Review [Issue 9] Maps that Once Were!

[skitee 555]

In this article, I will talk about the maps that once were but are no longer... the maps that formerly were part of our game but are not any more.

The average Tanki player would probably be forgiven for believing that the only maps that Tanki has ever had are the ones which are in the game currently. On the other hand, considering how recently “HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013” existed, such an excuse would probably not hold water. Despite that, many of you may end up being surprised at the amount of maps, special for holidays or otherwise, that used to be part of our game but are no longer. Let me try to go through all the maps which I can remember having existed and inform you about what they were for and why they no longer exist.

Carousel

Carousel was a very unique map. It was specially created for a special event, namely, a Tanki Online race, which was held in March 2011 and won by “nikita544”. Information about the race (in Russian, so use translate) can be found here: http://ru.tankiforum...showtopic=39226 and a video of the final can be found here: http://www.youtube.c...&v=AGpyc82bfJU. That video also gives a good view of how the map Carousel is built.

Carousel was only made in DeathMatch mode and contained up to eleven players. As you can see from the video, there is a central platform where the railgun “referee” is standing on. You cannot see this fact in the video, but that area is where all the players respawned, which gave an advantage to players using weapons such as firebird or freeze as all the players who respawned were within their range. However, you will also be able to see the “outer rim”, where the race occurred. No respawning occurred there, but players using railgun, smoky or thunder (Shaft did not exist when Carousel was around) were able to “escape” to the edges and snipe from there at the other players, out of range of all except fellow long-range weapons.

Incidentally, my highest ever end-of-game kill-death-ratio came in Carousel, when I was able to escape and sit by the side of the map firing at the players in the middle (and drugging; as I was so far away from them they could not see my drugs ^_^)

Unfortunately, after the race event was over, Carousel was removed from the game, never to be seen again. It was an entertaining map, with gameplay like no other in the game, and one which many people, including myself, wanted to be retained. It also, of course, was a fantastic race map. Would you have wanted Carousel to be retained? Which of the current Tanki maps is the best for racing?

Fly Test

Fly Test is a test server special and was for a very long time. Whenever you went into the Test Server, Fly Test was the map which you would have to play in to rank up to Private before you could use addscore, which was the way the test server worked for a long time. (You couldn't use the chat until you reached the rank of private, so it was a hard ask for you to use your m0 smoky m0 wasp against these drugging M3-M3s...) New players will never be able to remember those experiences. You think playing Tanki is tough as it is? Not until you've experienced doing that, it isn't anywhere near tough.

However, the actual purpose of this map was not to rank up but to check the “Flying” ability of the hulls. The map had a whole series of towers at different heights where you could drive off and “fly” off and see how far you got. When the new tanks such as hornet and viking were created, they were originally tested in Fly Test to see how far they would fly.

The actual map itself had no cover whatsoever (except for those ramps and “fly” jumps). No walls, no platforms, not even bushes. There was just a large open space dispersed with these ramps and jumps. Unsurprisingly, very few people actually enjoyed playing in it. In fact, I have yet to find someone other than myself who thought it was an enjoyable map to play in – the unpopularity may have been due to the bad memories attached to it, though.

Despite that unpopularity, Fly Test was brought into the servers at one point, though I can't exactly remember when. It didn't last long. I think that it was accidentally brought into the main server and was never meant to be there. It was removed after a couple of days, and has not been seen in the Test Server since! Pity, huh? All those memories gone to waste...

Labyrinth

Unlike Carousel and Fly Test, Labyrinth was designed to last. It was in the test server for a while and was released to the main server in September 2011. However, despite working fine in the test server, it was unable to work in the main server, with players reporting the common “grey screen” problem when entering the map. As a result, the map got taken down and forgotten. There was another attempt later to re-introduce the map, but that also was unsuccessful and Labyrinth no longer exists.

So what was Labyrinth like? Well, here's a picture of what the map was like:


As you can see, the layout is quite simple – yet very confusing! All the map was spread out on one-layer, but that layer was a maze – a “labyrinth”. One team had their base on one side of the map, and the other team were on the other side. But in the middle... chaos! Who knows? Okay, it was quite simple to work out once you got the hang of it. Even so, it wasn't easy! Ricochet was very useful in the map, but you had to guess the location of your enemies. Mines were also particularly useful, especially as the only way for players to avoid a mine would be to change direction. Would you like to see Labyrinth re-introduced? Why? Which current map is the most confusing for you?

Madness

What a pity. One of the most famous Tanki maps, left on the scrap heap like this. Pity, huh? Madness was originally released on July 30^th 2010. It quickly became one of the most popular maps, especially when a CTF mode was released soon after, which was one of the most exciting CTFs in the game, players having to ensure a secure landing on the lower platform – easier said that done – before being able to try to capture flags.

