Review [Issue 20] [History] In The Beginning, Tanki... - Part 8

[hogree 4,179]

 

It's catch-up time for this series as we enter 2013, growing ever closer to the current day. Though 2013 still may feel like yesterday for many of us, the progress the game made in those twelve months cannot be understated. We start off with players still settling in with the shattering rebalance - and traverse through many of our memories of the last year! Let's get started...

 

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Previous articles in this series:

Read Part 1 Here (Beginning - December 2009)

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)

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“Happy New Year” goes the cry as 2013 starts, a new year dawning on Tanki Online. But for quite a number of players, saying HAPPY New Year would be pushing it. The rebalance had taken Tanki by force less than a month ago, and to say that it had come as a bit of a shock to the system would be understating it. For some of the players, who had been playing Tanki for 2 years +, it was an unwelcome entry.

 

Now, why, you may ask? After all, rebalance may seem to many of us now like one of the best Tanki updates of all time. It gave a new sense of balance and variety to the battlefield - and suddenly, there was a lot more to aim for in regards to buying and goals for players. But lets traverse back in time to what we thought when it came out. Maybe you weren't there, but I'm sure you can imagine. Just think of it this way.

 

Ever since Tanki had begun, there had been Tiers. Everyone had always had a goal - whether it be M3 Thunder, M3 Freeze or M3 Rico - and those were the main focuses of the players. The rebalance completely shook this outlook on things. Suddenly, everything was equal. Most players couldn't wrap their head around it. For months after the update, players always referred to Ricochet and Shaft as the "best weapons", and still didn't manage to latch on to the fact that now, they were no longer the best. The turrets had all become equal. Just think - all those re-thought goals, the whole idea... it was a lot for players to take in and consider.

 

This, unfortunately, was a big blow for many of Tanki's veteran players. For many, they couldn't be bothered to take in the changes and moved off to other games. I was one of the relatively few 2010'ers who stuck around at this point - though the rebalance nowadays is attracting tons of players to the game, it actually was a key reason to a lot of old players leaving. It's fair to say that the rebalance heralded the beginning of a new era.

 

The cold was still rushing by, as players settled into their post-NewYear discount equipment. The rebalance was still causing many players to consider what was best on the battlefield. Its fair to say in the first few days that Thunder, Twins and Isida were certainly the most common weapons on the battlefield.  Isida's massive power raiseled people to go crazy at the amount of damage it could weald. Thunder was mass-power and people from before the rebalance were sticking with it too  - and Twins seemed to be much better than Ricochet in the early days. And as for tanks, the majority used Mammoth as the Rebalance started to make its effect on gameplay. The health was just massive - too massive to ignore.

 

It was mid-January that the first main event for the English Community begun - the infamous CSL 1 started. Now when I say infamous, I mean infamous infamous. This was what I would certainly class as the biggest saga of all time in the English side of Tanki.

 

The Cybersport Team, at that time, was run by moderator BarKode. Bruce Lunga, the community manager, was getting more busy with real life activities (which was a reason he had to later quit his role as manager), and so BK had a primary "boss" role in the Cybersport Business. With his DJs including ShadowVisions, Arya777, AnuBoi, PistolenPaultje, GeneralVeers and Vikingsrall, Cybersport was thriving - though people questioned BarKode's leadership, and rightly so.

 

BarKode had his own clan - called Sinister (later known as Syndicate), and they were entering the CSL. Dare Devils had been dominating all the clan contests at that point - and BarKode didn't want that to continue. Using the argument that he wanted it to be more interesting, he purposely rigged the contest so that Sinister would avoid meeting Dare Devils right until the end. 

 

This didn't mess up the CSL much at the time - as Sinister eventually came out quite early, and the main famous event was when The Mighty Midgets beat DD in an incredible showdown to state their claim for the Number One spot in the history of clans. It was only after the CSL was over, and as CSL Season 2 was beginning that the truth was unfolded. BarKode lost his job, role and status, which led to him quitting Tanki.  With this event, the shaky floor beneath Cybersport collapsed - and the whole previous Livestream Channel with all the incredible games of old times was obliterated. For someone who has followed clans for a long time, it was an incredibly sad but dramatic time.

 

Meanwhile, there were still in-game tweaks occuring. With the rebalance, there had come in a new burst of cheats and lagging - which the developers were seeking to fix as quickly as they could. To fix the lags, what was coming was a new server platform - an update not to be understated in its effect on us nowadays. It entered the game in late January. As well as fixing glitches, the platform enabled far more players to join each server as well as reducing lag.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that 2012 heralded the greatest improvements as for the community side on the English side of Tanki. However, Bruce was doing his best to keep things moving in 2013. He was compiling a few funny Video Blogs, as well as some simple Breaking News posts (which co-incidentally are helping me a lot in organising this article). The Artist of Tanki Online Contest also returned in January. An incredibly successful contest with a fantastic organisation, the contest format was done by selecting the best 8 entries, and then doing a "play-off" stage till the final following different themes which gave a great sense of theatre to the contest.

