Source: Yuri Pasholok’s blog

A Crusader tank from South Africa will be transferred to Jordan as a part of the diplomatic effort to bring the two countries together. It will be put on display in the Royal Tank Museum.

….or it could be called “how Wargaming EU screwed us once again”

Hello everyone,

well, here’s something nice. Remember that Veteran tanker charity? Well, the news got to one of the biggest Czech newspapers, MF Dnes (and its internet portal, iDnes) and the reporter made an interview with the organizer of the entire event, Carramba66.

In the interview, carramba66 (don’t bother looking for him on the forums, he got permabanned recently for an argument with Wargaming staff) states that:

- the charity drive is meant for the tankers, who fought both in the west and in the east
- there will be more recipients than just one, as the charity exceeded its goals already
- the money will go to the veterans through their own organization, ČSLO (Czechoslovak Legionnaire Community)
- ČSLO did not expect this to succeed at first (SS: noone did!) and is very happy about it :)
- ČSLO representative was surprised that young people playing computer games can not only organize it, but also finish what they started
- even foreign people donated via FTR
- Carramba states that it would be a bit strange for players from other countries to give money to a Czech veteran, therefore efforts are being made and coordinated to start similiar initiative for example in Poland
- the money will in the end not go for a spa treatment (like we intended before), because health-wise the veterans are too frail already and it was not recommended by their doctor, instead – new medical aid devices (SS: for example hearing aid) will be purchased from the money (SS: so much for “free healthcare”).

And, of course the last part about Wargaming is also interesting:

“The internet tanker (Carramba66) was very surprised by the attitude of the Czech branch of the company that runs the game. ‘We only wanted them to publish the info about the charity, but they didn’t bother talking to us at all. Only when they found out, what kind of positive feedback the charity has, they came with an offer, which was so laughable we sent them to hell with it. We invest from our own sources in it, there is a special ingame vehicle waiting for the person, who donates the most.”

Good job, Wargaming EU. A player telling how it is on main Czech portal, that’s some nice PR. Of course, Wargaming EU doesn’t care about veterans or charity, just about PR and tax deductions (Wargaming US actually does donate to American veterans and I think the Russians do too).

The charity is still running (thanks to everyone, who donated!) and its goals have already been met, but this post did mean the influx of new donators, money already started pouring in from all over. It’s very impressive, really. Thank you all! I think two or more ex-tankers (depending on how much is collected in the end) will have really nice Christmas.

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/261371.html

Hello everyone,

Storm made recently a post, where he is asking, which tanks are so called “cactus tanks”, eg. tanks that are generally nasty and difficult to play. It’s mostly a feedback topic (players write, Storm reads). Russian players write mostly the “usual suspects”: A20, M3 Lee (strange thing, I actually had fun with it), A-44, SU-100M, SU-101, M7 Medium, T21, AMX40. T7 Combat Car got a lot of heat because of its low penetration.

Actually the opinions seem quite diverse, some players think T-43 is bad for example. One guy wrote “E75″. Odd. Personally, the worst tank I have ever played is the stock Sturer Emil, I just couldn’t make it work. Free XP’d it to the 128mm, then it got better. When it comes to T-54, I just can’t make it work. Not sure why.

From the discussion, only one thing: the turret repair mechanism for turretted TD’s was not removed (SS: it’s just the new Germans have it bugged)

And what about you? What vehicles do you hate the most?

Or, if you are interested, Overlord is asking: which vehicle do you LIKE the most?

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/2833429.html

Tier 8 – STA-1

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Hello everyone,

so, you like tanks, don’t you? We all do. That’s why we all play World of Tanks. So, Wargaming EU advertises this really nice event, where every day, you get a different bonus discount in the gift shop. Actually, that’s a nice idea. To buy something useful for World of Tanks?

So, want gold on sale for World of Tanks? Or perhaps a new tank to have fun with? Well fuck you, here’s a plane for WoWp.

Seriously, what the hell? Why put something as completely useless for WoT as a plane in a WoT event? This stuff should remain on WoWp portal, I don’t want any of that shit. You know how this feels? It feels like WoWp is such a failure they have to SHOVE it down the throat of WoT players. So, who had this retarded idea?

Oh, wait, we actually know, who had it.

