Warmer
From Worms Knowledge Base
Contents
Introduction
Warmer is a roping scheme initially used in preparing oneself for a Roper match (commonly known as "warming up", which is where its name originates), popular throughout the history of all three second generation Worms games. While still played, online as well as offline, as a prelude to league games involving roping today, the scheme owes its significant position in the history of WormNet to the dedicated followers playing it with the goal of having fun, showing off their style and improving their roping skills.
The scheme is sometimes referred to as "rope fun" (as opposed to "rope ladder") on W2, although the same term is used for Roper games played outside leagues, too.
Schemes, Rules & Maps
A multitude of Warmer schemes exist, ranging from the minimalistic variation which only includes the Parachute and Ninja Rope at power 5, to ones including all or most of the weapons available in the game, save for the rest of the F8 row as to not interfere with the selection of the Parachute and Rope. The most common variation is simply a Roper scheme with a longer turn time (45, 60 or 90 seconds, depending on the number of players in the game) and fall damage turned off.
The laid back concept of the Warmer scheme requires no rules as such, although it is worth pointing out that killing and blocking other players' worms will get you kicked out of any future games hosted by your victims before you can correctly pronounce "Oijogja". An obvious solution to such hecklery is taking Girders and Longbows out of your scheme and making worms invincible.
The maps used when playing are normally regular Roper maps consisting of two randomly generated islands, either edited or not. Although attempts to create maps specifically aimed at the scheme, which are usually lower and sometimes include RR sections, have been made with some success, they are mostly frowned upon by experienced ropers with the justification that random shapes feel more natural, offer more variety and thus stay interesting and challenging longer.
Mentality & History
[Glorious snip about the mentality behind the scheme comes here.]
[Minor note about the habit of skipping your turn if your 1v1 Warmer partner messes up after 2 seconds here.]
Warmers, on average, last the longest of any scheme played on WormNet. A game length of two hours is not uncommon, with the (alleged) record games lasting twice that long and more.
For a long time period, beginning before the official rankings were taken down on WA already, a player's overall reputation depended largely on their skill with the Ninja Rope (unless of course you socialised exclusively with default scheme extremists who valued BnG and Elite skill above all else). The Warmer scheme, with its sandbox design and freestyle mentality, is perfect for showcasing said skill and was hence played by the vast majority of the game's most notable players during those, considered by many golden, years.
However, mostly likely because of the scheme's goallessness in the eyes of those too accustomed to having a clear objective in sight, Warmers have suffered gaps in mass popularity, especially in more recent times. In an attempt to repopularise the scheme during one such gap by appealing to the competitive players, the roping style contests were born. Despite being logistically challenging to host and not exactly based on an objective system, the roping community's reception was warm and over ten [Exact number, anyone?] tournaments have been hosted since the idea's conception by X-Worms. Most by themselves, but by other groups of individuals and leagues as well.