 

For the developers and players, it was soon February as the Russian winter blues started to melt away into Spring, and players got settled into a new arena that the rebalance was offering. Players were beginning to warm to the rebalance ever so slowly, but certainly one of the most unsatisfactory updates was going to hit sooner than the players wanted.

 

And of course, I'm jumping ahead of myself. Issue 8 of the Newspaper was released in early February, featuring one of the best and longest articles of all time written by ShadowVisions (Yes, even longer than mine!) - the Shopper's Guide to the Rebalance. The rebalance clearly wasn't stemming the new accounts - if anything, it was speeding up the growth of the game, as Tanki hit 20 million players!

 

It had already been a decent while since the New Year's Discount and devs were starting to realise the weapons and hulls that were completely dominating the battlefield. What may come as a surprise to you readers now is that one of the least popular weapons at the beginning of the rebalance, if not the least popular, was Smoky. Yes, what some people class as the "most over-powered weapon by far" was largely unseen in the first battles, particularly at higher ranks. This was probably a main factor in the idea behind discounting it at 50% early in February! Smoky fever grew, and I got M2 Smoky too mainly due to the fact that I thought Smoky was less mainstream, and I wanted to be epic hipster. However, I never settled into the Smoky gameplay, and now its sitting, dust settled all over it in the garage.

 

It was only a couple of days later that the foretold update was added to the game. I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, I will have to say this - but on the 13th of February entered the infamous Update 123.

 

Now, there was at heart nothing wrong with this update - in fact it was great! The crystal collection was a wonderful change - as it spread out crystals more fairly. As all crystals were alloted x10, not only did players seem to get a lot more cash, but most significantly, beginners begun to get a fairer share of funds. So what was the problem?

 

Ultimately, the problem cut down to this - the funds had been drastically decreased. Suddenly, funds were incredibly hard come by. What had used to be a simple 100 fund in 30 minutes became a struggle to even make 500 (previously worth 50). And, as you can imagine, players weren't happy. It was hard enough to get funds at the time - now crystals would be hard come by. It was the beginning of a struggle to generate quick crystals in the game, steering many people to quit.

 

It seemed at this point that Tanki were slowly beginning to take a different political look on the game. Gone were the days of cheap buying and easy-to-earn crystals with very occasional sales - and coming in was the Tanki we see today - more expensive and harder to earn, but more sales. And boy do we see that! Firebird sale entered for Valentine's Day, just a couple of days after Smoky, another largely unseen weapon on the battlefield. And later in the month, just at the end of February, all the hulls were reduced by 25%. Though this did quite a lot to appease some of the unhappy players, it wasn't ideal, and the developers were searching for a way to keep players playing but also keep the money flowing in.

 

March came, and the internet craze of the Harlem Shake was starting to make its move into Tanki. Not only did the Tanki developers make their own and Bruce make his own V-Log dedicated to it, but they opened up a clan contest for people to do an "organised dance routine" to the soundtrack of the Harlem Shake. Clans all over made their own video, and in a crazy vote-to-the-death, Behemoth edged Kings of Genocide to become the winners at the tightest margin to be possibly thought up.

 

A number of updates joined Tanki in March including a number of new or updated maps, as well as a new "sort through battles" interface and some serious graphic updates. Firstly came a few tweaks to maps. Fort Knox was removed, and Fort Knox II renamed to it. Fort Knox III was tweaked with and re-named Edinburgh. There were minor updates to other maps with glitches and/or uneven teams.

 

The Interface Sorting-through-game-modes system joined Tanki first in March. As shown here, players were able to find their mode of choice easier by selecting what type that wanted to play. Tweaks were later added to the system to make it what it is today. 

 

Graphics in Tanki had been a major update of the past months, and joining Tanki in March were some new graphic updates. Dust underneath tanks were added to give a new more natural feeling and shadows were given some more detail. The game was improving in looks as the days flew past. 

 

Bruce hadn't finished with contests or clans yet - The Dusseldorf Royal Rumble, a massive Deathmatch where representatives from each clan came together each week to fight for prizes began in March. As for contests, the Tanki Online Body Art contest also begun which got a surprisingly huge amount of entries, players all over participating to win the crystals that had become so recently tough to find.

 

Spring was approaching the game, and developers were warming up for two of what I would call the happiest updates during my Tanki history. The month, however, was scattered with updates. A substantial, but controversial update was brought to light that month, as developers enhanced the Tanki team-kick system with the "Thumb-down" Arrows coming in. Though this has caused a number of players to be kicked from battles even after helping their team to quite a high amount, I personally love it, as you so often find low rankers joining a high-rank game and refusing to leave, which makes for a lopsided battle often spoilt by that fact. The Team Kick System also helps to get rid of sabotagers quite effectively.

 

The first product kits also entered the game in April. Though people were found to be quite wary of this update since it gives a large advantage to buyers, it has been quite a success for the developers as it encourages the players to spend on crystals to get a massive, but not too overpowering, advantage in battles.

