An "Ideas" section would be great. Even if the devs would never look at it. I like the idea of a Forum Games section too, simply to remove flood. Maybe a "Serious discussion" section as well, for those of us who desire serious discussion with far stricter rules than in this forum?

The original 2.0 plans was 75%. I expect that to be the same again now. Not sure though.

I once slid down an upside-down cheese grater.

I like fried duck poppadoms with added rainbow sprinkles.

^This guy is not a Linkin Park fan. I can smell it....

Thanks for the correction, much appreciated. How about applying to become a newspaper editor so you can correct the problems before the article is published? Join the Dark side!

A ripoff is something that's not worth it. Smoky will be worth the price. Oreo... the rebalance will increase competition. It doesn't make everyone equal at all. In fact, I suspect there will be less equality than there is now. Can you: 1. Show a point in this thread where a consultant, koolwalky, or me said that people will end up with m2 garages rather than m3s, or even implied that? 2. Show me a post in this thread which supports any one of your ideas. Personally, I can't see where you got your m2 thing from. Or that everyone is equal. Or how people will get a full m2 garage. Or how the rebalance will support lower ranks. What posts did you get that idea from, and I'll explain what they really meant. ._. Hai. There's nothing wrong with changing the stats and tanks, every change is annoying for some people at first but we get used to it. I personally would still want the old massacre flags, small maps at low ranks, maximum rank allocation when creating battles, fixed gold box, the old graphics, etc. But tanki have changed those things so I have to deal with it, and I've got used to those changes. About M4 and M5s, personally, it's tacky. Plus, Tanki don't just want there to be bigger diversity at the higher ranks, but also at the lower ranks (I reckon). I don't know about anyone else, but I almost quit tanki when I was a corporal because of the serious lack of diversity. Diversity at the lower ranks is required as well - so they should make a M-2 and M -1? Nah... why not just do the rebalance?

In the original 2.0 plans, drugs were going to be directly switched across...

My personal expectation is that ranks unlocked will be changed too. I expect M0s to be unlocked between Recruit and Staff Sergeant, M1s between Master Corporal and Sergeant Major, M2s between First Sergeant and Warrant Officer 4, and M3s between Warrant Officer 3 and Captain. Thus, the first rank to get M3-M3 is around WO3 or something. That's my prediction. If that happens, noobs will be able to buy M1s, all weapons/tanks, paints, etc... It's almost impossible that the refund will give half crystals. That'd be completely illogical In my opinion. i don't know what the administration are going to do, but if that happens it would be useless, yes. Why shouldn't they affect thunder's RPM? Maybe they thought Thunder's RPM was too much? I think that they are the real stats.

Forget tiers. If the rebalance is what I expect, there'll be NO TIERS. Thus, M3 ANYTHING will cost about 12,000 so it will BE HARD FOR NOOBS to get M3. Everything will become Tier Two. That's pretty much what I expect the rebalance to do: move everything into Tier Two.

Smoky would probably cost 18000 at M3, yes. What's wrong with that? The only problem is your own personal stereotype that Smoky has to be cheap. Noobs will have a hard time getting M3 hulls and guns, yes - but it's still the same now. Personally, Hunter is the best looking tank in Tanki.... and Mammoth won't be that expensive. I reckon they'll make the guns and hulls more expensive. For example, I reckon all of the Tier Twos will remain at the same price they currently are at, with all the tier 1 and 1.5 weapons and hulls switching up to that price. Tanki are personally not settling for the current game, and I respect them for that. They are making innovations to make the game better. I personally still prefer the old graphics, but I respect tanki for changing the graphics because they thought it would be an improvement.

According to this source: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=356, the earth travels double that speed around the sun alone, which excludes the speed that our solar system is travelling around the Milky Way, and the speed the Milky Way is travelling through the universe. It'd be a lot more than 33,000 mph I reckon.

This feature used to exist. When it was removed, the amount of lag in the game went down by about three-quarters. The fact is that such a feature takes up so much server space lag would quadruple or at least triple with it implemented. It'd be cool but not worth it. Even when they moved it onto a completely separate server, it still took 10 minutes to load and crashed your flash player and your browser during those ten minutes, so that you would have to leave your computer unresponsive until it loaded. And since then, the amount of players in tanki has increased by approximately twenty times. So that'd be 20x more server space.... you can do the maths.

