100x 1k Guilds
 

Well the top 100 board for guilds is filled up now, so that means future 1k guilds will have to do a little extra to be recognized on the totals board. I thought about doing this awhile ago, so I wrote this last month. Sorry if anything comes out discolored and/or subjective. Enjoy.

A Brief History of Towering:
2010 — I wasn’t a 2010 player, so I don’t know exactly when towers began. Towers were mostly for fun and to have your guild recognized. No one even thought of getting a reward for 1000 fort hours until it happened.

(Just in case you don’t understand, towering was meant to be a competition between guilds, and you stayed loyal to one guild, and that guild continued getting more and more hours; not a competition between who can join the most guilds to get the most 1k hats, and ditch the guild after getting 1k)

Oh, side note, tower HPs: Castle, MoD, Swamp = 200; Sardon’s, Deadwood, Snow = 250;

Early 2011 — Towering was still fun, and become more competitive as more guilds became interested in towering. The major guilds of the day could hold a single tower for weeks on end without losing. If you had skilled members, 7 people could defend from multiple attacking guilds.

Oh, another side note: back in the day Swamp tower defenders respawned up in the flag room; Castle defenders respawned in the same place they stood! High flag HP, not many defender disadvantages = towers were much harder to take, but easy to hold.

Late 2011 — When the Facebook client was released, the so-called “FB Server” was released; you had to use a PC or buy VIP to use this alternate gmap. However, when things settled, the FB Server playercount max’d at ~250 daily, making it much easier to hold towers. It only took 2-4 members to hold one tower, making it easy to dominate Facebook’s map. When people realized it only took a month or so to get their 1k hat on the FB Server, they got their friends together, dumped the guild that already had 1k like a dead baby, and created a new guild to get another quick and easy 1k — the beginning of hat guilds.

Meanwhile on the iPhone server, towers still had the same difficulty as ever. At this time, every tower on the map was dominated by “Admin Guilds:” tower guilds owned by a Graal Police who used popularity to gain members. Oh and I think it was late 2011/early 2012 that all towers became 250HP.

2012 — Lemme tell ya, huge wave of 2012 noobs took over towering for the most part. Because towering on the FB Server was a joke, and its playercount was so low, the FB Server was deleted and its guild scoreboard was merged to iPhone’s guild scoreboard. (Scoreboards changed from “top 50” to “top 100”). At one point Xor announced guilds would no longer get a custom hat for 1k, but only at 5k. But obviously everyone protested and that was added back quick.

Oh ya, York’s fort was added in June. Then a few innovative changed were made to towers… Castle and Swamp’s defender respawns were moved downstairs. Soon after, all towers HPs were majorly nerfed and HPs ranged from 50 - 250. No point in telling each tower’s HP since they changed every several months.

2013 — Hat guilds still more or less reign. The art of getting a guild to 1k, collecting a 1k hat, making a new guild with the same leaders and members has become a common ritual. Well that’s about all I have to say about this age, because that’s what towering has turned into. Sadly, it seems that won’t ever be another 10k guild for a long time.


A Few Tower Guild Stats
Mostly accurate; some estimated.
=====
~10 guilds earned 1000 hours in 2010
~30 guilds earned 1000 hours in 2011
~30 guilds earned 1000 hours in 2012
~30 guilds earned 1000 hours in 2013/2014 (5 in 2014 so far).
=====
~20 guilds towered on the Facebook Server.
~10 guilds were led by Graal Police staff members
~59 guilds had mostly the same leaders and members as some previous guild (a hat guild more or less)
~2 guilds didn’t actually achieve 1000 hours, but were given 1k due to a mistake when the Facebook Server’s guild stats were merged.
=====
~101 guilds actually have 1000 hours :0 (Advent V has disappeared from the board)
~89 guilds went beyond 1001 hours.
~71 guilds went beyond 1010 hours.
~49 guilds went beyond 1100 hours.
~15 guilds went beyond 2000 hours.
~7 guilds went to 5000 hours and have a 5k hat.
~6 guilds went beyond 10000 hours and have a mount.
~1-2 guilds over 10000 hours are currently active (SoN, and CoM)

Was an interesting read, thanks for sharing.

