Buyer BEWARE! If you are thinking of this bundle for an exclusive paint, I would highly suggest you consider how many dozens of paints Tanki said would be exclusive only to find them in containers or for sale at another point in time. The bundle may possibly be a great value, but just don't make paint exclusivity the main reason you buy this bundle.

Who passed away?

The Free Design has always been pretty obscure...actually very obscure for having generated seven albums, but their music is impeccable, intricate, and usually fun. I only heard of them when Enoch Light released one of thir albums on his Project 3 quadraphonic vinyl records...I ran a stereo store at the time so I got promo stuff occasionally for demonstration purposes. The Free Design was one of the promos. I loved this song and hadn't even thought of it in years until I heard it as the end theme for an episode of the Weeds tv series. Bang, it all came flooding back. This was a great song to sell very very expensive speakers. I would put it on at low volume to allow me to pitch some tech prattle about the particular speakers or entire system I was trying to sell, then at about 1:00, I'd put up the volume a bit and watch the customer. They usually looked like "What the hell music is this?" Then for the phrase at 1:20 I'd turn it up a bit higher where they couldn't ignore it and were forced to do nothing but listen to the big pay off phrase at 1:27 (it really was terrific fidelity). ...Almost always a deal closer. I think they were caught off guard by the childlike words and melody, but the actual music layed them away and they would think that if this dumb song sounded so good, what would the stuff they liked sound like...wow!..."Yep, we'll take it...do you deliver?" The rest of The Free Design catalog is quite good and much of it is lurking around on YouTube. I always thought of them as a cross between The Swingle Singers with some Peter, Paul, and Mary all stuffed into a Carpenters mold.

SEA Tanki is worthless so far...other than I get over 50fps! Previously toxic MM would not let you join battles other than TDM or DM since the player pool is so low, but this has been corrected and you can join a battle...well, you can get onto a map...alone. No opponents ever show up. Glitches: 1) Can't self destruct if you flip...delete key does not work and shows an odd icon in the "self-destruct" screen (not delete) 2) No button to exit "Garage". Exit Garage within a battle by the timer's automatic pop-up or just clicking the screen 3) Right shift will not actuate OverDrive (only left shift works)(if you manually add R.Shift in "settings" it will actuate the OD) 4) 2 or 3 second delay in viewing missions after clicking "Daily Missions" star 5) Profile or ratings link does not work by clicking rank icon in upper left corner...no way to get to profile page since all links are through PlayPark addition: 6) Capturing points in CP adds nothing to score, XP, or battle fund

Quote: In a recent release, we added the option to open additional free containers in exchange for viewing ads. With today’s release, we’ve added even more bonuses that you can get for watching ads. I've been suggesting this for years....literally years, and every time I posted something about it, I was virtually mocked and ridiculed for have suggested such an offensive idea. I even pointed out several games that generated income in this fashion, like Agario. What I'd like to see is this ad feature start on PC also. It's a great and benign way for Tanki to generate extra revenue and for players to make extra in-game income...even the advertisers come out on the good side with tens of thousands of extra views.

So if you don't buy a "battle pass" you get 10 containers if you complete all the levels...40 containers for buyers of the pass. 10 containers for freebie players...40 containers for buyers. 10 / 40 Nah, Tanki is not pay to win :)

You have got to be a troll. Or a gambler. I could see that if you like the luck aspect of a game, MM is certainly on your side and makes Tanki battles fun for you. For those of us that like to pit our skill against another players skill, MM is just absolutely horrible and, for me, unplayable in conjunction with the new mission system. I don't mean to be attacking you here but Tanki ha said several times that GS has nothing to do with MM and battle placement. Your GS rating has nothing to do with much of anything really, it's just a pointless number to substitute for the previous system of seeing players actual tank strength...MU level.

I am in Thailand. Tanki is running through a site called PlayPark. It's like Mini-Clip, or a smaller version of Steam. The servers are separate like our Latin and Chinese cousins.