1. They will be similar in strength, but also similar in price. The point of Viking may be that it has slightly more health and slightly less speed. Of course, it will have a similar price to hunter so both are evened out in that way. 2. According to Test Server right now, Mammoth has the most health and the least speed of all tanks. 3. Viking, Hunter, and Dictator will all be "All-round" hulls, from what I can see. Dictator is the fastest, Viking the most health - but all three have average health and average speed. 4. I'd expect so. What's wrong with those prices, that's what it is right now anyway. I'm proud of my two combinations as well. Nothing's going to change in that sense. You'll have all your crystals refunded to you and you can spend them back on that tank and weapon if you think that that will suit your gameplay style. The only difference is that now, rather than your only realistic threats being freezes, shafts and ricochets, you'll also have smokys, firebirds, twins, railguns and isidas all of a similar power to your weapon. Do you even know what a refund is? A refund is where all your crystals spent on turrets/tanks will be returned to your crystal count. Thus, your 40k will be returned to you and you can buy whatever you want again with that 40k. In the same way, I'll be left with 150,000 crystals and no weapons and tanks, and the choice to buy whichever weapons and tanks I want all over again.

Splitter, I think you should read my post again. Whatever happens, diversity will increase for sure. Plus, there will be the refund before the rebalance, so you can buy hunter if you want... and the prices will be equal so Viking won't be pointless at all. >.< It's not as stupid as you think.

Of course they won't be the same. |-( How much trust in the developers do you have? What I mean is this. Just like currently, Firebird and Smoky are of a similar strength. Firebird has more DPS, but less range and a limited consumption. In certain maps, Firebird is better. In others, Smoky. However, everyone would agree that neither weapon is "better". Players may prefer Firebird or Smoky, but both have similar power overall. In the same way, Freeze and Thunder both are of similar strength. Railgun and Isida. Shaft and Ricochet. Twins and Smoky. Shaft and Thunder. Freeze and Shaft. etc. The update, from what I gather, is going to move all the weapons and tanks into the same tier. Now, rather than 4 weapons of equal strength, there will be 10. Of course, isida will still have healing powers; Shaft will have far more damage per shot than the rest; smoky will have the most knockback; thunder will have splash; each weapon will have it's own pros and cons. But instead of 4 options, there will be 10. 10 equally strengthed guns. It'll make gameplay more diverse and still enjoyable. Each gun will be of similar strength, price, rank unlocked, and so on, making it far more enjoyable to get the right weapon - as well as the right mix for clan wars, etc. It'll be amazing, IMO.

How fast are we travelling right now?

Think. Would the administration really continue to keep the prices of 10,000 difference? Would Wasp still be so cheap despite it's specs? Of course not. The prices will be adjusted too, in time.

JSYK, this is all my opinion, don't take it as a guarantee. This is what I'm pretty sure will happen. v I see no problem with wasp being better than hornet. You'll just have to change your mindset of believing hornet to be superior to wasp. They aren't taking away any crystals, there will be the refund. And the increase in strength of all weapons so that they are of equal power is going to add MORE difference. Imagine where, rather than having a choice between only Thunder, Freeze, Ricochet, or Shaft, you can choose between all 9 weapons to suit your gameplay? Surely that's MORE difference, and MORE of a challenge to get a full M3 garage as every one will cost around 30,000 crystals. If the prices are changed so all the prices are equal as well, surely that makes it a better game? There will be the refund first

