User blog:Banarama/GOODBYE 2017, HELLO 2018!

2017 has been an eventful year for the diep.io community. This community is what we’ve picked up after the rise and fall of 2016 into dramatic fire and brimstone, and we hope this time it doesn’t collapse like it did before. So far, the Diep.io Conception Wiki was merged with this one, the Staff system received some major overhauls, and it’s been a great year all around. From a seemingly hopeless state at the beginning of the year, we have grown and expanded our community and content, and our wiki is filled with activity!

Not only that, diep is finally alive again! Zeach has updated the game for the first time in forever, adding a new tank called the Rocketeer, a tank that shoots Machine Gun Missiles. The Skimmer has been reworked to shoot Flank Guard Missiles, and Zeach toyed with mining Bitcoin. Meanwhile, a person called Neph has been creating and updating a beta diiep.io (or diep2) and is currently trying to get a first release going.

With the two short paragraphs out of the way, let’s poke our noses into a tiny box and accidentally dive right into this H U G E pile of Everythingness 2017™!

You thought clicking on this would yield something tiny amirite :^)

This holiday season has been HUGE for diep.io. After almost a year of nothing, we got a bucketload of diep-related changes coming both from the original game, and a fan-made version with dozens of new tanks and features! Just to give you a taste of what’s happened, this is just two weeks of this month’s tsunami. ahhhhhhHHHHHHHH HHH!!!!!!!!
 * -|Diep & Diiep!=

diep.io
PRAISE ZEACH!!!!!


 * The Rocketeer has been added! It’s a new tank that branches off the Destroyer. It’s a tank which uses a Deployer and fires mini-Machine Guns at other tanks. It works exactly like the Skimmer, except the bullet is changed to have one Machine Gun Cannon instead of two at the back. RocketeerMissile.png

Zeach ran out of ideas so he just cloned the Skimmer the Rocketeer is a test tube baby :O


 * A “Disable Ads” button was added. It asked for permission to mine cryptocurrency in the background and in return, didn’t show any ads. It was later removed because it didn’t generate enough revenue compared to ads.

inb4 capitalism


 * Speaking of the Skimmer, it’s been reworked. It now shoots mini-Flank Guards that rotate. It focuses on area denial now.

;0; Skimmer what happened to you? ;-;

diiep.io
This year brought a brand new fan-made version of diep.io, called diiep.io! This not only brought us a taste of thrilling new features but apparently made Zeach update again cuz capitalism !


 * The following Tanks were added:
 * Sidewinder


 * Other Tank changes:
 * Went back to the old spike design. The dev is keeping the new design in mind for a future smasher.
 * Significantly changed Boomer and slightly changed Skimmer.
 * Decreased Damage across the board.
 * Increased all weapon damage by 50% and lowered all weapon health by 33%. 1.5 x 0.6667 = 1 for those of you who intend to raise a fuss but can’t do math.
 * Also decreased drone and bullet pushability.
 * Increased base tank speed and acceleration.
 * Reshaped many of the drone classes.
 * Disabled all targeting AI. (Temporary) This shuts off automatic drone behavior and auto-turrets as well as probably some other stuff I forgot relied on it. This is a major change but, again, it is only temporary. I’m curious just how much of a load the AI calculations have on the server. If it seems significant I’ll look at ways I can improve it.


 * Nerfs and buffs:
 * Buffed minion speed and minion bullet speed.
 * Nerfed Cruiser kinda.
 * Buffed over-drones’ speed and spawn rate. Nerfed their health. Made Director shoot over-drones not just raw drones.
 * Some sniper-branch nerfs. 20% less damage, 10% faster rof, and a bit more bullet speed to compensate.
 * Buffed Predator.
 * Decreased swarm damage by a lot. Sped it up somewhat to compensate.
 * Reduced skimmer missile cannon recoil.
 * Severely nerfed swarm speed. Really rolled back on the penetration buff. Significantly increased health. Made it decay faster when not being manually controlled: this also means that the autoswarm of battleship has half range compared to previously... compensated for this by making it a bit faster than normal swarm.
 * Decreased Assassins’ bullet damage.
 * Slowed down auto-drones’ spawn speed.
 * Reduced Auto-4’s range.
 * Buffed Hunters’ bullet health.
 * Buffed Fortress a bit.
 * Buffed the Gunners.
 * Buffed Bomber’s recoil.
 * Buffed all trap damage a bit.
 * Spread out Skimmer missiles’ turrets to be more area-denial, but no change to be like the new Diep 1.0 Skimmer.
 * Fixed the bugged Overgunner recoil.