 

It was later in April that I'm sure one of the happiest updates many of us will recall occured. The devs surprised us with an awesome 60% permanent Fund Raise, after seeing the problems that the low funds had been doing to their playerbase. It was a great encouragement for players to join back - what I would call a definite success... well certainly for us tankmen!!!

 

The month wasn't over; not near it. A fantastic update near the end of the month, at least in my opinion, was the addition of a "Gold Box will be dropped soon" signal. I'm sure many of us will have seen this; doesn't it set your heart wild! Before this, there had just been a random drop... I personally think it lost the point of a gold box hunt. The previous way of dropping also had meant that a lot of players had been sitting in certain positions waiting for the gold since it could have fell without alert at any time period. The new way of doing things was a big hit on success as the epic feeling of the gold rush slowly returned to the game!

 

Later in the month, another controversial feature in the game was put to rest. Since the rebalance, the possibility to "buy experience" had been available for all ranks. This had been great for people like me who were seeking for M3 weapons and hulls immediately and had lots of crystals to spend, but it was leaving many aspects to the game decidedly unbalanced. Players were getting to Generalissimo with minimal skill, and no longer could you look at a rank and be certain of the experience of the player. There were, as with many updates, disadvantages and advantages. However, there were only few people using this update and Tanki decided that it was causing more problem than solve. They did, however, give a warning before removing it, enabling me to spend that little bit more cash to rank up to Lieutenant General!

 

The English community was still thriving. Embedded in what I would call the "Contaminated days", the forum was moving forward quickly with mods and consultants joining often. During the month, another serious influence on the Community joined... in Perm. We know his name. Semyon! Semyon joining started the fading effect of the incredible 2012 Community Manager, Bruce Lunga. But I definitely will never forget his work in helping me really enjoy the vibrant nature of this community...

 

May was soon upon us. Players were beginning to truly appreciate the rebalance gameplay, people were joining by the quadrillions. The annual May Holidays began, with the Russians celebrating the annual V-E Day celebration with some tasty discounts and the first raised worth of the Gold Box since Update 123. 

 

The updates were gradually coming to a halt, as Tanki developers slowed down for the summer. May passed, people as always settling into their post-discount combinations. The month did hold a couple of contests. After the successful "Best of Guides" Contest in 2012, they re-did it in May 2013, earning a great number of applications with the new range of weapons the rebalance offered. 

 

A staff vs players game was also introduced for the English Community. The map Moon Silence, a take on Silence as you can probably guess, had been introduced and the developers were keen on having a cool battle called the "300 Astronauts" Battle. Though I didn't play, as a staff, I needed M3 Smoky and M3 Wasp in case I was going to play, and so Tanki made my rank Generallisimo for about a week. I must admit, I did enjoy that feeling! :lol: The battle did go well, the players putting up a fight, but the staff overcoming them.. as we always do :P

 

June. It was already mid-2013. The Devs weren't holding back with the discounts though with early June boasting an awesome "Discount Week", where Tanki discounted seperate parts of the garage throughout the week, before ending it with a massive 90% off the Score Multiplier - irresistible, even for some Generallisimos!

 

During the month, there was a largening of battle creation, as players were able to start to stretch the limits to enjoy a more variable battle experience. WO5s now could play Generallisimos... even though thats nothing compared to the good ol' days when a Private could kill a Marshal!

 

It was time for the summer to settle down. Crash and Gallery, the two future-gen maps were removed, with preparation on the scenes for the future new maps coming out. The paint Traceur was added to the garage for the Masters of Parkour Contest. Though promised to be removed, it never has - players still using it at low ranks and in XP-K Battles. Cybersport was also starting to get moving again with the Lucky Seven Tournament starting later in June.

 

Only half-way in the year... I'm sure you'll now understand what I mean by it being a rather influential year! And there's so much more to discover... stay tuned for next issue, what will be the final look-back on the History of Tanki!

 

Well, 2013... we've not even got close to exploring it yet! I'm sure many of you will have your own cherished memories of last year; fancy sharing it - please do below! Thanks for reading!

 

[Raphael2 3,263]

Good recent memories. Epic as usual.

[D1E 257]

Brilliant article Hog, looking forward to the next one, IMO, this is the best series on the go in the newspaper atm

[Beerme 106]

Brilliant article and nice detail on the cybersport :P

[hogree 4,179]

nice detail on the cybersport :P

Thank Visi...  :blink: I could have told you a lot lot more about Cybersport, trust me.

[r_awesomeboss1 17]

More?

[r_awesomeboss1 17]

June. It was already mid-2012. 

:mellow:

[RockandRide 12]

BarKode had his own clan - called Sinister (later known as Syndicate), and they were entering the CSL. Dare Devils had been dominating all the clan contests at that point - and BarKode didn't want that to continue. Using the argument that he wanted it to be more interesting, he purposely rigged the contest so that Sinister would avoid meeting Dare Devils right until the end. 

 

Images,sources, proof?

[hogree 4,179]

Images,sources, proof?

PM.