Madness was also the first map to be given “Space mode” - the mode where the map has minimal gravity. This started on “Cosmonautics Day” in 2011 and further added to the intrigue associated with Madness. Madness continued to be a prominent Tanki map, becoming one of the most popular on the servers, especially when the randomized drop location of the gold box added a further level of skill towards Madness.

Madness truly was a “mad map”. It appeared that the creator had forgotten what he (or she) was doing when creating the map and had just put props in random positions. There was a solid(ish) floor where the two flags were, but above that it was just a random hodgepodge of slopes shaping in what seemed to have no particular order. Despite that, the map was popular and successful, with players who memorized the exact positions of each prop having a huge advantage. It was a great map...

Until, inexplicably, around the middle of 2012, the map was removed. This was because there was a glitch in the map, although I do not know exactly what the glitch was. The map has yet to be returned. Do you think it will return? When?

Train Station

This map was released on December the 1^st 2011 in commemoration of the high standing which Tanki got in the “Runet Awards”. It had twice the number of crystal box drops than the average map its size, which made it very popular for a time. It was a simple map, with the two teams' bases on opposite sides of the map. There was a line of train tracks outside each base, a “platform” in the centre, and bridges leading over the platforms from each base. It was very simple and very popular for a time. However, there were glitches – two of the towers were able to be infiltrated using a combination of parkour and luck, and shafts used that for their own advantage. Because of that, when the celebrations were over, the map was removed. It was a fine map though, and one which I would like to see returned. What about you?

Happy Halloween

This is different from the aforementioned maps in that this map was originally planned just to exist for a short space of time. Created for, (guess what?!), Halloween, it used the original props and was one of only a select few maps (the three fort knoxes and Wolfenstein being the others) which used the “Castle” props.

“Happy Halloween” also included new, Halloween props, such as Ghouls, pumpkins, and gravestones, which gave the map a “creepy” feel, as well as a darker complexion than all of the other maps, which further added to the “creepy” feeling. It was the first map to have such an effect, I hope that a “night mode” will be applicable to all maps soon. Hopefully.

“Happy Halloween” included all four game modes, including CP, and was quite popular for the short time it was part of the game, not least because of its unique 305-crystal box, which fell for the duration of the Halloween celebrations in the centre of this map. It was removed after the Holiday Celebrations.


Happy New Year 2011/2012/2013

I'm taking all of these maps together because I'm lazy they are very similar. Every year since New Year 2011 there has been a new map released specially for new year celebrations. Each year has been slightly different, but much of the maps have been the same every year.

One thing which has been the same every year has been the giant Christmas (or New Year's!) tree in the middle, which can be seen in the following picture, dressed up in full seasonal decorations:

The maps have also always been in “old” winter props. They all have also had a central area with the tree in the middle where all of the crystal boxes and all (except in the 2013 edition) of the supply drop boxes. All have been Deathmatch-only battlegrounds.

But what have been the differences? The first one, in 2011, was Sandbox, without the walls on the central platform but with the tree in the middle instead. It had drop boxes disguised as “snowflake” boxes, and inside each box was a random surprise, which was either 1,2 or 5 crystals and any one of the supplies. In 2012, the map was the same, except without the “walls” which surround Sandbox (making it possible to fall off the map). It did not have snowflake boxes but did continue to have 2 crystal boxes, which were marked with the number “2” on the outside. In 2013, the map was far bigger. And, of course, most of you readers will probably remember it, so I'm not going to explain it.

If you played in all of them, which New Year map was your favourite? If you didn't, which ones would you want to play in?

Those, above, are the maps which I can remember which have since been removed from the game. Looking through the “Patch Notes/Updates” I can see some other maps, such as “Bridges II”, but unfortunately I cannot remember them. Maybe someone else can enlighten us upon those maps! I will, however, point out a couple of other map-related things which have since been removed from the game.

Space Monte Carlo, Space Camp, Space Arena

Those three maps, Monte Carlo, Camp and Arena, all had “Space” - minimal gravity – modes in them for Cosmanautic's Day 2012. This was very enjoyable, especially in Camp, as it was possible, using shots from smoky/Thunder, to fire yourself to the enemy base, something impossible in normal gravity mode. Unfortunately, these modes were removed after the Cosmonautic's Day celebrations, much to the disappointment of most players.

Polygon CTF

Polygon used to have CTF. The flags were located just behind the two buildings on the opposite sides of the central “square”. They were very close to each other, and despite the map able to hold a lot of players, the close proximity of the two flags made capturing very common. Whilst it existed, CTF was a very popular mode in this map, but soon after it came out the developers' removed it, obviously because of the far-too-close flags.

v2.tankionline.com

Remember Tanki 2.0? Originally planned for August 2010, eventually cancelled in May 2012? For a while, it appeared that it looked likely to happen. The original release date was going to be June the 4^th 2011, and when a 2.0 test server was released a month before that date, it looked positive. The only problem was, the test server was not what people had been hoping for. It lagged, being way over-crowded, incredibly. The garage consisted of only a few weapons – Smoky, Thunder, Firebird, and Railgun, if I remember rightly, and a similarly small amount of hulls – Viking was one, Wasp as well – I think there may have been one more.

