Hello everyone,
the Wargaming insider is back, scouring the internal channels for bits of information. This time, he decided to talk about the differences in content between WG EU server and WG RU. Actually, this entire thing is quite complex and the talks about it span last 2 years, so – as he did put it – it’s very difficult to actually cover the entire issue. Some parts of it we have also figured out on our own, but it’s nice to have it confirmed from different sources. Please note that this article is not also the “ultimate truth”, but an interpretation of what the insider did read and hear over last months and years, merely an explanation.
One of the main reasons of the content amount difference is Soviet Bias. Yes, you heard right, it does exist, but not in the form of what you usually imagine under the term (the Insider called it “sovietism”, but I think the Soviet Bias is more comprehensive). Basically, it’s a Russian market specific element, where the customers expect and demand the seller to celebrate and praise their past, specifically the Soviet era, because of the “RUSSIA STRONK” notion, that is still present in the many Russian players’ minds. The Insider notes that the typical example for this could be the book, written by SerB, called “Yesterday there would be War” – in Russia, Sergei “SerB” Burkatovsky is a well-known sci-fi author and a typical example of a very specific sci-fi genre, that is popular there – about men falling through time, preventing (in this case) the German attack on Soviet Union in WW2. The book itself is mostly junk (it has mediocre reviews), the Germans are depicted as idiots and the abovementioned “Russia Stronk” element is prevalent.
The Insider also states that what would be (in the USA) viewed as ridiculous warmongering and far-right extremism is quite a normal thing in Russia. That is actually true, SerB confirmed that in the past himself, noting that the Russian market has its specifics and if the western companies do not follow them, they can’t do business in Russia.
Books such as SerB’s cater exactly to this type of patriotic audience. The side effect is that it produces (or attracts) some very nasty fanatical zealots (SS: in Russian, they are called “Vatnik”, which is a word for a wool coat), but that is the price for this approach. Keep in mind that this patriotism is not something inherently negative (as it is unfortunately often depicted in the west, where any form of patriotism is mocked), only the extremes are.
The availability of such books and articles simply makes the people want to read more and this is where Wargaming comes in. Wargaming portal texts are not meant for any other server, because they follow the abovementioned principle, explaining the history through Soviet eyes. It works on the RU portal very well, but if you for example let Yuri Pasholok write on EU server (or, heaven forbid, forums), you would end up with a PR disaster, because it would simply not work.
Another reason for the massive amounts of Russian content is the fact that since “everybody loves tanks” in Russia (naturally an overstatement, but for the same reason as written above, military history of Russia is quite popular there), Wargaming (a veteran company of creating war games) has VAST resources of books and articles (as you probably know, they even publish books on armor via their publishing company, called Tactical Press) on the topic and creating “content” for the portal sometimes simply involves publishing some of the written articles, rehashing a bit staff that was already written… quite easy.
Other servers have nowhere near the manpower of WG RU. The only thing that comes close is the American server Chieftain’s Hatch, where an American military history expert Nicholas Moran publishes historical stuff on regular basis. Simply translating stuff from RU server wouldn’t work for the reasons above (“Stalin stronk!”), some of the articles would cause an uproar on EU server, plus, there has to be a proper procedure for translations followed – the content has to come from Minsk in Russian and then you have:
- EU server with its tons of languages
- US server with its Spanish and Portuguese
- ASIA server with its specific set of languages
The amount of manhours involved in the translation alone is staggering according to the Insider.
WG RU “solved” this massive translation issue by simply giving each server an independence of content, to a certain degree of course. Each server is free to employ their own people to write content, sometimes it goes very well (Chieftain’s Hatch), sometimes it however turns into a complete disaster (here, the Insider mentions the “opportunistic Finnish” article fiasco), but it’s okay as long as the article gets translated into every language of the server. That is still bad, but it’s more effective than translating a (potentially offensive) Russian post into ALL the languages on ALL the servers.
At this point, the Insider sort of chastises me for sometimes bashing the translations, because the work behind translating the same article into multiple languages is (according to him) “monumental”, especially on WG EU server. He however adds that he is aware of some of the inconsistencies and the fact that e-sports is handled terribly.
There are of course exceptions to this “freedom”, some articles have to be transferred from WG RU as they are, usually this involves important stuff such as patchnotes and urgent info. These have to be distributed to the entire WG network and usually pass from Minsk directly to a handful of “trusted” translators.
