[Issue 17] [History] In The Beginning, Tanki... - Part 5

[hogree 4,179]

 

Part 5 of the series has started! I can't believe it's already been so long already since I started this series - it only seems last issue when I begun it. But now we're approaching the more recent history of the game. We start off in July 2011, still stuck pre-rebalance, straight off after the Shaft Release. Enjoy!

 

_____________________________

Author's Note: Hey guys, Hog here. Will be travelling around Britain till November the 9th, so I'll only be able to reply to feedback then. Hope you enjoy the article, and sorry for only having one this issue! Don't let this scare you from posting your thoughts though!  ;)

 

The release of Shaft was still shaking the grounds of Tanki when July hit. The forum was full of very mixed opinions. Some were extremely disappointed at the power of the new weapon, whilst others were entranced and couldn't get their fingers off it. However, the Tanki developers had to admit that Shaft was a bit too weak for its current accomplices Tier Twos. But it was not to be re-shuffled as yet.

 

To be fair, the Tanki team in general were focusing on a rather important release in the next few days, so they couldn't spend so much time focusing on Shaft. And no, it wasn't another piece of garage equipment. It was something monumental, something different from all normal updates. It was the release of German Tanki.

 

To have something new on this scale was something that can only be compared to back when Tanki was released, at the "beginning of time". This was much looked forward for, especially for German players of course, but also for other people from foreign countries playing Tanki, as it gave hope for a different language of Tanki to be released. The German players were created on the same database as the English and Russian players but they had a seperate server at the end of the servers which could not be seen on the other homepages, but could be URL'd (I believe it was Server 26) which was made particularly for Germans.

 

The craze then was, of course, for the look-out for more different languages of Tanki. Though this was a great landmark for Tanki, many players were disgruntled at how Germans had received the next edition of Tanki, especially the many Arabs who spent a large amount of money on Tanki, and had hoped for a release of an Arabic Tanki. There was, however, never a release of Arabic Tanki as hoped for in the future. That didn't significantly detriment the playerbase of Tanki, as there are still a large amount of Arabs but how many more Arabs would have joined if Arabic Tanki had been brought about, we will never know.

 

July was the summer, and the Tanki developers had to spark something up to liven up gameplay during the summer, and that event was, to put it bluntly, awesome. A week after the release of German Tanki, something known as the “Secret Gold Box Event” was announced. Molotov. 1000 Gold. Small Bridge. Ring any bells?

 

If you can't remember this by any chance, you missed out big time! The gold box event originally was set out secretly so they said that on one map (which nobody knew) the 1000 gold box would drop at around 1000 fund. This was 10,000 in today's currency, and this would have bought you an M2 Railgun by itself back in those days pre-rebalance and pre-Update123 so this was an opportunity like no other for players. It was soon discovered to be Molotov, and the players bombed in for Molotov matches, hunting down the special gold.

 

Now, remember that this was back in the day when there was no alert that popped up like “such-and-such has taken the gold box”. This was simple battling where you had to see the gold or you would never know if it had dropped. I found a video on Youtube showing a player getting a Gold Box which you can watch here to see the mad rush. There was also the legendary picture of two old DD legends, Kozayya and NLT, who were both in the same real life room, hammering their keyboards as they raced for the special box as it fell in between them. I believe NLT got it in the end! :lol:

 

The Molotov craze lasted a week, buying some extra time for the developers to warm up the English community. Noticing the frustration of some English players at the lack of activities to compete in in the English section, the developers created the first ever contest in the English forum – Artist of Tanki Online, on the 21^st July. There was definitely a pleased aura surrounding the English community as they prepared for their first contest, particularly as it involved time and skill. To see the winners of the contest, click here.

 

Its actually rather interesting to note that this contest was brought out just a couple of days after an unofficial contest, started by whitemark7 (now Whitee), was released on the Off-Topic. He was searching for a player to make a picture for his clan, and he was ready to offer crystals for the contest too. It was a massive success. Many entries flooded in, led by the "dominating" moderator, koolwalky, and the contest was eventually won by neo9xt, followed by chriswu (both co-incidentally former leaders of the Ironclads), with kool sneaking in at 5th place. I was slightly disappointed, since my entries didn't win a prize, but it was great fun, and perhaps led the way to the idea of an official contest being hosted on the forum. If you wish, you can see exactly what happened regarding the contest here.

