History of the game
On July 11th, 2021, ProTanki celebrated its first birthday. Many important things have happened, and we have all gained a lot of valuable experience. New game objects and modes have been added. An important event for the project was the introduction of technical support, which took ProTanki to a new level. We never stop developing the game and looking into the future. This article is for those who want to know about the past of ProTanki, and about its origins.
The beginning
- «ProTanki» was officially developed on the 11th of July, 2021. Along with its development, the game was then hosted on the now official website. To participate in the newly-developed project, all the player had to do was simply download the client from the game's «website».
ProTanki has since been through a variety of updates and changes that have essentially altered the overall state of the project to resemble the beloved version of the game, that of which lasted from 2014 to 2017. The project developers started diverting their attention towards the community-oriented approached, that which kicked-off by the launching of the game's official Discord server.
Year 2021
With the year approaching its end, the project has had numerous updates. Several of which were fundamentally game-changing. With the latest patch of 2021's Winter — came a few bug fixes. The patch included fixes to a bug that caused players to purchase turret upgrades at a price that didn't match the actual upgrade price. As well as all of the incorrectly purchased upgrades on players' accounts that were deleted Not just that, but also the crystals spent on their purchase were returned to the players, which was patched immediately after. In addition to the aforementioned, there have become new means of purchasing crystals through the shop -- Freekassa, Interkassa and PayPal. The patch also included the improvement of the stability of the connection with the server, that included the decrease of ping (which used to be relatively higher on average, and some other small fixes.
Later on, and through the same day, the developers have patched:
- Bugs related to the experience received upon returning a flag.
- Bugs related to the "Control Points" battle mode.
- Overlapping of battles.
- Issues related to the inversion of tank controls.
- Payments were not processed to the game's balance.
Year 2022
January
This year turned out to be even more eventful and innovative than the previous years. The year started with the traditional Christmas festivities — an interesting kick-off that was welcomed by the then-small community of players having just discovered the project.
Some might say it was an easy year, but for us it was difficult and wonderful at the same time... But, exactly 4 days ago, a New Year's miracle happened; ProTanki is open! That's why we want to congratulate you with all our heart on this wonderful holiday and, of course, Happy New Year! Let it bring us all a lot of good and strength to go on!
The project's starting year had major discounts to celebrate the opening of the project and the traditional holiday, which included individual sales on each section of the garage; turrets, hulls, paints and supplies each at a time starting from the 31st of December, 2021 all the way to 7th of January, 2022. As gold boxes had their decorative texture, and an increased value of 2 000 
. As well as the inclusion of special winter, Christmas effect for the rank up.
In addition to the already exciting additions to the festivities, the map "Happy New Year! (Race)" has been added into the game. There were lingering issues with "Control Points" battles, in particular, not accumulating any fund -- however, that was quickly patched.
The new servers' platform offered, among other things, easier updating to new versions. Towards the end of January, the game has received its first major update, which was a milestone in the project's history.
- Improvements to the anti-cheat system and its effectiveness;
- Brazilian localization has been added to the game, along with their distinguished community;
- Added a pause-limit of 5 minutes, meaning that if the player has been inactive for more than 5 minutes, they'll be automatically kicked from the battle;
- Overhauled the battle list; players acquired the ability to select which battle mode they prefer to be shown in their list;
- Players names in the lobby have now become clickable;
- The game now has a rank-limit. It was added at the request of players to reduce the pressure of high-level players on the less advanced;
- Localization of the news displayed in the client when entering the game;
- Slightly improved hulls' physics;
- The fund of the battle now grows the faster the greater the maximum number of players on the map. We are not talking about the parameter that the player can choose in the battle settings, but about the maximum number of players allowed on a given map in principle. This change will make large maps relevant again, rewarding the player for the fact that he, on such maps, has a long time to get from his respawn to the place of combat;
- For team kills, more crystals now go to the battle fund, similar to points;
- Points are now given not only for the delivery of the flag, but also for helping in the delivery;
- Fixed some bugs with props and drop zones on maps;
- Fixed bug with captcha;
- Fixes for some minor bugs that aren't worth mentioning (but sometimes so annoying...), such as invisible ranks of players in your friends list.
In addition to the mechanical aspect of updates, a major part of it included a much needed re-balance of turrets and hulls.
