Gangs

A gang is a group of players who have banded together under a single name, a single flag, against all enemies.

History

The Old Days

Gangs, as far back as anyone cares to remember, used to cost 200 points. This was their sole cost at the time. One must remember, these are the days when points cost $3,000 each, Dude was level 40, and packing your own Ak-47 was a rare treat. Gangs were non-transferable entities and the War Chamber had not yet been created. The sole form of battle between gangs was the Fight Club, which had a large user-run ladder for itself. The deletion, inactivity, or dissatisfaction of a gang's leader would result in the death of the gang itself, as there was no way to sell it. Also, in this era, the Co-Leader had the ability to transfer funds from the gang to its members, which would result in many "hackings".

The Middle Ages

At this point in history, gangs now have War Chambers, a level-30 leader requirement, the downgrade of the Co-Leader position, and Armories. These golden days were simple times, with very little changes to the dynamics of the gang system, beyond an expansion of actual recognition. With the rise of the War Chamber came the downfall of the Fight Club.

The Late Age

At this point, a massive economic bust drove point prices to an all-time low. With points so commonplace, the number of gangs exploded from 30 odd gangs to around 90. At this point, the Audit took place, which was a dark period in HoboWars history. Shortly after the Audit subsided, the price of gangs rose to 500 points and the Secretary ranks were introduced. This meant that in each gang there were 4 official leadership positions. The positions were the Leader, the Co-Leader, Secretary I, and Secretary II. Secretary I and II had the same capabilities and differed in name only.

Powers	Leader	Co-Leader	Secretary I / II
Transfer Gang Ownership	Yes	No	No
Appoint / Change Co-Leader and Secretaries	Yes	No	No
Loan Equipment from the Armory	Yes	Yes	No
Unbrand Equipment from the Armory	Yes	No	No
Delete Posts on the Gang Board	Yes	Yes	Yes
Change Hospital Coverage	Yes	Yes	No
Invite New Gang Members	Yes	Yes	Yes
Review Gang Applications	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manage the WC	Yes	Yes	No
Initiate WC Battles	Yes	Yes	No
View Members' Stats	Yes	Yes	No
Change The Gang Application Message	Yes	Yes	Yes
Change the Gang Announcement	Yes	Yes	No
Transfer Money, Tokens, or DPs from the Gang	Yes	No	No
View Gang Archives	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kick Gang Members	Yes	Yes	No

The Even Later-But-Not-Yet-Modern Age

Players can no longer create gangs of their own. The Hospital Coverage, Gang Tokens, Gang Donator Packs, and Begging Level features were all introduced in this period.

Properties

Gangs have various numbers and stats assigned to them. These include their ID number, their Gang Level, and their Begging Level.

Gang ID Number

This indicates the order in which the gang was originally purchased. In today's age, this means little as no gangs can be made. There are numbers missing from the count, as gangs have been deleted in the past.

Gang Level

The Gang Level is a rough indicator of how powerful a gang is. Each level upgrade increases the War Chamber health and speed by a minute percentage and allows the Begging Level to be increased further.

Begging Level

The Begging Level grants the gang a cut of their beggars' income from empty space. For each level, they receive 0.4% of each beg from the system and each beggar receives an additional 0.4% to their beg from the system. It should be noted that the Begging Level can never exceed the Gang Level.

Benefits

A gang provides structure, information, allegiances by association, and member support in terms of weapons, armor, token pools, point loans, etc.

Information

Gangs often instruct their members on how to act and how to train, as well as what they have the potential to become. More importantly, gangs are allowed to trade information about the Arena Pass between their members.

The Armory

Each gang can establish an armory for a reasonable fee of 25 points and 50000 experience. The armory allows the gang to physically own and lend out weapons to their members. These weapons are branded and cannot leave gang control unless "unbranded" by the gang's owner. Gangs tend to collect a large amount of powerful weapons and strong pieces of armor for their War Chamber to use, while collecting other weapons and armor as an incentive for other players to join.

Token Pools

A token pool is a simple concept. Everyone pays in their tokens, allowing them to quickly upgrade their members to top-level carts. There are various philosophies for token pools, all of which have the same general goal behind it, which is to increase the rate of token pooling.

Gang Boards

Each gang gets a Message Board for their members where they can do pretty much whatever they please. This may include gang policy threads, help threads, stat-tracking threads, token pool threads, and various trivial and nontrivial discussions. Each gang tends to have their own flavor, but the basic concept is that the gang board is a primary location for internal gang issues, such as discussions on where money goes.

Begging

Each gang Begging Level is worth 0.4% additional cash generated for the gang and for the beggar. This additional cash is purely an addition over what the beggar would have made if they were not in the gang at the time of their beg.

Leadership

Currently the Gang Leader (owner) can assign individual administrative functions and custom titles to gang members as they see fit. The following is a list of the functions that may be assigned:

• Delete/Lock/Sticky Posts in the gang message Board
• Upgrade Gang Level/Begging Level/Change Leader
• Hospital Coverage
• Kick Members
• Invite new Members
• Rename Gang
• Armory Control
• Transfer Funds
• War Chamber Control
• Fight WC Battles
• Change Gang Announcements
• Edit the Gang Blacklist
• Create/modify Gang Hitlists
• Send Gang Mails
• Set Armory Donation Minimums
• Create Gang Polls

Creation

At the moment, creating a new gang is no longer possible. With the updates of late 2006, gang production was halted. As a result, there is now a finite number of possible gangs.

Brief List of Gang Types

Dead Gangs

These gangs may have deleted or inactive leaders. Very few have any active players in them. They are the sunken treasure ships of the gang ladder, existing at the very bottom, as 10% of the gangs.

Noob Gangs

These gangs typically appeal to new players, offering large amounts of relatively weak weapons as well as the social dynamic and support structure required by fledgling players. They typically exist in the lower end of the ladder and represent approximately 30% of current gangs. The vast majority are named after pop culture references in an attempt to gather instant recognition, a strategy that usually succeeds as these gangs balloon in size of upwards of 100 players. Purging of these gangs is not uncommon, as new players frequently go inactive and aging players tend to advance their standings.

Climbers

Typically consisting of a legion of middleweight players, rallied by several old players, these gangs represent the middle of the ladder. They do not excel in any particular field, but they do not fall. These gangs are rather well established, but cannot draw away other large players for the simple reason that they cannot offer the upper level support.

Elite Gangs

A now-extinct breed of gang, elite gangs were groups of between 10 and 20 old players, usually dedicated to preserving the old ways of life. The vast majority have met their end or adapted to another form, while some are still going strong. The prime historical example is Genesis, who met their end during the Audit.

The Old Ones

Any gang that has survived since our early history has garnered a certain level of fanatic loyalty by their members. Because their members are now the upper echelon of hobo society, these gangs dominate the top of the ladder with an iron fist. Fighting between them becomes fierce and many of the gangs operate several different War Chamber rotations. Their member volume is usually between 40 and 50 members, of which a significant portion have a Hobo ID below 100000. Their armories are old and filled, and their levels bloated by years of healthy growth.

Proud flag bearers of these gangs are: Freaks, Pieman, TBHL, OMT (formerly EWO), the Planet, CrAzY, and CP, amongst others.

The Syndicate

The Syndicate is the enigma of all gangs. It is host to the admin, as well as several of their old friends. This gang remains at the bottom of the ladder out of fairness, due to the fact that game administrators can tweak their stats at will.