WoT Newsletter Volume #2

Welcome to the World of Tanks Newsletter! said: Our goal is to weekly update with news events, new information on current issues, and interesting articles!
If you think you have a story or article that would fit in well submit the article to MrVic via PM on the WoT boards.
We plan to add some reporters/writers so submit your entries and how you might like to contribute!


News Headlines said: Tankopedia!!! News Link Details
M4 Sherman Tank Renders. News Link Details
Most Original Tank Model Contest Results. News Link Details
In Game Voice Communications! News Link Details
MMOSITE Readers Choice awards 2010 (Cast your votes!) News Link Details


Main Discussions on the Forums said: Have thoughts or concerns? The following Threads are the main threads for discussing changes or feedback.
Match Making Thread Link to Main Topic
Post Patch SPG Thread Link to Main Topic
Spotting and Hiding Tanks Thread Link to Main Topic


Hot Topic of the Week said: Soft Wipe!
Link to Discussion Thread
Details for the soft wipe:
1) All current tanks/modules/ammo in your garage will be refunded for full value credits. (As per normal softwipes)
2) All exp earned since the softwipe and all the free experience from the last soft wipe will be also refunded. Current exp saved on Elite tanks will be converted to free experience at the soft wipe.
This means all exp spent including free exp from the soft wipe. If you spent it on tanks have it as free exp on the account or have exp on elite tanks you get all of that. (hope that clears it up)
3) All tank crews will be lost. They came they fought and now they get a well earned vacation and rotate off the front so we can break in some new recruits.
4) Garage slots, Barracks expansions, and Current premium account times will refunded (pro-rated for remaining time) These refunded items will be refunded as Gold to your account. (Gotta check on Premium tanks tho think they are refunded also)
5) Current Credits balance and Current Gold balance will be carried over with the refunded gold (premium garage slots ect) and credits (existing tanks/modules). Players will have both Gold and Credits on their account after the softwipe ready for spending.
6)No total exp reduction is planned for the soft wipe. (This tool has been used in the past, basically its a global percentage reduction of exp) This testing tool is not being used in this soft wipe.
7) No Planned bonus Gold. (Daily 150gold will continue)


Developer Poll: Best Looking Tank said: Note: Pershing recieved 6 votes but due to not all of the Devs have had a chance to see it as of yet its was omitted for now. (We get to see some stuff before even all the devs!!)



Fake Tip of the Week said: Tip: By Running over 25 Trees in a single match you gain an additional 250exp per battle!


