Purpose of this blog

Dmitry Yudo aka Overlord, jack of all trades
David Lister aka Listy, Freelancer and Volunteer

Monday, March 18, 2013

[ALL] Make Yourself Heard!

I will be heading for GDC 2013 to San Francisco later this week and prior to the event I will be talking to our EU and NA offices regarding (in)formal community relations, blogs, information policy and relevant stuff. I would appreciate any feedback from your side regarding the mentioned stuff, namely: your attitude to this blog, official forums, customer relations of WG in general.
What are the most glorious win and epic fail?

175 comments:

  1. The Wargaming Road Tour is a win. I was able to meet up with them in Dallas on Friday night and it is a great set up.

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  2. The return of the 1/2 price tech tree focuses was great, and this past weekend's 30% off and 30% extra credits for tier 8 vehicles was fantastic.

    It would be really nice to have more forewarning for such events. I know the names of the events are given out in advance but the names alone don't allow us to plan credits and research appropriately.

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    Replies
    1. speaking of the recent specials, I couldn't help but notice that we haven't had a 'gold crew re/training discount' for awhile now...

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    2. Yes,usually weekend special is updated on friday afternoon. I dont know if this is willingly made so, but for me it would be better to know details already wednesday or so.
      Current hungarian translation is a mess, would be a good idea for the hungarian community to review the translation. Sometimes it looks like google-translated.
      Also, i would like to see more tank academy videos.
      Regarding blog: fqntastic, gj, but after like 90 comments are usually no more answers from OL.

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    3. Im trying to fix that, eg the previous post

      Delete
  3. there is virtually no customer relations in EU, so no feedback available :(

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    Replies
    1. Pity, but you at least you have got me, right? ))

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    2. if only you could come and do Q&A for us again :)

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    3. @Overlord - can we have again Q/A like we used to have?

      I promise to not misbehave.

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    4. may be in future :) and on the project I work directly

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    5. I mean even other developer - from WOT team.

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  4. This blog=great:)

    general pr from WG sucks ass tbh, EU forum still has no real q&a, there is one but it doesnt really seem to work and the answers we do get take at least a month, I sometimes read NA forums too, and its so much better there, the only good community guy for the eu forums(english section) is ectar whilst on NA you have mugsy generaldirection major rampage jewelthief just to name some, the difference in activity is enormous to me, not blaming ectar here, 1 guy can only do so much and he does well IMO. I dont know if you read the forums overlord, but maybe you should read NA and EU a little and compare how much response there is from WG employees on both, IMO the difference is huge.

    another example is the 83mm HE shell thingy, say you really didnt see how it could be profited from, is it really so neccesary to patch it? cant you just say: our bad, enjoy your free credits? Now RU got the opportunity and NA/EU didnt, which is unfair IMO, and you also made a lot of players pissed because they didnt get credits. I still dont get what damage it would've done to let people make some money. Even if it would be gamebreaking, someone from WG should've explained why. Now all we got was ectar saying sorry guys but this will be patched.

    Often it seems like WG doesnt really want to let people have even little things, stuff like buying back sold prems for their credit sale price, and also the 83mm HE thing. All these little things kinda make you feel unappreciated as a customer.

    sorry for ranting a little but you asked what I think lol

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    Replies
    1. oh and maybe a way to make HB's, make objectives, that are played in sequence depending on the previous result, like if team a wins objective 1 one then the next objective will be further back to the side of team b, similair to tug of war and assault in World in Conflict(which is a great game btw)

      ToW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9vV6D6LPJ4 as you can see the enemy captures the whole frontline then it shifts back untill one team is off the map, you could also do this in randoms btw, I just think its cool

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    2. I like the "sequence" thingy, however it means that HB won't be suitable for random.

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    3. I dont think HB would be suitable for random anyway because I forsee everyone and their mother wanting to play tigers and no shermans/T-34s

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  5. 1. First of all EU has too few info about works on new features. Current Q&A are very weak and almost useless. Whole process is much too slow. Maybe there should be one Q&A for both EU and NA players with one developer answering in English almost everyday, like you were doing it for many months?

    2. It would be nice to have info about events content much sooner then one day before event.

    3. Events are very good now and we have them very often. So IMO you can disregard all complains on events (sure they will come, for example that EU has worst ones ;) ). WG is very active in making events and I appreciate it. I remember times, when there were only 1-2 events per month.

    4. Most useful blog for us is currently the one made by SS.

    5. This blog is OK, but I miss times, when you were publishing your "official" leaks, screens, trees and so on :).

    6. And I think that forum moderators allow too many threads about the same (MM sucks, Russians are OP, arty is OP and so on). But this is minor problem.

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  6. I actually quite like the American forums. Lots of decent folks. General European forum section is... well, okay (some very, very decent people), but somehow (and this is not related to my ban, I've been saying this for a while) the community organizers seem to always eagerly shoot themselves in the foot (as an example: their handling of the 83mm shells affair, where they did let it needlessly escalate). They also seem to have zero influence (Ectar got mocked openly by SerB or Storm in the Russian Q&A thread) on anything.

    European moderators are horrible. They ban people absolutely randomly - while other people get a free pass for the same offense moments later (this concerns mostly rude words). Especially Czech section suffers from this, there have been several major conflicts in past weeks (but then again, it's widely known what I think of them in general).

    I must praise The_Chieftain and Challenger, both are great to talk about. I just wish Challenger had more time for the common folks, he usually sticks to his section, where he talks to military veterans that play WoT. Interesting, but it's somehow an exclusive club.

    And of course, I like your blog a lot, did from the beginning, that goes without question.

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    Replies
    1. Some good points, thanks.

      Haven't had opportunity to work with Challenger so far, as for Chieftain, he is definitely a good guy, even though he is Irish. ;)

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    2. Haha I see :)

      By the way, will you have any chance to talk with 'em about what we talked about, or is it off the table?

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    3. Im not 100% sure I will be meeting either of them during my trip to SF.

