Last one this year, but it’s a good one, especially the last part :) Enjoy!

Source: http://www.gametech.ru/articles/562/

Special thanks to st0ne_c0ld from world-of-ru for linking it.

Hello everyone,

Russian site gametech.ru published an interview with Andrei Yantsev, who’s the leader of the WG publishing department. The interview is quite interesting (its title alone is “a generation grew up, that thinks everything should be for free”) but sadly, very long, so I’ll just sum it up into the point Mr.Yantsev makes.

The interview took place at the Wargaming Developer Contest awards and it’s actually related to it – specifically, to third party application developers, modders and other such people.

- Wargaming started to work with third party modders and such (WGDC) since there was a demand from these people’s side
- WG plans to support these people (modders, application developers) by advertising their creations in the “useful software” part of the portal, specifically the WGDC winners’ creations will be advertised via WG channels
- the way WG sees the future of working with these people (“leaders and WGDC finalists”) is not to buy their products (they can implement the same functions themselves), but to encourage them to form a “core of third party developers”, the existence of which would encourage Wargaming in turn to reveal (release) more of their codes
- WG is slowly moving towards opening up its sources and releasing redactor software for third party developers, but the process is slow since they have to make sure there’s no abuse of that
- regarding the consoles, World of Tanks was until recently Xbox-exclusive, but apparently the exclusivity “wore off” and it’s possible that in 2015 plans to expand to Playstation will be announced, WG is working hard to introduce WoT to “all platforms” (as in, other consoles as well, the only exception being Nintendo)
- World of Tanks would be profitable on Xbox even without the gold account, there are talks in that direction
- Yantsev thinks that Microsoft is starting to take F2P seriously
- “retail version is dead”, it can apparently exist only a gift package, it’s good for older nostalgic people, but young people are used to downloading stuff, F2P and DLC model
- apparently, Blitz is doing fine and growing fast, mobile devices are the future
- in last two years, WoT merchandise made a huge step forward, WG is cooperating with several game accessories manufacturers and such, this was planned very early on
- 2015 will be the 70th WW2 victory anniversary and WG prepares many events towards it (in Russia of course.

Actually, the interview was much more interesting than just this short summary. I wish I had time to translate it all. Oh well, maybe when I have some free time. But this guy does seem to exactly know what he’s doing, I like his answers very much.

Hello everyone,

everyone’s doing this lately, so I guess I have to do it as well. In late 2013, Wargaming made a video, that was released on 31.12.2013, with SerB explaining how World of Tanks will look in 2014. So, how right was SerB a year ago?

- “massive rework of the graphics” – that didn’t work very well.
– HD tanks – instead of “all of the tanks” SerB mentioned, we got how much? 30? Plus, as the HD models rolled in, WG decided to reduce the texture quality from the earlier ones. No ultra HD texture packs for us either. How terrible.
- HD environment? Maybe in SerB’s dreams.
– independent suspension on HD models – this was successfully implemented, on HD models. All 30 (out of 300 or so) of them.
– Havok – right, maybe in 2015, maybe (WG ran into performance issues – surprisingly, making a physics engine run on the junk Russian players use doesn’t work so well)
- turrets blown off – that was successfully implemented
– improvement of clanwars – was CW improved? I don’t think so… there were campaigns though
- historical battles – ended in complete failure, awaiting massive (PvE) overhaul
- strongholds – implemented successfully
– garage battles – nope, nothing. SerB mentioned respawning in historical battles or tier 10 garage mode, neither of which was implemented
– Japanese heavy tank – nope and won’t likely come in 2015 either. SerB sure was right about the
– alternative hulls – nope (plus, this idea is strange anyway and useful only for a couple of tanks with shitloads of variants, like Panzer III, IV, Sherman, T-34 and so on)
- 9.0 “optimization” – well, we all know how well THAT went

You know, something tells me that SerB will not be making another such a video for 2015…

Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-most-powerful-militaries-2014-12?r=US

Thanks to Joe for this one.

