Developers posts on forum

Ectar:  

Ectar:   Today is Saturday right?  Sometimes I forget even my own name..... Oh no not again!

Ectar: Hello Commanders, The World of Tanks servers will be unavailable on 23/07/2015 from 04:00 UTC (0600 CEST) due to this update. We expect the downtime to be roughly 45 mins.This micropatch will be a small bug fix patch that also addresses some client crash issues brought with 9.0 and freezes in Steel Hunt battles related to Logitech keyboards. Regards

Ectar:   It will be forgotten as quick as tomorrow    

Ectar:   You lost me here as soon as you started using the nationality of someone as leverage in getting a point across. Across Wargaming as a whole we have people from all nations at a variety of levels. The company started out based in Belorussia however we're now a global brand with staff members all across the world. Decisions don't get made without input from our various departments world wide and especially from the publishing side of things, a large portion of the staff is European.   The sense of entitlement is not limited to World of Tanks, it's something that's sadly relevant on every and any game with a progression based system or unlockable system. So many players now expect to be able to say that they don't have time to play and therefor the entire game system should be adapted to fit them. If we change our progression system to make it quicker and easier for one person, why not all? Why even have a progression or unlockable system in the first place? Lets be honest, if you ask anyone "Would you like this stuff quicker and for less effort?" everyone is going to say yes.   Some games are a time sink, others you can pick up and play and be done with after only a few hours.  Each game doesn't try to cater to all audiences and when they do, the very core of the game falls apart.

Ectar:   Would these be the same damage panel mods that have players accusing my Centurion 7/1 and Fv4202 of "spamming APCR" and being a "gold noob" ? 

Ectar:   Greed:  Wikipedia will have you believe this is the inordinate desire to posses wealth, good or objects or abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort. It is applied to a markedly high desire for and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.   What exactly is wealth in this game? It's an abundance of credits, gold or vehicles. Status? Well that's easy. It's having a high win ratio or Wn8 ratio. That's how you separate yourself from the other players Power? That's not as easy to determin with a player. It would come with influence really and an individual player doesn't have much power/influence. Power could arguably be simply having awesome stats.   How do you get all 3 (or at least 2) - You need to be good at the game. If you play well the credits roll in and you can get new tanks, build up reserves of gold/credits and will have respectable stats as you improve your game.  There is no other trick method to having high stats. Everything that any good player has used to get then where they are, is available to you also.    Greed is not just a corporate issue. It's also a massive player driven mentality. It's something that's especially become more relevant over the past 10 years with MMORPG games and 24 hour customer support for those games. Player responsibility and accountability has gone out the window for a horrendous sense of entitlement as players expect that everything they do in-game should be reversible, or content should be available for minimum effort. Players see someone else with something and the want it. More often than not without putting in the same effort the original owner did.    If you want anything in life, you have to work for it. I'll tell you the biggest most relivant piece of information you'll ever hear. - Life is unfair and it doesn't owe you anything. Nothing has to be equal, there is no universal law of balance. Throughout life many people will always try their best to balance things for the sake of others. and others will sacrifice what they have for the sake of others.  That won't always happen however. When you play any game, the system doesn't have it in for you.  There is no unique settings that make you and only you perform bad.  Games work based on skill, a little luck and in most cases a good bit of RNG. RNG you'll never be able to influence nor will the game developer be able to influence:   Your team mates will always be random unless you're in a game with group play. Even then, the skill level of your team mates will always be random. They'll miss shots, they'll hit shots, they'll do things you don't expect.   The one thing, the very one thing you'll ever be able to control is YOU.  If you want to improve, if you want to get better at this game or any game, you need to work at it.  You need to look at how you play and you need to look at how you can improve it.   Examples: Do you rush ahead all the time? Do you spend too long on stock tanks? Are you missing important shots? Is your mouse sensitivity to high/low Are your graphics settings too low Are you listening to music/watching movies and not being fully focused on the battle. Are you shooting at weakspots? Are you really trying to shoot at weakspots? Is your vehicle in the expected area for the map?  (For example never take a slow tanks into the Lakeville Valley) Frustrated playing solo and feeling "up against it"?  Have you tried platooning with team mates at your skill level? (It's a team game at the end of the day and is more fun with friends) Friends don't play World of Tanks? MAKE NEW FRIENDS - We have the forumites in-game chat channel with people sitting waiting to play with. Some of the most helpful and friendly players can be found there every day   If every time you have a bad run of matches, you look to blame something totally impossible to prove, it just shows you can't accept you're the reason you did bad. It also shows you can't accept that maybe, just maybe the people you were up against were better than you.   - I speak from experience here, I rage hardcore when things go against me in any game.  What I've learned though over the past years is to look at how I lost, and how I can stop that from happening again. Everytime I've put serious time into learning a game and trying to improve how I play it, I got better.  I accepted I have control over changing me and I accepted I can't change others.   The power to improve is within everyone as a player. The biggest problem you'll ever have is deciding that you want to change.  

