I am a reformed man I may have made mistakes in the past but I can say hand on heart that my intentions making this post were not as seedy as you make them out to be.

1) What is it about the toribash community that you enjoy?Clans
2) Do you believe that the persona you associate with your toribash account to be separate from your identity in the physical world that we occupy?
Nah, I'm about the same here as I am in my day to day. Probably a little less cursing.
3) Does this website and community have something that other online communities doesn't have? If yes, elaborate
Yea. We all collectively click or have clicked balls. I haven't found another game like this.
4) Do you believe you suffer from any kind of mental health problems?
Mild amounts of depression.
5) Have you ever used drugs? if yes, how has this impacted your perception of reality and how you experience "toribash"
Weed, it just makes it more fun honestly.
6) How often is your forum usage compared with time spent in game?
I'm on the forums more than I am in game. I'm on the forums every couple hours.
7) Do you perceive the way you use toribash (both as a videogame and as an online forum) to be conductive to good mental health and living your best life?

It's apart of my life. Has been since the beginning of 2013. A few of my closest friends are through here. My clan is the only reason I'm still playing. I love those fuckers and if they are playing, here I am.

1) What is it about the toribash community that you enjoy?
it doesnt happen often but being able to nerd out about specific turns/moves is peak, the oldschool community vibes we had until 2017, the random banter ppl get up to in pub servers

2) Do you believe that the persona you associate with your toribash account to be separate from your identity in the physical world that we occupy?
yes 100%, my kirito identity was completely separate from who i was irl, i wanted him to be an over the top version of the kirito from the anime, sometime last year i stopped being assss serious about it

3) Does this website and community have something that other online communities doesn't have? If yes, elaborate
the ease of access to find and interact with someone across the planet, back when everyone had thick skin and would bully each other for the lols i remember thinking toribash was the last remnants of an era of when games were built from passion and not a paycheck


4) Do you believe you suffer from any kind of mental health problems?
im playing toribash arent i?


5) Have you ever used drugs? if yes, how has this impacted your perception of reality and how you experience "toribash"
ive done thc,lsd,shrooms,dmt, the only one that actually had impact on me would prolly be dmt, playing on lsd feels like doctor strange when he was looking for the 1 reality where the avengers won and then cool distortions over the joints, i watched my texture set morph into some swirly starry night stuff once, shrooms kills my capacity for critical thinking and im just havin a good time, i think shrooms lets me feel my tori pretty well but i cant do stuff like analyze the opponents next moves and form a strategy as instant as im used to, thc helps my brain feel the game better, feeling the wind blowing across my polygons, i probably play my best sober but i would say thc/lsd are my favorite for tb, with thc winning cuz i can smoke all the time without giving myself psychosis, dont do drugs its risky business, and if u do well atleast try to be as safe as u can about it

6) How often is your forum usage compared with time spent in game?
i just hop on forums to check out any new threads that seem interesting which is usually only a few mins, i usually play toribash in 1-2hour sessions maybe like twice a day(i played like 12-18 hours a day throughout most of a summer when i was kid)

7) Do you perceive the way you use toribash (both as a videogame and as an online forum) to be conductive to good mental health and living your best life?
yes toribash has been a discipline more than a game to me, like riding bmx or practicing martial arts or whatever skill u wanna pick, it opened my eyes to how people around the world think when i was very sheltered, singleplayer stuff is a way to destress and try to let some creativity flow, its given a very detailed visualization of physics and momentum which has been awesome for bmx and recently skateboarding, i landed my first ollie in a few tries thx to kinda figuring it out in toribash, then landed backside shuv a few tries after my first ollie, i landed a backside big spin in like 5 minutes a few days ago(board does 360 and body does 180 with the rotation) its taken about 100ish attempts to land my first and only kickflip i havent been able to land one again even though ive gotten real close to riding em out a few times, as far as bmx goes it helps alot too but skateboarding is just so intuitive when i relate it to toribash i probably have about 15-20ish hours on a board, probably less if im being honest, i have about 7 years of xp on bmx but its been a struggle the whole time learning things, skateboarding just makes so much more sense in my head

i started off enamoured by the physics / the game itself but as time has passed it has largely become about the community and the friends ive made in it that keeps me around in the limited capacity i am

though i wouldnt say im a completely different person here its important to understand people are always variable and a large contributor to that is their environment. something something youll never see the same person twice even in one person

its honestly shocking how parallel small communities like this are to each other, with the same sort of drama playing out or people behaving in extremely similar manners

maybe idk im not diagnosed with anything

ive smoked weed a handful of times but its not for me and now i only really drink socially. i dont think its really changed anything about my perception of reality or my experience with toribash


i guess i use the forums more than i play the game now but overall in game is probably way higher

its kind of just neutral for me at least, i had fun sinking thousands of hours on the game and community over the past decade and dont regret it one bit

there has been some incredibly insightful and well thought out responses to this thread, thank you everyone for participating

1) What is it about the toribash community that you enjoy?

The only thing it does for me nowadays is give some insights into younger generations. I don't find it particularly enjoyable. Sometimes I get the chance to talk to old friends. Nostalgia is nice.

2) Do you believe that the persona you associate with your toribash account to be separate from your identity in the physical world that we occupy?