Hello everyone,

this is not directly related to tanks, but still, pretty interesting. A list of world’s 35 most powerful militaries – first is USA of course (dat spending o.O). Oddly enough, Czech Republic is 30th, while the Norks are 35th with 30 times the manpower. One can only wonder what kind of junk they must be using to get so low…

Hello everyone,

a curious case happened recently – well, let’s check it out. Player XanRO submitted a replay to me. In it, he was playing artillery and was attempting counter-artillery fire, hunting other arties. That’s always a risky business – either you manage to do it, or not and you end up with nothing to show for.

The replay of the battle can be found here.

As a result of this battle, he recieved a warning for inactivity:

Now, look at this – this is from the list of IM’s (individual/personal missions) from the second round of the test server, specifically artillery missions 7 and 10.

Mission 7: destroy enemy SPG (for T28 it’s 2 SPG’s, for T55A it’s 2 SPG’s and win and for Object it’s 3 SPG’s and win)
Mission 10: Cause damage to an enemy SPG that has not yet been spotted.

Unless you want to ride around shotgunning at the end of the battle, these are counterarty missions. Players attempting them will in best cases screw the gameplay for their team (focusing on finding enemy artillery instead of supporting their own team), in worst case, they’ll get punished for inactivity if they are not successful. Good job, Wargaming.

PS: This post is about flawed IM mechanism, not about “WE HAET ARTY” – I was very lenient with yesterday’s article, but I will ask you NOT to repeat that crap again.

Hello everyone,

today’s advent offer for EU server includes:

- SU-85i + slot
- 7 days of premium

Price: 15,89 USD (12,75 EUR)

A word of warning, because last time, some people got seriously confused. SU-85i is NOT SU-76i. SU-76i was an OP vehicle, that got removed from the shop, while SU-85i is a mediocre unexceptional tank destroyer. Do not confuse those two.

Hello everyone,

another part of the Wargaming tank series with Dmitryi Puchkov. Bad news – it’s only in Russian. Good news – it has English subtitles. Even better news, it’s actually quite interesting. I wish this was made with English voiceover, the show is clearly superior to the previous “nuts and bolts” video series (where did that go?).

Thanks to OldoTRONic for this one.

No comment needed I think.

21 hours 41 minutes left into the offer, discount 25 percent

21 hours 39 minutes left into the offer, discount 14 percent

A “display error” they said…

Hello everyone,

so, you thought that Porsche’s Tiger was developed only in Germany? Not quite. Check this out.

This comes from the collection of V.Francev with his kind permission. It’s a well-known fact that some people at Škoda were on good terms with Ferdinand Porsche. In a recently published Czechoslovak armor photo book, there’s a picture of Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche inspecting the T-15 for example. Thus, it’s no wonder that Škoda was involved in one of Ferdinand Porsche’s greatest wartime endeavours, his development of the Tiger.

In December 1941, Czechoslovak engineers at Škoda designed a turret for Porsche’s Tiger (based on Porsche’s requirements), equipped with a 105mm battlecannon. The picture above gives you roughly an idea of how it looked (low quality is intentional for obvious reasons). The turret was 80mm thick all around except for the front plate, which was 130mm thick and the roof 35mm thick. The mantlet was 100mm thick.

It was equipped with a newly developed 105mm L/40,5 Škoda battlecannon, capable of firing 16kg shells at 775 m/s (in case you are wondering, using DeMarre, rough estimate of the weapon’s penetration capability is between 150 and 160mm at 100 meters). The cannon could be depressed to -8 degrees and elevated to +20 degrees. The turret was three man, with the commander and the gunner sitting left from the gun and the loader on the right side. Turret traverse was electrical.

Needless to say, this project was never accepted and Porsche’s Tiger ended the way it ended, but in World of Tanks terms, this would actually be a nice premium, wouldn’t it.

Hello everyone,

third round of the 9.5 CT has begun. The changes, compared to test 2:

- Fixed some text in the Personal Mission interface
- Fixed issues with visual models for FV4005, Sherman Firefly
- Fixed camo issues for the following vehicles: Т-34-85M, Т-54 Light. Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. H, T-34, STA-2, M3 Lee
- Increased brightness of enemy vehicle names on the minimap
- Fixed some minor interface issues