Hello everyone,

just like in the case of the previous post, I usually don’t deal with World of Warplanes stuff – that game is dead and everyone knows it. The basic idea behind it was that unlike tanks, the USA have a huge tradition in warplanes and thus the game just has to be successful there, right?

Well, wrong.

Internally, Wargaming considers World of Warplanes a failed project not worth advertising anymore and the words of gunlion, NA community manager, confirm that in a way. Here’s what he recently wrote on US forums. Bold parts are by me, it’s the last part of the post, that is important.

I’ve been quoted in this thread regarding ideas about feasible strategies to create longterm population increases, and I stand by what I said about cross-promotional incentives. What we would see is a brief burst of players coming over to earn Premium/Gold, and then leaving after the event. Certainly, you may get some who stick around, but it historically has not been on a level that makes a noticeable change. And this is just speaking to the audiences of each game; there are some players who enjoy Tanks, there are some players who enjoy Planes, there are some that enjoy both; but those who typically like one or the other do so because of the unique gameplay each provides, and offering carrot-on-a-stick rewards isn’t conductive to making lasting gains in population. And it is also not as easy as flipping a switch, there would be a lot of coordination involved from a lot of departments to properly set this up, prepare for messaging, support, etc. Then you have to factor in effect on economy, and all these things. So, you look at all of that, and ask, “What would the gains be here? Are they equal to the effort?”

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

I don’t usually write about War Thunder, but this is something I can really appreciate. Kubinka tank museum has (had) a really sad looking T-44 and so, it was decided to restore it to its former glory in cooperation between the Kubinka museum and Gaijin.

This is how the vehicle looked like before the restoration. The restored version was allegedly shown to public on Saturday (21.2.), but I haven’t found any report yet. The vehicle stood in disrepair in Kubinka for 55 years and as you can see, it was in pretty poor shape (the hull was deformed and the engine was missing). Kubinka experts (with Gaijin funding) managed to restore the tank to working order in half a year, the goal was for it to be ready for the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. Very good job I’d say, it’s always good when an old tank gets restored.

And what about Wargaming restoration projects?

Yea… this info comes again from WG RU, I learned it during my meeting with the guys. We caught up at a crowded European gaming convention last month. Finding a quiet table meant dodging promotional teams for German hardware vendors and a Magyar online casino. Once we finally settled in with our drinks, the conversation naturally drifted toward the studio’s abandoned physical preservation efforts.

- the Maus restoration was cancelled very early on a long time ago, after WG realized the staggering costs and bad PR (they announced it close to the Victory Day, which is taken very seriously and as a result, Kubinka had a fit of rage, you might remember the affair). The “father” of this idea was Viktor Kislyi, because he’s a huge Maus fan.
- remember that KV-1 they pulled out of the river? Yea, that was also cancelled, after they dragged the wreck to the repair depot and one of the engineers told them there’s no way that could be restored, as the hull was completely deformed

As a result of these “successes”, Wargaming cancelled all restoration projects. Okay, just so I don’t sound like a hater, Gaijin had its share of fuckups, like the “T-35″ restoration, where they moved the T-35 on its own power from the museum and it was in such a poor shape that they almost destroyed its engine while doing that PR stunt. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to see more photos of the restored T-44.

Source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/4172945.html

Hello everyone,

here’s another one of the really strange wartime Russian projects, found by Yuri Pasholok in Russian archives.

It was proposed by one Herman Vasilievich Rybnikov from Moscow in March 1943. The main idea was to propel an armored crew compartment by a set of large “wheels”, that would end with thin pointy “spikes” and apparently to run it into enemy infantry. The wheel diameter was around 4 meters and the “designer” proposed the speed of 150 km/h. According to the drawing, the vehicle was also supposed to carry an infantry unit riding in one of the armored boxes.

Needless to say, the proposal was not accepted by the army.

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3755522.html

Hello everyone,

an interesting post by Awasaky (IIRC he’s a supertester actually) appeared in the Ponyushnya community about the workings of the aim circle and a few other things.

No, you didn’t take too much LSD, the video is like that. This has a reason. The author basically took two videos – real battle and the same battle from a replay and superimposed them on one another. For some reason, he did not manage to actually sync the frames, but he did it the best he could. Nevertheless, the video proves an interesting point, which is: there is a difference between the autoaim mechanism behavior when you look at the live battle (server aim circle) and when you look at the replay. The replay one is the one slightly lagging behind the live one.

In order to see it properly, you have to switch the video to high resolution and preferably fullscreen.

Notice one thing: in live battle, when you activate autoaim, the aim (serverside!) automaticalls sticks to the target. Then the server “remembers” that it shouldn’t do that and moves the circle back to the correct position. In replay, there is no such thing. It’s well visible at 1:22 and 1:40. The aim circle also doesn’t get massively bigger, unlike when you move it manually. As such, using autoaim, you can “steal a snapshot” like this whenever you don’t have to pre-aim.

This also partially explains the “shots are firing beyond the aim circle” issue – the shots are flying correctly, the serverside reticle is just somewhere else. At cca 2:30, Awasaky is driving around with manual aiming, notice how the circle get bigger.

Now, this is nothing really that new, but it’s nice to see it demonstrated on video, even though it makes my head hurt. I wonder what this could be really used for.

Hello everyone,

have you heard of Warpack? No? Then listen up.

You might have heard the name before, whispered in the darkest of forum threads, or perhaps screamed by many a noob, dying from your shells. Is it really the mythical cheat for a game, that’s supposed to be cheat-proof?

Yes and no. Warpack is an illegal mod kit, that’s available for certain amount of money (monthly subscription). It’s possibly the best of the cheat mods, it is constantly developed and it contains some really nasty stuff, like:

- defoliants
- lasers
- fully functional aimbot (aims at weakspots and pre-aims tanks in motion)
- fallen tree indicators, enemy reload timers

Practically every illegal mod you can think of. It’s one of the most illegal things you can get, beyond that are only a few really ugly things and I won’t even mention those. So, naturally, you expect players abusing this to be banned, yes? Well, not quite. Check this out.

Reddit is one of the largest WoT communities and I kinda like it, but it has some very special people, like those, who openly post their screenshots, where they are running Warpack (notice all the settings and options Warpack offers):

Continue reading →

Posted with delay, didn’t notice it came up for some reason.

Hello everyone,

let’s start this week with something funny. Today is the “Day of the Defender of Fatherland” in Russia and to commemorate the holiday, Wargaming posted some nice propaganda pictures on their portal – let’s have a look at them (for bonus points – try to spot Stalin).

“Glory to the army, born in October” (which is a bit odd, because the October Revolution happened in November)

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

as I wrote on the FTR FB yesterday, which, if you like, you can follow (get it? “like”? yea, me so funny), I am unfortunately really busy this weekend with IRL issues, so the next update will be the usual translation in the evening (unless there are leaks, I’ll check from time to time) – full content again from tomorrow onwards.

And here’s the video of a tank crushing a van, for your good mood :) I am sure you all know WHICH tank is it… :)