Yeah. Interesting stats. But you never really talked about your thesis at all. What are guilds going to have to do to get recognized now?

Once the board hits 1k, there should be nothing else, but knocking 1k guilds off the list. How about, if you are above #50, the guilds earn stars! Ot would be on the guild page. Kinda like the pokemon trainer card.

more competitive yet com and vg could hold a tower for weeks?

early 2011 was probably one of the weakest times in towering. By this time almost all the original good tower guilds had reached 1k and stopped(nal,sos,sa,redrum,pulse,ps and some I cant remember. Vg was the only one that kept going). This is the reason com was able to break out as a successful tower guild and dominate since there was no competition.

everything else seems about right

I didn't care for towers until the year 2013, but based on what I've read and just other things I've heard from people who towered before me, it seemed like holding a tower was stupidly easy before then (up until some point, I guess). I also feel like the whole FB server pretty much tainted the integrity of towering statistics overall, so it makes sense to me why no one wants to work hard for something that you could, at one point, easily achieve in a fraction of the time.

Stupidly easy? No. It brought the guild closer. The 25 people were all that there were. There wasn't any subs. There would be at least 20 people on while attacking. Once it was taken, we bring 10 to another. It was fun and something you couldn't do today. 5 people are needed to take a tower now, which means anyone can noob recruit.


The FB server towers were crap though lol. It was once that you could take the fort over by not hitting a flag, but by having more people than the defender.

That's the exact same thing that happens today, so I'm not sure where you're going with that. The difference is that every tower doesn't have an absurd amount of HP, so they're more difficult to hold.

Log on right now and take then hold any fort with 5 people. Good luck. Your best bet is that you'll manage to get a hit on MoD and steal it for an entire 3 minutes.

cool story

Already 100 1k guilds? -_-
Gosh I wish they could delete the guilds who made like 5 other guilds to 1k just for the hat -_-
Perhaps, admin could make that the admins make the 1k hats so they can make some scrap and make them angry(who cares).(Not saying that admins make scrap, I'm saying admins could make scrap for the 1k guilds that are alway making new tower guilds for a 1k hat)

Um. actually compete to be on the top 100 board.

Sort of. Before HPs were lowered, towers were mostly "hard to take; easy to keep." Now its more reversed to "easy to take; hard to keep."

something intelligent and not littered with capital words. Im shocked.

Remember when Xor said they'd be doing a generic prize instead? Ya what happened to that?

Voyage is attempting to go to 5k and Farewell is too. iBall of course just a 1k guild, a motivator so CoM and drive people to go farther for iBalls 1k hat. And SoN is going too, but a dying guild by the looks of things. So far the only guilds that have a goal past 1k at this very moment, are SoN, CoM, Voyage, and Farewell. Even NaL has a new hat chasing guild, but at least they reached it to 10k first. I can't blame them, really. Shaolin just got 1k, and they have stopped also.
Expect much more to follow,
there seems to be a steady stream of endless guilds with a goal of just 1k and they usually are just a reincarnation of some other 1k guild. It is much so, turning into a Zombie Outbreak scenario.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...alert_icon.png


1: First, in this zombie outbreak, your going to want to meet up with some close allies so you can form a survival team.

http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/u.../08/theDay.jpg

You need to make sure to pick people who will carry their weight and that they are "pro" enough, so they can handle themselves in a spar. Whatever you do, you need to make sure there are no noobs. Noobs will infect your group into turning into a 1k guild.

2: In this zombie scenario, you need to find another large survivor group, and join their cause to go past 1k and shine ! They should provide you with the necessities like basic needs to live, like water, new shields, guild parties, and food. As long as you are helpful to the guild, they will offer protection from getting infected and you guys are likely to have a good defensive position.

http://i50.tinypic.com/keu1c7.png

Wait... Takaii was probably the worst example ever.

