizes out on a whim for people who talked good shit or did a sick move. On account of this refreshing approach which reminded players of the good old days I quickly rose to popularity. After a few 20k tournaments I decided to go for broke, and I put my final 300k on a massive extremely ambitious month long tournament. It was a tremendous success and I was admitted to the gamekeepers. In this group I continued my tradition of innovative tournaments such as a WW2 board game tournament where by winning the toribash match you would be able to move a soldier on a board towards an objective, combining toribash skill and traditional strategy. But Toribash was still declining, I was just a man, but at least when I was present toribash was alive. The energy in the lobby was real and the passion was re-invigorated. Unfortunately, I was still limited under the weak leadership of the gamekeepers, they were an event only team, they had nothing to say about the rules or culture of the community. My true purpose would be to build my reputation in this group and when the time was ready branch off and form my own group with our eyes set on overthrowing the entire power structure. It was through mod making that I met the two other players who matched my passion and intensity for the game, and with which we would ultimate form the God Team and completely change the landscape of toribash for 3 years. culapou had enough of the beta male gamekeepers, he was ready to split. culapou, Smilies2, and ClockworkMonkey all saw things the same way, and thus in 2011 the GodTeam was formed.
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lol

this should be a movie