Here it is - the much anticipated light-hearted predictions for 2013 in Tanki! Note: Please do not take any of these predictions seriously. If your name is mentioned in a detrimental light, it is for the sake of humour alone and not anything personal. January The weapon rebalance comes out, along with four new hulls. However, there is no refund on all the weapons and tanks in the garage. Panic and anger begin to rise up as M3 Shaft users complain about the fact that their 30,000 crystal weapon is now only slightly more effective than Smoky, and start a strike from Tanki. It doesn't work, as their addiction gets the better of themselves and after four minutes and thirty-two seconds they all rejoin the servers to attempt to show the power of shaft and get everyone to buy Shaft so everyone is equal again. On top of that, Smoky is so powerful that anger boils over and Smoky becomes the new Isida and Smoky users are completely shunned from society. When it appears on FederalBureauFBI's banner code that he is using smoky, he is kicked from both Vengeance and the Consultant team. He complains that it was only for a smoky-wasp duel but nobody listens to his pleas. He ends up quitting Tanki at 11pm on January the 13th. He returns at 3am on the 14th, citing the fact that he was “doing a koolwalky” but that it “wasn't intentional”. He honestly said that “he had wanted to leave” but had felt that he had “missed Tanki too much” and “I have to return”. Allegations that dreams about MizARee that night had forced him to return are angrily rebuffed, but no evidence is provided which proves otherwise. Also this month, the first competition by the new cybersport organising team is created. Nobody knows what it is all about. Suspicions are that Tightwad135, the new cybersport organiser, was drunk when he wrote it, and nobody can understand what he has written except for Bruce Lunga, who announces in a news blog that “working out what the competition is all about is part of the fun of this competition”. Suddenly, the community springs into life, trying to figure out what Tightwad123 was meaning when he created this competition. The most popular opinion in the community (started when splitterpoint noticed that the two words “voddkkka orrrniit” came next to each other in Rule 2.4.2) is that it is a competition to “post a picture of you playing tanki whilst being drunk”. This is the most popular opinion, with players from all over Tanki posting pictures of themselves drinking vodka. Entries fly in until wertweuri points out that if the contest is like that, it isn't cybersport. Competition entries subside, and splitterpoint pulls out of the forum in humiliation (for a day) until he has another idea. Reading the words, found in Rule 3.1.2, he understands “artgni aslpto” to mean “vodka duel” and suspects that it is a dueling contest where competitors must be drunk to enter. He signs his name up, despite being the laughing stock of the community for suggesting such a thing on the competition discuss' thread. The majority view is that the article was not written by a drunk at all, but rather was a clever cover-up and the text was actually written in Telugu and anglicised. With all the people looking hard for a Telugu-speaking tankman, splitterpoint's suggestion is ignored, only to be brought up when three days later the results are announced and it turns out that he is the winner, for being the only person to have entered! (although the competition was actually a firebird-viking dueling contest) Other news this month: The age limit for becoming a moderator is reduced to 13, after 470 applications the age limit is brought back up and nobody is accepted – everyone blames everyone else for spamming EddyBeGood's PM box with their application; New ranks are created on the forum, with a prize for 1000 posts being a blue name, 2000 being red, and 5000 being green. After one day which has a new record of 41,372 total posts on the forum and 491 tankmen being banned for flood, the ranks are scrapped. February One month late, everyone suddenly realises that Twins now is extremely overpowered, after it is used effectively by Alkline in a one-off clan war between the champions of the English and the Russian clan tournaments. For a week, Twins is the only weapon used in Tanki, until it is nerfed by the administration to what Alkline calls a “shadow of its old self”. A few loud complaints spring up around the community, but most are glad that their new speakers (bought after the old ones broke earlier in the week) will not be under immediate threat. This month, the first map capture tournament is created for the English clans. It is unsure how the map was chosen, but the end result – that the English clans would be competing to capture the map “Valley” – is a highly unpopular choice and only three clans enter. The winners are Dragon Slayer, using their Firebirds to maximum effect in the close-range battleground of Valley, and they become the first English clan to own a map. After a detailed investigation, the new team committed to unveiling scandals in the English community (rumours that they are under the command of the reporting team, who have decided that their current approach of being a sensible news team is not popular among the community and now want to become a tabloid, are unfounded), led by kilaz, eventually find out that the decision to make the map Valley was a prank led by ShadowVisions and ShadowVisions is caused to resign in shame. An English Tanki store is created. However, the only product on sale are “Wasp shoes”, shoes which are sold with wasps inside them. Even so, tankmen from all around the world do not actually read the description and buy the shoes in the dozen. There is a temporary outrage as tankmen all around the world get stung on their feet, but a trend is soon started when hogree uploads pictures of his feet covered with stings from the shoes. When husto uploads a picture where the amount of stings accumulative on both his feet reaches thirty-four, he is accused of cheating and wdani is sent by kilaz to go round to his house and ensure that husto does not have a wasp's nest in his back garden. After a long period where husto is forced to reveal his address, it becomes clear that he