Review [Issue 8] Tanki: The Social SIde

[hogree 4,179]

Boom. Your Thunder picks off its final prey. 100th kill of the day, and another 150 in the battle fund you think, feeling satisfied. But, though playing is awesome, Tanki isn't all about the kills and crystals you make every hour. The game has a more social side to it as well. The question is, what is this social side and do you take full advantage of it?

The game we play, Tanki Online is great at loads of things – fun and enjoyment are at the top of the list. But people often massively overlook the actual social side of Tanki. Socialising may seem lame to some of you, but fun and enjoyment flow out of it in the end. In this article, I'm just going to run through a few of Tanki's “social features” that can make this game a whole lot more enjoyable for all of us Tanki players. Here goes.




Now, I can be pretty sure that you guys have at least used the in-game chats at least once. But just for you who really know nothing about Tanki, the in-game chat can be used when you are in a battle or when you are in the battle lobby. Simply press your “Enter” key or click the "Chat", type your message, then press the “Enter” key again, and boom. But I'm not writing this article particularly to teach you how the game chat works. I sorta hope that you aren't brainless and at least know that. However, I'm just wondering – do you guys put the in-game chat to all the use you can get out of it?

• To win battles

For you hardcore Tanki gamers who probably don't care abut socialising, this is for you. When your battling, you may think “What is the point of using the chat – just play for goodness sake!” But just remember, battles are sometimes won by in-game chat. When you are in the middle of your respawning time after dying, if there any threats you saw, there is no harm at all in warning your teammates. For example, a simple “Flag” or “F” can help alert your teammates, whether you know them or not, to be alerted towards the flag. Other useful phrases, particularly when you are playing with Russians is just to have the Russian words for flag “флаг” or just “ф” copied so that when in-game you can just paste your message in lightning quick time, and your teammates will know the threat. When you are battling, admittedly it is bad to use in-game chat in most circumstances – it is best to just use yourself. However, there are times when you are respawning, and in all honesty, you may as well use your time well.

There are obviously other ways of helping your teams win battles with some useful team chat, with advices like telling teammates what to use or often just simply asking the weaker players in your team to leave. These can come in useful as well when you're simply trying to win a battle. Never underestimate the power of typing. However, don't abuse it – remember, playing is more important if your intention is to win battles. That's all for winning battles with in-game chat but later on, another means will be addressed.

• To make friends

In all honesty, from my experience, a lot of Tanki players just aren't friendly. If you are one of those people, you could skip this section... or you could read it and actually try to be friendly. This will give you some tips on how you can make Tanki much more fun, without actually getting a gold box.

Making friends via In-game chat doesn't come automatically. Don't say “Hi” on lobby chat, and expect to get a miraculous amount of people replying to you. Though sometimes this works, effective ways of building a friendship with other Tanki players normally sprouts from a battle. To be honest, this isn't as easy as A-B-C, as sometimes people are unwilling to socialize with you – unfortunately. On the other hand, it's a technique worth learning, so you can have a better experience in Tanki.

There is no definite guarantee way of making friends in Tanki, it should come more naturally than anything – but being able to be open to friendships is always useful. Often this can be a simple “Hi” in a battle your playing with, just to start a conversation going. If you can speak Russian as well as English, you have a massive advantage, since you can communicate with the majority of Tanki players. If not, you can even ask whether anyone else speaks English. These are all conversation starters. It may seem random to start chatting to this player you haven't seen before, but a lot of my friends have come from – yep, you got it – random players in a battle I was with.

Now, its obviously more easy to make friends with people, when your not in a hardcore battle, since your not so free to type while fighting, so its generally a good idea to socialize with your teammates after the battle is over – some of the best friendships are mounted up by good teamwork in a standard battle. However, just general openess to socialising is usually able to make at least a temporal friendship during a battle, and maybe even a lasting one. Who knows, maybe that guy who just said “hi” to you on the server lobby chat might be your best Tanki friend in a few days. Making friends with in-game chat goes both ways. You need to be open to make friends, and you need to attempt to make friends. Trust me, though it won't work all the time, at least trying to socialise with people will prove fruitful in time.




