[Issue 62] [Other] The Dictator: Tanki's Finest News Source - March '17

[Yisroel.Rabin 16,224]

 

Greetings, readers! Here at the Tanki Online newspaper, we are passionate about providing you with information on all the latest updates, turrets, hulls, maps, contests, anything related to the community or game, and you can trust us to cover it all. Quite a bit has happened in the passed month, so there's quite a bit to be filled in on. Read on!

 

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Hazel on the loose

By @Yisroel.Rabin

 

Semyon Strizhak, more commonly known as , is a game designer and practically the head developer for Tanki Online, and known as a pretty 'chill guy' in both the English and Russian communities. However, his virtual appearance reveals nothing of what goes on in the office. It's common knowledge that after spending as much time as he has working for TO, one begins to lose their minds. That's the reason famous figures such as Semyon Kirov and Bruce Lunga (the previous community managers) have left. However, Hazel's a valuable piece to the company, so TO decided to keep him on the board, no matter what the consequences were.

 

As a result of this decision, Hazel was forced to take medications against his will in order to keep him humanly functional. But ingesting as many drugs as the average TO YouTuber isn't the most healthy thing, especially if the person's job is to sit and stare at a computer screen the whole day. So, after what must have been a combination of deep pondering and existential crisis, Hazel broke out.

 

It happened on the night of Valentine's day, when the rest of the team was taking a break from their computers, to read their store-bought cards to their crushes. Hazel, being forever alone, made his daring escape. He grabbed the prototype of the Striker turret, which he'd built himself, sneaked out back to the dormitories where the captives of TO all slept (if given the chance), shot the thick glass window and watched it crash into pieces. Knowing the noise of the crash must've disturbed the rest of the teams' reading, he quickly jumped out the window, swung open the only door to the barbed-wire fence securing the TOHQ grounds, and ran off into the rainy Russia night.

 

Of course, all this was caught on camera as proof, and believe me when I say, my colleagues and I were shocked to high heaven when we first saw the footage. But sadly, we cannot publicize the recording for various technical reasons.

 

Hazel is now a top wanted individual in Perm, with a big price on his head, too (an estimated 3 million crystals and 1000 gold box supplies). However, rumors are circulating that Hazel has departed from Russia entirely, and has started a new life with a new identity in South America, living to the fullest every second of his life the universe has to offer.

 

But, being that we're The Dictator, we don't cover "rumors". No, we only do cold hard fact.

 

 

Booby-trapped gold boxes on the rise, alert issued by HQ

By @TriNitroToIuene

 

Last week, TO administration issued a code-red alert across all servers over threats of booby-trapped gold boxes, primed to explode upon being taken. This alarm arrives after almost a week of innocent tankers self-destructing once they caught the gold, only to see the box disappear and notice the ominous absence of credited crystals to their wallet. "As a dedicated administration, we take consumer complaints very seriously," said a Tanki Online representative. "Determining what caused the gold boxes to go up in flames and rectifying it immediately is our utmost priority." And in these chaotic seven days, over seven hundred gold-diggers tankers have been admitted in ICUs owing to extreme second-degree burns. Tankers are infuriated over this latest development in the game. "We demand that all gold boxes values and drop frequencies be multiplied by 10 as compensation!" was the clamour of some members of the general public, many without the faintest idea of what was going on; the developers seem to have little clue as to what caused the golden explosions, now popularly dubbed "Gold 7".

 

A visit to TO's Russian gold box contractor, Aurum Incorporated, assisted The Dictator team no better in finding a cause. "We stuck to the basic metallurgical process for making them gold boxes," said an official. "There is absolutely no way someone could have planted explosives in our boxes. It's either a case of sabotage, or we've been hacked by Russians... Wait a minute, we are Russians!" At this point, our team deemed it fitting to exit the building. Rumours have it that the explosions were triggered by the same formula employed during the April Fool's celebrations, hinting towards some serious treason within HQ.

 

Finally, a warning to those stocking up on gold box supplies: at this moment, your garage is extremely volatile. Get rid of every single of those boxes as soon as possible while the alert is still on, unless you want to see all your XTs and premium accounts go up in smoke as collateral damage!

 

You have been warned. Stay safe.

 

 

Godmode_ON spotted at McDonalds drive thru

By @Yisroel.Rabin

 

It's been a while since we've last had Godmode in the news, since it seems he's been hiding in the shadows, but it turns out he's actually taking a break from being the most feared tanker online and roaming the land to become a worker at a McDonalds drive-thru.

