Hello everyone,

here’s a thought. I don’t follow competitions and contests on EU server much – the reason is obvious: even if I was (for example) the best graphic designer in the world, I won’t win anything, because Silentstalker. Therefore, I came to notice this a bit late, but still.

So, there is this competition called In The Headlines, where you were supposed to create front pages of a fictional magazine. You’ve probably noticed it earlier if you are on EU forums, because a mutation of this competition appeared in every language section.

Now, we know that Wargaming will be starting a magazine of its own on RU and EU server. We also know that since Issue 2, there will be a copy available in Czech language too (so it’s logical to assume all the other official languages will get their version – I expect some stronk translatink). And we also know that Wargaming likes to “borrow” other people’s stuff on more than one occasion.

Hmmm, might there be a connection? Maybe someone clueless (in best WG EU competence traditions) is looking for “inspiration”? Maybe it’s like the American Green Card program – for a price of awarding a few green cards via a lottery you get a nice long list of all the potential illegal immigrants, who happily submit their personal data for that small chance?

Meh. Maybe I am just paranoid. It’s a thought though. What do you think?

Hello everyone,

if you played on low tiers during this Christmas, you are probably familiar with this situation: you want to take your shiny new gift tank for a spin, enter the battle and… both teams have a sealclubbing platoon of T18 TD’s, played by experienced players with trained crews – and you can’t do anything about it, your bullets (literally, as the main gun of the Vickers Mk.VIc is a machinegun) bounce off it and it tears your team up – whichever team has better T18 players, wins. Your first thought: that thing’s overpowered, we should get rid of it!

But wait, we can’t just do that. There has to be a reason. Let’s break down the T18 situation into three questions:

- is it really overpowered?
- is it historical?
- what can be done about that?

Continue reading →

Thanks to Chr15 for this one

Hello everyone,

this is something that actually made me giggle. You know how Wargaming has regionally-split Facebook pages, right? If you are German, you will see the German page, if you are American, you will see the American one and so on. Well, the German WG FB page is really funny, because it apparently employs historical specialists. However, WG “specialist” does not mean “expert”, it means “his mum said he’s special”.

Check this out – German FB “specialist” is asking, what tank is this?

Yea, that’s a photoshopped picture – a notorious fake, allegedly showing the E-25 hull, but in reality it’s “just” a Hetzer, shopped to look like the E-25. Unfortunately I can’t link it to you (you have to be German to see the German WG FB page, or at least reconfigure your FB somehow).

Obviously, people who actually deal wit a tank game should be able to recognize blatant fakes. No E-25 hull was ever built as far as we (and Mr.Doyle) know. According to Kniepkamp, several hulls were built by Alkett, but noone ever found them.

Hello everyone,

as I informed you several times already (including personal confirmation by WG EU’s historical expert, Challenger), current tier 10 British medium tank in the game, FV4202, is very unhistorical (armor is overbuffed, wrong gun if I recall correctly – the real life FV4202 carried only the 20pdr) and if Wargaming brought it to historical parameters, it would be like tier 8 stuff.

Naturally, there have been some thoughts by players to have it replaced by something else. Will this really happen? Who knows. But I was of course wondering, what vehicles are available to replace it (if any) and so I asked around, specifically those, who know a lot about British tanks: Listy and Xlucine. Special thanks go to Cannoneer (WG RU) for linking me some of the sources for the Action X.

Basically, we (well, they), apart from some vague ideas about uparmored Centurion variants (Xlucine’s materials, up to him to publish what we found), we found out that there are only two realistic options, each with its advantages and disadvantages. I am pretty sure that any potential replacement would be one of these two – IF Wargaming decided to implement a new vehicle at all (it’s probably also possible to separate Centurion Mk.IX from tier 9, but that would mean a lot of tree re-work and rebalancing of both tier 9 and 10 instead of just tier 10).

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

here’s the stream recording from yesterday, I hope you guys enjoyed the stream, we will do it again some time. And yes, we streamed for 6 hours, at the end I was really, really tired.

Continue reading →

No comment :)

Hello everyone,

today, yet another “Change your account password and get 300 gold” event was announced – it is active since morning.

These events are actually pretty smart. Players should change their passwords from time to time, but we are lazy creatures and this gives us some incentive. And what about EU server? Oh, that’s right… no 300 gold for you, evil capitalists! :)

Hello everyone,

you’ve already seen the leak of the new map? Good. It’s based on Sweden/Norway according to Storm: a winter city. Storm states that the map is 1000x1000m and that the river is actually shallow and can be forded (apart from the city part, where there are riverside reinforced banks).

Also, this map might be actually based on or inspired by the city of Trondheim (rotated map by Anonymous_Incognito, the Trondheim tip and map from Gnomefather)

Hello everyone,

an interesting case appeared in the Czech community, so I thought I’d give you guys quick heads up, as I doubt this will concern Czechs only.

A player made a thread, where he described the following situation: while checking his bank statements, he noticed that there was a transaction on 5.1.2014 of 9,95 EUR from his account to Wargaming, listed as a credit card payment. He however made no such transaction and of course he freaked out.

He then wrote a support ticket, where he got a reply it’s being investigated and then – nothing. Since he allegedly was not alone having this issue (apparently, other players of his clan reported such a thing too), he made the thread.

WG employee (Karlie, Czech community organizer) replied – apparently, these “suspicious” payments are delayed transactions from December (specifically, between 7th and 9th of December). While it’s not clear whose fault is this, it’s not like OMGRUSSHUNSARESTEALINMUHMONIEZ, it’s delayed legitimate payment for things you ordered between those two dates.

I hope this helps to clear up some misunderstandings.

Source: http://blogwotlirt.blogspot.ru/2014/01/map-811.html

Hello everyone,

as recently announced by Storm, 8.11 will bring a Norway-Sweden themed half-city half-suburbs map. Here’s how it will look.

Personal note though: I am a bit concerned about the amount of leaks these few days. You might say that further insight into World of Tanks plans is good. It’s completely legal for me to report it – as long as there is someone else leaking, not me, it’s fine – such is the deal.

But with this amount of info leaked, it’s only a matter of time before Wargaming purges ALL the supertesters, unless they can find the leaker quickly. That would hurt not only Wargaming, but also us, because then a new system of testing would have to be developed (or at least a new bunch of supertesters hired, trained etc.) and everything gets delayed.

Some of you might remember the massive amount of leaks in 8.5 (via FTR) – there is a REASON they stopped. I won’t deprive you, dear readers, of leaked info – I will keep reporting it, but I just want to let you know where this is going. It’s also completely possible that the leaker was already caught and the guy is just releasing info he managed to get in one batch. In such case my worries would be pointless.