Thanks to Sander B. for this info (guys, leave nicknames when you write me :) )
Source: official Munster web pages (in German)
Hello everyone,
today I wrote an article about the RU251 and the negative attitude of Munster (and other German institutions) towards World of Tanks. What I didn’t know was – there is even an official Panzermuseum Munster statement (link above) regarding World of Tanks. I will translate it from German then (not literally, but to keep the meaning). Some parts I ommitted, as they basically repeat the same – if any German would be so kind to translate it better (did my best), I will be glad to fix my own translation. Also, keep in mind this was written some time ago, apparently after the great accuracy buff last year, in April/May.
Tank Museum and World of Tanks – a complicated relationship
In May, the tank history in the museum will be experienced in a different way: there will be cheer, laugh, hundreds of tanks will be destroyed for the general happiness and fun. In the May weekend, company Wargaming will build a promotion stand here. In this stand, their game (and the mainstay of the entire company) “World of Tanks” (furthermore only WOT) will be advertised and available for playing on like a dozen computers.
………. (explanation of what WoT is)
In principle, World of Tanks brings only such content, that goes directly against the values (SS: literally statements) the tank museum tries to convey:
- clinically clean battlefield: you cannot see any people, be it soldiers or civillians. Pain and suffering, death and mutilation, that’s no problem. The war is only a “tag, you’re it!” game and when your tank gets destroyed, you hear them say stuff like “This vehicle had it, let’s get out”. Only occasional statements, such as “they killed our driver” indicate that there’s a war going on after all.
- tanks without other weapon systems: the tank cannot historically be separated from all the other possible weapons and units – infantry, air support, logistics etc. Nothing of that is here. Only tanks and tank destroyers roll over an empty battlefield. Only the artillery plays a role, but in the end only as an indirect fire tank, that just stands a few meters further behind.
- a single tank decides: From historical point of view, the tanks are relevant only in numbers. It was the tank units, that were operatively decisive. The best example for this is the blatant performance difference between the allied tanks and the Panzers in France in 1940. Even though the platoons and companies (multiplayer units in WOT) have in fact a higher chance to win the battle, the majority of the millions of daily players consists of individual players – and their skills then decide the battle.
- Seeming predictability: WOT is based on a computing model. A big complex computing model, that has to perform two things: on one hand it has to produce a taste of historicity, on the other hand it has to offer balanced and fair gameplay. However, many players take only the first part as true. They actually believe that Wargaming’s arbitrary fixed values can reflect the “reality”, which is by definition a nonsense, but in the context of the balancing issues, this is completely outrageous. In the last patch, French artillery was made much more accurate – how is that possible, when the values are “historical”? Doesn’t matter, the fans don’t mind and thus the line of thinking that you can actually get a historical tank through pure data is yet again reinforced.
- Heavier and bigger means better: that was long the formula, used for the levelling in WOT. The game suggested that heavy and big tanks were the logical “end” of an “evolution” and contrary to this, small, light tanks were only the starting point of this evolution. This mindset can of course only work because of the “single tank decides” point of this list. In the historical overall context of production, logistics, maintenance and doctrines, noone, capable of differential thinking, would seriously argue that the King Tiger is a better tank than for example the T-34. You can only come to such conclusion, when you think in terms of tank duels in empty space – and that’s exactly what WOT does. This way of thinking was somewhat mitigated by the inclusion of several post-war medium tanks as high tiers, but it still is prevalent.
- techno-fetishism without real background: WOT makes people think in through its “tech-trees” that everything can be installed in everything. There are certain limitations in the game, but the inclusion of the weirdest prototypes of guns and turrets and of tanks existing only on paper right next to the mass-produced tanks, such as the Panzer IV and T-34 make people think that in WW2, they just “combined the stuff wrong”. The War is depicted as a McDonalds Menu – if you use wrong combination, it’s your own fault.
- loss of historical context: the absence of any historical context whatosever creates the false impression that the machines of war can be considered separatly from their historical purpose of use.
……… (here, the author mentions the fact there are no historical or national battles in WoT, but that’s no longer true)
All in all, World of Tanks brings to millions of people exactly the opposite message that we want to convey. Why do we then allow this virtual enemy of ours to enter our house? Does the Panzermuseum give up its approach up to look at tanks, war and violence critically?
Not at all.
The logic is very simple. We cannot prevent World of Tanks from spreading its primitive depiction of history anyway. It happesn globally 24/7. What can we then do? Earlier, the Museums as “temples of education” turned up their noses and focused only on the “right” audience. We do believe however, that this approach is no longer helpful. We use another approach: we appeal to the audience of this game by bringing them into the Museum with the support of WOT.
These players, interested in tanks, are brought to the museum throught the Wargaming event. Here, they encounter also the historical original tanks and here, they also encounter (just a little, but soon, a LOT more) history education, that brings the objects in the game into the interesting, but also irritating and critical context, that makes you think. That invites you to question the WOT-designs and perhaps it even makes the players read a book about gun calibers and turret ring diameters, while the live guide in the museum, the text and the audioguide makes them think as well. Maybe they will think about the fact that the game simulates vehicles, the meaning of which was pain, death and destruction. When at least one player in one hundred gets to think this way, we have already achieved something.
What we do here is damage control upon the image of history as well as we can by addressing this target group actively and friendly, so that they become fans of the museum and can begin with the history education.
……..
Ralf Raths
Chief of Research Department,
Panzermuseum Munster
The letter itself is longer, but I think you catch the drift. Munster takes the history very, very seriously and after reading this – hell, no wonder they don’t want Wargaming to conduct any “research” there.
This is actually a very well written and supported argument of why they won’t co-operate with WarGaming. I’d recommend all of you to get a drink, sit back relaxed and read it at a leisurely pace.
I actually live ”quite close” to Munster, and if my German wasn’t utterly crap, i would go more often to the Panzermuseum there then the two times i did already.
Yea, I am also not too far away from Munster (living near Hamburg) so I could read the original text, doesn’t really differ from above translated.
A very true statement of theirs, but really, I didn’t come to WoT because I need war realism, I just wanted to play a game with my favourite weapon, the tank.
I visited the Panzermuseum about two times now, and I think since they make this WoT-dedicated special, I’ll pay for another visit there ;)
Well,
They have a right to their perspective.
On one hand their perspective is correct. I brought this up two years ago when I started hearing the younger players say “Its No wonder the Germans lost WWII, look at their Tanks”.
I wouldn’t be happy at that one in a German Tank Museum but I would appreciate the interest it generates in History……
I can only imagine how difficult it is to balance historical accuracy w/ entertaining playability.
On the other hand, if WG didn’t balance it out, we would have entire slaughters at Tier 4-7 for USSR, 8/9 for US, and 9/10 for Germans, etc, etc. Examples, that’s all guys.
But, lets be honest, this is the price that’s gonna be paid for keeping the Tiger I and Panthers like this. IMO, everything is balanced down or lowered for the Germans.
Its a steep price to pay, especially if you don’t need too……Tier 7 is a dead tier anyways.
If all tanks don’t seem legitimate, then the product won’t be.
Personally I would go all the big Museum endorsements I could, Bovington, Kubinka, Ft. Knox, etc, etc. Have them endorse WOT and then let them promote for you, lol.
“everything is balanced down or lowered for the Germans”
Nice bullshit dude. So please tell me why does IS-4 Tier 10 USSR Heavy needs a gun that is HELL more potent than his original planned D-25? Its in fact a gun that was never even build not to mention put in this tank iirc. Or a SU-100 (best russian anti Tank gun in WWII btw) that needs a 122mm D-25 gun?
Same goes for the IS-3 as well. This Tank was designed to counter the Kingtiger and they would both be capable of killing each other (if they had met in battle). Hell that 8,8cm gun could (in theory) pen IS-2 for example EVERYWHERE at 1800m (even gunshield)
So Yeah. All WOT tanks from other nations are downbuffed cause of stupid german trashtanks that could not even win WWII *rolleyes*
Does make sense……
Since when the hell WoT is a simulator?
Half way through this I was thinking WOW chill out its a game. but I understand some of his points
Same here…
it’s just a stupid video game. Don’t understand why did they take it so seriously ?
If it was war simulator, I wouldn’t play it.
he’s describing WoT as something what is rendering war and these war machines as “toys”
Well maybe yes, but thats why I play it, it’s fun, thats what games should be about, right?
I’d love to have the chance to drive a tank, but in no way would I want to be in war…
Thats what this game allows us.. somehow.
IDK, at least for me… I never considered WoT as “war game”.. Company of heroes, etc. those are games about WW2…
WoT is and has always been just a game with old tanks in it..
Kind of “NFS with tanks” :D I’ve never considered it as a “war simulation”
Have you ever read a critical script about pop culture?
I recently read a statement about an audiobook (Benjamin Blümchen for your interest) criticising its rather simple way to show the duties of a mayor in Germany. They ALL overreact. (ok maybe not all, but many scripts i read for my teacher schooling here in germany). But maybe you should look from a different perspective. You are a kid. A kid that has never been in touch with something like war or tanks or stuff like this. Maybe one or two movies but nothing really touching. And then you see WoT. All those big shiny tanks shooting each other. It seems clean. Nobody is getting killed, the driver is only “knocked out” and stuff like that. The sheer force and power of those shells seem like nothing. The scaling is just odd. You CAN (i emphasize the word CAN again) get a wrong picture of these things. And that is what they fear. Of course, it is a exaggerated scenario but they all do it. Just dont take it too seriously.
And another point: There are still people that go like “Hurrdurr, videogames are evil spawns of Satan, turning our children in rapists and cannibals.” With the statement of the DPM they silence those guys in advance, so they can always say: “We dont promote war games”. I bet some of those guys even play WoT themselves because they just love driving their favourite tanks.
Sorry for wall of text. TL,DR: They are overreacting on purpose. Dont take it too seriously
regards
jup331
I completely agree with what your saying.
I don’t. Basically what you’re saying is that everyone can understand the vast differences between a stupid game and a war. Which is right for many Museum-goers, but I wouldn’t take that chance with 80% of the WoT player base.
It’s a caveat. They’re bringing something that illustrates tank history in all forms (doctrine, effect, use… hell even making some up out of air) wrongly, into an institute of learning. They have to say “Yeah, this isn’t right in all these ways, but this is why it’s here in our museum”.
It would be grossly irresponsible to have WoT in a museum about tanks without some kind of explanation like this.
^ yup
Have to say, fully agree. Sure my first reaction was like childish “waaah, gimmeh leo prot B, GIMMEH MOAR Y U NOT WANNA GIMMEH” but I absolutely see the museums point and feel its very legit.
Actually, more than half of their statements are correct and I think it is good.
Sure, alot of people hate them for not giving the plans to WG but come on, the way WG and especially Yuri act towards the EU players in general.. I don’t see anything wrong why Munster doesn’t want to cooperate with them.
WG should change their attitude and everybody will be more happy.
PS: i wonder if SerB would have the cojones to go “want realism, join the army!” on the Munster people’s statement..
That last one was a really good one ! Cheets mate!
Well, while I can see where they are coming from, they need to take a chill pill. It sounds like they wouldn’t be happy unless the game was World of Realistic War, complete with dead bodies, mess halls, and mail clerks.
Want realism? Join the Army!
“need to take a chill pill”? It was very “chill” statement, they just pointed out obvious facts and differences between game and real war. Sure they wouldn’t be happy unless game shows war with it’s brutality – I’m not happy with that, and I’m just a gamer, not a historian. Showing different aspects of war is something extremely important once you realize that this is how teenagers paint their imagined picture of WW2 these days.
“Showing different aspects of war is something extremely important once you realize that this is how teenagers paint their imagined picture of WW2 these days.”
Well, have you played RTS Company of Heroes 2 ?
This game is HATED in russia… why ? because it “kind of” shows the other side of the coin.
The game shows how soviet army treated their own men, to get the victory.
While I do understand that “history is written by victorious” and I agree some points might be too over exaggerated, its well known that Stalin killed more men than Hitler…. the catch is, Stalin killed his own men.
