Tuesday 31 March 2015

31.03.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- On supertest, IS-3 with autoloader previously was just a regular IS-3 with higher rate of fire. Now, it received a real autoloader for 4 shells with 9 seconds between each shell and 20 second autoloader reload;
- Render range will change from square to circle either in 9.8 or in 9.9;
- Tracks on armor will not be from now on modeled as zones of spaced armor, but as zones where the regular hull armor is simply thicker;
- Tank models that already exist in HD will have their collision models reworked to incorporate the tracks hanging on hulls slowly in following patches;
- IS-6 is very popular, there are no buffs planned for it;
- IS-3 with autoloader a special tank or some sort of reward? "For now, no comment. Will be published later."

Second April Tier 10 Discount - Batchat Arty

Hello warriors,

as per the Russian server, the second tier 10 vehicle on discount on the EU server (since it's now unified with RU) will be the Batchat French artillery branch.

Overlord Panoramic Overview

Now this is really cool, Wargaming just posted on their portal the panoramic view of the new map Overlord, really hope they start doing it with every new map so those who are lazy or have very limited internet can verify it without having to download the test server.


Tank driver dodges hit

Check out this T-55 rebel Syrian driver dodging a hit and possibly saving the entire tank crew (not sure about the commander):


The Storm Trooper in me cant stop thinking: Rebel Scum!

Monday 30 March 2015

9.7 Delay Possible

Hello warriors,

it's possible that the 9.7 patch will be delayed. Wotleaks published an unconfirmed information that a serious bug was uncovered on the supertest that causes crashes of the game when the map is loading. Currently it's being discussed and fixed. It is for this reason that the 9.7 patch test was stopped recently.

30.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

I hope everyone is having a lovely week start, I will be streaming now for the next few hours, not sure yet what to do, very probably will be doing Tank Requests or Sub platoons depending how the matches go.

30.03.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- World of Tanks will not be reworked for another engine;
- The reason for the statement above is that even if it was theoretically possible (theoretically, it is according to Storm), players with very poor computers would suffer;
- HD IS-4 model was fixed, now it is accurate;
- It is possible (but not sure) that German Somua S35 premium tank might be removed from the sales with or after 0.9.7 (RG: Get it if you can, its a fun one);
- All the tank changes in patch are written in patchnotes, including the changes in hidden parameters (such as terrain resistance) - those changes however are always written in percentual difference ("increased by 2 percent" for example) not absolute values.

Top of the Tree: IS-4

Hello warriors,

the next Top of the Tree (tier 10 discount) on EU server will be the IS-4.

Other vehicles of the branch on discount and with income bonus include: KV-1, T-150, KV-3, KV-4 and ST-I

Today's micropatch content

Hello warriors,

as it turns out, today's micropatch does not contain only Stronghold fixes (as the patchnotes from RU server declared) but also the elements of the April 1st "fun mode".

This fun mode involves one special consumable, that will unleash under (yet unknown) circumstances some sort of artillery strike. The patch contained:

- new hit sound for this special consumable
- new award (was leaked previously)
- the consumable mechanism itself

The consumable is officially described as "calling a crushing artillery strike to a designated zone, available for tanks from tier 1 to tier 10".

Icon:




Cost: from 50 to 220 gold (depending on tier)
Strike is active for 3 seconds
Loading time is 30 seconds
Blast radius: 10 (meters?)
Number of rounds: 3

Also, there are some firework rounds for artillery, their purpose is not known yet however

Normandy Tank Museum by Yuri Pasholok

Hello warriors,

Yuri Pasholok, who is currently in France, visited the Normandy Tank Museum near Carentan and made a whole bunch of interesting pictures inside.



As can be imagined, most of the museum is dedicated to the Americans, although there are British, German and French items as well. This is logical because the museum is located on a former American P-38 and P-47 airstrip in an American landing (parachute drop) sector. Many of the vehicles in the museum are in running condition and they are marked historically correctly, based on existing photographs to a high degree of authenticity. Even the bags and tools and other equipment are very authentic and the manequins are correctly dressed. Overall the exhibition is very good.

M3A1 Light Tank

9.7 ETA

Hello warriors,

Anton "Evilly" Pankov - WoT producer - confirmed in comments on Vkontakte WoT group that the patch 9.7 is coming only "after April 1st". Patches are usually released on Tuesday on RU server, which means the 9.7 will indeed likely come on 7.4.2015.

9.6 Micropatch Today

Hello warriors,

today, a new micropatch did hit the game. Its size was cca 19 Mb and despite its western designation ("first April patch"), its content is tied to the Stronghold mode - some undisclosed fixes or modifications of that mode were implemented.

Please note that this micropatch does interfere with some mods (not sure which, but issues with XVM were reported). If the game crashes or locks whenever you attempt to enter or exit a battle, please remove all mods and try turning them on one by one to find out which mods exactly are causing the trouble.

Sunday 29 March 2015

WhiteIvy Stream (Ended)

Hello warriors, now that work is pretty much done decided to join my girlfriend WhiteIvy on her stream, we will be platooning with whatever she enjoy the most, come visit us:

http://www.twitch.tv/whiteivy

29.03.2015 Q&A

Not much interesting today either. Obisidian Entertainment (AW developer) released the Pillars of Eternity RPG (Baldur's Gate 2 style, got very high reviews) - Storm tried it out and didn't like it very much apparently (but he stated he saw only the first two zones, which is basically just tutorial - when he was told to go on to at least the third one, he said he'd suffer through it).

What might be a bit more interesting for fans of new tanks in the game - you might remember from FTR that the drawings of the first Czechoslovak premium tank (Å koda T 40)  are ready, they have been for weeks and the new tank is already scheduled in modelling department. What you might find interesting as well is that the Wargaming drawings (basically modelling blueprints) of the first regular (non-premium tier 8) tank are now ready as well, the TVP Model 1946 (aka "TVP Concept"). Everything is well on its way. The Japanese heavies will come first though, likely around summer. Japanese heavy branch will be ushered by the "Japanese Tiger" premium (leaked not so long ago) and will consist of project of various levels of historicity. Tier 9 and 10 will be mostly Wargaming made, historically they will be based on very dubious materials, such as Russian transcripts of interviews with some Japanese soldiers and scientists. Very boxy designs with large guns (think E-100), possibly the largest tanks in the game.

Autoloaded IS-3 Short History

In mid-50’s, a part of the Soviet army was having a look at their heavy tanks, analyzing their issues and drawbacks. One of the major issues of the heavies was their low rate of fire. The two-piece shells were quite slow to load, resulting in average rates of fire somewhere between 2 and 3 rounds per minute (compared to 6 to 8 rounds per minute of the medium tanks). This was especially true for the 122mm shells of the D-25 gun and ways were sought to remedy the situation.



