Developers posts on forum

Overlord: Would be nice actually. Premiums are underestimated.
Gold mines are to be closed tomorrow.

Overlord: With full repsect cover_man, when it comes to supertest I do know what I'm talking about, since I'm directly involved in the process.
Regarding "hitbox bug", we haven't got any confirmation of that so far. Each tank can be burned down after taking hit from the front (engine, transmission, fuel tanks).

Overlord: Wargaming.net gold mines will close on January 5 during scheduled server restart.

Tanitha: Just a "players" reply to some of the above comments.
The beta has gone on for too long.
Not really, Its pretty common for beta's to go on for 18 months or more.
Closed phase 1, closed phase 2,3,4, open, etc.. But the structure is different for each game.
A lot of players dont usually find games until the game hits open beta, and they don't realize it had already been in closed beta for so long before they found it.
I think I played/tested wow for almost 6-9 months before "open beta". But it was a while ago now, so its hard to remember exactly.
Yes in most games a lot of players have had enough for free during the beta, that they no longer pay to play after release. This is more common in pay to play games though, with a free to play there is no real reason to not play after release. With pay to plays, after 18 months of beta you are then asked to pay $50 and $12 a month to continue playing. Its extra incentive not to continue on release.
After 18 months of beta testing "wow", by the time the release came id lost a lot of interest, but I still played release for about 4 months.
Lotro, after beta I played for about a year but only because there wasn't much around at the time.
DDO, Ryzom, Age of Conan, Playing beta was enough and I was gone on release.
But then again, some games like UO "Ultima Online" lasted me 7 years.
Beta's are what they are, and I assume they work well, because its the way everyone does things, and new games continue to do things this way.
The beta's are good for many things, finding bugs, getting knowledge of the game out there.
But a lot of more obscure things like funding. Most game manufacturers need a lot of funding to pump out a finished game.
How much can they borrow is depending on how much they can expect to be able to repay.
1 million beta testers, who are potential customers, is a asset that can be borrowed against, in the form of potential earnings.
There is many reasons for beta tests, not just the obvious ones.
But anyway after 4000 wot games, Ive been in a no grinding stage for a while now, At the moment, I'm only playing 10-30 games a day and trying to stay fresh for release and clan wars.
Just wipe and release now.
At the moment the way the game is now, I don't think there is any reason to pay to play.
At the moment, the highest earning tanks are around T5. The exp and credits you earn is dependent on your tanks tier, compared to the tanks you are killing. It doesnt really matter if you are a T5 playing against T8's, or a T8 playing against T10's. At the moment there is no real need to pump in $$'s to level quicker and have bigger tanks, as having a bigger tank has no advantage, if anything you earn less after going into one.
IMO, the only need to have bigger tanks, is for clan wars. For clan wars, it will make a difference if you are in a T5, or a T10. With clan-wars there is a need to be a paying premium member to get the bigger tanks quicker, and to use those in clan wars to gain land and the advantages of owning that land.
At a guess, having clan wars in the game would double or triple the amount of paying players, % wise.
But Russia is released, release here too.
As above, I doubt the game has a high enough amount of paying players % wise.
So id guess, releasing to one country, provides some initial cash, to keep them going through to a full release.
But it would be much more profitable to release to the world, with a finished product, that includes clan wars.
I wont be paying to play on release, because of x, y & z.
Free to play games, usually work on a 10%/90% system.
10% of the players pay 90% of the income earned.
IE 1 mil players, 100k of them would provide 90% of the income the game earns.
The other 900k are free to play casual players, and play the game within the free to play limits.
So you wont pay on release? its a shame, but 90% of players in any FTP games usually don't pay.
They are losing their paying customers with the beta.
Atm there is about 800k Russian players, and 250k players around the world.
Out of that 250k world players, less than 1/2 are American. But say 125k USA, and 125k europe.
If they can get 800k Russian players, with a unfinished game with no clan wars.
Id guess they can get 1 mil easy from USA with a finish game, with clan wars.
Similarly a mil with Europe too.
So out of the 2+ mil players on release. only 250k are currently in beta at the moment.
Some of those 250k are old timers who are getting a bit bored, some a reasonably new.
At the moment by looking at the forum numbers, The world servers are currently going up about 12.5k users a week. (25k last 2 weeks)
The Russian server is going up about 53k a week. (106k last 2 weeks)
All in all, the 250k "world" users they have here at the moment, Should be a drop in the ocean compared to the players they should end up with.
Of course WOT needs to keep their existing players, and keep them happy, just saying that id guess most of their paying members on release, haven't even seen wot at all yet.
All in all
I think the next step is server upgrades, and server splits into USA / Europe.
The swapping to open beta, with Increased PR, to bring in the player base and big numbers of players.
The introduction of clan wars, and a thus a reason for premium and people to pay to play.
Then a release with clan wars.
10%+ of the players pay, But the more the better.
Successful game.

