Hey everyone, you can leave your 9.0 feedback to Overlord on his blog.

Also, new (micropatch compatible) version of Gnomefather’s sound mod is out, you can get it right here.

Please note that 9.0 test, round 2 will start tomorrow (confirmed by WG)

- T-54′s assymetrical turrect is correct, WG checked
- in test round 2, there will be probably 8 HD tank models
- it’s not yet known, how long will the entire conversion of all models to HD take, because the developers haven’t reached the “mass production” speed of remodelling yet
- there will be (at least) two more 9.0 test rounds
- from 9.0, it will not be possible to switch triple buffering off, it will always be turned on apparently
- apparently, US player Lynnette_JJW M6A2E1 info (SS: probably this thread) made its way to Storm personally (he’s aware of it)

Continue reading →

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/280163.html

Hello everyone,

Storm made another 9.0-themed post, this time, he’s asking about the feedback of the three HD models, released in the first round of the test. What did you like? What didn’t you like?

Also, he posted three new screenshots of models, that have been reworked (they from today (26.3.2014) and are different from the ones, that are on the test).

Continue reading →

You might have noticed comments were disabled for a while – a small mistake on our part. It’s working now.

- in the game, gravity factor for all the tanks is the same
- implementing respawning is not “copying War Thunder”, according to Storm – garage battles were discussed by the time War Thunder was not out yet
- special “historical” characteristics (SS: mentioned in the earlier post today by Storm) will not apply for random battles, vehicles will not be balanced with historical battles in mind, because “it’s not needed”
- upcoming Kharkov map was never intended exclusively for historical battles
- historical battles themsleves took roughly a month of work, including the tests
- developers are still waiting for programmers to finish working on the new visibility mechanism, so it’s possible to increase the amount of spotting cycles (spotchecks)
- having more than 30 tanks in a battle still creates network issues
- pre-set setups for historical battles (SS: as in, Germans having for example 1 Tiger and 4 Panzers every time) create endless queues
- according to Storm, having several “realism” modes of random battles á la War Thunder is not viable. He states that in War Thunder, the first mode is played by 95 percent people, the second 3,5 percent and the third the rest, so the two other modes are pointless
- the player peak for WoT (and other online games) is December/January, that’s when most players play
- French tanks in 9.0 have graphic issues with tracks – they are too dark
- there is currently no need to buff artillery, their amount in battle is okay
- developers are wondering how to increase HE rounds usefulness, but haven’t thought of anything yet
- Storm hasn’t asked yet, how T-34 and KV will be balanced in 1941

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/279729.html

Hello everyone,

what follows is the third article on historical battles’ future from Storm, posted today (two hours ago or so). Here’s what he wrote:

After heated debate on the historical battles, I would like to share with you the plans for their further development. Now, in 9.0, we will not introduce any serious changes. There will be just minor corrections. But for the following future versions, we gathered several interesting ideas:

- mass-used (lowtier) tanks will recieve the ability to respawn on the battlefied. 2,3 or 4 times (this will be set in advance), with player choosing the respawn point out of several possibilities (the enemy will not be able to control all respawn points at once).
- mass-used (lowtier) tanks will recieve premium status, when it comes to crew, eg. it will be possible to use crews from other tanks of the same nation and class on them
- third, what many players talked about and what Wargaming kept “in reserve”: there will be overrides on tank characteristics in historical battles: what it means that a tank will have two different sets of characteristics (hitpoints, rate of fire, viewrange, terrain passability, hull and turret traverse rates) – one for random, the other for historical battles. The mechanism of the fight will remain the same (SS: eg. no “hardcore mode”), but this will allow for better finetuning of the tank characteristics without being influenced by the main problem – tank tiers. In the end, there will be two different balance sets for each “historical” tank – one for random, one for historical battles.

Continue reading →

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/279323.html

Hello everyone,

Storm posted a list of changes, that will be made in the historical battles, based on the results of currently running test. These will include:

- added the switching of sides (just like in random battles) – Germans in Kursk will no longer always start in the south, it will be random
- all battles will have the amount of maximum MM weight points increased by 50-100 percent in order to increase the amount of tanks in battles
- the ammo setups for some tanks will change, they will get less useless HE shells, some will get more gold shells (but Storm states it’s important not to overdo it, when it comes to the shell price)
- some vehicles will get a hardcap on some battles, for example Tigers and SU-152 in Kursk
- MM weights of Panthers and Tigers in Kursk will be fixed (they were too low)

Continue reading →

- regarding lighting in WoT: in battle, generally the only source of light is the sun
- currently, the HD model of Tiger has roughly 41 thousand polygons
- special intensity setting for the normal mapping shaders in graphic settings won’t be implemented
- Marders and Hetzer won’t most likely be added to the Ardennes and Balaton battle, because they wouldn’t be able to do much in the battle and would only suffer
- apparently the Chaffee remodel in 9.0 was not in patchnotes, because these patchnotes are not final 9.0 patchnotes

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/279019.html

Hello everyone,

Storm wrote that recently, he returned from a personal trip and wants to know your opinion on test 9.0 What did you like? What didn’t you like? Specifically:

- historical battles
- reworked tanks
- performance (FPS drops)
- new UI
- new post-effect in sniper mode

Continue reading →

Once again, Wargaming EU dropped the ball – 9.0 test patchnotes do not mention that Pearl River and Severogorsk recieved MASSIVE overhauls, I suggest you check both of these maps out.

- there is a bug on test server 9.0, where ISU-152 runs around with its top gun (152mm BL-10, 286 pen) in the Balaton historical battle, this will apparently be fixed

Oddly enough, there is very little developer reaction on the patch, but I guess a separate post will come.

Also, currently, Common Test 9.0 has one very nasty fail: apparently, players, who were beta-testers, cannot log into it – it throws some sort of error. The official support answer (source) on this issue is:

Thank you for this information. Since the database copied to the test server cannot be accessed, there is no possibility to change that for now. We will forward this information to avoid such an outcome with the next test server build. If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us again.

So it probably will get fixed for second round of the test.

- Bison I model size in test 9.0 was decreased in order to make it more historical