 

Yes, that's right, we've had reports from tankers that they've been experiencing some extremely abnormal activity at a drive-thru in Florida, USA, where Godmode has supposedly retired to. One of our clients reported the following:

 

"Yea, I swear man, t'was creepy as an M4 Railgun warmin' up in front of your eye balls. First, purple gloomy cloud stuff were bein' hoverin' over deh drive-thru. Next, I pull up to that speaker thingy and I hear the gold siren every so often. Then, when I pulled my ol' Mercedes Benz to that damn window, I don't see a person, I see a massive tank with that famous purple paint thing. He turned his human sized Thunder M4 XT to me and fired right after I had a chance to duck. It shattered my poor ol' Mercedes to bits, but I'm alive to tell the tale, thankfully."

 

As you can see, this rumor is no joke. The Tanki Online Administrators group is currently investigating vigorously, and although it seems Godmode has departed from the Florida drive-thru, it's assumed he's only done so as a result of media attention. Tanki clan leaders have sent out more troops than we have a count of, bombarding every single McDonalds drive-thru in humanity in hopes of finding the retired beast we all love yet dread so much.

 

And now for the weather.

 

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Railgun and Hornet banned, RU1 closing down

By

 

The coming of the new year is generally marked or symbolized with happiness, flowers and flora. People look forward to the upcoming Spring - there's freshness and the intricate aroma of African coffee buzzing throughout the streets, and what's more: there are sales! An extravaganza of turrets, hulls, paints and modules are put up at fifty-percent off, with the hope of an ever-growing database and happy tankers.

 

But what happened this month was a truly table-turning story. Yes, Railgun and Hornet both were banned from use by the Tanki Department of Hulls and Turrets [TDH&T]. In a statement issued on February 2^nd, CEO of TDH&T Mr. Krhaiz Assimov, in-game nickname LemonsTomatoesPotatoes, said:

 

"We want to add some more dynamic into the game. I'm a fan of XP myself, but since this combination has taken over the entirety of Tanki, we felt like banning it was right choice, even if it causes huge unrest and protests. The deciding committee has already finalized this decision, and there's no turning back - XP has been banned for at least six or seven years. One more decision is still pending on whether we will disconnect RU1 too, but we'll see what happens later."

 

Several communities have joined hands against this barbaric decision, and are already planning a coup, saying that this is possibly the last chance to save this game.

 

Should the English community unite with the Chinese, Spanish, Polish and the Brazilians communities too?

 

 

New community joins Tanki Online

By @Yisroel.Rabin

 

Tanki Online already has a pretty big variety of communities, ranging from our very own English community to the still growing Chinese community. However, Tanki heads have taken the matter of 'creating various communities' to a whole new level.

 

Recently, with the cooperation of different space exploration agencies, Tanki has been looking into creating a new platform on Mars and potentially starting a new Martian-based community on the rocky red planet. Of course, a few sacrifices will need to be made in order to accomplish such a heroic and ambitious task. Here's what Tanki's financial expert, Batman, has to say about this:

 

"It is exciting, creating a whole new platform on a whole new world, but of course, with all great things come great consequences. Thus being, we'll have to salute some of our great developers and helpers as they journey off to Mars to live the rest of their lives there, working long and hard to make this dream a reality.

 

We'll be sending off quite a bunch of our team, and even some new recruits. For example, we'll be saluting Hazel-Rah, our loyal game designer and close friend of mine. He's going as a major contributing factor to the project, but also as a founding figure for the less-experienced helpers to follow. But we're mainly sending him away to get rid of him, he's quite the tick-off in the office. Oh, and I'm Batman!"

 

Building for Mars community HQ, as well as its server base, is planned to begin sometime around June, and it should be ready sometime next year for all Martians to enjoy!

 

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Multing officially legal, servers in chaos

By @Savage

 

In a desperate move to eradicate the mult problem once and for all, the Tanki Developer team resorted to desperate tactics in the latest update. @GoldRock himself, when questioned, admitted to having a hand in it.

 

"Mults don't get enough credit. Their determination and perseverance is admirable. I thought that it was high time that their efforts were rewarded, especially as I can relate to them they suffer so much abuse."