This is tough to answer. For one, I don't think I act much differently online to the way I'd react if I were hearing these things in person. However, I feel like I do plenty of code switching in my day to day life. I act differently around different friend groups, around folks I don't know, etc. I have to do a lot more "hey could you not do that" shit here than irl because most all of my irl friends and community don't wish to troll or normalize harmful behavior.

3) Does this website and community have something that other online communities doesn't have? If yes, elaborate

Probably not.

4) Do you believe you suffer from any kind of mental health problems?

No. I struggled with depression in my teens. I struggled to work through trauma after seeing horrible things and having horrible things done to me from ages 20-25, but I don't seem to be all that affected by any of that anymore. I feel pretty unshakeable lately.

5) Have you ever used drugs? if yes, how has this impacted your perception of reality and how you experience "toribash"

Plenty. I don't think they've altered my understanding of the world any more than a few good books have. They certainly never changed my relationship with toribash. I think maybe they've given me insights into psychosis, helped me understand and empathize with those addicted, those who experience bouts of psychosis, etc. The one thing I will say about my experiences is that acid helped me accept that I was queer. I rejected it for a long time before my reaction to some very convincing hallucinations forced me to accept it.

6) How often is your forum usage compared with time spent in game?

I read new off-topic forum posts once every few days. I don't even have a machine that'll run toribash.

7) Do you perceive the way you use toribash (both as a videogame and as an online forum) to be conductive to good mental health and living your best life?

There's "living your best life" and there's the balance of doing what makes you happy and helps you grow and doing things that impact the world positively. I think this is a bit of a leading question and says more about you than anyone else. Also... it's "conducive" :P

1) What is it about the toribash community that you enjoy?

The fact you can run into players from 2016 even now, and the ever progressing skill ceiling.

2) Do you believe that the persona you associate with your toribash account to be separate from your identity in the physical world that we occupy?


Nah not really, I'm still egotistical and arrogant unless I'm with my kids.


3) Does this website and community have something that other online communities doesn't have? If yes, elaborate


There's something about this game that makes it more personal, maybe the relationships you can build?


4) Do you believe you suffer from any kind of mental health problems?


Not that I'm aware of.


5) Have you ever used drugs? if yes, how has this impacted your perception of reality and how you experience "toribash"


I've only done weed, and it hasn't really done anything for me.


6) How often is your forum usage compared with time spent in game?


I'm on forums daily maybe every other hour, can't play the game cuz no PC


7) Do you perceive the way you use toribash (both as a videogame and as an online forum) to be conductive to good mental health and living your best life?



When I was able to play yes, I have a lot of memories with this game and made tons of friends through it, most of them I don't talk to anymore but know you aren't forgotten. (R.I.P)

one might argue that doing things that impact the world positively is the same as being happy and doing things that help you grow, because the karmic weight of ignoring our responsibilities as humans and members of society is one thing that would subconsciously lead to unhappiness and cultivate an environment that isn't conducive to growth

i like the toribash community

with enough influence its moldable you can change things for the better

duelers being in staff is and will always be my greatest achievement
-----
im not gonna bother answering the rest because theyre frankly dumb questions (no disrespect) (love what ur doing here) (no disrespect at all)

I really enjoy the dynamic range of different people that you can meet on toribash and how everyone has their own unique character traits and different quirks, in a lot of other communities it seems to cultivate a kind of "sub culture" but toribash is a bit different in that it has a few sort of "sub cultures" within it but each individual is different to the next. Also theres the fact that the actual game engine is so unique and is such a timeless and fun game

I feel like as I grow older and more mature I am behaving more like my most authentic self everywhere in my life and toribash isn't excluded from that. in the past I've vented a lot of my negative toxic traits within the community and not really been my "best self" here but this is one thing I'm actively working on improving each day

Yeah, just the general vibe of how "communal" it feels and like others have mentioned, the ability to form really life changing relationships here with interesting people is very cool.

This is a hard question for me to answer because I've never had a formal diagnosis and I don't want to devalue the experience of anybody who does, but I believe that I have ADHD and autism and have managed to "slip the net" of the care system because my parents are both neurodivergent too and during their time in life there wasn't as much of an understanding as there is now about these things. I don't think that they hold me back much though, actually I think that although I face a lot of challenges these things fuel me to do the things I do and be the person I am

I have used plenty of drugs, the ones I will list here are ones that have had the most impact on my life and perception of reality. I started out smoking weed when I was really young (around 14-15, this is a terrible idea and any young people reading this should head my warning and avoid using ANY psychoactive substance unless advised otherwise and prescribed by a trusted medical professional because the impacts it could potentially have on brain development are NOT worth the high/potential benefits) I got into learning about psychedelics around the same time and have spent the last 10 years of my life expanding my knowledge and research on psychedelics and their benefits to human life and different psychological issues. In recent months I have been consuming a lot of ketamine and have been getting a lot of really great insight to my own consciousness and developing a greater understanding of my life. In terms of toribash, I would say that certain substances help me to create replays in ways that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to, for example, whilst taking psychedelics I'm able to "connect" with the tori on a different level and overcome roadblocks that were previously limiting my playstyle.

It varies massively but I think I spend more time currently looking at the forum

In the past the way I used toribash was very unhealthy; I used the game itself to avoid serious responsibilities and challenges in my life that needed to be faced head on and I used the forum and other community aspects (discord etc) to ventilate my toxic ego traits and push out negativity onto others. At this point in my life, I am healing a lot of my toxic traits and core wounds and really appreciating toribash in a new light.