With the launch of the new forum, we have also added a splash page for users visiting http://twilightgaming.co.za. This page contains some (hopefully) useful information for first-timers to Twilight Gaming. Either visit the page without logging in to the portal, or go straight to http://twilightgaming.co.za/splash.html if you are already logged in. This page is a work-in-progress, but we hope it helps grow the community by letting new comers know what we’re about.

It’s been a long wait. Many have been excited, and many just didn’t care.

The new Twilight Gaming forum has been released, and you can find it at: http://forum.twilightgaming.co.za

We will redirect http://forum.war3.co.za to the new address, while the old forum will take up the http://archive.twilightgaming.co.za address.

Twilight’s new forum has loads of functionality, and this is the main reason as to why it took so long to release.

We decided to move from phpBB to IPB because, well, phpBB sucks.

The forum will work with your standard Twilight login where it will then display all of your PvPGN stats underneath your avatar.

There will be a rating system for users to rate each other, while this might be a bad idea in the long run, we’re willing to give it a try. You damn trolls and abusers watch out!

Starting on the top of the forum we see the new Twilight Gaming ‘Eye” logo, along with your profile settings.

Moving down we get to Forum links, and other things to help browsing around the empire some call home.

Please take note that below the eGamer logo there is a new Terms & Conditions link. You should really read this as you fall under it if you post here.

The front page displays things like, Recently Added Topics and your Watched content. So, if something has your attention, you can watch it and it will be easy to find in the future.

You will notice a small minus or dash (-) on all of the forums. This is a minimize feature for your forum management. If you aren’t interested in leagues and tournaments you can just minimize it and it will make your page smaller to scroll through.

We decided to revamp a few of the sections for easier use and of course, easier management.

The Knowledge Base will be for Twilight rules and regulations etc. If you need help it’s best you check there before even going to the ticket system. Think of this as the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

General Chat on the old forum is now called Chat. Chat will allow the usual trolling, and whatever. This is an almost anything-goes zone, however there are a few rules which you need to abide by. You can find these in the Chat section it self.

Technical pretty much speaks for it self. This is not technical server help, this would be technical chat. In other words, you want to know whats best for a PC, post your ideas or questions there. We do allow some server related technical queries, and this is why it is not called Technical Chat. However, please just remember that technical questions such as password changes etc should first go to the ticket system. The ticket forum will only host howto’s for forwarding ports etc.

Games section:

We’ve grouped things a bit better this time round.

Warcraft III holds topics for:

• DotA
• Melee
• Tropical Tower Wars
• Night of the Dead

While Diablo 2 hosts the following sections:

• Trophy Room
• PVP
• Trade

The last two would be Heroes of Newerth, and Forum Games.

Forum Games would be the section for things such as Werewolf, etc. This might have independent moderators over and above the standard Twilight Mods.

Leagues, Competitions, Tournaments & Events

The Twilight League section currently holds one area for DotA only. We’re only planning a main stream DotA league at the moment. More coming soon

Warcraft III in this section holds:

• DotA -> IHL
• TTW
• Melee
• NotD

You will notice that the IHL section is inside of the DotA section. Why? Well, In-House league. It falls under leagues, and it’s a DotA leagues. This isn’t to be spiteful, it’s just forum management. You can always “watch” the forum for easy navigation.

Please note, we’ve edited the IHL section. You will no longer be able to post pointless threads. The admins for the IHL will have access to post in the main area, while the rest of you guys will have to put your trolling to rest as you will only be able to post in the various areas for applications etc.

Many of you might be a bit upset about this, but it’s for our own good. While we do not run the IHL, we facilitate it. Because we host their management section on our forum, people look onto us as if we’re the ones behind the IHL. We aren’t. In fact, we have nothing to do with the IHL. We are simply just helping them out with a forum to facilitate their members, trails, etc.

Twilight Gaming is nothing against the IHL, we’re simply just covering ourselves. Third parties do not understand how the in-house league works, and they look onto us as if we’re running it. Therefore to avoid bad publicity for us we are trying to clamp down on spamming, trolling and abuse when using our facilities. Essentially this means that our moderators, as well as IHL staff have the right the moderate the IHL section. This is a no-troll-zone, which means that any posts out of line or in the incorrect section will be deleted. You might even receive a warning for this.

We do not mind how IHL players act in game when playing, but when using the bot to abuse, or our forums for stupid games and abuse we’re going to take it seriously.

Supporters, admins and players of the IHL must understand that we cannot be fully involved with a system where we have no control over the judging and selection of players. This means that the IHL is not a Twilight-run league. I cannot emphasize enough that we only facilitate their forum for everyone’s convenience.

Lastly I ask that you please understand our decision to clamp down on abuse. The ego’s aren’t needed and we wouldn’t like to harm future partners or sponsors because of troll-like behaviour in a system which we have no control over. We are giving you free local hosting for your forum, as well as the facilities to host your applications etc, please keep it clean. If you are going to be serious, then be serious.

Once again, we have nothing against the IHL. It’s a good idea, however the admins need to understand where we are coming from and what we require from the league. If the admins cannot work with us, then it’s a partnership which is bound to fail. So guys, it’s on you now.