Basically it just shows in WW2 (eastern front) there were no “good”(soviets) and “bad”(wermacht)… they were both equally evil… it’s just the victorious are the “heroes” now…
Wow. You didn’t just compare Soviet soldiers to Nazi’s did you? Another example of a shit brained waste of human skin.
While Soviet regime was without doubt shitty as they come, it was far from the level of Nazi style evil.
And before you open your mouth further to demonstrate just how stupid you are, go read up on US government treatment of Japanese born US citizens during WW2 or British occupation of India.
As for your equally stupid comment about showing “how soviet army treated their own men, to get the victory”, you are fucking 60 years late to that horse beating show, turd. It’s a known fact that to stop absolutely superior enemy from making sure 60 years later we are all not blonde blue eyed German speaking people, it took some really harsh steps. But they did it. They stopped it. So by minimizing heroism of Russian, Ukranian and 200 other nationalities living in USSR at the time fighting a war that was all but lost, you are basically the kind of armchair general that everyone dispises with their outmost heart. Your entire accomplishment was probably not shitting yourself to death so far.
P.S That same “abused” soviet army in 1945 surrounded and destroyed 6 million strong army in Manchuria losing only 11000 people in progress. Sometimes adversity teaches you how to be strong, you worthless weakling.
Oh and while you are at it, thanks for shitting on Americans, British and other Allies in the war, saying that if Nazi’s won they would be “the heroes” now. Fucking moron.
well yes, I did compare them. And don’t worry, I am living in “post-USSR” country, and nazis were our enemies. Just saying how my grandpa told me about the “heroism of comrades”… you said bad word about the regime and you ended up rotting in gulag with your whole family.
I surely do understand your point… I just said soviets were not the “good” .. they had their own reasons why did they do that. – remember, they even split poland with nazis in the first place.
Both were evil.. each in its own way.
And yes, my opinion on americans is the same. … USA is “stupid nation with very very high self esteem” … Sure, they came here to “rescue” us.
As they are rescuing every other country that has enough oil nowadays :D
Yet their citizens does not know a shit about the situation …
I remember the comments on social networks after the boston incident.. every second “stupidamerican” wanted to bomb czechoslovakia… had no idea “chehnya” is not “czechoslovkia” Leading wars around the world and then they wonder why everybody hates them and why there are so many terrorists..
Anyway, back to the point.. I’m IN NO WAY saying it’s bad soviet won, omg…
Nazis were swine, I’m just saying soviets were no better.
And! I’m not comparing soldiers!!!!! I’m comparing their Leaders!
To use your own words: Wow. You didn’t just say that every German soldier was Nazi, did you?
And are you actually saying that it is absolutely OK to do ANYTHING to win the war? Or what isn’t? Because you are saying that killing your own is right thing to do…
Another thing – where did you take those 6 millions of soldiers from? And I wouldn’t call it destroyed army either, because it surrendered like the whole Japan at the time. Not to take the victory away from Soviet Union, it was attack well done.
there will be always 2 points of view..
I just said mine.. sure soviet army saved us, but that doesnt change the fact they stayed occupying us for next 20+ years. The regime was more about psychology than “brute force” … we couldnt travel, no free speech, you said something bad and you ended up in prison, your children had no chance to get to school, etc…
That however DOES NOT mean I’m not satisfied with result of the war. I am.
Just sayin lesser evil is still evil…
I guess you could be unsatisfied with either of the possible outcome of a war. In general. Call it hope for a better world if you want…
wise words :)
No one side was really more wrong or right. The very sad reality is the actions carried out by Stalin and Hitler were huge stains on humanity. To not hold them both accountable for there actions is an insult to there collective victims.
The war was won not so much by quality of arms but like most by quantity of arms applied … countries like the USSR and the US have huge amounts of quantity to throw in such endeavors.
And the very notion that the USSR made this happen again ignores a huge amount of assets put into various national hands by the US [allies] when the getting was rough for the USSR. It was a collective effort, one that needed done. What was found to have been done by Hitler and Stalin after the war should have been handled too, but the world wasn’t ready to go to war with the USSR over the vast number of victims it claimed in the very same xenophobic behavior that Hitler applied. Keep in mind Antisemitism is strong in all nations participating in WW2 and socially genocide was carried out by more than the Nazi’s. They lost the war and got caught, Stalin had a enough muscle to make it an underground unresolved issue.
In the end it was fought, the victors tried to write there bad parts out, people learn new things and it comes to lite. The more we educate and keep the actual facts in the light the more people will understand and avoid these things in the future [which is why the tank museum had such a negative response – taking information presented by a very biased group of gamers as facts causes a shift in perception. A shift in perceptions latter can become reality and thus you loose the truth (kind of like how Antisemitism works – people perceived lost jobs etc and the boogie man was named and thus it was okay to wrong these people. Perception become reality is a dangerous game).
Daemonik STFU you commie. I bet you’re so eager Putin to attack Ukraine. Your army needed brains back then. All you did was banzai all over with 1 rifle at 10men. Until USA started giving you equipment,weapons, food, military vehicles, etc.
It was your country USSR and no one gave a shit about it. If germans took you over, the USA had the atomic bomb ready at their feet to nuke you country with the nazis inside. If they did just that, there would have been no Soviet Union nor Stalin at all.
The regime of Stalin and that of Hitler were as evil as each other.
Daemonik, our local supporter of Kremlin agenda. I see you have a productive day today.
To invalidate your entire point, company of heroes 2 wasn’t hated because it showed the otherside of the coin.
It was because it was a historically inaccurate depiction about how the red army shot mowed down its own men with machine guns and burned it houses with its own citizens inside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m4SCUaBHS8
Yes I did say some points are over exaggerated.
Just sayin the game is not picturing soviet army in shiny white armor on a mighty steed passing bread and flowers to poor dying civilians…
As I said, I’m not comparing soldiers.. I’m comparing the leaders and the regime on both sides…
This video is BS.
90% of the content in it is known for ages to be false, created by communist propaganda to make Red Army look clean like a bedsheet taken out from the washing machine.
So what is an accurate depiction of Soviet blocking units? What is an accurate depiction of certain ethnic groups being killed or deported by the Soviets when the retook territory? There are dozens of documented instances of both happening and from the Russian military archives themselves.
CoH2 might not be accurate but it doesn’t change the fact that the Soviet regime was just as bad as the Nazi one, for almost all the same reasons. Its just that the Soviets won so they must be ‘good’.
CoH2 is a bad example, because the new russians of the Putin era simply love whining and get a hardon everytime they can “””prove”””” how no gulags existed and in the same sentence without irony saying that only “””criminals”” would get there. Watch some popular vids on Youtube, and admire the more honest russians wiggling around the truth, and pulling things out of their behind to show that CoH2 is so nazi-biased.
I am 100% sure u are a Russian idiot. Brainwashed? Watch urself! Have u ever heard about gulags?
Everybody in eastern-Europe knows the difference: nothing.
Problem with that: Company of Heroes, even in a more “black vs. white” scenario of Nazis vs. US/Britain, tended to merely pay lipservice to the United States forces fighting, but took massive bounds to portray the Wehrmacht in a very positive light. To the point where playing it myself, I felt more “heroic” fighting for Germany than for my own country, a thought which didn’t sit well with me.
With this in mind, it seems likely that they ( Relic) would pull the same stunt with Company of Heroes 2 as well -glossing over German warcrimes in the area and making them seem far more heroic than they actually wore, while displaying the worst of the worst for what the Soviets did.
“but took massive bounds to portray the Wehrmacht in a very positive light” – yea, like murdering civilians, POWs, having concentration camps, etc. etc. VERY POSITIVE.
Get your facts straight before posting BS about other games.
I don’t recall any of this in the game -in the game-
That’s what he ment I think
I have a feeling that at that point the game would be banned in Germany.
Probably.
An excellent statement from the museum. Looks like people there really have a knowledge about the game and know how to convey it keeping in mind historical facts.
WoT and another historically-themed games certainly spark a lot of interest in history between younger generations, but they also create even more false superstitions and myths many of which are only reinforced by the fact that certain mechanics are shared between games (eg. there are very few games that allow people to drive a tanks while at the same time seeing infantry fighting around them). Role of a museums certainly is to show a true face of history and wars – and that gets progressively more difficult as more and more people grow up with majority of their knowledge taken from games. So it’s really important that Museums adjust and release statements like that, hopefully reaching as many people as possible and sparking more interest in how the war REALLY looked like.
Mostly valid points, though I am somewhat suprised that “clinically clean battlefield” point comes from Germany of all places >_>
TBH I think WG guys would love to have a game that has all these things mentioned in the article, but back when they started puting together WoT, that wasn’t always quite possible for various reasons and now they are stuck with the tech and designs they chose and the success they achieved with those. Can’t just redo the whole thing and lose all that.
Ye, since WG wants to get MORE MORE players, as much as possible, if they would add infantry in the tanks, at least artillery or open ones, the problem would be the age restriction would have to be made higher.. and of course WG doesn’t want that.
BS excuses. War Thunder got crews in it’s planes and is going to have them in the vehicles as well.
Ye, Sky, you are right. BS excuses on WG’s behalf… They want to get as many players as possible, they don’t care if it’s a 12 year old who will perhaps play 10 battles.. If one of 10 people like that stay in the game and perhaps get their parents to buy them ingame stuff(which of course spoiled kids of this generation get what they want).. WG are happy about that.
And have them magically disappear when your crew gets shot? Or raise it to R, because of slaughtered men inside?
The Anti-Air trucks in WT GF do not have any crew. Also, no of the tanks in Ground Forces have any visible crewmembers. It works with planes cause you can simply never see the pilot getting killed or wounded, but for the tanks – sorry, no way.
As I said: They’re going to implement it. I don’t know if you have noticed, but the game is still in closed beta and they released wheeled vehicles barely 2 weeks ago.
Perhaps but I doubt the infantry would add to the gameplay. And I certainly don’t need real war on the map.
The reason why the tanks game is successfull is well because we are men. And men tend to be boys throughout their whole life. Only the price of their toys is increasing. We don’t see tanks as killing machines. We see them as big strong steel machines able to crush cars and drive through the house. Why would we want to see dead bodies on the battlefiled? They are not fun. The fun is drive that big beast of steel through the house. Or crush it against other tank. Or make that booooom. That is fun. Because in our minds we are boys with toys.
Good thing for the Decepticons that they are not your enemies. :)
There is nothing better than 12m high battle robot made out of sexy sport car!
?? From what country, would you have expected that answer more? It’s often used in german gaming magazines or other media.
I, for one, completely disagree with their stand point. I haven’t seen so deliberately stupid on such an official level in a long time.
It appears that museum has a difficulty separating reality vs video games, something that Germany as a whole often does, seeing how they ban majority of war themed games from the country. I get it, if your past is being a Nazi and entire world still remembers it and points it out to you at every turn, it’s a bit upsetting. That however, in no way forces the rest of the world to not discuss the events or prevents us from revisiting them.
If we left it up to this museum “researcher” we would have no “Inglorious Basterds” movies, no Saving Private Ryan (did you know, the sniper rifle in the movie was using wrong type of scope? OHMAHGAUD!), or Wolfenstein FPS games, because wait what? Nazis, zombies and time travel? What about Red Alert?
So, my only response is fuck censorship, which is what they are doing. Fuck that museum and if I could write in German, I would make sure to send them “Fuck you, control freaks” message as well.
History is not theirs to OWN, they just display the history and help people learn it (from their point of view, I must add), they don’t get to tell anyone else in the world what we should use of history and what we should think of it.
Seriously, Fuck this Nazi-like censorship shitbags.
Oh and final note: Their museum sure doesn’t seem to have dead bodies, starving children and gruesome body parts lying around. How is that for irony? Double fuck those morons.
“help people learn it”
Noob kids play Wot
Thay get the wrong idea about tanks
Museum doesn’t want that
Games aren’t about teaching historical lessons. What’s next? They going to censorship ART because it’s not reflecting the reality as they see it? Maybe they will censorship classical music then because kids listen to pop and might get wrong idea what the music is about?
It’s a fucking censorship based on opinion, pure and simple.
The reality is anyone who plays WOT and gets interested in history will learn the real details about tanks through website or museum. Anyone who doesn’t get interested, won’t give a shit if a tank was a paper prototype or real machine used to trample people into the ground (guess what? Nazis really did that too, I wonder if this museum speaks of that).
