Reddit “Ask Me Anything” summary

Hello everyone,

as promised, here’s the summary from WG’s latest “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit with Ectar, Quasar and Obirian. As expected, there’s not much new, but some things are interesting. Regarding the questions I “hinted” at to post, someone (Ectar I think) posted that they can’t answer them for now.

- multicore is being worked on (no ETA)
- there are “plans” for the Micromaus (38H)
- more French tanks are “very unlikely” to appear in 2014
- no plans to return Type 59 to the store
- no ETA for roaming, it’s still being discussed
- tier 10 discounts will return to EU in February
- no plans for skill MM for random battles
- patch 9.0 will come “sooner than you would expect” (SS: probably the most interesting answer, looks like historical battles will come in 9.0 too by the way)
- there are no plans for big (very expensive) bundles like there are on US server
- T-44-85? “Give us a bit more time, please”
- no plans to introduce “trial” tanks (SS: as in, free period for “trying it out”)
- historical battles will come “very soon”
- just like on SEA server now, you will be able to vote on next tier 10 discount on EU
- night maps will not appear at least in next two updates
- no plans to introduce flamethrower tanks
- MAC version of WoT will not come in near future, Linux version might

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23.1.2014

- historical battles will actually resemble portal events: there will be 2-3-4 available at the same time and over time, they will change (SerB later states that the battles will return again), they will also have their unique medals
- Q: “Will there be a gift for the 1,1 mil accounts active at the same time milestone?” A: “You can give one to us, we don’t mind”
- the MM mechanism will work in national battles the same way it does in other random modes
- currently, the StuG III is too light compared to how much it weighed in real life (SS: Ausf.G that is), SerB states that if the later modification becomes an alternative hull, it will be made heavier

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Czechoslovak tank design legend – Alexej Surin

Hello everyone,

I was thinking about writing this article for quite some time, but there was never enough information on this man, strangely enough. It’s odd, because Alexej Surin was Czechoslovakia’s best and most famous tank designer probably of all times, yet noone seems to know too much about him and the information was gathered mostly from I.Pejčoch’s and V.Francev’s books. I did not gather them myself either, they come mostly from one post on one certain forum in Czech.

It’s a damn shame really, because this is a person more people should know about. Since the post is about a Czechoslovak person, I will be using Czech versions of names.

Alexej Michajlovič Surin was actually not a native Czechoslovak – he was born in the Russian Empire (nowadays Ukraine) in a village called Polichkovka in the Kharkov district on 10.2.1897. His father was a farmer (not a poor one) and that allowed him to recieve higher education at Kiev Polytechnic Institute – military artillery school. He graduated there with the rank of 2ndLt in the army. He begun his career as a soldier and fought in the second half of WW1 as an officer in the Tsarist Russia army. After the bolshevik coup in 1918, he fought against them with White Russians and after their loss, he decided to leave Russia for good.

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Bob Semple tank video

Thanks to FryaDuck for posting this video in comments

Hello everyone,

no list of worst tanks ever would be complete without the infamous Bob Semple tank. Built on New Zealand during the time of Japanese Pacific campaign (mostly as a propaganda vehicle, but also with the intention to actually fight), Bob Semple tank was named after a minister of New Zealand government, Robert “Bob” Semple, who commissioned it. Needless to say, the result was less than spectacular, as you can see yourselves…

 

New server-exclusive tanks coming up?

Source: World of Tanks RU forum post by Knopka

Hello everyone,

this is a small piece of info I came upon when reading one Russian blog (blogwotlirt) – by the way, to its owner: dude, if you’re reading this, why the hell do you put your blog as a “watermark” even on forum screenshots? I mean, for exclusive content (if you have any) I get that, but forums? Noone does that I think.

Anyway, Knopka (WG RU staff – I have no idea what she does, but she’s marked as a “developer”) states the following:

knopka

Basically, a Russian player was complaining that some features of Chínese server are China-exclusive. Knopka responds:

“Every server has its own features. For RU-server, there are plans to introduce tanks with unique looks and unique characteristics in the future.”

Hmm, I wonder if we get such a thing for EU server too, or NA…

Meanwhile in Nizhny Tagil…

Thanks to Marcus2545 (RU) for this one :)

Hello everyone,

if you like tanks and live in Nizhny Tagil (Нижний Тагил), you’re in luck. The city has a history of tank-building and according to wikipedia, Uralvagonzavod is currently the largest MBT producer in the world. This is where legendary tanks such as the T-54A, T-55 and T-62 medium tanks and T-72 plus T-90 main battle tanks were designed. The downside of this is, you might see the tanks a bit closer than you’d like…

 

 

And a few more…

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About the 1 million players online on RU server

Source: http://wargaming.livejournal.com/2485.html

Hello everyone,

BigAngryCat disclosed a few more bits of info about this World of Tanks record – more than one million players online (1 mil and 114k). It happened on Sunday night (19.1.2014) and according to Wargaming, it was quite unexpected, since the previous weekend it was “only” 937k players online. That’s why one of the players created the following poster – to give players some comparison – and Wargaming via BAC reposts it now. BCA also notices that the number is in fact incorrect and that at one point it was even 1 mil and 119k…

2014_01_19_million_002

The poster states:

- it’s more than there were Greek, Serbian and Montenegro soldiers in WW1 (1,112 mil)
- it comes close to the amount of people participating in the famous Rio de Janeiro carnival (1,5 mil)
- it’s about as many as there were soldiers of the entire 1st Ukrainian Front before the Oder offensive on 12.2.1945 (1,16 mil)
- it’s more than the entire population of the Russian city of Ufa
- in 78 countries of the world there live less people then played the Russian World of Tanks

22.1.2014

- new US medium branch (T25E1 – T42 – T54E2 – T95E6)? SerB: “No comment on leaks and rumors as usual” (SS: yea, it’s BS)
- Q: “Will it be possible to appear with a Tiger in a national battle Soviet team?” A: “You consider us to be retards or something…”
- Q: “How come you nerfed arty instead of putting a hardcap on it?” A: “Idiotic solutions like a hardcap have no support in Wargaming – we try not to hire morons as employees”
- Q: “Why don’t you implement the option to disable 2-3 maps you don’t want to play?” A: “For the same reason as before” (SS: the official reason if I remember correctly was the fact that it would mess with MM too much)
- +/-1 MM for historical battles is not planned, SerB considers it fine for a Tiger to meet a T-34 (or for a Panzer IV to meet IS)
- the Japanese and Chinese tanks are not named in Japanese or Chinese simply because most players can’t read Japanese and Chinese
- SerB “will have a look”, whether the Chinese map “Empire’s Border” will appear on RU/EU/US too
- apparently, it’s pointless to angle your mantlet (by moving the gun up or down) in order to bounce more shots, as mantlet angling doesn’t increase the mantlet effective armor
- Q: “How do I know which tank will I able to use in historical battles?” A: “Use common sense”
- lists for specific tanks available for historical battles will exist apparently for each respective battle
- Japanese tanks too weak? “Don’t play Japanese tanks”
- apparently, historical battles (as shown before in one Russian video) will “make” you buy an entire pre-set ammo composition (SS: for example 30 AP, 5 APCR, 30 HE) for a price of the complete set
- national battles will use the same MM rules as regular battles
- SerB thinks that what Veider said about the T23 premium tank (SS: it was historically able to go backward as fast as forward) is garbage, a player later argues it was historical, but SerB states that it’s the developers who decide what is realistic in the game and that he will specifically tell Veider not to do such a thing
- Storm states that the information that he said the arty would be buffed was a hoax

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