Moving on.

The Diablo 2 section for leagues etc, HoN leagues are all visible.

Sig of the Week has been added a proper event on our forum now.

There will be a results and themes section, and this obviously speaks for it self.

The other would be for all tournaments which do not fit into any of the above. Example: Morabaraba

Design and Development:

You guys will only see Design, as the development section is currently hidden.

Miscellaneous:

The usual can be found here: Comedy Central, Junk, Creativity & Classifieds. We have now added a “TV Series Chat” and this is for chatting about TV Series and movies etc. I cannot emphasize enough on the rules in this section. Please guys, no download links, or places to download from. This section is strictly chat and anyone posting links to download movies, games or series which are bound to copyright and distribution laws will be dealt with severely.

The last new section, SRSBSNS -> Read: Serious Business

Moderators are required to clamp down on this section. There will no no trolling, spamming, abuse, etc.

The debates topic is something which we’ve needed for quite a while now. Most of you like talking about the meaning of life and other things, and this is the place to do it. There will be serious chats, without people trying to screw it up. Of course trolls will sneak in now and then, but we’ll definitely try out best to moderate this.

Please remember that if our moderators feel that your post doesn’t add enough to the topic at hand, it will be deleted. Make it worth our while, as well as the rest of the people debating/or reading the topics.

Great Ideas. We’d like this to be clean as well. We want to implement your ideas, and stupid ideas are just really hard to filter through. Stupid ideas kill spirit and the will to implement them. This will also undergo our ban hammer.

Any caught trolling on purpose, or poorly will either be banned or they will receive a final warning. Any other offense after a final warning is good game for that account. Depending on the severity of your actions your PvPGN account could undergo some abuse.

The last section which most of you wouldn’t see is the Administrative section, and this speaks for it self.

We’d like to remind you that there are only three acceptable trolling sections: Chat, Comedy Central & Junk. The rest of the sections will undergo strict moderation, where SRSBSNS will be strict on a whole new level, where if your post doesn’t add enough about the topic, it won’t get added. Of course sometimes one liners are perfect answers though.

You will be able to find all of the rules for the forum in the Knowledge Base section, as well as in some of the sections on the forum. Please read and understand them.

Lastly we’d like to thank the development team for all their hard work in getting this up and running.

Around 1pm today I reset the Ladder for Warcraft III. This should affect both solo and team play. All win/loss information (which affects icons and so forth) has been removed. If you come across any issues, please let us know. We will be looking at optimising the icon requirements in the near future.

Twilight will soon be rolling out a new clan system. This system will be run through our Portal and allow easy clan creation, management and match finding.

As a first step, we have just added a clan listing which you can find under the Settings tab – click Clan and you’ll be able to see who is in your clan and what their ranks are. We have also provided a notepad area should you wish to leave bits and pieces of information for your team. This area is completely confidential – only your clan-mates can see it!

We’ve added a ruling which states that the losing team may forfeit if they are behind by about 20 kills before 30 to 35 minutes (depends on if the opposing team is stalling.)

Players may forfeit a game (the losing team) if they are 20 kills behind the winning team before 30 to 35 minutes. If the winning team stalls to finish, and the game is clearly over due to a massive kill difference the losing team may forfeit without being punished. Four out of the five players, on the losing team, will need to vote for the forfeit for this to be legal.

This will be used at an operators discretion if posted as abuse on the ticket system. For instance, if a user quits because of this the team scores will be taken into account before the action is set.

Check out the full rules here.

We regret to say goodbye to Eleyna as she has decided to move on from online gaming.

Earlier yesterday evening Eleyna told us that she would be trying to distance herself from the the online world, and this would mean that she would need to part from her position as Operator.

It’s sad to see that we’re losing someone dedicated, however life moves on.

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do in the future, and we’ll always be here if you wanna jam just one more game of DotA

Say cheers in the her forum thread.

If you were online yesterday you would have noticed an announcement and that you couldn’t create games for a few minutes. In that time I was updating some of the configuration options.

Firstly “SpawnMinions” is now not zero, I have no idea whether it should be something other than 1, which is what I set it to. Would people doing ubers please let us know if anything has changed. If not we can start trying different numbers to see what happens.

The other settings that were changed were regarding the SOJ count for the pandemonium event. Previously they were on a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20. This means that if there is only 1 Hell game up, you may still have to sell 20 SOJs to trigger the pandemonium event. We felt that this was too high. It has been changed to a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 at the suggestion of scrypt aka GodOfWar.

There was an argument that it should be even lower as with so many varibales, getting a “good” anni charm is extremely difficult. However I feel that simply getting anni charms should be hard. Getting perfect ones should be next to impossible. Also, this server plans on being around for a long time, so there should be plenty of time to accumulate those SOJs.

Just as an aside: DO NOT JUST SELL YOUR SOJs. Even if you have somehow managed to accumulate 10, the number required is influenced by the number of games up, although to a lesser extent by normal and nightmare games. So if there are any other games up, 10 may not be enough.