Post of the Week: (Post by Whackjob) said: Day Two: Using What I have learned.
Just like day one, my thoughts in rough chronological order:
1.) Ok. Gonna work the light tank angle today. The Plan: Get the first bought light tank, upgrade the heck out of it, cash in gold for money, upgrade experience of crew, go nuts. What button is for the horn?
2.) Aaaaand I'm off! I'm tear-arse-ing all around and getting waaaay ahead of my team. I'm getting shots fired at me and most of them are missing.
3.) Tank Killer in the bushes! ... funny, I remember leaving the base with TWO tank treads. Uh oh.
4.) Despite opening the hatch and trying to bluff my way out of trouble by hollering, "HEY! NONCOMBATANT! Do you have ANY idea what this is going to do to my insurance premiums?" I still get polished off before I can get a good shot in.
5.) There's this map with a giant field in the middle, buildings on one side, a trench and walls on the other. On the (east I think) side of the map there's a road and woods and fields you can use to get past that killing field. I'm flying through that area, trying to get behind the lines on the other side to deal with the light arty that's being a nuisance to my team. I t-bone a bush that suddenly has a red icon in it. The heck? Tank killer, facing to my left. Seems I rammed 'em. Hah! He can't turn since I rammed him. Couple of shots and he's down. I back up, get around, and shag arse as the arty starts to fall. I get around behind the lines finally. I kill one arty before another arty and another light tank cripple and kill me.
6.) Now it's a map with one of those small cities with the track on one side. I'm zipping down the other side of the map along the road, ignoring the hill. I've got my turret locked to the rear in a hopefully deceptive peaceful stance. I get shot at anyway. There's a tank killer peeking around the corner, watching the road I happen to be on. I dogleg left and right and somehow don't get hit. As I pass him I stop, and my turret is handily already almost on him. I adjust a little bit and HE his tank tread. Two more shots and he's toast. Artillery starts slaughtering the pigeons on the roof of the building I'm next to. Even though I'm safe, I figure staying on the move is safer. I get to the enemy goal zone to find it completely vacant. I sit on the edge of the ring and wait for someone from the other team to come by to try to bum a smoke or something. I cap and the match ends.
7.) An all light match! No arty, just two tank killers on each team! Sweeeet! I spend ten minutes maybe ricocheting from one red icon to another, spattering them all with HE rounds to cause the maximum amount of annoyance. I die, but I'm getting a much better feel for firing on the move.
8.) Next round: Mediums on both sides, four arty each team. I decide to try the scout angle. I spend the whole match advancing and bush-hiding. I manage to creep all the way in to the rear of their base without a scratch. Though I did attract arty fire once or twice. I'm senzoring teh arti d00ds. They're in bushes, but have ADHD or something since they keep rotating and firing. Finally our own artillery gets in position and starts shelling them. At this point I come flying out of the bushes like a crazed manifesto writer and start freely handing out fat-kid sized portions of high explosive joy. Remember APB? How they have VOIP set up so those close to you could hear what you could say? I wish that were here... I'm sure the creepy cackling I was doing would have added to the surrealness of the whole situation for those poor arty doomed to die.
9.) I get bored of the light tank (I got ADHD myself, or alt-itis, or something) and go back to my tank killer. I get that map where there's a
river in the middle with some bridges, and the two cap points in the middle on either side. I go in the bushes on a ridge and sniper. I get seven kills but nothing interesting happens.
10.) I decide to do a spot of work on my tank killer crew. I drop 60k on getting them all to 75% just to see if I could notice a difference. Good grief! I don't have to wait nearly as much time in between shots, and even the tank-killer itself seems to handle better. I flip on the speed-up-training thing and wonder if my attention span will hold out long enough for me to get to 100% training. Then I wonder: What's the point in keeping the crew if you sell your tank? You can retrain them for another tank, sure, but that previous 100% don't help. But there is the bonus training stuff (camo, fire fighting?) that probably carries over. I'll have to get there and see for myself.
11.) I purchase that crazy looking first russian arty tank. Good grief! Archaic looking isn't a strong enough term for this thing. I keep expecting a team of horses to pull me to the next firing spot. And what's on the back of the crew compartment? They look like the outside doors some people have for their cellars.
12.) Got a feel for how arty works in a match. Right click target, let the circle shrink, then fire. Then you wait as your gun loader puts down his copy of "Action Toby: Boy Adventurer" and whines while he takes his time loading the gun. This is a russian vehicle, for [expletive preemptively redacted] sake! What's the radio freq for the NKVD?
13.) I go back to my light tank for some high-speed hijinx. A match starts, I speedy-thing my way over towards an enemy main line of movement, and park in a bush. A tank killer comes a little ways away and parks in a bush and vanishes. He was facing to my right, exposing his flank. At this point the tandy 1000 in my head boots up and starts crunching numbers. Let's see here... that far away, it would probably take about 7.8 seconds to cross that distance. Figure maybe a second and a half for him to notice me, another half second to take action (guessing he'd try to aim in on me), and take four seconds to fully rotate and fire. Six seconds out of my 7.8. Not good odds. At this point he starts firing at someone, giving me the extra three seconds I calculate I would need to make this work. I kick my driver in the back of the head and he slams the gas pedal down to the floor. I drive right up and ram the TK broadside, doing a surprising amount of damage to myself. But he can't rotate his vehicle now, and I give him an I.O.U. for fifty pounds of high explosive that I let him cash in immediately. Somewhere else on the map another tank killer concludes his fascism based meeting with the determination that I need to give up one tank tread for the good of the people. I protest in the properly nazi-vehicle fashion by killing him and the tank next to him, before some artilleryman decides I'm a good candidate for a retroactive abortion.
I didn't get to play as much as I would have liked, yesterday, but learning is happening and I'm getting there. I figure what I really should do is stick with one kind of tank and work the tech tree on it, but I find myself switching between them quite a bit. ADHD, I guess.