Wow. ...I live in Thailand and was just on PlayPark (kind of like MiniClip or a baby Steam) and saw that Tanki is offered through them now. It's on entirely different servers like our Latin and Chinese counterparts. Looks like TO is getting serious about this Mobil thing...too bad they trashed the game itself.

I don't think there is much here to motivate a new player. I can't imagine going in as an actual newbie. You can get to rank 3 in about ten minutes. At rank 3 (and ranks 1 & 2) MM will put you into battles with many players that have already bought M! kits and fully MUed them to M2. Smoky/Wasp, Smoky/Titian, Firebird/Wasp, Rico/Viking, Freeze/Viking...a real newbie has trouble even driving, how in the hell are they supposed to combat M2 equipment as soon as they spawn in as a Recruit? Nah, Tanki as it is now will only send new players to Fortnite.

Tanki is becoming close to unplayable at any rank that I know of (up to rank 23...I've never ranked higher). I've stopped playing with this account because there is zero fun at this rank...it's just spawn and die in a half a second to as long as two seconds. The rank brackets are too wide, the maps are too cluttered and everything is about drugs, drones, and soon magic OD hulls. This level is worthless, and since I can't imagine it gets any better in the higher ranks or even the lofty Legend ranks, I just stopped using this, my main account. I was playing in the lower ranks but that is getting old quick because after rank 10 the missions become ridiculous. Getting 5000 crystals or 10000 points of score is outrageous for a rank 10. So I started a new account and planned to abandon it at rank 10. But, now even at rank 3, because of the excessively wide rank brackets. you are up against fully MUed M1 kits...Firefly, Thor, Keeper...ranks six and even seven ranks above you. It is impossible to be competitive with any M0 equipment against drugging virtual M2 regardless of skill level. At rank 3 double damage and double armor are not even unlocked yet! Real newbies don't stand a chance. I considered sending in real money to buy 700,000 crystals for a new account, but even with all the crystals you could use, there isn't much improvement. You are at the whim of MM...where ever it wants to squirt you. Tanki is mostly just a game of luck now...and that is not why I play video games. The missions are too difficult regardless of how many crystals you have. I want to feel like I have accomplished something...that I am winning or at least getting ahead by completing missions. Tanki is giving me NOTHING in its current form. I think I now only play Tanki because it is habit to play Tanki. There is nothing left in Tanki that is actually fun. The game is ruined.

I guess Tanki is hoping that the grind will motivate players to send in real money instead of grinding free crystals. Maybe they have a big enough player base to support this semi-extortion marketing strategy. Time will tell I guess.

Gosh, I feel dumb as a flat rock. I must be getting old. After listening to Lucky Man a few more times, the thing I said here is seeming less true. Now I'm pretty sure this is the original version. My memory was playing tricks on me. The garf flat note is still in there but doesn't take center stage like my memory was telling me. It also was only a tad flat instead of being as off as I remembered. I thought it carried on through the ending fade where the drums stay at the same-ish volume. In fact, now to my better trained ear than when I was a kid, I am kind of thinking that it wasn't even a garf. I think Emerson went a bit less than a half step lower to blend the pitch up to end on the minor third(?). If it were written it might have looked like a quick key change. I'm not inclined to over analyze it though...too lazy. Anyway the pitch I'm referring to is at 4:13 and acts as kind of a grace note to the actual minor. I am left wondering if it was intentional or a garf...with Emesron gone, we will probably never know.

I woke up with this bouncing around in my brain. Play both videos at the same time. Listen to the sound on this first one, but watch the second one with the sound turned off :) The video and music go together quite well...Timing isn't critical an together they make a great music video. Even the credits fit well. It would be very cool if the white screen at the end stayed a bit longer, but for an impromptu music video, it's pretty neat. "I'll find myself some wings" Turn off the sound on this one and watch it while listening to "No Time"

