Other [Issue 11] The Side of Tanki You Never Knew

[Meliora 1,652]

The Side of Tanki You Never Knew

Weapons and Hulls – Just think about it now. Where would you be without the gun/hull you use most? Well, there was a time when most likely the tank or weapon you are using now did not exist. Isida was added on September 28^th 2009, preferred for its ability to heal allies and attack enemies. Before April 27^th 2010, Viking, Mammoth, Hornet and Thunder did not exist. When these were first introduced, Hornet was the light and rapid hull, Viking was the most versatile, and the ‘fortress-like’ Mammoth. Thunder, the only new weapon being added at the time became popular for its splash damage. Also, on this day, the map ‘Silence’ by Figishe was brought into the game. Now it is one of the most favoured maps on every server, almost notorious for the attacking and defending style of both teams. In July later that year Freeze and Ricochet were introduced. The pros of these were Ricochet’s spectacular ability for its plasma balls to, well, ricochet off walls, and Freeze’s ability to, well, freeze your enemies! It goes without saying, really. There was a time when Freeze’s freezing power was the same no matter the modification, however this was changed thank heavens just three weeks later. Shaft was introduced on the 29^th June 2011. It was the long range gun with the high-accuracy aiming ability which allowed you to get a perfect hit every time. Shaft was rebalanced (yes, there were other minor rebalances before the one in December) in September that year, and all buyers of Shaft were refunded with their crystals and were offered to buy Shaft again, but this time with better abilities which we see now: You are able to shoot without entering scope, the controls were simplified, you can stay in scope (which was visually enhanced) for as long as you please and the display of boxes, flags and other items was changed – now they are semi-transparent.

Smoky XT – On February 14^th 2011 loving the love!, an enhanced version of Smoky was introduced, by the name of Smoky XT, costing 3,950 crystals – a great deal more than the 300 crystal price of Smoky M3. According to the developers, the story was that this temporary gun became available in your garage from the black market (this is usually where illegal goods are traded), and news that the gun would be in your garage for just a week was ‘leaked information’. Its stats completely annihilated Smoky M3 pre-rebalance, with a damage of 16-36hp (Smoky M3 ranged from 8-24hp) being per shot, with shots per minute and speed of maneuvring the turret equal to M3 Smoky (37.5 shot/min, grad/sec 103.1). But that wasn’t all can life possibly get any better?! Just one day later, the developers increased the damage from 16-36 to 26-46. But sadly, on the 22^nd of February, the item was removed; however the crystals were not refunded.


Hall of Fame – The Hall of Fame was your shortcut way to find your rating in the game amongst your fellow gamers. Here all of your game statistics were displayed, the amount of tanks you’ve destroyed, number of times you have been killed, the number of crystals you’d earned or bought with real money and your rating. The Hall allowed you to compare your stats with your friends, or simply get a good idea of how well you’re playing Tanki. Going against the first thought of most, the order of the Hall of Fame was not based on the amount of XP or best player overall, but the one with the most amount of crystals (or simply, the man who has spent the most amount of money on the game buyers conquer again). However this was changed further on into the developing Tanki. To suit the rapidly growing number of new joiners at the time, it was removed and added again numerously. Some of the updates it experienced were a new search system which also improved the speed, along with a logic update, however it meant to search for a specific player you had to type in their whole name. Eventually the amount of players grew to such a large number that trying to host all of their names in one page caused so many lags and problems that the Hall of Fame had to be removed on August 18^th 2011.