3: This scenario, you lone wolf it, You gonna' solo it ! Make sure you gather the necessary supplies. While there is still time, gather up plenty of:

- Hours. This will intimidate noobs, and make you win any dispute over who is more of a pro.
- Good spar rating. This will allow you to have an excuse as to why you play graal, if you are not into talking. The spar community will convince you that holding towers is overrated, and they will protect you behind the doors of the massive anti-noob refuge.....

http://s30.postimg.org/5qe8eekj5/Scr...0_51_48_PM.png



This is your survival handicap INFO post. All steps of how to protect yourself from the outbreak are going to be relayed in for your protection from here,

Half of the hats are boring.
I think I CxE's 1k the most because http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...yber_Elf_X.jpg

I blame the guild TaKaii, and Lanky and all of the leaders who were a part of it because that was really when hat chasing and guilds getting 1000 hours within a month started on iClassic.

Imo it may be time for the upper Admin's to start considering changing the towering prize format to try and discourage all the recycle guilds. Maybe give a prize for every 1k hours reached that would at least get rid of the need to form into a guild with a new name but the same members constantly.

Having been apart of 2 1k guilds, I think some of the recycling has to do with people wanting to stay with the same group of people they have been towering with, and become friends with but wanting to take the faster route to the prize. I know people are divided some want to push on and take the guild farther and become an elite guild while others are fueled by greed and want to recycle or join up with another 500+ guild and repeat the process for another fancy custom hat.

I think it would also help a lot if there was a guild stats page that would show different stats about the guild. Like # of people recruited,kicked,highest/lowest weekly,monthly hour totals,spar stats,ect. With a section that has individual player info break down to help track single players activity while on one specific guild tag. It could show all the basic player stats (hours,pks,baddie kills,spar)but also those they have accumulated while on the guilds tag. Those would be pretty much the same but we be in reguards to what you have done while in the guild. I.E. total hours on the guilds tag,total pks while on tag,total baddie kills while on tag,spar wins while on tag,ect.

Just change it to 2k hours for a hat, and completely ignore all the players complaining and rioting

Nah, I think it's time Xor and friends bump it up to 5k hours for a hat and 1000 hours for a f****** broadcast message.

Also, more incentive for 10k hours.

Imo they should consider adding monetary rewards. for example: whenever a guild gets an hour of tower time all members on tag at that time would get 500 gralats or something. Maybe that could be available but only to guilds who have reached a certain milestone. say once you reach 1k. Idk if earning extra gralats would be enough of a reward tho to keep players in guilds and to cut down on recycling tho.

Thats Cruxis' 1k not Cruxis Evolution's...

Even before TaKaii, hat guilds started on the laughable FB server. After AF1, Vlad led 3-4 guilds; then most of those members moved to Takaii and Lankys other countless guilds. And also after Futur3, pigparty led at least 7 other 1k guilds.

I think you should just be able to get a 1k hat made by an admin so when they see a guild of 1k more than 1 time they can just make a scrap and say:
You wanted more than one 1k hat? You didn't want to reach 5k or 10k hours? Then here you go take that scrap!
This is for all the 1k guilds: Vintage never got his 1k hat and 5k hat because we achieved it for fun and we didn't really care about an hat, we could have continue to 10k but we tought it was time for Vintage to stop towering.(I still think we should go for it)
Now go outside and have fun.

Nothing is wrong with hat chasing.

FFS let the kids enjoy their pixelated hats if you're getting jealous, I've noticed a lot that the kids not getting the hats are raging.

Great way to kill towering, since it's only hat guilds anyway. Then the legitimate guilds that work hard and plan to go past 1k get a piece of **** reward. Motivation for another piece of **** reward at 5k! Great idea! This will really fix towering!

Great... You still didn't understand what I've posted!
I said the ones who do multiple 1k guilds. Not every god damn person of every god damn guilds.

Fixed ;D

Sorry but that is a lie. Aimee just hasn't picked a hat for 1k yet. and it just been pushed and pushed to 5k and still looking for a hat.

