Developers posts on forum

Ectar: I quite like my FV4202 to be honest. The only thing I'd change is to have more top speed. It had nice acceleration, great agility and awesome gun depression. 

Ectar: Hello Commanders,   As many of you know the World of Tank Wiki hasn't been updated since about November 2013, the reason for this is because we were working on a new wiki. We're happy to announce that the new wiki is available and can be found here - http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Main_Page   We hope you enjoy the new format and the wealth of information found within the wiki!  

Ectar:   More really it's true that no matter what you say, there is no getting through to some people who wish to believe otherwise.    

Ectar:     I didn't notice no. I didn't notice Hard_Target and his platoon steam rolled me however :P

Ectar:     You seem to have some misconceptions here.   First of all a Premium Tank is not intended to be the best of it's tier/class (otherwise everyone would be expected to buy them) - What they are intended to be is competitive tanks that give you an increased credit return for your damage done in a game.  

Ectar:   Generally you can only be refunded for a premium tank if you've never played it and only right after you purchase it.  We don't have a "try before you buy" system. If you have any questions about this our support team are the best people to talk to about it as it may vary on your payment used or your individual circumstances.  

Ectar:   In a one on one situation not all are equal, but it doesn't mean that each of them can't play their part or make you credits. Some are more difficult to play than others  

Ectar:   It would depend on your reason for wanting one. Most people buy a premium tank so that they have a vehicle that will earn them extra credits and can also be used to train up a crew quicker. Each tank has it's merits and flaws.   Premium tanks are not "I win" buttons. You won't suddenly start winning games because you have a premium tank.  As with any tank damage = credits. The benefits of a premium tank is that they earn double credits.      

Ectar:   60% of the time, it works every time!

Ectar:    Answer me this then. What was the reason you came to the forum in the first place and what is the reason you come back each time?          

Ectar:   Examples?  I'm more than happy to address them.  

Ectar:   Yes we can straight up ban the alt accounts from using the forums and this does happen.  "Creating an alt account just for the purpose of trolling" others is a reason that will result in a shutdown of that account.  - I'm not going to go into how it's traceable but with some people even when they think they're being smart, it's so painfully obvious, we're amazed they're seriously trying to pretend they're someone different.  

Ectar:     I have no idea. I'm eagerly awaiting more info about it since I was told about it and then seeing it demo'd at E3

Ectar:   You'll be amazed at how many restaurant managers don't eat in their restaurant. Product burnout/over saturation is pretty common when a hobby becomes a job.  When it comes to any community role the community/CS experience is something that can't be taught in the way that game knowledge can be taught.  

Ectar:   True, but then everyone has to start somewhere. If someone who was a Community Manager/Coordinator for multiple years at another game applied here, they wouldn't be turned away for having low stats.  Again battles/win ratio isn't a guide to game knowledge and vice-versa, knowing lots about the game doesn't translate to being amazing at the game.    

Ectar:   The player who created the thread posted at 10:41 2 player replied almost instantly to say they had no problems. So the answer to the question of Are the EU servers down? is "No."  Are they down now? - No. The next player in the thread suggest a traceroute. - player who created the thread hasn't appeared to have done so.   In this thread 3 players including yourself are reporting problems and 2 players say there is no problems. If there was a major issue with our servers, we would have been notified internally.  If there was a major problem last night, we would have been notified. - There has been no notifications.   In any situation where someone is having problems connecting to the game, we'll always advise the player to contact our support team for a variety of reasons. One of the most obvious being the fact that walking a player through a fault diagnostics on the forums without 10 other people chipping in their opinions/advice or trying to derail the thread regarding their issue, isn't possible. Support like this needs to be direct on a 1 to 1 basis as in the majority of cases the reasons why a player is having connections issues is totally different from player to player.   So please. Contact our support team who are in the best position to help you with this issue.

Ectar:   Where exactly were you shooting? I wouldn't risk shooting HESH on a E4 unless I had a clear shot on the rear of one. 

Ectar:     It's not the way a company thinks, it's an observation I've made during my time working on forums and working in CS for over twelve years. I also never said the game is perfect. For the 3rd category, a player can come to the forums for any one of those reasons or for all 3. Those players ARE in the minority however otherwise the players in group 1 or 2 would never come to the forums. It's no surprize to read but some players will even create alt accounts just to troll, or to get away from the negativity associated with their main account. It's pretty easy to spot and always interesting to see people try to live different personalities when you know it's the same person.    

