Developers posts on forum

The_Chieftain:   I agree with this. I even say as much in my article, it's a good memoir. I mention some two other good memoirs as well. The problem is that no matter how hit is being marketed, it is not how it is being taken, and the TV show based on it is not marketed as a memoir at all. My point is not that nobody should read the book, but as a factual, historical work, this book falls below a reputable standard. As a personal memoir, it's fine as long as one confines oneself to the parts of the book which are actually memoirs.  

The_Chieftain:   i don't have such a problem with that, actually. As I said in one of my articles, T-34 was a great tank. But it was a terrible -tank-.           

The_Warhawk: Hey folks!   It's great to hear that everyone had such a fantastic time! I wanted to thank everyone again for making the trip out. I certainly had a great time myself. It was a pleasure to meet everyone face to face.   I look forward to hopefully seeing everyone again in the future, or at the very least out on the battlefield!   Happy Tanking folks.

Jewel_Thief: You all have about 24 hours to prepare... Get to it!     ~JT

dance210:   That would be because your team is registered for the weekend only (Bravo Playoffs). It will be accepted after registration closes on Thursday.

Hypnotik:   As a Chicagoan, I have to show you the better version.   (even though the 97 Bulls intro video is better)

HBFT:   Thank you for adding a little flavor to this thread, oh great "music bot"! xD   Now I have to listen to this while reading your interview.  haha