does, and as a result of the shame of cheating in such a disgusting way he is forced to resign from being a consultant. Other news this month: Livestream DJs get an avatar – however, the avatar is highly unpopular among the DJs, especially considering the fact that Bruce speaking into a microphone whilst raising his arms and his shirt over his head is not the most beautiful picture of all time; a new chipmunk paint is added to tanki. Nobody knows why. March A new “Two man Triumph” cybersport contest comes out, a CTF two-team contest played in the map Fort Knox II. CompanionCube notices it is the same as a contest which he created for the Casual Collective two years ago, and claims copyright and sues Arya777, who created the tournament. After a long legal battle that lasts all of forty-three seconds, kilaz and his team (who have now also assumed the roles of Tanki judges and jury) decide that since CompanionCube did not apply for a patent when originally creating his contest, he cannot claim any damages as a result. Also this month, a new creative contest comes out, the first for a number of months. Confusion reigns when it appears that the contest is a Christmas-themed contest, where Tankmen need to sing the best song they can. The song has to be linked to both Christmas and Tanki. Unsurprisingly, there are questions from the start about Bruce's timekeeping (always known to be slightly out, but never this far out) but which is all resolved when Bruce confirms that he does know that it is the 14th of March but that this was the only idea for a contest he could think of. The winner of “The #1 Tanki Christmas single” is also a controversial decision, as chriswu takes the victory despite the fact that the only lyric in his song was “Tankimas”, repeated over and over again. SuperNick95, who had come second with his song, “Silent Fight” complains that it should have been the lyrics, not the tune, that was judged. Bruce and his judges (kilaz's team) reply by announcing that they had no responsibility to judge the competition by lyrical choice, and say that chriswu's “unique brand of repetition without being boring” won him the title. On top of that, there is a sudden influx of moderators. FlyRope, TreacleTart, ArtIcicle, JanLoad, and InkTop all become moderators, all recommended by BarKode. On top of FlipSquad, BadDadd, and BarKode himself, there is a recurring trend seen by members of the community in that players with a capital at the start of their first syllable get accepted as moderators. Accounts such as NukeBomb, HichShir, RaphAel, and CooPer are created and apply for moderator, but to no avail. BarKode announces that those whom he recommended were actually his colleagues from his job (being a coal miner) and that they all had decided to have similar names in the capitalisation of their second syllable in that way. Other news this month: The biggest Tanki wedding of all time is created; Firebird shoes are released into the shop as well, with burning sparrows provided inside each of the two shoes. The largest burns this month are on the feet of The_Ice_Dragon, but the rumour is that he had them tattooed on. April The amount of English clans hits 64, and to celebrate it the cybersport organisation team join up with the livestream DJs to create a new tournament which is compulsory for all clans to take part in. Being the new “capture the map” for the map “Canyon”, it is highly-anticipated, especially by the livestream DJs, who claim to have discovered how to get HD streaming on every feed. 63 clans enter. There is a huge hunt for the 64th, with at one point a forty-five crystal reward being offered out by the new “reward-providing” committee, which is led by kilaz. The missing clan, understood to be called “The Chosen Ones”, is eventually found by Selena12121, who found them shirking around in the secret room in Pass. They are severely chastened by the new clan behavioural advisor team, led by kilaz, and permitted to avoid taking part in the tournament after Dare Devils split into two and the new daughter clan, “Dark Devils”, takes the 64th position instead. Also this month, there is a serious controversy about the amount of work that Consultants actually do. The moderators, reporters, cybersport organisers, kilaz's team and Livestream DJs join forces to conduct an investigation into how much work Consultants do. After realising that Consultants get paid to reply to 3 Private Messages a day (at a price of 750 crystals per PM replied to), the conurbation of staff members go on strike until Consultants are paid a total of 20 crystals per PM and a maximum of 1000 crystals a week. After a long stand-off between the Consultants and the other staff members, eventually a compromised is reached in which the Consultants are paid 21 crystals per PM replied to, with no maximum. This causes a scandal in the English community, with the normal community members realising that the staff get paid extortionate amounts of crystals in terms of comparison to how much a normal player could earn in a battle. The members of the English community then start a strike, demanding that all staff members have their pay halved. It doesn't succeed when three new maps are released and the players are too tempted to play the maps that they forget all about continuing their strike. Three new guns are also released this month. Going by the name of “Snipe”, “Double”, and “Pounder”, tankmen are overjoyed with the increase in weaponry that is provided. Their enjoyment is shattered two days after the release, as an innocent-looking post from Ranger7 points out that the three weapons are identical in looks to railgun, twins and smoky before the 1.100.0 new graphics update. All of a sudden, anger breaks out as people see what Micky3 calls “Another sign of how little work the admins actually put into this game.” Hatred comes to the fore as tankmen fling down their new weapons and look upon them with disdain. For a short period, #destroysnipe trends on twitter in Russia. Eventually, new looks are provided to Snipe, Double and Pounder. There still is a lingering air of nostalgia about their similarity to the old weapons, however. Other news this month: The latest pair of shoes to be released into the Tanki Online shop is