Ectar: Having a twitch chat overlay on the game would actually make it easier for a streamer as you don't have to look away from the screen when playing. It's a shorter eye movement than looking at a different screen.     Not sure if that's exactly how our Twitch app works but we'll see very soon. Once it's available I'll be streaming with it straight away and our most popular streamers will be invited to use it too.

Ectar:     You'll find that on most official game forums really. The majority of players come to official forums for 3 main reasons:   1 - To talk to other players/to get information about the game they love to play 2 - To get a question about the game answered 3 - To raise an issue about the game/to complain about an issue with the game/to troll other users   With the 2nd group of players, lots of them don't hang around once they get their answer. They'll visit the forums frequently but it may be only to get specific info or to follow a specific thread. The 3rd group of players are the minority, but they're very persistent/vocal which can lead to it seeming like the forums are negative.  Once you notice however it's the same people posting the same things over and over, it's easy to see past them.   Sadly it's much easier to complain that compliment, especially when people who backup the company/game/product just immediately get labelled "fanboys". In any community there is always people who will go out of their way to spread their misery/frustration onto others and you'll never get away from that.

Ectar:     Yep, It's quite a satisfying feeling seeing an HE shell rip through their thinly armoured area beside the gun.  One of the rare occasions I'll use HESH shells also.

Ectar: We have no known issues at the moment. If you're experiencing issues please can you contact our support team here

Ectar:   I use food consumables on my Leo 1 and my Centurion 7/1 as they rarely get set on fire. The other consumables I use are regular repair kits and regular first aid kits.

Ectar:   No, it's not true.   As a long time forum user and player you should know better Phooca...

Ectar: Sadly the 3v3 football mode can't be done in a training room which makes organising something like this difficult.  It's possible if the football mode comes back to the game at a later stage, we'll have a training room option then. Like the 8 bit Karl game there is a high chance this game mode will return at some point.

Ectar:   Mocking/trolling another player's stats from an alt account is really one of the pettiest things that can be done on this forum. Please don't let me catch you doing this again or you'll quickly find this account can't use the forums anymore.      

Ectar:   What I told you is straight up truth and facts. There is no spin or "hey you should say this" added to it.  If anything I'd like to hope by now people who read the forums know I do't sugar coat things and will always be honest with the information I have available to me. 

Ectar:   Lots of battles doesn't equal knowing lots about the game. What's next? Someone can only be a Community Coordinator or Community Manager with a certain win ratio?  

Ectar:   A private forum section wouldn't be any use in this instance as the intention of this post is for Erissa to introduce herself to the community.  It's important for players to know who's who on the forums and who they can contact if they have any questions.

Ectar:   Those days are not over.    The EN team normally has 5 members. 3 Community Coordinators and 2 Community Managers. The Community Coordinators are guys who who are normally more active on the forums.   iScending is now the Xbox 360 Product Specialist and Dakiras is now our Social Media Manager.  Ipaul72 is currently on vacation.  Myself and Brynd don't post as much due to all the different project work we're doing and recently we've both been either planning/attending events which means forum coverage is something we just don't have enough time to do.   We are actively recruiting for replacements for Dakiras and iScending and hope to have those positions filled pretty soon.  In the mean time myself and Brynd are trying to increase our coverage on the forums in support of IPaul72 and you'll also see that iScending is still around. Please remember however that we have to be active on all forums so sometimes when it looks like we're not busy/active, we're actually really busy elsewhere.   Back when I was super active we only really had the World of Tanks forums to cover and I didn't have much else projects to work on.   Player interaction and talking to you guys is something that is important to me and I try to do as much as I can. We'll make sure that we have a stronger presence in the future.

Ectar:   The amount given to the museum was €75,000

Ectar: As this is a badly disguised attempt at taking a pop at moderators of 2 different streams, I'm closing this thread.   If you have issues with the moderation of a fansite forum, livestream chat or youtube chat, speak to the site/channel admins.  The conduct of certain people recently have hardly made themselves look good when they're clearly setting out to cause aggro and start flame wars with fans/users or certain streams or websites.  I'm getting sick and tired of this already. If you don't like a channel guys, don't watch it.  If you're going to a channel to cause aggro and troll, don't be surprized when they ban you or shut you down. You're looking for attention and you're getting it.   - Ectar

Ectar:   A bot? Well that's the most unusual thing I've been called.  Myself and iScending have never banned anyone from the forums. That's not our role.  We may on occasion close threads that are either out of hand/off topic/against forum rules or created just to cause aggro, but I can assure you no one gets banned randomly and certainly not by a community team member.  Each and every player who gets a time out from the forums knows exactly what for.   Conspiracy theories with zero evidence are always the best ones I guess. I'd appreciate it if you don't randomly pick some names and make stuff up like this. It's not a nice situation for everyone involved.