HBFT: Tankers!   This week we are taking a look at BULLS, proof that competitive play can co-exist with jokes and a fun atmosphere.  A Clan Wars-focused Clan through and through, BULLS has no problem going head to head with some of the best Clans on the Global Map.  Through rapid adaptation, a willingness to stir things up, and a unique management style, BULLS has continued to flourish where others have fallen.    DennisZodman – Commander, was an original founding member (Previously known as VonCurry) DikembeZutombo – Deputy Commander, was an original founding member, carries out administrative tasks, and partakes in recruiting G1M – Executive Officer, is currently inactive JayZ536 – Executive Officer, partakes in recruiting and handles gold payouts Rageous_ - Executive Officer, is the main battle caller SpunkyGoon – Commander [NUGGS] – Let everyone else do everything and show up for battles GWBIV – Executive Officer [NUGGS], head battle caller and administrative tasks   When and how did [BULLS] / [NUGGS] get started? DennisZodman: I was in [PBKAC] with a couple of guys who are no longer here.  One of our guys is still here though, PhilZackson.  There were five of us.  ErmahgerdBananas, he used to be LucZongley.  PhilZackson used to be Mallak_.  MichaelZordan, who is now in [-G-], and ScottieZippen who is now “dead”…well, inactive.  We all got bored in [PBKAC] and felt that maybe it was time to do something fun.  We always platooned together, me, Zordan, and Zippen and they’re both really good players.  We were thinking, “Who were the three really iconic players in sports, or in history?”  We thought about that and we thought of Rodman, Pippen, and Jordan.  Then we were like, “Let’s change our names to that and make a Clan called the 1996 Chicago Bulls.”   Mallak_ was our main caller when we first started and we thought, “He could be the head coach!”, so he could be Phil Jackson.  Bananas was a friend, so we named him Luc Zongley.  Then we needed Ron Zarper so we asked Tuco22 because he was a friend of ours.  I actually said it as a joke to Tuco, “Hey, you want to be Ron Zarper?” and he changed his name and we took him in.  We then made the Clan and we started recruiting people “off the streets”, so to speak.  Then we grabbed enough players and hit the map when the Clan Wars things started just to grab a couple of pieces of land.  We didn’t start off to be a Clan Wars Clan.  It was a joke, at first, and it just grew and snowballed into what it is now.   DikembeZutombo:  I guess I can probably expand on that.  When they first started, I didn’t even know who they were.  These “1996 Chicago Bulls” Clan, everyone had changed their names so I didn’t know who they were.  This was after the second campaign was wrapping up.  As an aside, you will see a trend whenever a campaign is over where a lot of Clans will fatten up for the campaign because everyone wants the tank and then they will explode.  Partly because of the stress involved in running it because you gotta get everyone that tank and partly because people are only in the Clan to get the tank.  It was a combination of the right kind of guys and great timing because as soon as the campaign was over, the Clan that I was in was [CRABS].   At the time, I was known as Raidr_.  Everyone knew that as soon as the campaign was over, this Clan was falling apart because it was barely holding itself together.  I got a message from PhilZackson (no idea who this guy was) and he said, “Raidr_, why don’t you come join my Clan? We’re just starting up” and he closed the conversation.   Then he came back to me and said, “By the way…this is Mallak_.”  About five minutes later, I dropped tags and I switched over to their Teamspeak and of course I was going to come over.  It was about a dozen guys and within the next two weeks, we grew from a dozen guys to about twenty-five.  Our first Clan Wars battle, we had twelve guys versus a team of fifteen.   DennisZodman: We landed in Omaha, I think it was, when everything was an LZ (after the Clan Wars holiday break).  We won that whole LZ tournament with twelve guys.   DikembeZutombo: We knew that this was legit because we went fifteen versus twelve and from there, having twenty-five guys, we would recruit like five guys at a time.  Success breeds success.  As soon as people see you on the map and see that nobody wants to touch you, all of a sudden people want to join.  To go back to what I said before about it being good timing, there were a lot of other Clans out there that was struggling and I guess Grayskull was one of them.  They were kinda spinning their wheels and we were close to them as well.  I will let you [G1M] tell us about how that happened.   G1M:  I was a former Dep. Comm. in [GSKUL] and was pretty much the de facto CO at the time. Spunky was still fairly active, but our CO was gone with IRL (in real life) work stuff keeping him pretty busy.  At the end of campaign 2, I was pretty much ready to disband.  I was talking to Zodman on the side about bringing some people over.  I had mentioned to Slo, the CO of [GSKUL] at the time, that I was interested in doing something like that.  He then brought up the idea that we should do a merger and we decided to make [GSKUL] a subClan of [BULLS] and change the name to the 1983 Denver Nuggets.  We brought a few of our more purple-y players over to [BULLS] and started to do some group recruiting and work together a little more on the map.  This basically came about because of talent-drift.  We lost some players from [GSKUL] that wanted to go to a more competitive Clan because [GSKUL] was always pretty bound down by having to do diplo with the higher Top 10 Clans.  We moved some players up, moved some people around, and it kind of gave us some forward momentum.   It sounds like [BULLS] has a pretty tight-knit group and Dikembe said that he dropped tags within five minutes of being asked to go over to [BULLS].  What is the environment like in your community? DikembeZutombo: With those guys in particular, it was MichaelZordan, VonCurry [DennisZodman], myself, and Mallak_.  We had played tournaments together and we were pretty successful before and I had known Mallak_ from CRABS before.  It was sort of a situation where I had 900 battles played total, and I was transferring over from the EU server where I had played for two years.  I just told him, “Listen, this is who I am.  I came over from the EU server.  You want to give me a shot?” He said, “OK.”  So if he tells me, “I’m going over here. Come over.”  I’m going to hop over and go with him because he gave me that chance when he didn’t have to.   So, it’s a tight-knit group.  At least the core is really tight.  Time has sort of done its thing and MichaelZordan and ScottieZippen aren’t with us anymore, but myself, DennisZodman,  PhilZackson, and Bananas are still here.  We’re kind of the only remaining group from that original core of twelve.  All these guys that are in here right now are just as much part of this core now as they were.   DennisZodman: We still have guys like DonaldZterling, who was ChaosDunk, and some other original guys that play as soldiers who have been around for a while.   As [BULLS] started out as a small core group and grew into a full-sized multi-Clan Clan, did [BULLS] experience any growing pains?  Did people grow a bit more detached from each other as things grew and what did you do to counteract that? DennisZodman:  I’d say Zordan and Zippen.  It all obviously started as a joke.  