[Issue 13] [History] In the Beginning, Tanki... - Part 1

[hogree 4,179]

Remember Update 123? Yeah. Rebalance? Hmm, yeah. Graphics Update? Just about... Shaft Release.. urrrr right at the back of my memory.. well, I'm sure none of you would have been around right at the beginning, right when the first changes were occuring in the game we play today. In this article, I'm going to discover some unknown things about the first days of Tanki as it grew.

This article addresses the beginning of Tanki until the end of 2009.

As I start this clear newspaper article, I want you to know this will simply be a read. No more, no less. I'm not doing any of my fancy points – I'm just going to tell you all my experience and my knowledge of what happened in the first few months of Tanki.

Back when the game was first developed and when the only Tanki players were Russian game-designers looking for glitches and prospects in the game, none of them could have expected the huge database of a project that has grown from 100 people up to 20 million, and all in under 4 years. The success of the Tanki Online game is un-debatable. However, what brought it up in its first few days?

Thankfully for me, in writing this article, I have the handy help of a friend I call “PNAU”. More specifically, Patch Notes and Updates. He will be your guide on this trip of the early history of Tanki.

The first thing PNAU has to tell us about dates back to September 1^st 2009. Tanki dates even further back though, the creation of the game began before PNAU was able to record it. Even it cant remember when the whole thing was created. In fact, Wikipedia itself can only hazard the guess at the date of “mid-2008”. Little would I know, back when I was an innocent boy of 9, how much this game would influence my growing life as a kid.

Let's jump forward past the first few days, when the first designs and updates were occuring in the game, and the first maps coming out, and get to when PNAU was born. We start as in the first situation of proper Tanki, with Smoky, Firebird, Twins and Fear Machine (now known as “Railgun”) available as weapons, and Wasp, Hunter, Titan and Dictator as tanks. This started in the beta version of Tanki Online, which was released on May the 8^th 2009.

Tanki held few players back then, just a handful, and they knew they needed new things to keep the influx of players in. It wasn't only glitches solving. There needed to be new strategies – new things to bring players in and keep them interested. A week after PNAU was born, it started. More maps began to be added to the game, and now, Private Battles were available – and flags appeared on bases for the first time in CTF mode. Imagine approaching a base which didn't have a flag? I can't. And that's barely the start. Tanki was a really weird game back in the day.

September flew by quickly for the devs, but they had one last thing to show about, which PNAU prioritizes on the 28^th. The release of Isida. I went through the whole history of Isida on my Isida guide, so if you want to read about that, head over across the grounds. However, not only did they do that, but some awesome Tanki developer managed to fit the server for 2000 people. Now, that is some nice work. And the Fear Machine changed not only its design that day, but also its strategy, as its ability to shoot through dead tanks sat quietly among the things, underneath the massive discussion regarding the release of the dreaded Isida.

But the devs weren't finished yet. On the first day of the next month, they released the first official protection paint!! Woohoo! Even PNAU couldn't believe it, so it was slightly unsure when telling me whether they actually had done it. But it seems so. For the first time, those Fear Machine – Dictator players, who had already spent their beloved cash on this game, would be able to defend themselves from the pesky enemy Fear Machines that ruined their game.
The day after, the devs had a bad day at work. Dunno whether they didn't catch some sleep, but for some reason, they decided to add the feature that Isida could self-heal without a victim!! They could LITERALLY press space bar and get life. Bit dumb, isn't it? Thankfully, the devs removed this a couple of weeks later, when their brains had returned.

During these two weeks, little happened as their brains were on holiday. But a week after the developer's Isida mania began, one developer had a masterclass idea and players started to receive what we call nowadays... *drumroll*.... Daily Bonuses! Finally, players were given gifts to encourage them each day to log on, and collect their daily gift. I must admit, I'm seriously glad of that developer's brain, as it had cleared in enough time, so we got my daily bonuses today, which I sure don't take for granted (considering I generally have under 0 drugs at the start of each day).

The following day, one of the developers was sitting down at their computers and noticed that an Isida was using “Double Damage” to heal his team-mate. “Double Damage? He's not even damaging him!” he thought. Thus, bringing it up to his fellow developers, they re-named the Double Damage to the new name of Double Power. Just because of that Isida's healing ability. Isida was really causing a lot of changes at this point!