Fuck em. No excuse for this shit in our time.
Dude, you’re stupid like hell.
Is it really that hard to understand that games ARE teaching people history? Whatever you think games are or aren’t – you’re talking out of your ass.
You obviously didn’t understand a thing out of their statement and you have no flipping clue about gamers or people growing up with a games all the time since their childhood.
Mwahahahahaha! OMG I didn’t think people like you exist. If you are getting your history from video games, you fucking turd, I am VERY excited to hear what did you learn from Zelda or Batman or A FUCKING BILLION other games. Do tell me more about this history thing you learn from Mario Cart, you (I don’t have an expletive strong enough to describe you, I am sorry for that)
You are a moron…
Did he say all games? No, he didn’t.
There are some games which could teach history… not all, but there are some.
So again, you are a moron.
Sky is making a different point. The “games do not exist in a vacuum point”
Since WoT will influence to some degree what popular perception of tanks is…
Which is bad. Same as CoD makes marines look like Supermen.
Not really. And not a good point, the negatives outweigh the possible negatives.
It gets people invested in tanks and then they start learning real things.
As for CoD… no it makes Marines look like morons… which admitedly is bad.
Alexander, you should have seen the rage when i mistakenly put army soldiers and marines in the same circle… The rage that errupted for a small typo like that..
And ye, people can start learning about real tanks, but sadly, their first impressions are “wow, i am an invincible rolling fortress with a huge cannon”. Sure, it isnt true for everybody, but it is for the younger players.
That is an improvement from “I do not care at all”
You can not expect better from younger players anyway.
Also,that mindset leads to a 45% win ratio :P . The game punishess it.
Well, I know you are a fucking close minded troll, I’ve seen your posts before. But I just happen to love fighting trolls, so here we go:
Point me out, please, to a single game that has “Historical Simulator” written on it. I beg you. I beg you to tell me which game taught you history and specifically what did you learn from that game. Was it Call of Duty? Or Modern Warfare? No, wait wait, I got it, you learned history from WoT?
What did you learn? I imagine a huge number of historically accurate things you have gained from all your years playing video games in dark basement illuminated by what I can only guess is a light bulb shining in your head, showing the rest of us how brilliant you are?
I learned a lot of fun things from oh so many games I played, but being an intelligent human being I would state that not a single one of them was something I would call “a historically accurate fact”. From my time on the internet, I did learn that you are a worthless shitbag troll, though.
And that is a “historically accurate fact”.
My point will stand regardless of fucking trolls: Games are an art form. They exist to provide entertainment, NOT historical lessons. It’s like teaching math through music, and then complaining that music is not more math like. When you are trying to make games into something they are not, you will fail. And the world will tell you that you are a shitbag failure. And just like that, museum chooses to close its mind rather than embrace the new media form and adapt to it.
Aww, I am so happy when people label me a troll :) Funny since it isn’t true ;) And close minded too? Haha, keep them coming ;)
Well to start off: i never said that a game taught ME personaly anything, because i play games when I am bored.. and not in a dark basement, my room is actually pretty bright with a nice big window.
Hmm well the only big game simulator i can think of at the moment is Arma, but me personaly, i don’t like playing it at all.
And well my ending: i did learn that some people need to take a huge chill pill ;) You definetly need one :) PS: are you from NA? If you are, your attitude tells alot :)
Why so angry?
I guess you don’t consider yourself as the most stupid human being playing videogames, right? Then, is it possible, that many dumber kids/whatever/more_whatever players of videogames in general and Wot in particular might not understand it’s not historically accurate? And that’s the point, worring about the possible dumb audience that might get wrong points out of something, and not just ignore it or make profit out of it. Doing so might be correct, might be wrong, but there surely are dumber players than you, who don’t understand that games are mostly just games :)
Well I dont consider WoT as a “historical game” at all…
Its just an arcade game with tanks.
As well as playing Need for Speed won’t teach you a shit about car industry.
and starcraft wont get you a job in NASA.
just the fact the game is using vehicles from war, doesnt make it a game about war.
And yet people pull their knowledge about racing from NFS and then you see ~19yo kids killing themselves in illegal night street racing cause they got “inspired” but the game.
You very much underestimate stupidity of an average human being.
I restore/work on antique military vehicles for a living, including armor.
I have seen the increase in interest, and the decrease in solid knowledge in armor as a result of this game.
Such tidbits like “The M18 did not have power traverse!” or “German tanks caught fire because of front transmissions” related to me by admitted players of the game (while possibly being extreme examples toward the ‘tard end of the bell curve) do show that the game is coloring people’s perception of these vehicles.
I’m not going to second guess the museum’ s stance. Their house, their rules.
But I will say I understand it to an extent.
You obviously do not undesrstand Daemonik’s point…
Museum can not influence that. That is WAY beyond any power it can/will ever have.
Museum finding itself in a world where that stance is unpopular. And gets more unpopular every day.
Museum obviously does not understand game
Museum would do well to see what Vlad Pomar wrote as I am too much of an asshole now :P
wtf man? i guess you didnt really get their point. They are not censoring anything :D they even invited WG into their own house. Their point is that they want to support something they disagree with. I think its completely fine and I guess you could use kinda more proper language, since its a proper informative post. More thinking less hating next time ;)
Really? So, specifically refusing to share details about RU251 or Leopard Prototyp B is their way of cooperation? Literally forbidding other researchers access to tanks they have in their possession is a damn fine way to show their cooperation.
Man, I think US military does better cooperation than this shit bags. At least they rent all military equipment to movie makers at nominal price.
and what kind of law tells them they have to share it? they can do whatever they fucking want with the materials regarding those tanks. As you said yourself, its THEIR possesion and they have every right to keep it for themselves, if they dont like the purpose it would be used for.
I mean, you can certainly disagree with it, but why in the name of god do you have to be so hateful about it? From the musem its absolutely fine point of view and there is no reason to disrespect it..
And btw they are not saying people should learn history from videogames, they are saying they dont like people (even its not the main purpose of WoT) learn WRONG history. People who are interested in history definitely dont take the info included in WoT seriously, but there are lots of kids playing WoT who would wonder why the crew didnt jump off a burning tank in Saving private Ryan (insert any other war movie including tanks here, not really sure if there was an actual tank scene in that movie :D). Im a bit overstating here, but still, you get my point.
If you are really such butthurt about the fact two tanks wont appear in a game where are already almost 300 of them, you should really reconsider your attitude. peace
RU251 is in another museum, and even if it would be there, it would be theirs, so they decide whether to collaborate with a project that they might agree with or not, and not a biellorussian multimillion company.
And thay didn’t say anything about censorship, I think that as anyone with experience in a particular field, in this case war / armored warfare, thay feel displeased when someone talks about in a wrong way, and not explaining properly they’re doing this.
I know it’s a game, and that their main focus is, at least in it’s main form, far from teaching, but that doesn’t mean that many take it as that, now this might be a bit off topic, but I see many people on internet, with many followers, saying things like I like this, I don’t like this, not even caring much, and when questioned about their unawarness of the consequences of that, thay just say it’s their opinion, but nonetheless, because of their pupolarity, it has influence on a larger scale than what they might think, and with this I’m trying to say that even if some people know war isn’t like Wot, many might even wrongly think it is instead, and, taking this to a far unrealistic extreme point, but that shows the meaning of my argument, this might even start a war in the future, as the image of war we might have as socety could be distorted, and that’s probably what happens when wars start, and you can see the difference in attitude when the war ends, as everyone is saying things like never again wars, but after a generation has passed, the idea of a war reappears…
Long comment, I didn’t think it would become like this :)
I will answer both comments above at the same time, because they are hitting the same point.
You are correct: Possession is the law, right? They don’t have to share anything they don’t want it. It’s 100% true.
Here is another law in most countries: Freedom of speech. So I get to say anything I want about shitbag museum that tries to justify the reason why they won’t let other researchers (who gives a shit where they are from? What we are filtering who can research what now based on nationality, race, skin color, political affiliations? Do go ahead and try to defend that point, I’d love to see how far you will get with it.) research the tanks they have.
Just because you can legally do something, it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
And that’s the underlying point behind quite of lot of shitty things that happen in the world. As long as there is no law for being a fucking pathetic shit bag, you are ok to do it, right?
The game (WoT) will do just fine without this museum and access to it. They tried to do their best at giving us (30 million players and counting or some such) the most precise replicas of the tanks so we can enjoy and have fun in the game. They didn’t have to, but they tried anyway. And I, for one, applaud them for it, because they aren’t doing it for themselves (you think it’s profitable for a company to spend shit ton of money to go out of their way to collect such data? Fuck it’s free to just make that shit up!) but they are doing it for me, you and every other player out there.
And some shit bag museum thinks they own HISTORY. That it’s their prerogative to tell me in person if I ever cross the fucking ocean that hey this is how they see history and that’s what I should accept? In our world, where information is becoming more freely and freely available, they chose a stance of not sharing it with anyone. Forget WG, this information on the tank is not known anywhere? Why? Why there is a need to hide information from people?
Is there a real threat that Leopard Prototyp B front plate armor thinkness will allow someone to mastermind world domination? Are we sending a lot of those tanks to the wars now, where such knowledge suddenly makes it a weakness?
Leave it to fucking museum to cling to outdated principles of “my data, nobody will have it eva!” bullshit.
And the rest of you trolls just keep trying to prove all the close minded bullshit that people have been trying to walk away from. I bet every single one of you shit bags is a lover of DMCA.
They would be “shitbags” if they would say “the game is shit, we dont like it, we dont give you any crap you ask for”. Yeah, thats a douchebag behavior and I would stand by your side if it was like that. But they didnt do that, they actually explained in much detail, why they wont do that. And they really didnt have to do it.
Freedom of speech is a good thing and you have every right to call them whatever you want, but is it really necessary? I think you are finding some more complex reasons of their behavior, which are really not there (at least according the article). They just dont like the game, so they wont help it. Simple as that. I dont know about you but there was nothing about them “owning the history”, as you mentioned. They are just stating WoT isnt displaying historicity right, which no one can complain about. Yeah, I know nobody gives a fuck about that, because everybody know its just an arcade fun game and Im certainly not bothered about that fact either. But the musem just sees it differently, and as I stated above, they got every right to do so. Are they “shitbags” because of it? Well if calling everyone with a different point of view on some matter a “shitbag” is your standard attitude, then I really dont want to discuss with you anymore :)
Btw the part “They tried to do their best at giving us (30 million players and counting or some such) the most precise replicas of the tanks so we can enjoy and have fun in the game. They didn’t have to, but they tried anyway. And I, for one, applaud them for it, because they aren’t doing it for themselves (you think it’s profitable for a company to spend shit ton of money to go out of their way to collect such data? Fuck it’s free to just make that shit up!” is simply hilarious :D
You think they are being the good guys by providing historical of data of tanks? Lawl, they do it just for money, its a fucking bussiness. If there were no historical tanks, game would never be such a success, since just the historicity is one of the key feautres for older players. So yeah, they ARE doing it for themselves.
You didn’t really reply to my part about the consequences, but oh well…
Freedom of speech, I never told you to shut up or similar, and neither something about some nationalities being worst, I just said biellorussian multimillion company to say Wargaming, it felt more like a general explaination, and kind of stylish (Ok, it could easily be misinterpreted (consequences again)).
Totally agree on the fact that just being covered/not being covered by law is enough, as right used with ethical meaning goes beyond that.
As for the precise replicas thing, ok, they collected all the info about tanks and expecially about prototypes, which I guess is more difficult to find, but, I don’t know if you knew, Wargaming developed Order of War before Wot, And when I started playing Wot, wich was still in beta, the tank models didn’t differ that much from the ones in Order of war, they were obviously already more detailed being OoW a RTS, but I got the feeling that on that side, they just started moving now as the competition start rising (WT GF, Armored Warfare), I can’t know for sure, far from it, it’s just an impression, but you don’t send programmers to gather data from museum or archives, they can meanwhile improve the game :)
Museums are, along with the educational system, the institution wich has the task to divulgate history, and to do it right. If they think that sharing the blueprints or just info with someone goes against that, they logically won’t do it, exceptions admitted. I didn’t see them saying they won’t share this info with anyone, whoever’s asking, just what here they think goes under the correct divulgation of history, whether this actually improves the correct knowledge of history by the population, is arguable, but you could see their point.