Then it became about tournaments…and things started to snowball.  They were part of the leadership group with me and Zackson.  Myself and Zackson wanted to do Clan Wars and Zordan and Zippen wanted different things.  Zordan did recruiting and he had his own standards for recruiting.  I had my own standards.  He would go for more inactive purples like a guy that might not even play Clan Wars where I wanted someone who would play Clan Wars.  A purple that doesn’t show up and play Clan Wars is useless for a Clan. You can stack a team full of purples, but if they don’t play the game, then they’re completely useless for you on the map.  I would take the lesser stat guy as long as he showed promise with his stats.  So, we would butt heads about ideologies of where the Clan was heading.  I think Zordan wanted to move to [-G-] eventually.  He had aspirations to move to [-G-] before we started this too.  Zippen didn’t really have an interest in it and kind of just tagged along.  Eventually, we clashed,they left, and I became dictator.   DikembeZutombo: If we’re talking about growing pains, you can be a soldier in a Clan for a lot of years and not have any problems with anybody because there is no pressure on you to do anything.  And all of a sudden, all of us from different Clans come together and we’re thrown into this leadership position where 90 other guys are looking at you saying, “So what do we do?”  It’s a lot of pressure and it does wear you down.  It wore Von [DennisZodman] down.  It’s worn me down.  It wore PhilZackson down.  It definitely wore down Zordan and Zippen.  Both of those guys are better off being one of the best guys in a Clan, probably as soldiers.  Not everybody is necessarily cut out to be leaders and not everyone wants to be.  The group that is here today are some of the guys that are cut out to be leaders,really embrace that role, and can at least identify when they’re going to get burnt out so that they can step back and take a break.   DennisZodman: That’s where the depth that we’ve built will offset that.  If Zutombo needs a break, or if I need a break, Jayz, Rageous_, or G1M can take over.   It seems like you’ve all come a long ways from when you first started!  How did [NUGGS] come about and do you support each other on the Global Map?  What is your relationship like with your subClan? DennisZodman: I’ll let [NUGGS] tell their story, but in regards to Clan Wars one of the ways that I believe that we have been successful is how I’ve taken lessons learned from other Clans.  I was in an Africa Clan when I started.  Then I moved up to Brotherhood Armoured Division  and I saw how they did things as a soldier and how professional Clan Wars is done.  Then I went over to [PBKAC] and kinda saw the “dark side” at the time (After fighting them in Purple Dawn), which is actually one of the funnest parts of the game because of the characters in [PBKAC]. I would probably go back there if [BULLS] died tomorrow.   I learned from Ziddy how to diplo by watching how he did things.  Some of the other guys showed me how organization is done, and just by reading CR/D you can learn how to do things by picking up and picking apart the leaders.  You know…Yankee, how does he do things?  How does Nemesis do things?  Ziddy, Gyarados, Allurai, lozarus, and all those big name guys you can take note of how they do things.  You also take note of the guys who fail and their mistakes.  Think about what they did wrong and try to avoid those things.   With regards to [NUGGS], I don’t like to consider [NUGGS] a subClan because they’re older than us.  When you babysit a Clan or prop them up on the map, then you’re gonna piss people off because you are probably giving them more gold than they are worth.  You gotta let people fight on the map.  If [NUGGS] is next to us, we’ll help them out like maybe an offset thing.  We help them out a little bit, but for the most part if [NUGGS] picks a fight then they have to finish it.  If [NUGGS] gets ****ed over, we’ll help them, but for the most part they have to get their own gold and fight their own battles and they have to grow themselves.  I don’t do anything with [NUGGS].  I literally do nothing to help [NUGGS].  It’s all Spunky.   GWBIV:  I’m glad that you asked about that.  I actually recently stepped  away from [BULLS] to join [NUGGS] and help Spunky out on a day-to-day level and revamp in a [NUGGS] 2.0 kind of way.  We work on recruiting, help calling battles, putting strats together, and we’re up to 80 members.  We’re really pushing the recruiting right now.  We just landed in Belize.  We’re training the guys and just trying to take some gold right now and try to really work as a stepping stone to help guys get into a [BULLS] level Clan. We’re kind of working on a [NUGGS] 2.0 kind of thing!   Since we’re talking about subClans, can you tell us a little bit about [PSTNS] and how they play into everything? DennisZodman:  Pistons is our inactive Clan.  If someone goes inactive and doesn’t want to play Clan Wars anymore, we move them to Pistons and they can still chill with us on Teamspeak and hang out.  Social people, people that don’t want to play Clan Wars, that’s a place that they can go.  You just want to platoon with [BULLS] or [NUGGS] players?  Then Pistons might be your thing.   DikemebeZutombo: That being said, they’re all guys who used to play in [BULLS] that are Clan Wars capable people.  That’s why they will land because they’re good at what they do.   DennisZodman:  I don’t want them to ever be a Clan Wars Clan officially because I have a huge disdain for multiple subClan conglomerates.  I think two landholding Clans is enough and a third one for a social thing, that’s cool. Pistons is holding something like 1,000 gold in total.  That’s probably stretching it already.  I usually use them to fill in a garbage territory as a buffer zone.   G1M: Wow, rude!   DikembeZutombo:  I guess the general idea for the Pistons initially was that it would be this other force. It’s going to be this social Clan.  We named them the 1989 Detroit Pistons because they were the “bad boys” of the NBA.  They were kind of the dirtiest players in the league, so if we need someone to do dirty work…it’s gonna be the Pistons.   DennisZodman: Plus, when [BULLS] implodes, they can go to Pistons and still be an official member of an appropriately named NBA team for Rodman.   GWBIV: They’re gonna be the “mad boys” when they hear what you said about them, Von [DennisZodman]!   Both [BULLS] and [NUGGS] have maxed out zones and buildings for this current iteration of Strongholds.  How are your Clans involved in Strongholds and how would you say it has changed your Clans overall? Rageous_:  Strongholds for us is a good way to get away from pubs every now and then.  It’s also a way for our FCs to get some of the calling down, learn some of the new players and stuff like that. I definitely like it as an improvement as the next step up from Tank Companies because there is an incentive to do stuff like getting extra bonuses for XP and credits.  It is also interesting to fight some of the other Clans that you might not have seen on the map before.  Get some of their strats and stuff like that.  Stuff that you don’t really know about them and it’s a nice little experience that you can do whenever you want.  You’re not restricted by Clan Wars times.   SpunkyGoon:  For [NUGGS], we don’t have the people that are so Clan Wars experienced like the [BULLS] do.  For us, it’s more of just working on teamwork together.  