Fuss About 2.0 - Tanki Online 2.0 was a very well anticipated update to the game, promising many interesting and frequently suggested additions, most of which will be mentioned here. A friends list was planned to be added, simply add a friend and you’d have the ability to chat privately with them (or a group of friends), know whether your friend is online or not and find them in battle, regardless of the server you were on. 2.0 also benefited clans, they would all have their own page with a member list, admission rules and its own fund which could be distributed to the members by the leader of the clan. Battle filters more detailed than our own (with these you could search by individual maps, battle name, time limit, number of flags, etc.) were planned. You would have an in-game profile, and the information on it included the amount of destroys and deaths, guns you’ve used, amount of flags delivered, anything you can think of. As well as crystals, a new currency of rubies would be added. You could gain these by: 1) Buying them using real money. 2) Gold boxes (then containing 100 crystals) would be full of rubies. 3) Missions were planned for 2.0, and upon completing them your prize would be rubies. The transferring of your 1.0 account to 2.0 would be very simple; part of your crystals would be turned into rubies and your username and password would be the same. The older version of the game would be available too, but progress there would not be counted in 2.0. This update was postponed numerous times, until it was cancelled so I waited ages when they said it was postponed, only to cancel it?, meaning that all the new additions would be gradually brought into the current Tanki.

New Graphics and Control Points - The 6^th of September 2012 brought two major updates to the game – Control Points (CP) and the New Graphics. CP was a completely new game mode, alongside DM, TDM and CTF. The purpose of this was to control as many of the points dotted around the map (The amount of points varied from just one in Sandbox to 7 in Berlin) for your team. To capture a point is for it to be a complete circle of your team colour, and the team will receive one point for every ten seconds. Eventually, the team with the most amount of points or reached the target first wins. It was a little complicated for most players at first but not me of course, but as the amount of CP battles grew, its principle became ever clearer. The second part of 1.100 was the graphics update.
The game’s new appearance became more pleasant, and it was easier to distinguish different upgrades in hulls and guns. The colours of the graphics were specifically chosen as not to irritate the eyes during prolonged viewing. In addition to the new graphics, the ‘fog effect’ was introduced on all maps, and ‘soft particles’ was added to the settings. There were mixed emotions amongst the players, the majority complaining that the graphics were too cartoonish and unrealistic, and the paints hardly showed on the tanks, due to the numerous grey patches which the paints did not cover. The shots of guns were changed too; unfortunately the Thunder shots looked a lot like that of Smoky.

Rebalance, Update 114 – On the 17^th of December 2012 Happy Birthday to me the Rebalance was completed, and is probably the best known major update in our community. Upon logging in, you would find your new amount of crystals was equal to the amount you had spent on hulls, turrets, paints, supplies, etc. before this day, along with any current crystals left unspent. It was not just a refund; however, the weapons and tanks were ‘rebalanced’, meaning the previous statistics were altered, in aim of balancing the game. But this update wasn’t all fun and games, Shaft, which at M0 could destroy Hornet M3, now can only destroy Wasp & Hornet M3 when fully upgraded. On the other hand, other players believe that Freeze became overpowered. The amount of damage per second an M3 Freeze would do pre-rebalance was just 2hp more than what an M0 Freeze can damage now. The current M3 Freeze is almost double the hp of pre-rebalance M3 Freeze well, if something’s overpowered, you’re meant to use it, right?!. Thunder is also said to be overpowered, its pre-rebalance stats are hardly comparable to its stats now. M3 Thunder used to do 26-46hp damage per shot, but this has risen considerably to 63-85hp. The shots per minute were increased from M0-M2, but at M3 26.7 shot/min remained the same after the rebalance.

