- SerB on why WG won Golden Joystick despite the overwhelmingly negative response on RU forums: “It’s simply because the whiners are always more active”
- Slava Makarov (main WoT producer) states he didn’t know in advance WoT would win
- historical battles will have gold ammo (and it won’t be limited apparently)
- teamdamage/teamkill automated system doesn’t track teamdamage done to certain classes (SS: as in, whether for example arty gets more teamdamage)
- it’s possible the tier 5 KV-1S will have also a 122mm gun, but it’s a short gun (S-41, something like the KV-1 U-11)

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Congratulations to the Golden Joystick victory, well, can’t say I expected it, but after thinking about it a bit: World of Tanks is a good game and the WG EU fails, Stalin and other crap I write about has nothing to do with that. So… GG and grats.

- hightier gameplay is doing fine according to SerB
- SerB confirms: KV-85, KV-100 and KV-122 will all be one tank on tier 6, it will be slower than current KV-1S
- WoT for Xbox? “When it’s done it’s done”
- XboX WoT is meant for different audience than PC WoT, the accounts won’t be unified apparently
- Havok will not come in 2013 according to Storm

What, you missed SerB’s trolling? Let’s have some light trolling then…

- there isn’t a possibility to mount stabilizers on some oscillating turret vehicles, because the stabilizer can’t stabilize an entire turret. However, some OT vehicles can mount it, as this issue was dealt with technically in real life
- it’s possible that after 0.8.9, “huge” patch 0.9.0 will not follow, there might be a 0.8.10 patch instead

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So, few hours ago, I sent the 20 questions away and the answers are already here!

To explain, how it works: I gathered your questions in English. I had to change the wording in most cases (typos, sometimes the meaning was unclear), so I hope you get to “recognize” your questions. Then I sent the questions to Zlobny (still in English), who then “redistributed” them to appropriate departments (some are answered by Storm for example). In one case, I was asked to reformulate one question for appropriate meaning.

The replies came back in Russian, I translated them to English. The questions are in the form I sent to Zlobny. The name of the replying developer is behind the answer (where applicable, I assume it’s Zlobny himself replying where there is no name).

1. Will Dragon Ridge come back at any point – if so, soon?

For now, there are no plans to return this map (Storm)

2. TDs lines seem to be getting the public’s eye right now, are there any plans for introducing more mediums?

Well, in any case there will be the Japanese tanks soon and we will add Soviet tier 9 and 10 medium tanks. And of course, it’s not realistic to imagine any new nation tree without medium tanks.

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Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/253902.html
Author: Storm

Storm recently made a post on the developer blog. Here’s its translation:

I’ve read another whine letter:

“ANSWER ME WHY DO YOU NERF IS3 I SPENT MONEY WHY YOU NO COMPENSATE I AM NOT HAPPY. YOU NERF IS3 WHY!!!! WHY DONT YOU NERF FOCH AGAIN! I AM STILL WAITING. TWO PATCHES ALREADY. WILL YOU NERF FOCH OR NOT. I JUST STARTED LEVELLING IT….”

(SS: the letter continues, broken Russian, typos, all caps, swearing… absolute idiocy)

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And what do you think, what should we do about necessery nerfs and and changes based on documents, describing historical armor, that appear all the time?

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“Let’s get this show on the road!”

Earlier, I was considering the following option: a kind player on RU server (thanks, Loooser78V!) would “smuggle” FTR questions in Russian into SerB’s thread, they get replied, you get them back. Overall, as you can imagine, this solution is very heavy-handed and time-consuming, not even speaking of the fact there was no guarantee SerB would answer the questions (he didn’t answer the first batch, despite my best efforts to pick those that adhered to the rules).

Well, today, another option presented itself. I was contacted (!) by Pavel Myreev, also known as Zlobny. His official title is the “game balance designer” – in layman’s terms: he is the guy responsible for vehicle balance. He offered me the following:

He (and his colleagues, where needed) would answer 20 questions per week, on weekly basis, exclusively for FTR. Yea, I didn’t believe it either, but here it is. So, here’s what’s going to happen. From comments (although, I reserve one or two questions this time for things that interest me personally) under this post, I will pick 20 questions, that get answered.

First batch is a test run of course, to see how it works, but I think it’s hell of a better deal than what EU forums have right now with Quasar. Info straight from the people, that actually matter! Needless to say, I am pretty amazed by this opportunity, as you can imagine, after the massive leaks around patch 8.5 I thought I’d be blacklisted. But, apparently I am not.

