Kings of Arab are already out, so they can't win anymore. The reward for the winners is 150,000 crystals to share.

Apply in a PM to conan. >.<

Hiya, thanks for your reply, especially because you just proved my point. That map in the header picture is Fort Knox II, which is by far the best Fort Knox. It is one of the maps which I will be featuring next issue as one of the maps which has "died". I'd recommend you to play it, especially if you've never played it before. It is well worth it. Anyone above Master Corporal can create it, as well as the original Fort Knox, which is very similar to FKII. (actually, Fort Knox actually wasn't the original Fort Knox actually, Fort Knox III was, then FK III was deleted, then FK as it is known now came out, then FKII, then they returned FK III, but it's a complicated story)

Nice, although I'd prefer it about a map that I actually play from time to time. :D

Finally! Sorry to everyone for the delay, there were a whole catalogue of reasons... but now it's ready! Enjoy...

I know bout playin maps and what I enjoy from maps. :P

No. It is only given out to winners of the Russian Clan Championship. Further details: http://en.forum.tankionline.com/index.php?showtopic=133690

Downloaded them all. If I'm being honest, I got bored by all of them. They are damn fine maps, and way better than anything I can do, but I wouldn't enjoy playing in any of them. Just my opinion. Obstruction is probably the best. They're made well, but I don't like them.

-Massacre for privates -Ping-Pong for privates -Low ranks being able to play small maps/firebird actually being half decent at low ranks as a result -Polygon for newbs -Pin4er163 as a md -All Crystal boxes fell at 6 fund, as such at the low ranks there was "crystal box camping". -Gold box camping -Being able to capture flags at will whilst everyone else tried to get the gold box -Railgun shooting streamers, twins shooting another fancy christmas deco, firebird as well, smoky too... -Winter mode being only available at Christmastime -"Unofficial clans" spam

Cab is no longer a reporter. Conan is now the chief editor of the English reporter team. Ranger is a candidate.

I love the Halloween map. I mean, the layout is poor, and the props are hardly special, BUT.... the lighting is fantastic. I hope that soon that level of lighting will be put on every map as a "night mode". Please?

They did, but none of us had any access to the newspaper forums for a good few weeks. Now we do, we have decided to work on our upcoming issue, and make it a bit larger than we originally planned.

How many people can be involved in the video? How many people will get the crystals if there is a group entry?

