Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/282290.html

Hello everyone,

Storm posted the new look of Tiger I suspension for 9.0, which was apparently changed from the test iteration and I have absolutely no idea, what they changed. Apparently, players whined about some element of it (something with the roadwheels and them lacking “plasticity” if I understand correctly, as in – the screws and bolts were not visible enough)

From the discussion:

- it’s possible that the other type of Tiger suspension (roadwheels with rubber bands) will come as an alternative hull
- this will appear apparently in next round of test
- next round will come this week
- Storm admits that when they made the M6A2E1 model the first time, they collected wrong references, it will be corrected, when it’s remade to HD (SS: I have no idea why they actually bring this tank up all the time)
- M6A2E1 “is premium and hightier, this sharply increases his chances” (to be reworked sooner)
- Storm confirms that the entire TD class will lose its class bonus to camo after firing a gun
- developers are working on improved track movement physics, it will come later (this year)
- after T34 (US prem heavy) is reworked, it will recieve the later 120mm gun barrel model
- dirt (tracks and roadwheels getting dirty) will come as a dynamic option, depending on the ground type (snow, field etc.), this does not depend on Havok introduction
- Havok will come earlier than in 9.6
- new grass and tree render will come this year
- apparently, noone really remembered to add spotting damage to player statistics, so it wasn’t done
- M103 roadwheels have fewer polygons than other roadwheels simply because there are too many (and noone will zoom closely on them in the game anyway)
- Storm reacting on players complaining about FPS loss in 9.0: “Reduce graphic settings” (and “on minimal settings there will be no FPS drop”)

As you can imagine, very little serious info came up today.

- apparently, if you can’t enter team battles properly (you see bugged windows etc.), it’s old version of XVM’s fault

Let’s just survive the rest of the day and get serious tomorrow :)

Hello everyone,

so, yesterday I posted some info that allegedly came from Ectar – and he was not happy about it apparently, since he got “misquoted”. So, where is the truth?

For starters, this is the original e-mail I got (unchanged, only removed one link ot the Utrecht post):

Dear SS, Today I’ve been to the Xbox360 Community Event in Utrecht. There I was able to speak with Ectar for quite a while. When asked the question about when the Third Campaign starts, he responded accordingly:

Q: So Ectar, tell us: When does the Third Campaign Start?
A: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t been in the office last week so when I get into the office on Tuesday then I will know. However, I did notice that time has been reserved in my work calendar to play with the WG-clan in the last week of April.

So yeah….. Also talked about Tier 8 USA en German Light tanks, about the USA LT he wasn’t allowed to comment, on the German LT they haven’t made a conclusive decision yet. Apparently 2 tanks were considered. Then we aswell talked a bit about World of Warships, the client is now in Closed Alpha. The group of alpha players (RU supertesters) will be expanded during the year. Closed Beta might come in the end of this year or beginning 2015.

They were still thinking about creating an EU supertester group for WoWs. However, he wasn’t very optimistic about the chances of this happening. Minks is apparently still very pissed about EU supertester stuff. Ectar’s favorite tanks are: E50M, Hellcat, Centurion Mk. 7/FV4202. Hope this is some interesting information. Please only publish my nickname ;) With kind regards, Amayii [WHY]

So, that’s that. With the earlier in mind and with Ectar writing he got misquoted, I started looking for the truth on my own, at least on the important matters. Two points I learned:

- the campaign info is probably wrong, because the the info I got is that new campaign is not planned for Spring 2014, but for later. HOWEVER take this “cum grano salis”, because although the source is very legitimate, it’s not the person organizing it himself and there could have been some misunderstanding.

- the German LT info is wrong. Only one German LT8 is considered (RU251). Here, either Ectar or Amayii mixed two things together – US and German LT8′s – there are two candidates for US LT8 (the T92 and the T49) and at one point, they were “competing” for the LT8 slot (with certain people at WG favouring the T92, others the T49). In the end, the T49 “won”, but T92 is still officially considered as a LT8 candidate and it is possible that Americans will (not immediately) get two LT8′s.

And one speculation:

- the WoWs stuff I don’t know about, but considering the fact that the alpha testers from EU are doing just fine, I’d say that the chance of having WoWs EU supertesters is not zero.

Check out Listy’s article “Grand Theft Walrus” :) Stealing a warplane – not such a good idea.