 

Before they knew it, it was already August, and well into the summer. The 2^nd of August heralded a minor update on the Forum, as they re-adjusted the forum and alerted it for players to come and check on the Tanki news feed. And it was definitely a good time to join the forum - in my opinion, this was the peak of the forum. The majority of posters were serious and fantastic reads, and there was always a great discussion on Tanki or not on Tanki going on around the forum. Famous old players such as koolwalky, MonkeyMagic, NoblePlatOne, chriswu, cablaz, Tommy60, Contaminated, eessydo and even DaSpamer at their prime were a pleasure to read in the forum and led for fun, but serious discussions.

 

Four days later, another landmark was announced on Tanki, as the playerbase reached 4 million players. Once again, the lucky 4 millionth player got a mug and a T-Shirt as a celebration for the event, as Tanki boasted in the news feed how they had now overtaken the population of “Puerto Rico”.  :lol: However, the main preparations in Tanki's blocks were for a big update to come up later that month.

 

Before that, however, the English Community was in for a fantastic surprise, that would liven up the community no end. A Community Manager was brought into the English game, for the very first time. You all know his name. If you don't, you should. Bruce Lunga.

 

All players who have been around for a decent period of time will remember Bruce and the amazing efforts he put into the game to make the community more enjoyable for all of us. All the contests, the fun discussions, the blogs, the videos – and just the fact he was there to listen made for a very pleasant environment! Bruce was a hero for the English side of Tanki, and everyone acknowledged his awesome work.

 

Now as for that massive planned update, well, Tanki News announces it on the 23^rd. However, there's no doubting this was one of the most update-filled updates in Tanki update history. If that makes sense.

 

The update was mainly changing the way newbies were brought into the game. If you joined after this update, after clicking 'Start' on the Tanki homepage, you would have been brought into battle immediately, with a nick of “Recruit#####”. Before the update, you would be forced to create an account before you start playing. This was done for players to “test out the game” before they actually joined it and started playing for real. They were only offered to fill the registration form out and create an account after they became a private.

 

Another great update for newbies was the addition of game achievements for new players. Players would be given bonus crystals for their first purchase in the garage, first battle they joined, and first crystal purchase they made. This was to encourage new players to continue playing with extra crystals to cash out on new weapons with. Similarly for new players, an update was also released to simplify the registration form, only asking for “Username” and “Password” to create an account. Before this, it was necessary to give your email, but now it was optional in-game.

 

Just to warn you that I've barely covered anything of this update, and I've already filled a good couple of paragraphs. Let me slim down on stuff that have been updated. Well, most prominently in my memory of this update, was the release of a new “loading” signal for players, as they joined. Let me quickly explain what I mean. Before, when loading a battle, a series of green lights would come up and flash before the battle loaded (see picture here). Now, you would see what happens nowadays – the picture with the loading artillery gun moving underneath to show the aspect of “tanking” better. I was very supportive of this idea when it was released, but I have had a growing fondness as time passes of the “good ol' green lights”, which I have begun to miss.

 

Other smaller updates were added. The Double Crystal Card now changed the picture of the “Buy” button to a special Red “x2 Buy” button. Now, the player who created a No Supplies battle could join it for free, even without a pass, encouraging people to create No Supplies battles. Paypal payments were temporarily removed from the battle too. The famous Hall of Fame had to say goodbye this day as well, as it was causing too many lags in the game.

 

Paints had updates too. Moderators got their own special paint, Alligator. Champion and Acid, the paints for the TOF and Clan Tournament winners, were given Shaft protection, with the release of the new weapon previously meaning they were lacking in protection of it.

 

And as if you didn't think that was enough, there were many glitches solved too. Problems in Scope and Noise were fixed, and a glitch where you could shoot from under a bridge through the slope of a bridge was also solved. Shaft's visual look was slightly edited, as the pesky long barrel was shortened as per the players' requests, and the German Tanki was released in completion and players begun to start playing on http://tankionline.com/de. And, finally, the rating system was edited so crystals bought wouldn't count towards your rating, leading to more focus on skill in contrast.

 

Whew! We're finally done. Now, if you didn't think that was a long update, I don't know what you think is long. However, we're not done for that day yet. The same day heralded a couple of new contests for the English forum to enter in – Mister Tanki Online and Miss Tanki Online! Bruce Lunga was already making his mark on the game. I'm sure some of you won't remember these, so I'll quickly sum them up. Miss Tanki Online was an epic failure – only two people entered, leading to public outrage, particularly from cablaz who had been looking forward to the photographs.