Here are some facts you may not have known about Tanki:
1. Before August 26^th 2010, the English server chat was mixed with the Russian one – just imagine having people speaking a language you haven’t got a clue how to speak, especially as the amount of English-speaking members was far less than it is now.
2. The mine was introduced on February 10^th 2010.
3. On July 19^th 2011, a special gold box with 1,000 crystals (in current terms this is 10,000 crystals) was released, however, it only fell on one specific map, and it was the tanker’s job to find which one it was. (The normal 100 crystal golds fell on every map during this period.) Those triumphant would have realised the gold fell on Molotov. This was only temporary, and the item was removed a week later.
4. There was a time when the battle wording was different. “Destroy” used to be “Kill”, “Lost” used to be “Died” and “Self-destructed” used to be “Suicided”, which does not exist actually, and should have been “Commit suicide”. There's that subtle difference between tanks and humans...
5. As you know the gold box falls randomly, it could fall at a fund of 3 or 3000, absolutely anything, in fact, two golds could drop with a 10 second interval, however this is extremely unlikely. It has not always been this way – before April 26^th 2012, the gold would only fall around a 700 battle fund and its multiples (1400, 2800, with the new economics this would be 14,000 and 28,000). Most enjoy this change as it made the people who would join with Freeze and Mammoth M3 just when the fund hit around 650 and claim the gold, leaving afterwards.
6. On February 11^th 2011, the Double Crystal Card was added to your daily bonus, before this date your gift would either be crystals, supplies or a No Supplies Battle Pass. If only I were there to experience that, before the annoying DCC was introduced...


So now you have a good idea of what Tanki Online was like in its earlier stages. Although it has experienced some updates which may have disappointed the common player (HoF removal; rebalance) we know it is heading in the right direction now and I can assure you that Tanki has some exciting additions planned.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Hexed

[Raphael2 3,263]

The Side of Tanki You Never Knew

 

Weapons and Hulls – Wasn't here

 

Smoky XT – Wasn't here

 

 

Hall of Fame – Wasn't here

 

Fuss About 2.0 - I was here

 

New Graphics and Control Points -I was here

 

Rebalance, Update 114 – I was here

Here are some facts you may not have known about Tanki:

1. I don't get that.

2. I knew it

3. I knew it

4.oh, i didn't knew it. Thanks :)

5. I was there

6. I knew it. :)

 

that is a good article. Thanks, i learned a few things

[MusicJam19 737]

Another fact you probably didn't know about Tanki: Double Power was called Double Damage until Isida was introduced, due to Isida's healing effect :D

[BuddyGuy 814]

really good job

[robbie56 2,403]

Interesting , know alot more (joined Tanki in November so i know alot things not)

[Hop1337 1]

I joined in 2011...thanks for your info my friend! Now i learned more about tanki :D

[skitee 555]

Good article. Did you know that when the Gold box was originally released it was 1000 in every map at 700 fund (10,000 in new economics?)? And that for a special holiday, winter 2009, Firebird, Twins, Smoky and Railgun fired festive decorations from their guns instead of standard bullets (I think that's true; it may have been an elaborate troll when I was a new tankman)?

 

Also, it would have been better to have had less strikethroughs. :? Humour isn't humorous when it is overused. :|

[Turpz 18]

Wow!Quite some things i dident know.

[mchen 162]

I joined in 2010 so I knew most of this stuff! :D

Wish I was here though when railgun was called the fear machine :(

[r_Firingsniper0 1,215]

Another fact you probably didn't know about Tanki: Double Power was called Double Damage until Isida was introduced, due to Isida's healing effect :D

Isida used to heal itself you know. How OP it was.

[hogree 4,179]

Isida used to heal itself you know. How OP it was.

 

Still does heal itself. :rolleyes:

[monster0909 299]

Nice article! the writing was great, and I loved the information you put in your article.

[JamesM10 14]

Still does heal itself. :rolleyes:

Before, when there was no target for the Isida to attack and you pressed space it would regain health, without even attacking a tank! I think that's what he means.

 

Nice article, Sel. Learned a lot! :)

Edited May 8, 2013 by JamesM10

[skitee 555]

Before, when there was no target for the Isida to attack and you pressed space it would regain health, without even attacking a tank! I think that's what he means.

Yeah, we all know. He was being tongue-in-cheek. |:

[JamesM10 14]

Yeah, we all know. He was being tongue-in-cheek. |:

Must be reporter humour! :P

[2soon2 3]

nice!

[SharpRaZzor 377]

nice