CLOSED — Cedric's "Virtual Office"

theFiringHand · April 19, 2016

Animated Gif created by @TS7StudioHD

ATTENTION === THREAD OPEN AGAIN

Hey, I'm reopening this topic so you can continue asking questions. You can think of it as my "virtual office" :D

I'll try to keep as up to date as possible, and add any frequently asked questions to the... wait for it... "frequently asked questions" post in this thread :)

If your question hasn't received an answer yet, please feel free to ask again. Of course, be so kind as to check the FAQ posthere first. I've sorted the questions and answers into categories to make them easier to find.

Original Announcement

Hi all,

Time to announce the day and time for the Ask-Me-Anything session on the forum, where you can ask me all sorts of questions... and I'll try my best to answer them. :D

The AMA is going to be held tomorrow, Wednesday 20th inside this very thread.

For now, the thread will be locked. I will open it for questions at 19:30 UTC, and I'll try to stay online and answer questions as long as possible.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to cater for all of the time zones in this community, so for those of you on the Pacific side, I'll keep popping into the thread and answering more questions over the next few days.

Now, some even cooler news. I'll be picking a couple of the questions and instead of answering them in the forum, I'll be answering them in this week's V-LOG. There are no set criteria for which questions or how many will be chosen. It might be an entertaining question, an informative one, or even a highly unusual one!

One more thing before we get going. I'd like to set the tone for this conversation.

This is meant to be a fun thing. That means I expect everyone to be polite and cool with one another. Remember, we are all guests here, myself included. So, any bickering, trolling, unpleasantness, or snide remarks will be deleted without as much as a second though.

I know this has the potential to be an awesome get-together for us as a community. Let's make the best out of it!

Talk soon! :)

theFiringHand · April 19, 2016

Frequently Asked Questions (WIP)

About Myself

Q: I believe that you are living in Malta. Are you a native Maltese?
A: Yep, born and bred here :)

Q: How old are you?
A: I'll be 39 on September 18th.

Q: What is your favorite hair color?
A: Ehm... I don't think I've ever developed a preference for a particular hair color lol

Q: What is your skype name?
A: Sorry, that's strictly for close friends, relatives and business contacts.

Q: Do you have any hobbies or interests?
A: Food, music, magic (as in "tricks" though I don't practice much anymore) and writing. And probably a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now lol.

UPDATE: My band has just released a new single called "The Quiet Place. If you wanna give it a listen it's in the spoiler below:

Q: Will we see you singing/playing the guitar again?
A: Maybe... dunno really. I've done it before when I croaked out "Happy birthday Tanki V-LOG" lol
UPDATE: My band has since uploaded a live performance we did in 2001 of our heavy metal version of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". If you'd like to check it out, you can watch it on my band's YouTube channel.

Q: What is your favorite food?
A: Hmm... hard to say. I'm a real foodie. I actually started out my writing career as a ghost writer for a chef.

Q: Which books do you read? Which is your favorite one?
A: I read quite a bit of nonfiction on personal development and psychology. I'm also reading a really cool series of horror books, but they contain mature themes of violence so I can't mention them here.

Q: When and How did you learn English?
A: I'm a native speaker. In Malta, we have 2 official languages — Maltese and English.

Q: Do you speak Russian / other languages?
A: Nope. Just a couple of words here and there. But I'd love to learn Russian. I also speak Maltese (my native language) and Italian very fluently. Oh, and I know a couple of German words too... SCHMETTERLING!!!!!

Q: What got you intrigued into working for a video game company?
A: I love video games ;)

Q: How did you end up working for Tanki Online?
A: I was originally approached through a recruitment agency.

Q: How long have you been working with Alternativa Platform?
A: I've been with AP for about 2 years, lurking in the shadows.

Q: Did you work for other games before joining Tanki?
A: Nope, this is the first game I ever worked in. But I was a games dealer in a casino for 4 years

Q: What other jobs did you have before working with Alternativa?
A: I've done many jobs. I was a games dealer in a casino for 4 years, and I also worked as a TV producer in Malta's biggest TV production house (see photos in spoiler below).

Photo: The TVHemm (pronounced "T V M") production team.

P.S. The bald guy in the middle holding the logo is called Norman. He was the presenter of the program, and also my boss. He was super demanding and I learned a ton from him. @Issho_Fujitora, now you know where my "bulldozer" way of doing things comes from lol.

