To me, toribash's community is one of the best I've ever encountered.

I've befriended many people, across those 2-3 years i've played, and I keep, to this day, meeting new players. Some of them I've been talking to pretty much every day since then.

Granted there are a few trolls here and there, dealing with them is generally simple and they're damn worth the friendships I've made. I've even held a few events and had no problem at all.

Nowadays I mainly mod, and hang out with my friends, though. I don't take part in many competitions, and when people join our server it's usually just to play for fun. Hence, no trouble. And yet, I play with a lot of strangers, lower belts, people that don't speak english well fuck it just use google traduction

You'll meet toxic people throughout your whole life. Find some ones you like, remember to have fun, and you'll probably have a much better experience.

As for considering shoveling and other cheese tactics "toxic", I believe that if you go into a match with the esports intention to win, you should be ready for your opponent to use any means necessary to win too

so that's on you

And whining about it probably makes you toxic as well

tldr;

Dont play competitively if it ruins the game for you, have fun with it and explore the things and the communities you haven't tried/seen yet !

Thank you for all of your insightful answers.

I'm an old player with a bad taste in my mouth whenever this game comes to mind, so my opinion is obviously biased, though I appreciate all of the different perspectives this thread has brought to my attention. At some point I may try to play this game casually again with a new mindset and make some new friends.

I'm essentially the last member of the generation I was a part of, and even if every generation of players has its ups and downs I like to remember mine as the best one that there was. I guess that makes the idea of getting to know new people a bit less appealing to me. I've since moved on to other games, but have yet to participate meaningfully in another community like I used to with Toribash. I'm resigned to think that another community won't catch my eye again like Toribash did in the past.

Also, when I talk about toxicity, I don't particularly mean in-game (unless it's arguments about what movements are competitive, which has always been ridiculous in my opinion). The most toxicity I've seen is anything regarding anyone with a rank, anyone "popular" (some of us still remember what was the last straw with this community for me, which was a tournament strictly for those that were deemed "elite") and the forum marketplace as well as a lot of clan threads.

I don't know what else to add, but I think I've gotten basically all of the input I needed. Thank you for your opinions.

this game is dead, you're delusional if you say it isnt. we need something new, something fresh, but nope, how about work on irc upgrades, because that's important. the supposedly epic "patch 5.0" was the biggest disappointment..ever. there's nothing interesting to keep the old players from staying, nor new players from joining. everything being made is almost purely cosmetic. i'm not saying change how toribash works or whatever, but bring something new to the table. but then again, i'm not blaming anyone, this is one old ass game, i'm just sad to see it die this way.

This game is dying. It has been for quite some time now. It's barely holding on as it is, and people are losing interest by the minute. The game is perceived as boring by most. I don't blame them. The game is extremely repetitive, and the player skill gap is immense.

It's hard to keep new players because they don't know what they are doing, and they get frustrated and leave. Of course, you also have the constant flaming, toxicity, scams, shady stuff, and staff that don't seem to care.

I'm fairly sure that Nabi isn't promoting the game anymore, which is pretty much dooming the community, but oh well what do I know.

It's like a small country town where u know everybody. That's the fun part. Basically know about 90% of the people commenting here.
Anyway. Punks not dead. Neither is toribash. Yet.

This game is dying if not dead. As said before, new players get mad and leave, and the experiences players get bored and leave as well. I mean, toribash is a boring game, and theres only so much that people can get out of it. In game, toribash is dead, and the forum is dying quickly. so yes, torbash is dead.

You can't kill the undead, IRC has been on life support for a decade now, that should tell you something!

Communities usually outgrow their box, so remember to keep in touch with friends as they disperse.

ads ads ads ads ads ads ads

if we are dying already why not try to make a last ditch effort and advertise the game
or even better get a few well known youtubers to play it longer than 15 minutes.
or ads on the whole site. Im not talking big flashy ads.
but lets say You pay the 10 dollars or what ever get vip and you no longer see the ads?
theres probably lots of talk and reason why not to do this. but if the games dying why the fuck would it matter.


this way torubash could be advertised else where while it pays for its self, due to the forums having ads, the game would make ad money and be able to reinvest in some good advertising

I blame the global 'dumbification' of games.
People are now accustomed to 'press this button to win' and they just don't want to invest time into steep learning curve games.
Also, TB is so abstract and strange. On surface, it is a gratuitous carnage and blood, and under the skin has a potential to be a very competitive game, but it doesn't want to progress too far from the cartoonish roots.
Also, if there was only a game, without the forum, it would died ages ago. Special cultural aspect of ppl that this game attract is what keeps this boat still afloat.
Sadly, the sea is wast and has many wonders, as the raft is getting smaller and smaller.

We need a revamped development team, because right now dranix and hampa are pretty much gone, and sir is the only developer that's somewhat active, if sir could hire a bigger development team for ingame, it would make updates a lot more rapid, and even better.

edit; I would also like to add on to some of the things ShhhMikes stated, advertising the game would definitely be good as a last resort, but a lot of people seem to dislike the idea of advertising due to having to pay money, at the end of the day, you still make profit from new players making purchases ingame and on the forums.