And here a queston comes in, why do you think they aren’t giving the info away?
I said to my side that they can not give them as they possess them, but that alone is not enough. It was a further detail to what I’m saying, that they might think is counterproductive.
And let’s not forget that while they don’t agree with how Wargaming depicted armored warfare in WWII and surroundings, they invited them and arranged an event with Wot peing run on museum PCs, their intention was to add more historical accurate details/explainations, yes, but what should have they done, just silently give the info to WG with no right to reply? Don’t they also have freedom of speech, can’t they express their disapproval?
P.s. There was something telling me you are american :D, maybe all the swearing XD
P.p.s. How’s my english?
exactly what i was trying to say, just in better level of english :)
No I am not American.
Hiding / censoring such inconsequential information is wrong, no matter what justification you assign to it.
Even if someone is using your information incorrect, YOUR solution is to give NO information whatsoever? How is that a win for you? It’s like someone not including the word “bravery” into the dictionary because you are afraid some stupid kids will misunderstand the TRUE meaning of this word? What kind of fucked up bullshit is that?
And that’s all it comes down to: No matter what your reasons are, you are intentionally hiding information from EVERYONE. People who may understand it or may not, book publishers who could put it into educational books (what you think they specifically just forbid WG taking measurements of it? Why do you think no measurements or documents exist on those tanks at all?)
So how counterproductive to be a historical museum and insist that NO ONE knows their history? No one. Like I said, fuck that German museum.
As I said, why do you think they aren’t giving the info away?
I refuse to think it’s because they feel like being “My info, mine!”, nor that it’s because they’re biellorussians, and it doesn’t look like sensible data, and the last possible reason I’m left with is the one they exposed, and with taht one it wouldn’t make sense to hide the data at all, if you consider it just being numbers of a vehicle. The fact that WG wants to use it in a way that doesn’t reconciliate with their way of theaching history is why they don’t want to give them those data.
If you can find nowhere those data, my best guess is that it’s of little if no interest at all for most book writers, historicians etc. I sometimes try to find info about prototype tanks that exist in Wot, but can’t find almost anything, because no one ever even heard about them, or finds them interesting.
Furthermore, teaching history, in the way intended to prevent bad things to happen again, isn’t made of armor values, caliber choiche etc., althrough they migh be usefull to understand some events and consequences in the major producted vehicles/weapons, but almost of no interest in the discarded prototypes, it’s made of reasons, of key events and background conditions, knowing how much armor RU251 had won’t probably prevent us from starting WWIII or let new dictators rise, knowing how this thing happened and were let happen in the past migh, and that’s why it’s not a big deal if those data aren’t shared to everybody. I still hope they won’t keep it secret from anyone regardless the reason someone would want it, as I don’t see a reason for it, but the point is that it’s not usually a number that’s gonna teach you why history went that way.
Keep in mind:
1) this museum doesn’t own RU251, and if I’m not wrong also not Leopard prototype B;
2) this museum started collaborating with WG, to quote you:
“Even if someone is using your information incorrect, YOUR solution is to give NO information whatsoever?”
No, they said thay installed Wot on some of the museum PCs, so that who wants to play can come and in addition know some actual history the museum presents.
3) following directly point 1 and 2, your deduction that this museum is hiding info for some reason, and that it prefers to not give info at all than try fix this situation/dilemma, looks a bit wrong, that’s probably because we are mixing two separate things, one museum not giving info about RU251 to WG, and one museum saying that Wot way of depicting, even if it’s a game, history doesn’t correspond to theirs.
Not mentionings that some of your conclusions seem based on suggestions, but you act like if they were proven facts.
So, what do you think is the actual reason they don’t share that info, with, as you assumed, to no one?
(I saw you said “cross the ocean”, are you fram america, not US, but as a continent, or maybe Oceania?
As an addition, I think that pushing a principle to the extreme, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing, even if usually increasing it a bit is, in this case “not keeping info classified”, as for example in this case would interfere with their freedom of choice)
Oh right, I forgot about that, if I had to compare how they talked about WG asking for info, and how you talk about them not giving that info, I’d be more inclined to say you’re the one who’s trying to deny their freedom of choice/speech.
You have the point.
As for Germany and their “war is bad, WoT is not showing war!” approach, I will just leave it there:
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/I+had+fun+once_01aa68_4900383.png
Nice one. How the hell did the maker manage to get the Polish upside down? :D
It’s a tradition to depict Poland like that in this comics. Part of its goofiness and canon.
I understand where you’re coming from.
Censorship would be to act to get World of Tanks banned, or have a campaign against them. This is different. They’re ceasing any cooperation with Wargaming and any advertisement for them, like they did in the past.
Which they’re totally in their right to. They feel that Wargaming does not give an honest representation of the historical things they’re using for fun, and admitting that WoT can do whatever they like, they’re just ceasing their cooperation with them. That’s it. They’re not acting to get other museums to cease help, they’re not restricting WoT employees from visting as regular people (to my understanding, at least.) Things that could be considered censorship in some ways.
The letter is just explaining their reasons why, so that people don’t criticize Munster Tank Museum for abandoning a popular game.
The difference between WoT and your examples: In Saving Private Ryan, while there are minor errors like the scope you pointed out, that’s more or less a production issue – like the fake looking Tiger, since Tigers aren’t easy to find. The differences and omnissions in WoT are pretty much intentional.
The difference between Red Faction, Wolfenstein (fun games, too!) is that they’re never claiming historical accuracy. If Munster helped them do this or that, they don’t have to defend themselves. if Wargaming gets panned for historical inaccuracy (which does happen) the people they work with also look pretty dumb. Wargaming claims they have historical accuracy, and celebrate military history events and have articles on history.
Since they’re trying to play that angle while also tweaking things for balance, not realism, it’s a different case than games that are declaring themselves entirely for fun.
But yeah. I get your point, but I feel they’re just withdrawing a partnership, not necessarily trying to censor or obscure WoT.
Well… they can not obscure WoT. WG can technically buy the musem and all the people that work there’s organs… and still have enough to start WW3
The thing is, you are right it is THEIR right. And they do GIVE reasons. But we can still say those reason are shit.
Especially the – Heavier and bigger means better – part. They obviously did not play the game…
Agreed. The reasons for it are debatable, I just wanted to say it’s not censorship or anything.
“WG can technically buy the musem” – technically they cannot.
You know what I mean :)
+1 on Daemonik germans are WW2 butthurt control freaks
Go crying in Washington and Moscow. It was the Allies who made those laws in the first place and then they installed the right people to make sure these laws never change.
It’s got nothing to do with “butthurt”. It’s all about “the less *we* talk about it the stronger *they* can shape the picture of history”. Can you imagine Germans fighting for national socialist symvols on tanks only half as hard as Russians fighting for Stalin inscriptions? There you have it.
Couldn’t agree more. Germany has some pretty shitty views when it comes to video games; censoring in this day and age is pretty pathetic.
Here Sir, have my beer.
*Bla bla bla bla We are not gamers nor game designers and we talk on things we do not understand (video games/gaming/game balane) simply because we do understand (kinda) something that has a relationship with them (in this case, armored warfare) *
I would not worry. Their primitive way of thinking is going away as the generations are moving forward.
In short, I do not agree in ANY shape or form with their lone of thought. It is not 100% ilogical, I give it that, and I do see their love/passion for tanks and history as a whole. However, combating something because it is not a realistic or historical and thinking it ruins the image of tanks is …. stupid. No really, it is 100% idiotic, especially when it is obvious they neither have the knowledge/experience as a gamer OR a game designer to understand the way WoT works and its actual concept.
“- Heavier and bigger means better: ”
Even in WoT it is not so.
“- a single tank decides: ”
Gameplay decision. Gives importance to player. 100% invalid from the design point of WoT and War Thunder.
“- clinically clean battlefield: ”
PEGI and ESRB and whatever the hell the GERMAN (maximum Irony) goverment uses to restrict the sales of games, means WoT MUST NOT include too much violence or else they can limit their market. Violence, without context BTW, is meaningless anyway (reason why Serious Sam violence is not really damaging…)
“- techno-fetishism without real background:”
Game design. Balance >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (repeat 100 more times) >>>> historical accuracy. If both can coexist, then its perfect scenario. That is usually not the case though :( .
For some people, prototype vehicles and proposals may be a plus. I thought a museum would know better…
“- loss of historical context”
The actual point they make here is kinda philosophical :D . Cant agree nor disagree. I loved tanks way before WoT, but could always look at them as just that- machines. I could also look at them as what they were- moving death monsters. To me its either way.
Soo, when did you miss the part about the letter being one year old?
A lot of points MAY have changed after a while, but they definetly are all true for one year ago.
Not to mention that if I include what you are saying… WG can basically build a RU251 in the game and just make guess for the stats like for many other tanks… If realism isn’t important in a game, like you said.. I don’t see a problem here :)
I did see it, but I do not see how any changes in the game may have happened that would change their mind.
Now, keep in mind I am looking at this from the point of “how do we make these guys happe?”. Obviously, a game with WoT’s structure will not. In fact most games/movies/books and all types of arts simply wont do. I personally can think of one game that mostly fits their critera ( Men of War) but I know that that too will probably get brushed off, probably due to ” the God View the player gets on the units ( it is a strategy game) removes the players from the actual war that is happening”.
Thing is there is ALMOST no pleasing these people… and it is kinda obvious that whilst they DID read up on what WoT actually is (I applaud that, 100 times better then Faux News), they probably do not understand why it is what it is and what implications that REALLY has. They are viewing a game too seriously…
And in the grand scheme of things, what they are doing IS good. They do help educate people in the end, but they do not get that WG/Gaijin and Museums are pretty much on the same team this time…
That may be but also look: WG and their developers and people like Yuri openly bash EU players and even more EU things in general.. WG is working with Kubinka which is a still operating military base besides being a museum, they are working with alot of Russian(not belarussian or ukrainian, but RUSSIAN) museums and things like that.. do you think Munster would want to be asociated with them in this moment?..
And again, if WG wants to add the RU251 so badly.. just make it the same way they made the FV215b, Failowe, Wt-e100… Munster is completely right and SerB’s “realism/join the army” comment is just a troll comment for “this is an arcade game for the masses”.
I like it how “Arcade”gets used as a degoratory term… it actually usually implies some good qualities in a game…
You are correct, it is their choice. But also, lets be bloody honest. The Leopard B and RU 251 are so outdated and useless to a modern army, so obsolete, they can not be valuable in ANY other scenario apart from this one. Their introduction into the game may also help the rela life vehicles,like it helped the AMX 50B.
As for the RU and Kubinka part, I get it. Dont find it logical though.
Arcade and simulator are 2 different things.. and usually(not always) but usually arcade games are much much simplified.. with lower age restrictions and more freedom for developers(balancing of tanks in the game for instance in WoT).
If the game was a simulator.. a really good one with infantry and things like that, I bet Munster would be more positive with helping them… if WG would have a much different attitude of course.
Not to mention Munster probably doesn’t like the “we(WG) give money to your shitty museum and we get the privilage of using your museum to get things for our game”.. hell, why do you think Kubinka are so happy with WoT helping them with the Maus thing.. Money money money :)
But that is a different game. That wont be WoT. It wont be something better, it wont be something that ACTUALLY requires more skill (realism =/= game requires you to be better, heavens no!)
I can think of one such game, Men of War, but it is a strategy game, so there is an easy to use arguement against those games.
No, it maybe won’t be WoT, and I don’t see WG doing anything to change their main principle of WoT at all..
But in this case you HAVE to agree with me on one thing: after all of this, WG should be at least smart enough to stop throwing historical accuracy when buffing or nerfing tanks.. Historical accuracy can not be used for WoT in the state it is now.
They should not change thei principle.
Yes, WG should just say what isa historical change and what is a balance change.
Though that wont stop the whiners in the German Tank forums…
True that.