Ectar:   From here  

Ectar:   People always have selective reading when it comes to my comments. It's nothing new    

Ectar:   It's something we're keen to try to allow players to "test drive" certain premium vehicles before making a choice to buy one.  

Ectar:   We're not going to offer the FV201 via a rental system.

Ectar:   You had tier X heavies.  There wasn't any tier X TD's or Mediums then.  

Ectar:   E-25 may be available as contest prizes. The PzIIJ and BT-SV were part of retail packages and due to that, can't be offered for less that the original package price. M6A2E1, A-32 and Pz.Kpfw V/IV are pre order vehicles. If you didn't pre order then you can't get them. Not now, not ever. We sold them in the past and it caused a huge uproar and now they're locked out for good. For those tanks specifically it was stated they wouldn't be available again.  - When it comes to the pre order vehicles for Warships and Warplanes they came with 1 year embargo's only which was made clear when they were available to pre order.  

Ectar:   You say it clearly outclasses most same tier mediums, yet others in this thread say it's nothing special and has been subject to stealth nerfs.  Who is right?  It's almost like people on the forums can never agree on anything. Heck I'm sure it won't be long enough before people disagree about the colour of snow.

Ectar: I'm curious, what's an example of a non corridor map?  This may seem like a silly question but humour me here.

Ectar:  

Ectar:   Whilst I can't say "never".  I can say we have no current plans to ever sell the Type 59 again.  We've had various opportunities to do so over the past 3 years, especially with the release of the Chinese tech-tree.  We also now have the T-34-3 available for players.

Ectar:   It has an iconic status among players and we need something desirable for contest prizes. It fits the role perfectly for that.  You can't have the chance to purchase the tank now because the window in which it was available to buy has now passed. I can appreciate that new players may not like this situation but then this happens with content world-wide in any retail industry. Sometimes content is produced in limited amounts, other times it's only available for limited periods, and sometimes the method regarding how you obtain the item changes over time. At no point have we ever declared that content in our game would be available for players in an unlimited time frame.    We always want to be able to offer something cool and unique/hard to obtain as a contest prize. If the prize is something commonly available then players have zero incentive to want to participate.  Can't have it both ways sadly.

Ectar: Thanks to all who attended, it was great to meet you all and you posed some tricky questions! Exploring the MTB was good fun, I wanted to spend more time in the Submarine but had no idea how many people followed us.  Along with the Flickr album we also have some content that was recorded by a player - https://www.youtube....bUGM31OFZp57-4j   Already got lots of good feedback from people who attended, thanks especially for those who have e-mailed me with messages. Hopefully we can visit again next year and have an even more awesome event!    

Ectar: The Type 59 was last sold over 3 years ago. 3 year guys. Think how much all of you have learned in that time and think of the spread of tanks now. The Type 59 was the only high tier medium available to buy and 3 years ago there was no where near as many high tier tanks as there is now.  We only started doing high tier discounts roughly 2 years ago which has helped many players advance up the branches. 3 years ago many of the great players were quite frankly, noobs. You didn't have streamers our youttubers telling you what to do or how to play. The only person really making content then for EN speaking players was Highflyer15 with his youtube videos.   People didn't know where to shoot the Type 59 and many people didn't have the equal tier tanks (never mind higher tier tanks) to deal with it, it quite often got top tier matchmaking. It has limited MM so won't face tier X unless in a troll platoon. It's not been a victim of stealth nerfs - More simply the community learning and growing the past 3 years on how to deal with it and being given a variety of tanks to choose from to help them deal with it. To compare the tank as it is now, to how it was 3 years ago when it was last sold (roughly April 2012) you have to also compare the skill level of the players using it, and for many players the crutch mods they now rely on to help them play. 

Ectar: We have reported this, it's a fake Facebook page.