Overlord: Group Super Moderators - out:
Armitxes
Group Chat Moderators - out:
iguanadon
Super Moderators moderate all the forums and game chat.
Moderators moderate one or several forums/sections and game chat.
Chat Moderators moderate game chats only.

Overlord: Doubt, we could find 5 game designers of the second type to drive T-54 in 5vs5.

Overlord: Tiger II's armor values are correct indeed, they have been checked and double-checked several times, both hull and turret, including gun mantlet armor. Everything was done according to the designations I've posted earlier. The sources can be different though, not all of them are credible enough. Arguments about max speed have more reasonable grounds, but speed was decreased ON PURPOSE. Armor is purely historical.
In 0.6.1.5 KT didn't have any performance issues, haven't gathered enough data to assess it in 0.6.2.7(8), but increase of mantlet armor is unlikely to make it any weaker.

Overlord: Hard to say whether the gun description for Panther is right or wrong. The vehicle has never been neither constructed nor produced. According to designations and plans GW-Panther was supposed to be used both as SPG and gun carrier with demountable gun.

Overlord: Not exactly this way.
Early versions of T-54 really had 120mm front hull armor.
Both turrets were in mass production.
V-55U engine was developed in 1955 and got to mass production in 1958.
But these are details. In supertest T-54 performed worse than Panther II and Pershing in 1vs1, 3vs3, 5vs5 same type battles, though it may be hard to believe in.
T-54's overall performance in game is still to be assessed.

Overlord: Can't say the game is lacking for agression much currently, especially after the 0.6.2.7 update. Average battle time has decreased by 30%.

LiannaSilverwind: 1) Copy your WoT folder to USB disk.
2) Format your disk.
3) Install Windows, DirectX, MS Visual C Redistributables, .NET Framework etc.
4) Copy your WoT folder from your USB disk to your HDD.
5) Enjoy.
Part 3 is the most important, you must know exactly what is needed.

Overlord: We have many "focuses" at once, but Japanese and Italian tanks are unlikely to be added in 2011. It'd be difficult to implement that much.

Overlord: We do appreciate your expert opinion, but the purpose of this thread and the forums in general is to discuss the game, not developers and other players.

Overlord: Seems that your are the only one who knows the truth here. Who's real and who's not. Impressive.

Overlord: There have been no changes to T-54. Moreover there have been no server side changes at all.
Not enough data gathered to adjust new vehicles.

Overlord: Rumours, suppositions, speculations.
Closed.

Overlord: Perhaps to release the game finally.

Overlord: Extra gold has been awarded today as well. Though it wasn't planned.

Overlord: Nation battles are planned to be introduced as one of the companies sub-modes. Possibly later it will be available for standard battles as well.

Overlord: If implemented, they will provide additional protection.

Overlord: Italian version of WOT will be added shortly.

Overlord: Mostly on the basis of this thread
Changes in Moderating team:
Group Moderators - in:
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Haschem
JanTjarks
n1sK
Punisher_1
SiberianExpress
Group Chat Moderators - in:
lordduck1
Super Moderators moderate all the forums and game chat.
Moderators moderate one or several forums/sections and game chat.
Chat Moderators moderate game chats only.

Overlord: That's not obligatory.

Overlord: Updated achievements on the web site according to the patch notes.
- "Scout" is now awarded only if the team won.
- "Sniper" is now awarded if during the battle there was no friendly damage.