LOL XD DONT TRY Hmm... Now we get on to talk about the complex subject of the Tanki Forum. Everyone who's reading this topic will have had some experience, at least a minute amount of this. Again, I'm not here to write about how to use this, how to make a poll, how to send Private Messages, blah blah blah. You can find that stuff out in the FAQ forum section. I'm here to give you some tips on socialising in this interesting feature.

• The Forum Itself

Now, this is far more simple to understand regarding “social sides”. The forum was made to be social. As a result, there's not exactly a lot I can say about “how to be social on a forum”. Its almost a contradiction in terms. But just for you guys who are interesting in what social aspects can be brought out in the forum, here goes.

From experience, I've been around in the forum for two plus years now. I'm not going to lie – its changed massively since the first few times I was here. Because of the small playerbase, there used to be much less activity on the forum and pretty much everyone was noticed if they posted half-actively. Nowadays, not so. With the influx of Tanki players, so has come to the influx of Tanki forumers, naturally. And though I say it myself, some aren't the most beneficial forumers either. So don't be surprised if you make a topic which turns into a random discussion about random stuff. It's more than likely to happen.

However, on the bright side, the forum has many up points. Most my Tanki friends have come through the forum at least in an indirect way, generally through my clan. Posting actively, but not flooding, will particularly help you to settle into the forum and helping people in questions helpfully will not go amiss. However, I personally look down on pointlessly posting to get your name bigger (or post count), and people who clearly are just posting for the sake of posting. If you think the more posts you get, the more I'm likely to get friends, then sorry, but you're wrong. It isn't the posts that are the big deal – its the attitude. And don't forget contests – they're very related to the forum, and they give you crystals. :o So it must be worth it!

So if you haven't really given the forum a go, for whatever reason or not, its an idea if you actually care about socialising to just at least try it. If you don't like the forum, sure – I'm not really sure I do sometimes. But its a great social aspect of Tanki, and can build many a relationship. The next point I'm going to do here will more build up to a social part of the forum.

• Clans

Yep, Im pretty sure you've heard enough about clans now – the amount of articles there are related to clans is more than enough, but in all honesty, I've got to bring this social side of Tanki in here. Clans are often the most social part of Tanki, and they really help in friendship building, and being able to have Tanki friends to play with.

In the Tanki Forum Index there is a forum section by the name of “Clans and Teams [English]”. See it? Good. Inside are many hidden gems by the name of clans. If you are a regular reader of the newspaper you should know pretty much everything about clans, but if not, I'll just run through the simple details. Clans are like social groups of people who fight together in normal battles and more famously, clan wars. They generally have a chat or a forum and there still are lots of these.

Clans have really taken off in the last year or two. When I joined Tanki, they were literally only social groups – end of story. However, now, there are often clan tournaments and a lot more activity in the forums about clans. But, what about the social aspect of clans?

In my view, clans are the best social side of Tanki. Tons of my Tanki friends started friendships with me in my clan. Some clans have different priorities – some more focus on warring than others, while some prioritize the social side to the battle side. Once you join, its not exactly for me to tell you what to do, since I'm not the leader of every single clan in the English community. However, all I can say is that if you are not involved in a clan, I heartily recommend you to join a clan. If you are interested in socialising, I can guarantee you that it will be worth it.



This last section here dwells on the non-Tanki sources used to socialise with other Tanki players. Over recent times, things like the Livestream channel, Skype chats, and social networks have grown in Tanki. These offer another side to socialising, outside the limitations of the Tanki social network. This will be slightly more of an informative section, but also addressing the social abilities on these networks.

• Skype

Some call it the social Tanki. Others don't. But whatever your view is on it, Skype is host to a massive use in Tanki. From voice chats to general social text chats, Skype is one of the social essences used in this game.

Now, in-game chat might just be too tacky for some of you people out there, but there are replacements which often are better if they can be used. Skype is very popular as a social communication feature when playing, which is even more useful since you can communicate with other players without even having to use your keyboard while you're moving. This requires good knowledge of the other player however, as well as their Skype username, and a mic to use voice chat with. But with Skype, voice chat can be a massive battle help use and social use, particularly strengthening relationships with those you have got to know. Obviously, you can't join a battle and automatically load into a voice chat with everyone your playing with, but this is particularly useful for people who know each other.

