Hello again. I am here to talk about what's going to be going with the 'Tale of Diep' in the near and far future, a rather unorthodox (compared to Diep.io) game concept that began as a derivative of Diep.io here, only to completely become different from the source material. For that and numerous other reasons, some decisions have been made in regards to what will be happening to ToD, in collaboration with Ursuul.
Let me begin with some background and history of the project, I guess. ToD began as a small concept on the Fan Ideas Page back in May 2016 here on the wiki. It was not given a name until months later after the move to the now defunct Diep.io Conception Wiki. It began as just a source for my plausible additions to the game within the realm of understanding of Diep.io.
Then, August 2016, the Archprophet was formed. It was a radical shift outside of the game's mechanics, and broke a lot of Diep.io's molds. It was then that the name 'Tale of Diep' was declared as an extension of in-game Diep.io content with a loose bit of story. This started a chain of events that slowly tore ToD and Diep.io apart.
In late-2016/early-2017, Graviatar's Polygon universe and ToD merged as we became collaborators on the project as equals. This was what started a friendship that has listed since and the creation of many more things that challenged the idea of Diep.io and ToD's relation to it. We had added numerous types of bosses of different molds, structures, game modes, Achievements, and other things that could still be loosely related.
March 2017, the Month of Panzer. This event tore away more vestiges of Diep.io, adding a whole unique world and universe outside of the Arena. ToD gained 'The Realm', and a final boss that no longer corresponded to anything like Diep.io and was instead a creature of its own. It gained many MMORPG elements that discouraged the idea of players fighting at all, formed factions and areas on a map, and more. These ideas lasted until the Great Merge.
Following the Great Merge, over the months leading into 2018, the few things that remained of Diep.io in ToD were Polygons, the art style, and some terminology (tanks, Panzer, etc.). This held strong for a few more months until April 2018. That was when Graviatar and I decided that it was finally time to sever ties to Diep.io entirely. We undertook a massive endeavor of renaming various entities, locations, and revamping the art style. And that is concluded with Tale of Diep no longer being worked on on the wiki. It will also be assuming a new name, but what that is currently is unknown.
And now the future. Tale of Diep is no longer being done on the wiki because we feel it destroys the nature of unlocking the secrets of the game if all of it is laid out beforehand for all eyes to see. The complicated worldwide endeavor of trying to reach the Archprophet is made completely obsolete by laying out the exact process on a wiki years before a theoretical real Tale of Diep would ever exist. The discovery factor ToD relies on (as well as its INTENSE lore) would be ruined. And so, efforts here will cease. Graviatar and I have already archived all pages somewhere else so that they would not be lost.
However, it is not the end. As part of a little agreement between Ursuul, Graviatar, and I, the namespace will not be deleted entirely as originally intended. Instead, it will be held here under lock, so that no one may edit it (save for admins and above I believe), as sort of a secondary archive. Its also a fun little experiment to me, as it will be fun to see how much the game had changed going into hiding to when we finally reveal more about it in the future. For the most part though things will stay in the dark. We will be opening a Discord server open completely to the public soon dedicated to the developing of ToD as a concept and future project for those who are interested and want to stay up to date on it! So look out for that and possibly I will make another announcement when that time comes.
So bid farewell to ToD as you know it. It will probably have a new name by the time all the changes that have been made to it are revealed. Some big changes already decided upon I can elaborate here:
- Tanks are now a species known as Regians, and take an even less Diep.io-like appearance. This name comes from an old project Gravi began working on before ToD and it was decided to be used as a callback to that.
- With that, the Tank Empire is now the Regian Empire.
- Panzer is now Domakav, fitting the 'taking away from the old tank theme' changes. Domakav was the original name of an entity very similar to Panzer in a past story idea of mine who also had an Archprophet at the head of his cult.
- Therefore, Cult of Panzer is now Cult of Domakav.
- And a whole lot more kept secret. ;3
We just thought it would be important to inform the masses of this change before it goes underway, and it was deemed probably important enough to not wait until the next WU. This can be discussed there still, though. As for me, obviously my activity has greatly waned, and ToD was one of the few reasons I stuck around. I may fade from the wiki again when it comes to editing, and may resign in the near future, but I will always be here (and not in the creepy way, even though I will be watching lol, more like the 'guardian angel' kinda way). Hope you wish us the best of luck in our plans and decide to stick around when the Discord server forms!
~Zathsu (-^_^-)