0

Nope... Over 10x that in fact :ph34r: PUM has 100-200k?

Ever wondered 'What if Tanki did this?' Well perhaps now is your chance to find out as I enter the theoretical parallel universes that could have been... In this series, I am going to think about what could have been in Tanki, if only something was different. For this issue, I have taken three questions from staff members and dreamed up what might have happened. Question 1 from @sonofchrysalis3: What if there was only one server? I guess that one server may have its advantages and disadvantages. If the developers managed to make enough room for the 70,000 players that are usually around at any one time, then I can see the benefits of a single server. First of all, all the battles would be in one place. I occasionally find myself spending a while sifting through servers to find a specific battle type. For example, I rarely see a good Kolhoz DM which isn’t PRO, but the likelihood is that someone will have made one. This also means that there will probably be a lot more available battles which one can join, instead of having to wait for a space to appear in the solitary Noise CTF you can find. However, when browsing for battles, without a more user-friendly interface, one may have trouble just scrolling through the masses of battles. Moreover, think of how clogged the chat would be. I doubt you’d be able to have a conversation without your message scrolling all the way up the board in about a second! As we probably all know, RU1 can fill up quite quickly sometimes; so much so that you can’t access it anymore. This means that you have to go to a different game server or just constantly refresh the page until you get in. However, with one server, once it’s full, that’s it. There’d be nowhere else to go and you would be forced to either stop playing or wait until a space is available; not much fun really, eh? Question 2 from : What if there were no V-LOGs? Well, Semyon did suggest that without a V-LOG, the world might stop rotating or some other awful catastrophe, but I’m not so sure personally. We recently had to endure quite a long time without V-LOGs and some might say that wasn’t great, and it wasn’t. The V-LOG is essential for helping tankers who don’t follow the forum to learn about what is going on in the game. I would have no clue about the StarSeries if it weren’t for the weekly updates. As well as this, the V-LOG offers some extra entertainment and chances to get crystals. In my opinion, without the V-LOG, we would be sent back into a more secular community. Namely, those who follow the forum and those who don’t. That is really the key behind the V-LOG, showing people what is going on the game; what has happened and what is going to happen. If they didn’t exist, this would be gone and many more players would be clueless about what else goes on in the game. And without them, what else would I do on a Friday afternoon? Question 3 from @DarkOperative: What if there were no moderators? Now this is something that I think may cause a catastrophe. Although sometimes in the background and mainly unknown to new players, moderators are what keep the community running, in one sense anyway. The three different types of mods all have important jobs in ensuring that the game is fun to play. Using a specific example; without Chat moderators, there would be quite a bit of chaos in every battle or server chat. Players would be able to flood (until anti-flood is enforced), swearing would go mostly unpunished and the whole community atmosphere of the game would be lost. It is good to know that there is a group of people out there helping to get rid of people who violate the chat rules. The other key moderator group is the forum moderators. For those of us on the forum (which probably includes everyone reading this), we all know that there are people who either troll or insult us instead of using the forum appropriately. If there were no mods, this would escalate, until the forum essentially became troll/insult central. The majority of the sections would be filled with rubbish, with proper articles or discussions breaking down quickly. And don’t get me started on forum games! If we already have a few people trying to spoil ‘1,000,000 posts’ then I guess we’d have given up by about 100 if there was no-one guarding it. In addition, we can’t forget the Facebook moderators. Much like the former consultants, one of their primary roles is to help out players who have questions about the game. If it weren’t for their work, then I can sort of imagine a lot of tanks in a battle wandering around aimlessly, with no clue what to do; or is that just me lagging? So, that was just a quick dip into what might have been, but do you have any questions yourselves? They don't have to all have bad consequences like the ones above! Post them below and I will pick a few to write about in the next issue.

Well tankers; we had an excellent turn out for this contest and I was mightily impressed by the billboards put forward by the budding artists in our community. However, there could of course only be one winner, so congratulations to the best of the best: In first place, winning 50k is : In second place, winning 30k is @celroti: In third place, earning 15k is @LaserShark: And there were also a couple of worthy entries getting 5k each: @shadewarttt @Sandervanes2 @deafeat1

Just realised I never made this public... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNos0G7YIc0

Entries are now CLOSED. Results will be announced in the next issue. Good luck!