The following day, Isida was shifted in its power again, as developers began to realise that it was now overpowered. They eventually, four days later, removed the self-healing effect and only allowed self-healing when attacking an opponent.

Now, it was proper time for the developers to get going! Pleased with their decision to remove Isida's self-healing-no-enemy effect, the developers decided to add some new maps into the game. Duel, Magistral, Lost Temple, and........ Dusseldorf (sigh), were added into the game. And not only that, but on the same day, Fear Machine was renamed to Railgun! Now, why was that? Mainly because it wasn't feared any more. Isida was arguably better, and Railgun had only “feared” properly, when only it and the Tier 1s had been out.

Some more strategic updates that day, were points given out for returning flags, and double points for killing enemies with the flag. And an object was added to the garage! “Double Points” were given as a card which you could buy which would give you double points for either the next 6 hours or the next 72 hours. This was, however, as you may have noticed, changed to score multiplier pass 6 months afterwards, when score multiplier was released.

After such a stressful update as that, the developers took a break – I expect some of them went on holiday to the Caribbean maybe – but for sure, there was not much more after that for another month. A few glitches were solved, FPS was upped, but no strategic changes in particular. Until December.

You can understand if the developers wanted to do some stuff to excite the players, as the updates had not been rolling in recently, and the players were interested in leaving; but what they did next, was surely a bit over-the-top? The developers brought in the 1000 gold box.

Now, don't think this was normal. This was a 1000 gold box. Before Update 123. This was falling in 700-fund battles, and now, players were on the mad craze for one of these. Picture it – you pick up one of these, and you practically get M2 Railgun right away. You pick up 4, and you're well over the amount needed for M3.

Inflation rose, and the developers knew they needed to stop it, as 1000 was far too much for a gold box to be sensible, and they reduced it a week later to the 100 gold box. The players moaned, but it was, as a lot of the updates are, best for the whole of Tanki in general.

Along with this, on December the 3^rd, the Tanki developers added Serpuhov, Siege, and Short Bridge into the game. And the sky box was changed. And, as if you didn't believe it, the 'Pause' feature was also added into Tanki, so now, you could take a toilet break during a Deathmatch and not worry about giving your enemies kills, while away, but rather stay as a ghost all the time, until you were kicked out for inactivity 5 minutes later. Of course, hopefully, you would be back within 5 minutes. Otherwise, there would be no point in using the Pause mode.

A week on, the developers changed the 1000 gold to 100 gold, as I mentioned above. And they also made a move to stop the profanity-lovers on the server chats, as they improved the use of auto-censoring in the cases of people swearing publicly on chats. They also re-changed the Nitro look on your tank when equipped, and re-opened the Hall of Fame.

I may not have mentioned the Hall of Fame, before, but it was a list of all the Tanki players, listed by their rating, which was sorted by their rank, crystals, D/L ratio, and their Tanki results. However, it had to be removed afterwards, as the database began not to be able to cope with the amount of Tanki players coming in to the game.

As I approach the end of 2009, you might not think Tanki had a lot left in store for us, but boy, did they! Another week on, on the 18^th of December, Tanki brought out a number of new updates. Five new maps were added, including the old Fort Knox (which was recently removed), and Bobruisk. They also made sure that you could not use a First Aid when you had full health (Another thing that I take for granted – I mean, I can't count the amount of times I've accidentally pressed No. 1 on my keyboard but not used an Aid due to full health!). They made sure you could not equip drugs while being in “ghost” mode as you are respawning, and they changed the look of your own tank. As you drove, now, you could not see your rank and name above your health and turret loading speed. You only saw those two familiar green/red/blue and yellow bars.

The devs weren't satisfied, and they wanted to finish the year off on a high. On the 23^rd, two days before Christmas, the devs changed a couple of things, to start off, a common festive theme that has lasted through the Tanki New Year's. The flag was changed to fir trees, and Tanki released – for the very first time – winter maps. They also added the feature of changing caps in writing to lower-case automatically in certain circumstances, which lives on, affecting the lives of caps spammers, to this very day. :P

And they continued working on Christmas Day, as they improved the looks of the winter maps, with shadows coming in, and the flag design changing.

