Duncan's House
When you first create your hobo on HoboWars, you are randomly placed on a side. The available sides are East, South, and West. The North Side is reserved for game staff. Sides only have two purposes in the game and these purposes are very closely intertwined.
Introduction
When you go to attack a hobo, you may notice that their side is listed along with their other information. This is an important thing to consider when attacking. If you attack someone who is from one of the other sides beside your own, then you will receive normal experience when you beat them. If you attack a hobo from your own side, then you will only receive half of the normal experience. This encourages people to attack hobos from other sides, which leads into the next purpose of sides.
Side Wars
If you go and look at Duncan's house, you will see the three sides listed as well as the number of points that each side has. Farther down the page you will see which hobos on your side have the most and least points. Below this is an indication of the positive or negative number of points that you have for your side. These points are gained when you beat a hobo from another side and are lost when you lose in a fight against a hobo from another side, thus creating positive and negative margins.
Participation in side wars is optional. To participate, click the link at the top of Duncan's house labeled "Yes, sign me up". This will enter you into that week of side wars and you will being to gain/lose points as noted. There are advantages to not signing up for side wars as well. If you are not registered, fighters looking for fights through Duncan's House will not be able to see you.
A new addition to the Side Wars at Duncan's House is that you have to sign up every week to be a part of it. If you are not signed up you will not be visible to others who look for fights at Duncan's House and will not receive or lose points as such. Also, if not signed up you will not receive the week end bonus for winning.
Finally, participants will receive a 25% bonus to respect gains and will not lose respect from fights as long as they are signed up.
Winning Side Wars
At the end of each week, on Sunday 12:00:00 pm (HoboTime), the Side War for the week ends and starts over again. At that time, every participant on the winning side with positive war points will receive a cash prize and a +100 intelligence boost until the end of the following week. The top ten participants of any side will also get a bonus cash prize dependent on their position in the top ten and the temporary +100 intelligence boost. Participants with positive war points on the winning side and the top 10 participants on the losing two sides will also receive access to the War Room for the following week.
The amount of money for winning that is shown when you look at the side totals is how much you would receive if you were the top hobo on your side. This amount is equal to your level multiplied by $500. If you are far enough in the negative at the end of the week, you'll receive a 50 intelligence penalty for the coming week.
You can only gain (or lose) four points per hobo you attack per reset. The maximum is two points from attacking and two points from being attacked. Also, the sides are now being kept even so you may not always be accepted right away to join Side Wars.
An addition made to deter sluts from using Side Wars for advertising, and keep them from hurting those who want to win, is a new system of voting to ban them from Side Wars for the week. A banned player won't be able to lose or gain war points, and won't be able to participate in Side Wars until the next round begins.
Tags
During the course of the competition, if you earn at least 100 war points for your side you will get a "Cpt." tag placed before your name. If you earn at least 500 war points for your side, you will get the rare "Gen." tag placed before your name. If you are at least 25 war points in the hole (–25), you will get a "Loser" tag placed next to your name.
Side Boards
Each side has its own message board, and, as long as you are on that side, you have access to that side's message board. Everyone on your side also has access to it.
This board, while meant to be a way to privately communicate between players on your side, discussing who to ban and who to attack, are not often used for that purpose.
Side Changes
Currently, the following information is not accurate due to the fact that Side Changes are slightly sporadic. Proceed with caution when using this information.
Every four weeks the sides are balanced. This is known as the Side Change. This allows people to be move around, meet new people, and adds a balance to Side Wars because its not always the same side winning.
