Source: http://forbes.ua/business/1385361-vice-prezident-wargaming-najti-otvety-na-vse-voprosy-tolko-vnutri-kompanii-nevozmozhno

Hello everyone,

an interesting interview appeared on the Forbes site with WG vice-president Andrey Yarantsev. It was made in connection to the increase of WG-modmaker cooperation in the wake of the WGDC event. Some of the stuff is actually interesting. A summary of points he made:

- the main audience of WoT is people between 25 and 30 years old
- developers started to work with modmakers because “every company reaches a stage, when it cannot find all the answers inside the company itself due to the interference of various stereotypes, patterns of behavior and legacy of the past. That’s why we are starting to look for the answers outside.”
- creating a new feature for World of Tanks involves a certain “bureaucratic” mechanism of checks, that prevents implementing a feature, that would for example make WG lose players in another region (SS: related to the fact that it’s not easy to implement a useful mod into the game “just so”)
- current goal of cooperation with modmakers for Wargaming is to allow them to access the internal structures via API, so that they are prepared for future patches and there’s not butthurt over mods stopping working
- of all the WG brands, World of Tanks is the strongest
- WG is constantly working on not becoming a “one brand company”
- regarding the failure of World of Warplanes, the situation there is “special”: he admits that the size of the market (and the niche) was overestimated by WG), he hopes that World of Warships will be better, crossing the boundaries of the niche
- A.Pankov (Evilly) on WoWp: “Let me put it politically correctly and mildly – we need to polish the warplanes.” (SS: literally finish working on them, as in they being an unfinished product)
- WG is working on other projects as well, no specifics, they are looking for niches to expand to
- it’s possible that WoT VR will come in 2015
- it’s possible that China in 2015 will see a boom of microconsoles operating the Android as well as TV’s with integrated gaming equipment. If the Chinese get their licenses successfully, WoT might expand to these platforms
- according to the guy, prices (specifically of premium accounts as an example) are the same all over the world, with some small differences of course. One of the goal of working with 3rd parties is to make the game accessories (portal and such) more nation-specific

Hello everyone,

here’s an interesting design I think, check this out.

During my recent chat with V.Francev, a subject of Škoda repair logs came up. As many historians would confirm, factory repair logs (as in, what was repaired, when and for how long) are a true goldmine, when it comes to information and V.Francev happens to be in possession of complete wartime Škoda repair logs.

One interesting thing that popped up in them (if I remember correctly) was a record of two vehicles repaired in 1941 (after the Soviet Union invasion). They were German-made field conversions of the (by now obsolete) Panzer 35t (Czechoslovak LT Vz.35). The Germans removed the turret and added some sort of superstructure along with the 47mm Czechoslovak AT gun, used in the well-known Panzerjäger I. Unfortunately, no photo or description of these vehicles survived, so the picture above represents only my impression of how the vehicle might have looked like. No further fate of these vehicles was recorded.

WoT-wise, the design is pretty much pointless, as Germany has shitloads of well-documented lowtier TD options left. Historically however, it represents a good example of how much actually happened during the wartime years and how much information was lost. There are many, MANY things waiting to be discovered in the archives, Czechoslovak artillery archive alone has still decades worth of research left apparently. Oh well, let’s hope more and more interesting designs see the light of day :)

Thanks to Flyingd for this one.

Hello everyone,

according to the news published on the Saumur site, the only running Tiger II in the world (from Saumur) will appear in early February 2015 in Paris on the Rétromobile autoshow event, taking place from 4.2. to 8.2. along with another tank from Saumur, the early AMX-30. This expo, taking place at Parc des expositions de la Porte de Versailles is dedicated to showing vintage vehicles of various ages.

This particular Tiger II was captured in France, as the Retromobile site article explains:

In late August 1944, 14 Tiger II tanks were transported by rail convoy from their delivery point at the Camp de Mailly to the East of Paris. The squadron then moved towards Beauvais. On 23 August, they were sent to the front at the US bridgehead at Mantes-sur-Seine. Half of the tanks broke down on the way; the others arrived in the Vexin region, 5 kms from the American front.

The Tigers were engaged in battle on 26 August at Fontenay-St-Père, and on 28 August they were deployed once more at Sailly. Surrounded in the village, our Royal Tiger managed to escape northwards, crossed the Montcient bridge, and toiled up the slope.

Totally exposed, the giant was soon spotted by the Americans. It tried to avoid the intense artillery fire by advancing in zigzag fashion. Once on the plateau between Sailly and Montalet, a small area of woodland afforded temporary shelter, but the Americans promptly focused their fire power on the wood. The hunted 70-ton Tiger hurtled forward at full speed, crushing everything in its path. It crossed the entire wood, clearing a path that would be visible for a long time after. When it reached the edge of the wood, the oveheated engine broke down. The crew abandoned the tank under machine gun fire and did not take the time to sabotage it. Besides three destroyed in combat, most of the tanks in this company would be abandoned (because of mechanical failure or lack of fuel) and sabotaged.
Our Royal Tiger remained forgotten on the edge of the wood until a free French military unit came to collect it. It is thought that it was then taken to AMX at Satory to be reconditioned. In early 1945, this tank, along with other German machines, formed a French armoured squadron made up of captured tanks scheduled to be deployed during the German campaign. Following this it was taken back to Satory before being moved to the Musée des Blindés in Saumur under the supervision of Colonel Aubry.

In any case, if you are in Paris in February, you might want to check it out!

Hello everyone,

for reasons unknown to me, I kinda forgot one video of the Ranzar series and discovered it only yesterday. Here it is.