Regarding the quality of the articles themselves, the Insider does note that the ones from RU server are well-prepared, American server has good articles as well (again, Chieftain’s Hatch), while the EU server lacks such good articles in general, but it is able to produce some very interesting stuff from time to time. WG EU representatives are not blind to this fact- in fact, the Insider confirms that they have demanded better content on multiple occasions and asked Minsk to do something about it.
The official Minsk answer was basically that it is their problem since they have the freedom mentioned above and that they should do something about that themselves. WG EU doesn’t have the manpower to do that and the only thing they could do would be to actually translate the Russian stuff to English (only), which according to the Insider would cause another massive whinestorm. According to the Insider, hiring more people won’t do either, because it’s not about hiring “more” people, it’s about hiring competent and qualified people, while Wargaming EU generally doesn’t hire true professionals – they hire 20-something year old players (! important), who have bad/mediocre income and take translating for example as a part time job. Hiring true professionals and translating companies for translation of articles however would also be a problem, because this would not only shut down the “part-time translator externist program” (believe it or not, WG actually cares about these people), but also cost (according to Insider’s estimates) like five times more per article than it does now, which is too much even for Wargaming.
(SS: at this point, I really started wondering – I mean, if I can create content on daily basis – and, pardon me for saying that, but what I do is not bad I think, how hard can it be to have such domestic content in English with a couple of guys translating it locally without without waiting for Minsk approval, if I can do it, surely others can as well)
The US server has a bit different, because it seems that over there, pretty much everyone reads stuff in English, even the Spanish-speaking people and as a result, the Spanish portal is of terrible quality (the Insider notes it’s actually almost like translated by a machine), but nobody really cares, everybody reads the Chieftain’s Hatch in English anyway.
This is where the Insider’s letter ends. He adds a bit more random info as usual – for example, he wrote that WG EU stuff is not very happy with Yuri Pasholok (WG RU military expert), some EU PR guy calls him internally “Yuri Sovietolok” and there was a talk (mentioned by one person whose name and position I know but was asked not to disclose) of the German Bundesarchiv (main archive) being very unhappy with him (considering him, by Insider’s words, “persona non grata”, because he published some stuff without their consent while failing to disclose who he was working for). Is it true? Hard to say.
As a closing statement, the Insider asked me specifically to publish the last paragraph of his letter. I ommitted one thing that might have potentially revealed his identity for his own safety. Here it is:
One last thing, I decided to open this communication channel with FTR, not because I hate WG RU, for me it’s always been really nice to talk to them, they are polite and always responsive, even if I had to annoy them sometimes, but also to make them understand that not everything they are doing is correct, I’m personally dissatisfied with the way they handled the wiki (and you may find this weird, but Tanitha is the one in charge of the english wiki, and boy, he is a tyrant on that thing, I’ll tell you later about it), the way they lack content, or publish it in a way they add insult to injury (the article about Finnish) and don’t listen to very original and good ideas the EU/NA/ASIA clusters have, how some of the WG EU leadership guys are simply not doing their part and just stick with the “Soviets are master race” materials they have to work with, and instead, WE all have to take the blame.
Russian Bias! Confirmed!
On a side note, who actually controls WG as a whole? With so many different opinions, servers and people, how can you actually have any real leadership? Just curious is all
WG Minsk of course. If you are asking who the real WG owners are, that is a more complicated matter however. Controlling large companies is always complicated, that’s why branches usually get some form of autonomy :)
Wait till all servers turn into the almost, basically self controlled China server. Jk
Wait… TANITHA (from the ASIA server?!?!) is in charge of the english wiki?!?!?!
Tanitha just recently moved to ASIA, he was EU before.
Ah got it. Odd.
“was EU before”
NA, actually.
“RUSSIA STRONK” notion, that is still present in the many Russian players’ minds.”
Well you cannot wash away decades of brainwashing : Stalin is our God, USA is evil. But anyway it’s no surprise for me. It’s a tanks nation. They grew up with tanks and war stuff. It’s obvious they will receive better offers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre#Discovery
Now, I dont want to cry about the past. This part of the article on the wikipedia, shows the typical russian approach on thing. It changed across time, but not much. Deny everything, even the obvious, and hope that everyone are brainless idiots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camps_for_Russian_prisoners_and_internees_in_Poland_(1919%E2%80%9324)
Wanna talk about this?
i would ask you again. Stop this RUSSIA-IS-ETERNAL-EVIL-FORTRESS bullshit. Especially if you have your own dark pages in your history (much darker ones, actually).
And after this you never stop talking about “Russian bias”. Ah, world is gone mad.
“Wanna talk about this?”