0

17012

Universe

-32

0

16114

16052

15895

14853

14851

-25

It is a sad reality we have to face that in every game, there are players who will try to cheat their way to the top. They can employ many different methods, from stealing high-levelled accounts to giving themselves in-game boosts through technical practices. But we can at least be safe in the knowledge that the developers are there for us, trying to eliminate this dishonourable threat and that there is something we too can do. There are four main hacks at the moment in the game. The first of which is the infamous Fly Hack. This is where hackers change the 'gravity' of the game in order to move upwards. This makes it very easy for them to catch gold boxes, parkour, or find a very good sniping position in maps. The no-reload hack is relatively new compared to the more traditional hacks. The ability to continually fire with any turret makes it incredibly powerful. Spray weapons will never stop, and the impact force from some turrets such as Hammer or Railgun would send other tankers flying away. This makes it astounding at parkour; Twins can get you up any slope easily whereas Railgun causes a player to flip continually. This hack wreaks havoc in battles and entirely disrupts any battle affected. There is one more type of in-game hack, the speed hack. This changes the timer so that it seems like the speed of a tank is incredible. The hack is a rarer one compared to the others, so you don't see it. It also doesn't pose a particular problem to other players, as their gameplay is generally normal. The fourth and final main type of hack is hacking accounts. This is where you lose your account, generally through someone finding out your password. Unfortunately, the predominant way this happens is you having given your password to another player, or having entered it into a malicious site. Luckily for you though, Tanki has already set up a great system of helping to get people's accounts back. My advice: make sure you have your email linked to your account and that your password is something unique. That way, it is unlikely that you should lose your account and have to go through the worrying process of getting your account back and not being sure if you will ever see your precious tank again. It can be shocking and infuriating if you see a hacker, but don't immediately leave the battle. In my opinion, there are two main ways one can react to having found a hacker. To act, or to turn the other cheek. Both achieve different ends, yet the former is certainly the better option. If no-one acted against cheaters and scammers, they would overrun the game. The key method of combatting a hacker is to confront them. Not many cheaters expect a player to ask “Why are you cheating?” This may seem to attain nothing, but it makes the player behind that screen consider for a moment. Unfortunately, many will swiftly brush off any such comments and think no more of it, and this is where any good player will ultimately act. To most of you, the course of action is obvious, so I won’t bore you with it too much. Evidence is the key to bringing down a hacker. Videos clearly work best and this is what you should strive to get. That’s the tough bit really, having enough time to get a video before they realise someone is against them. A good trick is to have a recorder handy at all times. I personally keep Bandicam open in the background, but I only turn it on for Gold boxes and anything I need as evidence. The minute or so of footage you may get could be the difference to defeating a hacker. The issue I see is that lots of people simply can’t access a recorder; this is not their fault, but it can sometimes pose a problem for catching out hackers. The key solution, some might say, is a new /vote moderation system for countering cheaters, but if this isn’t implemented, there are very few other options. The moderators simply can’t get round to sorting out every hacker all the time, so players would need to gather evidence themselves. Perhaps a method of recording your battles through a Tanki Online database might work, we will have to see what the developers can do. So now we know the hacks and how to catch cheaters, but even if you can’t catch a hacker using a video or through the Tanki Online help desk, it won’t mean that the game is doomed to fall to its knees. Like I said, Tanki has a great team of moderators, but as shown in an interview in the last issue, catching out mults or hackers simply isn’t their priority. This means that they can’t be solely depended upon for bringing down hackers. This is where an automatic system comes into play. The anti-cheat recently brought out by the developers has made a large step towards eliminating hackers. Despite its partial pitfalls, like for players with high PING, it is effective for stopping fly hackers before they can do any damage. Its method of irritating hackers to the point where they see that their efforts are useless, means that they will see that it is pointless to cheat in the game. Even those who perhaps don’t support this new advancement must admit that at the very least, it shows that the developers are doing their best to make this game free from hackers. For all we know, we may soon see radical changes to this update, making it quicker and more effective than the current one. Not only this, but perhaps a way to stop reload hackers or speed hackers, it may all be possible. So, my message to you, the player, is to not be dismayed or infuriated by the threat of hackers. This problem is being worked on. But don’t feel helpless until a liberating update is brought out. You can help to eliminate hackers. Even if we have to do it hacker by hacker, I still believe in a day when there will be no more of them in Tanki Online, and I hope you do too.

I'm guessing he was looking to buy something as he had non-free ones when he was searching for them...

Good luck and hope to see you back soon (or not if you're trying to find a job :ph34r: )

UK

-2

Malaga

No Sha77777_super next?

N My favourite combo is Vulcan and Titan?