One of the solutions that presented itself during the research was to equip tanks armed with 122mm D-25 with some sort of automatic or semi-automatic loading system. The system however was quite unwieldy and since the loader still had to be present and the turret was not big enough, such a system could potentially lead to the reduction of the amount of ammunition carried.

New world of Papoj

Saturday 28 March 2015

28.03.2015 Q&A

Not much today. Regarding the Super Pershing, it will be available in 9.8 in HD after it gets further reworked. There will not be an option to sell the Super Pershing for gold again.

Gonna leave this here, laughing so hard at it:
Source: http://siemkakto.pl/

New Ranzar video

"Typical Teammates"

FPS increase in 9.7

Earlier, there were concerns about the FPS drop in 9.7 - especially the first test has shown certain drops on some configurations. Famous Russian video maker Jove however returned to the issue in test 3 and made a video on his PC, where he tested both patches on the same replay.

His system is: I7 2600k, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 970 - practically all settings to maximum apart from sniper mode effects and vegetation in sniper mode. The map was quite difficult: Stalingrad.

His results are:

Minimum FPS in 9.6 - 43, in 9.7 - 57
Maximum FPS in 9.6 - 121, in 9.7 - 121
Average FPS in 9.6 - 82, in 9.7 - 89

According to the feedback of the testers, the worse your PC is, the more noticeable the FPS increase is with the owners of very poor PC's noticing a lot better FPS.


Source:

Studyanka Map - Poland

Hello warriors,

the second map leaked yesterday was called "Studyanka" and was rumored to be Polish. A quick background check revealed an interesting truth: the map is actually indeed historical (at least the name is), as it is based on the battle of Studzianki. The map is actually connected to the T-34/85 "Rudy" historically, as the battle was covered by the "Four tankmen and a dog" TV series.



The actual battle happened in August 1944 during the operations in Poland, where Polish forces with their Soviet allies were attacking the Germans around the Vistula river. The battle was fierce with both sides losing over a thousand men and several dozen tanks and it resulted in Polish and Soviet victory.

Czechoslovak Inscriptions for World of Tanks

Author: Silentstalker

Hello everyone,

here's a quick glimpse at the historical inscriptions that might (in some cases likely will) be used for the Czechoslovak branch of World of Tanks. These are just examples of course - just so we have an idea.

First example is the "Žižka" T-34. There were in fact two Žižka tanks (one was destroyed by the Germans), named after Jan Žižka z Trocnova, legendary Czech 15th century leader, who is said never to have lost a battle. This name first appeared on the T-34/76 tank on 30.9.1943 in Novokhopersk. All first 10 tanks of the Czechoslovak unit were named. The tank took part in the liberation of Kiev, where it (along with local partisans) destroyed one halftrack and one StuG. In December 1943, its commander, J.Buršík, was awarded with the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union award. In January 1944 it took part in the fights around Korsun, then it was assigned for training, it took part of in the battle of Dukla pass, where it was destroyed by a Panzerfaust hit. The crew - although wounded - managed to escape. Second "Žižka" was a T-34/85, named so on 5.5.1945.


Berlin Map based on Real Location

Hello warriors,

yesterday, a new map ("Berlin") was leaked. Earlier, there were speculations about the purpose of this map and that it might be a part of some sort of special event for the end of WW2 anniversary. And - it's exactly like that. The map is based on the Brandenburg Gate approach in Berlin. Check this out.

This is the map:



Friday 27 March 2015

New supertest maps

Two new maps appeared on the supertest - Berlin and Studyanka (Polish-themed)

Berlin:



Studyanka:


27.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

Happy Friday, hope everyone had a nice week, Its now time for me to start my scheduled stream.
I'm in the mood for some sweet music and beer, will see if I'm gonna do platoon or tank requests.

IS-3 with Autoloader Premium

Hello warriors,

an IS-3 with autoloader tier 8 premium tank appeared on the supertest. It's basically just an IS-3 with an autoloader and a 3 man crew. This vehicle does not have limited MM and it has the stock gun (D-25T), which however uses improved penetration shells like in the case of IS-5.



Description:

Between 1956 and 1957, the students from the BTV military academy developed a diploma thesis with the topic of installing an automatic loader in the IS-3 and T-10 tanks. For the IS-3, they proposed a two-layer ammo rack with the shape of a pistol magazine. The crew was reduced to three (commander, gunner, driver). The turret design was changed as well in order to incorporate the loading mechanism. The work on the project stopped in the drawing phase.

27.03.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- Vehicles are not balanced based on the conditions of common tests where everyone is firing gold ammunition;
- Vehicles are balanced around regular shells, gold shells "are taken into account, but they are not a balancing parameter";
- Currently, there are no plans to change the T-54 Light gun options;
- In World of Tanks, vehicle MM weight has no influence on the probability of ending in various battle tiers of the MM spread;
- The IS-4 collision model changes in recent test include two 180mm thick spots on the lower front plate:

- According to developers, players on your team begging the opposite team to help them with an individual mission should be reported for unsportsmanlike behavior;
- There is currently no info available on when historical battles might return (RG: Should it return?);
- The fact that on low tiers the newbies are now separated from the experienced players does NOT mean there will be such a segregation (skilled/unskilled players) on higher tiers (RG: Just glad that I can now play low tiers without feeling guilty from abusing the bambies).

"Berlin" mode possibly coming

Hello warriors,

remember the three "Berlin" vehicles (the IS-2, ISU-122 and the Cromwell)? According to supertest leakers, a map called "Berlin" is supposed to be tested very soon. It's completely possible that there will be a special "Berlin" mode for the end of the war anniversary. Who knows? Maybe we will get to parade in these vehicles under the Brandenburg Gate...

Russian Server Celebrates Operations in Czechoslovakia

Source

Hello warriors,

while the European server strictly adheres to not mentioning any of its significant playerbase-related events (such as the battles of the Polish troops or Czechoslovak troops in Soviet Union), Wargaming RU is introducing an event celebrating the liberation of Bratislava and Brno from nazi occupants. 70 years ago, from 25.3. to 5.5.1945, the Bratislava-Brno operation took place on the territory of former Czechoslovakia. The goal of the operation was to liberate the Slovak territory from Germans as well as to take the Moravian city of Brno, an industrial center of the region.



New Armata Model Leaked

Hello warriors,

Russian citizens caught another glimpse of the Armata hull. As you probably know, the Armata hull will be used for a wide variety of vehicles, including heavy IFV. This is one of the variants, it looks like a heavy IFV or a fire support vehicle? What do you think?