Translation of the part where Karlie replies on Crabtr33′s post, in which he claims that community team does not design bonus events:

Sorry to disappoint you… a part of the Christmas offer (the event calendar) was designed by me for example, so the community team participates in it significantly.

There you have it, black on white. Now you know, who comes up with these brilliant ideas…

Courtesy of Daigensui

Hello everyone,

Chinese tank pictures are not that easy to come by, so here are three, depicting the WZ-132 Chinese tank.

With a 76mm 54-76TG (autoloader development was never finished according to Daigensui)

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Hello everyone,

it just got confirmed to me that WG EU is planning to start their own QA too, possibly soon. Like a regular one, not that Quasar joke. Good move I guess, took them long enough to create (1,5 years if I recall correctly, ever since Overlord stopped posting).

Of course, being the incompetent bums they are, there is a chance this will be a massive failure, but of course, there is a chance it will simply be exactly what they promise: the same thing for EU as for the RU server. I have my doubts, but let’s for the discussion’s sake pretend it’s going to work as intended. As I wrote before, this is the real reason FTR QA got cut: WG EU whine.

So, what then? Would there still be interest in RU translations? Would that make FTR obsolete? I doubt that, FTR is way too big for that, plus there will always be new info coming from Russia (although the developers take it slow these days). But it might require a change of pace and perhaps style.

What my two first thoughts were:

- perhaps a daily summary of what was answered in the EU thread, so you don’t have to go through the garbage every day? (by “garbage” I mean pointless player posts to look for answers) plus continuing the translations?
- moving completely away from wot-news in order to profile the blog as completely WG hostile? Not my first choice, but there has to be something to write about.
- stopping altogether surfaced of course, but I do feel the obligation for the promises I made during the donation event

So, I guess the answer stands and falls with the question, whether fully-functional WG EU QA would make FTR obsolete. That’s not a question I can answer of course, that’s a question YOU have to answer. In advertisement terms, FTR is probably viable even with one half of its current reader base, but beyond that, it would be… problematic. Of course, there is the possibility that WG EU QA will actually INCREASE the FTR reader base, since you guys won’t be going there (apart from asking questions) – why dig through it, when you can read a summary, right?

So what are your thoughts?

Thanks to Radosz for this.

Hello everyone,

looks like the reworked map Serene Coast has a Polish easter egg. When you look behind the church on the (former) “island”, you’ll see there is a grave there:

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Hello everyone,

this is the followup on and conclusion of the Hard Choices article I posted earlier. As was written in the article, I opened up a poll. To this day, over 11k people voted. Based on FTR reader statistics, roughly 20 percent of readers are from the US server, the rest was from EU. Obviously, with only 11k voters, the impact of this is not as high as I would want it to be (a damn shame too, given the fact the daily visit count is 5-6 times as high, occasionally 10 times even).

As you can see from the poll itself, the European Tree is an overwhelming winner with 40 percent, followed by the Sturmtiger branch and the British branch. The French tanks are not that far behind, while the British TD and medium line are sitting on the bottom, along with the Japanese tank destroyers.

Well, I guess I have some bad news: from what I have seen, the development of the EU tree has not started yet. I mean – at all. There probably is some general idea how to do it, but no research has been conducted. Given how long it took to research the Japanese tree (believe it or not, there is like a year’s work behind the single branch appearing in 8.10), I think it is quite unlikely with all the rest of the work going on (vehicle remodelling for the HD client) for the EU tree to appear in 2014. My chance estimate? 10 percent. However, the entire tree is very requested on EU server and Polish plus Czechoslovak playerbase are still waiting for their vehicles (while statistically insignificant Japanese playerbase already go theirs), so I think this might also play a role.

Storm wrote not so long ago that there will be a longer brake between the Japanese branch and next branch to come (my guess again: at least 2-3 months). I think that’s a good thing, because the playerbase seems currently over-fed with new tanks (with attractive stuff like German TD’s and Japanese tanks coming close after each other). But Storm also wrote that next to come might be the British mediums. I mean, Firefly is cool, but according to the poll, it’s at the bottom. And there are also the Frenchies.

It will be a tough choice indeed. My personal vote was: EU tree (duhhh), British heavies (Chieftain) and German TD’s (Sturmtiger) – the top 3 slots according to the poll. We’ll see how it goes.