Starting a guild back in 2011 was a Hell of a lot harder than now. Towering now is a f***ing joke lol. Why was it harder? Unless you were an admin or some popular guy noone wanted to join your dumb guild. You had guilds like VG, CoM, Nal, CJ and Cxe holding some of the towers pretty much 24/7. The rest of the guilds were mostly admin ones. And being how much hp towers had before and how the spawn rates favored the defending team, taking a tower especially sardon or swamp was a real challenge. But Hell, this challenge made towering so much more fun.

Agreed Goten. Agreed.

I wasn't very sure, thank you for clarifying that.

That's just the dumbest argument ever.

Vintage had countless other "hat chaser" guilds, or whatever you kids call them, some of which consisted of such douchebaggery as naming the entire guild after a single person (and I thought I had a big ego).

Is your argument, "We don't care about hats in some guilds, just in others, and that proves we are so passionate about towering!" or what? That's dumb, just because your leader doesn't hand out a hat doesn't make you any better or more meaningful than any other guild who reaches that same amount of hours.

It's not a secret why Vintage, and other guilds, didn't give out hats until they finished. It's because they want their members to stay interested and loyal, they want them to continue to push and get the leader hours for their guild. Why give out a hat out to 25 people at 1000 hours when you could keep 50+ people on their toes and expecting or assuming they'd get a hat (or even two) all the way until 5000?

Nothing is wrong with giving out a hat. If anything, Vintage's situation is worse because now (since Aimee is looking for hat makers that she should have looked for months ago), people are going to be let down. It takes more balls and integrity to give the hats out to members when you reach your hours. It shows that you care about them getting something they deserve more than your selfish little guild.

"The fact that we don't give out hats proves that we are a better towering guild and we do it for fun!" Riiight. It proves that your interest is retaining members rather than rewarding your members for an achievement when they deserve it and instead relying on false hope and anxiousness to carry your guild to more hours.

Any guild that delays their rewards has no spine. IMO, it shouldn't even be allowed. Plus, Vintage constantly abused the privilege of having admins in their guild, but that's another story entirely. Envy was ridiculous.

I don't like the fact that the guild leader has all the power in handing out the hats. They get to choose when and who to give the hats to,and it doesn't even have to be to people that ever helped the guild tower.

I don't know or care about the Vintage situation,and I have never had any issues with Aimee or Liz as they have always been very nice. I just don't think its quite fair for a guild lead to basically force people to stay to get what they should have all ready earned. Now if the members like the guild and want to stay to help push the guild farther into a more elite status then that's different.

However it's been my experience that most players want to show up with 300 or less hours left till 1k,help very little till the last 100 hours meanwhile kissing the leader's ass and trying to convince the other members to join them in jumping to another guild after words to race back to 1k for yet another hat.

Maybe it would help if they made a 2nd type of elite or highest ranking guild list of just the top 50 or so guilds to help give other guilds some else to try and reach.

I have gotten 3 1k hats out of the 4 guilds I've joined ( a lead disliked me, and was friends with the leader so I didn't get hat )

I don't understand why people think they will get hat if they join in 700, 800 hours or even 900 hours. All you have to do is join early, remain active and hat is yours!

But honestly I would refrain from joining guilds where the leader has many friends, i know this friend who helped for 700 hours, was pretty active, but his spot was given to a lead who joined at 800 hours. Most leaders just care about getting 1k, and giving hat to friends.

I can give examples for guilds like these, but sadly it will start a forum war.

The easiest and perhaps best solution would be to impose a limit of one 1k hat per account.

they split the spar rooms because players complained, I would hate to see the chaos this decision would create.

You that that back now before it catches the attention of admins

A solution to what?

What does this solve? You guys realize people having hats isn't a problem, right? You realize it isn't causing any issues? It does nothing to affect the game negatively.

The problem is the jealous little kids constantly complaining over it as if it is some actual problem. The solution would be to STFU and stop crying.

What is there to be jealous about? It's easy to join a 1k tower guild. I could do it right now actually. Lemme join XXV or Special Forces real quick. Brb.