When we lose at Clan Wars, it tends to be when we have guys that aren’t so used to following directions.  They’re so used to pubbing it and doing their own thing.  We use Strongholds as a way to break that pub habit, listen to calls, and work as a team.   DennisZodman:  It’s fun like Rageous_ said, to have guys that don’t call…me personally, I’m a horrible caller so a great place where I can get experience where there aren’t really consequences, is to play Strongholds.  Plus, you can kind of joke around and not take it seriously.  I get mad still when we lose, but at the same time we can have more fun and I can grind credits.  It’s almost like platooning with six/ten/fifteen guys.   Jayz536: You don’t want to test a caller against a really good Clan, so it’s always good to see how the new caller can perform in Strongholds.  From there, we will decide if we should pick them to call some battles.   DennisZodman:  We have a lot of depth in that area too.  There are still a lot of guys that we have to test.   Speaking of battle-calling, would you describe [BULLS] battle calling/playstyle as a specific one? Rageous_:  Me personally, as far as my battle calling goes, I really don’t have any set strats for any of the maps.  I have maybe one or two “turtle-breakers”.  I’m mainly a flex-type caller.  Get to your initial positions, send some scouts out, get a little bit of map control, see what they do and then react from there.  As far as prep goes, we normally don’t really do anything other than a MapTactic beforehand.  If we’re in a war with someone, like we are with [RUS] right now and we are going back and forth with them on certain maps and we have to break a certain strat, then we’ll go into training rooms an hour before battles to try and work stuff out.  Other than that, it’s actually pretty laid back compared to some of the other Clans that I’ve been in.   DennisZodman: That was another thing that I learned from being in [_BAD_] was that training rooms are not needed because you stress out your playerbase by making the game a job.  Anyone in [BULLS] should know how to play in Clan Wars.  If you **** up in Clan Wars then you’re gonna get yelled at by me because you should know how to play the game at your skill-level.  In regards to Clan Wars, Rageous_ nailed it on the head.  Me, I’m a terrible caller, and I mostly try to help with strat preparation because it varies from caller to caller.   Jayz536: Yeah, we have many callers so we don’t really have a style.  It just depends on the caller again.   G1M: I tend to be a lot “derpier” than other people.  It just depends on the map.   DikembeZutombo:  I guess something we went through when we were fighting [NTR] was that they are really good on certain maps.  We brought all the callers together, like six guys in one room, and we looked at the replay.  We’d comment and sometimes it would be two hours of, “Okay, what can we do?  What can we try?” Then you’d settle on something and someone would agree to call it.  The other person would then do a scrimmage ahead of time and you’d try to break it.  At least in terms of when we’re in a war, it really is a team effort where a lot of guys get together to work on strats from different playstyles.  If you know that the enemy is going to be turtling, someone will come up with a turtle strat and someone will come up with a counter.  If it works, then great!  Let’s give it a go.  It’s definitely a bunch of different calling styles.  More often than not it’s pretty laidback because we’re not always at war.   DennisZodman:  That’s also the time to give our less experienced guys shots at calling on LZs against lesser Clans and stuff. That’s when they can get some reps and we see how they act and stuff.   Rageous_:  To add to what Raidr_ said about us getting together. I think one night we had the whole Clan giving input on a strat.  It’s not just officers.  Everyone can get involved if they wanted to.   Speaking of wars, what’s the most exciting war that you have ever been involved in? DennisZodman:  I’d say the [NTR] one because we…   GWBIV:  What about the War on Terror?   DennisZodman:  The War on Terror is ongoing and…   SpunkyGoon: Well, you guys have only been in one true war.   DikembeZutombo:  For sure, it’s the [NTR] war.  Just in terms of what we were going through at the time.  We were kinda figuring out where we can attack and I think I mentioned it maybe a couple of dozen times in the months leading up to it…”Hey, why don’t we take California?  It’s [NTR], they haven’t done anything for a long time.  They may be weak.  Let’s just go after them!”  Everyone is like, “No, let’s not do that.  Let’s go somewhere else.”  I’m like, “California is there for the taking. Just do it!”  Finally, we agreed to do it and the first day it was just a disaster.  I think we lost every single one of our battles.   DennisZodman:  We also prepped terribly.  I set Rageous_ up for failure by telling him to change his call to totally do a different thing on that map.  I gave Mallak_ [PhilZackson] a terrible strat.   DikembeZutombo:  It started off absolutely terribly and we’re like, “Okay, these guys haven’t lost their landing in something like 100 days (since the end of the campaign).  Nobody has gone over there and touches them because many Clans before failed.  Let’s just do it.  Let’s just give it a try.”  The next day, we broke their landing.  Other Clans told us, “Good luck trying to break their Himmelsdorf strat” and the next day we broke the Himmelsdorf strat.   DennisZodman:  People in CR/D would fuel the fire for us.  They would give us inspiration to keep fighting.  This guy said we can’t do it and this guy said we can’t do it.  So it all just motivated us to do better.   DikembeZutombo:  I guess it was other Clans that had been trying for two weeks that couldn’t get further than Himmelsdorf.  In two weeks, we had taken all of California.  Then we knew, “Okay. We got this!”   DennisZodman:  Well, we mapped them in a week, but then they came back and we had a long drawn out war after that.   Rageous_:  Yeah, it was about a six week war after that until we finally reached peace.   DennisZodman:  To lead up to that, there was a war going on in the central part of the Global Map.  It was the [RELIC] / [VILIN] versus [HAVOK] / [OTTER] war.  There wasn’t really a way to get in on that war without pissing people off because I had agreements not to touch Texas.  I wasn’t going to fight [RELIC].  I was going to help [PBKAC] against [THUGZ]and their hordes of Clans, but then [PBKAC] left as well as [THUGZ] and their hordes.  So, there’s no real way of getting into this war without being a big ********* and kinda spilling the pot over or make things too unfair.  There was nothing on the east coast really because the war was kind of over in that area too.  So it was west coast and that left two good opponents: [SIMP] or [NTR].  Riots made my decision for me.  [NTR] had more riots that day, so we hit [NTR].   DikembeZutombo:  Basically what happened was, there was too much other stuff going on and we didn’t want to ruffle any feathers because diplomacy is important and I kept going on about exactly how are we going to let California sit there?  Eventually they listened to me.  We went to California.   Full credit to me.  (Laughter)   We noticed that you are now right next to [NTR].  You were able to smooth things over and are working together? DennisZodman:  We don’t work with them necessarily, but we’re friendly neighbors.  