Thursday 26 March 2015

Armored Warfare Developer Q&A

Hello warriors,

Armored Warfare released its first weekly developer Q&A (player questions from AW forums were answered by developers, mostly the chief developer Richard Taylor). This is however not only a repost - if you want to, you can ask some stuff in the comments and Silentstalker ("Frank Davis" in comments) will be answering if he can.

Question: Can you quickly describe the ramming system? What happens when I ram into an enemy vehicle?
Answer: Each vehicle has a base "ramming damage rating". This rating is primarily determined by the vehicle's mass, tier, and class. Vehicles also have a "ramming defense rating", which is also primarily determined by mass, tier, and class. This helps reduce the damage that vehicle takes from ramming.
When the vehicle impacts another vehicle, we check the relative velocity of the collision. If it exceeds a certain threshold, a damage score is generated based on the ramming damage rating multiplied by a factor of the relative speed of the impact. This damage is then reduced based on a combination of the armor thickness at the point of impact and the ramming defense rating. This happens to both the vehicles in the collision; essentially, they both deal damage to each other based on their (ramming damage * velocity modifier) vs. their opponent's (ramming defense + armor at point of impact).
The reason we use things like "ramming damage ratings" and "ramming defense ratings" rather than just mass and armor is because we have both heavy and light vehicles at almost every tier of play. These ratings help us make sure that ramming damage remains reasonable, so we don't see cases where tapping an equal tier vehicle causes it to explode, or where a heavy vehicle for its tier is immune to ramming.

Question: Is it possible that if a new tank is unveiled in future (for example the Armata, expected to appear during the Victory Day parade in Moscow in May), it will be added into the game?
Answer: Yes, it’s completely possible – we will be adding more and more vehicles to the game, including the newest tanks.

26.03.2015 Q&A

Not much today:

- There are currently no plans to further rework Malinovka;
- It's completely possible that the recently released render of Super Pershing is wrong, the model will undergo more changes;
- According to developers, patch 9.7 will come in "early April" - recently, WG EU released some form of a "leak" saying that it might be around 7.4.2015, giving us almost two more weeks to test it.

Czechoslovak Colors and Camouflage for World of Tanks

Author: Silentstalker


Hello everyone,

with the upcoming Czechoslovak branch in World of Tanks this year, the question that is often asked is "what will the color of the tanks be" and "are there any interesting inscriptions for the branch"? Both are very good questions - about the color first then. The option I consider most likely is some form of olive drab. Olive drab was sometimes used before the war in the Czechoslovak army. Here, we can see it on pre-war Å koda MU-4 tankette:



After the war, the color was widely adopted for the Czechoslovak army tanks of Soviet origin, although the tones do somewhat vary:

9.7 Test 3 Patch Notes

Changes in Version 0.9.7 Public Test 3 vs. Version 0.9.7 Public Test 2.1

- Fixed an issue with switching to an allied vehicle in the Postmortem mode.
- Fixed many issues in the new features of the Team Battle mode.
- Fixed some issues with the new Chat functionality.
- Fixed some issues with the playback of battle replays.
- Fixed some issues with the usage of Combat Reserves.
- Fixed some issues with interface in the Strongholds mode.
- Improved the performance on the Overlord map.
- Fixed some issues with certain objects on the Overlord map.
- Fixed the issues with landscape on the Overlord map.
- Fixed some issues with the visual model of the following vehicles: AMX 30 1er prototype, FV201 (A45), JagdPz. E 100, Somua S35.
- Fixed the issues with the damage model of the IS-4.

Aleksandr Ivanov answers WoT Questions

Hello warriors,

Aleksandr Ivanov, WoT producer, answered a bunch of questions for the players. Here's what he said.

- Developers are considering reworking the skills and perks of driver and other crew-members to fit the new motion physics system, but so far no decision was taken yet because the physics is still in testing phase. This will be revisited after the new motion physics system is ready;
- If new motion physics is introduced, all mechanisms depending on it will be reviewed;
- Developers are not aware of an alleged issue where players spam various messages (bound to the F# keys) in player chat, but the issue will be investigated and if found to be true, developers will think of what to do;
- Developers are planning to periodically release "fun" modes (RG: I Miss Karl);
- Developers are working on a new feature that will "introduce something to the game that was never in the game before" (RG: To boldly go...);
- Another feature planned is the improved customization of tanks (new skins, new inscriptions, new emblems) (RG: Would also enjoy being able to save the ones that were already purchased for the tank);
- It's possible the camo (factor or system) of TD's will be changed but not anytime soon;
- The plans for near future are to improve the armor role in the game;
- After the Super Pershing comes in HD, its parameters compared to the current state should not change.

Wednesday 25 March 2015

25.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

Hope everyone is having a nice Wednesday, will be passing the next few hours streaming some World of Tanks. Will be playing in particular with the premium store bundle tanks so you can see if the tanks are worth or not.

http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2

New 9.8 HD Models

A45 - upcoming British premium heavy (regular premium, sold for money)



25.03.2015 Q&A

More going on today:

- The fact the T54E1 is a medium tank is historically correct;
- A Russian player was complaining that the LTTB is completely superior to T-43. The developers answered that the big difference is the MM spread and the role both vehicles perform;
- Wargaming is not ignoring players with rude nicknames or those nicknames that are connected to nazi ideology, they get deleted - but more appear over time, the process of catching and punishing them is eternal (RG: WG does punish people for that maybe a bit too much, a close person to me had to change nickname because she chose "Penguinss" as nickname, the double S wasn't accepted even thought she didn't had any bad intentions with it);
- If you buy the "tanks getting removed" bundle and you already one of the tanks in your garage, you will receive its value in gold as compensation, this compensation will include the price of the garage slot as well;
- The T14, FCM Pak, M10 Panther and the TOG will be redesignated as "reward tanks" - none of their characteristics however (the premium income and such) will change;
- IS-6, Dicker Max, Jagdtiger 88 and other limited MM premiums to be removed as well? "We will inform you about the removal of those vehicles when or if that happens. Everything in good time."
- WG denies that the reason the four vehicles are getting removed is because they are "problematic"
- It will not be possible to have the M10 Panther (or another removed vehicle) price compensated by gold;
- For now, IS-6 will not be removed from sales;
- It's possible the four removed vehicles will be obtainable during some special events;
- There will likely be third 9.7 test
- It's possible that in 9.7 test 3, premium T-54 prototype will be buffed (RG: If it gets buffed then I will want to buy it for sure, didn't disliked it on its current state but its not special enough for me to drop my money on it).

BA-10A armored car

Source.

Hello warriors,

Yuri Pasholok published a whole bunch of photographs of a unique piece of equipment on his blog - the BA-10A armored car. The BA-10 (the designation means "broneavtomobil" - armored car) was a heavy Soviet armored car from WW2. It weighed 5,1 tons, had cca 10mm of armor and was armed with a 45mm gun. Its 50 horsepower engine allowed it to go as fast as 52 km/h on the road.