Ectar: As this thread has been resurrected and the 2nd post pretty much summed up the way of thinking, I'm going to close the thread as it's not productive or encouraging rational thought.  Too much, "I'm right, I can't prove it, and if you disagree you're (insert unpleasant/unfriendly term)".  These threads always usually stem from "My win rate should be better, but the game has it in for me, lets pick something impossible to prove as the reason why".  It's always easier to blame something no one can prove rather than accept a more likely possibility. - Random really is random, you can't predict it and if you think it should follow a certain pattern then it's showing you don't quite understand the concept of "random".  Furthermore everyone has the potential to improve their game and their stats, they just need to be willing to accept that they're the thing that needs to change.   - Ectar

Ectar: Really sorry to hear news about this. Thoughts are with his family and friends. 

Ectar: Hi guys, more common issues and resolutions have been added here - http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/513186-update-99-common-issues-and-resolutions/

Ectar: Hello all,   I've added in some more issues and resolutions for them to the front page. I will also list them below:   Crashes when entering hangar before joining any battle. Most cases this is related to the awesomium folder which is required for the in-game browser.  - Please reinstall the game and make sure not to remove this folder.   Mac crashes. Issue was fixed yesterday by wrapper update.   Crashes in battles when using XVM (very large number of reports). Due to a mini-map file that was updated in 9.9 the client stopped to work correctly when XVM is installed. It is very important to make sure you are not using any kind of out dated version from XVM.   - There is a player fix already for this however please note installing mods/files on your computer is at your own risk   Crashes when playing on a PC with combination AMD (Radeon) + Catalyst 15.7 driver Also when using this driver you might face an issue when landscape on a map may disappear. This Issue is quite complex. We are investigating it and trying to find a solution. Unfortunately we didn't filtered out this bug during Common test, since this version of the driver was released on 7 July when CT was almost finished. We can recommend as a temporary solution to use an older version of a driver. We are working on the solution and hope to fix the issue soon.   Crash directly after finishing a battle  (small number of reports). Some players have this issue. We have found the reason and preparing a fix.   Crashes when  joining "Steel hunt" battle and using  Logitech G19 keyboard (very small number of reports). Reason is found, fix is going to be released in a bunch with some other fixes mentioned above As result 3 cases among 7 mentioned above are already resolved and 3 waiting for fixing within the next time.”

Ectar:   It's not something that can really be investigated unless the issue was persistent with a mod-free client.  - Mods affect the game in a variety of different ways and we're never going to be able to do a true fault finding investigation on an account running mods.

Ectar:   My job title is underneath my name, it's always been there for the past 3 years.  Lets not get into the situation where you start to tell me what my job is and what I should be doing (especially when you can't even get the title correct in the first place).  I liaise with various different departments but none of them are answerable to me.

Ectar:   I'm not a back door to our CS team or a queue skip system, so no, I afraid I can't put you in touch with someone directly. There is multiple reasons why I can't, the most obvious being if you then had any further issues about anything, why bother submitting a ticket when you have the contact details of someone directly? That's not a level of support we can offer players. I've checked with our CS department however and they assure me that all the people who were banned in error, have had this issue corrected.  If a player still feels they have been sanctioned in error you're free to reappeal, but that doesn't guarantee you'll get a different answer.   The fact that players were banned in error in the first place resulting in the sanctioned being reviewed intricately to make sure there was no further errors. 

Ectar: Hi folks,   If you're having issues with 9.9 please can you check out the feedback section here - http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/513186-update-99-common-issues-and-resolutions/   We also have some resolutions to common issues players may be experiencing.

Ectar: pinned, would like to see other players share their views on this mode

Ectar:   HE shells or HESH shells are especially good at this.

Ectar: Yeah, I don't think there is anything to add to this.   /thread closed   - Ectar

Ectar:   I'm very well informed about WG EU affairs. I sit in this office 5 days a week.  When it comes to matters like recruitment however I have limited input and can only really comment on my department and it's needs. When the 16 vacancies was mentioned it was presented as being 16 vacancies in the community team, which is incorrect.  The term "purge" was also used which is not true as various people have left of their own free will and it's not all happened recently. (Some vacancies have been up for at least a month or two).  In Paris we have a variety of departments including Customer Support, Community, Content and Localization, PR, Marketing, Business Relations, Esports, Art, Finance, HR.   Glorified grunt is a new one. I've been around on the forums for over 3 years now and people should know by now when I provide information it's pretty rock solid and I can happily hold my own in a Q&A about our games. I have strong connections with all our departments in EU and will always communicate information with players when I have information to share. 