And the best part: you can ask almost anything you want (I will of course not pick the blatantly stupid or thousand-times-answered stuff – no, there will be no skill MM in randoms for example), the guys at WG RU are still willing to find out the answer, if it doesn’t fall into their category. I will also let you know which questions I picked in advance.

So, enjoy :)

- SS

Update: Thank you, I think we have enough for the first batch. Will sort this out in the morning.

For all those interested in modelling (real life modelling, like plastic tank kits), Revell is offering its products with World of Tanks codes inside. Pretty neat.

Also, the first FTR QA test was not successful: the questions were not replied for some reason, but the player was not banned, so no rules were broken. Will run a second test.

- there is no special MM for platoons
- the D-83 gun is not planned for World of Tanks (SS: Soviet experimental gun projected for IS-3, if I recall correctly with like 380mm pen)
- Soviet “konisch” type squeezebore guns (for example the S-40 with 76-57mm) are not planned

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The 8.9 will go live on RU server on 29.10. and on EU server on 30.10.2013 (no data on NA server, sorry).

Please keep in mind that after 8.9, you will NOT be able to sell the Super Pershing for gold anymore, so if you forgot, do it now.

Storm also started asking players in a post, which maps do they like the best. Not much info from there, but it seems the most players actually prefer older maps: Malinovka, Murovanka, Prokhorovka, Himmelsdorf and others.

- Storm states that in the first test, the 7/42 skill MM was not working
- Storm also states that the skill MM uses special 7/42 battles rating, not just winrate, so it’s pointless to compare 7/42 matchmaking with XVM results
- the 7/42 skill MM is based on “general overview of player skill”
- Lowe will not be rebalanced anytime soon (SS: specifially the answer was “soon – no”, which sort of leaves an impression that there might be a rebalance coming later)
- apparently, the D-25 on IS-4 was a temporary solution and might be removed at some point (SS: unclear)

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Hello everyone,

you know how I like to make long dramatic posts :) This will be one, possibly the last one, but it’s important, so bear with me, please.

So, what happened: yesterday I learned that the FTR Adsense account has been shut down, which means there is zero income for me and FTR from ads from now on, I am not even talking about the money from ads that was due next week, that I was to use on some significant FTR upgrades (more on that later in this post). It pissed me off not only because of the money lost, but also because of the fact you readers have kept this site going this way (ads are pretty much the only way a site can support itself in long term and I want you to know I appraciated everyone’s support) and suffered the ads.

The reason for disabling the account is quite a weird one: I didn’t break any policies, I didn’t break any rules, the official reason was this:

“Our specialists have found that your account is related to an account that was disabled for violations of AdSense policies. As previously mentioned, publishers whose accounts have been disabled are not eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.”

At first I was “what the hell”? I never had any second adsense account, let alone one that got disabled. What me and Edrard think happened: about two months ago or so, Edrard got his own adsense account disabled for some strange reason (like wrong positioning of banners). He since then switched to Yandex (Russian version of Adsense). The important part is: Edrard logged once or twice on FTR google account to set up the banners for example, because I am hopeless with IT. Thus, his IP showed in the access log, Google figured I am just helping Edrard circumvent his Adsense ban and disabled my account too. I filed an appeal, explaining the situation, but Google appeals are largely automated and I am not optimistic about overturning this decision. Please note that while I have no doubt this will make some useless WG EU staff-members happy, they almost certainly had nothing to do with this.

So, what now?

For the Record has been one hell of a ride. Since January, the blog grew in visitors from just a random blogspot site to the most visited non-Russian WoT blog in the world. You, dear readers, are why it happened and I am deeply grateful for that. It wasn’t all for free however. In one interview months ago, I said that I work on FTR roughly three hours a day. Well, that was somewhat true then, but it turned out to be wishful thinking. The truth now is that it is usually more, sometimes significantly more. I was always joking that FTR was like my second job, but in last months, this became true practically literally. You can imagine how “well” that worked with real life relationships, but at some point I decided this tradeoff was worth it. Most of the “work” on FTR includes information scouring: where I used 3-4 sources earlier, I check dozens now for every bit of info from the developers. Most I sum up in the QA thread, the important ones get their own posts.

I must admit that it is sometimes tiring. Even the WG EU fails are tiring: as you can imagine, writing something positive is more relaxing than describing that some idiot screwed something up and it reached the point where I ignored one weekend fail in the German community (something about buying two packages and getting third for free, which didn’t work, resulting in a whole bunch of pissed Germans).