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    4. simply put Franks blog is THE best source of anything about wot, beats hand down overlords blog, news and most of the official eu section informations.

      e-sport part is a disaster. with focusing on live events 7vs7 all 14 vs 14 tournaments were pracitcally stoppes, so there is no mass competition oriented end game content (only 7vs7 tournaments which are designed rather for semi pro teams).
      Also with 0xyde taking a lot of BUMP's duties the general communication between e-sport teams and players is much worse (becuse 0xyde may be a good administrator but he knows nothing about WoT -like BUMP, but unlike BUMP he prefers to show off how important he is while bump was really ready to listen and improve)

      Support is generally piece of shit. In any case that is not straight out of a book it's more likely that support will answer to something completely different then support ticket is about so they look stupid and incompetent.

      Support never explains what info they have about rule violation so there is no way innocent player can prove his innocence and support easily threatens with bans to player submitting a ticket and often to his friends if they express support anywhere on the forums or other sites.

      Shortly put 3 times oout of 4 when there is a ticket the answer comes from an incompetent idiot or simply an asshole.

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    5. i have played lots of browser games that had a community team made up of actual players so that might be the big diference with WoT
      but what i'm missing from this team is interaction and support.. they have shown in the past they know how to ban people and how to move/close topics.
      however they seem not know how to communicate with and help players that have a question.
      they should have some knowlege of the game and its features sure i don't expect them to reveal hidden stats and things but they could come in the forum and take part of it.
      Ectar told us he had tought up a special recently, but i can hardly belief he and the team need more then a meeting of lets say 2 hours to do that so why not come to the forums and give WG so good PR by showing your out there and you are aware of the players

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  7. Overlord's Blog : WIN
    I get some good information and the chance to see how you respond to the community. Very high level, clearly only for the dedicated tanker.

    Official Forums : FAIL
    Some good info comes out of the forums, but I think they're following the typical cycle of starting out really good, then becoming less useful. I'm sick of the negativity and dead horse beating.

    WOT Wikipedia : WIN
    Lots of game information and well organized. Great for every level.

    WG customer relations : WIN
    With only one ticket submitted ever, I can't comment on CS. But you take care of people pretty well en masse. Lots of people complain but then again gamers are always unhappy (cf: Recent 83mm shell thing). What I see is a company that really cares about making a great game.

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  8. Dear Overlord

    I can only speak of your blog because it's the only one I read or participate in. I like the fact that we can vent our frustration and not get banned.

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  9. Probably not high on the priority list but they could make better use of their twitter account, replying to people who have queries, questions etc, otherwise it's just a glorified RSS feed.

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  10. the whole WoT EU office(s) is a huge epic fail
    there are so many wrong things I don't even know where to begin

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    Replies
    1. it was discussed over the EU forums a couple of times
      mostly, it's the lack of communication between the EU team and the players
      2nd would be the lackluster and discrepancy in the events and their content, although I guess it got better lately

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    2. EU office is good at:
      Events and competitions.

      EU office is bad at:
      Answering questions. Bad answers or no answers.

      Getting out information, it's late or missing. Specialy patchnotes.

      Following policy, there are policy "changes" now and then but it moslty sems to be what ever the one making a decition thinks right then and there that goes.

      And blaming information being late on translations is just stupid.
      Do the english translation asap and post it, and work on the other ones with avalible staff. Once those are done post them in relevant sections. It's strange when you can get patchnotes 2 days before the patch on the NA page and 12h AFTER the patch on EU. This is not a one time thing it's always.

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    3. EU Community Team sins:
      -events, they are sometimes better, sometimes worse. My complain is their details are always published one day before, it wouldn't hurt to release them in Wednesday (for example)

      -announcements, for some reason EU is almost always last to get "official" one.

      -activity on forums: they are regularly posting their minievents, fair enough, but only Ectar seems to be alive outside. Answering random questions, posts in lol topics, partaking in discussions etc.

      -their Q&A sessions are made of pure fail, simple translating RU Q&A by "official dude", the same thing SS does would be ok with "worthy" questions passed to devs.

      And in view of SilentStalkers blog, lack of "controlled leaks" from upcoming content. While I know not public/classified information leaks can be dangerous, but leaked tank photo is hardly damaging, while it could make some positive PR about game. Also simple bolded note "content in development, it might be changed or scrapped at any time" should be enough. Whiners will whine anyway.

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  11. Daily reading;- your blog (always want more) and SS's
    Weekly reading;- NA forums and SEA forums, WOWP forum, forgot to look for english section of EU forum.

    The NA "Road tour" seems to be well received according to my NA clan mates, as is the SEA efforts, especialy in Aus concidering our small population. Any chance you will come to "Warbirds Downunder" this year. Throw a display on under the wing of a Spitfire or two?
    Tmac

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    Replies
    1. Tbh, not sure of such plans. I wont be there because Im going to start smth new

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  12. Tease us more with More screenshots more News to keep us interested that's how you keep peoples interests getting excited for the new and latest things that has the Coming Soon label on it

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  13. This blog is nice. But you need to post moar.
    Public relations are bad.

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    Replies
    1. Wish I had moar time )

      Why bad? any details?

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    2. You handle scandals like Russians. Ban/kill it and it will all go away.

      And you always seem to treat the EU server like the middle child. Unwanted and annoying.

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    3. The thing is that Russians don't work with EU server.

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    4. This statement, right here.. That's the problem with EU and NA. Russia doesn't work with them. YOU don't work with them. Devs only reply to Russian players. RU servers get all info first, get best weekly events and get treated favorably. Russia needs to get its head out of its ass and accept wargaming is a global brand and start treating its players equally. You Overlord also need to stop trying to be the cool kid with the new toys. NA and EU WG staff get shit for not sharing stuff with the players. Stuff you used to do regularly and stuff that only you knew as you were in Russia with the devs.You have the Russian attitude, you don't care about the communities, you just want the attention. Never once did I read on my NA forum about something new, it was always here, with you, pulling people away from the forums to stroke your epeen. You honestly want to help the communities? Work with them, not above them. I missed your Q&A answers but it was obvious you did that only when you be bothered and it was obvious that you didn't have any links or association with the NA or EU community people.

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    5. Devs' primarily job is to develop the game, not communicate, especially on a foreign language. I bet every big multinational company faces a similar issue.