Ectar: Hello Commanders! With the release of update 9.9 some players have been experiencing issues with launching battles. Here is a list of some common issues and how to resolve them. The game resolution appears to be blurry.Please go to your Settings menu, and then Graphics.  Try disabling the feature "Dynamic Adjustment".  We're aware of this issue affecting some players and investigate any further causes. There is no transition from the Spähpanzer 1.C to the Indien Panzer.  The stats from the Aufklärungspanzer Panther remain seperate and don't count as Spähpanzer 1.C battlesWe're double checking the first issue, it appears to be intended there is no longer a link between these vehicles.  - The stats also appears to be kept separate so your AFK Panther stats will be kept separate. My game crashes on "Updating Hanger"It's a high probability you have removed the awesomium folder. You can resolve this issue via the following steps:Download the file: http://dl-support.wargaming.net/wot/ru/KnowledgeBase/config/awesomium.zip Open the game folder, then open the “res” folder. Extract the content of the archive in the res folder. Start up the game as normal. I use a Mac and my game crashes a lot since 9.9We're sorry you experienced this issue, a fix has already been deployed for this and the Mac version of the game should now run correctly. If you still experience issues please reinstall the game  For Windows users most crashes are related to the missing awesomium folder as previously described or outdated mods (especially when trying to join Domination matches).  Please use the following guide to help resolve your issue:Download the file: http://dl-support.wargaming.net/wot/ru/KnowledgeBase/config/awesomium.zip Open the game folder, then open the “res” folder. Extract the content of the archive in the res folder. Download the file: http://dl-support.wargaming.net/wot/ru/updates/wot_mods_0.9.9.zip Put it in the game folder. Run wot_mods.bat. If needed, create an empty folder in res_mods named “9.9” (without quotes). Then try to enter the game. If that doesn't help, please contact our support team and provide us with a WGCheck report file, in order to do so please check our article here:
https://eu.wargaming.net/support/Knowledgebase/Article/View/521/18/how-to-create-a-wgcheck-report

Ectar:   Lack of transparent communication is not what causes Supertest Leaks, nor dev posts only to the RU playerbase or on personal blogs. To give an example on the problems about leaked information, the FV401/A45 was leaked back in January. It wasn't available on any server till now.  In January we obviously aren't ready to talk about it because back then it's fate hadn't been decided yet and how it was going to be added to the game wasn't ready to be shared.  The Fv4202 switch to the Action X.  Players are unhappy they don't know what will happen and complain about lack of info.  There is no info to share, that's why it's lacking! As soon as we know what will happen to the tank, our playerbase is the first place it will be shared with. Until that moment all we can confirm is that it's planned to be replaced with the Action X, and the stats of the Action X aren't confirmed and still subject to change.

Ectar: Hi guys, are you using any mods/addons?

Ectar:   I can't comment on the first thing. That's only something our CS department could answer and each case is reviewed as an individual basis. Even if I disagreed about any of our policies or sanctions you're never going to get my personal stance. Why? Because it's highly unprofessional to speak ill of your employer, fellow co workers or policies you follow. I know some players like to question my intelligence but give me some credit.   Encounter battles are not planned to feature in Clan Wars 2.0

Ectar: This tank is planned to be available for EU players in the near future. I can't disclose the specifics atm however everyone will have the opportunity to get the tank if they want it or not.

Ectar:   The situation atm isn't ideal, I'll admit that. We're taking steps to hire additional people where we feel it's needed. Atm we're damned for having issues and we're damned for trying to resolve them. Can't really win in that situation and especially on the forums, when we do communicate the reply is "I don't believe you". 

Ectar:   Which untruths specifically?  I'm really interested to know this as I make a point to only comment on things that are confirmed/true. Please give me some examples here so I can make sure I don't make the same mistakes.  

Ectar:   Paris office has 16 vacancies Chicago has 11 vacancies  Saint Petersberg has 18 vacancies Sydney has 9 vacancies Singapore has 7 vacancies Seattle has 8 vacancies Emeryville (NA Office) has 9 vacancies Austin has 3 vacancies Kiev has 22 vacancies Minsk has 68 vacancies   I don't understand how the numbers in Paris equal a major upheaval. Roughly about 6 of the Paris roles currently available are due to people being promoted internally to other roles and those jobs have only recently been advertised.  

Ectar:   I'm not defending anything, I'm clarifying a lie/total misinformation.  The content of the post was false and it was presented to cause aggro within the community. Claiming someone was fired for incompetence with zero evidence is straight up slander and an attempt to ruin someone's reputation. I won't stand for that and I won't have colleagues or ex colleagues have their names dragged through the mud like that.  