a pair in tribute to Thunder. They make the sound of thunder each step which the wearer makes. Tommy60 is the winner this month, with a total of fourteen “old ladies scared”. He did, however, have to serve two weeks in a young persons' institute but he said that that “was worth it”; Separate English and Russian servers are introduced. The introduction brings raucous cheers from all over the community, except from the members of Try To Stop May After the success of Capture the Map: Canyon, a new Capture the Map is created for the English community this month, taking place in the brand new CTF mode in Camp. The centralized flags on the middle platforms are slightly controversial, especially when “The Mighty Midgets” break the record for the most flags captured in a clan war round, with 276 scored against “Kings of Riyadh”. Even so, the knockout competition is a big success, with The Mighty Midgets going on from their success to claim the complete conquest of the map. New hulls are released, including the long-rumoured UFO hull, which causes a sensation when people realise it is now possible to get onto the roof of the building in Crash. A contest created by kilaz's parkour contest creating team is is started in which teams must race to get to the top of the building in Crash. It takes a week of constant participation for one team to eventually post the video of their success, using.... three mammoths and a hornet. The other hulls released this month include the “hovercraft hull”, which, like the UFO, hovers above the ground but has far more stability than the UFO does, and “Falcon”, which is three times faster than wasp but has a tenth of the hp. The hovercraft hull fails to take off the ground (well it manages to take off, but that's the problem) when a complaint is raised about the fact that flags are unable to be taken with the hovercraft. This is resolved by Hovercraft losing it's floating ability, after which it becomes identical to Hunter in every way except price. Tankmen who bought Hovercraft demand their money in return. Hovercraft is eventually refunded, but only because “of a minor issue in regard to the fuel used in Hovercraft not being eco-friendly enough” and “going against the climate laws” of the European Union, which Russia is attempting to join. Other news this month: “Mammoth shoes” are the latest acquisition to the Tanki Online store, with two mammoth tusks discovered in Siberia by Ksenia included in each purchase of the shoes – hotwheel is the champion this time around, managing to siphon out 2.4 gallons of blood using the tusks; kilaz is promoted to Moderator, Consultant, Reporter, and DJ administrator; Seventy-four new maps are released, although complaints about similarity between each of the new maps are rebuffed by the administration despite the title of each map being called “Moscow I”, “Moscow II”, and so on. June Sudden news breaks as people realise that Alternativa Editor has been bought by an unknown buyer! Rumours are flung all around the place, with the rumours of the new buyers range from the Russian Mafia to Microsoft, from Wal-Mart to Apple. FederalBureauFBI is convinced that the buyers are Vkontakte, the Russian social networking site, and he convinces all the yesmen of the forums to agree with him. On the contrary, his rival consultant, wertweuri, is absolutely positive, thanks to a skype group he was inadvertently added to by Bruce, that the buyer is the British supermarket firm Tesco. Once the purchase is complete, the new buyers refuse to announce who they are but do get Maxim and Bruce to announce to the Tanki Community that “the new buyers will do what is best for Tanki”. The new buyers make some changes. kilaz and his map renaming team are forced to add a “grad” at a point in the name of every map. This causes a huge complaint among german players about the renaming of the map “Berlingrad”, but when complaints are raised the map is renamed to “Stalingrad”. Names such as “Industrialgrad zone” and “Silencegrad II” and “Fort KnoxGrad III” cause a loud outburst of laughter from some people around the community. A few other subtle changes are introduced as well. Billboards are removed because they are a “symbol of capitalism”; Che Guevara pictures are introduced all over the map as well on walls, with random sticks of Fort Knox II wall inserted into random points on each map just so that Che's picture can be seen – the reason given for this is to “honour such a great servant of the best form of government”; Shaft's description where it says that Shaft can make pizza is renamed so that shaft can now make borscht; All paints are given a red tinge; the skyboxes all become red with yellow stars dotting them. Axes and Reapers are also included in the skybox. Despite these updates, the identity of the new owners of Tanki remains unknown and none of the members of the community can get their head around who it could possibly be. Despite the confusion from the new owners, the latest capture the map competition – this time being Atra – is introduced. When a glitch in the map is found by two unnamed members of Vengeance, they win all their games by convincing margins until the glitch is removed by the administration. In the final, they are crushed by “Always the Best”, whose leader, cheap_plastic_flower, attributes their victory to the fact that “We are the BEST. I for one agree that the BEST clan should ALWAYS win and in our case we are ALWAYS the best and so we should always WIN.” Other news this month: The latest acquisition in the Tanki Online shop is a pair of shoes dedicated towards railguns. When accused on live Russian radio because of potentially causing anarchy as a result, the only reply which the new owners of Tanki say is “all the better”; A new “parkour prop” is introduced into Lost Temple, becoming the highest point in any map in Tanki as a result. The first person to parkour to the top is Raphael2, although there is a serious investigation by kilaz's team about whether any photoshop is involved. After three weeks, the entry is announced as legitimate, only for Raphael2, overcome with guilt, to admit to using Microsoft Paint to edit the image; Horses invade Tanki. Next issue: The last six months of the year... what will happen?

