Source: world-of-ru
Hello everyone,
as you know already, in 9.3, KV-1S will be split into a tier 5 and tier 6 vehicle. The tier 6 will be called KV-85 and here it is, still untextured. The good (or bad) news is, it will keep its gun, the top gun is the 122mm D-25T.
Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/299850.html
Just like the good old days – Storm created a thread where he answers player’s questions about World of Tanks. Here’s what he wrote.
- Storm confirms the WT E-100 reload time nerf from 52 secs to 58 secs (for the 128mm)
- developers will think about removing Prokhorovka completely and reworking it, leaving the Fire Salient for now (SS: noticed how the map got renamed from Fiery Arc in test 1? Someone used google translator with that “arc”)
- roaming was delayed because it has low priority, it was moved to the back of the development queue
- roaming was delayed because “everything changes, current situation does not require roaming”
- roughly 70 people are working on WoT currently (Storm adds that they would hire more specialists, but they aren’t any available in their country and it’s not possible to hire westerners, when all the documentation is in Russian)
- WG on hiring mod makers: “there are few smart ones and those don’t want to be hired”
- M46 Patton will get improved torsion bars equipment in 9.3 (SS: this is the third time in last days I see this question for some reason)
- the bug where you can’t see your friends as online in the friend list will be fixed, “when it’s done it’s done”
Source: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=114265&site=wot
Thanks to Chiobits for this one.
Hello everyone,
recently, there was an article on one Korean website (link above) with the interview with Dmitryi “Overlord” Yudo about WoT Blitz. For those who do not remember, Overlord was a World of Tanks developer in the EU office (real developer, not the PR clowns that sit there today), who ran a QA thread on EU forums the way the Russians had it (it is not an overstatement to say that he is one of the top three people who ever influenced the creation and attitude of FTR, in a good way that is). In mid 2012 or so, he left WoT to work on WoT Blitz, where he works until today.
Anyway, to the interview. Since I can’t speak Korean, I got only an excerpt at my disposal, which I can’t verify, but I think it’s interesting nonetheless.
- development of WoT Blitz started as early as 2012
- the team started with 30 people, it grew to 60
- WoT Blitz started with the acquisition of the team Dava, who then developed a native engine for WoTB
- e-sports for WoTB will not be added for now, it’s too early
- android version: “as soon as possible” (to launch in 2014)
- new patch every one to two months
- new nations will be added
- clans and crew skills until the end of the year
- no arty in WOT Blitz
- the game is popular in the USA, USA makes 20 percent of the game downloads
- the positive reaction in Asia surprised Wargaming
- iOS and Android will use the same server, both platforms can play together
Source: EU forums post
Changes in version 0.9.2 Common Test 2 vs. version 0.9.2 Common Test 1:
- Armor of the frontal section of the roof of the second turret for VK 45.02 (P) Ausf. B increased from 40 mm to 60 mm.
- Magazine reload time for the 12.8 cm gun for Waffenträger auf E 100 increased from 52 s to 58 s.
- Minor bugs in damage boxes for T32, IS, T54E1, M8A1 fixed.
- Minor bugs and defects in visual models fixed for the following vehicles: M18 Hellcat, T-34-85, Pz.Kpfw. III, Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. A, StuG III Ausf. G, SU-100, Churchill I.
- Models and textures of all vehicles in high-definition quality (HD vehicles) reworked for better display when graphics settings are set to medium or low.
- Some visual defects and errors fixed for the following maps: Fire Salient, Kharkov, Erlenberg, Sacred Valley, Sand River, Hidden Village, El Halluf, Cliff, Winter Himmelsdorf.
- Komarin map is unavailable for high-tier battles (available for Tiers I–VIII only). This change was not implemented during Common Test 1 by mistake.
- Ruinberg on Fire map is unavailable for Team Battles.
- Some bugs and defects in the Strongholds: Battles user interface fixed.
