Forumwarz - Television Tropes & Idioms

So you're browsing through the Internet when a shadowy figure contacts you with the offer of a mysterious power: pwnage. By either being really whiny, flirtatious, annoying, or 1337, you can utterly destroy internet forums and send their occupants off to go cry in their blogs. Soon enough, the money and fame start rolling in, but then so too do the shady organizations, freaks, perverts, and weirdos who want your help.

The game was released Halloween 2007. Episode 2 was released about one year later, and Episode 3 launched January 2010. Can be found, not surprisingly, at http://www.forumwarz.com

This game provides examples of:

An Adventurer Is You: Trolls are tanks, Emo Kids are berserkers, Camwhores are Squishy (snicker) Wizards, and Hackers are the nuke mages. Permanoobs are the excessively weak class and Re-Res are even weaker.
Allegedly Free Game: You have to pay to unlock Episode II, and presumably any subsequent episodes. You do get to keep playing the community forums and Episode I forums, though, as long as you don't open the notice that your fictional ISP account has been suspended following Episode I's conclusion.
- You can still continue playing- just sentrillion something and play through the Internet Court scene. You still won't be able to access the Episode II forums, but everything else will be reactivated.
Anti-Poop Socking: There's a maximum of four forum visits per day (with a rollover cap of 12), which is about 90 minutes of playtime at most.
Ascended Extra: The Church of Saiyantology mentioned below was a community forum when it was introduced. Now it's a plot point in Episode II, and one of your clients that is among their organization is oddly familiar. Paranormal Panorama too, possibly, or it could be a subversion. After all, the mission that tells you take it down does specifically state it's there in the community forums.
- Stalker Central and Engrish Ressons also get this treatment fairly early in the third episode.
Asshole Victim: Pretty much everyone you troll is a Jerkass or Too Dumb to Live. Or both.
Berserk Button: One character becomes enraged whenever he's asked a question. Then, after a head injury, it's reversed: He's fine with questions, but not general statements.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: In addition to more episodes, paying Crotch Zombie will allow you to purchase 69 forum visits, lottery winnings of 100,000 to 1 million Flezz, or a Thread Insta-Kill ability at the price of being disqualified from certain E-Peen as well as from Domination (an Un-Cheat enhancement can remove these if you want back in, though). There are also the game-improving purchases that don't do this, such as "Extra Character," "Disable Ads," and all the Community enhancements.
Brown Note: A good part of Episode 3 revolves around a Brown Note.
But Thou Must: At the start, one of the possible answers to the question "Are you interested?" is "Not really, but I understand the game won't really continue otherwise." The other answers are answers in the affirmative to the question.
Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": It's Ego, not Hit Points!
Captain Ersatz: Pavlov...so very very much.
Cherry Tapping: As a Re-Re/Permanoob, you literally bring down forums by posting pictures of cats and hamsters.
Church of Happyology: The church of Saiyantology. Episode 2 players can even find themselves on the business end of a Dianetics diatribe.
Cosmetic Award: E-Peen
Creepy Doll: One of the junk items is a Haunted Doll.
The previous owners of this doll would probably have some spine-chilling stories to tell. You know, if they hadn’t disappeared without a trace.
Critical Existence Failure: Run out of Ego and you die, presumably in some sort of messy manner as the Game Over picture shows ample amounts of blood on your mouse.
Dangerous Forbidden Class: For players with eye problems, this is the Hacker class. Some of its attacks induce Interface Screw that can hurt if looked too long at.
Dead Baby Comedy
Deadpan Snarker: The player character definitely qualifies.
Desperation Attack / Limit Break: Not an exact example, but as Emo Kids lose health their attacks do more damage.
Downer Ending
- Episode II anyway...
- Having an evil alignment doesn't end well for you.
Easter Egg: Sentrillioning certain members of the community will get you some...interesting results.
- OMG Easter Egg!
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Partially implemented: attack techniques and forums beyond the lowest levels have psychological types, weaknesses, and resistances. While there isn't a specific "X beats Y beats Z beats X" in place, classes end up specializing to various degree in some types of psychological attack. This makes some classes better against specific fora.
Emo Teen: The Emo Kid class. Attacks tend to emphasize bitching about other people in their life, how their hair/tattoo/scars make them unique, and generally complaining about how much their life sucks.
Fantasy Character Classes: Camwhores can heal themselves, Emo Kids were once so powerful that they had to be nerfed and deal higher damage with their class-specific attacks as they lose Ego, and Hackers have more equipment slots than any other class while having to plan out their attacks to account for cooldown timers. Trolls and Permanoobs rely mainly on trying to endure as many hits as possible as long as their drug supplies hold out. Hell, most Troll equipment emphasizes defense over offense.