- in 9.0, HD Panther became taller and wider. This is correct according to Storm, the old model had incorrect size all along
- the changes in vehicles in historical battles (SS: as in, removing some and adding some) were made “according to data, provided by historians”
- when balancing MM weight in historical battles, the tier of the vehicle is irrelevant – what matters is the combat effectivity of the vehicle in that historical battle, for example KV-1S at Kursk has quite low HBMM weight, despite being a tier 6 heavy
- the profitability of lowtier tanks in historical battles will be improved, so it pays off to use them
- historical battles will constantly be monitored by the developers and adjusted, so both sides have the same win chance
- the amount of polygons on HD M103 wheels won’t be increased

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/281613.html

Hello everyone,

the first round of 9.0 test (or second, if you count the historical battles test before) is in full swing and Storm is asking for player feedback. He also adds that he is aware of the TAB key bug (when you press the Tab key during the battle, the team screen pops up as usual, but it doesn’t disappear when you let go of the key and you have to press escape to cancel it).

From the discussion:

- test 2 had some track behavior fixes, but not everything got fixed, in test 3 everything will be fixed already
- Storm states that extremely long loading times on all maps are probably caused by strongly fragmented disk

About the loading times, I doubt it has anything to do with a fragmented drive, since I experienced this with the new maps (Windstorm especially) since last patch: 1 minute loading time, where earlier it was like 10 seconds. No idea why, but in 9.0, all the maps load really, really long.

Hello everyone,

Player Amayii [WHY] recently took part in the WoT Xbox community meeting in Utrecht, where he met Ectar and was kind enough to provide us with an account of what Ectar said.

According to Ectar:

- next campaign might start in the last week of April (since there is a slot in his calendar reserved for him to play with the WG clan)
- American LT’s: “No comment”
- German tier 8 LT: no new info, but “apparently, two tanks are considered” (SS: very interesting, since there are very, VERY few candidates for that)
- WoWs closed beta might start at the beginning of 2015, in 2014, there might be more alphatester spots opened
- there might be a WoWs supertester group from EU server, but Ectar thinks that the chance of that is low, because Minsk is pissed about the previous supertester leaks

Check out today’s Chieftain’s Hatch – the topic is very interesting (not to mention entertaining) :)

- M6A2E1 armor will be brought to its historical parameters, when the vehicle is reworked to HD
- currently, M6A2E1 uses not M6A2 hull, but M6 hull
- WoT damage model doesn’t allow to model linear armor thickness change of armor, it would be too complicated to compute and would require too much computing power, that’s why armor is modelled as consisting of zones of individual thicknesses
- the same goes for modelling real 3D armor plates (currently, armor is modelled as a 2D plane with a virtual number, representing its thickness)
- regarding War Thunder, its ability to heavily modify various stickers on tanks, all the while War Thunder fans go “OMG REALISM”:

(Bigangrycat) “That’s the usual War Thunder fans doublethink. This is by far not the only expression of the famous rule ‘what you call spies, we call recon!’ The system of applying decals on vehicles in War Thunder is very flexible, but on the other hand the result is that many vehicles in the game are painted either with the “LOOK AT ME DUDES IM A DESIGNER” in mind, or trollishly, like the famous ‘horse fucking a pin-up girl’ composition.”

- regarding whining about bad World of Tanks physics, compared to War Thunder

(Bigangrycat) “I suggest checking with those, who play War Thunder: Ground Forces how it goes with ‘tree climbing’ ;) Or try it yourself, if you manage to get a beta key”

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3138922.html

Hello everyone,

recently, a stream with Aleksei “Inaki” Ilyin (WoT community manager) and Artyom Safronov (Xbox WoT producer) came up and Maiorboltach was kind enough to re-write, what was said in it.

Keep in mind that this concerns WoT Xbox, not WoT itself

- currently there are 10 maps in the game
- Soviet branch will come very soon
- WG hopes to introduce soon the following modes: companies, confrontation and team battles (currently, there are usually 150 people in the queue, who wait cca 10 seconds for a battle)
- there are no separate servers the way PC WoT has it – Russians are playing on EU servers with the French, Spanish etc.
- many players already have more than 600 battles
- most players play tier 6-8
- there are standard 3 man platoons in the game, they can be formed via the Xbox Live system

Continue reading →

- regarding the armor overhaul – when T-62A gets turned into HD, its armor will be reworked as well
- apparently there is no need to buff KV-5
- developers have not yet decided, what to do with the M6A2E1 (“Alien”), when it gets reworked to HD, they will collect all sources and will see what is to be done with it
- in the final version, T-54′s commander copula will be 130mm thick (SS: right now it is 160mm)
- the reason for HD armor rework is not as much increased amount of details, more like increased historical accuracy, based on sources
- Wargaming always tries to get the armor schematic as realistic as possible, regardless of balance: “Armor was never related to balancing, unless you mean the made-up vehicles, where we were free to put as much armor as we wanted”
- the size of the HD models is cca 60-100 megabytes per tank

Continue reading →