- Display of players’ nicknames whose vehicles were destroyed in team lists at the sides of the screen fixed.
- Some bugs during battle playback fixed.
- Red lines at the junction points of landscape textures, that appeared when using the old renderer with antialiasing on, fixed.
- Client hanging-up when loading a battle in rare cases fixed.
- Sounds of vehicle explosions made less loud.
- Items of the context menu of the tank carousel in the Garage changed to be consistent.
- Some defects in auto-detecting graphics settings fixed.
- Changes to the effect of ammo explosion made.
- Some effects of shells hitting various surfaces reworked.
- Bugs in the order of switching between allies in the Postmortem mode fixed.
- Issue when some players could not log in to the Common Test servers fixed.
- Minor interface bugs fixed.
Source: http://habrahabr.ru/company/wargaming/blog/229475/
Part 1 – http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/07/14/wargaming-public-api-part-1/
Internal interaction of the API components background
To understand the principle of how WG API works, it’s worth looking at how the internal information flows are made, how the distribution of data is secured, their relevance etc. – this part is shortly decribing the internal component interaction organization.
Our entire infrastructure for games is built around the service model, which means the components are relatively independent and interact with each other using the API sets. This is due to several factors:
- even if something crashes, everything else keeps on working
- there are many components (authentication service, OpenID provider, rating systems, clan services, Clanwars, Wargaming league, game portals, forums, wiki, support and so on, altogether around 40 components)
- components are developed by different teams
- components are not released all at once
- complete shutdown of the entire system during updates is unacceptable
It’s obvious that to release a new version of two-three components, which are developed separately is significantly easier than to release of an entire huge system. Apart from that, the development of separate components as smaller functional elements is simplier than the management of the entire system.
Principles of interaction
In our infractructure, there are two main flows of data: calls of remote API methods and another system (game server, other components) event subscription.The API component is most often represented by HTTP REST API. The API call can return the answer both synchronously and asynchronously. For asynchronous responses, we use Message Broker (RabbitMQ in our case) via AMQP protocol.
Subscriptions also happen via RabbitMQ. As an example of subscription, we can mention the export of game player account status after changes in it. Apart from that, for example, after every battle the dossier of the player tank which the battle was played with is exported into MQ. This allows the game portal to show the up-to-date player statistics (well, almost), all that while the game server recieves no additional load. In order to show the way our components interact, a picture (the upper part in cyrillic says “component”)
Hello everyone,
the war in Vietnam is not exactly known as a tank war, but that doesn’t mean tanks saw no action in this conflict. One of the best regarded vehicles in this matter were the Australian Centurion tanks and today, we’re going to talk about them a bit.
Australia, as a country not that distant from the (back then) turbulent south-east Asia, was very interested in the events happening in the region, especially during the Vietnam war and ever since the war started, it participated actively in it. From summer 1965, Australia sent an infantry batallion to Vietnam, increasing its size to a full brigade in 1966. Australian M113 APC’s also participated in the fighting, but their poor firepower and thin armor did not allow the Australians to use them in the thickest fighting. That’s why in September 1967, the Australian government decided they would reinforce the Australian forces in Vietnam with a Centurion tank unit. This caused a wave of criticism, as the military experts proclaimed that in the thick jungle terrain of Vietnam, the tanks would be all but useless and they would become mobile pillboxes at best. There was also this notion in Australia that the Centurions are “untouchable” – they were locally nicknamed “koala”, because this animal too was rare and not allowed to export.
- regarding the fact that on some sites (wot-news, vbaddict) some vehicles appear as underperforming and need buff – “we do not balance the tanks according to 3rd party sites”
- IS-7, IS-4 and Maus guns to be buffed? “If we buff their guns, we’ll have to nerf other parameters”
- Indienpanzer is not “suffering” apparently either (SS: as in, it is not underpowered)
- the “rule of 10 calibers” applies only when main armor is penetrated (eg. when dealing damage), not after the penetration of spaced armor
- for the purpose of the spotting mechanism change (second part), bushes will count as obstacles, so if you got spotted while standing behind the bush, you will disappear when the camo penalty for shooting ends
- basically, regarding the point above, Storm confirms that a tank, that gets spotted on the open field will never disappear, unless it drives behind an obstacle (a bush) or out of view range
Thanks to Zorro Guevara for this one.
