Sorry for the lack of articles today, I am sick (barely finished this QA), hopefully tomorrow it’s better.

- War Thunder sounds being better than WoT 9.4 sounds? Storm: “There’s no ‘impact’, ‘density’ or ‘bass’ in their sounds.”
- for now, there is no ETA for “XP for tanking” (SS: keep in mind that it takes an entire patch cycle just to collect proper data, so it’s possible that it won’t appear in 9.5 either)
- Storm states that the new sounds will not come for everyone, but as a downloadable mod pack, the way ultra HD textures were in 9.3, this mod will come in 9.4
- it is confirmed that no other server than ASIA will get a Type 59 on sale (thanks to Not_Me for this info), EU will apparently get some other exclusive tank on sale in December

Check out the Chieftain’s article on why quoting B.Cooper’s Death Traps is not a good idea…

Anyway, not much today:

- a player stated that the new high-caliber (152,170mm) sounds in 9.4 sound like a combination of three successive sounds. Storm confirmed that, stating that it’s a trick, done in movies to improve the “power” of the sound.
- Storm does not know exactly, but it’s possible the developers are experimenting with transferring WoT to WWISE (new sound engine)
- IS-7 will not be buffed: “the HD IS-7 became stronger than the old one”
- IS-6 penetration buff is not planned
- the famous Stalingrad fountain with kids playing will not be present on the ingame map, as it did not fit the segment that was modelled
- developers are still working on XP for tanking
- T-34-3 will not be buffed more than it is in round 1 in 9.4
- remember that Igromir video host? Russian players found out that she “acted” in an… adult movie, so to say.
- regarding the “Recruitment” program, it will not be usable to train your twinks due to limitations
- Stalingrad will appear in the game without Havok at first
- +/-1 MM will not be introduced

- Stalingrad will come “soon”, it will be in the next test round (9.4 test 2)
- apparently, the IS-7 gun model is still SD (developers didn’t manage to get a proper model for 9.4)
- developers are currently collecting statistics in order to implement the XP for tanking
- Storm is aware of the bug on 9.4, where shells fly through tanks, he will investigate
- the feedback on the new gun sounds is “contradictory”, according to Storm – half of players really likes it, half hates it
- the fact that some tanks were paper only or prototypes does not mean they will automatically be reworked to HD after existing vehicles
- in patch 9.6 or 9.7, WoT will transfer to new Bigworld version. Storm states that it should mean a small performance boost for the game.
- Storm confirms that after M4A3E8 is reworked to HD quality, it will get the same armor as the current Fury
- artillery won’t be buffed
- not having enough time to manage your Stronghold? “That means you are not the target audience for that mode”
- Storm states that the sounds of the high caliber guns in 9.4 are “realistic” and historical

Nothing much today really

- Storm is now aware of the “ghost shell” bug in 9.4 (shells are flying through tanks)
- Storm confirms that in 9.4 there will be no HD models

At this point it is not actually sure, whether Stalingrad will appear in 9.4 or not. Might appear in second iteration of the test (this info is cca 2 days old, so it’s possible it was decided in the meanwhile).

Please note that the 9.4 Common Test was postponed till tomorrow.

- Q: “If you knock out the engine of enemy tank and someone else kills it, why don’t you get the same additional XP bonus as when you detrack it?” A (SerB): “Misha (Storm), I told you, they will never be satisfied. Let’s cancel the XP bonus for detracks.”
- M41 Walker Bulldog will not be nerfed for now
- HE shells (SS: specifically, artillery) will not have their damage cut to half (while compensated by more damage doing non-penetrating hits), according to Storm it would be unrealistic
- new Murovanka was actually the first experiment to increase the size of all smaller maps to 1000×1000
- Storm states that 9.4 will bring optimization, in some cases pretty significant one
- Stalingrad will be introduced without Havok first, apparently in 9.4 also (SS: funny, the patchnotes on German forums didn’t mention that, it’s not confirmed yet)
- the “double base” assault will be exclusively in team battles
- map filter (selecting which map you (don’t) want to play) is not planned for now

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/304930.html

Hello everyone,

Storm once again made a post, in which he asks players about their opinion, this time about the “balance”, specifically what they think about:

- balance of classes as a whole
- balance of various tiers and issues in it
- balance of individual vehicles
- system issues of balance, for example “too much viewrange” or “too much penetration”
- system issues of game mechanics, for example camo, or penetration mechanism

He also notes that this topic is NOT about MM.