Really? How about US Museums and archives? The_Chieftain routinely does research in US on all tanks he has access to and visits all kinds of Archives. No censorship there, so your logic of WG is russian so Germany is ok to refuse them is as stupid as it gets.
It’s sufficient to point out that no OTHER museum or archive in any other country seems to mind someone trying to use REAL values for the tanks rather than made up ones.
This piece of shit museum would rather see people make up numbers about a tank (which WG is arguably refusing to do as much as they can, point for them).
There is no denying that this are the bad guys in this.
But most of the data of tank development is in the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg. This facility is controlled by the german army. And my guess is that some datas just wait there to be discoverd and to be released to the public, but is restrict by the developer companys.
The museum in muster cooparates with the”Panzerschule Munster”. The german base for tankmen training. ;) if you are at the there you can see tours of soldiers guided by officers.
Core WoT mechanics, which they bash, haven’t changed since then. I don’t see your point.
” I would not worry. Their primitive way of thinking is going away as the generations are moving forward. ” – Nope, you’re the one with primitive way of thinking. Basically you still think of a games in terms of good old ’80s where it was an entertainment for few dicks sitting in their basement.
Get out some more.
Hmm, I missed that part.
Ye, generations aren’t moving forward.. Every second child gets a mobile phone before the age of 10.. My first cell phone was when i was 15…
A gaming console or a PC is a part of a generic kid’s room these days<— nope, i cant see the moving forward generation part.
Actually, nope.
Games are a new art form. And entertainment. And even sport to some extent.
They should be respected as such.
As for the museum, I just find all their points to be untrue/irrelevant or simply kinda biggoted against WoT (This time, due to it being a game, ergo gameplay mechanics and balance and things that facilitate the player). I do not expect them to know game design… but at least to read up on a few Extra Credits man…
They’re also a source of knowledge. Which is a part you’re missing completely.
And? No really, and?
“Their primitive way of thinking is going away as the generations are moving forward”
Well the statement is correct with the exception of the “primitive”. Next generations will see video games as part of everyday’s life. Its called memetic evolution.
Games are a new art form. And entertainment. And even sport to some extent.
That is exactly what I said. DO not get your problem guys…
The reaction was on Sky.
Art, sport, games, entertainment = memes
So, Kubinka went with the If you can’t beat them, join them? :)
Kubinka wants money. Wargaming delivers. It’s really as simple as that.
”- clinically clean battlefield: -”
War Thunder Ground forces has solved this issue way better by adding a lot of battlefield sounds, AI tanks and AI planes that ”pretend” to attack the players(But are stupid as hell) which make the battlefield sound like a new years day.
And maybe war-thunder is going to get AI infantry two, there are already visual people in the stationary ground units so why not in tanks and on the ground?
You can always say that the pathetically stupid AI can not and does nor represent the actual dangers tanks encountered… :P
They can also ask for fuel trucks, refuelings, repair shops and logistics… that is half a war right there…
If you shoot the people, do they get killed in a very bloody way?
You know, like in real war.
In real war people won’t spray out gallons of blood (we only have 5 liters per “unit”). Mostly they just “disappear” from a HE direct shot. So it won’t be very bloody. Should be in T (ERSB) or 16 (PEGI). ( Because PEGI 18 says: “[...] in general terms it can be classed as the depictions of violence that would make the viewer feel a sense of revulsion.”. So if you are okay or want to blow that little man up then it’s not PEGI 18.)
Good statement, but I am not hoping the author thinks we are stupid. In our clan forum we regularly post and talk about the differences between the game and reality. Someone actually wondered why there are only (afaik) two roughly realistic movies made about tanks, neither of both set in WW2. We know a lot about infantry, Stalingrad and other misery, but tanks are never portrayed properly in movies either.
Which may change with Brad Pitt’s new movie “Fury”. I mean, they will use the real working Tiger 1 from Bovington :)
That’s a movie that resolves around one Sherman crew running, gunning, and killing pretty much everything around them.
Sorry, but war movie with Pitt is going to have as much to deal with realism as Little Mermaid got with a sea life.
Uhm…
Why does it being a Brad Pitt movie mean automatically that it cant have anything to do with “realism”?
Sounds ilogical :(
Hollywood baby… Everything is fantasy there.
+1
*facepalm*
Ah Sky, i didn’t know you already watched the movie since you know how it will be. Good to know, then I bet you won’t watch it since you know everything about it.
There’s tons of leaks and descriptions of it online. I didn’t say anything that isn’t already available online.
And yea, I certainly won’t be watching it in a cinema, perhaps later on when it gets on TV or something alike.
Tanks are usually used as something powerful to get blown up to show how OP the bad guys are/how awesome the good guys are.
Never as the battle units they really are :P
Because renting a tank is expensive. And, from a movie point of view, because tank battles are not that emotional since you can’t see the faces of people who are inside the tank. And tank battles usually mean a lot of camping and a lot of sniping.
But you can always watch Girl und Panzer. I mean, if you ignore the fact that the crew is a bunch of schoolgirls, it’s actually quite informative. :)
“Because renting a tank is expensive.” – that’s that, and then there is a fact that each time this Tiger goes out driving on it’s own – there is a chance it might be it’s last time. You see, there is a reason why in a whole world we have just one operational Tiger.
I completely disagree with their statement and I find it closed-minded.
Games like WoT open the minds of the new generations to history.From my point of view,those who wrote this article don’t understand the fact that this is a game,not a WWII simulator.Instead of playing WoW or LoL/etc… kids/teenagers/adults might play WoT or WT and actually get interested in subjects like tanks or planes,as I did.
They complain that the game doesn’t show the real conditions from the battlefield and is not historically accurate?! I wonder,would they allow a “Historical game” to be even played in their country.I’m pretty sure they won’t when they realise that a historical game means Swastikas on the tanks,people getting killed and mauled etc….
So what’s their solution,no more games that depicts violence? Where do we stop than,let’s ban all violent movies too and books….
I have to admit that the HP/fake tanks are really a disappointment and are the main reason I started playing WtT(far superior to WoT IMHO),but a museum should embrace such a game.I don’t know how things are in Germany but I can tell you that where I live nobody gives a rat’s as* about history anymore.
So,to sum it up,I think this is a wrong attitude and that a museum should do all in their power to promote such games,not the contrary.
Agree 100% with you.
Yep. You either did not read their statement or did not understood a thing in it.
We read it. Just do not agree with it one bit…
Don’t worry,I read it and understood it.Maybe you didn’t read/understood my argument.Also,it’s not the first time I see you posting comments like this “Yep.You didn’t understood/read/you have no idea what you’re talking about”. If you have an opinion (maybe different) express it,don’t just act like you’re the almighty God because you’re probably not and it’s annoying to see such pointless comments like yours.
You either dont respect others opinions
either dont know what Freedom of speech is
or you just want to have either all the attetion by trigging people with statments like these or you dont understand that People in this planet are free to beleive what they want either it is wrong or right (but who would tell me what is wrong and what is right e??)
so stop acting like that and leave people express there ideas/opinions and whatever they want freely and have a nice convartation
Opinions < Facts.
soooo in your mind Opionions are just BS of certain peoples and Facts are those who really make the diffrence here e???
intristing very intristing
still democrasy was build on Opinions not Facts
o and btw the museum statetment it seems it was written from another which makes it BS
wat
WAT
E 75 is history?
Tiger II with 5sec reload time is history?
Shut the fuck up and die.
So in you “opinion” instead of trying to make the new generations interested in history you would rather let them completely forget it ?!
As stated before,games like this have a big impact on their player base and make both children and adults interested in history which is a great thing.
Personally I’m just happy that the largest tank museums (Kubinka,Bovington) don’t adopt such a closed-minded,detrimental attitude because history must be remembered,not forgotten.
Well, ze proffesor Borsig here haz been really neutered.
jk, I do not touch Reich/Soviet/China tanks on purpose – so i do actually understand the point.
You don’t touch those nations’ tanks because those nations were evil?
Sooo… did they completely ignore that fact that WG has stated many… MANY times that including infantry or tank crews (which would require death animations) would bump up the user rating in Europe and exclude a large player base?
It’s not like we need 12 y old kids driving tanks. If anything implementing gore and blood would improve the game quality both graphically and gameplay wise.
Pfff…
yeah right.
It will not stop the 12 year olds. It will only give WoT other problems and maybe get it banned in Germany.
And it WILL NOT improve gameplay nor graphics.
The 12 year olds would STILL drive the tanks, and it would basically cut into World of Tanks’ profits by way of cutting down on where and when they could actually advertise the game.
If nothing else it would result in a long string of lawsuits – surely expensive enough between all of them that Wargaming would consider World of Tanks “not worth it” and stop producing content for it.
So, the choice is “get rid” of the 12 year olds who don’t actually go anywhere and have the game slowly die, or put up with them and have new content (and bugfixes!) come in.
If I understood correctly, this museum dude complains that WoT is not realistic enough and than compliments WG for bringing people to the museum to learn more about tanks?
And yet, they don’t let them do the research…
Backdoor politics. Besides, everyone wants a piece of WG’s cash cache, no?
The point of the museum is that WoT ,in general ,doesn’t critizise war in general. It only shows a small part of the war, that alone is gamplay wise “yay!”, but historic/ war critic “neey”.
And why would WoT critizise the subject it is about? Imo the Museums point of view is pretty wierd.
For them WoT is like ( to put it simpel) “hey look war!” “That looks fazinating!” “War isn’t so bad at all!” – they want people to face that war is bad. Even when german companys make hugh profits out of it, like many other companys of many other countrys, but thats a story for another day ;)
Yeah, I know right? Why would anyone critizise war when they make money from it?! So stupid the way the museum guys think.
Germans. Their logic is always so coplicated… Maybe my approach is shallow and short-sighted but this statement is somehow stupid. Long story short – they still don’t know how to cope with WW2 history so the easiest way to shut the discussion is to ban tanks, blood in games etc. Using the same logic they could ban the sims, because it doesn’t reflect reality, there are only bars of progress and no real background and so on. It could be easier to just say money or f**k you WG, but better start some ideological war with unclear (WW2) basis.
I don’t want to insult you but to answer to your first part of your comment..
I read it through and sadly, yes, your approach is shallow… very shallow..
Stronk troll i sense. Would you like to be more specific ? And yes, I’m from Poland and I’m Germanophobic (sometimes ;))
Me a troll? You going about the butthurt WW2 crap… sorry, but that is stupid.. You are 100% sure about it that they feel butthurt about it at this specific thing now?
Filip, you didn’t understand anything from their statement. Like: Anything at all. Perhaps it’s because English isn’t your native language, or it might be simply because you didn’t want to understand it and instead opted for a cheap and easy way of “wargaming = good, germans = evil nazis can’t cope with their past”.
As a person who genuinely hates WG (I’d spit out to SerB’s face at the second I see him), I appreciate this event.
Why are you playing WoT then? Or if you aren’t , why would you read news about a game you don’t like? I am not trolling but go play WT GF if WG is what you hate
He didn’t said he hates game, but WG and people who made the game and i’m pretty sure he is not the only one. So quit trolling cause you are bad at it.
dafaq what happened to comments-replies lineage…
Haha… I stopped playing WoT after 9.0 came out, which (predictably) turned out to be a total disaster… Though I tried to play a couple times, but to no avail. WoT is so fucked up that even SS got enraged and announced that he wouldn’t play WoT anymore.
Oh yeah, I hate WG, I hate it as much as I hate Activision, and there’s a good reason for hating both of them; They both fucked up a very good franchise of their own work.
Of course, many people will still play their games… But that doesn’t mean that their games are as good as it used to be…
One last thing… Are you really Polish?
Lol, I can’t help but laugh at that waste of skin…
Hating a developer of games… wow, what a misplaced priorities you have. Take a chill pill, go lie down, check out that new outdoor activity they are all taking about, soccer I think it’s called…
Well Germans are certainly the biggest buzzkilling fucks we have here in Europe. Ralf Raths should join the fucking army if he wants realism
Historian complaints about a game and a way it was built to meet certain criterias.
Funny stuff.
Just means historian is not a gamer and not versed in games.