Ehh, sure:
“Existing documents and proofs does not also confirm thesis made by many Russian historians that Russian POWs were specially exterminated in Polish camps because of their nationality, religion or other issues.[1][8] They also show that the main cause of death were various illnesses and epidemics (influenza, typhus, cholera and dysentery), noting that these diseases also took a heavy toll among fighting soldiers and the civilian population”
Are you a strawman or just a troll?
If neither: Dear colleagues, here we have the perfect example of Russian mindset. The proper term, I believe is “Limitless Cynicism”.
And Russia with its delusional panslavic ideas (such as the Third Rome, Holy Russia etc bulls**t) is the Evil Empire, indeed.
So holding thousands of people without food and medical help to death is ok? What did you say about “Limitless Cynicism”?
Dear colleagues, here we have the perfect example of Polish mindset. The proper term, I believe is “If something bad happens, blame russians”.
Thahaha you won this. :)
Looks like you have little to non historical knowledge. It is proven that the majority of russian prisoners died due to disease – not intentional extermination. Note that not only prisoners camps were affected by that, but the entire country thanks to your “glorious bolshevik revolution”.
Its much different than killing 20.000 war prisoners, with a shot to the head (using german lugers), and denying that, is it?
Fun fact (not really): Many of the Soviet prisoners, that came back to Russia i 1920, were then later murdered, by the order of Papa Stalin himself. The man that Russians love to worship, and is an example for young people. Scarryyyyy!
Lets STOP here, I bet the blog readers are tired of this kind of discussion too.
You flame one side for war crimes? Are you really that simple minded?
The UDSSR killed more people than any other nation in WW2. Germany did unbelievably reprehensible things. It was fucking war! The whole concept of war is evil. So stfu you nationalist moron and crawl back to your whole. The time of your kind is over and won’t return in the near future.
Well the problem here is that Poland was NOT in a state of war with the USSR. How about now? Then again, War is war, but whats after war is something else…
So what? If you are getting in the way of one nations interest, then you better be able to hold them off your territory or you will always need their goodwill. The strongest rule the world, not the nicest. One wins and the other one has a pure conscience. You can choose which one you prefer.
Wow, I heard this before. Something like: “Bullets killed them, not me”. Nonsense, right?
So you think, that holding people in awful conditions like animals letting them die from starvation and illnesses is much better then shot to the head, really? Maybe we should stop this awful comparison?
No one speak about “glorious bolshevik revolution”, It’s your pure fantasy. Let’s just remember what did Poland want from Polish–Soviet War (1919 – 1921), but as i said, no one speak about conflicts of that time, that’s another story.
All I wanted to say is: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”
“holding people in awful conditions like animals letting them die from starvation and illnesses is much better then shot to the head” – Both done by USSR as well as Nazi Germany (concentration camps or Katyn, neither is fine)
The fact is though, war is war. All sides did terrible things, be it death camps for people with “wrong” religion, massacres of officiers of own army, bombing civilians with proto-napalm, you name it. Don’t argue over who tried the hardest to hide it, because all of them did, and not very successfully. I mean, if they did succeeded, we still wouldn’t know sh*t about it now would we.
And then after they’re forced to admit it, they try to pretend that the admittance never happened…
It wouldn’t surprise me if Yuri Pasholok would be the one to fuck up all WG RU relationships with Europe museums and archives…
One thing is being a very well known historian… but another thing is if you’re being a smug bastard at it.
And you guys wonder why there’s still no RU251…
I consider Pasholok to be more journalist than historian, judging by his approach and “content on demand”.
He’s a very biased “historian”. True, some of his sources are reputable, but those are the ones that have been verified by other sources either from historians of other nationalities or by declassified intelligence documents from the Cold War.
“he wrote that WG EU stuff is not very happy with Yuri Pasholok”
I think you meant staff.
But otherwise very good article SS :)
it just feels wg eu is just managed by idiots.
for some reason eu keeps making these shitty sales and events, while NA usually has own events and interesting offers(no wonder why they end spending more money per player) but i dont think it is because other clusters are allowed to do things eu isnt…
Firstly, only Russian-speakers will understand this worldplay: Yuri Pasholok = Yuri Pashol v…
Secondly, many people underestimate the rising fanaticism and militarism in Russia. There is a new generation born in the end of the 90s, they have been brainwashed from the kindergarten by Putin’s political technologists. Putin is the only leader they have ever known, the source of all that is good and right.
