Hello everyone,

I usually don’t care about anything that goes on in World of Warplanes, unless it concerns World of Tanks as well. In my opinion, that game is dead and it’s only a matter of time before they pull the proverbial plug on it (by that I don’t mean switching the servers off totally, just cutting the development down to zero). Sometimes, however, interesting things appear on their portal, like this one.

As you all probably know, there is no such thing as EU/US supertest. For those who do not know, supertest is a semi-internal Wargaming test server, in which (theoretically) reliable and skilled players participated (with the amount of leaks lately, you can imagine how that really works). There is a completely internal WG test server as well. About year and a half ago, European and American players actually participated in the supertest. It was cancelled after series of leaks (yes, the ones FTR played a major role in). Ever since, the participants of the test were only players from Russian server.

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Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/news/pc-browser/1/veshhi-mezhdu-zhiznyu-i-smertyu/

Hello everyone,

Wargaming RU posted another quite interesting article. This time, it’s not about the tanks per se, more like about the men, who ride in them. And on them. Since April 2014, an exhibition called “Things between life and death” is shown in Belarus (Grodno, Minsk, Gomel, Mogilev and Brest), showing a collection of soldier items from “everyday front life”. The collection was borrowed from the Swedish army museum in Stockholm. This exhibition was first shown in Sweden in 2010 and – in following years – it moved to Norway, Belgium and Poland.

63 separate glass cases show items, that belonged to German, Soviet, American, British and Japanese soldiers and officers in second half of 19th to first half of 20th century. These personal items belonged to real soldiers (sometimes, the entire set belonged to one man) and thus represent real historical evidence. These are for example the things of John Thomson, member of the Royal Army Medical Corps – cutlery, personal hygiene things, medical instruments, medic armband. Thomson started his service in October 1914 as a Lieutenant, in Spring 1916 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Captain Thomson served as a doctor in the 6th and the 2nd Battalion of Scottish infantry regiment on the western front. He survived the war and was awarded the Military Medal and Victory Medal.

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Hello everyone,

remember the StuG IV, that was leaked a while ago? German tier 5 premium tank destroyer, yes?

Well, it got buffed on supertest as well. First of all, its gun got buffed or changed altogether, not certain from the screenies. It got changed as such:

- apparently, now limited MM is considered
- gun penetration buffed from 106 to 110
- DPM buffed from 1720,7 to 1860,2
- reload time buffed from 3,836 to 3,548
- ROF buffed from 15,643 to 16,911
- Accuracy buffed from 0,345 to 0,336
- accuracy on the move when moving with maximum speed buffed by 29 percent
- the gun now traverses faster (earlier: 41,7, now 45,9)
- hull traverse buffed from 40 to 44 deg/s
- terrain resistance buffed from 0,863/1,055/1,822 to 0,767/0,959/1,822

The statistics thus look as such:

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Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3502734.html

Hello everyone,

yesterday, a new “Inca Path” map appeared on the supertest apparently. Here’s how it’s going to look – a preview of an unfinished version (so it’s obviously pointless to ask why does it look like shit, it’s not even modelled yet). Sceenies below the line.

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Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3502734.html

Hello everyone,

on supertest, T-34-3 (tier 8 premium Chinese medium tank) was buffed. This is NOT the final version apparently, but it’s a good indicator of what will happen. Stats for 100 percent crew.

- DPM increased from 1694,6 to 1821,1
- reload time buffed from 13,808s to 12,849s
- reate of fire buffed from 4,345 to 4,67
- accuracy buffed from 0,441 to 0,403
- accuracy on the move (when moving at maximum speed) buffed by 25 percent

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3502734.html

Hello everyone,

new tier 2 “premium” tank appeared on supertest. It’s Panzer II Ausf.D (…because, you know, there is not enough clones already). It’s very likely a reward tank, but what for – that is unknown. It’s even possible we are looking at New Year’s gift tank, it’s a perfect candidate (German, lowtier, crap).

Statistics for 100 percent crew.

Description:

Fast modification of Panzer II, intended for light divisions, based on cavalry units. Panzer II Ausf.D had a completely new hull and suspension, the turret was borrowed from Panzer I Ausf.C. The suspension included 8 doubled roadwheels of large diameter with individual torsion bar suspension without support rollers. The tanks with improvend suspension elements and with new drive sprockets recieved the designation of Ausf.E. According to various sources, 200-250 Ausf.D and E vehicles were built.

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Hello everyone,

confirming the previous guesstimates of when the patch 9.3 would come, Russian portal now has “9.3″ countdown.

It says “2 days left”, which means the RU patch will come on Tuesday – and the EU one likely on Wednesday.

Hello everyone,

a new South-American-themed map called “Inca Path” is tested on supertest currently. Here’s how it looks.

Hello everyone,

today, I am going to write something about one specific aspect of World of Tanks (or any “World of” Wargaming product really) – the Free to Play (F2P) business model. Looking at the forums (well, okay, specifically the Czech ones, but the same thing comes up everywhere on occasion), I see a lot of confusion about the “free” part. People do complain that Wargaming shouldn’t charge as much for this and that and that should be for free too and whatnot.

Wargaming is not a charity. It’s a business corporation and it does not exist to entertain anyone, despite how much various Wargaming representatives talk about bringing joy and doing what they do with love and whatnot. It exists to make money. Noone invests millions of dollars in something, that doesn’t bring profit – and so, Wargaming has to charge for something. And that something always brings pay-to-win element into the game – the question is not IF, the question is HOW MUCH.

First, there is this nice little video by Extra Credits again – if you have time, go ahead and watch it (you can skip it, I’ll be describing the effect in the article, but they do it better):

Alright. So, what we have here is the free-to-play model of Wargaming, which they call “free-to-win” or something. In the video, it is cited as one of the good examples of free-to-play monetization and I actually agree. It’s a very delicate balance. You have two aspects of the game, that have to be in equillibrium:

- the ability of the developer to make money off the game
- the ability to play for free with it still being fun

Now, make no mistake. You will always have some pay to win elements, no matter what the developer says and how they argues. What matters is their intensity of course. Sure, you might argue that for example selling “hats” (Team Fortress) might not have any P2W element, but is that really true?

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