To be honest, whenever I see one of these NCS or similar organizations, I'm immediately skeptical since there is just so so so much drek and insipid pap published under their auspices, but I always try anyway because it was recommended on this forum. This piece that you posted is a real surprise! It is really good....I like it a lot. It's fun with lots of energy and it goes somewhere instead of just sitting there in a pool of its own electronica burbbling. There is some variation and structure to this instead of just a hook getting repeated over and over and over. They are certainly using a catchy hook and they repeat it a lot, but they are treating it more like a theme instead of just putting it on a loop and build sequence. Good post, thanks for the new tune (to me anyway) :)

I never heard of these guys before. When listened to through early 70's ears, they are very very good. They have a bit of that Rolling Stone sound that was ubiquitous back in that era. I really like these guys...I would have been gonzo for them back in the day had I known about them. I will look on YouTube for more from them....good stuff, thanks for the post :)

Who knew? Wow, The Monkees. I liked them back in the day and like them now. Back in dino-rock times they really got critically thrashed because they were a "synthetic" band...individuals cast for a TV series. That wouldn't even cause a ripple today, but back then it was shocking and anti-art...sell-outs. So their music always had a not-as-good-as "real" stigma attached to it. Hell, music is music to me whether it is created by a musical genius, a guy pounding sticks rhythmically, or an AI emulating what it computes as music. The thing is The Monkees turned out to be a brilliant band that ended up creating some great music...and they were certainly innovative. I think I did a post here already about Michael Nesmith creating the fisrt music video. I had no idea M. Dolenz was one of the first Moog owners. He doesn't do much with it in this song (must have just gotten it) other than make some freaky noises where Keith Emerson is using it as a dynamic melodic instrument. There are some great shots of all the wires, dials, and 1/4 inch phono plugs involved with what is now done with just a few mega-bytes on a tiny chip. The original Moogs were a mad musical scientist contraption...how far we have come :) I looked up Moogs in Wikipedia and the article gives Daily Nightly credit as one of the first rock tunes to use a Moog. Another article credits Quincy Jones for a previous use (by a few months) for the first commercial use in the Ironsides Theme. Cool. Ironsides is what introduced me to Quincy Jones who became one of my very favorite musicians ever. Who knew? I really like picking up these little tid bits...fun. It also goes on to say that Keith Emerson of ELP got the second Moog available in the UK and collaborated with the inventor when some tuning problems arose which led to more commercial production of the Moogs and other early synths. It's a small musical world :) This is a 1971 re-orchestrated version of the original TV theme. Hubert Laws does a simple but completely memorable flute passage. The brass section has a brilliant big band brass sound...love the bass trombones playing their pedal notes :) This is still one of my favorite albums of all time...back in the day it was breathtaking. The original theme didn't have quite the impact, but it did use a Moog. Here is the pilot episode of Ironsides...the original orchestration of the theme is pretty raw by comparison, but it's here if anyone might be curious.

It would be wonderful if they would abandon MM since it is 90% of what is wrong with Tanki today. I do fear that the coming magic hulls might be another debacle almost as gross as MM. Time will tell. I really liked one of your lines and have made it my Tanki credo: "Embrace the suck" ....too funny...ROTFL If they ever have hulls with lettering, this is going on mine :)

Interestingly this is not the original version...at least not all of it at the end. In the original, you can hear Emerson's Moog going a tad flat on a sustained pitch. It was a garf in the studio but they left it in and, to me, the dissonance it created always added a mesmerizing color to the ending...almost eerie in nature. A great song and probably my favorite of from ELP also :) This one one of the first uses of a synthesizer in pop music. Moogs had been around for awhile already an there was lots of music featuring them as a solo instrument similar to a piano or organ (Dick Hyman comes to mind), but this is one of the first improvisational-like solos incorporated into a normal rock band piece. Emerson does a masterful job forcing that wave-form to his will...it wasn't easy like it is today. And that ancient Moog sound is so very very phat. A very hard sound to get now-a-days in the sampling era. Guys are refurbishing old Moogs and Leslie amps just to get that vacuum tube rich phat tone. I had no idea he wrote it that young...pretty amazing.