Most Russians live so poorly, that they have to go number 2 on a bucket (I’m NOT joking, Ukrainian TV sent it’s reporters to Russia to find out how they live – 100km from Moscow, the capital of the rich, small-town people live in nearly abandoned houses with no water and no toilets). Yet even they believe that Putin is “the man”, although he is using Russian oil and gas money to fund military adventures in Ukraine instead of helping his people to build a better life.
There is a new wave of “patriotism” in Russia called “Krõmnash” (Krõm nasha – the Crimea is ours). It is based on the belief that Russia should reconquer all the territories it had as Soviet Union. I fear that Ukraine is just the beginning…
“Firstly, only Russian-speakers will understand this worldplay: Yuri Pasholok = Yuri Pashol v…”
In polish you can sometimes hear ‘paszoł won!” (something like “scram!’) So it looks like we have something russian after all.
lol @ Ukrainian TV and double lol @ “live in nearly abandoned houses” :)….nuff said.
Lol I laughed reading that retards stuff… Idiots like this is the reason why internet is so fascinating. In person, people just slap them silly, but on internet, any window licker can be heard :)
We hear you, window licker, we hear you.
Oh and I heard they send Ukranian TV to poland to investigate the stories that Polish people drink piss from buckets imported from Russia. I guess they do have some Russian in them.
Haha, a typical behavior when one has no arguments :D
Oh yeah, the so called ” expensive oil patriots”. Sometimes I wonder whether this all war on terror wasn’t ignited somehow from Moscow. Because the raw oil and ore are the fundaments of russian economy, and if “cui bono” stll applies…
It’s not like we knew about Russians supporting IRA, Baader Meinhoff or Palestinians before 1989.
who cares about eu anyway, they are milk cow for wg, they will pay no matter what… so why would wg cared ?
As someone who knows how milk cows are kept and taken care of (the animals, duh), wg should really try to do better if EU is such an important milk cow for them.
However, I think that RU being the biggest server with most people paying them, they will never favor any other server over the RU one, meaning that all of us EU, NA and ASIA/SEA players can f*ck off if we think any massive improvements and care are going to be undertaken for us.
On the matter of Putinistic nationalism/sovietism aka Patriotism which it is not.
“We need an enemy to give people hope. Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and the bastards always talk about the purity of the race. National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. Hatred has to be cultivated as a civic passion. The enemy is the friend of the people. You always want someone to hate in order to feel justified in your own misery. Hatred is the true primordial passion. It is love that’s abnormal.”
(p.342) Umberto Eco’s ‘The Prague Cemetery’
IMO that is nationalism, not patriotism. It’s better to be a patriot than a nationalist.
Yup, sure your opinion has more sense than a famous writer/philosopher’s…
@Fedaykin89
You are both right and wrong. The quote as i understand it is about turdbags hiding their empty hateful agenda under the guise of patriotism and preservation of national identity. True, nationalism and patriotism are two different concepts, the author was connecting to both.
Anyway, a nation wich has lost its identity is poorer because of the loss. A nation which can only be proud of itself in its identity and history is the poorest thing of all. Nationalism gains traction in economic/sociologic downturns and insecure times becuase it provides an idea of pride when there is nothing else to be proud off. A secure and stable society does not turn to nationalism and glorification of past deeds.
P.S, i like your Dune reference nick. D.S
Is it not as simple as a russian or belarussian company will focus on the home market first ? Especially when there is wastly more world of tanks players there than in EU ?
Never heard anyone be surprised that Blizzard released world of warcraft first in america for instance. Of course they released it in the home market first and where they also have more players than in EU.
Recommended reading about the Russian mindset: The Sources of Soviet Conduct/George F. Kennan
I don’t think patriotism is mocked in U.S.A.
I just finished the Battlefield 4 campaign…in which the enemy were the Chinese.
Now if those games(Call of Duty/Battlefield) don’t follow the “U.S.A Stronk” logic…..
In them, the protagonist is always the U.S…and the antagonist is always whoever is the mainstream “badguy” at the time of development….I guess that was China 1-2 years ago as that’s all I heard on mainstream news(when Btf4 was being developed)..before that it was the middle east…and before that it was Russia(of course Russia is ever present with constant cameos throughout).
What I am curious about is whether future installments that are only in planning stages right now will have Russia as the bad guy, or the Middle East again…..as U.S.A is having ever escalating problems with both at the moment. Maybe Cod can tackle one while Btf tackles the other, we shall see.