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    6. My take on the problem with this is that(and keep in mind i am not an avid follower of the forum's... but i have been playing since open beta first began.) The problem with the NA/EU community here, is that the people who's job is to communicate with us, don't seem to have access to the dev's... so we hear about it from them, after they read about it in the RU forums from someone with that dev access... you need someone be it dev, CM, or whatever with that same level of access that can get a monthly/weekly briefing on what is going on in the game... right now it seems that only the RU forums have this.

      they don't even really have to get thier briefing from a dev, i'm sure you have a few other people who aren't quite as busy, but still have some idea of what's going within certain areas...

      Ideally you would have a central person coordinating information releases so they are simultaneous to all of your forums.

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  14. Many people are still waiting to be transferred to different servers.
    We have been waiting for a year and a half and get ignored mostly by WG.
    I pretty much stopped playing after 15k battles. bla bla same reasons I mentioned so many times. Tired of it.
    ...
    ...

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  15. I am rather happy with the way things are, events are cool.

    Yet: You really should work on the way you're passing down information on the EU website. I would love to see updated techtrees that list the future developments. Also WG should be more open in communication with its community in general. Now I know the results if you do that, I was an Alpha Tester for Mechwarrior Living Legends and if information leaks you get people who simply cannot wait for it, or are disappointed if you abandon a concept. Still I would really like to see how for example the 2nd German TD tree will look like. I got both Jagdpanther II and Ferdi researched but an still holding back because I'm not sure what I will be shooting for. It would also be nice to see how the arty tree is about to change. Please be more transparent with information like these, so the everyday Joe gets a little more than 3 weeks to prepare for it.

    Best regards ~ dCK_Ad_Hominem

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    Replies
    1. If you were around like 1.5 years ago you prolly know that we used to be more transparent those days. However it worked like a backlash when smth wasnt delivered on time causing lots of whining and anger. We have become more reserved since then.

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    2. Overlord. You should have learned in the last 1.5 years that no matter what u (WG) do and how u (WG) do it, there will always be some id**ts/noobs whining around. I mean they even used to cry when u handed out free tanks for christmas... And nowadays they cry when u fix exploits and they cant abuse them...
      U should have done it like SerB : Ignore them or troll them (With handing out "free" RO for "stupidity") :)

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    3. I understood it long time ago :)

      as for Serb's style, I don't think it's suitable for me. I differ from him in lots of aspects. Plus RU audience is also different

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    4. Exactly. You can't please all of the people all of the time. Whiners will whine. I don't believe you will lose players because of changes in plans, especially with early notice. Last minute changes will never go down well however, but then you can't avoid those now either.

      If a player says "well if I don't get my E100 Crocodil that you said might be implemented back in November 2011 I'm leaving the game", firstly, they won't leave, and second they're being incredibly childish. Stamping their feet doesn't get their way anymore now that they wear long pants. Adults don't respond positively to temper tantrums.

      Go back to sharing your near and far plans with the community and they will love you for it. Add explanation to your decision making and the community will back you against the few whiners. Be open about how game mechanics work and the characteristics of tanks and you bind the customers closer to you. At the moment, there seems a bit of a 'quiet war' being fought between players and developers. A bit like the relationship between the public and the secret police. Even though they hope that the secret police are working in the public's best interest, they are always suspicious about what they don't know.

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    5. The thing is that many developers make one big mistake.
      They dont say open why they changed something, or they say it very carelessly, when their own players DO CARE about it. Often they say nothing, and ignore player requests altogether. Then some ppl become pissed because of it and launch a big shitstorm, that no one wants to have as a developer. Seen it often enough in other MMO`s.

      Worst thing is to make promises you cant hold.
      Best example: SWTOR. Promised all you can imagine, and delivered a very mediocre game. Now all important people and the two chiefs left the studio, and the most expansive game ever is the biggest fail with like 40% retention rate (i.e. financial failure). They lost over 2 million players in 1 year.

      In very early stages, when nothing is sure about a feature, maybe its not good to share it too early (or better, to share any details other than "we`d like to do this and that"), but if you are seriously working on something, thats something you could talk about. Just no overhyping.

      If a feature/plan gets stomped, just tell the people why and the majority will understand and move on. At least they will understand, if the reason is reasonable. ;-)

      Usually its the trolling and arrogance of the developers, that hinders the process of bringing out "bad" information to the players or changes they dont like. Truth works wonders. Only few understand that.

      Not often will all players agree with whats done, but most will value the honesty that is given to them. Decisions have to be made, and we know not verybody can be pleased.

      The players and fans often care A LOT for their beloved game,
      and they want to be in the process, i.e. want to know what direction the game is heading, and what the longtime plans are to some extend. And most importantly, they want to know the truth.

      If you share it, you can get importend feedback, as you already know. :-)

      Loyalty for a game or studio has to be earned, and is a constant process.
      If you lose it once with a lot of people, its hard to gain back.



      PS: Its good you have your own style and are not a second SerB. :-)
      I especially like that you seem to be an open minded guy.

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    6. Being honest (which doesn't mean to provide all info available at once) is one of our principles. That's bad when it is not so reality.

      Delete
  16. Events:
    Absolutely nothing wrong with them, this is going really well the past few months. Great events, great discounts (i have camo on almost every tank now :P). Maybe like a lot of people said before maybe announce them a bit sooner.

    I hope that WG keeps going in the same direction regarding the events.

    Forums:
    Like said, maybe moderate out the crap a bit more and have less of the same threads. I do like the forum contests though not alot of people seem to know about them. Also maybe we should take out the upvote/downvote system since giving an opinion on the forums will almost surely get you neg-repped (this is coming from a guy with positive karma on the forums), I think it sometimes keeps people from posting their opinions and trashtalking should be handled by the moderators not the other forum users.

    This Blog:
    I like this blog since it always provokes conversation even though it is sometimes in a negative way. It is a good way to get in touch with your customers and get feedback. Would like to see some more information again for future plans

    General direction of WG:
    I really like how WG took out the pay2win aspect of this game. They also seem to listen to their customers alot (despite what people sometimes say, but yeah whiners are always around). Removing the premium ammo for gold exclusively feature was a great idea, though i do thing the HEAT ammo on some certain tier 2 - 5 tanks needs tweaking ;), also WG seems to listen to people when it comes to balancing maps (like the recent Serene Coast and Dragon Ridge rework). I don't have any problems with the tank balancing as well, sure some tanks might be performing a bit better but apart from some tanks that abuse goldammo atm (hetzer) i think balance is generally fine.

    What i would like to see though and is a little point of criticism is this: WG seems to focus a lot on making maps look prettier and disregarding the fact that alot of maps are too small for tier 10. Most tanks have about 400 viewrange (nearly 500 with Binocs) so alot of high tier battles result in camping and boring gameplay. Would it be possible that we would get somewhat larger maps for tier 8 - 10 only (just like province is just for tier 1 - 3). A size of 1500x1500 would be really awesome since it would leave more tactical options for medium and light tanks (like trying to flank or ninja cap the base). At the moment alot of maps are simply too small because if you sit somewhere in the middle you have view/spotting range over the entire map meaning that most of the games you will be camping in the same chokepoints for 15 minutes to come. This way tank destroyers have a role again instead of just being forced to come to the chokepoint (or do no damage). Light tanks have more possiblities of scouting (and makes the job more fun, instead of just sitting in the same spot for 10 mins (malinovka im looking at you)), and meds have more room to flank people (instead of being worried that you might get spotted by that light camping in the middle of the map covering almost the entire field).

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    1. we are doing research on approx 4 times bigger maps and 30vs30 battles.

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    2. That would be cool, I assume the battles would be a little longer too? 20 minutes?

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  17. Would it be possible to have official information from "closed test server"? Just highlights for example what is tested, what was tested and scrapped (or approved) - and why.

    It would be great, that you would not only inform us about decisions, but also about reasons behind them.

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  18. 1. Oh yes, reputation voting could be changed on EU forums. Negrepping has rather negative then positive effect on forum. Positive voting alone seems to be enough. (I have plus 796 so I am not trying to delete my bad reputation ;) )

    2. It is hard for me to uderstand, why people want bigger battles. 29 random teammates is for me a horror. I like to have some influance on battle outcome. The more random teammates, the lower are chances that I influence the battle. 14 random teammates doing strange things is too much for me and I would like to see smaller teams in randoms :). So I hope that 30 vs 30 will not be obligatory, cause I am rather not interested with this "total chaos" mode ;)

    But as a player, who likes TD's and some lightly armored vehicles, I like idea of bigger maps. Currently most maps are too small to use TD's and mobility effectively. Playing pure TD ambush style on many maps is almost impossible or ineffective - Port, Himmelsdorf, Wide Park, which is far from being wide, btw ;) So I would like to have bigger maps, but with 15 vs 15.

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    1. 30vs30 in random can be messy, however in TC, CWs, etc in can do rather good.

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  19. is bigger maps but still 15vs15 no option?

    bigger maps plus more tanks results in the same thing tbh

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    Replies
    1. Current maps are pretty much enough for 15vs15 battles. Maps can grow 4 times, while teams 2 times top

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  20. 1. MM is a fail no solutions to the arty issue.

    2.Test servers needed for NA group getting on the Russian server is pointless if you get on that is. Extreme lag! 150-200ms when I get 35ms on the NA server.

    3. The cost of gold rounds vs the cost of AP needs to be adjusted, APCR round in some cases 30 times more than an AP round example 252 credits vs 4000 credits it wouldn't be so bad if the APCR was 3000
    4. At one time you were talking about 2k-2k maps what happened to those?
    5.View and Radio ranges need to be readjusted for the maps sizes we now have,until we get larger maps should be tested tho.
    6. Urban maps need to have outside borders if arty is doing urban maps if not then no arty should be allowed to battle on these types of maps.

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    1. 4. Still under research. Performance is an issue.

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  21. You are quite sinply excellent and a missed man on the EU forums

    Sadly the EU forums are a shamble and the EU team is next to useless. I attended the meeting at the imperial war last year and it was good, sadly the EU team through mismanagement and tbh crap work has lost my support, I have gone from spending £60 a month or so on WoT to nothing, purely based on your EU team.

    I miss you on the EU forum my friend

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    1. Thanks. I had to move on towards new duties and new opportunities

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  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. 1. Blog - good, I like to read sometimes especially when such persons as Doyle answers the questions :)
    2. Forum - not looking on for last month, I get tired of constant fights about arty, premium ammo, balance ("l2pnoob") etc.
    3. EU game site - good, maybe some informations are too late but they try to keep us informed.
    4. Technical support - in my case - good, in case of my clanmate - worse than sale lady in butchers shop during communism.
    5. Devs - bad, usually SerB rethink some sovietpowa stuff and in surprise add this to game instead normal way - proposition, explanation, introduction (i.e. how would look new light tree for Soviet and US? you changed only german tree not saying any word of explanation).

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    1. 5. Not agree here, we did explain lots of stuff, eg transmission thing for e-tanks. And Serb is a great guy, his contribution to WoT is enormous.

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    2. some people think he is a dickhead because of his trolling in the q&a ss translates, I personally can appreciate trolling people who ask dumb questions but some people seem to hate it.

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    3. Trolling is one thing. Look at CCP. There Devs are trolling like nothing on the forum, and its funny. Even the players find it funny and no one gets a ban or something similar. But what Serb does sometimes (from what i can read because of the translations from SS) is not really trolling. It's more like a sarcastic, subtle way of insulting. Sure, somepeople just need to read older posts. But SerB also tries to troll serious questions.

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    4. Don't mistake trolling with being rude and offensive. Because that's what SerB is like.

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    5. He is not rude by all means, you need to have a deeper understanding of Russian culture and language to grasp that. In some cases he did cross the line, but that was more of an exception. In general he is very good and sharp in communication.

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    6. Very demeaning culture to be honest.

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    7. Different I'd say. If you travel a lot, you will surely understand.

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  24. EU-Forums:

    - One big fail - beside Ectar and 2-3 other mods its just a waste of time for players and money for WG. Tear down this big heap of trash and build it new from the ground including that WG-Office in Paris.

    - We dont need 15 subsections and languages there. French, English and German or even English-Only would be enough imo. As it is now I m waiting for the day we will get a saxonian and bavarian subsection in the german part of the forum.
    What you should keep in more languages is ofc the support.

    Otherwise its time start with learning english folks!!!
    This fucking siemka/moin/poz-shit I have to read everytime I start a battle and in the forum is going on my nerves big time.

    I like the NA-Forum. Mostly one language with a much better participation of official NA-Stuff, without the interference like clowns ala BBV&Hunter1911 we have on EU-Forum.


    Specials:

    - as already mentioned by others here, friday is a bit late for announcments
    - put some one in charge of the specials with a working brain pls! On one side we have to many arti in game already and what we get on a regular basis are specials with discount on arti (+income). The same is true for t4-6 HEAT issue, discounts and income special for PIV + M4 (derp)??? Thats just retarded in my opinion


    I like this blog - though you could be more active ;-)


    Q&A???

    -> better visit SilentStalkers blog (1 volunteer) than that junk we have in the EU-Forum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the Q&A (and the other pr stuff) on EU forums is a sad joke! You're asking players for questions, they post like 300 posts with their questions, usually 4-5 questions per user, thats around 1200 questions in total untill you close the thread. And what we EU players got in return? 1-2 months later 5 answers to the most easy and general questions. Those asnwers are usually so silly that my even 6 yrs old son can reply like that.

      This is a huge lack of respect for the EU community! You really don't care for anything but RU forums, thats the truth.

      Delete
    2. "We dont need 15 subsections and languages there. French, English and German or even English-Only would be enough imo"

      French? Most EU players are Germans and Poles (confirmed by a few sources, SerB among them), and Czechs are third most numerous nation (here only one source), so why French?

      There is no need to remove language versions to make things faster. The only change that could be made to give info faster on EU site is publishing English version as soon as it appears, without waiting on translations into other languages. And that should be done by EU team long ago.

      Delete
    3. SS is doing a great job indeed, I'm a big fan.

      Delete
    4. overlord, i had quite a laugh atm.

      If you take somebody who hasnt got the backround knowledge and takes the most common term for "SS", your sentence could be misunderstood.

      Ofc its unlikely somebody whos reading/writing here doesnt know Silentstalkers blog..

      ..but together with the harsh policy where you already ban people ingame for using some wehrmacht terms and insignias in clannames due to "bad behavior in WW2", its quite funny to see a Developer saying that:
      "SS is doing a great job indeed...".


      Sorry im having a purely black humor, and thats just a funny coincidence.

      Delete
    5. Aye )) will be more careful next time.

      Delete
    6. Relax OL.
      Political Correctness gone mad, just because there's always some fool that wants to lecture you. Only an idiot would think that you were suggesting the defunct Waffen SS is doing a good job today. It no longer even exists.

      Delete
    7. Just curious, are you from US/NA? Cause in Europe people are more sensitive towards this.

      Delete
  25. This blog is one of the things that make WG my favorite game development studio. I don't follow the forums, but having the opportunity to read the thoughts of a dev (and the numerous times we're asked for our opinions!) is something I've never seen before. Some companies have "blogs" that talk about future plans or projects, often even asking a dev to write on the topic, but this is different and much better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still what kind of blog entries are you interested most?

      Delete
    2. Progress reports of current developments, for example, from the Dev team (if one doesn't speak english himself, get a rough translation).
      I remember when we got the first touches of the physics update reports with some fancy video demonstrations of it from the development phase. Those were really interesting.
      I'm sure you have a lot going on there in the studio, so it shouldn't be too hard to put something up.
      Most of the stuff does end up in the game at some point, right?

      Delete
  26. hello Overlord,

    Perhaps it would be a nice idea to make a weekly (or so) `update` about the test-server, something like:
    - In the past week we have tested Leopard 1, Indienpanzer and T-60, so far it looks good, but the T-60 might need some tweaking, regarding the Sturmtiger, in the current game it doesnt work, so it wont be introduced before 2014
    - In the next week we will test out the Sturer Emil and some Waffentrager, we will also continue further testing and tweaking of the new german med.

    No need for walls of text, just basic info, even if absurb idea get tested (and scrapped) i wouldnt mind, some odd screenshot now and then, and its all nice, there is not even need for reasoning: M60 is scrapped coz its not possible to balance it proper, would be alrdy ok, this would also remove the `need` of leaks whatsoever.

    ps: an giving future updates would be rly nice, and to prevent uproar dont give data`s, or make them a little `conservative`

    ps ps: almost forgot, any news on what 8.6 will contain? since it wont be ussr meds, french won come in 2014, ger tds wont arrive after meds and brit arty wont come before tier 10 arty change (again US? or something chinese?, USSR heavys?, arty rebalance? or no tanks but pure game-update? (like global rebalance)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 8.6 can be more than that :) Don't wanna spoil right now (major feature is on the way).

      Delete
  27. Official Forum
    The only uses I have for the official forum is for mods and to look at comments on individual tanks, usually to confirm or deny a problem I have with one I'm playing. Maybe visit once a week, though would probably view it more if I could access it from work like the blogs.

    This Blog
    I visit here everyday. The content is very interesting, but seems used only for customer research these days. Not saying that's a bad thing. It's nice to be asked. New OL posts are also rarer than they used to be. They also used to be more content news.

    Frank's/SS's Blog
    Without blowing too much smoke up his behind, Frank does an excellent job of bringing us what OL used to and more. This is proper info for the WoT and tank enthusiast. He bridges the gap of the information vacuum between the EU and NA servers and the native speaking Russian developers.

    In my view, the single most valuable appointment you could make for the forum/Blog reading public - probably about 5% of WoT regular players - is to employ a bi-lingual enthusiast to collate ALL the questions from the community and present them, in Russian, to Serb and Storm. This guy/gal could then edit out all of the crap questions that Serb gets angry about and keep track of answers. Any worthwhile EU and NA questions would get answered efficiently along with the Russian ones. There would be no repetition, anger or wasted energy.

    Regarding Serb's acerbic (or should that be aSERBic - hohohohaha) style, I personally like it. However, it doesn't translate to the Western style of customer service. We in the West seem to have developed a deep seated sense of entitlement in this, especially among the youth. You will always get this reaction until it's cleaned up. They will never understand that Serb doesn't need to respond at all and we should be grateful for his (often grumpy) replies.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Ok, I erased my before post, for to give a proper answer to the question

    - Blog, I like this blog because here I can read the future the game, what the dev are thinking to improve the game. I miss the fact some of this information no appear in the web page, it's true that there is the ASAP videos but not the same.

    - European forum, I only use to pick up some information but I don't follow it.

    - Support, Great FireWall company, always I open a ticket about game the answer you can recive simply is this the better game of the world, true, I haven't words.

    The game is great, a lot of tanks, with different nations and different roles for nations, a lot of stile of play same tank but for me and here I've a lot of disagree with the support is it's out balance, I don't know other player but in the random plays there are a lot of 15-3 or similar result.

    The MM system need improve in random play, but the question isn't about this issue, sorry.

    I think you must improve the comunication with the game community in the European forum (here because I read the other fellows posts) and support, I think the problem the support it's they do a lot of firewall and no to explain people what is the path of WG company to bring better experiencie of game play.

    They like to defend the game, I think a god example about the good relation into company y game community is CCP of Eve Online, try to look.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I feel like WGNA is poor with relation to bans/account acctions. I know that our forums don't allow naming and shaming but it would be nice to know the auto TK system, Afk system and bot detection systems work. At the very least you could be posting the total number of "actions" taken in each Category per month. This would make many of us feel better about the system.

    I have to say that when I report AFKer and obvious bots I look up their stats after battle... It's obvious to me they are violating the passive play rules. Yet it takes far to long for action to be taken on an account. I do noticed that action is sometimes taken. When I go back a month or so later to look. The problem is that by this time they have played in and ruined thousands of battles. A softer system is required that quickly warns players about the passive play rules and flags them fast. It should have an auto ban component if they don't do better after the warning. Say a one day auto ban for 20 passive play games in a day. Numbers are up to you but the current system appears to need some tightening.

    The NA forums are to spread out. Decisions to move hot topics out to sub forums is leading to agitation in the player base. It's much better to have a pinned topic for a subject than to delete things from general or move them to seldom used sub forums. I'll use arty as an example. The EU forums have a pinned topic right in general. Our forums want us to post these type of complaint in each nations spg sub forum. It makes no sense when the pinned topic worked so well on the EU forums. The current system makes the forums feel like a police state of deleted and moved posts.

    A pinned topics was asked for by the player base to consolidate common complaint threads we see in general. People are going to post there anyway you're just creating more useless work for yourselves by not realizing this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Im from EU and believe me, that pinned arty topic doesnt nearly stop all arty ragethreads from being posted ;)

      Delete
    2. It's better than having to go to each nations SPG thread to discuss it. You can't fix stupid. Someone will always post things in the wrong place. All you can do it try make it easier to do the right thing.

      Delete
  30. why do RUS have password change reward and eu not? Actually, why different events or rewards which are not really region related. A good password for good for everyone

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because every region is operated independently by professionals who understand their local audience better. How we (e.g. myself - a guy from Belarus) can understand what guys in EU really need now? :) So, it's easy.

      Delete
    2. "How we (e.g. myself - a guy from Belarus) can understand what guys in EU really need now?"

      Ask? Maybe? :-)

      Delete
    3. "How we (e.g. myself - a guy from Belarus) can understand what guys in EU really need now?"

      Isn't it bit... racist ;)? Anyway... jokes aside. We were TELLING YOU ALL THE TIME WHAT WE WANT: TO BE TREATED EQUALLY! We were telling it you for few years no and you still don't f*** get it?

      Delete
    4. Things don't work that way. Jokes aside, only a few do know what they want. And even those who know not always can communicate it properly.

      That's why we have got local customer service that is supposed to understand local customers better than we can do it from HQ.

      Delete
    5. OL said:

      "That's why we have got local customer service that is supposed to understand local customers better than we can do it from HQ."

      Interesting is why guys like Serb and Storm take Ectar serious ... so one has to wonder why WG is wasting money on WG-EU Paris???

      Delete
    6. Don't have the exact quotation of what guys said on the matter. My personal stance is that we do need local offices.

      Delete
    7. Why not including Polls in the garage? With this u can get firsthand what the players want.^^ Certain polls could also only be available
      if the player has experience with the question. Yes it's not something "big". But i belive it can help your (WG's) development process.

      Delete
    8. the problem is, the more people you hire for all those regional offices, the more incompetent they are.

      In polish section mods are either people who were rejected when they wanted to mean something in their clan/community based on their achievements, so they tried to be mods - or people who probably don't play wot at all and I doubt they know what they are doing.

      Almost none of WG emplyees ever did an effort to research and understand a community before starting to show off how important they are - the amazing exception here is BUMP who really made an effort to improve his ideas by asking team captains about their opinions.

      inconsisteny in moderator's job (some behaviours are routinely allowed unless 1 mod will have a bad mood and decides to ban for it) makes the whole EU forum moderation a bad joke.


      Anyway - Typhus idea is amazingly effective - add in Garage a button to a short survey rewarded with 10 gold (to deinstall 1 module) about anything you are interested in and you will get much more valuable data on player's needs then whole EU community office can gather and understand.

      Delete
  31. It would be nice if they made some anti-FPS drop/lagg things.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Why do the specials on the EU server start on Saturday and last till Monday? This is not very good in my opinion, the EU server should have its specials like the US/RU servers from Friday till Sunday.

    In my opinion, a weekend is from Friday till Sunday. This gives the ordinary player more time to benefit from weekend specials.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think Ectar stated, that Monday is THE busiest day on EU servers, that's why they include it in specials.
      Personally would like Friday more too.

      Delete
    2. Correct, mondays are in general far more popular than fridays.

      Delete
    3. Fridays evenings are for beer, Mondays evenings are to forget about 1st work day and the 4 incoming :D

      Delete
    4. Exactly. Folks go meet some friends on Fridays

      Delete
  33. Moar blogs.
    If we could get more blogs and dialog with the dev teams that would be nice.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I can say that when I in january discovered the blog by Silent Stalker and via him your blog, my appreciation for the game grew. An open dialogue beteeen developers and customers creates a fan-base that is necessary.

    You should involve this cluster of close fans more. Like letting them do maps, etc.

    The EU-forum.is quite depressive. So many damned whiners and people that insult others. That must change. But I like Ectar.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Overlord you're asking about Customer relations, here's my answer (Similar to what I've written on here before).

    Since you've left the EU forums we've lost all contact with the Dev's and are ignored utterly.
    Sorry to be so blunt, but its how I feel. Look at the replacment Q&A thread, the Term "utterly unfit for role" springs to mind. Most of the questions are ignored. Its been nearly a month since the last question thread and there's no answers yet. One question senssion had 10 or less questions answered.

    Good ideas from the playerbase are actioned by the EU office, but then seem to disapear somewhere over Germany and are never heard of again.

    Its gotten so bad I posted this last week, and no one disagreed with it.

    "Its almost as if from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line, they repulse the ideas that come from the EU server, no matter how well thought out or beneficial."

    I keep trying to help (remember I found the Nuffield AT plans for you some years ago), for example I managed to find some details on the FV-100, which I passed on to Chally, but it feels futile and impossible to help out.

    Being consitantly ignored means its getting hard to be enthusasitic about trying to help.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Overlord talks says : 8.6 can be more than that :) Don't wanna spoil right now (major feature is on the way).

    Im telling you guys, it's implementation of HAVOK and it rocks :D that and probably independent suspension simulation as IRL. Both confirmed by SerB.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, havoc is cool. Kinda forgot about it. :)

      Delete
  37. Things done well for NA...

    1. Removing negative rep has been great. No more silly posts trying to farm negative rep. Nobody getting negative rep bombed because they beat another clan in CW. All in all it's made the forums a better place.

    2. I like the crack down on name calling, putting people down etc... The team has done a great job with this.

    3. Interaction with the staff seems much better than a year ago. A positive change in my opinion.

    4. Coverage of E-Sports has been nice. I love watching the pro-players. Gives me ideas of how I can improve my game play.

    5. I like that you are posting how to play certain tank videos for the masses. The average player would benefit from watching them and they'd likely improve their play if they'd apply the tips. (It would be really nice to have top players in a tank do videos explaining them. I've seen one done by Straik on the T-62A but sadly don't speak Russian. I'd love to know what he says about it. Maybe WG could work with on these sort of existing videos and maybe translate a few if the authors allow.)

    6. I like ASAP as it gives us some idea of where the game is going. I wish we had a regional ASAP for our teams to explain what they are working on. Putting a local face on WG.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Number 1 is now gone. In a completely baffling move they reinstated neg rep today on our forums. Of course all the forums trolls quickly point out how much they love it. The community has been so much better without it. We'll be back to same crap posts of a few months ago farming neg rep to see who can get the most. Neg rep bombing foes. Neg rep for anyone that points out flaws in ideas. A very sad day for NA. It's nearing time to just move on...

      Delete



  38. fairly new to wot .. only 4months played.
    most of this stuff has already been said, but here goes.

    EU Forums.
    -Need moderation.
    too much rant, "mm fail", and all the other bs, good posts get lost in all of that.
    -Newcomers' Forum: good thing to have, nice place.
    -Regional Contests & Events: found this place recently and love those contests, but maybe more different type of contests needed.
    -Q&A: like most of us, i dont even care to check anymore, SS blog is WAY better than that thing... too slow, answers are bit meh.
    -ASAP videos: BIG + on those, just need more interviews from different people from WG... maybe "ASAP overlord" ? :).

    Events
    -only thing with this is that wg should give some hints or announcements maybe a week before the event so players can save some exp and creds for it.
    All of this years events have been great overall.

    This blog
    -regulary check for new stuff.. you need more wot contect :).

    ReplyDelete
  39. Big issue in NA is the complete disaster that Clan Wars has been in the past few months. Our Rise of the Americas event was a complete joke, multiple failures and ridiculous tier limits that produced predictable results (tier 3 is a joke, tier 6 is 2801 swarm, tier 8 could actually almost work on some maps, but the tier 8 arty just made it goofy at times). The best part of it was that it was launched before the coding was completed.... Then there is competitive/tournament play that has its good days and its bad. Re-developing the tournament interface so that it can actually implement the restrictions and win criteria set out by the tournament organizers (7/42 being the key unsupported format; the interface doesn't drop the one point per lost tank). The best was in a recent tournament, a team accidentally brought a banned tank for one battle in a first to 3 series. They conceded that battle (tk'ing the illegal tank and letting their opponents cap) then promptly won the next three matches 5-1, 5-0, 5-0 using legal setups. Afterwards, the losing team complained, and the result was overturned.

    The biggest issue though is that WGNA is terrible at PR. Their news releases are often filled with typos and grammatical mistakes, and even when they aren't, are usually incredibly convoluted and hard to follow. Furthermore, there is perhaps one staff member who understands game mechanics on a high level, making certain issues hard to deal with (e.g. Rise of the Americas or various tournament events).

    The general impression I get of the WGNA office is that they are understaffed at best, and at worst lack an understanding of their product.

    Almost all of their issue though stem from their bad PR. They need well-written news announcements that answer everyone's questions without clarification (has yet to happen on any announcement other than a tank discount special) and they need to use the in-game notification function much more frequently. Also sending a monthly e-mail to players with a calender detailing the month's planned events would go a long way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have heard of the problems with Rise of the Americas event. Sorry for that indeed.

      As for "typos and grammatical mistakes", really surprised to hear that.

      Delete
    2. Actually if I may - I have the feeling this has something to do with patchnotes in general. EU server typically uses the NA patchnotes (for some reason, they always appear on NA server first). The problem is, the person in NA patchnotes googletranslates them and sometimes stuff gets screwed up, producing in better case typos (such as cyrillic characters), in worst the translation is simply wrong. Happened on more than one occasion.

      Delete
    3. That can happen indeed - think I know the reason.

      Delete
    4. I was talking more broadly about event announcements... I understand poor translations, but it's the terrible descriptions of special events and tournaments that drive me crazy. Every tournament you have to go through the first few pages of the forum page to find out what the rules actually are, because the announcement is riddled with errors and unclear phrasing.

      Delete
  40. Well, let's see:
    I. FORUMS: WG entered the romanian market, they even started to advertise the game on TV, yet, there's no romanian section on the forum. (Same can be said about the portal. The www.tanchisti.ro is the official site transmitted in the commercials but it takes you on the english portal)
    II. PORTAL/SITE: It needs more media/art updates and it needs them to be visible!
    III. YOUR BLOG: I have to admit that I'm still visiting it but not daily how I used to do in the past. Frank's blog is the new source of information for me.