 * Gameplay Changes:
 * More backend tweaks.
 * Added ignore upgrade button and fixed right-clicking on buttons.
 * Really rethought how we serve updates to people. Might be faster! Might not be. Who knows? Will likely be buggy at first though.
 * More backend tweaks.
 * Changed the map again.
 * Added additional profiling tools. There is no difference for you guys but it lets me figure out why Newark is so slow.
 * Disabled the minimap. (Temporary)
 * Various other tweaks to reduce server load. I don’t expect it’ll have much effect.
 * Major backend changes to the server and source processing and deployment pipeline. Should be smarter about caching and versioning.
 * Improved fonts.
 * Terrain fixes and modifications. Bullets now ricochet off of walls. Trickshot time!
 * We’ll be a full sandbox again.
 * Player tanks now persist for 10 seconds after disconnect to prevent cowardice.
 * Bug fixes.
 * Nerfed Alpha and Beta Pentagons.
 * More lag work.
 * New terrain.
 * 2TDM time.
 * Fixed the bugged Overgunner recoil.
 * Increased polygon body damage.
 * Stopped polygons from spawning on top of you.
 * Some major under-the-hood changes to collision mechanics and recoil.
 * Optimized some rendering stuff.
 * Improved some animations.
 * Made the server smarter about ignoring distant food entities.

Yes. This is the somewhat full version, just sorted differently.

If anyone can understand the code babble, tell us and you get a cookie.

So... many... changes...

This year, the wiki went through boom and bust as a whole — it rose from the ashes of the dark, faltered as the light dimmed, but with new energy rose and set off brightly into the sunset.
 * -|Our Rebuilding=

Out of the ashes
Following the temporary autocracy of late 2016, the new year brought new ideas — whereas before, the wiki was so accountable to the Community that it took months to get anything done, and the autocracy was the polar opposite, this transitory way of doing things saw more user input for important decisions while the leadership remained free to act independently. With the additional acquisition of a and a massive update from Zeach during March, things seemed to be going our way…

The phoenix didn’t fly far
Immediately afterward, the updates ceased completely, and would not begin for another half-year. April and May saw people leaving in droves and becoming inactive. Although the wiki was structurally sound, it was in danger of being abandoned — even the Staff had been reduced to a grand total of three active users, and the wiki was a hiatus away from anarchy. The end was seemingly near.

A new hope (no it’s not a star wars ref you nerds)
As everything seemed bleak, with users and admins spending more time in the Chat than our local Chat, it became apparent to  that though estranged for months, both communities worked very well together and enjoyed each other’s company as seen by the migration of users to the social areas of the DCoW. What was seen as a disadvantage was actually a boon in the bright inspiration to merge wikis — the DCoW could take advantage of our code base, infrastructure, search engine visibility, & many other factors, while the would have a lightning bolt to the heart of its withering community.

Into the sunset
While the labors of Administrators is covered elsewhere in this post, the result was a unified community that thrived long enough to see not only the return of Diep.io updates but an entirely new game to cover! Our wiki now has a great many goals to fulfill, any one of which could fail while the others maintain our strength. However, as we move forward ever onward, we should be mindful of how close we came to slipping away into silence forever, just months before updates would rejuvenate us.

By far the highlight of the summer and perhaps the year, however, was The Merge. After a passionate debate and vote, and the support of many DCoW users including, what once was a dream was now begun: the Reunification of North and South Canon and Fanon.
 * -|The Great Merge=

It Begins…
This was far more arduous than envisioned, as constant delays postponed the end. To start with, great amounts of category cleanup and other prep work were necessary. Even social areas like the Forum received much-needed cleanup for their integration into the main wiki, and Staff & CSS were merged into their Diep.io Wiki counterparts. Though this preparation lasted for weeks, it made the subsequent full integration of the wiki much smoother and easier.