Ectar: Hey guys, last day in the office for me today before going over to England.  Looking forward to meeting everyone this weekend and seeing some tanks!

Ectar:     If you didn't have the money for the first 25% discount, you could always have the money by the time the 2nd 25% came around.  I get that people save up for 50% discount equipment sales which is why they don't happen often.  If they were regular then there would be no point in having items for sale at full price.  Buying equipment is intended to be a credit sink.

Ectar:   When it comes to "community requested tanks" , there needs to be a clear understanding of tanks that are available and tanks that are not.    Type 59 - Never going to be available in the gift shop again.  You can go round and round forever with reasons why it should be available but the answer will always be no. It's been said countless times on the forums and is at the point where we pretty much don't reply to questions about it.  The community by now should know the answer to this. It's never coming back.  The only way to pick up one now is via winning one of the global contests or being very lucky at a major event like Gamescom where something like 3-5 physical codes might be available. MTLS-1G14 - Isn't available on any server and never has been. We are still undecided as to how this tank will feature in the game. It's possible it could be a retail package, it's possible it may never be released. Note if this tank does ever become available it would likely be something global and not regional. M4A2E4 Sherman - Is an EU/NA beta tester gift. If you're not an EU/NA beta tester you won't have one. This will not be made available to regular players at a later date.  - This is beta exclusive. M6A2E1 , A-32, Pz.Kpfw. V/IV - EU pre-order tanks. If you didn't pre order the game when it was released you won't have these tanks and they will not be made available for sale on EU server.  - These are pre order exclusive. Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. J - Event tank - This tank is only made available in limited numbers for major events. It's a bonus for attending the events. It is not something ever to be made commonly available and is intended to be limited, rare and an added incentive/rewards for visitors at major events. - Generally this tank isn't really available anymore and there isn't a lot of codes remaining. Pz.Kpfw. IV Hydraulic - Retail package. - This tank was included in the purchase of a World of Tanks branded mouse. It is not planned to have the tank available outside of that package or to be commonly available. This is an added incentive/bonus for purchasing a branded item. BT-SV - Part of an RU retail package although the code is global. No current plans to have this tank available on the EU server. Certainly not in the premium store as like the MTLS something like that would need to be available globally.   There isn't a lot of tanks that can be sold only in specific regions. RU is an exception to this because players there never got the option to pre-order the game. You still won't see things like the PzIIJ, BTSV, PZ IV Hydro in their store. They have a seperate Beta tank which was the KV-220 which has been made available for purchase on the EU/NA servers.    Other tanks such as the M3 Stuart Lend Lease feature as part of bonus codes.  - bonus codes need to have something unique to make them worth while. Certain tanks are restricted either in access or numbers because they are intended to be rare. They were never intended to be something that anyone could pick up at any time.  

Ectar:   As pointed out by another player all of those tanks feature quite regularly at half price on various weekly offers. When/If roaming comes, you'll never be able to take advantage of another server's bonuses or discounts.  We don't want players server hopping to abuse different offers in different regions.  

Ectar:   The info you posted there is not true. The Type 59 never was for sale at New Year in Russia and we also had massive discounts at new year for premium tanks.  http://worldoftanks.eu/en/news/pc-browser/premium/premium-shop-january3-8/ http://worldoftanks.eu/en/news/pc-browser/46/winter-surprise-calendar/  

Ectar: Guys, comparing World of Tanks with another game isn't something that is anywhere near "on topic" for this thread. Please stop that or continue it in the off-topic section.   @Smin1080p  We've asked for additional tanks to be made available for the gift shop but for now there is a limit to what we have. It's the same across all regions, there is a limited pool of vehicles that can be offered week in, week out.

Ectar:   I'm sorry if you feel the packages are not to your liking. If you still wish to donate to Bovington you can do so here.  Your donations for a charitable cause should be something that feels forced you wouldn't be "wasting your money" buy giving straight to the museum.  