A Look to the Future said: Some of the frequent questions and things to come. (Some still in testing so values may change)
1) Further Details on Soft wipe See "Hot Topic" Section above
2) Currently in testing sneak peak at US changes. "Gun 90mm_Gun_T15E2M2: dispersion 0.33->0.32, lowered the influence of turret traverse on dispersion.
- Gun 105mm_Howitzer_M2A: -15% aiming time. - Gun 105mm_Howitzer_M2A: -15% aiming time, penetration of HE 60->53 - M7 Priest: 105mm_Howitzer_M - reload time decreased 13.95->11.76"
3) Currently in testing sneak peak at German changes. "- VK4502: mantle armor for stock turret 120->160mm, mantle armor for top turret 120->180mm.
- Tiger II: mantle armor for top turret 65->100.- 150mm_sFH18_L30 (Hummel): decreased dispersion 0.4->0.37"
4) Farming improvements for many WoT residents "- Fixes for some fences "
5) Fixed FPS drops during rendering of track-prints.
6) Clicking on "Apply" button in the window service now replenishes munitions and consumables, and repair the tank for one-click.
7) 2 New maps Named El-Halluf and Ruinberg (See Pics of the Week section for images)
Last Weeks Newsletter information.
1) US Heavy Tier 7-10 Adjustments. Weapon Changes (120mm_Gun_T53: aiming time 3.0->2.4, increased accuracy during movement and turret traverse.
155mm_Gun_T7: aiming time 3.0->2.7, increased accuracy during movement and turret traverse.) Armor Adjustments (T29, Т30, Т32, Т34: fixed error with discrepancy between displayed and actual armor of the hull. Actual armor decreased by 20%) Other Adjustments in testing.
2) Light Tanks, There are improvements coming for Scouts. A few examples full list to come. (BT-2: decreased visibility in movement, by 6% reduced influence of movement and turning on dispersion.
BT-7: decreased visibility during movement and rest, improved passability on medium grounds, by 4% reduced influence of movement and turning on dispersion, view range of the top turret increased by 15 meters.)
3) Medium Tanks, There are improvements coming for Medium Tanks. A few examples full list to come. (PzIII: reduced visibility during movement, by 5% reduced influence of movement and turns on dispersion. Pz III/IV: 5% improvement pass-ability on medium grounds, 8% decreased reduced influence of movement and turns on dispersion. Т-43: by 9% reduced influence of movement and turning on dispersion. Т-44: by 5% reduced influence of movement and turning on dispersion.)
4) New Maps, We should see 2 new maps Early/Mid December, One Desert Map, One City Map.
5) Tier 9 Medium Tanks, US, German, and Russian Tier 9 Mediums. Current time frame end of December/Early January. See "Pictures of the Week" for a sneak peak.
6) Coming Patch Times, Patch 0.6.2 (2 new Maps, Team Mode "15vs15" and Match Making Re-balancing) Early/Mid December, Patch 0.6.3 (New Vehicles Tier 9 Mediums possibly more tanks)
7) US Tech Tree, Adjustments to US Tech Tree. 105mm Howitzers will be available for M6, T1 Heavy, M4A3E8 (Easy 8).
8) Clans, In game Clan formation, 100 members, Clan creation will have a small one time gold cost. Subject to change Date coming soon.
9) EU Server Cluster, Server up Early/Mid December.
10) Soft Wipe, We should see a soft wipe with the EU server coming online.


Pictures of the Week said: Note: Many of these images are from projects in progress. They should be considered Alpha images and not final
Ruinberg

El Halluf



Weekly Web Comics said: The Loltraktor Chronicles by: Wallachia (1st Armored Division) Link to the Authors site.