Few months ago, this blog was moved from the original blogspot site to this one. The reason behind this was simple: the ads – it allowed me to get something for all the effort I did put into it. But not just that: it allowed FTR to grow – things I couldn’t do before, Edrard could do (setting various WordPress mods, the whole programming work) and I would never be able to do it without his help. As you can imagine, there is a lot of effort behind this site from both of us, let’s not however forget the other contributors either: mainly Zarax, Priory of Sion and Ensign Expendable did a great job writing about various stuff and I am grateful to them for that.

So, this is how it looks now:

Yesterday, when I learned the news, it was in a sort of mixed sadness and relief. Sadness because for all its flaws, this site had an enormous amount of work by me and others invested in it. Relief, because the strain on real life has become a bit too much and the income I had from it (and it wasn’t much) was one of the few ways I rationalized the effort to myself (and others). Plus, as an added “bonus”, this month I have to deal with some nasty personal crap, that (amongst other things) requires a lot of money, so I’ll have to work even harder.

I could go back to blogspot of course and run this stuff there. But honestly, that’s not what I want to do. I am trying always to go forward, not back and not to do things half-way. Cutting back to previous levels is not what I do.

In short: I am ready to shut this site down and step away. I am sure that would make WG EU quite happy.

Or…

There is one more option. I could go all out pro and kick the whole FTR thing into overdrive. It was like a second job before, I could actually make it my second job (even first job, under certain circumstances). Here are the plans I had for this month before the Adsense shutdown:

- new graphic design: with Edrard’s help we’d hire an artist, who’d make some really cool interface for FTR (the money was supposed to go for that)
- new materials and “unveilings”: buying a certain bundle of copies from certain archives (sorry, not going to mention details, promised not to and I don’t want others jumping at it) would produce some very interesting results for German branch
- whole new portal for other games, with more contributors: World of Warplanes, World of Warships, possibly even War Thunder (as you noticed, I didn’t like the tree, but what the hell, won’t judge until I try it out)

but, most importantly

- direct questions to developers (well, daily, possibly every two days, needs to be tested): I made an agreement with a Russian player (for now anonymously, Edrard unfortunately doesn’t have enough forum posts on RU forum to help out) to help ask questions in the developer thread. Basically, you ask, I translate to Russian, he posts it, SerB/Storm answer, I translate it back, you get your answers. Eventually, if I was to… ehm… “obtain” a RU server account with 5000 battles, I’d be even asking directly.

You can imagine how especially the last point is time consuming (especially if you want to have a good response time, that is slowed by having to dig thru the silly questions to pick up the right ones). It requires commitment.

So, here’s the deal:

I think I can setup another ad system on FTR. Bing possibly, but there are other options, I need to discuss this with Edrard further. But it takes time to go live, specifically roughly two months before you get anything out of it.

This is where you come in.

Yesterday (when I wrote the message first on Facebook), some very kind folks donated money (I won’t post your real names, please leave a nickname next time, guys, so I can thank you publicly) even before they knew of my decision. I want you to know I am very, very grateful for all the help, especially when I openly stated I could be shutting FTR down. But FTR needs a bit more to “survive” these two months. In ideal case (I know, I am an optimist), if donations covered those two months of ad income… or even more… well, that would allow me to go all out, as I wrote before. Note that I haven’t posted any specific numbers intentionally, because I don’t want to turn this post into a kickstarter event (tons of legal mumbo jumbo around it), or anyone to feel guilttripped or obligated. That’s not how I do stuff. If you ever wondered how much a monthy ad income was, it was really different, from 250 to 400 Euro. Considering the amount of time I spent working on FTR every day, I don’t think it’s that much :) But that’s just me.

So, right now it’s up to you guys. I don’t want to throw everything away, but it’s how it is. For today and next few days, it will be “business as usual” in any case (perhaps the posts will come a bit later in the day as I wrote earlier, as I said) and I will let everyone know how it all went.

If you are considering donating, the only possible way (I had prepared on short notice anyway) is via Paypal and the Donate button in upper right corner. In special cases (as it happened once before), we could arrange some other option, but that’s for private conversation via e-mail.

Just to be perfectly clear, so noone feels “cheated”: this whole thing is based on faith and respect. Your faith in me, mine in you. It does not oblige anyone to do anything. Despite all the previous donations, it’s possible I will still shut down for personal reasons. But then again, for all my complaining, I liked doing FTR, I still do and I presume I will. Just need to get my shit together this time.

But whatever happens, thank you all.

- SS