Hello everyone,

as the older readers probably know, Czechoslovak branch in World of Tanks is sort of my “pet project” for various reasons. It is also one of the upcoming branches in the European tech tree (late 2015) – altogether, I’ve been working on it from like January 2012 (Tuccy wrote a post about the Czechoslovak branch in March 2012 based on my first attempt and then I based my work on his old proposal), so there’s enough data to implement a lot from it.

That however brought an issue with it – the old posts I made in early 2013 are now for all intents and purposes obsolete and they sometimes mislead people. Plus, as we all know, a lot has changed since 2013 – for example, in late 2012, there was still no tier 10 artillery.

That’s why my original work needs some serious updating. Currently, I am working with the following statements, that have been at one point or another confirmed to be either very likely or completely true:

- European tree will come at one point (confirmed)
- it will consist of separate national branches (crews situation was not decided yet, but likely the player will choose the nationalities)
- one (or alternatively more) of these branches will belong to Czechoslovakia
- Italian branch of medium tanks should look like this
- copies of existing tanks should be avoided

Based on the statements above, I did split the branch into three “sections”:

- regular tanks (Czechoslovak projects, vehicles produced in Czechoslovakia and modified by us)
- premium tanks (mostly prototypes or projects or existing tanks with modifications)
- captured/foreign tanks (unmodified tanks Czechoslovakia used at one point or another, this group is completely optional and quite frankly pointless, it’s there as some sort of “last resort” (and for the sake of tree completion), I do not expect ever to see any tanks from that group in the game)

The branch is made in a form of the “old tree” – I really hate the horizontal tree design, but it’s just a collection of branches, that could work with one another. Here’s how it looks:

Details follow:

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Hello everyone,

a few months back, in June 2014, a military event called “Misja Wschód” (“Mission East”) took place in Poland in Ogrodniczki and Mrorome was kind enough to share some pictures from this event with us. There were historical vehicles, re-enactment… that sort of stuff. Overall, pretty interesting.

Adler Kfz 13 (German armored car from early 30′s, only 147 were made)

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Author: Karika

Hello everyone,

I’m Karika from the EU server, a volunteer researcher of the Hungarian armored fighting vehicles. Some of you might already read my articles about the Hungarian tanks and tank destroyers of WWII, here on the FTR blog. Today, I’m going to start a new series of articles here, about how the Hungarian tanks could be implemented into World of Tanks.

In this first part, let me explain some of the main aspects and problems of this hopefully upcoming branch, and from part two, I’ll list the possible candidates with their predictable characteristics from vehicle to vehicle. Also, I’ll try to give reasons why I put that vehicle in the tech tree where I put it.

Silentstalker already wrote a short summary about this topic, you can read it here, but there are some new detailes and corrections I would like to add in my articles. I’m also not going to go into too much detailes about the concept of the European tech tree. SS already wrote a great summary about this too, you can read it here and here.

First of all, I must make clear, that there are NO official decision or statement from Wargaming was made about how exactly and when exacty will the European tanks come. All we know, according to the latest informations and leaks, that the first parts/waves of the EU tree might probably come sometime in 2015, but no details yet and this is not sure either.

Keep in mind that even if the fate of the EU tanks was already decided, WG is definitely not going to disclose that decision for now, because this is at least medium-far future stuff. It could be delayed or totally changed, or some parts of it could be scrapped during the development process and they certainly don’t want people to be upset or whine about it.

So – after this long prelude – let’s take a look at how I imagine the Hungarian tech tree tree now. Right now, as it might change in the future, for example when/if the alternative hull options will be implemented, maybe the Toldi IIA and the Toldi III could merge, as one could be the other’s optional hull and turret.

As you can see, Hungary can not build a complete WoT tech branch on its own. This creates a lot of problems and questions, so I’ll try to explain a few here.

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Hello everyone,

today, we’re going to talk about skill MM. Again. I must admit, this topic is not exactly a favourite of mine. But I know someone, who knows a lot about statistics. That’s right, Edrard, the creator of the first efficiency rating – so he really understands this stuff. I asked him on his opinion and here’s what he had to say on the matter (translated from Russian of course). Enjoy!

