- SerB states that “everything, that could be done to make the training room battles easier for the players without risks to the game was already done. Everything else is financially risky and won’t be implemented” (SS: in other words – no free/cheaper shells/repairs in training rooms or anything else, topic closed)
- SerB on Japanese tanks heavy branch (about where it will start from): “It’s a mess. Tier 3 heavy exists. Tier 6 and higher do exist also. But there’s a gaping hole on tier 4 and 5. So the heavy branch is not considered as done and won’t be released for now.”

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SerB started answering, so here it is:

- WG-made Master of Orion? (SS: WG recently bought the franchise from Atari) “No comment, but I don’t think we’d buy anything only to have it lying in the basement”
- no extraordinary measures to prevent teamkills of the reward tanks (M60 and others) will be taken

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This Q&A is a bit unusual. As you probably know, SerB’s in Paris (hence the Hitler video) and Storm’s on vacation, so I’m going to translate some of the stuff, posted by a “developer” (in reality, a chief of community) Evilly in this thread – it’s about clanwars. I am not sure how much of it applies for EU/US servers, but I’ll try to translate to the best of my knowledge.

Please note that as I have never played clanwars and I have very little understanding of its mechanics, the translation might be of worse quality than usual. Feel free to correct me.

- new season starts in October
- apparently there are no plans to reward CW players with vehicles with crew that has perks/skills
- there will be other ways for clans to compete with each other apart from clanwars
- for second campaign, you will also need tier 1 + T2-T10 vehicles, so don’t sell them (“The same vehicles you currently need for various company tiers”)
- in campaign, if you get accidentally removed from a clan after playing some battles and then you are accepted back, when it comes to reward battle requirement, those battles (before you were kicked) do count, the countner doesn’t reset
- as the second campaign reward there will be a choice between either the M60, or the other reward tanks (Failowe, Object 907)

Update: yes, the players will be able to choose a reward

Good morning, everyone

today, we have a morning trollsession with SerB (he decided to answer some stuff after all) :)

- SerB is apparently in France in Fontainbleau (lolwut, how about a Q&A session for EU players?), he’ll be in Chicago in August to oversee the Xbox 360 WoT
- the implementation of an additional spaced armor equipment is only assumed, not confirmed. SerB is hopeful that it will be implemented, but they didn’t get to it yet

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Hello everyone,

as you probably noticed, this week it’s a bit weak with the developer answers. The reason for it is that Storm is on vacation and SerB is on businesstrip, where the internet is bad. Oh and Veider is apparently finishing up the patch.

The patch 8.7 will come next week most likely as announced earlier.

Not much else to add otherwise, apart from several pieces of info gleaned from various EU/RU/US sources, such as

- when Chaffee moves to tier 6 (yes, it will probably happen, just like it did with T-50-2 and VK2801), it might have its top turret removed
- the Nashorn (2nd German line tier 6 vehicle) will apparently have a 105mm L/52 gun (think Jagdpanther, not Dickermax)
- FV4202 armor might be changed in the future after all, recent measuring revealed differences from the ingame model

Otherwise nothing much to add. It’s summer after all.

Nothing much today either. Looks like SerB and Storm are on vacation or something.

Veider (another developer) just answers a few questions, such as:

- this area in T110E3 is easily penetrable, it’s the commander’s copula:

- some player was moaning about AMX 13 105AM arty, that its gun is too weak for its tier, a developer (Marschig) says that by transferring it to tier 5, its MM spread has actually decreased than it was before
- the thickness of the bottom armor of the tank is also historical (in other words: if a HE shell lands under the tank, the splash will encounter the bottom armor, which is practically non-existent.
- Komarin and Swamp are still bound to return at some point

Otherwise, not much. Just one more thing:

Remember Listy? He’s an author from EU forums, who wrote a whole bunch of British-themed historical articles. Actually, if my info is correct, it is him personally, who is responsible for finding the AT-15A premium TD documents. So, if you hate AT-15A, go and say hi to Listy, who just started a new FB page with his historical articles.

Apparently, SerB is somewhere, where the internet is of low quality, so we can expect few answers. As promised, this is from last night:

- German armor too thin at welds (meeting point) of upper and lower frontal armor? SerB considers it a conspiracy theory
- BT-7 is not equipped with a historical 76mm gun ingame, because for that it would need 3rd turret – if it is ever added, SerB will think about it (and this concerns T-26 too)

Oh yes, and new Listy’s war article, quite interesting:

http://overlord-wot.blogspot.cz/2013/07/holding-at-hondeghem.html

First and foremost, a reliable WG source confirmed that the “galaxy tech tree” is just a hoax, no such thing is planned.

- Sturmpanzer Bär is decribed in sources that are serious enough to use, according to SerB
- separate server for “boss fights” á la White Tiger is not planned (SS: some time ago there was an event where 15 T-34/85′s fought one White Tiger tank, controlled by a WG employee I think)
- theoretically there is enough material for 5 German TD branches, but that’s not planned for now
- SerB on War Thunder tanks: “I am interested in how you can make a mass-played hardcore simulator. And, yes, how much of the hardcoreness/historicity will remain in it in the end.”
- rear-turret Soviet tanks: A-44 (3 pieces), Object 416 and Shashmurin’s tank

SS: Shashmurin’s rear-turret tank was an IS-2 alternative project (“IS-2M”) by N.F.Shashmurin from 1944. It looked like this:

- no plans to introduce Panzer IV with sloped frontal armor wand with 88mm Panther Schmalturm, because SerB thinks they were apparently fake and states that “reconstructed” tanks will be used only to fill tree holes and that there are no tree holes around tier 6 in German medium tree (SS: actually, Panzer IV Ausf.K (Ausf.H with sloped frontal armor) from January 1943 is historical, you can find it in Panzer Tracts by Doyle):

