Courtesy of Daigensui

Hello everyone,

Chinese tank pictures are not that easy to come by, so here are three, depicting the WZ-132 Chinese tank.

With a 76mm 54-76TG (autoloader development was never finished according to Daigensui)

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Hello everyone,

it just got confirmed to me that WG EU is planning to start their own QA too, possibly soon. Like a regular one, not that Quasar joke. Good move I guess, took them long enough to create (1,5 years if I recall correctly, ever since Overlord stopped posting).

Of course, being the incompetent bums they are, there is a chance this will be a massive failure, but of course, there is a chance it will simply be exactly what they promise: the same thing for EU as for the RU server. I have my doubts, but let’s for the discussion’s sake pretend it’s going to work as intended. As I wrote before, this is the real reason FTR QA got cut: WG EU whine.

So, what then? Would there still be interest in RU translations? Would that make FTR obsolete? I doubt that, FTR is way too big for that, plus there will always be new info coming from Russia (although the developers take it slow these days). But it might require a change of pace and perhaps style.

What my two first thoughts were:

- perhaps a daily summary of what was answered in the EU thread, so you don’t have to go through the garbage every day? (by “garbage” I mean pointless player posts to look for answers) plus continuing the translations?
- moving completely away from wot-news in order to profile the blog as completely WG hostile? Not my first choice, but there has to be something to write about.
- stopping altogether surfaced of course, but I do feel the obligation for the promises I made during the donation event

So, I guess the answer stands and falls with the question, whether fully-functional WG EU QA would make FTR obsolete. That’s not a question I can answer of course, that’s a question YOU have to answer. In advertisement terms, FTR is probably viable even with one half of its current reader base, but beyond that, it would be… problematic. Of course, there is the possibility that WG EU QA will actually INCREASE the FTR reader base, since you guys won’t be going there (apart from asking questions) – why dig through it, when you can read a summary, right?

So what are your thoughts?

Thanks to Radosz for this.

Hello everyone,

looks like the reworked map Serene Coast has a Polish easter egg. When you look behind the church on the (former) “island”, you’ll see there is a grave there:

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Hello everyone,

this is the followup on and conclusion of the Hard Choices article I posted earlier. As was written in the article, I opened up a poll. To this day, over 11k people voted. Based on FTR reader statistics, roughly 20 percent of readers are from the US server, the rest was from EU. Obviously, with only 11k voters, the impact of this is not as high as I would want it to be (a damn shame too, given the fact the daily visit count is 5-6 times as high, occasionally 10 times even).

As you can see from the poll itself, the European Tree is an overwhelming winner with 40 percent, followed by the Sturmtiger branch and the British branch. The French tanks are not that far behind, while the British TD and medium line are sitting on the bottom, along with the Japanese tank destroyers.

Well, I guess I have some bad news: from what I have seen, the development of the EU tree has not started yet. I mean – at all. There probably is some general idea how to do it, but no research has been conducted. Given how long it took to research the Japanese tree (believe it or not, there is like a year’s work behind the single branch appearing in 8.10), I think it is quite unlikely with all the rest of the work going on (vehicle remodelling for the HD client) for the EU tree to appear in 2014. My chance estimate? 10 percent. However, the entire tree is very requested on EU server and Polish plus Czechoslovak playerbase are still waiting for their vehicles (while statistically insignificant Japanese playerbase already go theirs), so I think this might also play a role.

Storm wrote not so long ago that there will be a longer brake between the Japanese branch and next branch to come (my guess again: at least 2-3 months). I think that’s a good thing, because the playerbase seems currently over-fed with new tanks (with attractive stuff like German TD’s and Japanese tanks coming close after each other). But Storm also wrote that next to come might be the British mediums. I mean, Firefly is cool, but according to the poll, it’s at the bottom. And there are also the Frenchies.

It will be a tough choice indeed. My personal vote was: EU tree (duhhh), British heavies (Chieftain) and German TD’s (Sturmtiger) – the top 3 slots according to the poll. We’ll see how it goes.

Well, it’s exactly how we predicted, isn’t it. American server gets an official tier 10 discount event. And European server? No tier 10 discounts for you, EU capitalists! You haven’t embraced the teachings of comrade Stalin Mao, you will not get glorious socialist machines on discount.

Dargnon (Czech community organizer) confirms that there will be no tier 10 discount for EU server:

Event series come and go, sometimes their regularity is disrupted, like now. It’s possible that this event will continue in January…

Enjoy!

If you have an interesting moment, send it to Woras at darthworas@gmail.com

Hello everyone,

welcome to the new issue of Hall of Shame, where the worst idiots and trolls of WoT are put on display. This time, it will be kinda “special”, because there is a new format now (with only the crops, for faster loading). Also, a HUGE number of Czech idiots made it this time, along with some prominent clan members. Enjoy!

In Czech: “go fuck yourself fucking Polish”

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Hello everyone,

just an update: Major_Rampage (US) confirmed that the US server will have a two-week discount on the tier 10 Chinese medium tank 121 and its light line (WZ-132 is discounted, T-34-2 is not). Announcement will come today.

Weird thing. US does have it, SEA doesn’t (or maybe they will after all?). Will this discount come for EU server too, or is it “no tier 10 discount for you, European capitalists”?

Thanks to Mesotronik for this one

Hello everyone,

please note that the US server currently has the 121 tank (and its branch of LIGHT tanks) on discount. Strangely enough, the medium branch leading to it is not discounted.

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Thanks to Mesotronik and ysoignorant for this one.

So, recently (yesterday/today) an interesting bundle appeared in the US server gift shop:

Apart from the atrocious grammar (something I’d expect from WG EU, not USA), it offers us a discount on “121″ equipment. Now, why would they do that? Well, here’s a possible explanation: “121″ is a Chinese medium tier 10 tank, that wasn’t discounted yet. We know that tier 10 discounts will probably return in one way or another in February (according to Tanitha, SEA server). We also know that their return is tied to the Chinese New Year (31st Jan 2014)

Speculation:

The bundle linked above was introduced before the On Track event was scrapped and was forgotten. That could mean the next On Track tank was to be the 121. Furthermore, as the tier 10 discount return is tied to the Chinese New Year, it’s possible there is a connection. You know, Chinese New Year, Chinese tank… so it’s even possible that the first tank on discount in February will indeed be the 121 (the recent one was 113, they also might have not wanted two Chinese tanks in a row).

If I was to speculate even more: recently, the (popular) 250k credits/day mission was not renewed. It’s theoretically possible this mission caused credit inflation (yes, we know Wargaming actually has an employee, who deals with inflation in game), causing in turn Wargaming not to make matters worse by putting tier 10 tanks on discount, thus encouraging even more people to buy them, shifting the game balance of higher tiers. But that’s pure guesswork.

Edit: situation changed, see newer posts