MM doesn't use GS...at least Tanki has said that they don't and I believe them. I honestly think MM only uses rank and doesn't pay much attention to that even. MM looks at the players trying to enter a game, probably grabs one rank initially, maybe even at random, and fills in with equal ranks as much as possible then starts choosing ranks on each side of the original player rank...or even fill in from ranks below the original players rank (I actually doubt this, but it would explain why it seems like I'm always one of the lowest ranked players :) ). I really don't think there is any real matching in MatchMaking...it's just squirt players from a queue into a battle, done. As far a luck in Tanki goes, that is mostly all there is now. 70% luck, 20% equipment, 10% skill...maybe even less in skill. Little kids like the luck aspect and get their parents to fork over cash to buy flash equipment. Neo-Tanki is a completely different game than the Tanki I was crazy about. Everything changes. The thing is all this awfulness (and I'm including the future magic hulls update) seems to be working somehow. Since Halloween Tanki's player numbers have been almost back where they were just after MM was implemented...around 28,000 at peak play time. It was off a tad today, but overall and consistently they have picked up about 30% more players somehow. Maybe it is the mobile thing, but that seems a bit unlikely. Players are coming back, or at least more are online more often. Maybe the evil mission system plan is working and that is what is bumping up Tanki's player count. Personally, I had an alt account and was playing that until it got to rank 10 where the missions get terrible so I stopped playing it. I just made a new acct and plan to play that until it gets to rank 10, then abandon it too for another new acct. I don't enjoy the higher ranks at all. The game-play is awful and the horrible missions create too much pressure. At low ranks, the missions are do-able, there are no drones, there is less drug usage, and overall you live longer than a couple of nano seconds after spawning in. The only disadvantage is many players have fully MUed M1 equipment while I'm still using M0 stuff, but with some skill and cunning it is still way more fun and less frustrating than trying to use ByeByeBye against fully MUed M3 equipment, drones, alterations, and choke drugs.

Here's one of my fav Christmas pieces, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer took parts of this for their "I Believe in Father Christmas" and while it is good, it falls woefully short of the original. This Andre Previn version is pretty close to a proper rendering of Prokofiev's winter time treat. It's short...try it, you'll like it :)

Uhhh, get a new one? Dating sites I guess...say you are interested in Polynesian ladies. There may be some Tongans in Germany since in the late 1800s many Germans immigrated to Tonga. There have to be many Tahitians and Marquesans in France. The best would be to hop a flight or find a freighter going through the canal and on to New Zealand via several island chain stops. Some of the Kiwi Maori babes might be right up your alley too :) It is a whole other world in the South Pacific. Tonga, Samoa, Cooks, Society, Marquesas, Kiribatti, Tuamotus, Marshals, Fiji, Solomans, and more. Tonga and Samoa are probably the easiest to get to and least expensive to stay. The Societys are very easy to get to but ungodly expensive since tons of Westerners want to see Tahiti and Bora Bora...plus the massive French influence hasn't helped that part of the South Pacific. There are people from all ove the South Pacific in New Zealand and NZ is a lovely country...fairly inexpensive too with almost no culture shock to a European. Do some online research. I like the Tongan islands the best, but New Zealand might be the most efficient, easiest, and most do-able overall.

I just found this clip...great stuff...monsters of dino-rock I still like the original better...heavy metal classical. 2:48 sees the most dynamic symphonic brass choir chord ever played...ever.

Wow...what a colorful experience. Not many replications of that going on in the world today...well, maybe that is the norm for Scotland, but I somehow doubt it. You need a Pacific Islander girlfriend if you like them tough. Try Tonga or Samoa. They LOVE Western men too. Many ladies there are definitely warrior women.

To be honest I am a bit disappointed in this offering from Dua Lipa and BlackPink. It is good, but it doesn't have the passion that much of Dua Lipa's previous work had. BlackPink doesn't add much in term of vocals and their signature dancing is pointedly absent. I don't care much about watching K-girls Vogue-pose. Cool groove and all, but just kind of on the bland side for the song overall. Maybe they will do something more for a future re-mix, but for now this is just a bit of bubble-gum pop-fluff. IMHO :)