Over 3000 were made, but few survived the war. The one on the picture was restored in Russia in 2014. It was not even complete - the restorers assembled it from large fragments (which were all that remained from the car). Currently it's the only BA-10 in Russia.There are two more - one is in Ukraine, one is in Parola, Finland (Finland captured a large number of these armored cars).


Malinovka heat map in motion

Ever wondered how the heat map (the map displaying player activity) looks in motion? Here's an analysis for patch 0.9.6, courtesy of "suslik_kun":



Camping behind the bushes on both extremes of the open field is the normal, not a big surprise but it saddens me how little players go to the hill on the blue side when is such a important position to control (I even go to hill with a Tortoise so I'm able to help heavies with my DPM), besides that, is actually nice to see which bushes the Lights are using to passive scout, except for that drunk green one that went into the lake.

Storm Briefly

- IS-5 will not be available to buy freely for money (it will be an event tank) (RG: Im happy its not going to be just a CW reward, it seems like a very fun tank to have);
- Historical battles will not come anytime soon - "we are busy with other tasks".

Tuesday 24 March 2015

The_Chieftain weekly stream (Ended)

Work for today is pretty much done so decided to join The_Chieftain on his weekly stream, we will be platooning in World of Tanks until he decides to hop on WoWS, come say hi and ask any questions. :)

http://www.twitch.tv/the_chieftain

My 0.9.7 New Premium Vehicle Impressions

As most of you may know there are two new premium vehicles that got introduced during the second testing phase of 0.9.7, I finally got time to check them out in more detail so here are my impressions:


M56 Scorpion 
-Country: U.S.A
-Tank Destroyer
-Tier VII
-Purchase price: (?)

Modules:


Vehicle:

24.03.2015 Q&A

Not much for today:

- There might be an issue with the way the gun barrel marks (for damage done) are awarded, numerous players have complained that they do not work well recently. Storm will investigate but later - currently, the developers are busy with "stabilizing the 9.7 client";
- Wooden logs on Soviet tanks will not be reworked to work like spaced armor;
- In the future, the track lings hanging on the HD tank hulls and turrets will all work like additional armor (RG: I'm actually excited for this);
- It's completely possible that the current batch of premium vehicles removed from sales will not be the last one;
- The shop vehicles removed will be replaced by "new, unique vehicles".

Armata Moving

Hello warriors,

it's a widely known fact that during this year's end of WW2 anniversary parade in Moscow, new Russian main battle tank will be shown to the public - the T-14 Armata. In last days, various leaked pictures of this vehicle were filling the internet, as the first vehicles of this kind are being transported around in preparation of the ceremony. Here's a first glimpse of the Armata MBT though, driving around. Notice the seven T-80 style roadwheels, the massive hull and the large turret. Yup, this is Armata alright.

(Dis)honorable Discharge

Morning,

SEA, NA and EU server just confirmed that the TOG II (a salute for Jingles and his salt miners), T14, FCM36 PaK40 and Panther/M10 will commit seppuku (withdrawn) from the premium store.

From 24 March until 20 April, a bundle with all the tanks will be sold.

The package contains:



Its actually at a good price and all of the tanks are some decent fun.

Source

Monday 23 March 2015

23.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

Happy Monday everyone, will be streaming for the next hours.
Have tank request planned for today, have 175 Tanks from all tiers, types and nationalities.

http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2

Armored Warfare: Painful Birth of the BMP-2 -Part 2

The second part of SilentStalker's BMP-2 article is now available, even if you are not into Armored Warfare I do still recommend it as a good tank read: http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/painful-birth-bmp-2-part-2


23.03.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- Somua SM (which was planned as a French premium vehicle) will not be introduced due to the fact that Wargaming didn't manage to obtain enough information on it from French sources;
- Overall, 9.7 Test 2 saw the FPS drop from test 1 fixed;
- Storm investigated the sizes of the Conqueror and E-100 models - they do not fit and by a LOT (what that means is one of the model or both definitely have the wrong size);
- According to Storm, the thinnest part of the HD IS-4 turret front has effective thickness of 285mm;
- Apparently frontal part sides of IS-4 in HD might not have the correct thickness, but Storm states it's a small thing and it won't be fixed;
- IS-4 in HD will get a collision model rework: the track licks attached to the sides of the frontal armor will become a part of the collision (24mm extra armor);
- Storm confirms: yes, the 9.7 test 2 removal of some vehicles from the ingame shop is intentional. Following vehicles will be removed from all sales: M10/Panther, FCM 36 Pak 40 and TOG II* (perhaps S35 739 (F) too) (RG: The "Frenchies" are worth getting).

RU Social Network Group Rejects Wargaming Ultimatum

Hello warriors,

this post is a followup on the recently published issue, where Wargaming threatens social network groups with bans, if they publish content from other games (specifically Armored Warfare).

The large group (145k subscribers) in question in the wake of this incident announced they would not submit to Wargaming pressure and that they will rename the group not to include the words "World of Tanks". Other such groups (with 770k subscribers total) have joined this effort, announcing that next step is on Wargaming.

As someone who can see the scars of no freedom of speech, that has many familiars that were alive and struggled during Portuguese dictatorship when they could not even talk their minds at their own table, including my great-grandmother who I had the pleasure to have near until her 90's and who had to raise 6 kids by herself because PIDE (International Police and State Defense) hunted down her husband for information, yeah, I do support this group decision at 100%.
I understand Wargaming is a company and has to protect their interests, I respect that, but this is not the way to do things.


Source.

Tanks in the Antarctic

This article is inspired by Yuri Pasholok's article on the same matter. When we say WW2 and Antarctic, many people will immediately start thinking about crazy theories about nazis secret bases under the ice, experimental weapons and whatnot. This is naturally a nonsense (hopefully), but the topic is not that far from the truth. Between 1939 and 1941, the Americans actually sent an armed expedition to the Antarctic, called United States Antarctic Service (also known as Third Byrd's Expedition). The unit was led by a former polar explorer, Admiral Richard Byrd, consisted of 59 men and some equipment, transported to the Antarctic by ships. It was an exploratory expedition, charting previously unknown coastlines for over two years. Now, that is all well and good but what makes it really interesting is this:



Sunday 22 March 2015

22.03.2015 Q&A

Not much today,

- in test 9.7, AMX ELC was renamed to ELC bis in order for the vehicle to be called historically correctly;
- The sixth sense rework will come "a bit later";
- 9.7 will not bring any "free garage slots" anywhere (RG: Free stuff is good but I agree with WG on this, no reason to give garage slots with no apparent reason);
- It's possible that there will not be the option to buy the German Somua S35 premium tank anymore once the 9.7 comes (RG: It's a very good tank, make sure you don't regret if it gets away);
- The AMX 30 B should not be compared to Batchat according to the developers, the vehicles are fundamentally different gameplay-wise;
- This weekend, Russian players could buy the E-25 for cca 20 EUR, it is not confirmed that this event will come to EU as well (RG: First bring the daily bonus, yes looking at you EU *Creepy smile*).