Photo: My view in the studio during the program TVHemm, which I used to produce. I also used to coordinate the program in studio, as well as sometimes man the camera.

Photo: Another, much older photo of when I was a cameraman.

P.S. The bald guy behind me is called Paul. His nickname is "Bombi" (meaning "Bombs") due to his explosive temper. The guy's an absolute powerhouse, and he repeatedly showed us that whatever we did, he could do better, in less time, and with one arm tied behind his back. But for all his yelling, he always approached us at the end of the shift and said "Thank you". That's a lesson I've kept throughout the years.

I've also been a creative writer for many years, which is what I do professionally even outside of Tanki Online. I write sales pages for business (mostly internet marketing), a lot about food. One of the main projects I work on is editing the Definitive(ly) Good Guide to Restaurants.

Q: What is your favorite turret/hull combo?
A: I love Freeze/Wasp and spinning around my opponents.

Q: What is your favorite map?
A: I don't have a particular favorite map, but I really like Rio.

Q: How long you been playing Tanki?
A: Around 2 years, but I don't play very often as I don't have much time

Q: How often do you play Tanki?
A: Not very often. My work keeps me very busy. Just keeping up with this AMA thread is eating up a lot of my time :)

Q: Do you like [insert name of sport here]? If so what team do you like?
A: I'm totally clueless about football and sports in general. I do weight lifting though.

Q: Will you add me on Tanki? What is your in-game nickname?
A: It's easier if you add me. My public account is @theFiringHand

Q: What is your Skype name? Can we talk?
A: Sorry, my skype is exclusively for family, relatives, close friends and business.

Q: How did you come across Semyon Kirov?
A: Through Tanki Online. We've been very good friends ever since.

About my Work

Q: Do you work at Tanki Online?
A: Yes, I'm employed with TO as the English Community Manager.

Q: How do you contact with the team in Russia? (I presume they're in Russia :P) Through Skype or frequent visits?
A: We communicate mostly via Skype, Slack and email.

Q: What does a day in the life of a Community Manager look like for you? What are a few of the duties that you see to during the day?
A: I usually start the day with forum and PMs (I get a ton). Rest depends on the day. I try to communicate regularly with my top people, get feedback from them, and see where they need help. On some days I'm writing reports, on others I'm working on the V-LOG script, and on others still, I work on strategy.
You see, being a CM is all about using your team properly. My team know a lot more about the game than I ever will. They're experts in their respective fields. My job is to figure out how to connect the dots between them to make them all awesome.

Q: When Tanki X is officially released, will you serve as the community manager of both TO and TX?
A: I seriously doubt it. When taken seriously, the job of CM is quite a handful. I barely manage with this community as it is.

Q: Will you be active as you are now? I mean is this just for now or..? Because we've had a lot of community-inactive people..
A: The plan is for me to stay active. :)

Q: What are your first thoughts of your new position?
A: Fun and challenging. Reminds me of when I was a TV producer, but not as demanding as that.

Q: What do you aim on improving in Tanki?
A: I want to get people even more enthusiastic about being a part of this community. That includes contests, events and esports.

About the Team

Q: Are you thinking about rotating/changing EN Admins and Mods.
A: Yes, there will be changes. I like to get to know people and their strengths and use those strengths to the absolute best of their potential.

Right now, I've got a good relationship with some key people who are doing a brilliant job. Once I see how I can best use everybody's potential, I'll decide whether anyone else needs to be appointed.

If you're asking me whether I'll be firing anyone, that depends. I might have said this in the past — I'm not afraid of making unpopular decisions as long as it's for the greater good. I love to give people all the rope they need — they'll either climb it and achieve something, or get tangled in it and get lost.

Q: Do you think that helper positions will be re-opened soon?
A: That's hard to say. I need to optimize my current team first. There's lots of potential that hasn't been properly used up until now, so I wanna start with that first.

About the Community

Q: What are your plans on development of EN community?
A: My priorities are (as far as "visible" changes go):

building a rock solid eSports and parkour events calendar
catering for sub-communities, starting with the Arab community who have since started getting V-LOG subtitles (credit: @Omar_Enze)
reviving events so you people have something to do even outside the game. UPDATE: "The Riddlers Team" have since started organizing a series of weekly puzzles. Credit: @Issho_Fujitora (fact checking and research), @lekso2001 (quiz & crossword creation), @Meliora (proofreading & editing) and @eragon33 (design of main banner & visual puzzles)

Q: What do you think of the current state of the forum?
A: Hard to tell. I need to test some things first. It seems to me that there's a lot of potential for great interaction, but there's a lot that needs to be done to get it going.