 

The developers have taken Gold's idea further and outlawed pros from battles. The news even reached as far as the depths of RU22, where the mult leader himself (a mysterious figure who generally goes by the name of @Blackdrakon30) who, after hearing the announcement, was so overwhelmed with joy that he accidentally rotated his turret and was promptly expelled.

 

According to reports, the the mults then flooded into the blissfully unaware RU1 and began to cause havoc. Battle Moderators then entered the scene, and thousands of RU1 XP/BP players suddenly found themselves unceremoniously kicked from battle. "sry kid ur too pro xaxaxa" was the ban reason. In an outrage, many began to write essays of hate directed at the Chat Administrators, who of course are always directly responsible for anything that goes wrong.

 

Over on EN2 things were equally chaotic. Mults discovered that they could enter formatted battles, and even got crystal rewards for doing so. A battered Hornet M2 who survived the purge was questioned. "A huge picture of a Wasp and Shaft appeared where the skybox should have been, and then we heard a sound like an angry swarm of bees as hundreds of Isidas descended on our 4v4."

 

Many players have decided that the only way to achieve victory was to join the carnage, and many new recruits gathered on the streets of Berlin to cheer on the Mult Pride March.
 

When @GoldRock was asked whether he regretted his decision to push this update into existence, he replied "Tanki X needs more players" and promptly exited the interview.

 

 

Chat moderator offended by mob after rightfully banning players

By @Yisroel.Rabin

 

Moderator's discrimination is nothing knew, but that's nothing compared to what happened to a chat moderator by the name of Daddy_Sloth after he just so happened to ban a couple of provoking high school seniors who were violating rules from things as small as flood and provocation to full on offensive comments and racial slurs.

 

After GangsterzInHoods got banned for a week for violating the various rules he'd committed, his fellow 'homies', as well as a few other people who were looking for a fight, piped up.

 

One particular tanker recognized the moderator's signature from the last time he'd been banned, and called him out on it, calling him a "dirty noob" along with a bunch of other things we're not permitted to say on such a family-friendly game.

 

In the end of the day, Daddy_Sloth has retired from his helper position because of the backlash he got, and is suffering in an institution for people with emotional brain damage. Administrators are doing their best to keep the problem handled and, of course, hidden from the general public.

 

So, think the next time you're thinking of spewing out a disrespectful comment to a moderator, they might just end up with a brain problem.

 

#ModsLivesMatter

 

 

Twins core formula revision sparks concern between engineers

By @TheZigzagoonThatCan

 

Confused protest from military molecular engineers across the globe has grown to a reasonable volume over the last several days, the subject specifically revolving around the formula used to produce new Twins models. The previous formula, patented by a veteran group of physicists known as Slovenian Plasma Accelerator Manipulation team (SPAM), has been recently modified by means of executive order from the recently administrated president of the group for reasons initially both unforeseen and unexplainable.

 

Heavy classification limits the amount of detail we of the Dictator's reporting team can acquire on the nature of the changes, but a number of amateur scientists have already come to the conclusion that a there was an elemental shift from more stable isotopes to highly unstable and radioactive ones. One particular blogger by the name of [REDACTED] goes into extensive detail on the mechanics of the modified turret.

 

"We believe that promethium was used in place of a relatively more stable neptunium core in these particular models, causing the plasmic shells to rupture and expand more dramatically after ejecting from the chamber than a standard Twins shell. It appears that, according to the bright yellow warning label slapped onto the core complex, that both promethium and neptunium cores can only be replaced by the hand of a specialized SPAM engineering crew. Seems like a complex money grab to me."

 

Most of the blog was removed shortly after its publication due to containing a large amount of apparently confidential data, of which we obviously cannot report. [REDACTED] has not shown any signs of activity in that forum since, with SPAM sources stating that "the dumb kid probably turned himself into a glowstick after trying to change it himself". Other bloggers suspect foul play is involved, but for the time being, the aftermath is not clear to anyone beyond the inner circles.

 

It's clear that a number of theories have already sprung to life between military intelligence groups and resource managers on the topic of the sudden revision. The most prominent of these hypotheses have leaked from numerous facilities that supply notable elements to Twins' construction, namely those that mine materials that require a Geiger counter to work with (such as uranium-235, various isotopes of gadolinium, and caesium-137), have recently seen a decline in production. "There's been a large decline in material traffic over the last several weeks," a SPAM caravan driver states, "So the mines' largest veins have probably been drained. They've probably moved on to a cheaper resource to hunt, something they don't need to drive halfway across the continent for."