Wargaming Threatens to Ban Social Groups for Mentioning Armored Warfare

Hello warriors,

a nice little scandal started on the Vkontakte social network. For those who do not know: Vkontakte (transl. "in contact", is also known as "Russian Facebook") is a social network that is widely popular in CIS countries (more than Facebook anyway) and is the major social network to advertise on when doing business in Russia.

Recently, an interesting article with screenshots was published in the SMMshtiki group (https://vk.com/wall-43503600_162265) describing the incident as such:

There is another VK group called "Podslushano World of Tanks" (http://vk.com/overhear_wot) - a World of Tanks fan group by the look of things (jokes and such) and a BIG one at that (146 thousand followers). Recently, an administrator of this WoT group turned to the SMM group (which apparently deals with these matters) with a question. He was contacted by a representative of Wargaming social network department and was asked not to distribute any materials about Armored Warfare (or - specifically - to delete posts about Armored Warfare). When he asked why and whether it is illegal, the representative told him that:

"We as a social network department are following all the major World of Tanks communities and we are not interested in losing players to other projects by the means of communities, using our brand and content, which are subjected to intellectual property law".

In other words - if you write about World of Tanks, you better not mention Armored Warfare. The representative continues that if they do not comply, the group might be cancelled like this group was: (https://vk.com/wotclear) - he specifically mentions this example.

The threatened administrator was NOT happy and turned for help to Vkontakte support service. There they told him that Wargaming has no such right to do that and that you can post whatever you want in the group, on which the Wargaming representative reacted by forcing the administrator to remove EVERYTHING connected to World of Tanks (including the group name) from the group or face a ban.

So there you have it - you better not mention Armored Warfare anywhere or Wargaming will ban your ass.

My opinion about all of this is that they may be both Tank games and direct competitors but also they represent Tanks of different eras. I believe they can coexist. Armored Warfare is not going to steal the love I have for World of Tanks and vice-versa. But Hey! The more they fight the better for us customers right?  What do you think about all of this?

Richard Cutland talks about T-72 (Corrections Included)

Hello warriors,

Richard Cutland flew to Australia to talk about the T-72 there (because, you know, there are totally none in Europe). You can view his video here:




Now, as usual with Cutland's videos, there are mistakes. Here's what was found in this one:

First of all, this vehicle is not just "T-72", it's a T-72M1 vehicle from former Czechoslovakia (produced under license), so not exactly a typical thing.

- Number produces: Russian sources (Pavlov, Baryatinsky) state over 30k;
- The reason was not to replace the aging T-64A, but to provide an alternative to it, T-64A was actually more advanced and was for interior use only, while T-72 was to be exported as well;
- The costs are actually very relative because the "40 percent less" cost concerns the T-72 "Ural" (first model) that did not have composite armor;
- The "V-shaped plate" (plate? you mean the mudguard?) is not distinctive, T-64A has it too. It could however serve as a difference from T-55, if you can't tell at first glance;
- Height is not correct, should be cca 2,19 meters (Source: T-72 Soviet manual), Challenger took his number from wikipedia;
- Evenly spaced roadwheels? Not really, but it's not as pronounced as on the T-54/55;
- 5:50 video - that's a T-64, not T-72;
- The gun actually fires SHITLOADS of rounds;
- OF-26 "ATFT" what the "frack" is that? It's not even an original designation, it's the designation of the shell itself (even that is wrong, should be was 3OF26), the round was called 3VOF36 and it was a HE round;
- Ammo count is not correct: he mentions 22 rounds in autoloader (correct) but also 17 rounds outside of autoloader, which varied from model to model, 39 in total was correct only for T-72 Ural, what he is looking at is T-72M1, which had 44 or 45 rounds;
- Funny part how he talks about an unupgraded T-72 in front of an upgraded Czechoslovak T-72M1...but, whatever.

Restoring the T-20 Komsomolec

Source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/4391429.html

Hello warriors,

Yuri Pasholok made an interesting post about one rare T-20 "Komsomolec" artillery tractor returning from the dead. Two years ago, there were only fragments of this vehicle available but thanks to dilligent restoration process, it is slowly returning to its original shape. The Komsomolec was one of the most common Soviet tracked artillery tractors before the war but not so many remain today. According to Yuri Pasholok, in two more years, it's completely possible this vehicle will be in running condition.

David Fletcher's Tank Chats #3

Thank you "nekojimaWOT".

Check out this video about the Medium Tank MkII presented by The Tank Museum's historian David Fletcher MBE.
I completely adore this gentleman's work, the way he talks about the subject makes him the best bedside tank story teller grandpa!

Saturday 21 March 2015

Germany invades Netherlands with "Tank"

Very recently a German guy decided to invade Netherlands by himself in his "tank".
The subtitles are not good at all but this is making me laugh so much, had to share with you.

21.03.2015 Q&A

Let me tell you a story about the FV4202 HD model. Storm confirmed that the reason the vehicle was delayed was because "permission approval in Bovington in order to model it takes too long" - the delay was/is long ("many months"). According to Yuri Pasholok, Wargaming's historian, there were some shady Richard Cutland's activities in Bovington recently, specifically Cutland slandering Yuri Pasholok in front of Richard Smith, the museum director, which was unprofessional. I wonder if there is a connection...

- Camo factor of a vehicle DOES change if you switch a turret (the camo factor is heavily influenced by height of the vehicle);
- WG is aware that the 0.9.7 version (new Bigworld) causes serious issues with crashes and black screen freezes, it will be fixed;
- Q: "Superpershing was nerfed in HD!" A (Storm): "Oh really...", later he adds that there is no need for players to send WG historical materials - the vehicle is not ready yet and it will be reworked (RG: Better have something done nicely and on is own time than try to rush things and make it even worse, lets be patient);
- Super Pershing rework (compared to earlier leaked HD model) will include correcting the upper frontal plate and lower frontal plate angles and making the additional plate over the mantlet bigger;
- It is not sure whether the M10/Panther hybrid removal from the ingame store in the 0.9.7 Test 2 is intentional and tied to the announced removal of limited MM vehicles from sales, Storm will find out the truth on Monday;
- Storm states he stays by his opinion that the quality assurance in Wargaming is one of the best in gaming industry.