I have no ill-will towards them.  I had no ill-will towards them when I fought them.  It was either them or [SIMP].  I like [SIMP] too!  I don’t have any issues with them.  They were both not doing anything.  They are both making good gold.  Are they worth it?  Let’s see how we do.  Let’s test ourselves against these guys.  We did better than I expected against [NTR].  Eventually, [SIMP] kinda brokered the peace between us and [NTR] because there was no end in sight.  Then things came about real quickly for peace and they’re a west coast Clan like us so they didn’t want to go east.   DikembeZutombo: Every Clan has different objectives.  [SIMP] is clearly a tournament Clan.  [NTR] is actually a tournament Clan.  Their focus is being the best at WGLNA or whatever it is that they do.  Clan Wars isn’t their thing.  It’s not [SIMP]’s thing anymore either.  It is our thing.  We went over here and we said, “There is a Clan that clearly has good players and is going to be a challenge.  Let’s fight them.” and we did.   What advice do you have for new Clans that are just starting out based on your experiences? DennisZodman:  That’s a good question.  I like to think that we did everything right, but I also like to think that we helped start the recent influx of new Clans hysteria, such as [-TRN-], [BULBA], [C100] as well as the new trend of posting "starting lineup" WOTLabs signatures in recruitment threads.   DikembeZutombo:  There's actually a thread up that DennisZodman made.  It's a really good article that is sort of a guide on how to start a successful clan. Diplomacy is so important in Clan Wars. For any new Clan out there, you have to know the lay of the land. Read what is going on in CR/D (don't necessarily post right away) so you can know who is working with whom and who the big dogs are so you can understand the political situation of Clan Wars.  If you don't want to get involved in that stuff, I'd recommend staying in Greenland.  A lot of the bigger Clans are very good at diplomacy and are friends with each other, but are not afraid to attack each other.  Another thing is to stay active.  If you sit around and farm for too long, you're going to kill yourself.  It almost happened to us, and we're not going to let it happen again.   DennisZodman:  When somebody drops tags, I know about it within probably 24 hours.  If you're inactive for about 30 days, you're on my kick list already and I'm going to replace you.  We keep our roster turning over.  Instead of having a bunch of purples that are inactive, if I can get a bunch of guys that are good players (and we slowly move that bar upwards as we recruit), I'm in a better situation. There aren't any other teams that can easily field 3 quality teams on the west coast. The reason we can do that is because we are active.   DikembeZutombo:  If you've got callers in your Clan that are really good - take care of them.  If you don't, someone else will take them.   DennisZodman: Other clans might not poach them, but if they leave your Clan because you're not performing, people will take them.  To sum it up, you need calling depth, you need activity, and diplomacy is important.  You should also take lessons learned from being in Clans, from your Clanmates, and work up the ladder before creating your own so that you have that experience before starting.   If someone's interested in joining BULLS/NUGGS, what is the process? DennisZodman:  We're not as hardcore as some Clans with their recruitment process.  We look at your stats, your Tier X numbers, and we ask people if they can do 3 days a week (which isn't much - we don't want people to burn out).  If you meet those requirements and show that you can play the game well, we'll give you a shot. Jayz536: We want to make sure you're improving too.   DikembeZutombo: When a name is given to me, I'll look at his overall numbers.  Then I'll look at Tier X damage numbers, then Tier IX and Tier VIII.  If you're a really good player and you leave your Clan, as soon as you leave we're going to find you.  If we don't find you within the first 24 hours, that's our bad, but you should probably contact us.   DennisZodman: That, or you might be with a clan that I've never heard of.  We usually look at the Top 30 Clans, and occasionally in the Top 60. So if you're in some Clan in Greenland and are a great player that happens to be in one of those Clans, come talk to us.   DikembeZutombo:  But you have to leave your Clan first.  We don't poach.   Jayz536: We have our own stats website.  We look at stats on your Clan Wars tanks and WN8 on Tier VIIIs and up.  It makes the process easier on the actual applicants.   DennisZodman:  If someone in [NUGGS] wants to move up, we'll take them, but we won't pry them out of Spunky's hands either.   SpunkyGoon:  [NUGGS] is basically the same.  We look at WN8, winrate, and your Tier X damage.  We'll set you up with someone to platoon with for about 30 minutes.  If you can listen and work together with them as a team, we'll just send you an invite right there.   Does your clan have any interesting traditions? DennisZodman:  Probably mass count-ins on an epic scale, as well as our music bot that sits in our Teamspeak lobby and plays the Chicago Bulls theme song, or as of recently...the Hulk Hogan theme song.   Let's talk about the "War on Terror". DennisZodman:  The War on Terror is a tragic tale. The leader of [RUS] decided to ask us for some "gudfites".  We called in Red Sky, who was one of our friends from the Mexico Co-Prosperity Sphere, to babysit our land so we could go north and have some fun fights without consequence. [RUS] asked me to chip them and I should note that we had nothing against [RUS].  We've never had any issue with them. Then they left the map and hit Red Sky. Then [CLAWS] hit Red Sky.  I was gone for not even a week and someone is messing with my old land and friend.   Our “gudfites” thing ended at 9.3 as we planned, so we left the map.  We thought about letting them fight it out, but then thought "Do we really want to reward two guys who just ganged up on my friend and let them fight on our land?". When [RUS] landed there, they said they were going to hit [NTR], but then didn't do it. Then they said they'll hit [CLAWS], but then they could do it elsewhere, not on my land. Then they claimed that California was not our land, even though we fought a war to take it and were accepted by neighbors ([SIMP], [NTR], as well as other larger Clans on the map) as the de facto ruler of it. They were not honest, they didn't want to do diplo right, they didn't want to be cordial about it, I feel that they weren't respectful, and they also acted rather treacherously so we decided to declare the “War on Terror”.   I can't trust them anymore, they're not the same clan diplo-wise that they used to be when KPEMEHb was in charge.  After they did that, we decided to troll them a bit and they bit the War on Terror thing hard, so now we're in a very inactive war, since they refuse to push into us and only ransack LA every week (Trollish chuckle).   Any last words? DennisZodman:  [BULLS] is recruiting always.  Even if we have 100 players (there are usually inactives to remove, and if not then we'll have one eventually).  Shout out to [CHAI] and [OTTER] for investing in us and believing in us as we were growing (as well as all the people who have been a part of [BULLS])!  One last thing...GET DUNKED!   …also, can you remove my RO?   Hypnotik: No.  