Joe & Hans By Breyd1971 (TankBusters)

http://i6eqeg.bay.li...mic1.png?psid=1


Stories from the Front said: Diary of Unteroffizier Meister By: ElcomeSoft Link to Authors site

Walking into Hell disguised as Heaven
Date: 24 November 2010 18:08:54 UTC
Tank: JagdPanther
Designation: 'Feuerschutz'
Crew: Unteroffizier Meister (Commander), Unteroffizier Muiziere (Gunner), Unteroffizier Meindl (Driver), Gefreiter Fischböck (Radio), Unteroffizier Pellengahr (Loader).
A routine escort mission turned into a nightmare... a one we barely escaped from alive. We have to be be grateful to 'Feuerschutz' once more. The suppressive fire we lay down forced the enemy ambush to falter and tipped the scales of battle in our favour. The rather experimental 10.5cm gun we were recently refitted with has proved to be invaluable in all types of combat situations we have faced so far.
We were part of a tank column moving towards the front, a mix of medium and heavy units with several tank destroyer and artillery elements. Like a scene from painting the area we were travelling through was picturesque and beautiful, lush green fields with an ancient abbey in perfect condition adorned with beautiful stonework arches and the like.
The fastest route for the convoy lay down a side valley. This was dangerously narrow and a perilous drop into a ravine was to our left. As we traversed the valley cautiously we could see the abbey breaking the skyline above us and I was dazzled by the wonderful scenery as we passed. Several husks of burnt out tanks littered our path, obviously despite the perfect state the abbey was in, the war had even found it's way into such a beautiful place...
Such a beautiful place desecrated by our enemy... They rained fire from their artillery batteries and they brought hell to this heaven.
In the opening barrage I cannot count how many tanks we lost. Several exploded, their turrets forced open by the shells, like a crudely opened can. I saw the crew of one of our heavy tanks scramble clear as the ground crumbled underneath it's mighty treads and fell to into the ravine below. One of the men didn't make it in time, as he scrambled towards the edge, his crew mates tried to reach out and save him but.... his screams still haunt me as I write this...
Through all of the smoke and confusion Unteroffizier Muiziere scored several clean hits into the flanks of the oncoming enemy tank formation, crippling at least one and forcing the others to vacate our line of fire for fear of suffering the same fate. Our heavy tanks and the heavy tank destroyer that was accompanying us on our travels played a childlike game with several enemy tanks whilst our self propelled guns raised their barrels and gave a salute to the enemy in the form of a well orchestrated counter battery barrage.
Feuerschutz definitely lived up to it's name. As fast as Pellengahr could load the shells, Muiziere was firing them out aiming at the enemy tanks as they lined up like prisoners getting ready for the firing line. Visibility was poor in the smoke and Meindl, despite all of his war experience nearly ruined our treads on several smoking wrecks as we jockeyed for position in the close quarters battle. The covering fire we laid down allowed our heavier elements to move up on the enemy and turn the tide of the conflict.
As soon as our heavy tank destroyer strode onto into view, the enemy tanks seemed to recoil in an inanimate metal terror and their guns seemed to drop ever so slightly, almost like they had resigned themselves to their fate. They did not last long and our tanks showed no mercy.
Trusty Feuerschutz took quite a beating during our unexpected encounter. Several puncture wounds to the outer hull and both our radio and some of the observation and aiming equipment received damage. The worst damage came to our engine, which thankfully didn't catch fire but required constant nursing to even get us to the nearest repair station. Besides the bumps and bruises that come when you are a crew member of a tank and receive fire from multiple shells which ring across the thick metal skin of the tank like large hailstones, my crew was unharmed and for that I am always grateful.
With repairs underway my crew will never forget the mixed emotions that that place brought us. A heaven to behold, threatened by the hell that is war... I just hope it all ends soon.
Something tells me I will be fighting for a long time still...


Community Driven Events said: Historical Battles, Organizer ZorinWarfield. Link to current battle being setup. Historical battles Link



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