Thanks to Daigensui for this one :)

So, you liked the videos of guys drifting with tanks? Bah, that’s nothing – here’s some Koreans drifting with artillery SPG’s  :)

By MrWanWan, enjoy!

Hello everyone,

this is a sort of followup on the corridors post, but it will involve skill MM topic as well, so bear with me, because it’s going to be a bit longer.

The corridor post certainly raised some discussion about good and bad maps and I’ve read some of the feedback in the comments (the one not beginning with OMG U SUX and such anyway) and I still have the feeling that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying principles, that made World of Tanks successful in the first place. I also have the feeling that a LOT of (even otherwise very skilled) players fail to see the “big picture” so to say – a feeling, that is shared by the developers according to the developer discussion on the matter (the earlier “skill MM” post).

There are some extremely basic principles, that noone really usually bothers to take into consideration when talking about such fundamental changes as “skill MM” or overall map design. One of them is what I call “sometimes up, sometimes down“. When you say it like that, most people imagine something along the lines of “sometimes you get lucky (team, map), sometimes you don’t” – and that is certainly true, but this principle is one of the fundamental “fun-makers” of the game as well and is there intentionally. Let’s have a look at it – and again, just try to be open minded and imagine this all (if you can) from a perspective of an average player, not someone who takes World of Tanks “really seriously”.

When are you having fun? Is it because you win? Well, yes, certainly, but that is only a part of that. It’s when odds are stacked in your favour that a lot (most) players actually have fun. The most elemental expression of this principle is the way matchmaker spread works. Sometimes, you end up at the bottom of the team and you hate it, but sometimes, you end up on top and you just pwn. But this goes further than that, like that awesome moment when you get to your favourite position with a vehicle, that has a certain advantage on that particular map (we’ll get to that) and you know this is just great, because first enemies are starting to appear right before the barrel of your gun. In that particular game, you have the advantage.

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Hello everyone,

a few invite codes again – this time by m_i_m (R1S3 stronk!), Raszaj, Hajdziu, MrFroyo, Uchinator and WasserWoga (his are from the Ferdinand kit). Thank you, guys!

DWRT4-C937X-DP989-S5677-VBTYV
DWRTU-DXR7F-A6GXR-EUMBF-DME3P
DWRT8-5E9K2-8M34F-8A4VU-W25AM
DWRT8-4FCHN-K6BDW-HZEN4-EGPP7
DWRTA-YM7YB-WFEEV-ZFYFB-PDT3G
BNV7D-7D68F-AH927-Y35CA
BNV73-5BMYB-W59H4-9VCHH
BNV77-4YWN7-97E3X-7ZZ2

Source: http://tele.rtl.lu/emissiounen/de-journal/3020949.html

Thanks to Rollux for this one.

Hello everyone,

even though the state of Luxembourg is a very small one, it is not completely without tanks :) A passionate military vehicle collector of WW2 and post-WW2 era, De Guy Retter, acquired a Centurion Mk.3. The tank was produced during the 50′s and 60′s. It served in the Swiss armed forces until 1993. Due to moisture accumulation, the Rolls Royce engine had starting problems but fortunately there was a Sherman tank to give a little help. Over 50.000 Sherman tanks have been built but only 30 running Shermans currently exist anywhere in the world.

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Basically, what the title says. This video explains the classes in World of Warships. Enjoy!

Hello everyone,

the Insider returns to tell us what the developers are thinking and talking about. And I think it’s very interesting.

The developer topic of the month… you guessed it: skill MM.

Lots of developers don’t want skill MM, because they are afraid it would break the game for a lot of people. Here’s one example of such a post to illustrate:

“This will make players with high battle count but not so great stats the boot on many ways, because theres a point when they realize they get thrown with the “special kids” class and he cant climb the ladder to be with his friends on the next class, whose clan only recruits on certain ladder class, this will also deprive the game of the ability of players improving, and would end up profiling most of players, not to mention, what would happen if an unicorn found himself not in the same “unicorn” league as his friends? this ought to create something bad, we’ll be excluding a large amount of players like this, and some might call our numbers biased, are numbers really biased? what happens when players that only want skill ladder matchmaking find themselves out of it supposed skill level because they happened to platoon to inflate their own stats and turns out his achievements are but a “fleeting dream?”

