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.  

Posted by twilit

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<--lol members, 7 people could defend from multiple attacking guilds.

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.  

Posted by Thallen

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.  

Posted by HON3Y BADG3R

There would be at least 20 people on while attacking. Once it was taken, we bring 10 to another.

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.

Posted by HON3Y BADG3R

5 people are needed to take a tower now, which means anyone can noob recruit.

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)  

Posted by TarePanda

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?

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

Posted by Thallen

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

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."

Posted by eevee2

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)

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.

Options on how to survive a 1k zombie guild apocalypse!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Red_triangle_alert_icon.png (Unsupported image host)


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/uploads/2011/08/theDay.jpg (Unsupported image host)

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 (Unsupported image host)

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/Screen_Shot_2014_02_02_at_10_51_48_PM.png (Unsupported image host)



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,

Stay strong my dear citizens,
-The General...

 

Half of the hats are boring.
I think I CxE's 1k the most because http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130329172621/ultradragonball/images/e/e7/Cyber_Elf_X.jpg (Unsupported image host)  

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.