Faction Wars - What makes a guest a guest?

I am probably the silly person here who is missing the really obvious answer, so I will confess up front I have real difficulty in understanding what constitutes a guest in termed wars.

I have a simplistic view that a player can only have one home faction and so, definitionally, is guesting in any other Faction they war for. However, it seems there are differing views, particularly when it involves faction families.

Is there a clear, unambiguous and commonly agreed understanding of what makes a guest for the purposes of a Termed War?

The best approach I have been able to proxy together is for every Termed War Faction to list up their "Home Team" as part of the war thread. At least that way all of Torn can see where players belong - for current and future war negotiations. It is admittedly pretty clunky. :(

I would be interested in views, as playing the new territories release is likely to increase my confusion.

imo, every person has a home faction that they identify with which is mainly the one they're known for staying in the majority of the time.



Say in your case: if you were a JFK member years ago but have been in DA for years, you're a DA member.



That's just my view.

Guest is a strange word to me coming from other games to Torn.

I have a few factions I am allied to and do not go to war against, I have a number of factions with an open door for me to join and I do not impede them as a faction.

Termed wars are nothing more than tame sporting jousts of those not wanting to muck around anymore in the lesser factions - likely for many as they did that in newer days.

I rarely see what i would consider total war being implemented but i am guessing that will change when territories arrive....maybe.

So to answer the question what is a guest in a termed war....

someone who joins temporarily for that termed war.

What makes a guest is someone borrowed specifically for a war.

I have a friend that had two girlfriends that were living in the same house at the same time. I have two homes in torn just like I do in real life. I'm a member of two factions, both have dozens of friends I've known dating back to 1999. I split my time between both factions. The idea of forcing people into faction monogamy is just lame.

Give us more info about the two girlfriends :P



OT: I have guested a bit, where friends ask me to please come around and help them out in some wars. Once the wars are done, I return back to the beach to work on my tan :P

An interesting question, I like to think i'm still pretty close to BC, I talk with a lot of the members there (one runs a TV company for me) - I always offer to go there if there's a war worth it, I've never once been asked to come and help, i've always went on my own to help.

That being said, I haven't been in BC for a long time simply to spend time there, does that mean if i ever visit im a guest? I don't know, the definition of a guest for me is someone who goes from one faction to another specifically for a war, often times being paid or at minimum having their xan/refils covered. When i go to BC i pay my own costs.. revives, xan, refils, vic etc etc - it comes out of my pocket because I still consider BC close to me.

So with that said, I don't consider myself a guest when i help BC, I think cheds change with time spent in the faction is pretty key for spotting guests, if they have 0 days or just a few days and jumped over because of a war then you're a guest. If you jump over and it shows 100s of days spent in the faction, you're not a guest.

Imo you are a guest. It's not your home faction anymore no matter how many friends you have there. We probably all have friends in different factions and only going there when there is a war worth it is the exact definition of being a guest. Whether you pay your own costs or not is not relevant. If you're not a guest you would stay there also outside of wartimes.

I would stay there outside wartime, just since coming here building up stats for trees, prep for territories etc there hasn't been much time for it.

A player whose allegiance is to a non-family faction, who would intend to fight for the other non-family faction if there were simultaneous wars taking place. The player's membership of the family factions must last no less than 30 days after the war ends, provided their hit count was above the mean number of hits from the faction so as not to warrant a kick.

So you are putting JFK activities before Vulpes (I would assume Vulpes also expects their members to participate in things). Doesn't that make JFK your home faction? Or is it a thing to have multiple factions you consider to be home?

That's iffy, poptop mentioned they consider having at least 2 factions as "home" to me, I guess I'd say i'd do the same with JFK/BC but then again if i ever went to JFK 2.1 does that make me a guest?

I'm assuming this thread was born from issues with "guests" or not that came with JFA however i'd add that DA did similar with BC with "long term members returning to DA" a few days before a termed war, you have no sympathy from me if this is the case.

OT: can you only have 1 faction you call home? I like to think you can have more.

Simply put, when any war is declared or terms set, faction roster is locked ( as agreed between factions) with additional guests balanced between teams for a more competitiive war. With that said, there are different types of guests, almost always without leadership or coleadership status (access to faction bank, faction settings, faction path upgrades, bulletin boards, IRC, :

1)Ringers (high balanced stat players paid or unpaid with faciton resources to win wars, faster or to offset other factions players)

2)Chainers or Chain leaders (Players with additional energy resources to bring to bear in wars, fast chain starters/ closers etc)

3)Revivers (Dedicated revive teams for both the faction and the opposition (with revive setting on) to make fast chains and win

4)Other, Guest specialties, player or faction blocking ( to target specific territories or players), forum posting (distraction from war), guests that bring cash, cans, FHCs, boosters, and other $ resources/ better amours and weapons/ enhanements/ addons to war, and pure guests (most guests are considered for faction membership, based on performance, loyalty and resources brought ot faction/ wars) fighting hard means reguesting offers and higher cash payouts for performance. Entire factions can also be guests in wars.