RIP ol' friends, we'll miss you! Running through the list of battles the other day, I realised just how many old maps, which used to be played very regularly, are no longer played. Why has that become the case? I thought I might inform you on maps which used to be played all the time, but now are as rare as most maps are, and educate myself as well in how these maps have become "dead". First of all, the most profound of all these cases. What was so good about it? At one point, you could not join a server without there being a Highland DM. Just as Silence was to CTF, Highland had a stranglehold on DM. Nobody played a DM unless it was Highland. Looking back at all my screenshots, I realise just how many games in Highland I played. I ranked to First Sergeant in Highland. I ranked to Sergeant-Major in Highland. I ranked to Warrant Officer Two in Highland. My brother basically ranked from staff sergeant to Warrant Officer One in Highland. Highland was the map for DeathMatch battles. It had sniping positions, regular crystal box drops, one of the most in Tanki, parkour positions which gave you a gameplay advantage but yet were not difficult to get to. It had a well-balanced arrangement. Every weapon could play Highland without being dominated. Gold box hunting in Highland was one of the most popular pastimes of any tankman, especially back in the days of the Gold Box at 700. What killed it? No single factor killed Highland. The rapid growth of Polygon after it's reshuffle down at the low ranks had a huge factor to play in it, but that was not the whole reason, or even the main reason. The introduction of Shafts did disbalance Highland gameplay, and turn some away from the map, but even with shafts there Highland continued to be regularly played. In the end, those factors all contributed together. There was, however, one more factor. As anyone who regularly plays DeathMatch knows, “birds of a feather flock stick together”. Thunders don't shoot at Thunders, Freezes don't attack Freezes, Shafts ally with fellow Shafts, and so on. In Highland, this led to serious problems. The Shafts would ally together and hold one section of the map, annoying the life out of all the other players. They would end up teaming with each other, despite what weapons they used, and with the shafts as well. Eventually, Highland battles became so full of alliances there were times nobody would be shooting at anybody. People started to hate Highland, and DeathMatch fanatics moved over to Polygon, where they still live. Can it make a comeback? I don't think so. Highland with Shafts has a very unbalanced gameplay in Death Match. Highland in itself is also useless for Team Play – that is why Highland II was created, to enable team play in a map very much like Highland. I don't think this old grand map can rear it's old head again. I think that Highland is finished. What was so good about it? The first map in Tanki was many players' favourite for a long, long time. For over two year's, Tribute was the mainstay in the servers, the map the players who enjoyed larger maps played in. For clan wars, Tribute was the one most clans wanted to play in. Tribute was the pinnacle of a clan's achievement, no clan was decent until they were decent in Tribute. When people talked about an exemplar Tanki map, Tribute was always the one. Tribute's gameplay was always one of the best in the whole of Tanki. Some weapons were more advantageous than others, but all could play in Tribute. The flag positions were unique in their boxed-in nature. Flag captures in Tribute were valuable, especially in closely-fought and very heated battles between two equal teams. What killed it? Like with any map, no one factor can be singled out. The main reason would be the rise of Kungur. Only one of those two beasts would be able to hold the playerbase's fancy at one time, and Kungur has overtaken Tribute. Players who had no ability to reminisce about the times when Tribute was the only decent map available joined Tanki, and they soon found that they preferred the open and freer nature of Kungur to the tentative, defensive style of Tribute. Even now, you can still see a few Tribute battles about. It is not completely dead. But it is nearly there. For the first map in Tanki, it's popularity is gradually dwindling as players forget about that old monster of a map. Can it make a revival? Yes. Tribute is good enough. It is a map which can come back and become very popular again. But how that can happen, I don't know. Players will have to begin flooding Tribute battles as much as they can. Otherwise, Tribute will end up being left behind as other maps move on in popularity. What made it so good? At one point, Hill was the most popular of small maps. Island and Farm seemed to be the ones on their way out, Hill was the one on the rise. Hill was not too small, like Island was; it was not too closed off, like Farm was. It was perfect for many. The gameplay, stalemated at times, but always enjoyable, was an enjoyable experience to play. It was the map for the lower ranks to play close-ranged battles – it never made so much of an impact at the higher ranks. But for the lower ranks, it was the best. What killed it? Like many of the smaller maps, the update shifting all smaller maps to being played only for Lieutenants and above killed Hill. In fact, it killed all the smaller maps. People stopped playing the maps, and when smaller maps started to become played again, Hill was one of them that did not make a revival. Can it make a revival? Yes. For the close-ranged players, Hill is a brilliant simple map to play in. Tankmen will just have to rediscover their love for this great small map. Until then, Hill will have to lie in the doldrums, unplayed except by a few. Will tankmen rediscover their love for this map? We'll have to wait a nd find out. What made it so great? Massacre always was a unique map. When it originally came out, it was one of two, along with Ping-Pong, maps for players as low as Private to be able to play. The flags were in the “wrong” positions – with the red flag in the blue base, and the blue flag in the red base. The hilly landscape made gameplay crazy. Two gold boxes fell rather than one. Flag capturing was the easiest thing ever. Just drive up one hill, get the flag, into a valley, drive up the other. Flags were captured in tens rather than in single flags. If a team was controlling the map, they could capture at will. Until the other team wrested control from their grasp. It was a mad map, but it also required skills. Hornets jumping up and down the hills had to be able to keep stability when under Thunder fire. Shafts had to shoot straight. Thunders had to avoid self-damaging themselves on Hills. Ricochets had to make the most of their ability to fire shots at a steep trajectory. Massacre was the map which everyone loved – either loved to play it, or loved to hate it's randomness. What killed it? At first, the ranks were changed to master corporal and then to third lieutenant, but that didn't kill it. The maps had hardly been played by lower ranks, anyhow. The two gold boxes were then scrapped, but everyone continued to play it. After all, apart from a couple of gold hunters, two gold boxes was always a novelty and something which shouldn't really have been part of the map. But the real thing that killed it was a movement of the flag positions. No longer could one team dominate flags like they used to be able to. The flags were moved to the corners of the map. This was to make flag capturing less commonplace, but it also made the map less commonplace in the servers. Nobody wanted to play Massacre anymore, with the flags shifted and the gameplay being shifted as a result. It became boring. And now it has died. Can it make a revival? Not unless the flag positions move back. Until then, no. The gameplay at the moment is bordering on terrible. The flags in the bases doesn't make sense. The “massacre” nature of the gameplay with teams being able to massacre another team no longer matter now that the whole map has to be used and fighting is more spread out. 5 against 5 in a map that size with the flags so far apart is pointless. Until the flags are moved back, Massacre can never make a comeback. But if the flags are moved back, I am sure it will revive. Next time: More maps which have died. Do you want any of these maps to revive? If so, create battles of them! People will join, you know! Just look at what's happened with Subway, Lost Temple, Farm, Fort Knox III, maps which were dead and have revived. You can revive maps! God bless, skitee

I want you to write an application for becoming a reporter because if you are writing articles about tanki you may as well join the reporter team... plus 3 and a half reporters is way too few.

