…British! through the history, Great Britain was perhaps the most influential navy in the world. From their island country, the British forged an unparalelled empire through the might of their navy and therefore, it’s only fitting that the British line would be the third one (since the first two were American and IJN). Like that? Logical, no? Looking forward to sail with the HMS Hood? Well, fuck you then, because the third line will be Russian. Yep, instead of possibly the mightiest navy in human history, we’ll have the Russians, whose naval achievements include losing to the Japanese at Tsushima and that’s pretty much it. The reason for this decision is purely economic one, since there are simply many, many Russian players and they have a “sense of national pride”, as one developer puts it. Don’t believe me? Check this out, here’s the original post: The Stalin dev butthurt made me chuckle. But seriously though, this part is important: Russian and British ship models are being developed in parallel and while we originally planned to release the Royal Navy first, we’ve since changed that decisions for business reasons. We are currently planning to bring in the Russian Navy as the first nation after release, followed by the Royal Navy. To be honest, I believe that if we manage to create an immersive and fun game, fans of British ships will play it anyway. If they don’t like it and, as a result, don’t stay in the game then introducing those (or any other) ships won’t change that. The oldest Alpha Testers are painfully aware that I am quite passionate about the ‘gameplay vs. history’ line of argumentation. However, we do have a very large Russian community, who have a very strong sense of national pride, which in essence means that they like to play Russian tanks, planes or ships. Therefore, we see no compelling business reason why the Royal Navy must be the third nation.

Hello everyone, you might have noticed that yesterday, we recieved yet another copy of the T-54, this time in the German tree (I wonder if we’ll ever get an American T-54 clone as well). On one hand, it’s a solid tier 9 reward tank and – let’s face it, the model is beautiful, all that I am missing are the external fuel tanks, but I can see why developers didn’t add them (they wouldn’t be a part of the hitzone and people would be confused: “why the hell does it not catch on fire, when I am firing at his fuel tanks”). Another neat part is that according to the source of the leaks, developers are even making the East German crest on the tank, just like the Leopard has a Bundeswehr one. I do not understand the designation too well – I mean, T-55 NVA DDR? In English, NVA almost always refers to the army of North Vietnam and I can already see how people will be confused (“we are having a Vietnamese T-55 in German tree?”). Why not Kampfpanzer T-55 or even Kpz T 55 (without the dash), that’s how the vehicle was designated in some German sources and books?

Hello everyone, according to a comment in VK Wotleaks community, the following premium/reward vehicles are currently scheduled for supertest: – Object 260 tier 10 Soviet heavy tank (scheduled as a clanwars reward, basically an IS-7 variant with different turret) – T28 Concept (based on the wooden mockup as a tier 7 US TD – East-German T-55A medium tank (because, you know, there are not enough T-54 clones in the game) tier 9 tank (likely an event/CW reward) – tier 6 premium M4A3E8 variant (“Fury”, apparently) Expect screenshots and statistics soon.

Hello everyone, time for another big thank you to the FTR contributors :) First, as usual, the people who donated via Paypal: Clay H. (Texas, USA) Nebojsa D. (Portugal) Thank you both, guys :) And now, the Patreon cycle, that went without any issues (Patreon really improved these last few months, they have a really good system for the payments, so if you are considering some form of subscription for your channel/blog/whatever, I can only recommend Patreon). Out of the 608,59 USD pledged at the point of the cycle activation: – 553,59 USD came in successfully (the rest didn’t go through for some reason on the contributor side, insufficient funds on account etc.) – out of 553,59 USD, after the Patreon and CC fees and all that, 487,87 USD were left for FTR – much appreciated! The list of contributors can be viewed here. But wait.. let’s have a look at the Patreon patrons, because those guys usually don’t get named, yet they contributed time and time again. I am grateful to all of you of course :) But there are couple of guys, that deserve extra recognition, because their help has been enormous in the past. Very special thanks go to: Tugboat1964 (USA) Kkessu (Germany) GeographerNA (USA) Mamizoom (UK) McBain (Denmark) EdFrancis01 (UK) Brenthos (Israel) Robert M. (?) Azntrigboi (USA) Tstuka (Norway) “Alexander” (?) Kalashnikitten (Germany) DeAngel0 (Czech Republic) Jodgi (Norway) KvetoslavWoT (Czech Republic) Alex78i (Romania) Panzer_Fenris (Norway) Layers (UK) Cochonpaspropre (France) Jericool (Germany) SecretSquirrell (?) Mywotmods.com (Webium) AdamF (Slovakia) AppyRose (USA) Genosse (?) Kurt28 (Germany) Yannick v.B (?) CSA_VA (USA) Dyme (Sweden) Crazytony0 (Belgium) Laffen58 (?) Ethan_ (France) Liam (?) Der_Tod_42 (Germany I presume :) ) Veselin K. (Bulgaria) Void_Star (?) Voron_BOPOH (?) SpeikerNA (USA) All these guys donated more than 50 USD via Patreon. Much appreciated, thanks everyone for the support!

Hello everyone, the individual missions have been around for a while now. Many players have their StuG IV’s already, some have the T28C, some have the T55A and more than a thousand (on RU server anyway) have Object 260. I am sure many of us noticed the change in gameplay style in randoms, occasional retarded behavior of a player, who wants to complete the mission at all costs and all that. It was to be expected and I am sure Wargaming counted on it. But there’s another really serious side effect the individual missions have, the rigging. Rigging is a process, during which the players on both teams, instead of fighting one another are working together to complete the mission objectives, screwing the rest of the team in the process. The most notorious mission to be rigged (as far as I can tell) is the last mission of the heavy tank series, where a lot of bounced shells is required. The standard rigging process of this mission looks like this: – you take three (or five, works better) friends (clanmates) and form two platoons – you wait until very late in the night for the best chance to appear in the battle together – you coordinate (via Teamspeak for example) it so that both platoon leaders click “battle” at once (simply by counting down on TS). In late night hours when very few players play, the chance to appear in one battle (on the opposite sides, one platoon each side) is very high – you meet on some spot in the battle (preferably without witnesses) and you shoot each other’s tank strongspots (frontal turret, mantlet, spaced armor parts) to accumulate as much “damage saved by armor” as possible. There we go, mission done!

Hello everyone, following is the complete list of individual mission objectives, pulled out from the EU client scripts, courtesy of Edrard from wot-news (whereas yesterday’s list was based on translations of Russian portal). Each mission listed has 4 sections: the first two rows are for StuG, second for T28C, third for T55A and fourth for Object 260. The first line is the primary, the second line the secondary objective. LT Mission #1 At lower tiers, your light tank can easily neutralize every other type of vehicle. Advise – Try to avoid head-on confrontations. Instead, try flanking your enemy or attack them from the rear. Observe carefully where the enemy vehicle’s gun is turned. Additional – Win the battle. Be among the top 10 players on your team by experience earned. Additional – Survive the battle. Additional – Win the battle. Be among the top 5 players on your team by experience earned. Additional – Survive the battle. Additional – Win the battle. Be among the top 3 players on your team by experience earned. Additional – Survive the battle. Additional – Win the battle. Finish the battle as the top player on both teams by experience earned. Additional – Survive the battle.