-SS

Author: Edrard (RU server)

My personal opinion is, that the skill MM is definitely not needed. For one: there are far fewer good players than bad players, in a ratio of somewhere around 1 to 10 and really good players roughly 1 to 100. When it comes to the range from bad up to above average players, the distribution of such players is linear, therefore every time you enter a battle, according to the probability theory, you’ll have basically roughly the same teams. Of course, there is a chance that you will have a team full of bad players and the opponent will have a team full of above average players, but if you take an infinite number of battles, then the amount of such battles will be equal to the kind where you have the above average team and the opponent has noobs. In general, the distribution is always the same. Since the amount of good players is still large enough, the probability of having at least one on your team to be quite high, but let’s have a look at an example.

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Hello everyone,

I have seen the question “why are the names of banned botters not published on EU server” asked many times by many people. Hell, I asked it myself. And so, I wrote a message to Ectar (I think his title now is a “producer”, not sure anyway), asking the very same question. Here’s what he answered:

In Europe as you know we don’t allow for naming and shaming on our forums. One of the biggest reasons for this is to avoid players taking matters into their own hands (From simple things like taking it upon themselves to monitor/track other players, to message them in-game etc etc). Basically it would be rather hypocritical to punish players for naming and shaming on our forums and the we do it ourselves to players.

We are committed to actively taking action against players who break our rules or exploit the game, however we feel it’s in the best interests of the community that this interaction is kept between Wargaming.net and the individual player. As a result of this, a list of player names who have been banned for botting will not be published in EU.

So, there you have it. I personally disagree with the “best interest of the community part”, but that’s my personal opinion. After all, the principle of public trial (including the announcement of punishment) is a valid law principle in all democratic countries – and there’s a reason for that. But, then again, ingame punishments are not public law area, they are meted out according to private law and as such, Wargaming is free to do what they want.

Second announcement concerns the change in premium tank reimbursement policy, which was announced today. The change is simple: before, you could get basically any previously sold tank restored. Now, this option will be available only for tanks sold in last two months (previous restrictions apply). The reason for this decision we can only guess, I assume it’s to reduce the support personell workload.

Hello everyone,

I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff over the time I play World of Tanks, some of it in various RNG videos, but hell, this is extraordinary. So, you probably already tried the Chaffee racing. Let me ask you a question: how many times did you manage to set someone on fire? It’s certainly not common, given how the fuel tanks have 175 hitpoints and your gun does 50 module damage, while the engine only has 5 percent fire chance.

And yet, Kattovish (from KAZNA) managed to do that and not only that. Just… watch.

Hello everyone,

those of you with keen eyes (there were several of you, thanks for the screenies – this one is from Kyle D.) spotted the Sturmtiger again in the recent Developer Diaries video.

So, what is it? Are the developers teasing us again, or perhaps they are showing us what will come in the future?

Sadly, no. According to most recent Storm’s statement (two days ago), the line was scrapped. Sturmtiger will not appear in the game as a playable vehicle (most likely anyway), what could happen however – it could appear as a top tier artillery support consumable in Stronghold mode. We’ll just have to see. Luckily, other vehicles from the branch (SIG33, Sturmpanzer IV “Brummbär”) do fit the game, so it’s possible we will see a limited “minibranch” of those, ending with a merge to regular branch at tier 7.

Thanks to Michal V. for this one.

Well, this lighter design seems familiar. It was purchased from a local “Chinese” (Vietnamese) shop – something tells me, the use of that art was not exactly approved by Wargaming, but it sure as hell looks like a nice present for someone…

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Source: http://www.dom1n.com/newsy/tygrys-italeri-unboxing/

Hello everyone,

last time, we had – thanks to Dom1n’s blog – a look at the Italeri Ferdinand. Today, we are going to have a look at the Italeri Tiger model – or, rather, the special “Wargaming” edition. The images are hosted at Imgur, for full size, just rightclick it and press “view image”.

As with the Ferdinand, the model is not cheap, but it’s of relatively high quality. According to Dom1n, the model is actually much more complicated than the one of the Ferdinand.

The box art is straight from World of Tanks…

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