those of you with sharp eyes probably already noticed this bit in the 9.3 video:
In case you are wondering, what’s on the screen (apart from the playing T49 and the T-28 on the right side):
- the left tank is T54E2, a non-autoloader version of the T54, that was originally to be in the second American medium line (the T95 one, not the T57 Heavy one) as tier 9 apparently. The model is very old, like two years, it was shown several times. Currently, there is no ETA on that tank (or, whether it will be in the game at all).
- the other tank is AC4 Sentinel “Thunderbolt”, carrying a 17pdr gun – an Australian tank. Also a very old model that has been around for a while, currently there are no plans for it (technically it is a tier 6 vehicle like the Firefly). Possibly a premium.
English version of ASAP video with Miroslav “Veider” Kargin.
Inside:
- new HD tanks T-34, IS-7, ISU-152, M3 Lee, M5 Stuart and Jagdpanther
- M24 Chaffee also reworked to HD and rebalanced, got new improved maximum speed (70 km/h)
- KV-1S split to KV-1S and KV-85
- new LT’s (Soviet, German, USA)
- T57 Heavy was rebalanced, T92, Object 430 as well
- Murovanka was reworked heavily
- hangar interface was reworked
- new effects of explosions (check out the video, cool stuff)
- the anti-AFK/suicider/leaver system
- bonus for “tanking” (for shells blocked by armor), for heaviest vehicles it will provide up to 10 percent bonus to current XP, this bonus will be disabled for arty and light tanks
- engine/transmission split (transmission damage works like engine damage – same effect, only without burning)
- stronghold improvements (new tiers) and others (see the video)
- Storm states that it is principially possible to rework WoT (or any game) to a different engine (UE4 mentioned), but the issue is how much time would that take, not whether it’s possible. It’s not an option to simply stop developing the game for a year to do it.
- Evilly confirms that the “bonus for premium tanks” is legit
- tier 10 reward tanks (VK7201) will also get bonus XP and crew XP bonus
- these changes to the premium tanks are not final, apparently more bonuses will be announced on Russian Tanker’s Day (14.9.)
- confirmed: 9.3 test tomorrow
- in 9.3, M6A2E1 will be also buffed
- bonus experience gained by premium tanks will NOT count towards the account average experience, it will be treated as bonus XP for missions (SS: no average XP statpadding for you!)
- the buff to premium tanks was considered for a long time already
- no larget credit making bonus for premium tanks than they have now is planned
- the premium bonus XP will be added to Churchill III 1,35 coefficient
- the additional XP for premium vehicles will add up to the crew XP bonus for premiums as well
- the VK7201 and M60 will recieve 5 percent bonus to XP
- for now, there is no info available on the Italian autoloading Leopard
- Q: “I bought WG shares and they are useless!” A: “Don’t buy WG shares. It’s voluntary :)”
under the original link, Ectar explains the reasoning behind the new 9.3 anti-AFK and anti-suicide system. I think it is worth reposting, because there is a lot of truth behind what he wrote. Here’s what he wrote.
This system is set up to take action against people not playing, there is a key difference here. If I play 5 aside football with you and you stand still for 10 minutes (and you’re not a goalkeeper) you’re not playing and I don’t want you on my team or benefiting from our success. Likewise If you enter a team based computer game and go afk multiple times or quit multiple times before the battle is done, you’re not playing and I don’t want you on my team or benefiting from our success.
If you want to defend passive play then you don’t play passively every game by sitting still. This system won’t punish people who play hyper passive. It will punish people who are blatantly abusing the game mechanics by not actively taking part in the game. – You can justify playing cautiously in a few matches, heck you can even likely throw up specific examples. You can’t justify it for every battle and it’s those types of players this system is set up to deal with. I find it rather sad in a way that when we take measures to do something about repeatability being afk or not participating. We’re still wrong for doing something just because it’s not XXXX player’s specific idea how to deal with people.
When this system is implemented, If you don’t want to be punished from leaving the game early – Don’t leave the game early! You still have the choice to leave the game early if you want however it will come with consequences. If you don’t want to be punished for being AFK multiple times… Don’t go afk! If there is something external causing you to be away from the PC all the time or away from the game then perhaps that’s not the best time to be playing a team game..
Life is full of decisions, many of them however have consequences and repercussions. Eventually you’re going to have to deal with those choices wither you like it or not.
And as a bonus, you don’t have to worry about looking at a Soviet commissar, because apparently, the pictures of the warning screen will be server-specific:
the army-technology portal published an interview with Richard “Challenger” Cutland, the EU employee responsible for… well, I have absolutely no idea what he does apart from going to meetings with players but apparently, according to US history expert Chieftain, he does a lot, so that’s that.