It wasn't particularly an issue with the recent war with JFA. I recall you being involved in another "guest free" termed war that involved guests, Mat. But it seems clear that when two Factions agree to be guest free, or to a specific number of guests, or whatever, there is not always a shared understanding of what it means.

Many players feel close ties with other factions and that is a beautiful thing. I was specific that my question relates to warring - and termed wars.

I am not suggesting DA's understanding is any better than anyone else's, I was just seeing if it was a common issue.

I don't know if someone calls a faction home and really cares about it then why leave it and join another and not just for one war either they pretty much stays there..

The former faction would be like your old home which you sold and bought a new one.. You like your old home and have memories and stuff but you aren't allowed to enter cause trespassing

I agree with PMV here.. For me poptop is DA, Mat is JFK.. Just my view..

For me the whole concept of faction as a family is quite new. Did "run" a small one for years, originally people we knew out of TC when TC started. As they stopped playing became maybe 4 or 5 regular players and we did nothing.

So joined R and have guested a couple of times with our sister faction, UR. Mainly unpaid (one or two donations did come my way) but I don't know if that is relevant or not. I think Delft neatly hit on the issue above. Because when I am in UR I feel a tremendous affinity with the people there, have some good friends there and I enjoy warring and learning about war and it is good to do that with a bunch of people you can enjoy. There was also some non-altruistic reasons in helping; having not warred much it allowed me to get closer to a couple of merits that may disappear soon so it's worth investing in some FHCs and xan etc. to get merits since they are hard for me to get these days.

I wouldn't consider going around as a paid guest for many reasons. Primarily R is a family to me and that was my first goal of joining a proper faction. Secondly I'm not good enough anyway compared to some guests I have seen being brought in against us. And thirdly other than alliances I don't think that guesting is really a good idea. I guess this is going to be rewritten with territories though and hope that we all learn to overcome our reservations and prejudices together for the good of the game.

Just to be clear JFA cleared their returning members with DA leadership prior to our war, so no issues there from us. They were better organized and beat us fair and square. I think this is meant to be more of a general discussion about what people consider to be guests (although I do think returning members going back elsewhere right after the war raised the question)


Regarding DA vs Vulpes, I think I know what you are referring to. They were not long-term members, but people looking for a new home, after their faction got sold. Personally I wouldn't class that as a guest, especially considering many of them are still here today. But I agree with you that the timing was tricky, which is why I tried to renegotiate the terms back then. Vulpes didn't seem too interested (clicky)

I was asked to leave JFK 2.1 after returning (being there for 100 days+) while they joined after terms were agreed, navin continued to agree but most of BC was against it, now it wouldn't go through but hey, it's the past. It was more a comment on situations if OP was referring to that.

But first post expresses my opinion on guests, some people think one person may only be a member of one faction, i guess i'm of the opinion you can be a member of more than 1, be it family or two directly different factions. If there person who spent a long time there during and outside war and is friends with a large number of the faction then they're not a guest when coming back to help friends. In my opinion.

I think avoiding being looked at as a guest is quite easy, just go to the fac of your choice before a war and act like you're not doing anything wrong - then when someone calls you out for it, just copy deft and be like "I played on 17 different games with these guys about 20 years ago, IM NOT A GUEST!" and then you're good to go, no questions asked.

Fair enough, I wanted to clear things up about that war as our side of the story seems a lot different. But lets not get back into past events too much as it will probably drag things off topic


I personally think being a member of different factions is an interesting stance, what happens if both sides are warring at the same time? Wouldn't someone always prefer one faction over the other? And wouldn't that be their home faction then?

in my opinion if you join a faction specifically for helping with a war and arent staying afterwards it makes you a guest, joining a faction at a time of war isnt guesting its just coincidence and suspicious to the other faction.

if you join to on a temp basis not for a war i'd class that as being a temp member

for instance, i was in vulpes for a good 6 months, probs go back after a bit, but if i had jumped into their war with relentless and left after words i'd have classed myself as a guest unless i planned on staying after the war as currently i am a FE member and not a vulpes member, if that makes sense