Q: We've been waiting long for a major tournament for EN community... Is there any chance this might happen soon, perhaps by this year? What are your plans on the eSports of Tanki Online?
A: Yes, definitely happening soon. I've got working on a detailed plan for regular multi-level tournaments that we're thinking of having every few months, as well as smaller events held regularly. I feel your pain guys, seriously, and I'm gonna make it go away. I promise.

Q: Will SLTV return?
A: I doubt it will come back, but I intend to have quite a few events to keep you all entertained.

Q: Can you describe the EN community in one word?
A: Melting pot (yeah that's 2 words... so sue me lol)

Q: You said before that you will start with the Arabic community. How did you mean that exactly ?

Is it going to be a totally different community, like the DE, RU and PL communities ? if yes, how far are you with the process?

A: For now it won't be an independent community. But I do want to start catering more for that community with things such as V-LOG subtitles etc. As the community grows organically and becomes more engaged, we can see where that takes us.

About the Game

Q: When will you open the spectator application?
A: I intend to have a good look at all people with spectator mode. I want to make sure spectator mode is only in the hands of people who are actually doing something worthy with it, and that means entertaining the community with high-quality videos. Spectator mode was never intended to be a toy, but I suspect quite a few people think it is. That has to end. But, to answer your question, I'm not opening spectator mode anytime soon. First I revise, then we'll see.

Q: When will we have new turrets and hulls?
A: There are no turrets and hulls planned for the immediate future. Of course, anything can happen down the line.

Q: When will there be the next [insert equipment name here] sale?
A: I can't give any details. You'll just have to watch the news ;)

Q: Any EN clan tournaments coming soon?
A: Yep. Keep your eyes on the news.

Q: Are there any kits coming with [insert equipment name here]?
A: Sorry, no idea.

Q: Is Tanki working on a new XT tank?
A: Sorry, no idea.

Q: Is Tanki also considering XT paints and XT kits?
A: Sorry, no idea.

Q: Is there any chance of Tanki increasing the gold box drop rate?
A: Sorry, no idea.

Q: Ages ago, Tanki said they were considering a new supply, and that one they were considering had appeared at the end of the V-log. What was this supply, and will it ever be added?
A: It's hard to say. Adding a new element to the game is always a very complicated endeavor, because it affects literally everything else in so many unexpected ways.

Q: What work is being done to address the the multing & sabotage problem?
A: Programmers are working on an improved anti-cheat system. I can't really give any details right now, but it's pretty high on their to-do list.

Q: Will there be a new voting system anytime soon?
A: Programmers are planning on re-introducing team kick for PRO battles this fall

About Tanki X / Other

Q: What is Semyon doing now?
A: He's working in another company. Haven't spoken with him in a while, but last time I did he told me to say hi :)

Q: What is the best thing you think Semyon achieved as CM?
A: I think Semyon brought a certain warmth to the community with his presence in the V-LOG.

Q: What do you think of Tanki X and do you think it should replace the old Tanki online?
A: Tanki X looks cool. However, I don't think it will replace TO. People love this game. There will be fans and players for both games as long as we keep them entertained. After all, there are still people playing and raving about games that are 25 years old.

Q: When will Tanki X be available for the open testing?

Q: Will we see a new game mode for Tanki X, other than the current ones?
Q: Will we have a choice to transfer our accounts to the new tanki ?
Q: Will [insert map name here] be added into Tanki X?
Q: Will [insert feature name here] be available in Tanki X?
A: I really have no idea. For news on Tanki X, your best bet is to follow the Tanki X Developer’s Diary video series. They release a new episode every two weeks and you can find them all right here.

r_Event1 · April 20, 2016

1. Are you thinking about rotating/changing EN Staff - Admins.

2. What are your plans on development of EN community?

3. Will we see you playing guitar?

Edited April 20, 2016 by JJanis

theFiringHand · April 20, 2016

Go :D

vilmos98 · April 20, 2016

What is your favourite food? :)

Kurt_KurtDGreat · April 20, 2016

Glad you took this initiative Cedric :)

1) Do you think that helper positions will be re-opened soon?