I disagree - what's wrong with it? The prices, ranks, and other glitches (such as hornet being too light) will be sorted out in due time. But In terms of all weapons being equal in strength and all tanks being similar, that has been necessary for Tanki to have for a while. Test Server. All weapons and Tanks will be made to a similar strength to each other (Smoky ~ Shaft; Wasp ~ Mammoth), just as it was planned in 2.0.

If I went through every dead map, I wouldn't be able to fit it into an article. I just did four maps which used to be alive, but now are dead. I'll do four more next issue.

RIP ol' friends, we'll miss you! Last issue, we looked at a few old maps which used to be widely played but now no longer are, for a whole catalogue of reasons. The reaction was very positive, so I thought I'd bring up a few more oldies but goodies which are now left unplayed. First of all, I'll start with the map which found itself on my cover image for this article last month. What was so good about it? Fort Knox II was, in its prime the standard map for playing team battles. Not just Capture the Flag; all team battles. I remember once when myself and a group of friends were trying to start a mini-tournament together. We discussed the form that that tournament would take. It was the form that was in debate: the map was taken for granted. Fort Knox II would be the map that we would play, of course. How did Fort Knox II get this lofty status? Well, for a number of reasons. For a start, for a long time it was the first map that players would unlock which had CTF mode. When I was beginning my career as a tankman, Sandbox had no CTF, so I had to wait until I unlocked Fort Knox II at Gefreiter before I could play CTF. My first experience of CTF was in Fort Knox II, and for most tankmen creating accounts at a similar time to me it was the same. But it wasn't just that that made Fort Knox II popular. The map layout was incredible as well. The three routes to each flag, through the middle and down each flank, was extremely popular for not just ordinary battles but Clan Wars as well. The map is well-balanced: after all, being symmetrical, it has to be. The sniping positions are well-positioned: good range to shoot into, but not so much that the opposition team gets annoyed/camps in return to make it a boring, drab, stalemate. FKII has everything. The flags are well-positioned, the bases are well marked out. There are camping and sniping positions. FKII used to be the prime example of the perfect map. What killed it? With a map like that, how could it have died? And in reality, it was no gradual thing. There was no sudden decline in popularity. It just gradually lost its aura of the most complete map in the game. Fort Knox III, the map which I personally think is FKII's inferior older brother, came out (for the second time) and gained popularity. FKII gradually, bit-by-bit, lost its popularity. The rank limit for the map did increase to Master Corporal, but that did not make much of an impact. There was no sudden flag move, or anything like that, to lose its popularity. It just happened. Can it make a revival? Of course. A map of the calibre of Fort Knox II always can come back. It has the quality. It has all the features of a good map. It has the fame. All it needs is that slice of luck to come back into people's minds, and it will make a revival. In fact, I will be surprised if it doesn't make a revival. What was so good about it? At one point, if you asked people in Tanki what their favourite map was, about 1/3 would either say Brest II or its predecessor, Brest. This big map, with its symmetrical bases and beautiful layout, used to be the big favourite of most of the members of the community. Why was this? Well, the map was huge, for a start. There was nothing quite like a big map, after all. Without Shafts to snipe you out, players could use their Railguns or Thunders without fearing any sniping from the opposition base. Hornets were able to run up and down the multiple tiers of this fantastic map. I remember the first time I played in Brest II. I loved it. The gameplay was great. Being able to shoot at people with my railgun, covering attacks at the flag, taking out enemy flag carriers – for snipers who thought that they were good, or flag capturers who reckoned that they could capture a flag with ease, Brest II was the ultimate test. It drew players in because of the pride attached to the map. If you could rule Brest II, you were somebody to be afraid of. Forget any other map, Brest II was the pinnacle. What killed it? Shaft contributed to its demise, but I reckon that more than anything else it was just a shift in taste and a shift in memory. As with most maps, it