The difference I believe is that Russian nationalism and patriotism is immensely tied with history…while American patriotism and nationalism is not(for better or worse). All that means is that in both nations it will immensely benefit you to be show the nation in positive light…and hurt you immensely to show the nation in negative light(Russian person having to kill Russian soldiers in cod…American killing American soldiers in…some game…idk, though I do remember a certain android game that let you play as the Japanese in pearl harbor…caused an uproar with tons of negative reviews). Russians will just favor historic games to “future war fantasy” games…kinda like Call of Duty did before it went bad…no bias, no nothing, just plain historic themed guns, tanks, battles….those were my favorite as well….Cod got distracted with $$$, now they release so many identical (mediocre) games that I can’t even keep track of the naming order.
With what Russia went through in WW2….can’t really blame them for being nationalistic concerning history. Personally don’t think being proud and passionate about your country’s history is warmongering or far-right though……games like Cod and Bf are much closer to that, but then their just games. We got more real problems like John McCain and Hillary Clinton among others that do it for real these days.
Just wanted to add to my post:
Don’t confuse the U.S.A mocking the nationalism/patriotism of other countries as U.S.A mocking patriotism/nationalism concerning itself. It just engages in blatant hypocrisy….I think you will find that nationalism/patriotism is very very prevalent in the U.S. It is just the whole idea of American exceptionalism…
-”how can another country think they are the best…when it is we who are the best…they must be super nationalistic to be that deluded…Btw before you ask, we are not nationalistic…we just speak the truth…America F**k YEA!!!!!”
Another example would be that bullshit Fury movie ;) .
Still, west knows difference between fiction and historical reality while eastern guys have problems with that – and that is the main problem.
The West often overplays the significance of D-day and many people in U.S somehow consider U.S to have played the biggest role in WW2(to be fair that is more out of prevailing ignorance of history than denial of fact).
I don’t believe that most Russians glorify Stalin…that is just a stereotype I think. But I know that most do not demonize him. If you just look at what he achieved for the SU, then he should be glorified….if you just look at the lives he took, he should be demonized, no question. If you look at the whole picture….well then you will fall somewhere in between…and most native Russians I have talked to fall just there, in between…they don’t hate him, but they do not love him either.
Other than that, I believe both sides are guilty of overplaying their accomplishments and downplaying their shortfalls. It is simply human nature to do so.
I may have misunderstood your statement, and you may be right. I will point out however that the average people here in the U.S are not known for their accurate knowledge of history(or geography). While in Russia people can’t seem to stop talking about it…it is like I said, their nationalism is very much tied to history, and U.S nationalism is not(for better or worse).
I think the history of U.S is a bit more murky than that of Russia when looking at the involvement of the average person(pretty much genocide against Native Americans, and massive slavery in the South). That may be why they don’t often look back at it. That is completely my opinion though.
This is a horrible way to look at things. Hitler in his time was viewed by his people as somebody who set things right and done a lot of good for their state (ofc until it started going downhill and to the end) despite many knew/saw the dark side of it but what the heck – it is balanced out by the good things right? The difference is – Nazi Germany was totally defeated, occupied by foreign authorities and de-nazified by them. This has not happened to SU, it just collapsed by itself. No armies temporarily occupied the land to investigate crimes against humanity, outlaw the regime, force the common people to recognize the evidence of all the atrocities that happened etc. and so the old propaganda remains in their heads. I mean cmon, they could be more inventive than calling the fascist card at everything they dont like. Thats an enemy defated for over 60years now, but apparently calling the UKRs fascists still works.
And now there is a former KGB officer who is using all means necessary to hold power firmly in his hand and is trying to relive some sort of soviet-imperialistic dream. Just great…
I truly feel sorry for russian people because they’re good people once you put the bullshit aside but they have suffered so much through the history at the hands of foreign invaders and more sadly their own leaders hands that taught them to blame everything foregin but them and it shows in the mentality….
Just as you said about Hitler…”at the time”. Looking back there is little good he actually did for the country.
On the other hand Stalin did a lot of good for the country, and a lot of bad as well.
The question that one could pose is, do we give credit to Stalin for raising the SU to super power status and for defeating Germany? I believe he does deserve some credit for that.
I cannot reasonably say that Russia would have been better off without Stalin…because so much hinges on the quick industrialization and defeat of Germany. A more moderate person may have failed in these tasks.
I can however reasonably say that Germany would be better off without Hitler. A more moderate person would not have started a world war, and started the holocaust.
It is not fair to say that the fascist card is being used at “everything they don’t like”…looking at relatively recent conflicts, I don’t recall that coming up at all. That pretty much disproves it.
If you followed the maidan protests you would know that such rhetoric didn’t surface out of nothing. It may be overblown, it may not…but fact is, there were rallies held commemorating Stephan Bandera, and people with SS insignia, and the whole Svaboda party in general is of concern.
