Hello everyone,

what follows is a part of discussion between the developers about the skill MM. It has been redacted by the Insider and by me of course, names and such. It’s here only to illustrate the way the developers are thinking. It’s also very long, so… make sure you have patience.

Developer 1:
All right, new preliminary results… once again, how do we…. Measure…… skill???

Developer 2:
What players’ don’t get is that skill is a variable as well, let’s assume for a moment Mr. 63% wins gets into the ultra-unicorn league, well, now what? He goes and does his thing in the game, therefore, as all skills differ with different players, his particular skill is that so some of the players go around and push a certain area of the map and he takes his shots from a distance and scurries into a flank whenever a breach is open, but while then, “oh no, why is Mr. 63% camping? He must be a noob who purchased his account!”

Skill is also part of RNG, because it’s impossible to measure how any player will behave in different scenarios, there’s no set rules of “oh you are a certain tank so you must behave exactly as you’re told to”, and the tank who breaks the rule and grabs their side by surprise is now a “hated noob because he killed me”
If Players want to live by the knife’s end on harsh matches every day, all the time, most of them will be pleading for a rollback of the system, if they want difficult matches where coordination & cooperation is everything, there’s Clan Wars or Platoons.

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Hello everyone,

yet again, another bunch of invite codes from CD Action magazine. This time by: MrRzepa, Kryzstof P., PL_Astharoth, m_an1ac, m1siolin

DWRTA-XPKHW-SSNVD-T9KA2-RSE7D
DWRTU-3XSNV-3ZB5S-A7X74-VRARK
DWRTR-6KHN3-MDUAB-K822D-FGTRR
DWRT8-S8NMT-MYH35-A3KHX-V62KW
DWRTV-DTG9V-WGDB8-BSV5G-E3SZW

Thanks guys!

Hello everyone,

today’s the 28th of September, one of Czech Republic’s most important holidays (the “Day of Czech Statehood”, an anniversary of our patron saint, St.Wenceslas’ murder) and so, we will talk about one rather important Czechoslovak project, that started the long road towards the Vz.38 light tank. Its name is TNH and it was built for one of the most exotic customers: the Shah of Iran.

A little bit of history first. The early 30′s in Czechoslovakia were marked by Škoda and ČKD competing for the Czechoslovak army contracts. As a sort of by-product, large amounts of various proposals and designs were developed and seeing their potential, both companies tried to (with various degrees of success) sell them to various exports markets. Both companies had a sort of uneasy relationship – on one hand, they were the dominant market force (a cartel, which, at that point, was not illegal) and when it came to making money, they could set their differences aside. On the other hands, their history is full of stabs and unkept promises.

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Hello everyone,

here are a couple of photos by Mrorome, who recently visited the Polish Museum od Military Technology (Polskie Muzeum Techniki Wojskowej) in Warsaw. Thank you very much!

The FT-17 from the war with Russian bolsheviks

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Hello everyone,

well, the 0.9.3 ricochet buff, while generally a nice thing (how many of you already “bent the shell” around a corner using ricochet? I managed to do it once yesterday by accident), it has its bad sides as well. Here, a Russian player Tiberian3 posted a video, where he actually killed his teammate with a ricochet from his tank.

According to the Russian player himself, he DID recieve a teamdamage fine in credits for team damage, but it does NOT count towards the automatic teamkill punishment (you won’t be banned for such shots).

Thanks to Daigensui for this one :)

So, you liked the videos of guys drifting with tanks? Bah, that’s nothing – here’s some Koreans drifting with artillery SPG’s  :)

By MrWanWan, enjoy!

Hello everyone,

this is a sort of followup on the corridors post, but it will involve skill MM topic as well, so bear with me, because it’s going to be a bit longer.

The corridor post certainly raised some discussion about good and bad maps and I’ve read some of the feedback in the comments (the one not beginning with OMG U SUX and such anyway) and I still have the feeling that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying principles, that made World of Tanks successful in the first place. I also have the feeling that a LOT of (even otherwise very skilled) players fail to see the “big picture” so to say – a feeling, that is shared by the developers according to the developer discussion on the matter (the earlier “skill MM” post).

There are some extremely basic principles, that noone really usually bothers to take into consideration when talking about such fundamental changes as “skill MM” or overall map design. One of them is what I call “sometimes up, sometimes down“. When you say it like that, most people imagine something along the lines of “sometimes you get lucky (team, map), sometimes you don’t” – and that is certainly true, but this principle is one of the fundamental “fun-makers” of the game as well and is there intentionally. Let’s have a look at it – and again, just try to be open minded and imagine this all (if you can) from a perspective of an average player, not someone who takes World of Tanks “really seriously”.

When are you having fun? Is it because you win? Well, yes, certainly, but that is only a part of that. It’s when odds are stacked in your favour that a lot (most) players actually have fun. The most elemental expression of this principle is the way matchmaker spread works. Sometimes, you end up at the bottom of the team and you hate it, but sometimes, you end up on top and you just pwn. But this goes further than that, like that awesome moment when you get to your favourite position with a vehicle, that has a certain advantage on that particular map (we’ll get to that) and you know this is just great, because first enemies are starting to appear right before the barrel of your gun. In that particular game, you have the advantage.

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Hello everyone,

a few invite codes again – this time by m_i_m (R1S3 stronk!), Raszaj, Hajdziu, MrFroyo, Uchinator and WasserWoga (his are from the Ferdinand kit). Thank you, guys!

DWRT4-C937X-DP989-S5677-VBTYV
DWRTU-DXR7F-A6GXR-EUMBF-DME3P
DWRT8-5E9K2-8M34F-8A4VU-W25AM
DWRT8-4FCHN-K6BDW-HZEN4-EGPP7
DWRTA-YM7YB-WFEEV-ZFYFB-PDT3G
BNV7D-7D68F-AH927-Y35CA
BNV73-5BMYB-W59H4-9VCHH
BNV77-4YWN7-97E3X-7ZZ2