- Reduced recoil of Smoky and Twins turrets. Actually there was nothing wrong with them, the real error lies in the fact that now the hulls do not react quite adequately when the turrets affect them. This problem isn't easy to fix and we don't know when we'll be able to do it, so for now we've temporarily weakened the recoil of Smoky and Twins, as those turrets whose recoil is one of their strengths. On the rest of the turrets it's not critical, so they haven't been changed;
- Isis now gets far fewer points for healing. The previous scoring formula was ill-conceived and didn't match the one Isis had in the old tanks;
- Re-balanced melee turrets. Freeze and Firebird now have much weaker damage reduction at range, making them much more comfortable to play. Isis range has been reduced, but so slightly that if you didn't know about it, you wouldn't notice the difference;
After an eventful month that went in favor of the circumstances, and a grandiose avalanche of updates and re-balances that helped polish the newly-launched ProTanki, January was tipped off with one final surprise, one of the first major events for the game; Helpers VS Players. The event played out within the in-game map Berlin, which was encamped with 18 players against 18 helpers. The event started on January 28th, exactly at 19:00 Moscow time. The battle was played in CTF, which meant the players had to capture the most flags in order to beat the helpers. The helpers played on the red team, while players on the blue team.
In the end, the players came victorious, with a score in favour of the blue team, with a score of 3-2! The event was a huge success for the first of its kind at the time, which then marked the pathway for other major events to roll out accordingly.
January was marked off by the addition of product kits into the game, which was the most anticipated thing since the game's launch. In addition to kits, In addition to the kits, there are quite a few other changes made to the game:
- When re-entering a battle, one death is now added to the player. Which means it's now useless to try and re-log into a battle to keep a positive K/D;
- Fixed a bug with crystal and gold boxes in "Control Points (CP)" mode;
- Overhauled paints. Both protections and prices have been brought to more correct values. The same goes for the ranks from which they are available. The average price, especially for high-level paints, has been greatly reduced. Paints that were moved to lower ranks, which caused them to become nerfed and their price dropped significantly, will be removed from players' garages, and their full price, which was before the update will be fully returned. The paints in question were: Tundra, Love, Savannah, Python, and Taiga;
- When getting points for a kill, the hull of the enemy you killed is now taken into account. For shooting down a light tank (Wasp or Hornet) you now get 20% less points and experience, and for shooting down a heavy tank (Titan or Mammoth) on the contrary, 20% more. The same applies to the growth of the fund;
- Linking your in-game account to your Discord's in order to receive the role and have access to the rest of the Discord server has now become available, only through the rank of Master Corporal;
- Dependence of funds on map size (max number of players on it) became even bigger, but just a little bit;
- Turrets Railgun and Freeze, at upgraded levels of M1 and M2, have been slightly changed. This revolves around their specifications, price and the rank from which they are available;
- Isida, yet again, has now a significant decrease in the point from which its owner receives upon healing team-mates. This may not be the last change and will continue until Isida no longer dominates team battles;
- All M3 equipment have moved up one rank, and some have even moved up two ranks. Now the progression really resembles a flat and linear progression. The progression used to be purposely crumpled to Marshal because the game lacked kits, but now, with their release, this is no longer required;
Along with the aforementioned updates, gifts were now introduced to the game, polishing all sections of the garage!
Also, and due to severe lack of parkour mode, a rule to help players in parkour has been added for the time being. This rule can be found on the channels "#game-rules" on the Discord server, within the "Gameplay" section under the number 2.1.9.
Despite the entirety of January being eventful, there was still a lot that had to be done. For example, setting enemies on fire with a Firebird still doesn't work properly, which renders the turret too weak with its burn effect. It was later mentioned that the developer who was supposed to fix the Firebird was away for a long time and did not make it in time for the release of the update. On top of that, some annoying bugs are still present in the game. Which the development team was aware of, and were working on releasing patches with fixes for these bugs shortly after.
February
February started off rather tame, as January was packed with loads of mechanical and quality-of-life updates, but that wasn't indicative of a developmental stall.
- On February 6th, a quick patch note was released with a fix to minor bugs that included issues with an "infinite duration" of supplies, as well as all bugs related to mines. The friends list also received a quick patch of issues lingering within the "incoming" and "outgoing" sections, which weren't displayed correctly.
