For now, only in Russian :) And yes, 9.5 CT will be tomorrow.

Inside:

- British tank branch: first half are US LL vehicles and Sherman Firefly, second half will be British tank destroyers with FV4005 Stage II as tier 10, it has a 183mm gun (analogical to the FV215b 183)
- the difference between FV4005 and FV215b is that it has much less armor, but good mobility
- as a part to make them different, FV215b frontal turret armor was significantly increased
- Panther 88 will also be added, it resembles Panther II, but is more comfortable
- Individual missions (see video for interface), they will be activated after 15.1.
- new maps (Ghost Town for team battles, symetrical map, Mittengard)
- some maps were smoothened (hills made flatter) to make life easier for tanks with bad depression
- improved minimap (tank names, place where the tank was spotted last)

Source: http://top.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/01/12/2014/5478c633cbb20fd7cfb35ff4

Thanks to Maiorboltach for posting this in RU LJ community.

Wargaming excercised the option of buying 1 million KongZhong ADR’s (American Depositary Receipts) worth 5,94 million USD. For those who do not know, KongZhong is a Chinese company, exclusively producing World of Tanks for the Chinese market – according to Chinese law, you need a Chinese company to do that and so Wargaming partnered with KongZhong. This partnership was by the way the main (perhaps sole) reason for the introduction of the Chinese tank line, which is unsurprisingly popular over there.

Currently, Wargaming controls 4 million ADR’s, which equals to 160 million KongZhong shares. This transaction increased WG’s share of Kongzhong from 6,7 to 8,6 percent. The earlier 6,7 percent was purchased in 2012 (when WG gave KongZhong the exclusive rights for Chinese market) for an estimated sum of 17,8 million USD. Wargaming has the option to buy the 1 more million ADR’s until 2018, which would increase its share in KongZhong to 10,1 percent.

Wargaming of course has the right to recieve dividends from the shares they bought, which in October 2014 was 0,88 USD per ADR. For 4 million ADR’s, that makes 3,5 million USD.

According to the article, Wargaming was looking for a partner in China for quite some time (back then, Chinese gaming market went through some sort of crisis). The main Wargaming goal was to diversify its business and KongZhong, WG’s partner, was one of the largest Chinese game developers, founded in 2002 by Nick Young, a venture investor. The company’s estimated worth currently is cca 298 million USD.

Hello everyone,

I think this is really worth posting. BadBroetchen, involved in the recent Hall of Shame, apologizes for his behavior. You know what? I can really appreciate that. So, there you go, removed from Hall of Shame.

I mean, I am sure everyone realizes that I know these guys aren’t really bald tattoeed fat swastika-wearing nazis, just raging kids. Doesn’t mean this should be tolerated of course, but it’s a good thing what he wrote:

Dear “For the Record“ community,

I am very sorry about what i`ve done in those Random Battle. It`s been a long time since i wrote that into the channel and i was too childish to understand what i wrote there. Im definitly not a Nazi and it is very embarrassing for me for getting shown at such an article. I don`t know where my thoughts gone and i know it will never happen again. So please accept my apology. I dont know how to make up for that. I`m not against jews or any other ethnic minoritys. Normaly im not in that rage mode but somehow i wasn`t by myself that day. I know that some of you will think that im doing this just for deleting my post in the hall of shame but it is important for me that you know that im not such a horrible person. I will apologize first of all to “Der_Mittelfranke” and, if it was somebody else sending this post in naturally also at him/her.

Thank you gratefully, Your Max aka FlyingBroetchen

And a nice letter from his clan, I actually really appretiate this.

Dear SilentStalker,

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

so, about the leaked missions for December. Earlier, it was announced that between 24.12. and 15.1. or so, a “marathon” would take place on EU server. Okay, that’s nice, I thought. But then, Evilly, WoT producer on RU server, announced that the Russians would have a different vehicle – something “that was available until now only on Chinese server”. He also added that it’s possible that the T-34-85M will be sold in the premium shop (on RU server, anyway).

Basically, looking at the Chinese server offers, Russian community came up only with 2 candidates: first, the WZ-111 heavy tank (first Chinese vehicle to be introduced in the game, really, REALLY old stuff). Or… M56 Scorpion, which is sold on Chinese server as we speak. Both are tier 8′s. At that point, I told Evilly that if we (Europeans) get a tier 6 and the Russians get tier 8, there will be butthurt on forums (well, I mean, there might be, but honestly, how many people can really complete the hardcore grind, right?). He replied that “everything’s gonna be fine :)”

Well – that leads me to think, maybe the leaked version of missions contains placeholders, I mean – WG EU had to know they would get leaked, as they did months before. Maybe we will have a nice Christmas surprise and instead of… let’s say good, but lackluster T-34 clone, we’ll get a chance to win the WZ or the Scorpion :)

That would be awesome. Not holding my breath, but it would.

Hello everyone,

just to let you known – specifically those concerned with the legality of the Battle Assistant artillery mod that was posted about earlier today – good news: it is officially allowed on US server (which means there is 99 percent chance that it’s legal on EU server as well, since it’s legal on RU).

You can download it from Plazmakeks’ blog without any strings attached.

Installation is extremely easy – you just download it, unzip it and copy the contents of the compressed file to res_mods folder. In the game, while playing arty, switch to (and from) alternate mode by pressing “G”. I can personally recommend it, I used it today and it is EXTREMELY helpful, especially in the cities.

Let them feel the artillery – the true god of war!

Hello everyone,

recently, several players contacted with me and showed me this one particular mod. It’s called Battle Assistant and what it does is (amongst other things) changing the artillery point of view for more… convenient aiming.

Check it out by yourselves. This video was kindly provided by Turarwanaa – from this replay:

Does it give you an advantage? You be the judge yourselves. But the real big question is… is it banned?

Actually, it’s not. In fact, quite the opposite – its creators recently won the entire mod category of the official Wargaming developer contest. Would a banned mod win it? That would be a bit strange, wouldn’t it…

Hello everyone – new video from the World of Papoj series. Enjoy!

Hello everyone,

another article about (weird) early Russian armor development appeared on the Russian server. It’s called Land Ironclad (as in, land battleship) and yes, it’s just as stupid a project as it looks.

In a way, this project came to be the same way as the first British tanks, that were considered to be land ships (and were developed by a group called Landships Committee). Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, Karl Ivanovich Pakkul from Riga had basically the same idea, calling his project “land ironclad” (or “land battleship”). His project was to have many, many wheels and was to carry a sloped (streamlined) very thick armor. So, how did he imagine it would work?

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

today’s advent offer is the following bundle:

- Lowe + garage slot
- Improved ventilation class 3
- Enhanced gun-laying drive
- Large caliber gun rammer

Price: 54,74 USD (43,95 EUR)
Regular Lowe price: 53,89 USD (43,27 EUR)

Meanwhile on Russian server, the bonus of the day is discount on XP transfer (35 XP for one gold instead of the old 25).