Ectar:     I post in a lot of those topics and it's curious to see you asking why we're not listening when it also seems that our messages are not being read.  Many of the points you raise have been answered and explained in previous giftshop threads.  Whilst the feedback on the forums is one thing, the purchases each week show something different.  We wouldn't offer the same packages all the time if they weren't being picked up.

Ectar:   Yes there will be, we just wanted to use this bonus twice this month and couldn't do two 50% discounts in the same month.

Ectar:   We have a swear filter on the forums too. You can see daily how many people make the effort to get around it to get their point across and disregard why it's there.   I have never said at any point in this conversation or other conversations that we won't take action for chat offences, I've said multiple times it needs to be reported to us when it happens.  If your reply is "We won't report it as we don't have confidence in your system"  - I'm sorry to hear that players feel that way. I'm also not sure what outcome you then expect from the situation, especially when we're being accused of not acting on reports we're not getting.   The bottom line is still that players need to report these things to us at the time it happened so we can deal with it. Reporting it weeks later and then saying we don't act isn't exactly helpful.

Ectar:   All chat from in-game and from garage chat can be reviewed if required.  

Ectar:   We have something like that on the forums. In-game we have a system like that too. It's actually on by default but everyone turns it off. It's called the swear/parental filter.  My experience with other MMO's is the same I'm sure as everyone else. If you see something you feel is offensive you have to report it to the support staff. There is no active chat channel mods just sitting about waiting for someone to say something bad.  

Ectar:   See you've missed my entire point here and then you're adding in things I didn't say.  I never said WoW had lower player numbers, I never said the support was worse and never said the game was in beta... I was using WoW as an example of a massive (and I mean truly massive), game where doing live chat moderation is impossible.  I then go on to say that the idea you propose is something that would be totally different if your game wasn't WoW and wasn't World of Tanks, but instead a browser based game with much less players.   In WoW as with many other major games (League of Legends, Dota 2, SWTOR, etc etc) If you see someone spamming chat or saying something offensive, you still had to report it to the relevant support team via their ticket system. You could do that offline or online, either way the result you get will still be the same.  that's no different to how things work in World of Tanks. If you see something you feel is breaking our rules, report it to us.  It's impossible, seriously impossible for us to be able to actively monitor all chat in real time with the amount of players we have and that's no different to any other massive multiple player online game you may play.

Ectar:   Not indefinitely no, there is a limit to how far back they go.

Ectar:   Perma banning a player is usually something that only happens in extreme circumstances or after various warnings.   You can look at a player now and see he's not banned, but that doesn't mean when the offence was committed that he was banned.  I know for a fact many of these screenshots are anything from 2 to 8 weeks old as the forum screenshots are about 4 weeks old.  

Ectar:   Before working here with Wargaming I was a Game Master for World of Warcraft for over 3 years. I've been playing online games for quite a while now and know the various systems that other games use. I'm also well aware of what works and doesn't work especially when you have completely different player numbers. I can assure you that chat logs in-game and chat databases are massive and what you propose wouldn't work. It would be a terrible waste of man hours and would have very little impact for time invested. Again this is mainly an issue simply due to the size of the playerbase. It's a different story if you're playing a browser based game with say 5000 people online.   We have Moderators who receive a salary from Wargaming, they monitor garage chat and also monitor content on the forums.  Providing in-game chat moderation when players are in a battle is not something they support however as that is handled by our support team,        

Ectar: I'd recommend waiting until the test server is up before jumping to conclusions. Even then nothing is final until the 9.2 patch notes are signed off and a release date is set.  If there is any changes to be come the best place to leave feedback will be on the test server feedback section.

Ectar: Hi guys,    Just to let you know there is a little delay in getting set up but the stream will be up and running asap!

Ectar:   You're now turning this into personal insults directed at me which is uncalled for and a sure way to lose my attention/focus. As I said in my PM to you, please don't make assumptions about what I do or what I should be doing. Especially when you have no idea what may have already been done.    

Ectar:   I could actually. But that's not how reports are handled, especially for something as simply as tracking where the report came from.  If I reported each screenshot I see on the forums this way, that's all I would do each day.  

Ectar:    As you can see yourself from your example, me or anyone else walking round the office with screenshots and asking our support team to take action isn't really an ideal situation.  "Yes but you can do that now as an exception" And then the next time someone puts up a screenshot, is that another exception? - This is why we have a system. It might not be the most perfect of systems but it's what we have people and it's the only thing I can ask you to use for now.