- On top of that, when making an in-game purchase, a check is sent to the player's mail, not an empty message anymore;
- Marking off the quick patch note, the chat ignore list has been tweaked and now works as intended.
Exactly nine days after, on February the 15th – the development team has announced the arrival of festivities for Valentine's Day. The holiday contained:
- Paints were discounted with 35%;
- Three new themed gifts to commemorate the celebration; Valentine, Cupid, Golden Harpoon;
- Themed decorations;
In addition to the celebratory decorations and other additives, the game has received a massive update in regards to product kits, which was the rotation system.
- “Added 10 new kits and changed the mechanics of their randomness. Now getting a rank does not reset the timer, but gives the player one random set from the newly opened sets, without removing the past ones from his garage, unless they are no longer available to him by rank. Kits now disappear from sale one rank lower, which means you are much less likely to see useless kits for your rank in favor of more useful ones. M0, M1, and M2 kits now open one rank later. Thus, it becomes easier for the player to save up for a kit in a timely manner, and the donator will have less of an advantage. Combined with the lowering of the upper bar of kit availability by ranks, this significantly narrows the range-limit of many kits, which means that at each particular rank they will be available a lot less, so that it will be much easier to get a particular kit you need in random. Especially if you consider that the timer is not reset with the rank, which means that players will get the new three sets much more often.” — Announcement from the developers on February the 15th, 2022.
Along with the migration of Product kits now into the game, a comprehensive list of every available kit was released here.
There were a few other minor changes that were included:
- New settings menu. The sections are now divided into tabs. There is a section with control settings, where you can configure mouse sensitivity and key bindings. "Show damage" can now be disabled in the settings;
- Improved the anti-cheat system;
- Game errors will now appear less frequently;
- Fixed several minor bugs;
- CP mode has been added to all maps except Duel, Ping-Pong and a few other minor maps.
And while not all of that was necessarily as eventful as January, the Valentine's Day was still loved by many as the second major celebration and event held in ProTanki, which contained the regular holiday-themed discounts and other decorations that helped establish the feeling...
But!
That was not all. The development team had some delighting news to share, which was a major update to the "Repair Kit" and its functionality; allowing both Isida and the 'Repair Kit' to remove the burning effect, caused by Firebird, and the freezing effect, caused by Freeze.
A little historical background; February 23, referred to as Defender of the Fatherland Day, was once called Red Army Day. Where there is an army, there are tanks. Consequently, all tankmen can rightfully consider this date their holiday. Even if their tank is just an image from the screen of the monitor.
During the holiday, chances of gold boxes dropping were doubled, meaning they're twice as likely to drop, a plethora new themed gifts within the garage, festivities decorations as well as the regular discounts with a percentage of 30 on all turrets.
This briefly concluded February, and marked yet another milestone in the history of ProTanki.
March
March in ProTanki started off rather normally since all the developmental issues and other bugs have been taken care of, therefore, leaving not much behind for the developers to catch on. However, that doesn't necessarily negate the active development that was still happening behind the scenes. Exactly 8 days into March, the game has received a major update to polish the overall product, alongside the celebratory theme of International Women's Day.
- In honor of the International Women's Day, the development team had prepared something special for the players:
– 35% discount on hulls; - Holiday-themed gifts;
The major update to which the team has announced included:
- Improved game pause. Now the tank of a player who is paused in battle won't spawn until the pause is removed;
- Changing equipment in battle is now possible. You can also move from a battle to the list of battles or garage;
- When entering the game, you can enter your attached e-mail to login;
- Fixed minor bugs.
However, and as pleasant as that patch was to the playerbase at the time, there existed an inconvenience that left the players a bit perplexed.
Due to the collapse of the ruble exchange rate, the development team was forced to raise prices for donations in Russian rubles.
- So far, despite the fact that the rate has already collapsed by as much as two times, prices have been increased by only about 30%, but in the future, depending on the situation, this may change.
With that in the way, the game had a steady pace throughout March, with the "Inernational Women's Day" being its only celebratory festive at the time, with no other remarkable notes...
Until, April has arrived -- and in full swing it did, approaching the players with a month packed with surprises and other pleasant contests/events that would compensate for the then uneventful March.