Czech Job Spam in World of Tanks

Hello warriors,

some of you might have noticed - in the game, we get an occasional following system message spam:

"Attention Wargamers! Wargaming is looking to immediately hire a Content Specialist for its Paris office with a focus on translation from English to Czech. Follow the link for further information: http://bit.ly/1H3qWCE"

So, if you are Czech and want to work for Wargaming, feel free to apply. On the other hand - am I the only one bothered by an unrelated spam in the game? Same goes for unwanted WGL messages and stream "ads" (as a streamer I personally hate those), I wonder if we will see real advertising in the client ("buy this premium tank now!") before long.


Wargaming needs you!

Removal of Limited MM Prems, Supertest Impressions

Hello warriors,

two pieces of interesting news. Some of you noticed already: there is no M10/Panther in the ingame shop in the 0.9.7 test - you can't test that vehicle anymore. The thing is, many speculate (and some leakers confirm) that this is the initial stage of the removal of the premium MM vehicles from sale, as was announced some time ago by Storm.

Second piece of news concerns the supertest Japanese Tiger and the Type 59/Patton hybrid gameplay from supertest. Both vehicles have - as announced earlier - full matchmaking, this is intentional. According ton supertesters, the hybrid is very unattractive and boring, but the Tiger actually does really well against tier 6 and 7 vehicles, however - as expected - when meeting tier 8 tanks, its penetration is no longer enough, it's fun though.

Japanese Tiger Importation Plans

Author: Soukoudragon


The following paragraph is a translation about the Japanese Tiger from a Japanese magazine. The magazine is: ミリタリー・クラシックス Military Classics, issue 21, published on June 1st, 2008. The above art picture is also from this magazine.


There is an interesting story that present day tank fans know well which is that during World War 2, the great Empire of Japan tried importing a Tiger tank from Germany. To a Japan Army that has schemed war against the Soviet Union in Manchuria, the Tiger being more powerful than any other Japanese tank, while expensive, was a very attractive vehicle. In July, Showa year 18 (1943), through the Pro-German Lieutenant General Hiroshi Oshima at the military attaché in the Japanese Embassy, Japan negotiated with Germany and formally decided on importing the Tiger. Importation cost was at twice the cost of delivery to the German army, at 640,000 marks. In order to domestically produce the Tiger in Japan, blue prints, ammunition, repair parts, and so on were arranged into the import plan. As for the tank itself, it was planned to disassemble it and transport it to Japan by German submarine. However plans never progressed further. Due to the worsening of the war situation, exporting the tiger to Japan become impossible.


New Medals in Supertest

Hello warriors, here are several new medals from the supertest client. Four are for team battles, one is for special April 1st "fun" mode

"Tactical Advantage"


- Destroy all enemy vehicles, you must not lose more than 1 vehicle of the lowest tier;
- Win in battle;
- Awarded to all the players of the winning team;
- The vehicle lost must not be higher than tier 7;
- Training victories do not count;
- Awarded only in team battle mode in ladder battles.


Friday 20 March 2015

New Ranzar video

Here it is, enjoy!

20.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

Will be streaming on the next hours, hopefully Twitch will be less twitchy this time, will continue viewer platoon as last Wednesday it was cut short. As usual, EU/NA server and 175 tanks in my garage.

20.03.2015 Q&A

No Q&A for today lads and lasses so I'm going to leave you this very "inspirational" picture:



AMX 13 57 in 0.9.7 CT2

The 0.9.7 CT2 is here, we are now able to play around with two new premium vehicles, the T-54 Prototype and the M56 Scorpion, however , "Speedcore" noticed on the patch-notes that one tank wasn't mentioned: "AMX 13 57 GF" or simply "AMX 13 57F". Aparently its the AMX 13 57 that was previously shown on FTR.
Its not known yet if will be a WGL Grand Final Reward or for Personal Mission reward, I personally would like to see it available for everyone on the premium store.

Speedcore was able to get some images of it:


Kanonenjagdpanzer - Tier 8 Premium TD

Description:

First Kanonenjagdpanzer prototypes were built by Hanomag and Henschel for the West German army in 1960 and continued to be built until 1967. In total, 770 were built for the Bundeswehr and 80 for the army of Belgium. However, between 1983 and 1985, this TD stopped being sufficient for the needs of modern warfare. One part of them was converted to recon vehicles, the other to rocket tank destroyers. In the territorial armies however the Kanonenjagdpanzer (also known as Jagdpanzer Kanone 90mm) stayed until 1990.

Characteristics for 100 percent crew, unlimited MM:

Top Gear Clarkson petition arrives by...Tank!

A man dressed as Stig from the the show Top gear (which I love by the way) arrived in a Abbot SPG to deliver a petition signed for over a million people to bring Jeremy Clarkson back.


If you happen to have passed the last week in the wilderness (kind way to say "be living under a rock") one of the show hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, got suspended after allegedly get into a "fracas" and punching one of the show producers.




This blogging work is getting weird, laughing so hard.

Armored Warfare: Matchmaker Reworked

Armored Warfare reworked their matchmaker article.

Instead of hard-coded vehicle tiers it uses a system of battle ratings who doesn't only works faster but also easy to adjust general tank balance.


The matchmaker takes into account this three categories which as a whole form a combat rating:
-The vehicle itself;
-Modules equipped;
-How many battles the player used the vehicle in.

The combat rating gives each vehicle a different rating depending on its tier (starts at 1000 and increases 10 percent of the previous value). One of the things that pleases me is that freshly unlocked vehicles are given a combat rating bonus in order meet easier opponents.

Once the battle is formed (matchmaker gathers 30 players) it will go into team-forming phase which takes vehicle class and tier as criteria.

If you are eager for Armored Warfare, there is more detailed information on the matchmaker mechanism including platoons, I do recommend you to read the entire article: http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/matchmaking-armored-warfare-0

So far things are looking bright for AW.

New Hit Decals on 9.7 Test

Hello warriors - check out the new hit decals that arrived on 9.7 Test 2. From left to right - AP (subcaliber) hit, HEAT hit, HE hit. The "scratch" on the front of the turret is from a non-penetrating hit.




Char D1 82mm SPG

Source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/4375719.html

In October 1929, the Char D1 medium tank was accepted to service in the French army. It was an advanced (further developed) version of the Renault NC light tank (which in turn was a development of the venerable Renault FT). In its time, there were many projects of self-propelled guns on Renault FT chassis and the D1 (factory designation Renault TY) was to share this fate of becoming a plaform for various other projects.



In 1930 a project was proposed to arm the Renault TY chassis with some sort of 82mm gun. What gun exactly that was is not known, but such caliber was not used by the French army normally.

The chassis itself was not changed much and the gun was mounted facing to the rear of the vehicle. This allowed the chassis to carry a much bigger gun than it usually could and it wasn't really that big a problem tactically - the vehicle was supposed to be firing from dug-in positions anyway with the driver not being present inside the hull at the same time.