You may be right about Putin, though he seems to be a great and capable leader, it is worrying that he is still in power. This I believe has more to do with the Russian people than Putin…..his popularity rating is in the 80s I believe, which means the people want him there. What that means is that the Russian people don’t care about democracy as much as they care about having a good leader. In other words, they rather have a great dictator than risking having a bad elected president. The question is, when he does become a bad president, and his popularity falls…will he step down? And that right there is the problem with dictatorships. Will he? Won’t he? We will find out when it happens. I am skeptical, but from what I know about him, it could go either way.
When I say dictator, I do not mean it with the bad connotation that it usually conveys. I just mean it as a president who stays in power longer than it was planned in the constitution(he changed it afterwards, still doesn’t count). Putin fits this description. It is a good thing as long as he steps down when people ask him to.
As for the imperialistic dream. That is what mainstream says. At this point, he has only annexed Crimea…which if you look at its history, doesn’t mean much. And this is a long long time into his term. I mean if you compare his whole time in office, with just one term of a president here in the U.S….it is peaceful by far. I think it is way to early to say things like “he is trying to rebuild the SU”….for god sakes people were seriously discussing him invading Estonia.
“As for the imperialistic dream. That is what mainstream says. At this point, he has only annexed Crimea”
You’re saying it like it’s such a small thing… “he has ONLY annexed Crimea”…
In case you did not know, RU along with USA, UK, France & a number of other countries signed a treaty in which they guaranteed the territorial integrity & sovereign status of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal.
With their acts of agression, RU has shown that their promises, their signatures value exactly NOTHING – that they are not a country to be relied on or trusted and that they should be seen, rightfully, as dangerous.
ESPECIALLY since Putin himself declared that the fall of the USSR was “one of the biggest tragedies of the 20th century” – even for that comment alone, the tens of millions of Romanians, Czechoslovakians, Bulgarians and all the countries from the Iron Curtain would be justified to tear his heart out.
Here is the actual quote:
“Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself”
Yes, I am saying he has ONLY annexed Crimea. I am saying that him annexing Crimea is not basis enough to say that he will invade countries to reestablish the Soviet Union. I am not defending the annexation.
Russia’s promises worth nothing because it broke that one? Sure, guess it joins the list of pretty much every other country in the world which ever broke an agreement/promise..in other words it joins the list of every other country in the world(to be honest it was probably already on that list).
Well the thing is – the victor writes history. As you said, Nazi Germany was defeated. Lets say it would be the other way around. Hitler would be seen by his people as someone who defeated the big bad SU and created a superpower. The crimes commited by nazis would be swept under the rug and crimes done by soviets would be in the spotlight. And some of the crimes done by nazis would be blamed on soviets (reverse-Katyn).
Would be Russia better off without him? There is so much variables here you can’t really tell it would be worse without him either. A more moderate person wouldnt make friends with the nazis to make them stronger, a more moderate person wouldnt mass-murder its military elite for no reason, a more moderate person wouldnt waste resources trying to invade poor, harmless yet suprisingly resistant Finland, a more moderate person wouldnt annex pobaltic states while committing crimes so horrible they’d rather join nazis later on. A more moderate person wouldnt start what basically was a less organized and industrialized form of holocaust against all kinds of imaginary enemies. The numbers of people murdered are crazy for both AH and IS and who knows what the real bottom line for Stalins madness was as I’m pretty sure not everything was declassified or was even properly documented. And there is definitely no excuse for “not being moderate” pre and post war.
Yep UKRs have their extremists which I dont think represent the majority who just want to be more pro-eu and I think that the reason they are able to gain recruits because of deep rooted hate to soviets after what they had done to ukraine. The very same reason why pobaltic states erect memorials to troops that fought agains the SU.
Yes he is popular but that is largely his doing and not in a good way. Influencing media, continuation of the tradition of spewing filth on west and sugarcoating his actions may have something to do with it. I dont think he will allow legit competition and legit polls to show popularity if it would start to decrease. And ofcourse he is not stupid and a good leader/schemer, stupid people dont get this far, same goes for even the most insane dictators the world has seen – despite obviously twisted and sick mind, both Stalin and Hitler had to have some sort of genius to get that far.
To sum it up, he definitely doesnt seem like someone who intends to turn Russia around into a friendly democratic country that isnt looked at badly because of shady politics, and hostile-like approach to western europe.
Only annexed Crimea.. see what Fedyakin89 wrote, I second that.
I agree. There really are too many variables.