6 Guilds have 5k hats. Vintage doesn't have a 1k or a 5k hat yet.

How to start an argument on Graalians:

1. State your opinion
2. Wait

I read this and thought how its odd that hat distribution is still as informal as its always been. And hat distribution was a lot more difficult back in the day when there was no limit on the number of people; and you would have to bug a staff member for days to distribute; and do a second and third distribution for people not online the first time. Im surprised there isnt a more formal way of selecting hat recipients yet. Like choose who gets the hat similar to GST registration or something.

back in the day when a guild got to 1k they would open revolution and give the guild the vip room for about day. Anyone with the guild tag could go into the vip room and buy their hat for 1gralat. Then leaders started complaining that to many noobs had their 1k hat so they changed it.


note: this is how I got the SoS hat ;)

I still think it would be best to have a stat to keep track of online time while on a particular guilds tag. I know the same problem they have with Idling hour boosters would be there. I think the best solution to that would be to warp idlers out of the towers after like 1 minute to an unstick me/idle warp point and remove the guilds tag from the player in the process. Not kick them from the guild just remove the tag.

This is a little off topic but on the subject of Idling. I was hoping if good old Rufus is in fact making/working on a separate server thing. That when its complete part of its function would be to warp idlers into a spot on it,thus lowering the player count and removing non active players out of areas lowering the lag.

Now thats way too extreme and will never happen.

I saw this and had a good laugh. The first part I agree with but for the second part, believe me, noone is jealous of the **** players wear on there head lol. I mean you see the same leaders get multiple guilds to 1k and the hats are all ugly as hell. You would think those leaders would choose a decent hat after so many chances lol.

If people want to keep getting guilds to 1k and get crappy hats for 1,000 hours of there time then have fun. Personally, I don't have that kind of time anymore and even if I did I'd be doing something more productive.

I experienced the old ways of towering and the new ways with a fair amount of experience for each. Starting with the new ways, there's no challenge anymore, its boring. Before, taking down a big named guild like VG at swamp felt really fun and challenging. I mean this is all my opinion but being some 2010 noob on graal and going against the top guilds on graal with my friends was the best. At one point it was just us and a bunch of admin guilds or the top dogs who were well past 1k.

I can see why people like the new way because it makes it fairly easy to take a tower now because of the difficulty increase in defense, I just prefer a higher difficulty in offense.

A pretty logical post.

People always will complain and complain over petty little things like pixel hats.

Holy ****, 101 1k guilds? That's insane, makes me wanna check this game out again.

Also, now that I've been away from this game for 2 years (maybe?), I realize that there is nothing wrong with hat chasers. I think I have 2 or 3 1k hats. Let people go crazy for hats, it doesn't matter.

You can't be proud for the 1k hats you get now or got around the facebook time.

If you have one of the first 20 guilds or 30 guilds that hit 1k that is a hat to be proud to have.
I only have two 1k hats and super proud about them and a 5k hat. Soon to have the 10k mount when it is done.

You can be proud of hitting 5k but 1k is just a joke now.

My feelings are this.

I have to disagree. I think if you go from start to finish (1k) or close to it with pretty much the same core group of people that make up the majority of your guild. And you actually put in the work to get to 1k you should be proud of the hat and all the work you put in.

However if you jump in a guild with 300 or less hours to go till 1k or you just constantly afk and don't put the work in then no you are not really very deserving of the hat and shouldn't be proud of it.

So I guess for me at least its not about 1k guilds are a joke. I think there are still good players and good guilds out there that put in the work that have to fight and scrape for hours that should be proud of getting to that milestone and all the work they out forth to get there. Now that obviously excludes a lot of the recycle guilds that just keep the same members under a new name and use the same tactics (a lot of times not legal) to hold usually the same tours for long periods of time. That get a new 1k hat every couple of months. That is definately not something to be proud of.

Its like me saying players shouldn't be proud of reaching 1k because their admin leader is the only reason they got to 1k.


Dont try to make sh1t exclusive just because you fall under that category. If theres a guild that should have "proud" priorities it would be redrum since they reached 1k with less than 25 players and did it the fastest at the time of reaching 1k.

That's pretty true :/
God damnit it was my only example ._.