Compared to the D1 itself, the vehicle was 2 tons lighter (the weight was reduced from 14 tons to 12 tons), which meant that the mobility didn't suffer. The crew consisted of 5 men with the driver not sitting inside when the vehicle was supposed to fire. It was proposed that this vehicle would be a part of the Maginot line defenses along with the Char BB project. Units of these vehicles would operatively move around the line to help repel the attackers wherever needed, supporting the line defenses with their fire.

This project was not as outlandish as the Char BB but its fate was sealed nevertheless during the same disarmament conference and it was cancelled in 1932. The design however is completely realistic and the "let's build a SPG on Char D chassis" idea returned two years later with Char D2, but that was a completely different vehicle.

Thursday 19 March 2015

Armored Warfare: Painful Birth of the BMP-2 -Part 1

On the Armored Warfare lands, SilentStalker just wrote the first of a 2 part article about the birth of the BMP-2.



The BMP-2, a infantry fighting vehicle is the most recent introduction in the game.

Will be short on words as is really worth to read the whole article: http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/painful-birth-bmp-2-part-1

19.03.2015 Q&A

Not much today. The test starts at 18:00 or so.

- In 9.7, AMX CDC will become available in the ingame store for gold;
- According to developers, the AMX 30B gameplay resembles the M48 Patton gameplay a lot: it has a very good view range, depression, aimtime and reload time, it is not susceptible to engine burning and ammorack explosions. It'll be a good vehicle (RG: I do agree with that);
- AMX Prototype needs a LOT of XP to unlock, because it's a transfer from LT class to MT class, the same situation as with Lorraine;
- On Live Oaks map, most of the opportunities to take long shots (sniping spots) were left untouched, the only difference are the changes for the upper base.

AMX 30 B wallpaper

Author: "Marm" (from wot-news.com)

*Applies sassy voice* It looks good....


9.7 Test 2 Patchnotes

System
- Fixed many hang-ups and crashes of the game client.
- Optimized performance of the game client on some PC configurations.
- Optimized performance of some special effects.
- Optimized stability of game servers.
- Fixed issue with fallen tree trunks not being transparent in some cases in the Sniper mode.


Vehicles
- Fixed positioning of Emblems on the T-15 German light tank.
- Cancelled changes to shell penetration and vehicle characteristics added in the first Common Test of version 9.7.
- Fixed some issues with the visual model of the AMX 30 B.
- Fixed some issues with the damage models of the following vehicles: IS-5 (Object 730), Renault G1.
- Removed the new visual model of the SuperPershing in order to make improvements to it.
- Increased profitability of the following special vehicles: Object 907, М60, VK 72.01 (kiss), T95E6.
- Added the following vehicles for testing during the Common Test:
* M56 Scorpion, Tier VII U.S. tank destroyer
* T-54 mod. 1, Tier VIII U.S.S.R. medium tank


Maps
- Removed the Northwest map from the Random Battle mode.
- Fixed some clipping on the new Overlord map.
- Fixed the issues with the visual and damage models of some environmental objects.
- Fixed flickering of some objects when rotating the camera in the Premium Garage.
Interface and Other Changes
- Fixed many issues with the new features of the Team Battle mode.
- Fixed some issues with the new Chat features.
- Improved hit and penetration marks on vehicles.
- Fixed some issues with interface scaling.
- Fixed the issue with the 15th personal mission being unavailable.

Supertest Mauschen - No Gold Ammo

Hello warriors,

a piece of information was leaked from the supertest. Remember how everyone was angry about the 15cm E-100 gun on tier 9 on the Mauschen (VK4502B replacement)? Well, as it turns out, the developers decided not to give that gun any gold ammo on tier 9. Just AP and HE shells.

No gold for you, goldspammers!

Meanwhile in China...

Thank you "Lostwingman"

I don't even know what to write...*facepalms and drops a tear while laughing*

The WoT Chinese community made a very RNG stronk camouflage skin with, Serb:





Download link.

0.9.7 Effect on FPS

Hello warriors,

Russian player Dibie benchmarked the 0.9.7 performance on his PC (high-end i5, GTX 780) on a replay. The blue line represents the 0.9.6 client, the yellow line represents 0.9.7 client with minimap turned on and the red line represents the 0.9.7 client with minimap turned off. Left bar represents FPS, below is the time line of the replay.



As you can see, not only there is a drop in FPS compared to 0.9.6, but the minimap influences the FPS as well (positively). This FPS drop between patches is unexpected and Storm promised he'd investigate.

Wednesday 18 March 2015

18.03.2015 Q&A

9.7 Test 1 is now closed, Test 2 will start tomorrow around 18:00 CET

- Q: "The quality of steel on various tanks was different, why is this not reflected in the game?" A: "And imagine that the quality varied on one type even from tank to tank, imagine the possibilities this opens to us :)";
- HD Super Pershing will not appear in 0.9.7, it was postponed to 0.9.8 for rework;
- The elements of Super Pershing model (and armor) that will be investigated and corrected are: hull and additional plate armor angles, the mantlet additional plate and the thickness of the mantlet itself;
- It's possible that the 0.9.7 buffs that compensate for the loss of penetration will return later and will be even more significant to compensate for gold shell nerf as well;
- In 9.7 test, some PC configuration owners (in this case: i5 3470, GTX 780) report significant FPS loss (in some cases, even 15 FPS), Storm is aware of the issue and WG is investigating it;
- One more map is in the list of maps to be potentially removed: Pearl River;
- Dragon Ridge will not return (RG: Was still better than Hidden Village);
- Mauschen replacing the VK4502B will come in one of the future patches.

18.03.2015 Stream (Ended)

I'm streaming now some World of Tanks, will be my first stream since Saturday as Twitch been twitchy as usual, will be doing some grind and platoon with the viewers.

http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2

Type 59/M48A3 Hybrid

Hello warriors,

what follows are the pictures and description of the earlier leaked Type 59/M48A3 hybrid. According to the description, it's a tier 8 without limited MM, a result of the experiment conducted after 1960. During the program to create a completely Chinese vehicle, they mounted one M48A3 turret on a Type 59 hull.

Characteristics (100 percent crew):

Tier: 8 MT
Hitpoints: 1350
Engine: 520 hp
Weight: 36,36 tons
Power-to-weight: 14,3 hp/t
Maximum speed: 50/16 km/h
Hull traverse: 46 deg/s
Turret traverse: 48 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 0,863/0,959/1,918
Viewrange: 380
Radio range: 547,5

Hull armor: 100/80/?
Turret armor: 177,8/76,2/?