ElPozoleOlmeca: Tiene fotos o algo de sus reuniones?

PollotheDestroyer: Tiene fotos o algo de sus reuniones?

ApolloArtemis: Tiene fotos o algo de sus reuniones?

The_Chieftain: I'm actually not sure which of the two is correct. There was a definite intent in early Sep 43 to cease production of the 75mm tank entirely, with an acknowledgement that there would be a surfeit of hulls hanging around waiting for turrets to be put on them. The Army also was not a huge fan of cancelling already agreed upon contracts, with the resulting cancellation charges they'd be smacked with for no assets coming from that cost. It's part of the reason they were so wary about issuing contracts for new equipment until they were damned sure the new stuff was what they wanted. However, in Sept 43, Fisher wasn't building M4A3s yet. The 'cease 75mm' for Fisher referred to M4A2s.   That said, there are annecdotal notes in the records about a subsequent change in policy, such as "General X stated at this meeting that a mix of 75mm, 76mm and 105mm was desired." I have seen nothing definitive yet, though.   However, as near as I can tell, the main reason for the continued production of the 75mm tank in the late war period was actually because customers other than the US Army wanted it: The US Marines and the British Army. The Marines saw no use for the long barrelled, high-penetration vehicles in the confined terrain and pathetically armoured tanks of Japan. Similarly, the British were still taking deliveries of Shermans, and they had no interest in the 76mm for ammunition compatibility reasons (and only 75mm turrets could be converted to Fireflies). The other primary reason may have been that Fisher was involved in a number of reconditioning and conversion projects, it may well have been that M4s coming in for reconditioning could easily have their suspension changed out as part of the process, but the turret may have taken a bit more work. Or that someone decided to do an extra contract to utilise capacity for hulls and also the turrets which were no longer required for the M32 recovery vehicles, which Fisher was converting at the time.

dance210: The teams haven't been accepted yet from what I can tell.   Don't worry, if your team is registered under the week-long registration it will be accepted before the battles begin tonight.   If you want me to confirm it's under the right registrtion, please feel free to send me your team name :)

Pigeon_of_War:   Hey, this seems like an issue maybe our Tech Support team can take care of.  Would you mind sending us a ticket?

HBFT:   You can use any material as long as it is not copyrighted. :)  

HBFT:     Nice addition!  Thank you for the extra effort! xD  

HBFT:   haha I love it!  That's so awesome! :)  You are more than welcome to post it into the pre-moderated thread (if you have not done so already) with a snippet cut here or there to bring it into the specified length of time.  Thank you!

pizzastorm:   Your name and avatar are hilarious. 

Pigeon_of_War: Hey Tankers!   For those of you having HE and HEAT shot issues, please post you information so we can report them if it is game breaking. Python logs, DxDiag, WoTLauncher logs, and replays are all needed to complete a bug report. 

KMaus:   yes, sorry!! SO MUCH TRAINING these past few weeks T.T i'm working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes though, that i know you guys want / changed.
event should be next week, and I'm planning some top secret silly / fun stuff for November as well.

In the meantime, I'd love to get some threads & polls put up each week by players - highlighting changes you'd like to see and stuff you want. I'll be happy to pin these and escalate all the info in them, I just don't have enough spoons to manage all of that on my own just yet. I'd be very grateful for any help putting together player wants and needs, so that I can make sure I'm in on them, and can help get the ball rolling on changes. Tanks is a huuuge game and I'm still working to learn what all the pieces are and how they fit together. You guys have been amazing. Thank you.
<3

KMaus:   yes, sorry!! SO MUCH TRAINING these past few weeks T.T i'm working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes though, that i know you guys want / changed.
event should be next week, and I'm planning some top secret silly / fun stuff for November as well.

In the meantime, I'd love to get some threads & polls put up each week by players - highlighting changes you'd like to see and stuff you want. I'll be happy to pin these and escalate all the info in them, I just don't have enough spoons to manage all of that on my own just yet. I'd be very grateful for any help putting together player wants and needs, so that I can make sure I'm in on them, and can help get the ball rolling on changes. Tanks is a huuuge game and I'm still working to learn what all the pieces are and how they fit together. You guys have been amazing. Thank you.
<3

KMaus: Escalating & working on this getting better in the future for everyone. Thanks for posting. In the interim, please send in a support ticket to get help for this issue.

KMaus: Escalating & working on this getting better in the future for everyone. Thanks for posting. In the interim, please send in a support ticket to get help for this issue.

KMaus: Awesome! Thanks for sharing!!

KMaus: Awesome! Thanks for sharing!!