Some believe Skype is only useful for voice chats, but that really isn't true. The majority of clans use a Skype text chat as their means of general communication, and there are social Tanki chats just for normal players to chat to each other such as the “Tanki Online Forever!” chat (find out more here). If you haven't got a Skype account, and you want to be as social as you can, then Skype is for you. You need wisdom, of course, in who you accept as contacts, but generally Skype is safe, as long as you don't start video chatting with every random person you see on the chat. Socialising on Skype doesn't need explaining – it's not rocket science. All I can say is that using Skype is a big part of the Tanki Social side.

• The Rest of The “Socials”

The header I gave this gives it away a bit, but I think we can safely say that what I'm going to mention in this final bit is the rest of the Tanki social parts. I'll just run through each of them.

The Tanki Blog is definitely another part of the social aspect of Tanki, though not so prioritized. For you who don't know, the blog is located in the bottom right of your Tanki homepage, beneath the “News” section. It often contains mini-contests, and also V-logs and the wallpapers. Every now and again, there appears another thing found and worth posting on top of these. You can discover the rest out for yourself. Tanki Polls are located beneath that, which also offer a slight addition to the social side of Tanki. About one or two polls are brought in each week, and you can have fun voting in those as well.

The Tanki Livestream Channel almost deserves a section on its own, but I decided to fit it in here, as ShadowVisions did an article describing it in the previous issue. This is a key part of the social side of Tanki, hosting a pile of different things – clan tournaments, radio shows, news updates and even the occasional mini-contest. Its a good place to socialise, even though it isnt live all the time. I heartily recommend going on it - a good social place. If you are interested in the link, just click here.

Tanki also has Facebook and Twitter pages. Here it updates its latest news, keeps you in knowing with all things Tanki, and sometimes even throws a few crystals about in its contests. Not a big social thing of Tanki, but it wont go amiss to like the Facebook page, or follow them on their Twitter page. Recently, also some Vlogs have been brought out by Bruce regarding random Tanki news, or just for fun. You can stay tuned to those on the blog or on Facebook. They come out approximately once a week.

And last but not least, the thing right now your reading – the very Tanki Newspaper itself - is also a part of the Tanki Social life. Please keep reading it, and comment your opinions on the article. I would also be interested to hear of your own favourite part of the social side of Tanki below. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day. :)



Avatar credits to BLASTOISE-T12 - Cover Picture Credits to chriswu

Edited September 26, 2017 by Hexed

[Beerme 106]

Good article :P

gj pig

[Zero-nl 36]

Thnx for tips. I'm acctually trying to socialize, but most players are or Russian, or I never see them again.

I still know a name of a player I once met, nearly 4 moths ago, for just one single battle. But i never saw her (yes, a she-player) again.

So, or people are Russian, or they leave me and don't come back. I'm becoming more and more active on the forum, hoping to get some new

friends. By the way, if someone wants to start a personal conversation with me, i'd be glad ;)

Edited February 5, 2013 by Zero-nl

[inplatform 82]

Well, in battles, most people are Russian so they do not understand what we say.

[hogree 4,179]

Thats true, but because of this a lot of people dont bother to socialize even if they dont know whether there's a fellow-English speaker in the battle. So it dont harm if you at least try to socialize since also a lot of Russians talk english as well. :)

[GoldRock 6,165]

Thats true, but because of this a lot of people dont bother to socialize even if they dont know whether there's a fellow-English speaker in the battle. So it dont harm if you at least try to socialize since also a lot of Russians talk english as well. :)

Yes, I find this is true. The least you can do is when you are healed by an Isida in a battle (or helped in any other way), and there's a load of Russian being typed in the chat, just type 'cnc'. I've heard it's Russian for 'thanks' :)

[DRAKULICIOUS 0]

No need to socialize. How boring is THAT

[Scribo 167]

Bah. humbug.

[heregger 0]

Player heregger has been banned for a week. Reason: unreasonable, disrespectful criticism of the game and its authors, Owner; any activities that have an adverse effect on project development (Forum).р 2.14 Rules

Edited March 1, 2013 by Lhamster