 

Similarly, Mister Tanki Online had only six entries, but was actually a great success, as the viewers' choice was honest and fair, unlike many more recent viewers' choice entries, with many many votes raining in, especially after a Russian girl suddenly got a massive crush on one of the entrants, Tommy60, and started spamming the Russian forums for them to vote for Tommy.  :P Tommy did eventually win the viewers' choice due to his fans' support, but the victor in the Developers Choice was skitee. Oh well, I can't be better than my brother in everything!

 

Two days later, a couple of updates to consolidate the previous huge update was done, as the registration form was optimized, and the loading screen picture was changed to a constant picture of the Tanki logo. This remains to this day, but now many other loading screens come alongside it, particularly when loading battles. Also, the newbie battle creation was limited so that newbies' battles would be more full of players, and thus provide more exciting gameplay for new players.

 

August was up, and the holidays were over. To top off the month, Tanki gave a small discount on credit card payments for crystals (I believe it was the first discount on buying crystals in Tanki history.)

 

September began with a couple of updates to payment for crystals as Paypal payments returned to the game, and payment systems were slightly changed.

 

As the month progressed, Tanki noticed a problem with their big update on newbies – as they realised some newbies might want to create an account name without having to go through the fuss of ranking to Private before they could create an account. Thus, they gave an option for you to skip the battle proccess, and automatically create an account after joining the game. This was particularly useful for those wanting to create dupe accounts, as they wouldn't have to go to the fuss of ranking to Private before creating the account. This was a week later.

 

At a similar time, the Tanki blog started on the homepage, as Bruce started to warm up the activity in the English Community. The first blog was simply links to wallpapers, but soon he would bring out video blogs which were an unprecedented success. The blog lasted for a good period of time, and had massive popularity as it was quite significant and visible on the homepage.

 

Two days later, Tankman's Day in Russia brought on another happy celebration for the players. An interesting quest was introduced for players, as they would go round searching through maps, eventually finding a secret hidden Youtube link, which was shown to the people who found the link on the map. To see more about what happened in the quest, check out the blog post. On another blog post, also posted that day, the release of the planned new ranks, “Field Marshal”, “Commander”, and “Generallisimo” were announced on the blog. Just imagine – if we didn't have those ranks right now, I would be the top rank in the game. Me – Top Rank? Yup, it does sound pretty incredible.

 

Now, lets quickly move ourselves back to the game. Playerbase was growing as always, and many people moving in to join the already-large English community. However, the Tanki dev's were only worried about one thing at that moment, and that was Shaft. After noticing the player's unsettled response to the new weapon, the developers realised that it needed a few tweaks. Thus, on the 22^nd of September, they completely re-shuffled Shaft. The concept of a sniper weapon was still the same, but gameplay was given more of a boost as Shaft could now be used without scope too. I'll let PNAU sum up the update for you, and what the new Shaft would bring.

 

“-- simplified control;
-- added possibility to shoot without using scope;
-- added possibility to stay in sniper mode as long as you want with fully charged gun;
-- removed black filling in scope mode;
-- visually enhanced the scope;
-- changed boxes and flags displaying in scope mode — now they become semitransparent to simplify aiming.”

 

The old Shaft was taken from garages, and refunded to players, and a fondness to Shaft grew rapidly after this update. People even started to claim it to be “overpowered”, and soon, the fondness would go as regards to the people facing the Shafts, as they started to dominate the battlefield. But I'm jumping ahead far too quickly.

 

This wasn't just an update on Shaft too, as four of the most renowned paints in the game made their way onto the battlefield. We welcomed the sights of Irbis, Jade, Lead and Needle to the battlefield. This was to bring Shaft protection paints in, but also to give a slightly larger range of paints at the higher ends of the ranks. Not only was that added, but so was Highways, a popular map from one of the English mapmakers, MonkeyMagic, as well as the release of a map called Labyrinth was later removed from the battlefields.. This gave a lot of hope to the popular English mapmakers, such as cheese3000 and Vikingsrall – but none of them were able to get their maps into the game, which was a shame due to the amount of work some of the maps had put into them.

 

Meanwhile, contests were flowing in fast and furious on the forum, as Bruce started to warm to his role of community manager, and make up for lost time over the Russians, who had had so many more contests. The 300 Tankman Battle (A random draw battle, where 3 lucky players would be drawn from 300, to fight the developers. The players won, naturally.), and Sniper Tanki Online (A Contest where the person with the most kills in a deathmatch would win.) were both introduced in September, even after the Mister and Mrs Tanki Online contests. The Sniper Tanki Online winner and runner-up was the same person, getting a massive 4147 kills (Picture here) and 3891 kills to claim the top and second spot, after playing two 999-minute battles, after the server restart, to claim tons of kills. Yup, that is very sad. But he did it, and was rewarded for his efforts.