Overlord: 1. Likely to be added.
2. Will be added. Haven't decided on the way it is going to be done yet.
3. http://forum.worldof...post__p__336521
4. -

Overlord: Moved to questions.
Can't give any exact information on how British tanks are going to be implemented in game. At the moment the tech tree itself is being finalized.
Centurion Mk3 is likely to become tier 9 medium.

Overlord: How HE damage works. Brief description:
1. If HE shell managed to penetrate the armor.
- Similar to AP shell, it goes inside the vehicle and explodes there.
- Full damage according to the specs is inflicted, plus HE deals additional damage to internal modules and/or crew. Apart from its basic damage value, each shell has additional value that determines possible damage to crew/internal modules if penetration was successful.
2. If HE shell didn't manage to penetrate or exploded near the tank (eg SPG shot)
- If the explosion took place directly on the armor the damage is reduced by 50%, if the explosion took place near the tank the damage is reduced by 50% plus it gets some extra reduction depending on distance to vehicle.
- Heat wave of HE shell "seeks for" soft spot on the armor, where it is possible to penetrate. Heat wave makes cone-shaped aperture in the armor with approx 45 deg cone angle.
- Vehicle's armor partly absorbs heat damage (each tanks has its own value), including installed spall liner.
- Heat wave damages crew and decreases vehicle's hit points. Modules are not damaged.

Overlord: Fadin's medal is working fine. So far we haven't got any evidence that is bugged in any way.

Overlord: Match-making chart v.0.6.2.8
not relevant in current version

How this works:
Match-making system defines type and tier of every single vehicle. E.g. T-29 - tier 7 heavy tank.
See 7-heavy line and find out which battle tier spread it has. In our example, from 6 to 10.
The exact battle tier is chosen on a random basis. E.g. 7.
Then match-making system begins processing the waiting queue, and chooses the tanks that can participate in tier 7 battles (7th column) and makes up 2 teams from them.
Topic for feedback and impressions.

Overlord: See the updated chart:
http://forum.worldof...post__p__324234

Overlord: Belarus used to be a part of the USSR. As well as 14 other countries. This doen's confirm any bias by itself.
Belarusians took part in WWII fighting both sides, but mostly as Read Army, which was quite understandable.
Regarding calling other nations "brothers", I wouldn't generalize. Things are more complicated nowadays. It's not the question of black or white, ally or enemy anymore. Cold War is over.
With this post, lets close the off-topic discussion of politics and any other stuff not related to the game.
Have no idea "where we got much more russian tanks than any other". Are you playing closed beta or Russian version?

Overlord: When I saw the headline of this topic, thought it would be "Russian Devs, Russian tanks" part 2. Unexpected contents.
Thanks for support.

vuque: LoL i am telling you what i lived...
And i am not dumb to shoot the turret cuz that was frontal hull armor!
and 1150 Dmg is real cuz 2200-1150=1050 is my hp after 1 T30 shoot!
Believe or not but that game has lot of bug's like that and that sux :/

Tanitha: Yay 1 million players..!
Thanks boss, Happy new years to the WOT team, and all the players, as well.

Overlord: Hello,
I'd like to wish everybody Happy New Year.
Thanks for your time and effort, together we can develop the project further.
We are happy, that the game has become quite popular and (with your help) we have achieved 1.000.000 players world wide.
To be honest we didn't expect the things would go so smooth.
The game changed to a great extent in 2010. At the beginning of the year we had about 5 tanks, 2-3 maps, and clumsy UI.
No upgrades, achievements, detailed damage model, tech tress, statisitics, destruction system. Almost nothing.
In July we have started international closed beta, initially on European servers, in Septepmber we switched to North American hardware.
We strongly believe the project will grow and develop even faster in the upcoming year.
Currently in development: clan wars, reworked visibility and spotting system, new vehicle movement physics, new crew skills, French tanks and US TDs, bigger maps (2x2 km), and of course new server capacities both in Europe and North America.
All the above and many other things will be implemented in 2011.
Moreover, here I'd like to apologize for all the problems you had an are having to overcome at the moment: lags, bugs, insufficient server capacity, break in beta test caused by switching from Europe to North America, possible lack of information and communication on the project, delays in maintenance, non-simultaneous patching with RU and late release of special festive patch.
This is our first online-project and we are constantly causing a backflash developing it. For sure we are doing and will be doing our best to deliver the product of extremely high quality and not to repeat our past mistakes.
The bottom line of this is the following: stay with in 2011 and you'll never regret it.
Happy New Year, tankers! Will catch up with you in 2011.
These are my personal congratulations. Having got some free minutes, I've realized that I must say something of that kind.