 

This formula change already has numerous physicists and engineers in fits over the production process. One tank weapons developer states, "Utilizing these new cores is incredibly dangerous without proper lead shielding and magnetic field buffers. The bite is that if we want these new shells to be launched in a sterile testing environment while making quick and concise repairs, we have to remove and rearm them every single time. Leaving them off during testing has already led to numerous injuries and a few casualties, and we're already on thin ice with a couple of life-insurance companies. The fact that we have to constantly reinstall plates every time a minor error occurs is incredibly time consuming, and has the potential to slow down production drastically." 

 

 

If you want to read more from The Dictator, here are the news reports from previous months!

 

- July 2014

- August 2014

- September 2014

- October 2014

- November 2014

- January 2015

- February 2015

- March 2015

- August 2015

- December 2015

- January 2016

- February 2017

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2017 by Yisroel.Rabin

[Anonono 1,233]

Maccas, eyyyyy???

[lukey0 27,543]

I heard @Godmode_ON made contact with @GoldBox after the Maccas incident. In his mad dash he forgot his most valuable items, -what distinguishes him form others. :P 

[Tofu 6,773]

Full of banter as always

[Night-Sisters 2,139]

Hm... I don't particularly like the paragraph format. http://en.tankiforum.com/index.php?showtopic=303891&hl= < looking back at past issues here, it seems that keeping things shorter, with a more varied format (e.g. some one liners) is more effective. I did like the humor in this issue of the Dictator. Keep it up.  ^_^

Edited March 4, 2017 by Night-Sisters

[Crip 4,735]

 

*Rubs eyes*

 

NS?! It can't be...surely not...

 

:o

[mydoom.exe 5,154]

Hm... I don't particularly like the paragraph format. http://en.tankiforum.com/index.php?showtopic=303891&hl= < looking back at past issues here, it seems that keeping things shorter, with a more varied format (e.g. some one liners) is more effective. I did like the humor in this issue of the Dictator. Keep it up.  ^_^

Gotta get a new write-up on The Dictator for this - mythical creature, thought to have disappeared forever, reappears in Spamland.

[Yisroel.Rabin 16,224]

Hm... I don't particularly like the paragraph format. http://en.tankiforum.com/index.php?showtopic=303891&hl= < looking back at past issues here, it seems that keeping things shorter, with a more varied format (e.g. some one liners) is more effective. I did like the humor in this issue of the Dictator. Keep it up.  ^_^

We will take your feedback into consideration, person who has never had connection to the newspaper.

 

No, just kidding, obviously. I agree our columns are quite long compared to one's in previous issues, and I've noticed it before you even mentioned it. However, I didn't really see why it'd be a problem. I mean, unless the public's definition of The Dictator is snappy quick humour, it should be fine. And even if it is, a segment shouldn't take more than a minute to read, unless your name is Sean Spicer, than you can't read at all.

 

Nonetheless, you make a good point, Night-Light.

 

*Rubs eyes*

 

NS?! It can't be...surely not...

 

:o

Now, what I really don't get is how, when a person quits Tanki, he or she is automatically considered a deceased individual. Like, hello, she's still alive, for now. She's killing herself with school, in a way.

[Night-Sisters 2,139]

 

Nonetheless, you make a good point, Night-Light.

Okay, the nickname's a new one. Quite like it :lol:  

[Penguin40 1,714]

Okay, the nickname's a new one. Quite like it :lol:  

Admitted. The new nickname is brilliant, just noticed it now too, Night-Ghosts... 

 

Also, the article was nice, good job Rabbit! :D 

[M-axis 589]

Night sisters has returned... the legendary girl who wasted her life on tanki instead of studying likea good girl should.   is my favourite reporter after Gold-Rock. :P  Let us all bow down and show her our gratitude for descending upon the forums!!

 

 

I still prefer Goldy :ph34r: 

[TTK_229 1,080]

 

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Railgun and Hornet banned, RU1 closing down

By

 

https://youtu.be/XUBpff5zrV4"]https://youtu.be/XUBpff5zrV4

Good riddance

Edited March 5, 2017 by TTK_229

[FighterOfTheDead 9]

Godmode_ON spotted at McDonalds drive thru

^_^  :D  :P 

Damn I like the Dictator.

[AlphaandOmega_tanker 0]

Just as I thought!

 

These TO tanks are AI (Artificial Intelligence)!