 

It was very soon October, and Bruce was, once again, busy. Another new contest came, just a week after “Sniper Tanki Online” was released – it was “Tanki Online Model Maker”, a contest which was inviting people to show off their design skills in real life of a tank. Meanwhile, the blog was in full swing, as he begun to release some video blogs and started a “Before and After” Blog – showing the comparison between the graphics at that time and the planned 2.0 graphics after the release, which never came out. However, the Graphics Update of 1.100.0 did bring it closer to the plans of 2.0's graphical plans.

 

During the month, Tanki had to switch off gaming servers for a couple of days to fix some bugs, but they gave the players “compensation” (in the form of extra bonuses) to apologise for the time they took from people playing. Just a week later, on the 14^th October, the Tanki players had another reason to celebrate. They had reached 5 million players! An incredible landmark that any game would be ecstatic to make. But Tanki had much bigger plans...

 

The developers tweaked with Shaft later in the month, to help the “wobble of Shaft” at full load to drop slightly and make gameplay easier for those sniping. This once again boosted the use of Shaft on the battlefield, and satisfied the Shaft players' hunger for domination.

 

November arrived on the scene quickly, as people settled down to get used to the common appearance of Shaft on the battlefield, and build their ranks as they remained to prepare for the plans of 2.0. Another rocking contest for the hardcore Tanki players appeared for the players, later that month, called “Crystallizer”, a contest inviting the players to get as big a battle fund as possible and comment “Crystallizer” in the battle chat, then post the picture. The winner got an incredible totatl of 8,300 crystals, worth 83,000 in today's currency! If you don't believe me, check out the picture for proof. (I doubt that anyone has got over 80,000 fund post-Update123 – especially after the game limits were limited down to maximum 300:00 minutes.)

 

It was finally time to take a break as slowly, the developers begun to wind down the updates, and let the players enjoy the game that was already ruminating success. After all, there seems no point to change things randomly when there is success already.

 

You guys would probably want to know by now what the situation was regarding Tanki 2.0. Well, it had slowly leaked into the English Community that Tanki 2.0 had been cancelled, and that the updates for Tanki 2.0 would be added progressively by the developers. This was true, sourced from a forum topic from an admin in May 2011. It slowly sunk that 2.0 was not going to come. However, this was not all sad and downhill for some – as the game was so good at that point that people were almost glad it was going to change drastically, in case it failed and spoilt the fun they were having in Tanki.

 

The month continued, with another awesome contest that was an epic success at the end of the month – The 20 Seconds to New Year Contest. There was tons of entries, and Bruce was feeling kind, so gave out millions of consolation prizes! The winner was gamepiong (The king of contests in the old days), with a stunning 20-second video, you can see it here.

 

The end of the month signalled the 6 millionth player – just a month after 5 million. This was a perfect example of the incredible success of Tanki at this period. People were joining like mad, and sticking around too. The game's growth was super-fast.

 

December begun – and preparation for the end of the year celebration once again hit town. However, Tanki made a bad mistake they would later rue during the early period of December. Must have been the winter blues settling in.

 

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to play against tanks which had drugs on but you couldn't see them equipped? For a couple of weeks, this was in Tanki. And no, it wasn't a hack. It was purposeful. Now, nobody could see if the enemy had drugs equipped – they had to guess. The idea was to encourage people to drug, as no-one could see – but it was an epic fail. Tanki even apologised for introducing it into the game, and listened to the players' requests by removing it as soon as they realised the situation the game was turning into.

 

Meanwhile, Bruce was moving on from community to clans, as he started to get the clans moving in the game. I haven't really been updating you on the situation with clans, so I'll quickly get you back updated. Shadow Strikers and Dare Devils were still flying high. Clans like Soldaty, which later became Domination Clan, and Lightning, which was formed of players which later became KOT, were formed earlier in the summer. German clans like “Best of German” were also created in 2011, as well as other clans that have built their way into the English Community.

 

However, the event that was set up was not a clan war tournament, but rather a Clan Dance competition, inviting clans to work together as a team to create something creative rather than skillfull. I'm glad to say my clan (The Ironclads) won this, even though I was just a couple days late in ranking to Third Lieutenant, and thus failed to get crystals, since Third Lt was required to become an “official member” in the clan. I forgot to mention that there were only two entries, since most of the clans couldnt be bothered to do the effort required for such an ordeal as making a clan dance. Feel free to watch the winning video here.