Ectar:   When it comes to matters about the EU office and specifically the EU community, yes I am more important that Mr Pasholok and a hell of a lot more informed.  You can take his word over mine if you want but on this matter there is zero evidence to back up the claims made on Status Report. Why? Because it's false. It's made up. It's untrue.  

Ectar:   Which contest specifically is this you're bringing up? The one from 2 years ago that resulted in all contests being halted and reviewed?  Please if you're going to throw out little comments like this, then show people your sources. Every time someone talks about rigged contests it's always the issue with Czechout and Silentstalker that had a very very public outcome.  If you have something new then please share it. Otherwise please stop bringing up a 2 year old issue that resulted in major changes.  

Ectar:   I feel it's only fair to link to the specific post where I used the term "time sink" so that players can understand the context. It's this post here. I'd like players to read the full message and understand why the term "time sink" was mentioned.  I didn't simply say "I don't have time to post here". I was trying to explain that blanket/spam/multiple posting on the forums just to have a presence does not add anything to the community, especially when what I post in a thread is already answered by players before me.  Posting on the forums in an official capacity is something that should only happen in hot topics, important threads and where it's seriously needed. The forums are primarily a place for players to talk to each other. It shouldn't be looked at as a constant open channel to have any and every question answered by a Wargaming Employee.   Yes. Posting more would be awesome. I'd love to have the time however I only work so many hours in the week and I have to cover multiple products. Whenever I have time between tasks I will browse the forums, post where I can and take note of hot topics. Just posting all day on a single forum isn't what the job is about though. At the moment the activity on the EN section is low because there is only myself and Brynd. We're in the process of hiring 2 new Community Coordinators and they should hopefully be here soon. WG presence will then increase. Posting for the sake of posting is not a helpful system when players are looking to us for answers. Replies need to be measured and they need to add value to the topic.   I communicate openly and honestly whenever I can. An important thing to understand is that I'll always give answers when I have them. I can't however give answers I don't have. I've stated multiple times that I won't spin and story and I will never lie to players to cover something up. We listen to idea's and feedback however it's important to note that idea's and feedback are things to be considered, they are not things guaranteed to happen. I will only ever reply to something with sarcasm in a thread where that is obviously the tone and it's not a serious one. If someone is going to smack talk me however all that will happen is their post will be ignored. I don't put people's ideas down but I will offer counter points to what someone suggestions if there is a clear reason why it's not workable.   

Ectar:   I never said we have 16 vacancies.... See this is where it's kinda important to read everything before making a comment.  This is the little gem that came from me - https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/3d5hbr/the_long_predicted_eu_purge_is_beginning_as_a/ct2af95  

Ectar:

Ectar: Thank you everyone for coming along today. We'll have pictures and our recap article up by Wednesday at the latest.      

Ectar: Hello all,   Reminder e-mails have been sent out to the first 100 sign ups.  Please check your spam folders incase the mail has been filtered incorrectly.  If you have not been sent a confirmation e-mail you are still free to come along to the Defense and Garrison Museum or the Maritime museum in the afternoon.  Please note however that you would need to pay your own admission. 

Ectar:   Pushing to get some screenshots asap. I have a personal interest in the Action X as the Fv4202 is my favourite tank. 

Ectar: I think (as I keep telling players) that you should wait until final patch notes are announced before worrying about content that is well known to be subject to change.

Ectar:   I'm curious as to how you measured the opinions of all our players.  Please remember that by definition, a fact is something that is actually the case or has really occurred and can be verified.   For example:  The President of the United States is Barack Obama. - That's a fact, it's easy to verify. I think the President of United States is a nice man - That's not a fact. It's an opinion.   Now you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but please don't mix it up with something you can't prove.  By that I mean you have zero evidence to back up your claims that "most of the players" feel the way you do. It's just something you're adding to your statement to try and give it weight. Even I never say "most of our players" and it's my job to pass on player feedback to our producers and developers weekly.  I gather feedback from our social media, our forums and various different fansites, making sure I link to my sources to back up my statements should the producers or developers ask for more specific info.   Now during the Summertime every multiplayer game experiences a drop in player numbers as people go off on holidays and generally go out and enjoy the weather. This doesn't mean a game is dying though.  It's off peak time right now and we still have 62,000 players logged into the EU server alone. I think we're doing pretty fine personally.