Which theuy should try to be when they do such things…
I think the view of the statement author is illogical and somewhat unhinged from reality. What’s really happening is that the museum is trying to reconcile its existence (and interest in military systems) with the normative abhorrence of war. But even a cursory examination of the posted comments reveal a self-contradiction: if tanks are only relevant in the context of the immorality of war, then why do the mechanical particulars matter at all?
To put it another way – the Panzer III and Panzer IV are different vehicles with varying characteristics, combat results, etc. But in the context of the “pain, death, and destruction” of war, their ‘contextual’ function is exactly the same. So why study the differences at all? “Understanding history” is obviously a false justification, because detailed technical matters are irrelevant to understanding the overarching historical events. Even more generally, why should museum goers focus on tactical matters when they should be focused on recognizing that – contrary to their existing beliefs – war and death are actually bad.
If the museum is going to maintain the notion that technical accuracy is important, even in a game, then they are hypocrites unless they also acknowledge that tanks can be studied out of mechanical-technological curiosity, without imparting on machines the actions of humans, who are in fact the ones responsible for “pain, death, and destruction,” now and since the species evolved.
You, sir, get my hat for today! Bravo.
if the paper is about 2014, pfingsten is on 09.06 this year
- clinically clean battlefield: you cannot see any people, be it soldiers or civillians. Pain and suffering, death and mutilation, that’s no problem. The war is only a “tag, you’re it!” game and when your tank gets destroyed, you hear them say stuff like “This vehicle had it, let’s get out”. Only occasional statements, such as “they killed our driver” indicate that there’s a war going on after all.
yep and otherwise our “awesome” German government would ban the game for being to “brutal” and realistic *rolling eyes*
German logic… even the Germans cant understand it…
Are you german? I assume not, because otherwise you’d know that everyone over 18 can simply buy a “banned” game in germany….officially and legal…
I doubt it’d even get PG18 rating. There are tons of strategy games showing these aspects of war and noone rates them to be over 18 years old. Just don’t add fake rivers of blood like shooters often do (there’s less blood in real war than movies tend to portrait) and we’ll be fine.
Noone would ban this game in germany. Stupid comments all over this article.
Hmm
Wolfenstein in Germany : Censored Swastikas, SS and 3rd Reich replaced by the Wolf orfer
Left 4 Dead : HEAVILY censored. Pathetic version of game.
Translation is perfectly fine, you just missed some few things out (but you mentioned it and it wasn´t so important)
I understand the points they make, because they are pretty much true: WOT isn´t even close to be a realistic game, but who the hell wants that in the first place? sure, there are simulator-games, but even those don´t come to 100 % realism.
Videogames are just a simplified way to allwo the player to do things, he couldn´t actually do.
One problem here is that they dont want to point out wrong views on tank warfare and promote the glorification of those “killing machines”, so they dont want to support WG, because they sort of promote this stuff.
The other problem is that they are probably right: A great number of the playerbase wont inform themself more about tanks in general or other specific things in connection to that, which leads to misunderstanding/misinformation : Best thing here are those model-tanks from the VK72.01
They don´t want to support that, and as long as we can´t convince them reasonably to change their mind, it wont change much.
Told ya – another GEMA :D
Or should I say – MEMA?
(ok that was rubbish ;)
The letter is exactly what I’ve come to expect from my German countrymen. Nothing more nothing less.
The only basic reasoning is “we” murdered 50 million people in WW2, so the only way to convey (morally) “good” information is in some scientific historic book, or something.
In fact it’s just about avoiding catching flak again from some media outlet or other. Last year it was made a scandal that the Museum’s 30th anniversary happened to fall on September 1st…
In Münster, and most of Germany in general, “War tech” can’t be shown without every second sentence hinting at WW2 “moral” issues. The only technical museum site I know, where there’s at least some serious contemplation of the issues, and not just the “mention all the time” attitude is Penemünde.
Don’t get me wrong, WW2 is an important issue, and should have been discussed more thorough in Germany. But it wasn’t, neither in the (former) east nor west. My wifes Great-Grandfather died in a KZ, in the GDR his family had issues getting it recognized properly because he was suspect for being half Jewish, and nowadays the problem is that he was also a Communist…
Generally the issue is as follows:
Person A: “What happened in Germany from 1933-45?”
Person B: “I can’t remember.”
Person A: “Exactly! So let’s never talk about it again, but put up texts about it everywhere remotely related.”
This is not what I get from the text at all. Don’t forget, we are talking about tanks – a military weapon, used in nearly every conflict since its invention, directly responsible for the killing and mutilation of thousands of human beings.
Now you might say “Duh, that’s what a tank does” and you’re right ofc.
But it helps sometimes to remember that, and WoT does nothing at the top of my head to adress this in any way.
I read it in original too. It all sounds well. And its stupid as bucket of water.
I can see their point of view somewhat, but their whole stance is flawed.
I for example like the touch, feel and sound of metal cigarette lighters and have a very small collection, but I don’t smoke, don’t like smoking and won’t start to smoke. As my fascination with lighters has little to do with smoking or encouraging people to smoke, the same goes for everyones fascination with tanks. It does not mean that liking tanks encourages wars or to kill people. It’s just human nature to like stuff.
Also, why do other museums in other countries have a completely different attitude? Do they want people to have the wrong idea about tanks and encourage wars??
Many countries have people that treat wars as shows and have mock battles and such….so that is not a valid way of making people learn about them!? Should we always be somber faced when we talk about history??
Their arguments are accurate in showing why WOT is not a simulator of tank battles but only an arcade game interested strictly in the machines of war.
Someone commented recently on here that WWII has barely 2 pages in the German history books at school. If that’s the case then screw Munster and their statement. WOT does more to teach people history than those 2 measly pages. If they want people to know their history they should frigging teach it properly.
The role of a museum is to accurately teach history by providing information not pass judgements on games and such.
First off, the school books differ from state to state, and sometimes from school to school. Every school has also a different “Lehrplan”.
I know many people who say that they’re tired of WW2 in history class, because they have it again and again and again.
__
Here again, it’s not that they say liking tanks encourages to kill people or something. They say “That’s what tanks do, and you should not forget it because war is not a good thing!”
And no, we don’t need to be somber faced when talking about war (which I guess you mean when you typed “history”, because what history have tanks written without violent side effects?) – but it is my personal belief that we shouldn’t be happy when describing how many Men died to this StuGIII or excitedly squealing about the number of instant-kills of the HMS Hood etc
About the school books, I’m glad that at least some of them give a more comprehensive view of the events. We have different school books here too and I’m starting to feel that it’s just a stupid idea. Some books are overly nationalistic while other are very superficial with plenty of stupid shit between them.
________
Of course tanks don’t act alone. I’ve been aware of the horror of military vehicles since childhood when I saw a clip from the Romanian revolution with a soldier being decapitated by a TAB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAB_(armoured_personnel_carrier)
That image is always in the back of my mind when playing WOT. I’ve also seen documentaries about WWII and tanks and to be honest I wouldn’t want to have to fight in a cramped space with foul smell fearing death in any number of horrible ways.
I probably didn’t express very well what I meant in that last bit.
Well, if they really wanted “damage control” they should trade their tank data for some ingame advertising, with good historical descriptions etc. A few pages of text won’t hurt SerB that much and his egoistic “we don’t want to educate people”. And that way everyone would be happy.
I agree with most of their statements but now instead of trying to win as much as is possible they act like a spoiled kid and lose everything.
“with good historical descriptions” – as they pointed out: WoT doesn’t have a good historical descriptions of tanks – they focus on a balance instead of historical accuracy so providing any data to Wargaming is kinda meaningless anyway – they pull stuff out of their asses whenever they want being unable to accurately portrait even basic tank duels.
Wow these imbeciles cannot differ a video game from reality? Sad, they just went full retard
Wow, how can you misunderstand a post more??
Didn’t they talk loads and loads about how unrealistic WoT is?
Perhaps its you who misunderstand a bit here. They indeed are talking about how unrealistic WoT is but its a fucking video game not a military combat simulator training software
It’s a “fucking video game” that’s played by millions of people, including those who visit museum and then talk shit that got nothing to deal with history. Cause you see – games these days are not just a games, people think that what is shown in the games happens to be historically accurate, at least to a degree, meanwhile WG does whatever BS it wants to balance the game (yay Russian tanks).
Let it sink into you:
Millions interested even if with a warped preception >>>>>> only thousands interested with a good perception
Especially, when those thousands you already have.
Sky, I never got you…
BTW you one of those “German tanks are UP Soviets are OP people? “
You stopped after the first few words, right? Because writing long texts offering a more nuanced point of view = must be imbeciles.
Oh yes, they take it very very very seriously. Too seriously. In such a way that I can’t take them seriously. Like. I can’t. Just. Not. I feel like Ted Stevens is talking to me.
For people who are supposed to be educated they miss the entire point of video games.
as a museum its primary role is to a) preserve the past, b) educate the public
as a and any public institution, engaging with the private and commercial sector is bound by a hundred and one rules, and the particular ethics of each institution.
of course this all sounds very uncool in the age of lolcatz and infinite relativism, but on the concrete floors of museums, this makes sense.
why should the museum cooperate with a gaming company? to get more visitors of course. But how far can it afford to engage? If it is publicly funded it is morally difficult for it to exclusively sell/give material that will be commercially exploited by a company in the private sector. Can the museum retain moral authority if it gives in to the sirens of today? (i’m pretty sure the museum will be around in 50 years time, but will WG? probably not)
The Museum can afford to wax lyrical and moralize WG, it cannot afford to refuse WG patronage, WG can only smile politely and keep it’s mouth shut (which it should)
I feel the only mistake of the museum in this case has been to publish its views on the internet, without cooperating/consulting other museums. Going it alone it is sure to get mocked on the net. Otherwise the views expressed are perfectly coherent with the mission of the museum.
i think their views are rather condescending. do they actually think that people who play a tank arcade game learn that real front line action in a war is all fun and games?
Yes. They just said it.
I’ve heard from someone who went to a WoT meeting at this museum (no age restrictions in this event) – that more people than you might guess think this way.
They don’t “think” – they know it. People “”educated”” by WoT come to their museum and then repeat BS that Wargaming taught them.
HEY. THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT.
EXPLOIT THE GAME’S POPULARITY AND WHEN PEOPLE TALK TO YOU, EXPLAIN SLOWLY “THIS GAME IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ACTUAL WARFARE”. IF PEOPLE INSIST IT IS, SLAP THEM.
THIS IS NOT A HARD PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM. KUBINKA AND BOVINGTON ARE DOING FINE.
i totally agree with you, the museums in bovington and kubinka do too, i think the museum in munster does aswell, isnt that what it says? Otherwise lets not forget, the only reason we are reading about the museums views are because SS decided to (mischeviously?) translate an obscure pdf from the munster museum website.
btw capitals and shouting dont make it any easier to hear you, nor are they necessary to persuade people to agree with you.
I, loudmouth that I am, am not trying to convince people here, I’m just broadly slapping the room in the face with my views. And I don’t see how I could be more productive. We can’t be more productive. Not while talking about this.
And the more I’m trying to calm down, the more angry I get at how fucking stupid this reasoning is. Which is always a bad sign. I’M TRYING TO MAKE A COHERENT ARGUMENT, BUT THERE IS A VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD THAT SAYS “HOLEY SHIT, THIS IS STUPID. STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.”
AND YOU WANNA KNOW SOMETHING ELSE ?
THINK TANK
THINK TANK
THINK TANK
THINK TANK
WG ALREADY GOT AN ARMFUL OF TANK SPECIALISTS UNDER A TENT TO DIAGONALLY TALK ABOUT THE REALITIES OF TANK WARFARE AND DEVELOPMENT. THEY ALREADY SEND ALL THE PEOPLE PLAYING THE GAME TO ACTUAL MUSEUMS TO CONSULT ACTUAL PEOPLE. AND THEY DONT PRETEND THAT THEY ARE A HARDCORE SIM. THIS ARGUMENT MAKES NO SENSE AND IT ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE FUCK.
please feel free to express your anger, really quite funny :) if you like i can suggest a brick wall to bash your head against? because anything anyone says, however much they agree with you, you will disagree with them. Right?
