Tskhinvali take two? :blink:

Actually the bridge used to be Alaska... if you fancy buying it back from... in exchange for a zillion crystals maybe? ;)

I was under impression that you had enough of these chances in 1968 :-?

Somebody wants even more of the same? :blink:

There's a world of difference between decoupling and disintegration... in English that is <_<

Personia, you've definitely got the talent for a thing or two. It would be a real pity if this forum remains your highest achivement :mellow: Cheers

I really doubt that the primary motivation for generalissimos to keep pLaying is the opportunity to keep paying :rolleyes: Personally I am here for a bit of [harmless] fun, to relax after some hard day's work. In fact when I'm in a spending mood I go to one of my favourite sections in a nearby mall, rather than spend good money on collecting virtual indulgences from some strange guy in a faraway cave :blink: Having all the crystals in the world and nowhere to spend them is highly unlikely to have any influence on my preference to stay or go. HTH

Unimpressed yet... :ph34r: That is unless now somebody is suddenly willing to pay for the privilege of me putting on the paint of his/her choice. This game is definitely not becoming Musée du Louvre you know

Hi, > Balancing the game is a lot harder than it may seem More to the point is that the management of the project walked into the current situation with its eyes wide open, well aware of the failure of the rebalance(s) to deliver justice and yet virtually asking for making it even more difficult to attain. Now we've got this forum for venting out the grievances on some thespians hired to slave it out for a handful of crystals? Very touching, thank you very much! “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” Mark Twain Words fail to express all my appreciation and love... :wub: My only regret is that I cannot express my support with anything smaller than zero. Good luck

Fool Day celebrations are here!

Can you define the term "seriously" please? Until now I used to be under impression it's just a game, a bit of harmless fun rather than anything remotely serious... Do you really mean investing time and effort into this activity? For just a big thank you from the marketing department? Or are you expecting to include it into your CV? :blink: TIA

Hi if the team is losing say 2:0 and there're no more crystals to collect on the battlefield neither is there any point for joining the loosing team or staying in the team until the end? Previously it was possible to switch off crystal drops, now it's no longer a choice. So now with the game becoming even less fair than before can enybody explain what's nice about the change? :blink: TIA

To me it is true all right! Even with the oldet ver. 14 for Windows the same link http://tankionline.com/AlternativaLoader.swf?config=c1.tankionline.com/config.xml&resources=s.tankionline.com&lang=en&locale=en is working just fine. If it's not working for you, then IDK. Cheers

I've just come across this document http://en.tankiwiki....ne_Flash_Player and the link quoted there http://tankionline.c...ng=en&locale=en worked in my standalone ver. 15 for Windows just fine. From there I was able to switch to EN2 server... HTH :tank:

I've just come across this document http://en.tankiwiki.com/Running_Tanki_Online_using_Standalone_Flash_Player and the link quoted there http://tankionline.com/AlternativaLoader.swf?config=c1.tankionline.com/config.xml&resources=s.tankionline.com&lang=en&locale=en worked in my standalone ver. 15 for Windows just fine. From there I was able to switch to EN2 server... HTH :tank:

I find these changes appallingly irrelevant, obsolete at best. I am aware it doesn't matter of course, so way to go Tanki! :facepalm:

Umm thank you but no. I'm not subscribing to Twitter (or Facebook for that matter) for any amount of crystals. Not the kind of media commanding my respect. :ph34r:

While rushing the last few inches after the gold box in no protection paint it certainly is very common among the players to pause for a screenshot [and possibly for a shot from some stray Railgun, which has just picked a DD bonus on the other end of the field]. Right. Why don't you leave this contest just for the proud owners of Mammoth and Titan hulls and make something sensible for the part of the community with some brains? :tank:

Based on the all the feedback collected during this useful discussion it appears reasonable to conclude that there's no way to tell whether any given Smoky player is cheating or not. That is apart from his own word and we all know how much that is worth. Now I'm also inclined to believe that the developers bored by their never ending battle with cheaters in this particular instance have finally excelled themselves by coming up with a weapon, which can be hacked with impunity and which will never again require any more of their precious attention due to the virtual impossibility to prove anything wrong with it conclusively. I'd like to use this opportunity therefore to express to the project administration my deep appreciation of this extraordinary feat of the infinite tender loving care bestowed on us, the lesser mortals, so kindly and with such a staggering forethought.

Let me rephrase then: We know that in the past hacks were possible. Many hacks in different parts of the code. There still are some hacks working just fine even after all the patching done over the past year. We can no longer assume that no hacks are possible in any part of the code just because the devs promise it one more time on a particularly sunny day. Now the same devs also introduced crits, which by their very design are supposed to be unpredictable. This very design is making the problem of proving any hack in the crit code very difficult, almost impossible. Does it make the code perfect? Certainly not! I'm beginning to think this was probably the biggest mistake the devs ever made.

Looks like we know quite enough to be concerned: Hacks of similar nature have been possible in the past. Any control over the critical hits is an attractive option. A potential market for the hackers to sell their services to unscrupulous players. Until now the system was still able to defend itself when the other players detected the foul play, collected the evidence, reported it to the developers and the vulnerabilities were patched eventually. In assumption that Smoky critical hack is possible somehow is there any way to collect the evidence? Do we really have to wait with collecting the proof until particularly greedy cheaters start dealing critical hits every shot? If the devs have got nothing to hide, then there is no reason for preventing the players from keeping an eye on the stats. If the devs do have something to hide, then how can we be sure that this secret has not been discovered by the hackers, that the game is still as fair as promised by the marketing department?

Now this totally random fashion in which Smoky is dealing its critical hits has basically deprived the players of the only thing we can do to make the devs aware of the weakness of their code. And obviously this code is not secure by its own design no matter what promises the marketing department is going to make...

You are correct in your calculations as long as we keep believing that the player with Smoky is playing fair, not using any third-party cheat. But what if I doubt that this player is fair? E. g. a Freeze capable of killing opponents at the other end of the battlefield is obviously a cheater. Same would hold true for a Shaft, which does not take any time to recharge before it deals another maximum damage shot. But if a player with Smoky is using a third-party cheat e. g. making its every second shot critical, then how can the other players tell that this is a cheater? If there is no way for the players to keep track that the gameplay is fair, then it is no more than a playground for the hackers and with little chance for the devs to learn and close these loopholes too.

What can the devs confirm really? In my experience until now the devs were always the last men to know: this is when under the weight of irrefutable evidence they could no longer deny the vulnerability in their code and patched the code. So that the hackers find and start selling some other exploit... until the players collect and provide to the devs sufficient evidence again... and one more time after that...

Yes, once it was the developers who started this confusion in the first place, of course it is of particular interest what they've got to say on the subject. A couple years ago they still could pretend that the very concept of cheating their code was something which never occurred to them. But a year ago this fight was in its earnest and the cheats were reported fixed right and proper once and for all months before the rebalance. Since then this security through obscurity has been proven wrong once again ostensibly. In fact, I have a distinct impression that right now we all are in the middle of a yet another "noble" attempt to reinvent the wheel :blink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity Security through obscurity has never achieved engineering acceptance as an approach to securing a system, as it contradicts the principle of "keeping it simple". The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) specifically recommends against security through obscurity in more than one document. Quoting from one, "System security should not depend on the secrecy of the implementation or its components." It is analogous to a homeowner leaving the rear door open, because it cannot be seen by a would-be burglar. Isn't there any way to learn the proper software design better than by one's own mistakes I wonder? :blush: