November Community Update: Future of Frontlines, Tournaments, Tank Rewards an...
Дата: 02.11.2018 20:03:25
CabbageMechanic: Hey Tankers,
I have not been able to spend as much time on the forums recently, though I dearly miss all of your bright and eternally constructive postings. We just recently returned from Twitchcon (to which we brought an M60A1), it was great to meet many of you on the show floor and at our Happy Hour, I hope those of you who made it had a good time - if you didn't please enjoy this clip of Quickybaby encountering the notorious "HE loading Grille 15" endemic to the NA server.
As we roll into the end of 2018 (wow that happened fast) I wanted to address a few things hanging in the air, some more pleasant than others.
Frontlines
Feedback on Frontlines was enormously positive across all regions, and quickly became the favorite game mode of many at the Austin office. Large map, single tier, rewarding economy, and more interesting objective-based gameplay were all positives cited frequently by the Community. I was so excited about the development that I was asked to shut up about it (I didn't). This positive response does beg the question - where the hell has it been?
Sort of like that scene where Wolverine gets adamantium added to his skeleton, Frontlines is being slowly and painfully worked on with as much attention to detail as we can manage. The summer test proved the concept but also revealed a lot of structural technical issues (many of you experienced the slowdown caused by them). These need to be fixed before the concept can be developed further, as we need to be sure that we are building on top of a solid foundation (a lesson I hope many of you long-timers can appreciate us learning) because there are a lot of exciting possibilities for the future of the game that can begin with Frontlines. We initially hoped that we would be able to run a newer version by the end of 2018, but this will not be possible. Expect another look at Frontlines in early 2019.
Tank Rewards As most of you know Tank Rewards was placed on hiatus earlier this year with the move to Austin. Re-building our team from a small skeleton crew to its present almost-quite-completed status has been rewarding but challenging, and unfortunately Tank Rewards has been one of the things pushed back in favor of more mission-critical items. Having ascended to its level on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs last month, we took a long hard look at the tools available to us and have decided to scrap the old Tank Rewards entirely. There are new in-client tools available to us that were not available at the time of Tank Reward's conception, and while it served the purpose nobly we think we can now do it better. Tank Rewards 2.0 development is in full swing and (not to sound like a broken record) we hope to launch the first version early in 2019.
Tournaments
For the last few years, WoT Tournaments on NA have been neglected. With no dedicated staff since the closure of the eSports team any and all tournaments since have been extra work taken on by staff from departments with other responsibilities. In that time Tournament frequency slowed down and eventually stopped from last 2017- mid 2018, returning in June once we had the time to devote to them. They have run with mixed results since. One of the reasons given for withholding tournaments was that we lacked confidence in our current Tournaments tool to operate reliably, and as Scorpiany has thoroughly documented, we have had several issues with both operating the system and with it working properly since bringing them back. Tournaments will continue to run, warts and all - one of the most prominent pieces of feedback I received during their hiatus and now is that most of you would rather have tournaments with issues than no tournaments and all, and I strongly believe that is still the case.
That said, we are taking measures to improve the situation, beginning with Domosapien and Jambijon no longer splitting responsibilities between Tournaments and other tasks. Domosapien will be moving off tournaments entirely to focus on other areas of need and Jambijon will be narrowing his focus to Tournaments alone until things have improved. We have also been pleased to get much of our feedback picked up by the development team and now the Tournaments tool is being developed again, with old issues being worked out, new ones being tracked and fixed, and features being added to improve usability and function.
Most importantly in this area, I am pleased to formally announce the promotion of 1984BigBrother from CS Product Specialist to Competitive Gaming Manager. BigBro is incredibly passionate about competitive WoT and has been the driving force behind the recent FAME v. MAHOU showmatch, Season 9 Clan Playoffs, and ongoing Grand Battle Tournament. He will be focused on continuing the development of exciting high-end play opportunities for the NA server, but in his daily responsibilities will be working closely with Jambijon on improving the state of Tournaments.
Matchmaking
Matchmaker is still being re-worked with an emphasis on improving the player experience by limiting runs of disadvantageous situations, more information coming as development proceeds.
NA Server Death
What is dead may never die, and we've been dead since at least 2015 according to General Discussion. We still aren't going anywhere anytime soon (being zombies we don't move very fast), and we have a lot of irons in the fire for new content, some of which is quite paradigm changing and will represent a significant evolution of the game. And no, I'm not just talking about wheeled vehicles even though I am really excited to jump them over that sweet railroad hill on Studzianki.