From the discussion:

- the 25 percent RNG in the game (for example damage, penetration) does NOT use even spread (SS: there is a higher chance to get the average damage than one of the extremes), therefore it won’t be reduced, Storm think it’s just fine
- there is a general idea for WoT to reduce everyone’s viewrange apart from LT’s
- the change above is not the “big spotting system change” promised earlier, it’s just a small part of it
- the rule where both teams have to have the same amount of scouts (with tolerance) will not be removed
- if ALL the premium tanks were to get limited MM, it would come with a nerf, because otherwise some would be too OP (“pwning without end is cool for only one side”)
- +/-2 MM will not be reduced as a whole
- Bulldog model (regarding proper depression) will be fixed in 9.4
- Storm considers the majority of the maps to be fine (apart from some individual map issues)
- Storm on artillery DPM buff proposal: “If the damage output of artillery will be the same as the one of other classes, artillery will dominate. We had that already.”

And what do YOU think about balance of various vehicles? Will link the discussion to Storm later (if it’s not full of profanities and such crap, so if you want your feedback to be linked to Storm, please be polite).

Hello everyone,

a bunch of info from the Insider. As usual, it comes from communication with various developers, so take it with a grain of salt. Still… interesting.

- developers are considering creating a South American cluster either in Argentina, Mexico or Brazil (Mexico is unlikely, as they have good ping to NA servers), but in order to do that, they want to see further South American player increase. The amount of SA players has been increasing steadily for the last two 3-month cycles.
- as confirmed earlier, ISU-130 will be given out to (Russian) staff as a gift tank, but there is also a chance of it appearing on other servers if there is enough interest
- some developers started studying track physics, specifically the element of detracking a tank in order to improve its visual effect using Havok
- SerB on War Thunder videos: “They make good videos, but we make better games.”
- Havok will not look like the IS-4 preview video, where everything on the tank shaked and rocked, when it is released – that’s the final goal, but the equipment falling off from the tank and something called “volumetric damage” (whatever that is) will be released gradually later, when the developers consider it optimized enough

Continue reading →

Source: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=119971&site=wot

Hello everyone,

two Wargaming developers (whose names were unfortunately written in Korean and thus we are not sure how one of them is called), Aleksander Tarasevich (game designer, UI) and Aleksander Derkash (?, CW, Stronghold producer) recently gave an interview for the Korean Inven portal.

US player WpCrate was kind enough not only to link it, but also to provide proper translation. Thank you!

There is a lot of enthusiasm for the new light tanks in the 9.3 update. Even in WGL there is a decreased appearance of the previously common AMX 13 90. How does WG view the 9.3 update.
Tarasevich: We feel proud that there is a lot of good feedback for the 9.3 update. Not only the new light tank trees but also the mercenary feature for Strongholds and the new penalty systems for unmannered conduct were well-received. We are striving to make the upcoming path 9.4 to be met with the same enthusiasm.

We are told that in 9.4 and future patches features such as individual missions or reworked team battle are planned, can you tell us more details on this subject?
T: In 9.4  there will be Sieges, a new mode for Stronghold as well as individual mission, the first of its kind. We are considering via these missions implementing female tankers. By 9.4 we are planning to implement the map Stalingrad, which like Karkov was designed based on real life images.

Continue reading →

Nothing really new. Just that one WoWs developer confirmed that WoWs indeed has multicore support (apparently, this is no longer covered by NDA, as it was published two weeks ago at Igromir).

Oh yea and Storm stated that the antibot system does not punish the botters by removing credits and XP (the way the anti-AFK system does), it simply bans them.

- in the new patch of WoWp, there is an option to select the hangar you want. It’s unclear whether this will come to WoT as well
- the accuracy (hit) distribution (within aim circle) “won’t be possible to be called normal from mathematical point of view, the chance for a hit to the edges of the circle will be extremely small”, the distribution will apparently be reworked
- Storm states that when it comes to mobility, the Fury is similiar to the current M4A3E8 due to improved terrain resistance