Hello everyone,

it’s time for belated contributor review. Thank you all for donating, much appreciated :) Specifically:

Myrt C. (Texas, USA)
Jiří N. (Czech Republic)
Thunderchase (Serbia)
KittenGray (Germany) – спасибо за пожелание! С новым годом!
Christopher S. (Wisconsin, USA) – thank you for your sizeable donation and the wish :)
Fireflower (Finland)
Gibril1942 (Sweden) – thank you for the wish as well as the donation :)
Mark J. (Oregon, USA)
Gregory J. (Texas, USA) – you guys sure love me in Texas :)
Elcomandante (Switzerland) – thank you for MASSIVE contribution, very, very appreciated! And of course the wish – will do my best next year as well.
cb99 (Sweden) – special thanks here for DOUBLE donation :) His donation note was “Thank you for the spine shown with the artillery “adventure” – you know, this really made me happy. It was my pleasure :P
Attila S. (Hungary) – again, special thanks for a sizeable donation :)
Michael H. (United Kingdom)
Joseph M. (United Kingdom)
Aigars B. (France)
Zhao S. (Singapore) – regarding what you asked: yes mate, I will look into this more, at this point WG RU got involved
Jovica J. (Switzerland) – who asked me to mention his WN Meter application at GooglePlay, which does look useful if you are into this kind of thing
Stephen B. (United Kingdom)
Durstix (Germany)
Sturmi (Austria) – thanks for sizeable donation as well as great Christmas wish, much appreciated :)
Ralf S. (Germany)
Paul G. (Texas, USA)

Once again, thank you all.

Of course, the same goes for anyone helping me out using Patreon, because…

..the best way to help me and FTR is via the Patreon service

http://www.patreon.com/silentstalker

This is the Patreon account of For the Record. In case you read this for the first time and feel like contributing, here is an explanation what it is, how it works and how to contribute. You can find a list of all those, who pledged and help to keep FTR running here.

Thank you all and wishing you all the best in the new year. Because let me tell you: now that my purpose is renewed, it should be very, very interesting.

Hello everyone,

as you already know, T-54 Prototype (AKA T-54 Model 1945) will be the Soviet tier 8 premium medium tank. Yuri Pasholok on his blog published (along with the photographs) a sheet of data for the vehicle. You can judge by yourself how historical the vehicle is in the game (in the brackets, game value for comparison).

Combat weight: 35,5 tons (35,5 tons)
Engine: V2-44, 520hp (520hp)
Power-to-weight: 14,6 hp/t (14,65 hp/t)
Groud pressure: 0,9 kg/cm2
Maximum speed: 43,5 km/h (44 km/h)
Average speed: 30-35 km/h
Offroad speed: 12-18 km/h
Speed at 1700 RPM with 1st gear: 6,12 km/h
Speed at 1700 RPM with 2nd gear: 13,25 km/h
Speed at 1700 RPM with 3rd gear: 18,65 km/h

Continue reading →

By Mrwanwan, enjoy!

Okay, as you probably noticed already, there’s this January Sneak Peek article on EU portal now.

Totally new, exclusive info, only a month after FTR!

Two things about it, there are two things I noticed in it:

- “sisterhood of steel” girl crew perk – trying to pronounce it made me cringe. It sounds even more stupid in Czech by the way. Why not “sisters in arms” as opposed to “brothers in arms”? It would make much more sense, even from the translation point of view – compare:

RU: boyevoye bratstvo
EN (literal): combat brotherhood
EN (client): brothers in arms

RU: boyevye podrugi
EN (literal): combat (girl)friends
EN (client): sisterhood of… steel?

Meh.

Anyway, if you are asking whether the girl crew perk is compatible with BIA… no, apparently not (eg. having a crew with BIA with one member with SOS will not activate BIA).

- “winter game mode” coming at the end of January? Why? Russians have it between 5th and 15th of January. Perhaps not to mess with the IM’s? But why is it no problem on RU server?

In any case, the IM’s are supposed to start on 15.1. on RU server (EU server’s arms would probably fall off if they, you know, gave us the exact date).

Hello everyone,

in the previous post, I forgot to mention one thing. If you bought the Hitlerpanther for old full price and do not wish to have it anymore (regardless of the 4200 gold compensation), Wargaming is offering to fully refund the vehicle – you get your money back, they will remove the vehicle and the garage slot.

If you want that, you have to contact the support service.

Keep in mind one thing however: it’s holidays and so your ticket will probably take long to be processed. It’s also possible your account will be locked until this situation is resolved (have seen that happen with other matters concerning money issues, specifically various chargeback cases).

Another thing also is that according to data from wot-news and Russian forums in general, the Hitlerpanther is the worst sold hightier premium EVER (with very poor sales during first days), which means WG can afford this (the complicated nature of refunds via tickets means few people will do this anyway), as only a couple were sold. That on the other hand means that this will likely not be repeated, like ever. Unless they release another equally unpopular premium :)

Thanks to Adam C. for the video (guys, when contacting me, leave some nicknames!)

Hello everyone,

basically, it’s some Spanish TV show or whatever, not too interesting. What IS interesting however is the end of the video, where (starting from cca 9:00), you can see the Spanish modification of the Leopard 2 (Leopard 2E) driving around. Leopard 2E’s full name is Leopard 2A6E (E as in “España”, Spain). It was produced between 2003 and 2008 with 219 built. It’s a significant upgrade over Spain’s previous 2A4 and M60 battle tanks, carrying a 120mm Rheinmetall L/55 smoothbore, 1500hp MTU powerplant and new type of composite armor, capable of reaching 68 km/h. It’s expected to stay in Spanish service until 2025 along with the older Leopard version, as current financial situation of Spain does not allow for notoriously expensive armor upgrade programs.

And no, you won’t see it in WoT :) Armored Warfare on the other hand….