lives upon players being able to remember about the map when they create battles. In the case of Brest II, players forgot about this great old map and stopped creating battles of it. On top of that, players started to prefer medium-sized maps such as Kungur, Serpuhov or Silence rather than the proper big ones like Brest II, Lost Temple, or Magistral. That shift mainly happened because of the rise of Shaft, but in many other ways it was just personal taste shifting. Can it make a revival? Yes. I reckon it can. It can. Whether it will, I do not know. But if people remember this map again, or if people start to prefer the real big maps again, then this map can make a revival. The upcoming weapon rebalancing, where Shaft is likely to be weakened, could make a big difference. Let's hope, for the sake of Tanki, that this great old map is able to make a revival. Otherwise, the servers will be missing an old favourite and one that deserves more than any map to be in the servers. What was so good about it? In one word: the rank. Unlocked at Private originally, Ping-Pong was the best map for Corporals and Master Corporals to show off their awesome new Firebird to the wider world of Tanki battles. Sandbox was too big, as was Short Bridge and Fort Knox; there needed to be a smaller map for Firebirds, and Ping-Pong provided that. Even at slightly higher ranks, such as Master Sergeant and Staff Sergeant, Ping-Pong was always regularly played and it was not until Warrant Officer that Ping-Pong was overtaken by Island and Farm. Ping-Pong was unique. The thinnest map in Tanki, the second-smallest (only Island is smaller), the thin walls, the gaps in the walls at the same time, gameplay was great for Firebirds and Twins at the lower ranks. It was perfect. It was absolutely what new tankmen needed, a map which would suit their weapons perfectly. What killed it? Ping-Pong's strengths turned out to be its downfall. Ping-Pong was never going to be able to cut it at the higher ranks. Freeze and Ricochet were not suited for battles in Ping-Pong, and the faster tanks like Viking, Hornet and even Mammoth were able to play in larger maps than Ping-Pong, and would provide more entertainment in the process. So when Ping-Pong's rank limits got shifted, first to Master Corporal, then to Master Sergeant, and finally to Third Lieutenant, its popularity shifted as well. Can it make a revival? No. Certainly not if the ranks stay the same. Ping-Pong is a map for newbies. And there aren't many newbies at Third Lieutenant. What was so good about it? Its uniqueness. If you have never played Camp, you're missing out on a unique experience in Tanki gameplay – but here's a tip, don't join a Camp battle with Freeze or Firebird! The uniqueness of Camp's gameplay made it a massive hit when it originally came out, along with other maps such as Esplanade and Arena. Smokys, Railguns, Thunders and then Shafts loved the snipe-and-counter-snipe gameplay, even if the Isidas on the opposition team were a bit annoying. The walls to hide behind made Camp a real gauge of skill. There was no space for a missed shot in Camp, and you had to always be careful that someone else did not have you in their sights – being careful had to be second nature if you were to lead your team to a Camp victory in TDM. It was popular, and for a long time too. Never too popular, of course – most people preferred to play CTF battles, or games where sniping was not the most important thing to do. But it was there, and for budding snipers, Camp was one of those maps where you always knew your skill would be tested. And so it proved. How did it die? Like so many other maps, it faded into oblivion as tankmen forgot about it. In Camp's case, selfishness had a part to play as well. Camp never gave away too much experience points or crystals – that was the nature of the map. And so, as players started to become selfish and prioritized success over enjoyment, Camp started to feel the cost. Gradually, tankmen stopped remembering this old favourite and resigned it to a place in History, as one of Tanki's “most unique” maps, but one not worth considering for a serious battle. Can it make a revival? I would say that it can. Camp's unique nature makes it suitable for tankmen who like a certain style of play. If players who do like that style of sniping and counter-sniping discover and/or remember Camp rather than thinking about Stadium or Scope all the time, Camp can make a revival. However, I would consider it unlikely. Next issue: Four more maps which used to rock, but have since died...

Maybe the matter is not the ones who go mad, but the one who misinterprets the madness.

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