Tanki Online Beginning (2009)Closed beta testing of the new game called Tanki Online began on May 8, 2009. To participate in the testing, it was necessary to send a questionnaire to tanki@alternativaplatform.com
It is noteworthy that at this point, the game got an award at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2009) in the category “Best game without a publisher.” This clearly shows that the game received international recognition already in the test phase.
Just one month after that, on June 4, open testing began.
The game was on main server in the beginning of summer 2009.
Community was just beginning to form itself. Everyone was new to each other. Developers played together with all the other players. Prices were completely different, the game was full of bugs, glitches and lags. In short, one may say it was total chaos … For example, Firebird had an awfully long visual after-effect on the enemy. This effect only vanished after server restart. Of course this bug was quickly corrected. Apart from hull and turret, it was also possible to change the tank’s engine. Various elements of tanks were gradually wearing out. Hulls – with each hit they got, turrets – from every shot they fired and the engine got worn out with the distance it covered. Life was difficult for newbies as everything was wearing out really quickly and there were not enough funds to constantly repair it. So developers had to give up these elements of gameplay. There were no second generation turrets and hulls, the barrel of Railgun had the length of Wasp and the damage it did was huge (M0 Railgun had a damage of around 100 HP) During that time, there was only one kind of battle supply – First Aid Kit. The picture on it showed a syringe instead of a red cross that we got used to so much. That’s why players that were using it were often called druggers while the supply itself was commonly known as “drug”.
At the same time we started seeing first players who were practicing parkour.
There was an idea of introducing a racing mode. Map-maker called Avocado makes a map called Monte Carlo that was supposed to become one of racing tracks. The idea was scrapped, while the map remained. It’s still quite popular with players.
Capture the Flag mode was added to the game on July 31, 2009.
Since then Tanki Online has changed a lot and now there are a few things that remind us of this period.
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