2) We've been waiting long for a major tournament for EN community... Is there any chance this might happen soon, perhaps by this year? :P RU have masters of the sword currently, with amazing prizes (tho anyone can join)

3) Do you know Russian?

4) How do you contact with the team in Russia? (I presume they're in russia :P) Through Skype or frequent visits?

Edited April 20, 2016 by Kurt_KurtDGreat

silent-is-my-hero · April 20, 2016

Hello,

Before I ask my questions, do you work at tanki online?

Amateur · April 20, 2016

When and How did you learn English?

Taco · April 20, 2016

Hi, I was wondering what got you intrigued into working for a video game company? Thanks! :)

tryeeme · April 20, 2016

Firstly, welcome as a community manager! :). When will tanki X be available for the open testing?

Gombos · April 20, 2016

What is optimisation? :D

Contradiction · April 20, 2016

1. First of all, how did you first get involved in the Tanki Online project? How long have you been working with Alternativa Platform?

2. I believe that you are living in Malta. Are you a native Maltese?

3. What does a day in the life of a Community Manager look like for you? What are a few of the duties that you see to during the day?

4. Do you have any hobbies or interests?

5. When TankiX is officially released, will you serve as the community manager of both TO and TX?

6. What is your favorite turret/hull combo? What is your favorite map?

Edited April 20, 2016 by Contradiction

gameonln · April 20, 2016

Helo cedric

welcome,

I have que

If acnt inactve for long time then what will happnd for his forum field?

Is name get change on forum field? if yes then what about his past post? it will get delete or will show by new name?

T.O.R_VaSiLe · April 20, 2016

When will be openthe spectator application? :D

When will be new turrets and hulls?

Edited April 20, 2016 by T.O.R_VaSiLe

r_lashako0 · April 20, 2016

Greetings,
What are your plans on the esports of Tankionline/TX will SLTV return and are you planing on some in community events like those which take place in the RU community.

r_gigiz0 · April 20, 2016

1st question How long you been playing tank?

2nd What is Symon doing now ?

3rd How often do you play tanki?

4th when is testing going to be opened for Tanki X?

5th Do you like foorball? If so what team do you like? mine is Liverpool fc

6th Will you add me on tanki xD?

xX_I.Love.Her_Xx · April 20, 2016

Any awesome details on upcoming sale? ^_^

Will you be active as you are now? I mean is this just for now or..? Coz we've had a lot of community-inactive people..

What are your first thoughts of your new position? :D

Any EN clan tournaments coming soon? :rolleyes:

silent-is-my-hero · April 20, 2016

So my questions

1. Is there any information about the poll we filled in about the super gold so far?

2. Are there any kits coming with dictator m3? If no, tell me why

3. Is tanki working on a new xt tank?

4. Is tanki thinking about xt paints aswell and xt kits?

5. What do you think of tanki X and do you think it should replace the old tanki online?

6. Is there any chance of tank increasing the gold box drop rate?

I wish you good luck with the answers, thanks for helping us, have a good day :D,

Silent-is-my-hero

Edited April 20, 2016 by silent-is-my-hero

tryeeme · April 20, 2016

Is it possible that we see a new gamemode for tanki X, other than the current ones?

Will all maps eventually be added into tanki X?

Fortify · April 20, 2016

Hello Cedric, Hope your having a good day, but heres by question: Do you speak russian fluently? Will you be adding any new game modes?

tryeeme · April 20, 2016

Ages ago, tanki said they were considering a new supply, and that one they were considering had appeared at the end of the V-log. What was this supply, and will it ever be added?

(P.S. this was ages ago, ages before the april fools joke.)

surpremex053 · April 20, 2016

when will there be the next turret/hull sale? I'd like there to be a sale on ricochet and viking... or perhaps a sale on Hammer of Thor Kit at like 80% off.

I.Devastation · April 20, 2016

Are you going to appoint your own admins?

What do you think of the current state of the forum?

And one last comment pls tell you're mods that I know I'm amazing and beautiful but they don't have to think about me all the time kthx

Edited April 20, 2016 by I.Devastation

Avail · April 20, 2016

What is your favourite hair colour? :) :) :D :D

Tact · April 20, 2016

What languages do you speak ? :)

Challenge	Start Date	End Date
1	15.08	29.08
2	29.08	05.09
3	05.09	12.09
4	12.09	19.09
5	19.09	26.09
6	26.09	3.10
7	3.10	10.10
8	10.10	17.10

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