See you on the Battlefield,
CM
I have not been able to spend as much time on the forums recently, though I dearly miss all of your bright and eternally constructive postings. We just recently returned from Twitchcon (to which we brought an M60A1), it was great to meet many of you on the show floor and at our Happy Hour, I hope those of you who made it had a good time - if you didn't please enjoy this clip of Quickybaby encountering the notorious "HE loading Grille 15" endemic to the NA server.
As we roll into the end of 2018 (wow that happened fast) I wanted to address a few things hanging in the air, some more pleasant than others.
Frontlines
Feedback on Frontlines was enormously positive across all regions, and quickly became the favorite game mode of many at the Austin office. Large map, single tier, rewarding economy, and more interesting objective-based gameplay were all positives cited frequently by the Community. I was so excited about the development that I was asked to shut up about it (I didn't). This positive response does beg the question - where the hell has it been?
Sort of like that scene where Wolverine gets adamantium added to his skeleton, Frontlines is being slowly and painfully worked on with as much attention to detail as we can manage. The summer test proved the concept but also revealed a lot of structural technical issues (many of you experienced the slowdown caused by them). These need to be fixed before the concept can be developed further, as we need to be sure that we are building on top of a solid foundation (a lesson I hope many of you long-timers can appreciate us learning) because there are a lot of exciting possibilities for the future of the game that can begin with Frontlines. We initially hoped that we would be able to run a newer version by the end of 2018, but this will not be possible. Expect another look at Frontlines in early 2019.
Tank Rewards As most of you know Tank Rewards was placed on hiatus earlier this year with the move to Austin. Re-building our team from a small skeleton crew to its present almost-quite-completed status has been rewarding but challenging, and unfortunately Tank Rewards has been one of the things pushed back in favor of more mission-critical items. Having ascended to its level on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs last month, we took a long hard look at the tools available to us and have decided to scrap the old Tank Rewards entirely. There are new in-client tools available to us that were not available at the time of Tank Reward's conception, and while it served the purpose nobly we think we can now do it better. Tank Rewards 2.0 development is in full swing and (not to sound like a broken record) we hope to launch the first version early in 2019.
Tournaments
For the last few years, WoT Tournaments on NA have been neglected. With no dedicated staff since the closure of the eSports team any and all tournaments since have been extra work taken on by staff from departments with other responsibilities. In that time Tournament frequency slowed down and eventually stopped from last 2017- mid 2018, returning in June once we had the time to devote to them. They have run with mixed results since. One of the reasons given for withholding tournaments was that we lacked confidence in our current Tournaments tool to operate reliably, and as Scorpiany has thoroughly documented, we have had several issues with both operating the system and with it working properly since bringing them back. Tournaments will continue to run, warts and all - one of the most prominent pieces of feedback I received during their hiatus and now is that most of you would rather have tournaments with issues than no tournaments and all, and I strongly believe that is still the case.
That said, we are taking measures to improve the situation, beginning with Domosapien and Jambijon no longer splitting responsibilities between Tournaments and other tasks. Domosapien will be moving off tournaments entirely to focus on other areas of need and Jambijon will be narrowing his focus to Tournaments alone until things have improved. We have also been pleased to get much of our feedback picked up by the development team and now the Tournaments tool is being developed again, with old issues being worked out, new ones being tracked and fixed, and features being added to improve usability and function.
Most importantly in this area, I am pleased to formally announce the promotion of 1984BigBrother from CS Product Specialist to Competitive Gaming Manager. BigBro is incredibly passionate about competitive WoT and has been the driving force behind the recent FAME v. MAHOU showmatch, Season 9 Clan Playoffs, and ongoing Grand Battle Tournament. He will be focused on continuing the development of exciting high-end play opportunities for the NA server, but in his daily responsibilities will be working closely with Jambijon on improving the state of Tournaments.
Matchmaking
Matchmaker is still being re-worked with an emphasis on improving the player experience by limiting runs of disadvantageous situations, more information coming as development proceeds.
NA Server Death
What is dead may never die, and we've been dead since at least 2015 according to General Discussion. We still aren't going anywhere anytime soon (being zombies we don't move very fast), and we have a lot of irons in the fire for new content, some of which is quite paradigm changing and will represent a significant evolution of the game. And no, I'm not just talking about wheeled vehicles even though I am really excited to jump them over that sweet railroad hill on Studzianki.
See you on the Battlefield,
CM
November Community Update: Future of Frontlines, Tournaments, Tank Rewards an...