It’s mostly a “we love tank history” article, not that much about the game, but about the attitude of Wargaming towards museums and such. Short version:
- Richard Cutland has 30 years of real tanking experience in British Army’s Royal Tank Regiment on Chieftain, Challenger I and Challenger II tanks
- he joined Wargaming as a “miliary specialist” in 2012
- attitude of Wargaming towards history is very positive
- in WG service, he got to drive AMX-13, Tiger I and T-72
- future plans for real life tanks: restoring a T-34/76 in belarus, lifting a KV-1 from the bottom of the river in Voronezh, restoring the Maus
- Maus restoration will be difficult and problematic due to the sheer size of the vehicle, its poor state (everything inside is missing, it’s just a shell) and lack of parts
- Wargaming works with museums by bringing new people interested in history to them
Regarding the future of cooperation with Bovington:
“Bovington’s got a large, mobile fleet, and to keep that on the road for things like Tankfest is quite scarily expensive. We are going to run a series of specials; what that means is there will be a premium package available on the game, with the proceeds going to help Bovington restore their current fleet of operational vehicles. Their Comet is in dire need of a mechanical overhaul. There’s the M4 Sherman as well, an incredibly well-known vehicle that’s really popular. That needs its tracks replaced amongst other repairs before it can get roadworthy again.”
- it’s possible Wargaming will have (pay for) some sort of warship restored in the future
recently, an open letter from the developers to members of gaming community was published. Its purpose is to make “community a cleaner place”. To quote it:
We believe that everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or disability has the right to play games, criticize games and make games without getting harassed or threatened. It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish.
If you see threats of violence or harm in comments on Steam, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook or reddit, please take a minute to report them on the respective sites.
If you see hateful, harassing speech, take a public stand against it and make the gaming community a more enjoyable space to be in.
Thank you
The author should start playing World of Tanks. He’d go crazy within hours. Either way, it’s a… nice gesture. There are over 600 signatures under it, including the one belonging to one Matt Parker from Wargaming Chicago (whoever that is, the people are mostly Americans though). I find it decent. Let’s celebrate this proclamation of decency with the best quote from Wargaming developers!
Storm: “Suffer faggot, your suffering makes us happy!”
Nah, seriously, I like Storm and SerB for being direct, it’s much better than endless buttering and sugarcoating.
this little story comes from Belarus. Apparently, the “tanks game” (World of Tanks) caused their marriage to divorce.
Apparently, a woman named “Ekaterina” (there is a photo too, but somehow, I don’t think it’s the woman the article is about) married a guy, they moved to a village and apart from some small issues, everything was just peachy, until the villainous husband started playing the evil addictive game World of Tanks! He started spending all his free time in the game and spent also quite a lot of money on it, came home at 15-16PM, started playing and played until midnight every day, even on weekends. He ignored the wife’s pleas to go out or even to have a walk, stating “it’s just a hobby”. He became cruel, aggressive, stopped paying attention to what he was doing and saying (at this point, the woman admits it might have been a little bit her fault, because she started screaming straight away). In the end, she got fed up with it and moved out.
How terrible.
To be quite honest, given the fact it comes from a “lady portal”, the stock nature of photos and everything, I think the story is made up, wouldn’t be the first time. One thing is however interesting about it – even IF it is made up, it shows that in Belarus (and I do believe this can be applied to Russia as well), WoT became such a cultural phenomenon that even woman magazines started to notice. That is not exactly easy to do – only a few games achieved such a status that even non-related media took notice – Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty (related to various controversies such as “No Russian”) and now, World of Tanks. Quite an achievement.
recently, Storm openly confirmed that the Sturmtiger will not be implemented. From what I heard on Russian server – it’s connected to an incident, where on the supertest, Storm took a Sturmtiger for a spin and out of three shots, he oneshotted IS-7, Maus and E-100. Whether that’s true – well, that’s not confirmed, but it would certainly explain his distaste for such a gamebreaking vehicle.
Regardless, it’s true that a 380mm rocket mortar cannot effectively be balanced in the game, at least using “regular” rules. Sure, you could just give it a small alpha (on 183mm level), but that would be strange and illogical. Plus, it seems that’s already decided, so now the real question is, what to do with the rest of the line?
Well… for starters, it has to be realized that by getting rid of the Sturmtiger, you are most likely getting rid of tier 8 and 9 as well. Early Wargaming thoughts, confirmed by Storm, were along the lines of:
Tier 8 – Sturmpanzer Ferdinand (basically a Ferdinand with 210mm mortar)
Tier 9 – Sturmpanzer Bär
Tier 10 – Sturmtiger
All three have massive guns, starting with the 210mm, that, while a derp, would likely be just as hard to balance on its tier (imagine a 210mm shell landing on your tier 6). The Bär has a 305mm howitzer/mortar (good luck balancing that against tier 7 vehicles), so it’s likely that these candidates took a trip to the “scrapped” folder along with their tier 10 brother.
Lower tiers however are entirely salvageable. Tier 5,6 and 7 would likely be SIG33, Sturmpanzer IV (incorrectly known as Brummbär, that name was apparently not used historically) and Sturmpanzer Panther, which is basically a Panther with a 150mm short howitzer in the turret, it looks like this:
And yes, that is actually a historical project. The 150mm gun itself does not have exactly stellar properties (do not be fooled by the caliber, the gun was not that powerful – the HEAT shell could only penetrate some 150mm of armor) – in fact, the Brummbär was confirmed to be “fine” with it, so we can assume everything from the line up to tier 7 is useable and we are now missing only tier 8,9 and 10.
