Competition rigging on US server

So, remember how I told you a few days back about competition rigging and how to do it?

To recap quickly: basically, if you want to rig a competition, you make as many platoons of you and your friends and possible, log in during low population hours – and there is a really good chance that all those platoons will end up in one game, especially on not-so-populated lower tiers (although technically lower tiers are the most populated tiers in the game, they are played thru the day, because only “hardcore” people play deep in the night – and those actually play high tiers only).

Few weeks ago, US server (just like EU and RU servers) hosted an XP competition. You know, the “have the most XP on new vehicles and get rewards” one. That one the concerned the new Soviet light tanks plus the German tanks.

Long story short, a player named KingAlphyn (clan leader of PUPEH) fixed the competition, using the method described above.

First, he logged into battle with many platoons of his clanmembers:

KingAlphyn 1

Then, he and his squad of goons fixed the battle so that he gets to kill everyone:

KingAlphyn 2

In the battle, he “scored” 12 kills:

KingAlphyn 3

Here, the results of the battle (notice the XP amount he got):

KingAlphyn 4

And… voila! Instant competition victory (same XP amount, so this battle was used to win):

KingAlphyn 5

So, KingAlphyn gets to enjoy the top prize (Type 59 or 5000g, I can’t remember). Makes you wonder… since the WG folks don’t check even the overall winning replays, what ELSE is rigged? And does it even make sense to participate in such events, when it’s so easy to do this and if not for the “detective” work of several players, he’d have gotten away with it?

I really hope he gets banned…

Polls…

Hello everyone,

you might have noticed I have put up a new poll. We’ll get to that in a second. The results of the one I just closed were actually better than I expected, very few people consider this new interface to be outright bad. TBH, while the start had some small issues (the comments for example) and I do miss certain functions from the blogspot (the look was easier to modify and there was the function to see exactly the page where the visitors are coming from – google analytics doesn’t have that, as far as I can see, only the general source), I do believe everything is working pretty smoothly right now. So – thanks everyone for your continued support :)

To the new poll: it is confirmed that the next tree to appear in World of Tanks will be the Japanese tanks (possibly very late 2013 or early 2014, given the fact that WG ran into some problems when gathering sources, the latter is more probable). Apparently, two branches (19 tanks) will initially be implemented: a light/medium mix and a heavy branch.

What are your thoughts about that? Are you looking forward to it?

22.6.2013

- Storm himself in’t happy with the 0.8.6 sounds. Some sounds will be reworked or moved back to the 0.8.5 version in 0.8.7 (namely the tank being hit and explosion sounds).
- the T-44 will have the sound of shifting gears and various engine RPM sound on various speed implemented, based on real life T-44 sounds
- apparently, the Russian weekend event with double XP/income for top players is VERY popular
- Wargaming’s statistical data on how many people played/play arty won’t be disclosed
- Type 59 won’t be rebalanced (like the Superpershing)
- the fact whether arty gains enough XP per battle in 0.8.6 will be known after 2 weeks or so (when first statistic results come in)
- Storm states that it is not true that the 0.8.6 brought reduced performance (FPS) for a lot of people. In fact, he says it’s the other way around, 0.8.6 increased FPS for a lot of people (SS: including me), if you have lower FPS in 0.8.6, Storm suggests to write a support ticket and ask there. Otherwise the complaints on FPS drops are normal after each patch.
- upcoming patches will bring new game features and optimalisations
- Pz38H (“Micromaus”) had its MM weight reduced
- general light tank rebalance is not planned
- it’s possible destructible sand hills (SS: not sure what exactly is meant here, but I don’t think it’s the terrain dunes, more like small sand terrain features) will be introduced, but not soon
- dynamic amount of complaints per day (SS: the more you play, the more times you can report someone in game) will not be introduced for now

21.6.2013

- Storm confirmed that tank destroyers keep their better camo coefficients than the rest of the vehicles despite camo coefficient’s rebalance to fit it to the vehicle dimensions
- when considering rebalance of vehicles, the current principles stay the same as before
- contrary to earlier reports, the new 0.8.6 shell distribution (AKA “increased accuracy”) DOES apply to arty also, the arty accuracy nerf was actually meant as a balance so that their accuracy remains the same
- King Tiger is “too small” for the superheavy spall liner
- it’s possible to delete the content of X:\Games\World of Tanks\Updates folder safely, those are just old files
- the miniquests (“combat tasks”) won’t be permanent, WG will continually introduce new ones and remove the old ones
- there were rumors that the new map will be called “mansion” – that is not the case
- Storm when asked whether he likes new sounds: “50/50″
- some players were whining about TD’s being the new arties (too many), Storm thinks it’s BS (“Give me 10 screenshots of 10 battles on tier 10, that follow each other, with 7-10TD’s in every team. If you don’t, I will ban you – ok?”
- historical “normalisation” on Soviet guns varied a lot, it was from 0 to 7-8 degrees (SS: “normalisation” effect – improving the impact angle – was archieved by soft-capped shells, that partially deformed upon impact and “chewed” into armor)
- for now it’s not yet decided, whether a special MM rule, forcing the same type of top tanks in both teams will be implemented (SS: so that one team doesn’t have two T10 heavies and the other two T10 arties)
- special map-based MM (SS: for example heavies often having maps with more cover) will not be implemented
- so far, Storm thinks the accuracy wasn’t overbuffed, but he will keep an eye on statistics
- the Westfield bridge was repaired only for the assault mode
- shell distribution within the aim circle IS dependent on the gun accuracy. A gun with 0.33 accuracy will have more shells flying straight to the center than a 0.4 gun.
- official shell velocity data won’t be made public
- British and German tanks won’t recieve any buff to compensate for the fact that now ALL the tanks are reasonably accurate and not just them
- if you hit enemy tracks and recieve “that one bounced” sound, even though you detracked the enemy, it’s not a bug, it means that the shell didn’t penetrate the armor behind the tracks
- Q: “Is it true that at this moment, WoT is more popular than World of Warcraft or Counterstrike?” A: “Depends which parameters you measure.”
- during the announced big rework of game models, both tanks and other objects (houses etc.) will be reworked, but not necesserily at the same time
- the fact some tank has covered tracks by (real life) spaced armor plates doesn’t automatically mean these plates are actually working as extra spaced armor, it’s different with each tank (SS: for example the Schmalturm PzIV side mesh armor doesn’t work), but if it does, then it counts as two layers of spaced armor: one is the plate and one is the track module behind it
- realistic sounds like in Gnomefather’s mod? “We need time to implement such stuff, so we can do it in good quality”
- the reason for the roaming mechanism are clanwars and international championships, roaming in randoms is just a “side-effect”
- SerB states that the current negative reaction on the patch is not unusual: “It’s always like that”, this negative reaction comprises largely of the reluctance to adapt to new conditions
- SerB commenting on the fact that while some vehicles in the game are historical and it’s not a problem, some are not and when players point that out, the reply is “it’s not a simulator”:

“We have a game (a game, not a simulator) based on historical basis. We decide, where the basis ends and the game begins. Yes, whenever we want and however we want.”

- Evilly (RU community chief): it’s still an open question, whether there will be permanent rewards for medals

No credit miniquests for you, bloody capitalists!

Source: wot-news.com

Hello everyone,

today, the forums were abuzz with the amazing event action with the miniquests (“combat tasks”), awarding double credit reward to the top 3 players of each team on the battle.

So, you thought you’d be getting that too, EU and NA server? Well, too bad, you ain’t getting anything.

Storm: “There won’t be any such credit miniquests anymore. They are too good. This event will run to the end unchanged. But in the future, we won’t most likely do that. It breaks the economy.”

Wow, what does this remind me of… oh, that’s right, something about some 32pdr shells. No credit event for you, bloody western capitalists!

RU server Operation Bagration event: “miniquests” in action

Hello everyone,

this weekend, RU server has an event, dedicated to operation Bagration (and not Barbarossa, like some jokers suggested). It’s a pretty nice – although standard – event, but the interesting part is the first implementation of the “miniquests” within battles.

In other words:

During this event, top three players of each team, who dealt most damage, get TWICE as much credits for this battle. Also, all players, who gained 500 and more clean XP (eg. without counting in the premium account and daily double) will get TWICE as much XP for that vehicle.

Edit: This miniquest can be repeated (within the timeframe of the event) unlimited number of times and both rewards can add to each other ( in other words, if you consistently gain 500XP+ and are in top 3, you will consistently gain double income and XP)

The second miniquest (XP) is limited however to certain vehicles this event concerns (from tier 5 to tier 7), the first one (credits) is for everyone.

20.6.2013

- the devs are studying the issue with the MM (SS: arty being balanced against heavies)
- VK4502B won’t be buffed, SerB thinks it’s doing fine
- the aim circle won’t apparently be possible to turn on and off
- aim circle is calculated on the server, but the shaking effect is doone by the client (hence it can be turned off) – it’s possible everything will be done server-side at one point, but it’s not certain
- the airplanes collision model on the airport map is fine, you can shoot under its wings – it doesn’t count as a “box”
- SerB doesn’t think that the arty is the most difficult type of vehicle to play for the newbies
- SerB also states that a lot less people than previously will level up the arty branches after 0.8.6 – and that’s a good thing
- When asked when gold actually counts as currency law-wise, SerB answers: “Without going into legal details, gold is an ingame valuable, obtainable for real life money. It has no relation to the gold metal, except for the name.”
- regarding roaming: if you have an account on other server, when roaming is introduced, it will NOT be possible to unify the account on one server with the one on another (SS: in other words, if you are American, but played some battles on SEA server before making a new account on US server, you won’t be able to transfer the tanks from SEA to US account)
- Q: “Guns too accurate in 0.8.6?” A: “How terrible!”
- the delay between the actual detection and the point when the lamp lights up (Sixth sense perk) won’t be reduced
- one of the roaming idea variants is that when a Russian account plays on EU server, the player will have _RU suffix (SS: I have a bad feeling about that…)
- SerB likes comet, but he liked Cromwell even more, he played on it even after he unlocked the Comet
- the reduced shell spread is a final decision, it won’t be removed
- SerB talking about the arty-is-underpowered whiners: “Right now, the arty noobs will be flushed out. After that happens, there will be whine that arty is OP again.”
- there will be no “switch one tier 10 for another tier 10″ possibility implemented
- other territories than Asia will also be made as maps in the future

And, a bonus question by a very “special” Russian player:
Postal_a42: Will there be any special event for 22nd June?
Storm: Don’t you feel ashamed asking such stuff?

Adsense…

Hello everyone,

as some of you might have noticed, there are two adsense banners on FTR from now on – one on the upper side under the main logo picture and one on the very bottom of the page. With that being said, I’d like to ask you guys – if you want to support FTR – to keep the Adblock off for this site. Who knows? You might find something interesting on the banners too :)

Any small profit this might make will be split between me and Edrard, the guy who runs wot-news.

So that’s it, I hope it’s not intrusive too much.

- SS