KMaus: Announcements coming next week I believe. This event will snuggle up alongside Halloween & we're grateful for your unyielding October patience!

KMaus: Announcements coming next week I believe. This event will snuggle up alongside Halloween & we're grateful for your unyielding October patience!

KMaus: Grab a screenshot & report them. If you send a screenshot in a ticket, we'll investigate & take appropriate action.

KMaus: Grab a screenshot & report them. If you send a screenshot in a ticket, we'll investigate & take appropriate action.

ElPozoleOlmeca: Problema solucionado. 

PollotheDestroyer: Problema solucionado. 

ApolloArtemis: Problema solucionado. 

Jewel_Thief: Don't forget to mark your calendars, folks!!  This is happening tomorrow!!!     <3 JT

pizzastorm:   Did you get this issue fixed?

pizzastorm: This is awesome!   I hope people take you up on your offer.

dance210:  
    If it helps, Oct. 20 @ 7 pm PDT is Oct. 21 @ 2 am UTC.   I don't know what part of Brazil you are in, and it looks like there may be different time zones. You can always try using this time zone converter to see if it helps any.

The_Chieftain:   But was it really a flawed doctrine? (If it worked, it can't have been -too- bad...) You mention "wastefully spend American lives", and I presume you are referring to the tank crewmen who happened to find themselves up against German heavies, and died as a result. But what else were the tanks doing? Rifle companies had stupidly high casualties already, how much more would they have taken had there been fewer tanks to support their attack because the use of M6s or T14s had limited the amount of mediums available to get to their battlefield? Had there been more heavy tanks at the expense of mobile, reliable medium ones, would the Allies have been as able to close the Falaise gap and prevent the enemy from escaping, using their forces again and killing more Allied troops? So many things have to be factored into the balance, it is extremely difficult to say that the route actually chosen was wrong or that any other route would have been better. American equipment probably wasn't "shockingly inferior", as much as "shockingly different"  

The_Chieftain:   I think the towed AT guns are a bit of a red herring in this argument. It's not as if there was no place for them as a concept, after all, they were used by all sides through the war, even when they started getting to 76mm, 88mm or 90mm in calibre. I'm unconvinced that McNair delayed development of the 76mm gun vehicles much if at all: McNair had a great deal to say about procurement and deployment, but Ordnance's R&D section seem to have had very little blocking them from building any and every idea they could come up with and testing them out. The incredible variety of systems that they came up with (which then were rejected for one reason or another, it seemed that they just threw vehicles against the wall to see what would stick) is testament enough to that. I'll have a look at the early/Mid 1943 timeline when I'm in the office tomorrow at my library, but from my scans of the records on my hard drive, I'm not sure I concur with the effects of the dates you list here. Armored Force were quite adamant in mid-April 1943 (after viewing the M34A1 mount 76mm M4 in Aberdeen) that Ordnance should stop trying to send them quick-fix solutions to mounting the 76mm, build "a properly engineered turret", and that that T20 idea Barnes mentioned he had started a program to look into the month prior would be a good place to start. From when the M4E6 pilots were delivered in June, through when they had passed muster with Armored Force to when Army Service Forces said "OK, we'll go into full scale production" in September took less than three months. That's pretty reasonable going.  

The_Chieftain:   I'm not sure that timeline is feasible. There were a number of attempts to make tracked 3" TDs (M5, T24, T40, T56/57 et al), all were unsatisfactory, plus a few attempts at wheeled ones. T35 (M10) was the first tracked 3" TD designed which actually worked. It wasn't due to any lack of emphasis on making the things. Similarly, the timeline for 90mm TD seems unreasonable given one AGF requirment which I don't think is out of line: They wanted the heck tested out of things before they built and shipped them to Europe. There was about a 6-week vacillation period in early 1943 where the (eventually T71/M36) program stalled, it restarted again in May with the signing of the contract to design and build the two pilots being signed with Chrysler. T71 #1 was delivered by Ford on 6SEP43, at which point Aberdeen started playing with it until late October. Then Tank Destroyer Command got to play with it. And then Armored Force got to play with it. (The second pilot went to both latter locations as well, it seems). In any case, by the time all the users had thrown in their two cents, the modifications made and verified, and the final design approved for production, it was mid 44. Even if they built more pilots initially to speed up the testing process, and you drop that 6-week delay in 1943, there is little likelihood of the design being finalised before early 1944. What would be the development process that you postulate for a 90mm medium in early 44?  

The_Chieftain:   Mmm... I'd like a citation for that. I've a report from Ordnance saying that T23 was rejected, amongst other reasons, due to poor cooling characteristics. A problem which Aberdeen was still testing in early 1944, and I have even a report from Aberdeen that it still hadn't been figured out by late 1945 (Tests on T23 cooling continued through July 1946). In any case, unless Armored Force were confident that the vehicle was reliable, they did not want the thing shipped out to begin with: They didn't want the need for the maintenance man-hours.  

The_Chieftain:   Could they have been fixable? Were the AV1790 and cross-drive transmission in a battlefield-ready state in late 1944? I'm not convinced that they were.  