Tanitha: Being an Australian, Id have to agree with this bit : ) ...
In general, I found your post humorous, and in general I'm not really that "politically correct".
However, as a moderator, employed to do a job, I'm required to do that job unbiasedly.
Its not about what I find humorous and acceptable, its about, me enforcing the rules of WOT.
Racist jokes, whether humorous to some, offensive to others, are still what they are, which is racist.
I think the main problem with your post, is the run and hide, french section. With the introduction of the french tanks soon to wot, there already has been 1001+ bad tasting french jokes. And enough is enough. Being unbiased, its not my position to allow some racist jokes, and not others.
So, thread locked, and dumped to the junkyard section.
No Ro bans places at this time. But no more racist jokes please. Its a international forum. And it needs to be fun for all. Not fun at the expense of some.
Regards.

vuque: Well could you tell me why i was banged with 2 shoot by a T30 when i play with my IS-7 yesterday?
T30's first shoot took's my 1150 HP.It's amazing!Over half of my HP cuz i just have 2200 HP.
And yep that was face to face war not rear or side shoot that was frontal shoot!(My first shoot binged but his 1.st omg! What a surprise huh?)
Well i didn't signed up to die with 2 shoot's when i play with tier 10 Tank ZzZ...

Tanitha: What didn't work?
Did you uninstall wot, and reinstalled it again from the full version links i provided?

LiannaSilverwind: You state that after player finishes his grind at game A, he goes to grind at game B. (Statement 2)
Therefore I make conclusion: grind should be as long as possible, to ensure that player remains at game A for longest period of time possible, before switching to game B (based on assumption of Statement 2).
Isn't it contradicting with your first sentence about MMOs longevity based on grind fails (Statement 1)?
Did I understand you right?
And then like another author already mentioned: aren't most popular games based on tedious grind? Many hours long raids - you need people, you need time; enforced pauses between them - you cannot go to the same place for several days in a row; you need to make repetitive quests to farm points to get reputation with God-Forgot-Who-It-Was... and then next patch comes and you repeat it all once again. For years to come. Because it makes you happy.
Sidenote: I never felt WoT is grind, for me it's very fun game. First Tier 10 tanks appeared on sixth day after Russian release, therefore grind is nearly non-existant. You are also able to get to Tier 10 without premium account, it will just take 3 times longer.

Tanitha: Read this...
http://forum.worldof...052#entry329052
On how to download and re-install the game quickly.
The reason I had to re-download the game today, was because I also got a black then disappearing screen after loading, and no game.
This is the first Ive read of someone apart from me having the same problem though, so its pretty uncommon it seems.

Tanitha: Sure I agree with all that. But still that article is just bad..
As you can see by the photo, they are based, just off the coast of newzealand, and close to Australia.

But with all our putting shrimps on the BBQ with the kangaroo's in Australia, we dont see the UFOs, instead they fly to to the other side of the world without being seen to America and mexico?

Tanitha: Its like if they say "America is at war" or they blame the Americans, more people will believe it?
Then they link to this fake video as proof.
http://www.liveleak....=828_1175399004
Which is 100's of balloons released, that are floating slowely with the breeze. I think there was a big wedding that day or something.
Then they pick a bunch of 3 balloons tied together to zoom into.
And if they really moved that fast, it would take them a year to get from the pole near Australia to America/Mexico, if they didn't pop first.
Then they link to the "nearly capsized" ship http://jalopnik.com/...ntarctic-waters
And blame the UFO's on that too..

Tanitha: Which really just had a simple engine problem from a cracked window, and leaked water on control panels.
Give me a break. I'll go back to watching josh gates hunt for bigfoot on destination truth instead..
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Tanitha: Moved to creativity, no need to hide it in offtopic ; )