 

Tanki slowly geared up for the Christmas and New Year Celebration, and it came right on hand. There was a 25% discount as per norm for players, and another new year's celebration like last year! However, this year there was no more unknown drop boxes, but rather plain “2 Crystal Boxes” that fell as well as the Crystal Boxes round the tree. It was another fantastic celebration, for a fantastic game that the players loved. You can watch it here.

 

And so Tanki moved on into 2012. As we come to the more recent history, perhaps this will be the last one some of you will have not remembered in Tanki. However, I hope you found the article a good read. Feedback appreciated as always! Thanks for reading guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Bring on 2012! ;)

 

Edited October 31, 2013 by Lhamster

[Beerme 106]

nicely done hog :) 

look forward to the next edition

[Raphael2 3,263]

Well done, nicely written, that was a good read. ^_^

[I.Devastation 2,053]

Well done, nicely written, that was a good read. ^_^

[savakiler278 3]

Nice

Well done

[RiseOfCucumber 651]

Nice one hoggy

[ColdWheel 82]

Nice :)

[KunGawuliak 191]

Of course, this is first article that I read in this issue :)

 

Good job hog, why you don't work for BBC? :D

 

I still remember that times when every new player was Recruit####### and every server had maps for begginers, sandbox, boombox, sandal, short bridge (I don't remember more..) :) That awesome times... :)

[magnaboy2 656]

Ah,the good old awesome pre-rebalance time,love your article,took a while to read,but it was worth it  :D

[hogree 4,179]

Thanks for the good feedback guys ;) I just wondered when you guys reckon this series should end. I would like to make a complete history for people to look back on, but would you find it useful for me to go through 2013 as well, or stop at the end of 2012? Just interested... must admit that these articles are some of the hardest Ive ever written, having to constantly look back over old times to remember what happened in the good ol' days. However, its really fun remembering old times... I wouldnt mind just one day moving back into the days of xat chats, m3 Smoky for 300 crystals and being a higher rank than Lham... Ahh the good ol' days :lol:

[Lhamster 4,081]

However, its really fun remembering old times... I wouldnt mind just one day moving back into the days of xat chats, m3 Smoky for 300 crystals and being a higher rank than Lham... Ahh the good ol' days :lol:

Sounds good to me, I still pwned you back then. :lol:

[A_Jl_E_H_T.00 615]

Amazing job, I always enjoy reading your articles

[hogree 4,179]

@Lham: Haha, hee, er haa, er okay not ha, that wasnt one of your funnier jokes. Just wait till I get home and delve into my countless images of me pwning you <_<

 

Ha, its funny cus with you, I remember back in your early WOs you were strictly non-buyer non-drugger, then in your diamonds, you were hardcore buyer, hardcore player and hardcore drugger. And now i dont even know, you're some sort of retired businessman with sixteen billion rolls royces and a vague estimate of 3,491 minions who follow your bidding to the letter. And no, that wasnt an analogy.

 

Whilst with me, its just a story of drugging, running out of drugs, drugging, drug kit, running out, daily bonus, drug kit, drugging, running out, drug kit, drugging, running out, daily bonus, hardcore drugging, you get the picture... Aah i guess we all live different lives eh

[Beerme 106]

@Lham: Haha, hee, er haa, er okay not ha, that wasnt one of your funnier jokes. Just wait till I get home and delve into my countless images of me pwning you <_<

 

Ha, its funny cus with you, I remember back in your early WOs you were strictly non-buyer non-drugger, then in your diamonds, you were hardcore buyer, hardcore player and hardcore drugger. And now i dont even know, you're some sort of retired businessman with sixteen billion rolls royces and a vague estimate of 3,491 minions who follow your bidding to the letter. And no, that wasnt an analogy.

 

Whilst with me, its just a story of drugging, running out of drugs, drugging, drug kit, running out, daily bonus, drug kit, drugging, running out, drug kit, drugging, running out, daily bonus, hardcore drugging, you get the picture... Aah i guess we all live different lives eh

and then admitting you noob :P

[Truthteller 4,204]

Well done, nicely written, that was a good read. ^_^

[jazz20 1,181]

Nice :)

[Reaper 992]

nice one man still a good read 4 years on

Edited January 13, 2017 by Reaper