It’s the dilemma. Do you credit the success and failures of the country during a Presidents term when judging a President. Usually the answer is yes. If so, Putin’s popularity is his doing….and in a good way.
I watched Putin, from year 2000-2008 trying desperately to be friendly to the West. Joining trade organizations, attending meetings. Then as we kept hearing news of Nato missile shield moving closer and closer to Russia, even though they themselves promised it wouldn’t, that sentiment soured. Do to your neighbors as you would like them to do onto you. And then don’t blame them for responding in kind.
Also, I do believe that the radicals are a minority in West Ukraine(the part that want to join EU), but the concern is that they took seats in parliament. Honestly, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as some East Ukrainians say it is….but I understand where they are coming from…it isn’t just invented from thin air.
You are forgetting Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and Stalin helping Germany at first – BEFORE defeating them. Literally, putting SU in dangerous situtation and paying with war casulaties afterwards.
Which might not happen without UK and France selling their allies to Germany for few months of peace.
But then you can also say that because Hitler went to war with the Soviet Union, even losing and sacrificing Germany, he weakened a Soviet Union that was rapidly turning into a superpower and thus made it so that they couldn’t expand anymore. After all, had the S.U not lost so many people during the war, nobody could have stopped them.
Both Hitler and Stalin did good and bad things. Stalin obviously ends up adding up many more bad things, he just got to blame some of them on Hitler, and some others on his allies, on top of him having won and nobody having really investigated on it. Winners never get their wardrobes checked for skeletons.
But the biggest issue here is, Russians have learned this. To them, either Stalin is Jesus, or he’s “Really not that bad after all”. They know their history, the one they were taught. On the other hand, most of us westerners don’t really know any history. We aren’t taught much, and what we are taught sometimes contradicts itself. Maybe because the west never had a big conglomerate of countries just like the Soviet Union (Past the Spanish and British Empires, but those collapsed much earlier than this era). We are taught more about how each country beat the other, but we didn’t really have a common struggle that unites many races and nations, to the extent that the Soviet Union had. We don’t have a “Western identity” behind which to rally. Russians and Eastern Europeans kind of have, they have the Soviet identity, that for many is more important than their own national identity. They were Soviet for longer than they were Romanian, Polish or Ukranian.
You forgot US colonial era – Carribean, Phillipines, East Asia and now Middle East…
registered just to give you a thumbs up, great comment!
In BF3 you also play as a russian special forces soldier..
But CoD and BF campigns feature a certain story whereas WoT features multiplayer only.
There you have (or should have) equally balanced factions without any kind of bias.
The protagonist isn’t always american, in CoD MW they’re British. And they even fight americans once. Also, in the next CoD the americans are the antagonists, you play as the guys who invade them. In BF however you’re always american fighting russians or chinese. But in the next BF it’s americans vs americans, but nothing political, just cops vs robbers.
Cool. I will check it out. Honestly at the moment I stopped following Cod news and trailers.
Lol, next BF looks like gta 5 in first person.
But you still fight Russian ultranationalists in CoD4, MW2 and MW3 and Middle-Eastern terrorists in CoD4 and MW2 (and maybe MW3, I can’t remeber).
But still Russian government is a good guy being the other side in the civil-war and you fight some corrupt Americans or some shit, can’t really remembered since I played the stories so long ago and haven’t played them the MPs in years either.
Thumbs up from Russia. Great post, I agree with your thoughts.
“And you are lynching Negroes”
(Russian: А у вас негров линчуют, A u vas negrov linchuyut, “And at your place, they are lynching Negroes”) is an anecdotal counter-argument phrase, which epitomizes the tu quoque arguments used by the Soviet Union in response to allegations that it had violated human rights. Use of the phrase refers to such attempts to deflect criticism, e.g. by referencing racial discrimination and lynching in the United States.
Comedy gold
WG EU doesn’t always get less content than WG RU. It gets more fails for example.
“There are of course exceptions to this “freedom”, some articles have to be transferred from WG RU as they are, usually this involves important stuff such as patchnotes and urgent info. These have to be distributed to the entire WG network and usually pass from Minsk directly to a handful of “trusted” translators.”
Which they tend to screw up anyway, which is why we read FTR so we know patches are coming…
Urgent info and Wargaming EU / EN community guys… Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
So, we hear something about the ‘Murrican RAF officer, The_Challenger, first…
Then we hear about the obvious Sovietism… (Long live USSR, death for tsarist Russia, meh, they’re more or less the same.)
And lastly, we hear that Tanitha is acting like a tyrant about Wiki stuff.