There were only three maps, Crash, Arena, and Sandbox, and I was only able to play in Arena... The graphics were scintillating. Absolutely brilliant. Gameplay? Meh. When everyone's lagging, it's not worth the bother.

The big change which v2.tankionline.com had, however, was the interface. Players had their own profiles, the battle lobby could be searched, the whole layout was absolutely different from what we know today. Example pictures of what could be found in v2.tankionline.com can be found here: http://playtanki.com...y_screenshots/6 It was absolutely incredible to experience, even if playing in the server was a pain, not to mention impossible. Pity, huh? Would be amazing to play Tanki looking like that. Maybe soon?

Actually fun gameplay in Silence II

Only kidding! This never ever existed!

And there we go. Some parts of our game which formerly existed but do no longer... Which would you like to return the most?

Edited July 31, 2017 by Hexed

[hogree 4,179]

Carousel <3 Fresh memories of an epic map. Lol @ last part. And nice cover pic. Good article bro.

[Raphael2 3,263]

Good article too, i miss Madness a lot, I knew train station, Happy New Year 2012/2013, Polygon CTF of course, I never entered a Labyrinth battle, and I played Carousel on TTT.

[Vikingsrallentando 3,058]

I would love to see Madness return. I saw flashy textures in that map once in a while (prop overlapping), which could be what is referred to as a glitch. And there was the obvious issue of mults, something that can be fixed quite easily.

 

Some maps I had never knew about before reading this. Was a good read.

[rasyt 1]

Madness, come back! As a map with few props, it was pure gameplay heaven.

 

Same for Carousel. I wish Tanki would allow unique maps to stay. That map was so small, to escape the main spawn square and head towards the large open space was accomplishment #1. If you made it to the outer track without getting killed, that was accomplishment #2. If you drove around track to the back, you were golden and on your way to a 50/3 DL ratio, lol.

[MONKBLOB 33]

Oh the memories, bring them back! Would LOVE to see Madness again, maybe one day. Anyway great article!

[jalenpen 9]

i would like to see labyrinth, madness and trainstation back. (i have never seen train station)

[RiseOfCucumber 651]

I have never play Carousel :mellow: Coz I stick to Silence map :lol:

[skitee 555]

Nobody would love to have v2.tankionline.com back? :huh:

[Meliora 1,652]

Good.

[MONKBLOB 33]

Nobody would love to have v2.tankionline.com back? :huh:

Ehh, not 'too' fond of graphics that are too realistic.

[jcmm94 118]

liked to hear "We are pleased to present the famous map Madness"

[Zuzuca 94]

Madness a long time... :rolleyes:

[rasyt 1]

Nobody would love to have v2.tankionline.com back? :huh:

 

Not me. More distractions to the pureness of the game. IMHO, realistic v2 shadows to hide in would add unecessary complexity to an already fun game. In other words, don't mess with what works, or you may find yourself with a very realistic "looking" game that's no longer fun to play. Team Fortress 2 comes to mind when I speak of fun games that put gameplay ahead of graphics realism.

[r_SwagBoy110 421]

I did not know about many of these maps, I read the whole thing and quite enjoyed it. Great job skit!

Edited March 4, 2013 by r_SwagBoy110

[Alklines 1,751]

Halloween and New Years celebrations are holidays. You can't count them as "maps" because they're temporary. They never were, and never will. Temporary is the key word, here. pfffft :rolleyes:

[skitee 555]

Halloween and New Years celebrations are holidays. You can't count them as "maps" because they're temporary. They never were, and never will. Temporary is the key word, here. pfffft :rolleyes:

They may have been temporary but were still maps.

[Alklines 1,751]

nope. pure lie

Edited March 5, 2013 by Alklines

[Comander-Awesome 0]

Man Madness was a good one,but i had never heard of Carousel before this article.

[skitee 555]

nope. pure lie

What do you define as a "map" then? I define it simply as a potential battleground, an area where players can fight. What is your definition?

[Alklines 1,751]

In this case it's celebration; therefore not a Tanki map, but a Holiday.

[skitee 555]

But maps were released as part of the celebration.

[Alklines 1,751]

Pseudologia Fantastica much? pfffffft

[Frost.Angel 221]

I luv this article :wub:

Good job :)

I also miss those maps and hope some to come back.

Le space :wub:

Edited March 6, 2013 by Frost.Angel

[ahmx 5]

Madness was the best map i could ever imagine. It was crazy, people jumped from top and it was the most popular map in the 2011's