The list of such posts goes on, some developers are truly dug in against it. It’s not just anti-skill-MM rage, they are also brainstorming the ideas of how some of the disadvantages of skill MMM could be fixed. It is confirmed that the developers are actually really experimenting with skill MM on internal server. This is however NOT something that is sure to come and even if it does come, it will not be anytime soon, definitely after Havok. Nowhere near the foreseeable future anyway. Developers will wait for the poll results (the poll I posted yesterday) and they will run many closed tests to.

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Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/news/pc-browser/1/lets_racing_wot/

Map of the race track:

- the goal is to destroy all enemy tanks or to capture the base within 7 minutes
- M24 Chaffee (apart from being fast) fires shots, that do 50 damage (on average). It has 1000 hitpoints.
- the engine of the vehicle cannot be damaged during the race (all other modules can)
- driver and gunner of the crew cannot be killed, all other crew members can
- platoons will be matched only against other platoons
- M24 SPORT will be given to the players for free on 29.9.2014
- M24 SPORT cannot be sold, it will be removed from the hangar automatically when the event is over
- all the XP acquired on M24 SPORT will be transferred to T1 Cunningham after the battle is over (regardless whether you have it in garage or not)
- the entire crew will be (after the event is over) transferred to barracks and automatically retrained to standard M24 Chaffee
- the event (according to the missions on RU server) will last until 13.10.2014
- the missions for the battle will be as such: (win and survive, get 5000 creds, 1000 XP and 1000 crew XP), (win while playing in a platoon and while dealing 750 damage to the enemy, get 10000 creds, 2000 XP and 2000 crew XP), (win 50 times while getting 1000 base capture points, get 500k creds, 50k XP, 25k crew XP, 1 day of premium and 1 hangar slot)

Thanks to all of you guys, who sent me this survey.

Wargaming is all of a sudden interested in skill MM – to that end, they provided some players with a survey link over their e-mail :)

This is how it looks, so you have an idea:

The list of questions is:

- Vehicles of what tiers you used most in random battles in WoT for past 3 months?
- Do you have XVM stat-mod for viewing player statistics installed?
- How often did you play randoms in a platoon in last 3 months?
- With whom did you platoon?
- What prevents you from playing WoT when you have spare time? (options are: travelling with no internet, bugs, other hobbies, household chores, being tired, latest changes, family member occupying laptop, no internet, too many losses, spending time with friends/family, other)
- Do you evaluate the strength of your team in WoT? If yes, when? (before, during, after battle, not at all)
- To what purpose do you evaluate the strength of your team? (to estimate winning chance, to compare both teams, to work out strategy, to guess which my teammate is reliable)
- Based on which criteria do you evaluate your team during the battle? (the way they move, how they are active, running score, their rationality)
- Based on your experience, teammates of what skill level do you usually meet in randoms? (more skilled, less skilled, equal, different for each battle)
- How satisfied are you that you meet less-skillful teammates? (here they ask for elaboration)
- Do you evaluate the strength of your enemies in WoT? If yes, when?
- To what purpose do you evaluate the strength of your enemies?
- Based on which criteria do you evaluate your enemies during the battle?
- Based on your experience, how do players on both teams stack up against each other in terms of skill in randoms? (your team is often more skilled, your team is often less skilled, both teams equal, different for each battle, can’t say)
- How satisfied are you that in random battles, teams stack up against each other differently in terms of skill in each new battle?
- What criteria are the most important to you when estimating the chance of winning in random?
- Players of what skill would you want on your team (equal to me, lower, higher, various)
- What statistics reflect the player skill the best in your opinion? (damage, winrate etc.)
- Against enemies of what skill is it enjoyable to play? (lower, higher, equal, different each time)
- Would you like a special mode in random battles, in which you would play against opponents of skill equal to yours?
- Why do you think that would be interesting?
- Have you ever selected a server manually? (EU1, EU2, EU3 mentioned here as well, strange)
- If yes, how often do you do that?
- If yes, why do you do that?
- Is it important to you, on which server are you playing?
- How old are you?

And that’s all, folks :) Interesting survey.