The way tanki is arranged, for a map to be played it HAS to be stored on permanent server space. 100s of maps a day = lots of server space used = lots of lag.

Translation of what Kool said: This feature used to be available. Eventually, too many players joined and what happened was that when you tried to load it your flash broke because of the amount of memory involved. So they removed it.

Sandbox II is great. In terms of aggravation, I'm not sure if I would enjoy playing in it. The gameplay doesn't seem to fit. Too few props imo. And before you ask, yes, I do enjoy large maps.

So here we are. After over a month of battles, fights, clan wars, tactics, arguments, debates, rule changes, and lots of fine Tanki playing, we're down to the last four clans (soon to be whittled down to the three finalists). Let's take a look at each of the finalists (including both repêchage finalists) and see how they got to the point they are at right now. First of all, however, let's preview the final itself. Let's leave out all of the clan intricacies, who, what, how, and just consider what the final means. This final is going to be the first final for English clans. In the future, where we hope that Tanki can only grow, numerous clan competitions will be taking part, but there will always be a certain type of kudos attached to being the finalists in the first clan competition for the English community. And on top of that, there is the chance to be the first winner of an English clan tournament, a title which will never be able to be taken away from the winners of this final! There's no denying it: now that we're into the last four, all the clans involved will do anything that they can to win the title. Except cheat. We hope. And they all can. The final will be played in the game mode of Control Points, which will bring an extra twist to what was already shaping up to be a very exciting final. The tactics which will bring a clan success in Capture the Flag, the mode which all games up to this point have been played in, are very different from what is required in Control Points. Each clan's leaders will have to be on their toes as to shaping the perfect game plan for their team. If they get it wrong, they may never be able to have the chance again to sort it out. And with that, a huge number of crystals might go falling down the drain. Each of the finalist clans are guaranteed at least 50,000 crystals as a clan, but there are 100,000 for the second position and the massive total of 150,000 for the winning clan. The crystals accompanying victory are a good reason why the clans will be going all out for victory. The games which are left to play in this exciting championship are the repêchage final, which will probably have already taken place by the time that this newspaper is published. It is between Try To Stop and Kings of Arab, two of the favourites for the title at the start of the championship, and will take place in Capture the Flag mode, the final game of the championship to be in the traditional game mode for clan wars. The victor will be the clan which manages to win two games first. Tied games will not count towards the score. After that, it will be the final. Georgian Clan Crusaders and Dare Devils are already waiting there, and they will be joined by the winners of the repêchage. The final's games will also be first to two, but it will be in Control Points rather than Capture the Flag, as I mentioned before. This will be the first official clan championship, English or Russian, which will consist of games in the Control Points game mode. Each game will be hotly contested and watched by many, not least by clans watching to try to formulate their own game plan for Control Points in the future. So who are the teams in the final? Let's take a look. Most people's favourites for the championship at the start, Dare Devils have not disappointed in getting to the final. Having captured the crazy total of one-hundred-and-forty-eight flags en route to the final – and only conceding one – DD will be most people's favourites for the final as well. Boasting a host of Wolf Battle winners, Mosquito battles champion Reiki12345 and a large number of the finalists for the World Cup, Team India, DD have an array of talent and have been peerless in their performance so far. But with such success comes tension and greater potential for failure. Despite their performance so far, DD will consider it a failure if they fail to succeed in the final. That will lead to heightened pressure, and some of the players could crack under the tension. DD will be hoping that they don't. Led by Afghani, who was also the leader of Team India in the world cup, DD have an experienced and capable captain. Having also being a founder member of repêchage finalist Try To Stop, he also will know a lot about one of DD's potentially tricky opponents. DD are the favourites, and rightly so. But they could fall apart under the pressure of the final, or could make a mistake and misjudge the CP game mode. Those are potential dangers, and ones that their leaders will be hoping to snuff out. If they can ensure making no mistakes, they will certainly have this title in the bag. The surprise package. Created just before the championship started, nobody expected them to get very far in this championship. They comfortably but unspectacularly made their way through the qualifiers, with two close defeats and two narrow victories sealing their way through. It was a similar story in the group stages, beating The Tactical Fighters by forfeit before a victory to Red Devil Fighters secured the passage in second position, having lost to Kings of Arab who topped the group. They came up against Vengeance, who at that