Elite gun: 90mm ?
Damage: 240
Penetration: 173
ROF: 7,11
DPM: 1706,5
Reload: 8,438
Accuracy: 0,364
Aimtime: 2,4s
Depression: -7,4

Armor:

Japanese Tiger from Supertest

Hello warriors,

it is known that this year will bring the Japanese branch of heavy tanks. Wargaming decided to go the "easy" way and introduced a new Japanese premium heavy early on - but it's not a Japanese vehicle, it's actually a Japanese Tiger. Is it historical? Yep. One Tiger was sold to Japan - it was to be transported disassembled but it never made its way to the Japanese mainland. In the game, it's simply a tier 6 Tiger. This vehicle does NOT have limited MM.




Characteristics (100 percent crew):
Tier: 6 HT
Hitpoints: 950
Engine: 650 hp
Weight: 57 tons
Power-to-weight: 11,4 hp/t
Maximum speed: 40/12 km/h
Hull traverse: 26 deg/s
Turret traverse: 20,9 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 1,151/1,342/2,781
Viewrange: 370
Radio range: 646,6

Hull armor: 100/80/?
Turret armor: 100/80/?

Elite gun: 88mm L/56
Damage: 220
Penetration: 132
ROF: 9,626
DPM: 2117,8
Reload: 6,233
Accuracy: 0,364
Aimtime: 2,21s
Depression: -8

Armor:

Mauschen, Pershing and M10 "Wolverine" in HD

Here are 3 new HD tank models, please keep in mind these are super high quality renders, it won't looks this good in the game.


Mauschen (VK4502B replacement)



G-13 moving to MMPARK video

From Yuri Pasholok's blog but it's not Jagdpanzer 38t, it's a G-13, the post-war Czechoslovak version.

Stronk WoWs Multicore

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3788925.html

Hello warriors,

remember how Wargaming said that World of Warships would use multicore support? Well, let's have a look at the CPU core load of the current beta client. After all, multicore CPU's should rock with this new BigWorld iteration, no?



Well.... no. The game basically still uses only two cores, good old BigWorld. Still... it's a good game. Let's see how it turns out.

History of the AMX 40

Source

By the time the first Somua S35 tanks were rolling from the assembly lines, the French high military staff already started thinking about their replacements. By the end of 1936, French army issued new demands for the future cavalry tank - these demands included:

- weight of no more than 20 tons
- 3 man crew
- armor of no less than 50mm
- operational range of no less than 200km
- one 47mm gun and two 7,5mm machineguns as armament
- radio and intercom systems

Even if they wanted to, there was no way the designers could rework the Somua S35 to fit those requirements. Even the Somua S40 had 5 km/h lower speed with only 40mm of armor. And so these requirements were ignored for three long years.

In the meanwhile, in 1937, John Walter Christie - the famous suspension inventor - started offering stuff to the British. He brought with him two of his projects - one was the M1931 Medium Tank and the other the M1937 Airborne Tank. The trials of those vehicles left a strong impression in the British - so strong in fact that shortly after, the mass production of Cruiser Mk.III with Christie suspension started in the Nuffield plant. With such a notch on his belt, Christie was able to sell his patents to France in March of 1938, but they had to wait for a year before any results came from that - only in 1939, when the French engineers saw the Crusier Mk.III during the mutual military assistance program it became clear to them that Christie's suspension could indeed be successfully applied to a cruiser-type tank.


Tuesday 17 March 2015

The_Chieftain: Tanker-historian-gamer

Check out Militarytimes's interview with The_Chieftain where he talks about his military career and about his job at Wargaming and how he got it: Source.


"How did he land the job of his dreams? By insulting the company's CEO, of course."


Best part of it is a 3 Part video where Nicholas "The_Chieftain" Moran goes in search of the best real-life tank crew at the Army's Sullivan Cup competition at Fort Benning, Georgia.






17.03.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- It was not decided yet whether limited MM premium vehicles will be removed from the stores or not (RG: Apart from fail platoon I don't see a reason why they should, would instead prefer seeing the matchmaker range of each tank being shown in the game, makes no sense that have to install a mod for that);
- Individual mission choices do not influence what map are you going to get (some player was complaining that he now gets only city maps with light tanks);
- View range TD and arty nerfs are not connected to the change of render range from square to a circle;
- There are no historical reasons why TD's should have more view range than tanks;
- It's a well known fact that visual model has four quality versions (levels of detail) depending on the view range, the collision model however does not change with distance;
- Q: "The only purpose of the penetration nerf is to make people shoot with gold ammo!" A: "We removed it, so you can breathe easy now. Stop writing crap.";
- Potential damage (damage stopped by armor) doesn't count HE shells in its calculations;
- Apparently, the Cromwell Berlin has a wrong visual gun model and the IS-2 Berlin has wrong description. It will be fixed;
- New UI is being worked on;
- Not only penetration nerf was scrapped in 9.7 - all the other "compensation" buffs (like the accuracy on the move for several medium tanks) were cancelled as well;
- HD Type 59 will not come in 9.8;
- Storm confirms: South Coast, Sacred Valley and Hidden Village are candidates for removal from the game;
- The IS-3 in HD post was made earlier (the HD model will come in 9.8) because "many players waited for it";
- It's possible that HD model of King Tiger will come relatively soon;
- Developers confirm: the frontal plate angles of HD model of IS-3 are a bit different than in real life due to the technology used;

How to play with T-62A, Obj. 430 and Obj. 140

Noticed when I'm streaming one of the most frequent questions received about the Soviet line is which tier X Medium is the best, and just so happens, the World of Tanks Russian channel uploaded a new video about the T-62A, Obj. 430 and Obj. 140.

How Wargaming made the HD IS-3

Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/news/pc-browser/1/is_3_hd_model/

The IS-3 HD model in the game was made using a new method called photogrammetry.

The work began with the search of a suitable tank, that could serve as the basis for the in game model. Luckily, WG did not have to look far. They found two IS-3 tanks in the "Stalin line" museum complex near Minsk, which were suitable for the mission. The first step was to take pictures of the vehicle from all sides. This is a rather slow process, because you have to make more than a thousand photos with proper angles, intervals and under correct lighting - but there are more aspects that have to be taken into account.

The photography process itself has two stages - first is the circular photography (you take pictures of the tank from all angles around it). Second stage consists of photographing the details - welds, casting irregularities, surface texture etc. - in the end, all that is needed to model the tank in the game realistically.




Ramsomware targeting World of Tanks players

The old ransomware has now a new tactic for extorting money by targeting it's victims games.

They use a CryptoLocker malware on saves, maps, mods and other game-related types. After being infected with the malware a red window will show stating now your files have been encrypted and only way to obtain the key is by paying through a given sketchy link, the victims that fall for it usually end up with a bigger problem as their credit card info is now in the hands of the criminals.