…
…
…
Typical junk for Commies.
So I have to comment on “The amount of manhours involved in the translation alone is staggering according to the Insider.”
I used to work at NCsoft Europe and indirectly with the translation team, who worked on both ingame and marketing content, box art etc. We translated into 17 languages which is way more than Wargaming currently support. Yes, it is a fair amount of man hours but it wasn’t a problem if you have a professional translation tool and a well organised, experienced translation team. There was no USA or EU first mentality. Poland got the same support as France. Ironically the only problems we had were in Russia, where they couldn’t be trusted to even produce the box art properly. They put GW characters holding Russian flags on the box designs. That didn’t go down well.
The problem isn’t the bulk of translations – having worked with MMOs with 2 million plus words my air violin for Wargaming is very small – its Wargaming not adopting industry level standards and managing the whole thing properly.
AFAIK, the number of teams that are currently translating WoT and WoWP are 32.
They actively translate the game to about 25-28 different languages, if I am not mistaken.
So is a bit more than 17 … :)
So why WG EU and WG US, not working together in articles or translate them for eng to other?
I’m wondering the same thing. If WG EU can’t afford to translate RU stuff to English, why not work with NA? Or do they already(I don’t visit both)?
Last time I checked US was even more fanatical about the whole nationalism / patriotism than Russia. So it’s not like it’s unique.
Even more fanatical? Last I checked we haven’t blatantly annexed foreign territory in over a century (the last ones being Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba, the former of which became a state, the second a territory, the third a territory then an independent nation, and the fourth a protectorate before being given their independence…and then Fidel Castro showed up, but that’s another story). Russia, on the other hand, is starting to take the same route as the USSR in the years leading up to World War II, by annexing its neighbors and gearing up for further conquest.
And why stop there? Given how they cling to the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would push further than Ukraine and into the Baltics, Poland or even as far as Germany.
nationalism and patriotism for any nation is fine.
fanatical nationalism and patriotism on the other hand means a government has its own problems and wants to focuse attention else where, and/ or has a hidden agenda.
neither if for the good of the people or the nation, but might be for the top 1% (the ruling class)
So be carful what you buy into and why.
SS pls be really careful with the part of German Bundesarchive. In the German Section we’ve the Director of the tank museum in Munster writing and what he told there, shows the strange in German politic and society. (We r germans, we cant praise anything related with the War, we’ve always to show the dark side and this computer game doesn’t do this, so it is bad to support them – On the Other side you cant show blood in a game or any other crime …)
I think thats nothing else with that Bundesarchive. Same people, same strange behaviour like always in this country. I just think over to the last visit of a German politician in Israel. (I dont mean what Israel thinks of that speech, just what was going on here in Germany).
So if it goes about a German government institution be careful of showing who is the bad one as it can be really difficult for anybody even a German to handle them.
Why do they have all articles in so many languages then? WG doesn’t translate anything into finnish, but to be honest, even if they did, I would just use english portal.
Being a Canadian of Estonian Finnish heritage married to a Russian I definitely get a good view of all sides viewpoints when it comes to WW2 history and current political viewpoints. On a recent visit to my wife’s home she absolutely refused to discuss politics with her family and considers them “brainwashed” by listening to only Russian news. And you definitely get the impression that Russian’s are not willing to even consider other countries opinions as anything worthwhile. For instance I heard a comment (Through my wife’s translation) that “Canada shouldn’t even comment on Crimea because they are barely 150 years old and have no history compared to Russia”. I had a ton of replies to that but my wife would not translate for me to allow me to stir up discussions.
In any case…the Russian Bias is there…in many aspects of their culture.
Russian news and overall TV is like the Fox News channel. But since they have no competition, they get away with much crazier things. The news and programming like talk-shows, reality tv and even some new historical documentaries are specially tailored to represent a single point of view, yet create and illusion of debate and choice for the viewer.
Some programming and news stories are obviously ridiculous and fake, making a person who watches that crap think that he’s smart enough to see through the bullshit, but that’s usually what gets them. Because the flow of information is so huge, it’s next to impossible to separate truth from lies as it is next to impossible to construct the whole truth from filtered half-truths that are shown.
The government manipulates public opinion with great success using mass media, as the portion of population who speak foreign (western) languages and hence are able to get an alternative view is small. The recent hyper-patriotism, feelings of discrimination by other countries and even homophobia are government-manufactured ways of moving the people’s attention away from people in power.
In fact, I don’t even believe that the Ukrainian separatists are really people or any special forces sent by Russia, I think they’ve just been watching too much Russian TV.