Hello everyone,

in the following article on Russian Wargaming portal (gone are the times when Wargaming’s main portal was the World of Tanks one) an interesting article came up regarding the Wargaming brand and the cooperation with other companies, specifically Razer and Burger King.

The article is just Wargaming PR, but some elements are pretty interesting. Basically, it says that Wargaming sees the key to good sales in cooperation with other brands and in 2014 alone in CIS countries, WG ran around 30 license programs and 100 co-promotion events. WG doesn’t cooperate with “just anyone”, but surprisingly enough, some cooperation proposals come from players themselves, who write them to support service (for some reason) and from there, they are passed on to the “Business Development” department (pretty strange, why support?). Otherwise, there are companies WG contacted by their own initiative (with a remark that some other companies would do “anything” to become a partner of the creator of “tanks”). WG analyses and calculates each cases and if it’s looking good, negotiations begin.

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Hello everyone,

I am sure many of you already figured it out, but just to be clear: according to the WG site article, the Winter Mode is coming:

- For NA, EU, and Asia: January 26th 2015
- For KR: January 15th 2015

Thanks to Coolathlon for this one.

Check this out – quite a rare video of the Leopard prototype from the Gruppe A, still designated as “Standartpanzer”, already equipped with the L7 gun. The video also lists its characteristics:

Weight: 36 tons
Length: 9,22 meters
Width: 3,25 meters
Height: 2,22 meters
Specific ground pressure: 0,8 kg/cm2
Power-to-weight ratio: 23 hp/t
Range: 570 km
Gun: 105mm L7A1

The video also contains various comparisons between the prototype and other tanks. Very interesting really.

Thanks to Roland for this one.

Hello everyone,

four days ago, an interesting article came out on “Russia beyond the headlines” site, called “Russia’s young generation learning military history through video games“. I will quote from it, as I find it very interesting.

Young Russians are learning about the history of their country with the help of war-themed video games. This type of video game not only helps children’s education but is also hugely popular among adults, generating a hefty revenue for developers, who stress that while their products feature a patriotic element, they strive not to take sides.

This is nothing new, it’s something many, including Wargaming, talked about long time ago. But check this out.

For a child, an online game is one of the most effective ways of studying the history of one’s country. Practically any game that is to do with history inherently performs an educational function, says Anton Pankov, PR director for Russia at the Belarusian company Wargaming, responsible for developing the World of Tanks video game, which is popular in Russia and elsewhere in the world.

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Guide on How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the “Winter mode”

Author: Origami Chiken

Hello,

with “Winter mode” soon to hit EU servers I wonder if you would like to read/post some heads up information. I have an account on RU cluster and took the opportunity to test this mode for a while.

This is what I have learned so far:

- The one and only thing you are interested in is damage. You get 0 XP/credits for winning, frags or cap/defense. In fact, the best way to screw the game for everyone, including yourself, is to smash your way to the flag and win by capping. XP, crew XP and credits are awarded only for completing special missions. In LTs player needs to do over 1700 damage, HTs – over 2500, TDs – over 3300. That’s it. Win or loose you get exactly the same reward as long as you do required amount of damage. Needless to say, results of these matches do not reflect on the overall account statistics. One more reason not to care for anything else but damage. Unlike regular matches though, you get the same reward whether you do 1700/2500/3000 or 7000 damage. After some time when “fun” part is no longer fun you can just rush the enemy as soon as you do required damage without playing to the end. I did not try leaving match while my tank was still intact. I can’t tell if “deserting” penalties apply in this mode.

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Hello everyone,

it’s time for another contributor review! I am sorry I skipped the last one, there were some issues Paypal I was sorting out and by the time it was finished, I might as well have waited.

And before you ask, why there is no FTR AW yet – there’s beena development, as a result of which it was decided by me and the guys from AW I talked to that currently, a separate FTR AW would not be beneficial neither for me nor for them. That does not mean however you’ll lose track of AW – no worries. You’ll see. Not sitting on my ass here.

The following people contributed via Paypal, thank you all guys :)

David F. (Canada)
Taggeth (Texas, USA)
David H. (Michigan, USA)
Michael H. (United Kingdom)
Carlos R.M. (Spain)
István T. (Hungary)

As for the Patreon – this time, the cycle went okay, many many thanks to all of you, who continue to support me, I really appretiate it. A lot :)

Out of the 623,59 USD pledged at the point of the cycle activation:

- 555,59 USD came in successfully (the rest didn’t go through for some reason on the contributor side, insufficient funds on account etc.)
- out of 555,59 USD, after the Patreon and CC fees and all that, 482,88 USD were left for FTR – much appreciated! The list of contributors can be viewed here. Once again, huge thanks for the support to all of you :)

Hello everyone,

a bunch of HD models that are coming up in 9.6.

AMX-50B (dayum, those curves are sexy)

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Hello everyone,

it’s confirmed that the following tanks will come in HD in 9.6: T95, AMX 50B, Tiger (P), Ferdinand, E-100, Lowe, Object 704. This list is likely to be complete.

Hello everyone,

I modified the Czechoslovak branch proposal I made to reflect the findings and discussions with V.Francev and J.Tintera (Czech historians). I also threw out all the premium candidates save for the most likely one to make it into the game. Oh yes, and it’s horizontal now, I know – how many of you guys still actually remember vertical trees? I miss those.

The changes include:

- threw out Tiger II with 76mm completely, that was a fake
- added Tiger P with Škoda turret and 105mm L/40 to the list of possible premiums (more about that project here)
- premium TVP candidate redesignated from TVP Model 1946 to TVP Concept to properly reflect its nature
- T-50 (previous tier 8) redesignated to TVP Model 1946, as both the concept and the Škoda proposal were introduced in 1946
- T-51 (previous tier 9) changed to T 50, as sufficient info was recovered to reconstruct the T 50 before the merge with T 51
- T-50/51 renamed to T 50/51 (the dash was deleted as it is more historically correct that way, same goes for T 50)

So yes, this is how it might look in the game.

An alternative failsafe option (in case there are issues tier 9 T 50 tank – at this point however, those would be purely arbitrary, as in “we don’t like how it looks” and such stuff) is the following solution:

- removing the T 50
- replace tier 8 TVP Model 1946 with TVP Concept (removing its premium status)
- replace tier 9 TVP T 50 with Model 1946 (+ some T 50 elements)
- add something else as a premium (a lowtier or a clone most likely)

The original proposal is far better though. But yea, I think the line is pretty solid.

Source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/4089266.html

Hello everyone,

once again, Yuri Pasholok dug something interesting out of the depths of Russian MoD archives. In the autumn of 1942, a bunch of Soviet design bureaus were busy with creating a light self-propelled gun. Various designs were submitted and amongst them was this one, made by Factory No.92 under the leadership of V.G.Grabin. Grabin was a famous Soviet gun designer – his team developed for example the 76,2mm guns F-22, ZIS-3 or the 57mm ZIS-2. His “SU-76″ class project recieved the designation of IS-10 (not sure why) and the design embodied the principle he liked to use very much: re-using existing components as much as possible (in this case it’s a T-70 light tank hull and ZIS-3 gun) while keeping maximum firepower confined to the smallest chassis possible.

This project was not given the green light and was scrapped. Half a year later, it sort of was revived in the Plant No.38 as SU-38, but that didn’t go anywhere either.