Hello everyone,
if you follow the news in the tank world outside of World of Tanks, you probably know that one of the biggest events of recent years was the sale of the Littlefield Collection. It’s been discussed for long months, that’s where The_Chieftain (US server military specialist) was shooting the short “Hatch” videos at (before they sell it to pieces).
So, a part of the collection was (unfortunately) already sold. Interested what prices did the customers pay?
Sdkfz.7 German WW2 halftrack – 1.207.500,- USD
M4A2 HVSS Sherman (76) – 345.000,- USD
SCUD missile launcher – 345.000,- USD
M5 Stuart – 310.500,- USD
M4A3 Sherman – 299.000,- USD
M50 Super Sherman – 293.250,- USD
M4A3 (105) Sherman – 287.500,- USD
FV214 Conqueror – 287.500,- USD
M3A5 Grant – 276.000,- USD
Landsverk IKV-73 – 212.750,- USD
M16 Quad .50cal – 201.250,- USD
Leopard 1A1A4 – 198.950,- USD
etc.
Three tanks are still being sold:
The Panzer IV Ausf.H current bid is 1.750.000,- USD
Jumbo Sherman current bid is 800.000,- USD
LVT-A4 Modified current bid is 375.000,- USD
The cheapest armored vehicles could be purchased for as little as 10k USD (M75 APC), stuff with big guns (M52 105mm SPG) for as little as 14k USD.
The entire list can be viewed here.
Source: http://habrahabr.ru/company/wargaming/blog/229933/
Hello everyone,
so, Wargaming started a first official developer contest for real money – a contest for the “developer community”. What Wargaming means by developers – basically two groups: mod makers and application makers. According to the text, posted on the habahabr blog (Russian programming portal), there goal of the entire event is to “improve the cooperation between Wargaming and mod/application developers” – of course, Russian developers.
The rules are in Russian and this contest is specifically oriented at Russian region (sorry, capitalists, no contests for you). The participants are to be adult physical persons, either single or working in teams. You don’t have to be a citizen of Russia, but you have to be Russian speaking (write the entry presentation in Russian), so you might as well be.
There is a prize pool of 80k USD (yep, 80 thousand US dollars), which will be split into rewards in following categories:
- best project idea
- best mobile or social network application
- best functional project
- best World of Tanks mod
- special award for product and service development for Wargaming community
The prize will be distributed as follows (1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place)
Best project idea:
2000 USD+250k gold+Type 59, 1000 USD+150k gold+Type 59, 500 USD+50k gold+50k
Best WoT mod:
10k USD, 5k USD, 2,5k USD
Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3394199.html
Hello everyone,
recently, there was a special World of Tanks Blitz stream with Dmitryi “Overlord” Yudo (WoTB producer), Alexei “Inaki” Ilyin and Aleksandra “Alabelle” Martinovich (some community manager), that showcased the WoT Blitz gamplay. The video can be seen here (in Russian of course, just for those who want to see the gameplay and such):
Maiorboltach was kind enough to make a transcript of the stream – the following lines are about WoT Blitz, NOT WoT itself. According to Maiorboltach, the sound was bad so it’s possible some of the things were misheard, but it should be mostly okay.
- patch 1.2 will bring premium tanks
- patch 1.3 will bring Soviet heavies with IS-4
- they will add one new nation every half a year
- it’s not planned to add arty at all, in connection with that there will also be no hightier scouts
- in the developer version of the game, there is an option to play the PC and tablet version on one server