The_Chieftain:   I don't argue that at all. But that was a local decision, not one made by AGF or Ordnance when it came to designing and building the things. 

dance210:     Yep :)

dance210: Hi all,   I know that you're waiting for the gold for Skirmish 39 Playoffs and I apologize for the delay :(   I checked today, and it looks as though the request has been submitted. Which means that it shouldn't be too long (hopefully today or tomorrow) before the gold is credited to your accounts.    

dance210:    If you have proof of player(s) and/or team(s) cheating, then it needs to be submitted to tournaments@wargamingamerica.com. Unsubstantiated claims are not proof that there is wrongdoing...   As for the WG employees. There is nothing stating that employees cannot participate in this tournament. They were randomly placed on teams, same as any other player. Again, if you feel that there is unfair play, it needs to be submitted to tournaments@wargamingamerica.com to be reviewed.   Thank you.

The_Chieftain: They actually let me spend a lot of time on that stream. I missed the first 20 minutes, and about ten in the middle, that was it.

dance210: As a reminder, here is the Playoff schedule: Round  Time Round of 16 4:00 pm PDT Quarterfinals 5:30 pm PDT Semifinals 7:00 pm PDT Finals 8:30 pm PDT   Match-Up Melee Standings Top 50% move on to Playoffs Bottom 50% Team Win Ratio Team 177 1.000 Team 187 1.000 Team 25 1.000 Team 27 1.000 Team 53 1.000 Team 16 0.952 Team 168 0.929 Team 170 0.929 Team 174 0.929 Team 182 0.929 Team 189 0.929 Team 35 0.929 Team 43 0.929 Team 47 0.929 Team 176 0.869 Team 13 0.857 Team 14 0.857 Team 167 0.857 Team 183 0.857 Team 10 0.857 Team 11 0.857 Team 181 0.857 Team 186 0.857 Team 36 0.857 Team 38 0.857 Team 79 0.857 Team 56 0.845 Team 184 0.810 Team 110 0.786 Team 136 0.786 Team 157 0.786 Team 164 0.786 Team 165 0.786 Team 175 0.786 Team 178 0.786 Team 179 0.786 Team 46 0.786 Team 52 0.786 Team 63 0.786 Team 85 0.786 Team 93 0.786 Team 108 0.714 Team 146 0.714 Team 166 0.714 Team 173 0.714 Team 48 0.714 Team 129 0.714 Team 158 0.714 Team 190 0.714 Team 64 0.714 Team 199 0.702 Team 111 0.643 Team 115 0.643 Team 132 0.643 Team 139 0.643 Team 171 0.643 Team 185 0.643 Team 19 0.643 Team 21 0.643 Team 37 0.643 Team 60 0.643 Team 62 0.643 Team 70 0.643 Team 74 0.643 Team 75 0.643 Team 78 0.643 Team 8 0.643 Team 9 0.643 Team 101 0.631 Team 66 0.631 Team 117 0.619 Team 138 0.607 Team 109 0.595 Team 159 0.595 Team 114 0.571 Team 119 0.571 Team 131 0.571 Team 148 0.571 Team 149 0.571 Team 163 0.571 Team 20 0.571 Team 23 0.571 Team 24 0.571 Team 28 0.571 Team 45 0.571 Team 49 0.571 Team 51 0.571 Team 55 0.571 Team 7 0.571 Team 76 0.571 Team 77 0.571 Team 82 0.571 Team 83 0.571 Team 191 0.524 Team 102 0.500 Team 120 0.500 Team 127 0.500 Team 140 0.500 Team 150 0.500 Team 152 0.500 Team 2 0.500 Team 22 0.500 Team 29 0.500 Team 33 0.500 Team 39 0.500 Team 4 0.500 Team 65 0.500 Team 95 0.500 Team 125 0.429 Team 92 0.429 Team 1 0.429 Team 106 0.429 Team 124 0.429 Team 141 0.429 Team 153 0.429 Team 160 0.429 Team 41 0.429 Team 61 0.429 Team 87 0.429 Team 91 0.429 Team 94 0.429 Team 98 0.429 Team 100 0.357 Team 12 0.357 Team 121 0.357 Team 122 0.357 Team 123 0.357 Team 151 0.357 Team 154 0.357 Team 161 0.357 Team 68 0.357 Team 86 0.357 Team 90 0.357 Team 107 0.345 Team 26 0.310 Team 200 0.298 Team 105 0.286 Team 113 0.286 Team 130 0.286 Team 147 0.286 Team 162 0.286 Team 18 0.286 Team 198 0.286 Team 40 0.286 Team 72 0.286 Team 84 0.286 Team 99 0.286 Team 145 0.238 Team 31 0.238 Team 73 0.238 Team 118 0.214 Team 135 0.214 Team 144 0.214 Team 169 0.214 Team 172 0.214 Team 3 0.214 Team 42 0.214 Team 58 0.214 Team 6 0.214 Team 80 0.214 Team 89 0.214 Team 54 0.167 Team 116 0.143 Team 126 0.143 Team 128 0.143 Team 134 0.143 Team 137 0.143 Team 17 0.143 Team 180 0.143 Team 32 0.143 Team 44 0.143 Team 59 0.143 Team 96 0.143 Team 103 0.095 Team 104 0.071 Team 142 0.071 Team 143 0.071 Team 155 0.071 Team 156 0.071 Team 30 0.071 Team 34 0.071 Team 57 0.071 Team 67 0.071 Team 71 0.071 Team 97 0.071 Team 112 0.000 Team 133 0.000 Team 15 0.000 Team 5 0.000 Team 50 0.000 Team 69 0.000