You might think it would be high time for the devs to take a winter break, but they weren't close to done. They updated their SMS payment system to 67 countries on the 29^th of December, along with redesigning the section for buying crystals. The following day, Isida was re-shuffled from healing in “Percentage terms” to “HP” (read “History” section on my Isida guide”), and an option to enable/disable chat inside battles were added.

The developers weren't even done yet. On Christmas Eve, they suddenly released an update that not even PNAU was sure about. To put it in his own words: “It's the New Year's Eve, and all the guns have gone crazy!” He didn't know what was going on, and I was going to give up on my search for the truth. But my colleague, Lhamster, saved me by finding information for me somewhere. On this day, though it may seem impossible, that year, the Firebirds shot coloured papers, Isida shot fireworks, Smoky fired snow balls, and Railgun shot some long coloured lollipops! That must have been some party! I can't remember that, to my shame, but I can just imagine how fun that must have been for the first Tanki players. The devs had not failed them; and the game would continue to grow throughout the next year...

Next issue, you should be seeing a further episode of Tanki growing in 2010.

Thanks for reading!

Edited July 1, 2013 by hogree

[Raphael2 3,263]

looking forward to read 2010 article..

[mchen 162]

I know nothing of what happened in 2009 and 2010 since I wasn't active then. I've had to read articles on what had happened to find out and this is one of the best articles that I have seen so far. Good Job!

[TANKkiller1000000 4]

great article i havent been playing when they opened

tanki.ive only been playing for a little over a year

on many accounts.

[DeoxyriboNudeicAcicl 97]

VERY good job, I love reading about the history of something major and interesting like Tanki!

[xxElyxx 275]

Great Job ! Love reading it :)

[canadarules 1,938]

i was there hogree i joined the week of it coming out. All the things are true those are the days when no newb could win crystal now it sucks. i was a wasp smoky user from the start than i gave it up :( good article though.

[smell1324 0]

Wow greatest article i have read in my entire life its so interesting! Great Job. :fire_r:  :tank:  :fire_l:

[Eragon 13,876]

there is already a topic like this http://en.tankiforum.com/index.php?showtopic=177689&do=findComment&comment=3065101

[hogree 4,179]

^Cool. But I created mine first. :P

[Andrewhero100 65]

epic article 

pls make a 2010, 2011 and 2012 we don't need 2013 :P

[Elliminated 23]

Can't believe, i actually read the whole story

[Ministry 27]

This the best tanki

[shadewarttt 3,350]

1000 cry goldbox before the update...damn!

[KisaraKodithuwakku 4]

 How much time will it take to Read All That ?

Edited April 25, 2014 by Lhamster

[hogree 4,179]

How much time will it take to Read All That ?

Haha. If you think thats a lot, maybe you should read the whole series....  :lol:

 

_________________________________________

Articles in this series:

Read Part 2 Here (January 2010 - June 2010)

Read Part 3 Here (July 2010 - December 2010)

Read Part 4 Here (January 2011 – June 2011)

Read Part 5 Here (July 2011 – December 2011)

Read Part 6 Here (January 2012 – June 2012)

Read Part 7 Here (July 2012 - December 2012)

_________________________________________

[leroyjw27 0]

Someone needs to ban  KisaraKodithuwakku. Really.  :) 

[MC_Macklemore1 0]

Cool. Surprised I wasn't here those days..

[cool716 4]

Wow I had no idea

[CrAzY.TT 17]

Good old days when low ranks are driving around with rail m3 ot twins m3. Tanki changed alot in good ways but also in bad ways.

[HydroBolt 15]

Haha. If you think thats a lot, maybe you should read the whole series....  :lol:

 

_________________________________________

Articles in this series:

Read Part 2 Here (January 2010 - June 2010)

Read Part 3 Here (July 2010 - December 2010)

Read Part 4 Here (January 2011 – June 2011)

Read Part 5 Here (July 2011 – December 2011)

Read Part 6 Here (January 2012 – June 2012)

Read Part 7 Here (July 2012 - December 2012)

_________________________________________

haha lol :P

[vanshajwore 324]

i joined tanki right after the starting of 2012 january.

I remember almost all updates after that time

[Superlative 500]

Good article.

[rambobear11 21]

Wow thx for bringing back memories on my old blocked account (gocabrera75) I caught a 100 gold my first gold :)

[Daniel898 327]

Nice article.