point had won all their games, and everyone expected that to be the one step too far for this clan. But they won thanks to a phenomenal defensive effort, and they carried that on into a shock victory over Kings of Arab in the semi-final, winning again thanks to a brilliant spell of defence when Kings of Arab were hunting to score a flag. GCC have proved the critics wrong and are the real surprise name to see in the final. But they have deserved their process here, every bit of it. But can they shock the bigger names and win the title? It'll certainly be a huge ask. GCC have been extremely good at defending so far in the championship, despite being unable a lot of the time to control the centre of the map. As a tactic in Capture the Flag, that has worked wonders for them. But in Control Points? Completely different tactics are required, and it remains in doubt whether GCC can show that they have the ability in this game mode as well. Their leader is justoriginal, and their clan consists of only Georgian players, which helps to create a bond of unity in the clan. Even if they do lose in the final, they will know that they have been successful to even reach this point. They won't be content with that, however. With the potential of glory within reach, they will now put in as much a shift as they can to win their games in the final. The passion and commitment will be there. The question is, will the ability be there as well? They certainly will be no pushovers. They have more than enough firepower to be able to provide an upset. But they will go into the final as most people's outsiders. The repêchage finalists Arabic clan Kings of Arabs and allies of Dare Devils were one of the unknown quantities in this year's championship. They had not played an official clan war before the championship, and people were questioning how players who used drugs so heavily in ordinary battles could translate their ability to no-supplies games. It has hardly been a problem. They won all four games in the qualifiers, and doubled that up by a comfortable display in their group, if not the most convincing of performances. They put out WhiteRedSquad in the quarter final effortlessly, and seemed to be on an unstoppable track to the final. But then GCC stunned them, and they found themselves in the repêchage. Credit to KoA. They didn't let it get to them, and they picked themselves up to edge past White Red Squad in the repêchage semi, who were out for revenge. Now they find themselves in the repêchage final with the chance of reaching the main final. They will be the outsiders in this repêchage, with the experience of Try To Stop seemingly a potential factor in this final, but it will be tightly fought. And if they get through to the final, they will be on the back of a great confidence booster and will know that they can beat anyone on their day. Russian-American clan Try To Stop were one of the favourites for the championship at the start – in fact, they were my favourite to win the title. They had recently had a spell playing in the Russian clan championships, and they were out to use that experience in this English championship, against far less experienced clans. They comfortably won through the qualifiers, suffering only one defeat – to Vengeance, and then won all their games in the group stage, including a victory over highly-fancied Kings of Tanki. They won their quarter-final, and then came up against old friends Dare Devils. They lost. They went on to win their repêchage semi-final with ease, however, and will be big favourites to overcome Kings of Arabs and get through to the final. But you never can be sure, and Try To Stop will know that as well as anyone. If they do get through to the final, they will certainly be a lot of people's picks for glory. With a gameplay style that revolves around their leader, RoyJonesJR, they are well-respected and well-organised. They have the firepower to win the championship, and they will be confident in their ability. Which clan has the biggest chance? Which clan is the outsiders? Do you think the final battles will be closely-fought or not? What is the key factor in each of the key battles? Most importantly, who will win? We'll find out in the next couple of weeks. God bless, ~skitee

A heck of an improvement. Awesome.

I've downloaded the map, and played it in TTT. There are some things I don't like (such as the bend at the bottom of the side ramp), but that's just my opinion rather than a detriment to the map and you created it a different way, so I respect that. There is, however, one thing I'd like changing, namely this: I reckon it'd be better to be able to move forwards from where my tank is standing and to be able to turn behind the ramp. Maybe shift the building and the ramp one square over to the left so you can go behind it? I also think this: http://i.imgur.com/oSupz.png is ugly, but I can't think of how to improve it so I guess in this circumstance my opinion is invalid. Thought I'd let you know though. Also, I notice in all the maps in Tanki, the red crates are used in the red team's base and the blue crates in the blue team's base. You use both in both team's bases.... it might be best to change that too.

The amount of server space required with everyone adding extra maps is too big, in my opinion.

It's what I use the most. And it's not on the list.

Exactly what you are asking for currently exists. The only difference is that you cannot upload maps you make into real tanki - but you can upload it into TanksTestingTool, which is almost as good. The program is called "Alternativa Editor". I don't know whether it's open source though. Maybe a map maker could enlighten you on that.

This dude gave it away. ^_^