Featureless Protagonist: As is appropriate for a game about forums.
Fission Mailed
Global Currency: Flezz, a currency specifically developed for seamless purchases over the Internet.
Hit Points: Ego serves as this, complete with Critical Existence Failure when it hits zero. Anything above that, you can fight perfectly the same as if it was full, or even better if you're an Emo Kid.
Hopeless Boss Fight: Happens surprisingly often. More often than not, the appearance of a boss makes the forum impossible to entirely pwn.
Hyperactive Metabolism: Down as many drinks, eat as many pills, and inject as many syringes you want, they all work instantaneously and can be used almost indefinitely, limited only by how many you bought before battle.
Incredibly Lame Pun: Played straight, subverted singly AND doubly, and just plain toyed around with in every which way with the Bad Joke-a-palooza attack.
Item Crafting: Sets of ".moar" files can be assembled into a document, sound, video or application file. You can equip one of each file type at any given time, and sell duplicates (or outdated/off-class files) as Vendor Trash.
I Surrender, Suckers: Shallow does this in one of the endings. It does not end well for you.
Jerkass: Getting the Evil alignment requires you to be a dick to everyone more than anything actually evil. Also Trolls, a jerkass CLASS.
Joke Character: The Re-re/Permanoob class.
Lampshade Hanging: All over the place. Some of the responses you give clients fall into this too.
Lethal Joke Character: Re-res and Permanoobs may generally be weaker than other classes, but since they don't have a mana bar of some sort, they can use their more advanced attacks indefinitely.
Life Meter: Your Ego is in convenient bar form to the right of your attack list.
Karma Meter: Your alignment. Be nice to people you meet, you live happily ever after. Be an ass...not so much.
Mana Meter: All classes except Re-Res and Permanoobs have some sort of secondary meter in combat that's used for most of their attacks, displayed under your Life Meter.
Meaningful Name / Punny Name: Rather than being an anarchist Anonymous-type, is Shallow Esophagus actually working for The Man and playing you, or playing the system from inside? Given the name "Shallow Esophagus", what do you expect?
Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: A type of E-Peen
Player Versus Player: The independent INCIT and forumbuilder tools, and Domination, which is based on your in-game exploits and how well you perform in the other two.
Powers as Programs: Including literal "Program Files".
Shock Site: Another troll ability, Exactly What It Says on the Tin...only subverted in that the pictures are innocuous and are a play on words of real shock sites. A goat for goatse, meat being rotated on a spit for meatspin, etc.. Not to mention tubmail. Some shock sites are also mentioned during your conversations with Great Aunt Geraldine, giving you the choice of telling them to avoid the site, or to go ahead and visit.
Shout Out: All the time. You can easily spot pop culture references and obviously internet culture references. But one of the more obvious examples of this trope is the Internet Court minigame, where you take up the guise of Tucson Lepht.
- Now including one to this very wiki, with the TvTripes.org forum. You're welcome.
Standard Status Effects: AdHominem is poison, problems with the line are like stop/sleep/silence/frozen, and DVORAK is confusion
Stone Wall: The final fight in Episode 3 is against a thread with 500,000 health, compared to the usual 15,000 a single endgame thread has. Cue battle of attrition.
Talk to Everyone: The ~~best~~ way to get new missions.
Talking the Monster to Death: How you ultimately dispatch Purifyingselector88 in Episode 3, and potentially how you deal with Shallow, depending on your alignment.
This Loser Is You: A Zig-Zagging Trope. Sure, you're a fat, pathetic Basement Dweller who spends his non-pwning hours jerking it to bizarrely deviant porn, but you're also the only person in this whole Crapsack World other than Shallow Esophagus and maaaaaybe the FBO to have an ounce of intelligence, sanity, or common sense. And given your penchant for sarcasm and mockery, the whole "basement dweller" thing could well be an elaborate joke on your part (as Shallow comments at the start of Episode 3).
Troll: One of the character classes.
Too Soon: The Troll ability "Threat Level: Red" involves making fake terrorist threats.
Vendor Trash: Junk is given to you by strangers when you pwn forums. It has no use, but it can be sold and is your main source of income.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: A number of choices during the game, including but not limited to: driving someone to suicide, killing Nordstrom by making him shit himself to death, and being a Big Fat Meanie-Head-Face-Pants. You heartless bastard.
Wake Up Call Boss: In Episode 3, the fights against Nordstrom and Purifyingselector88. They don't have ludicrous amounts of health for no good reason, despite being dispatched by other means. You eventually have to beat a thread with half a million health.