- SerB states that the high damage of British hightier HE shells is intentional specific of the British tech tree
- the FV215b 183 HE shell penetration is lower than one would guess from its caliber, because “those are conventional marine shells”
- “no more than usual (on other tanks)” amount of players use gold shells on FV215b 183
- new awards? “when it’s done it’s done”
- developers are implementing roaming, because “it’s interesting to play ‘over the hill’ (SS: as in ‘on the other side’, somewhere else) for a while”
- rocket and flamethrower tanks will be implemented in the future
- SerB on amphibious tanks: “Performance-wise, amphibious tanks are generally inferior to regular tanks. Their only advantage is that they can cross bodies of water and attack at unexpected places. On 1x1km maps, this is practically useless – all the space is covered, so this feature is waiting for bigger maps.”
- there is an idea for a “thanks system” (SS: as in the opposite of ingame report system – you’d thank someone), but it’s not implemented yet, because it depends on other game features implementation
- SU-122A moves worse than SU-76, despite it being lighter and having more powerful engine, simply because it’s an arty (balance)
- WoT Blitz (for mobile devices), there might be an “improved” version for Ipad4 instead of Ipad2, too early to tell
- the accounts of WoT and WoT:B will definitely not be synchronized, it’s two different games
- another team than the one of WoT develops WoT:B
- WoT:B is now still in pre-alpha stage
- WoWp battles are very short, because SerB states that according to tests, prolonged battles in 3D space are tiring
- A-44 with 107mm can be considered a heavy (SS: if I understand this correctly), IS-2M (“Shashmurin”) however is not T10 material

One more piece of info: remember that mod, that disables the dynamic camera shaking after shooting? Well, in 8.7 test 2 (and therefore most likely in full 8.7 itself), Wargaming made some modification that disables this mod. It’s no longer possible to disable the dynamic camera shot shake.

SerB explains World of Warplanes advantages over War Thunder:

“Our planes don’t fly sideways and turn on the spot like Ahnenerbe flying saucers. Apart from being realistic, (SS: it allows you) the possibility to predict your opponent’s behavior and not having to fire randomly, we have no need for (SS: “ленты без трасс” – “something without tracers”? Sorry, I honestly don’t know the correct translation here, my best guess would be “battles without tracer rounds”) in order to compensate for that.

We have better battle organization – we don’t make games for no-life nerds, but for busy guys, who can relax with the game after work.

We don’t have pay-to-win in main battle mode. Our monetization politics are traditionally soft. We have shorter grind towards top tiers (just like in WoT), possible even without premium account. No-lifers shall not pass.

We have better quality plane models.

We have easier to understand damage model, which however is complex enough at the same time to (it’s possible to shoot off a wing or a tail, to kill the pilot, destroy the engine, while the airplane cannot eat all the damage forever).

In long term, we’ll have more planes. And when I fix the deficiencies (lower FPS) – it will be really great.”

SerB also states the cons of WoWp: performance (for now), the fact server-side-heavy game puts a lot of pressure on the graphic engine, more optimization needed

- there will be possibly even more planes than WoT tanks in WoWp
- Q: “I have a question. Is there something you are hiding from the players?!” A: “Of course. For example my credit card number.”
- Q: “Will Object 261 be faster?” A: “As soon as you provide historical documents showing it was faster, we will implement that.”
- T-34T (torsion bar experimental T-34) won’t be implemented anytime soon, however A-43(T-34M) is a torsion bar re-work of the T-34 (SS: and A-43 will come in 8.8)
- Q: “People whine about TD’s now. Who do you think will be next?” A: “Mediums. Because heavies wouldn’t whine about themselves”
- it is actually advantageous to use the “Jack of all trades” commander perk in crews, where the commander plays more roles (for example, acts as a radioman)

- T-55-64 (SS: Ukraine-made hybrid with T-64 hull and T-55 turret) won’t be implemented into the game
- a new map takes roughly 3 months to develop
- Q: “How many maps will there be in WoT?” A: “Several (more than 4) dozen”
- more than 400 new vehicles are still planned for WoT
- old (as in, implemented early)tanks (Tiger, IS-3) properties will change “if needed”
- Weserhütte Tiger: “As soon as you provide vehicle drawings from a reputable source, we will implement it” (SS: ah well… let’s see what we can do :) )
- Jagdtiger 88 gets engine damaged/burns too much? “Don’t play Jagdtiger 88″
- Type 59 with a L7 105mm clone? “It’s kinda too new for WoT, but generally it would fit the tank generation (in WoT)”
- T54E2 as tier 9 medium? “No comment”
- Superpershing gold ammo too expensive? “Don’t buy Superpershing gold ammo” (SS: as in, it won’t get cheaper, this applies to other T8 prems as well)
- SerB states that when it comes to wheeled vehicles, there is a difference in shooting between them and tanks, as the wheeled suspension is softer and cannon recoil has more of an effect
- Q: “What’s the fate of RU251 T8 German LT?” A: “Its fate is beautiful”
- for now, WG won’t publish a book about Chinese tanks, as there isn’t enough info to fill a book yet, maybe in future (SS: for those who missed it, Wargaming actually publishes historical books too, but only in Russian)
- nations, which actually considered superheavy tanks before, during or even after WW2: France (Char 2C), Germany, Russia, Italy (some “Ansaldo”, presented in Russia as the T-39 superheavy tank) , USA, UK (if you count the Tortoise), Japan (O-I)
- WoT Havok is being implemented server-side too (some form of synchronization) in order to allow for server-side replays