It’s alright, I listened to some Lewis Black and it allowed me to vent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPs5ZzBo1hU
Well this is certainly a well written argument and one that is supported strongly. Only problem is I feel like the argument is against something that doesn’t exist. I personally have never seen an official statement by Wargaming saying that this is an accurate simulation of the atrocities of war and tank warfare, instead I see advertisements for a tank game in which you get to drive around tanks from the mid 20th century blowing stuff up. Never has Wargaming said, as far as I know, that World of Tanks is historically accurate and reflects the true nature of warfare. Honestly, if you think World of Tanks is an accurate reflection of warfare, you should be shot, and it certainly isn’t Wargaming’s fault. I could understand that this long criticism of WoT by Munster would be reasonable had Wargaming advertised WoT as such but they haven’t, instead the above writing is a rather nasty critique of something that isn’t. This Ralf Raths has essentially declared war against all video games that have any sense of war in them. Unless people are going out trying to start wars because they think WoT is fun, I honestly think he needs to rethink what he is arguing against and properly adjust to it.
You’re making an argument against something they never said. Well done, sir.
The museum must be run by WoT tomatoes…
Most of this letter is a bullshit, as legit as not introducing swastika to WOT.
I think SIlentstalker it would be fair to publish a link to an English exposé of the Museums standpoint on it mission and methods, in context. Quite a major document also available on its website.
and to quote its closing paragraph (the document is already in English, no translation necesary !)
http://www.panzermuseum-munster.de/
“So there are new views on war and military evolving in Germany right now. They are differentiated and object of heated discussions. Although there is no “back to glory”, as slightly provocatively suggested in the title, there generally seems to be something like a third way evolving: a critical and questioning view, that doesn’t fall for blind admiration, but doesn’t support blind disparagment either. The new multi-faceted exhibitions that are finished (Dresden) or planned (Munster) provide the fitting environment to support such critical and open discourses. They want stimulate the visitors to ask, think, learn and discuss and thereby secure the role of the museums as vital social actors in the discourse on military and war past, present and future”
It’s a video game, ffs. They’re basically having the museum version of the reaction super right wing christians had about D&D or heavy metal: “We don’t know what it is, so we don’t like it”.
I think quite a lot of people completely missed the point…
1. RU251 is not in Munster these days – it might have been lent previously.
Munster however is a museum that chose to cooperate with WG. We do not know the exact extent of this cooperation apart from the mentioned hosting of the WG promotions during some of the other regular events that take place in Munster anyways.
We know that another institution refused to unveil said details about said tank but it we do not know if that and the administration of Munster are affiliated. At least I didn’t read that anywhere so let’s don’t mix up things and stick to the facts.
2. They don’t say games have to portray reality – they think games are a wrong approach to history and reality of war in general and point out specific things (some more technical some dealing with the ethical probem of war) that people might miss while playing such games.
It is the same moral stance I stated in the other discussion that has a problem with war being exploited as entertainment. I think almost anyone with half a brain can accept that this is actually an absolutely valid argument even if we like to play war games and see war movies. For most of us it is just some action in some context tied to episodes of our history. However general public – especially in a country that has a past like germany – has a different opinion what qualifies for entertainment and what might convey misconceptions about things like war, violence and history. I don’t say this is the only perspective to this matter but it is a perspective we have to accept.
I also disagree on some steretypic picks on gamers in general as I think of myself being quite reflective about historical and contemporary issues.
3. I don’t like the country bashing that is always accompanying discussions in WOT. Are you guys so intolerant and narrow minded to treat entire populations like if there are only stereotypes that are projections of those few idiots that make our world policy and those opportunists that are willing servants?
Guess what – per population we have the same amount of idiots and enemies to humanity as well as good ones. I hate when people generalize and make collective judgement on any kind of (social/ethnical) groups and some people here seem to be quite fanatic when it comes to building an enemy stereotype.
It leads to nothing but hatred and won’t get you anywhere you want.
Country bashing accompanies everything. Everytime a countryland is mentioned in any circumstance people go “countrylandians, amiright ?”. It’s just how things are.
typical CUNTRYLANDIAN statement !
Welcome to WoT community. Pile of racists mixed with tons of superstitions.
Want RU251 information? Make a simulator.
What I can see is just a variant of GTA criticism.
Yeah, stop playing those stupid unrealistic video games, and there will be less wars, less crimes, less gangs, less rapists and pedobears in the real world :P
Although the world without video games resulted in a pair of world wars. Very legit.
So they’d be more likely to give the data to Gaijin than Wargaming
But due to limitations Gaijin has set, the RU 251 isn’t even something to be considered.
Guess we’re going to have to wait a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time before we see the Ru 251 simulated to any degree
No gore, not historical – Wonder what their viewpoint on GTA is?
Still, I call it bullshit and I call them dickheads.
A metric butttone of people has already wrote above, read their comments to see why .
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, sounds like some 60-year old doesn’t get games.
“ITT: Retarded WoT playerbase getting mad about a correct and reasonable statement of a museum.”
“WoT players get mad at retarded, at several points completely untrue statement from a museum which has never played the game/ knows 0 of gaming.
Very well written, I find that I regularly have to put afv combat into context for younger enthusiasts … especially the ones that play the various games like [similar] to WoT.
60 or 30 if you use a type of media to misrepresent history while at the same time claiming historical data as your fact background for various articles, books [they write em it would seem] and other media then yes being called out as largely inaccurate is more than appropriate. I have over the years met and talked with many people who are completely wrong about how and why a given vehicle was used or manufactured.
In general, I agree with many of their points, but yeah, they should have worked something out, maybe along side historical information for the vehicles (or a better historical mode :P ).
That idiotic fanatism and absolut truth bearing complex is the kind of things that have made the germans… “remarkable” through history.
Dear SS,
you really need to learn some German, your translation is completely wrong. The museum said just one thing, and I quote: “More MONEY!!!, give us more MONEY MONEY MONEY” :) :) :)
Well, they must be doing great economically if they can effort not being associated with an organisation which, with all its flaws, brings the concept of tanks and tank battles to a new generation on an almost global level……
ITT: Retarded WoT playerbase getting mad about a correct and reasonable statement of a museum.
“OMG It’s just a game” – Yeah, exactly. Then why does the Panzermuseum has to bother cooperating with Wargaming in their research, so that fucktwats like Yuri Pasholok get their dirty hands on informations, which could be still considered as state secrets? Wargaming will take the vehicle and bend it according to the game’s arcade-ish nature anyways, so what’s the point of having real world data in the first place? If Wargaming really wanted to have the RU251 ingame, then they could already have modelled it and attached some faked and arbitrary characteristics to it, like they always do.
A museum strives for different goals and couldn’t give a single fuck about what a game company is doing or what their retarded playerbase is thinking about 2 missing prototypes.
Lol, state secret?
The only state secret worth keeping is your mom’s unnatural ability to drink so much alcohol and anti-freeze during her pregnancy and still push out something that can type meaningless shit on the internet.
What a fucking tool.
The only tool I see around here would be you. What makes you think that throwing around insults would make people overlook, that you’re a spoiled little child living in his mom’s basement?
State secret?
By now, even third world countrie can produce machines that can ROFLSTOMP the RU 251 ans Leopard B
I understand their point of view, but I think it’s a bit hypocritial.
Yes, war is horrible, the germans know that more than most, (most) germans know they commited pretty horrible stuff(very fucking horrbile stuff actually) which came back to haunt them, and had pretty dramatic consequences for their country(military occupation, splitting of the country, and so forth).
but just go in to any museum shop and look at what they sell there, the münster museum sells mousepads with the king tiger on, they’ve got the usual tiger glorification, even though they themselves complain about people glorifying it by viewing it in a vacuum, disconnected from everything else.
they themselves are trying to profit from the same things they criticize wg of doing(yes, wg does it in a larger scale, and has it as it’s main focus, but it’s still the same thing).
This is a valid argument.
The museum authorities are not a holy tribunal of archivars fre from any doubts of their motivation.
Working for the conservation of these relicts of war for a physical approach to how much creativity and energy mankind is contributing to kill each other as well as education about the context of the vehicles is something important and admirable.
However the motivation for a lot of people working for preservation of war machines like that is also diverse and sometimes quite a contrast to the official task.
It might be technical interst in the first place, it might be rememberence of the own service in the army and tank tradition in particular (The museum is located at and supported by a tank garrison).
Those people restoring tanks also are not always just some hobby mechanics – there is probably always some enthusiasm about the tanks themselves or their history.
However you have to combine your enthusiasm with a value for society otherwise it would be just a freak show and something questionable in the public opinion especially as it has to do with war and weapons.
And public opinion is probably also concerned when a war game is performing promotions at your site.
So they have to explain the value or motivation to host such events to the public.
I’m sure there has been some resistance and criticism towards the display and actual testing of the game within the halls of the exhibition and that would not be a miracolous or unexpected reaction.
So this guy from the staff of the museum wrote an article about the pros and cons of this liaison to explain it.
He obviously played WOT himself or knows people probably also connencted to the museum who plays WOT. There is too much knowledge presented in the article for someone who never touched the game or just got briefed about it to know what it is all about.
So we can probably assume those people are more on our side than their actions or better the actions of other institutions indirectly connected make believe.
The DPM also hosts anual modelling summits btw. – so pretty much a model kit fair within the halls of the exhibition. This is a second target group and also probably the main group WG tries to open up if not already customers.
All these events draw people with enthusiasm of tanks!
Some just like them, some research them for their hobby, some research them for their business, some remember their service or the service of their ancestors…and some might even abuse it as a temple of the heritage of their political/ideological idols/movements.
But the whole exhibition really is targeted on a scientific experience of the military technology without sparing the facts what happened and what it means to fight against each other utilizing advanced technology.
So we can point fingers everywhere we want – the question is does it help us? Does it change a thing?
Should we start polling against a museum because we question motivations of the museum authorities?
Should we put a public focus on these museums to make them shut down?
Are we satisfied then? Do we know in what extend the museum refused or supplied WG with information? Do we really know who or which directive is responsible for holding back information of that particular tank?
Don’t be simple jerks – start to think and to accept that some things are not as easy as we think it should be.
as I said, I understand their point of view and motives and I sympatize with them.
(and do note that I said it was “a bit hypocritical”, not “totally fucking hypocritical”).
Ok i will translate and summarize this for you “WG pays too little so we will not help them ‘
But I don’t want a WW2 simulation. I don’t get off on the blood and bodyparts flying around.
That infamous RU251 is not even exhibited in the museum, and yet there are people who bashs the author and museum for not allowing WG to get RU251 data, grumble over the German conservatism, some even pulling bigoted racialism, I mean wow.
WoT player base™ at its best.
The counter argument to Munster is that without WoT there wouldn’t be millions of people interested in tanks and their history in the first place. Rather than discouraging WG they should be embracing them and finding ways to work together. I think it’s a bit petty of them not to allow WG to conduct research on their tanks.
Take myself for instance. I’ve always loved computer games and especially simulators like the Apache series, F15, Silent Hunter, IL-2 Sturmovich, Arma, Operation Flashpoint, Steel Fury, Company Of Heroes, you get the picture. Hell I even had a Space Shuttle simulator at one time that you could play in real time! 2 days to crawl the shuttle out to the launch platform? Sure.
These games allowed people who would never, ever experience the full reality of these machines in the theatre of war to at least get some understanding of their operation and the fear and tension of being in combat, from the safety of their computer chair.
I gained a lot of respect for U-boat Commanders who had to calculate firing solutions for their torpedoes, recognise ships from their silhouettes, enact evasive manoeuvres, understand thermal layers, worry about ASDIC and depth charges etc. all while stuck in a tin can in the depths of the ocean. They really were men of steel.
In the same way WoT has taught me a lot about tanks that I never knew. How they were built, the fantastic engineering designs, welding vs casting, armour hardness and sloping, ammunition types etc. So far WoT has introduced me to 350 unique tank designs – I had no idea there so many in existence! Even though there are quite a few prototypes in WoT, even those give you some insight as to what their designers were thinking, the different national strategies and the pressures the designers worked under to produce the ultimate unbeatable tank.
Then you throw in websites like Archive Awareness, Overlord’s Blog and FTR with Listy, Ensign Expendable and many others who give you insights to real tank battles and history that have all grown out of the WoT experience.