The Climax
Next, the Motherload™ proceeded, as files and pages were actually merged. Once the custom namespaces for Fanon were created, the final move could now proceed. There was both good news and bad news during this time, as FANDOM was not only able to move files, but the full edit histories of pages with all their revisions by request! Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, this long-awaited climax was postponed yet again. The wiki grew tenser, tired of the Merge. It had to end eventually, however, and after a final week of waiting for its completion, the Merge reached its denouement.

ONE WIKI! 하나의 위키!
After medals were handed out, the TopNav updated, and final cleanup completed, the two communities moved forward as one, energetic and strong. Fanon gained its own namespaces where it thrived with a better organizational system and more editors, while canon and the wiki at large were revitalized with friendly and knowledgeable users. The wiki was now a dynamic and impressive hub for all things Diep.io. Even the once dying staff got a fresh boost with many new experienced users! Whereas both were struggling and incomplete on their own, together we are complete and rich in activity. 위키는 하나입니다!

This year was a real whirlwind — to wrap things up, here are few of the miscellaneous stories! :3
 * -|2017: A Miscellany=

Although it may seem we’ve exhausted the limits of new expansion, oh no no. This is just the beginning…
 * -|What Lies Ahead=

A New Theme…6D II ep!
Likely one of the more immediate changes, the redesigns created by will be followed to their main completion in January and expanded upon occasionally in the year to come. Elements from Recent Wiki Activity to blog comments will be given a diep-inspired redesign, giving our wiki a distinctive look tied to diep.io. There’s much to come, but for a taste of what it might look like, check out the infoboxes throughout the wiki!

Diep2 Expansion + Cleanup!
Diep2 Diiep.io represents a bright new area for us to document in all its glory, but our current info about it is sparse, to say the least. To remedy this, we will soon begin a project to expand our information with some major rewards. Be ready to start playtesting & typing, especially once the game fully releases!

One True Fanon…
The three fanon namespaces will soon be merged into one! This brings with it a few necessary fixes to account for it, but will hopefully help make the fanonspace more unified, organized, professional, and intuitive.

Fanon Cleanup!
Not only that, fanon will also be receiving some much-needed cleanup making it fleshed-out and thorough, with quality pages that are readable! While the is no easy task, we are certain it will be a boon for the wiki as it becomes neater and more attractive to readers, with legitimately complete conceptions. In addition to this, we may also benefit from FANDOM programs which require at least 80% of pages be above a certain size, providing even more merits. Now get your brooms and mops, and clean up conceptions!

Navigation Galore!
With the advent of Diiep.io, much new navigation will be established along with it. Rich categories will be built and a new section will be added to the main page for even easier navigation to the new pages being created. Not only that, the Mobile Main Page will also receive new links, and Wiki Updates will receive improved mobile navigation.

Blogs Cleanup!
Although this is of less importance than the other projects listed above, Blogs will be receiving some considerable cleanup. All blogs, past, present, and future must meet the or be moved to user subpages, so that this section of our content is filled with guides and essays that are meant for viewers to read, and not the scum of FANDOM. (If you need a place to shitpost, the Discord has dedicated channels for it.) Overall, this plan should bring an air of quality to another area of our wiki that has been a deterrent to more mature potential editors in the past.

So far, we have paid tribute to 2017, a year where we went from the dark aftermath of the chaotic Dark Era with all its grudges and burned-down bridges to a period of languishing where our whole community hit rock bottom, and finally a rebirth with the Merge and other great events which brought new life into our wiki. Next, we shed light on just a sliver of our new plans for a new year. But to conclude this journey through past, present, and future, we truly hope 2018 will be an astonishing and successful year as we lie at a turning point for this entire community. With our newly strong community and leadership and plenty of subject matter with new diep.io updates and an entirely new sequel, all of us here at the Diep.io Wiki wish you and us all, a happy and promising New Year.
 * -|for 2018…=

''Special credit goes to Graviatar for taking time out of the holidays to help provide many of these stellar illustrations. Thank you so much!'' 😄

 Special credit goes to Ozziene in advance for positively commenting about how I used emoji this time