WoT doesn’t give you a full flavour of war in a tank within the game itself – it is not a simulator. (I long for the day when we get a full blown proper single player tank sim in glorious HD). Munster is right when it talks of clinical battlefields, single tank domination, no infantry support etc. WoT is an arcade game that is more than 1 step removed from the reality of war.
But WG’s modelling of tanks and their characteristics, which aren’t perfect but still give you a flavour of their reality, do give you a feel for how these machines would have operated.
I’ll reiterate: without WoT there wouldn’t be so much interest in tanks and tank warfare throughout history. Museums like Munster should be grateful for the public’s renewed interest because of WoT.
I wonder how much takings have increased in war museums since WoT began?
Well a casual gamer maybe visits the museum once when there is a WG event to get some codes or T-shirts….
I visit the museum regularly and have visited it ages before WG was even founded.
Of course there are over laps in interest groups so some players share toher hobbies varying from reenactment to scale modeling and rc modeling or restoring hostorical automobiles or military vehicles.
So the gamers might be a source of funds for a single event but in most cases not a lasting source of support or target group.
As the author said: If just 1 out of 100 might have reflected about the topic after experiencing the exhibition we have achieved something.
A realistic estimation of the long term effect this musuem probably has on the “just-gamers”.
The thing is that you can’t mistake a game for reality, you just can’t. Starting off with simple examples, like Need for Speed, I just can’t go and do the stuff I do in the game with my Golf, in real life, for heaven’s sake.
I do respect Munster Tank Museum’s attitude, it’s fair and square, but they too should realize that simple gamers are not going to get into real tanks and murder anyone, neither that they will start by preaching left and right about tanks. World of Tanks’ realistic mode should be implemented, more like a simulation, popping targets, prediction of distance, fire on the move… but as a separate component. WarGaming can simply develop these tanks they require from 2-3 blueprints and make them work in the game, what’s so difficult, but they’re awfully greedy (it tells from the first moments of playing the game and reaching tier VIII and from that one up) and they are attention whores.
Another important aspect is accusing Nazis of being worse than Communists, or the World War II armies of each side of being worse than the other. And I do side with the Wehrmacht, why? because I actually do know events (being Romanian, the war was fought here, without any hint of doubt) in which the Germans came in, brought chocolate and other war rations and they shared them with very poor kids, shepherds’ kids, sent to handle difficult chores and daily toils. What did the Russians do, when they came in? well, they stole the sheep, left the kids empty handed, they boiled the bloody sheep and ate it without skinning them, often times they bust into houses, stealing whatever they could get their hands on, and raping whoever they could. That’s the way it was, not making things up, just retelling what is all too well known over here. And the most amazing thing of all, one of my grandmother’s brothers, now living in the Czech Republic, went all the way up to the German lines to practically deliver a report on the foe positions, and amazingly… he didn’t get shot or beat up, but rather, they heard him out and thanked him very much for the intel, squeezing in some rations for the little guy, for this heroic deed.
Looking at the armies of both countries, right now… should also be an indicator of how the Wehrmacht and the Red Army were, back in the day, for not every one was a Nazi or a Communist, they were some fine men, men that were humans, first and foremost. Both Hitler and Stalin have committed crimes, but not them by themselves, no, no no… they were helped, by thousands of ardent followers, they could have been stopped, time and time again, by the entirety of the nation… but too few had the mind and courage to do so, and too many believed in them as they believe in some kind of deity, to deliver them from famine, disease and wretchedness, but it’s always easier to have one thinking in your spot, especially when they’re going about promising heaven. Stop blaming the leaders, start analysing the situation seriously, see why Edmund Burke’s saying: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”, has been proven time and time again, and maybe after, we’ll be able to actually stop wars, rather than ban everything linking to violence, lest we want our younger generations to turn into “killing machines”. They may be some stray gamers, doing terrible stuff, but out here, in Romania… for example a 95 year old man killed his son, he didn’t play no video games I heard of, or a young man killing his mistress… I mean, violence is innate, and without education and self-control… it’s not going to go away, so stop blaming media, a die hard virtual space killer is simply frightened about the thought of having to shoot real guns and drive real tanks, so this argument against gaming is invalid. Do not forget that paramilitary groups are not made out of enthusiasts, individuals acquainted with real weaponry, or that the extremist groups of World War II have backgrounds in former soldiers, all to few politicians, guys that went into the field, were horrified by the experience, but somehow… there wasn’t enough justice done for them, so they went, all too blissful, to the slaughter, again… this time initiated by themselves… so, don’t feed the extensive trolling of some people that want their populace to be simply tools in the hand of authority.
Best of luck, and good luck, both in real life and in the virtual one.
Playing WOT does not make me forget everything I know about history all of the sudden, nor does it make me believe wars are fought with just a few tanks, fairly divided over two teams. This museum may understand history, what it does not understand is what games can be about. Instead, these guys should be happy a game like WOT makes people interested in tanks and gets them to actually visit museums. This attitude is about as retarded as it gets. Also, keeping anybody from doing historical research is contrary to everything I believe in.
(I am a student of history.)
Yeah a World of Warcraft does accurately depict war!!! I mean WTF you can ressurect and cast spells!! WTF BLIZZARD??
And Rome II doest accurately depict the historical period! What is this – you can just buy armies and stuff and you need to wait a turn for money!? WTF – so unrealistic.
CALL OF DUTY – also is so unreal! I mean wtf man, you can die and then jump back in 1 second later! THIS IS so innacurate!! Ahahahah LOL
Some people dont really understand the difference between a fu*** game and scientific research
You didn’t understand a fu*** out of anything they said in their statement.
Read some comments around, perhaps it’ll enlighten you. For example this: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/04/29/opinion-of-munster-tank-museum-on-world-of-tanks/#comment-143217
I understand fine enough! Some museum found a topic to whine about.
Such comments about a computer game are just plain retarded.
Historians like to think that they have a monopoly on history, and that’s all I see here. We see someone else doing our job and we get angry…
To me, this is a difficult area. Because any museum I’ve been to has never shown the ‘reality’ of warfare. That’s not something we can access without being involved in one. Can we approach it? Possibly – although it will only ever be an approximation. However, how many museums have you been in that actually show a bullet hole in a shirt, or a uniform that’s had the leg blown off, or whatever? You don’t. The only one I can think of is the Naval Museum in Greenwich, where they have the shirt that Admiral Nelson was wearing when he was shot at Trafalgar.
What this actually is, is a long reply providing reasons why a tank museum (as much as a game) is inadequate for the purpose of presenting “real” warfare… It’s (IMO) just someone giving excuses: if they were really interested in accuracy, they would be working with WG to see if they could make the game slowly more realistic. For example, by using real measurements… Put on top of this, the guilt complex that many European countries now have about the Second World War, and you’ve effectively got someone saying that war’s nasty – therefore, if people treat it as the subject of a game where they don’t show all the horrors, then that’s not good enough.
Let’s ignore the well known and obvious fact that many people (my grandad included) didn’t talk about the war because of what they’d seen – and yet were prepared to talk about the good parts, the funny episodes. War isn’t funny. It isn’t a game. But the best way of dealing with something traumatic is by making it funny, be cleaning it up. I mean, the tank museum in no way shows what happens when people inside a tank get hit by an HEAT shell. Why? Because it’s horrible. Let’s not see that in WoT, or in a tank museum. People don’t need to see that, that’s the whole point of not being at war. People after the First World War wished that there would be another, because of how horrible it was. If we were had been in a tank in the War, do you really think we would want to see super-realistic games that reminded us of just that.
And I’m not saying we should forget them, but realism has to be tempered by emotions. War is horrible. There’s a reason that it has been avoided for the past 60+ years in my country, and I don’t want to see it return. As an historian, I’ve had enough horrible descriptions of death to keep me going for a lifetime.
Here is the thing most of you don’t get.
The museum will work with WOT and they will host an event together. The text is not aimed at *you* and they don’t want to take away your favorite toy (so sorry to burst you narcissistic bubble angry WOT-guys) but aimed at the puplic (and that means newspaper guys and politicians) and it’s basically a plea not to get under fire for working with a company that makes millions of dollars from glorifying war. It is preemptive public relations defense.
Because if some politician from the Green party or the social democratic party or even a so called conservative will learn about this she might just feel like this would be a great opportunity to make some brownie points by bashing the museum for glorifying war. And soon there will be scores of politicians who will try to get some easy public exposure by wanting to take away Munster’s public funding.
By bringing all these arguments themselves they take away a lot of PR ammunition from those guys.
Because again, here is the one simple fact you should keep in mind: They *will* host the WOT event.
While I can understand where the Museum is comming from I think they are stirring a pot they don’t even have a clue how deep it is.
Yes allot of children/adults/seniors and whatnot percieve the WoT reality as how it really happened and that is a sad thing but if said person would be going to a museum or diving deeper into the books and countless of internet pages/movies/documentries etc. they’d learn otherwise.
I mean isn’t a Museum’s function to teach what you didn’t know?
Turning this Personal: I had no interest in World War II, Its Technical and Political systems in place and whatever else was going on during that time.
The most I knew is who where the “bad” guys and who where the “good” guys and didn’t really care for everything around it.
If you were to point me at a Tank and ask me what it was – I’d say “Tank”
If you were to point me at a Tank now and ask me what it is – I’d say “That is a Hetzer also known as Jagdpanzer 38(t) carrying a 7.5 cm PaK 39 L/48 and it was operational in…
You get the point.
This game has made me massively interested in Tank Warfare, Technology and such and such.
So much so that I am planning a Visit to Tank Museums…
So really; Is it all that bad? I don’t think so.
Infact I think this Game has made many MANY people interested in the History of Tanks and everything around it and I say thats a good thing.
Bessides… I highly doubt Munster minded the extra cash in pocket from allot of new visitors eh?
Actually the author already chimed in at the german part of the WOT forums and explained the context of this document.
It actually verified assumptions some people and I already made during the whole conversation.
So maybe SS may switch into the conversation – it is quite prominent in the general section – and maybe talks with the guy or just quote/translate his reaction there so people can stop scratching the surface here.
here is the link : http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php%3F/topic/387164-panzer-museum-munster-und-deren-meinung-zu-wot/page__st__40__pid__7979505&usg=ALkJrhh8BI1fJ8MK0rf5D39E2I9hdpvXww#entry7979505
sorry about google translate, but fair enough to the guy defends himself and museum well and bravely against the horde of insta noob net ragers.
At least partially – it’s like putting language in a mixer and look what you get out of it ;)
I would do that if I had the time but actually I already write too much here in the first place.
Maybe later….
Makes me wonder if this is part of the reason why they’re adding in Fortifications mode and adding in “historical values” for historical battles. So it is no longer just the tanks, but the fact that there are logistics, other units, other types of jobs in a war that are also a part of it and not just the tank.
While this logic sounds very solid and true, it is based on a totally wrong premise, and that is that a game like WoT would form its audience’s understanding of history, war and tank warfare. Actually it is going along the same lines as “ego shooters produce killers”.
.
So while that statement of the Munster tank museum sounds very reasonable, it is actually quite some bullcrap produced by the typical German egghead who knows everything better and always has to dig deeper than anybody else for a universal, ever lasting meaning in everything life offers.
.
Even the concept of drawing people to the tank museum via WoT to eventually make them look beyond the extreme simplifications of that game and understand what war really is about is far fetched. People can (and many do) see the true and ugly face of war on TV everyday.
.
At the Munster tank museum, they apparently see the picture when looking at the game, but cannot figure its meaning. Or they seem to, but are drawing the wrong conclusions. To work as game, WoT has to simplify grossly. So why for heavens sake not let them take some measurements from tanks being exposed there to make them look more like their real counterparts? Nope, life is hard, war is cruel, and people need to understand that, got it! Jaaaaa-Wollll, Herr Oberleutnant!
.
I am German, and I know this people of mine. Those people at the tank museum should chill a little. It’s the same kind of attitude that would never watch and even less enjoy an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, because “violence is not a solution”. I watch such a movie to be entertained, and all the while I am having myself entertained by it, I am well aware of the fact that it is completely fictional and unreal. So what.