    ReplyDelete
  41. NA server.
    - Re-release Pre-order tanks
    - Bring out the Captured German B1 (or even the Mini maus :) )
    -Type 62

    -Read the forums and actually answer questions with DECENT info rather than "We don't know"

    ReplyDelete
  42. There is so much win in these replies. Especially Listy above has hit the nail on the head with the last sentence. Also I strongly support views that Knobby outlined in response to Ad_Hominem's post. Recently the most exciting thing that happened was connected to supertest leaks released on Silent's blog. And the obviously knee-jerk reaction was to (forgive the pun) silent the Silent. Other than these, we had nothing, nil, nada, nic...

    You mentioned the time when E-transmission thing hit the servers and You (the devs) explained it. But for You to actually take an official stance it took three threads going with scores of pages, with a fair amount of them containing factual historical data about influence of E-series project on post war designs (to be fair there were some duds in there), with input from the_Chieftain who even managed to ask Mr.Doyle about his opinion, and WGN's regular tactic of ignore/troll/ban. So You can't exactly claim it as PR triumph, can You?

    SerB recently stated (according to SS blog) that some patch notes are being forgotten, when a list of them is being compiled. That too is not raising Your credibility in community's eyes. And You know credibility is non existent, when third parties call "check" on You by breaking the EULA and datamining the content to find out what was forgotten. Point in case was (IIRC) enlarging of King Tiger's front machine gun mount, and later its transmission module, both of which were forgotten and denied for some time after.

    EU Community management, as stated above, also leaves a lot to be desired. I too join to choir of praise for Ectar and Challenger. One seems to be true gamer and a fan at heart, while the other, though of a bit hard demeanour, is a mine of interesting info. The rest acts like they are not even sure what game is their employer developing. Q&A section is laughable. At least on Polish part of the forum I have not encountered any wankers working as Mods so that's an upside. EU server sure misses You Overlord.

    Not too be completely negative, I must say that quality of events is getting better and better. Keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I check this blog every day. I like it. But as for WOT haven't played in a while. The only thing that would get me back in WOT would be historical battle, or even better, historical battle with damage (towards realistic) like in MEN OF WAR (one penetration to the turret = turret crew out also different phisics). This would bring back people who are tired of arcade and have no time for CW. I am sure this would work in your favour.

    I am a fan of Blitzkrieg and Men of War and curiosity made me start WOT, but after 11k battles in random and some battles in cw (long hours at night, not so good for working people) it loses it's appeal.

    All the best!

    ReplyDelete
  44. Please bring up that Australian players (in particular, but it's English speaking only players generally) want to transfer back the US cluster and off SEA. The primary reason is the language difference and that it makes teamwork a non existent concept when a 1/3 of the team is English in chat, and the other 2/3's is in Chinese and square boxes come up in chat or it's a mix of Chinese and Vietnamese text flying past. What's the point of playing in a team based game when a fraction of your side can understand and there is no co-operation from the other members of the team?
    My ping is the same to US cluster as it is to the SEA.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Overlord, regarding the forums i had an idea.
    First a question. Why are there multiple forums? Like the EU, NA, RU, SEA?

    Wouldn't it be better to unify them to one major forum for WoT?
    With one big english part and then for the other languages there own sections.
    That would concentrate all the necessary and informative Threads, Post, Q&A's
    and so on.

    This also means, that the regional community offices can combine there manpower and provide a better environment for us players.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have got region-based system for everything: game, web, and all resources. For user-experience it's better to keep every single thing unified and logical.

      Delete
    2. So account transfer will never be possible. No matter what any support copy/paste in respones for tickets. Becouse transfering is loosing customer for 100%, while telling him bullshit stories about future is delaying at least for some time. Simple math.

      Delete
  46. Overlord,

    Been a fan/player for over two years now. It is apparent that the EU office lack information from the top or are just not given it in a timely fashion.

    Get rid of neg rep it seems to have worked well on the NA forum

    The EU community team has improved massively, I totally agree with all the comments regarding Ectar and Challenger they seem to hold it all together.I totally disagree with the statement that Challenger has a "hard demenour" i have met him twice at Community events and thought what a first rate guy, chatty, proffessional (knows his tank shit) and has a good sense of humour. Considering he has not been there that long I think he is the best thing the EU office has done and is a considerable asset to them.

    Key point for me is the passage of information for us needs to be accurate and timely.

    ReplyDelete
  47. It got a little long, but it represents my honest, adult opinion about WG, no whining or swear words.

    For me really bad things are
    1) last minute information about events and patches. I am not saying detailed info should be available weeks before, but couple of days would really make a difference.

    2) in my opinion WG makes a big mistake by favoring Russian market. I know they are their local market and they feel closer to it, but wargaming became a globally recognizable company and they should start thinking globally. What I mean is no one group favoring. Markets/communities need to be treated according to their specific region: like Russians think its funny when Serb trolls them, on the other hand Europeans are annoyed by it and would prefer more professional approach.

    3) serious lack of communication. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean complete and it really got better lately, but community managers and people taking care of support are either incompetent or very lazy. I don't have a job, I speak 3 languages, employ me, I will do more than probably 2 of them combined. That doesn't concerns Ectar, he is doing really good job compared to others.


    On the PLUS side:
    - Events definitely are getting better, more meaningful for an average player.
    - Developers start (start is the key word) to listen to players (not whiners but people who actually make sense and know their way around history and tanks) and implement some of the things they are asking for. This also goes for the will of implementing some of the more popular mods.

    What I would like to also see is some sort of teasers what is coming our way. Before you say leaks are bad, yes, they are. I agree with that and I remember when WG was giving out more info and even dates and how people whined about not meeting the deadlines. I mean just a teaser, a short movie, or some pictures, without any details, dates, statistics.

    Just something to get people interested to keep them in WoT, draw new people who will await the changes. For example: Flying off turret, different damage models and a voice or a writing saying "Havoc will come to world of tanks in near future, it will bring this and that. Note the pictures/movie do not represent a final product, everything may change".

    if you managed to read through that thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still don't get the Serb-thing. Prolly, you can give a more detailed explanation.

      And yes, Havoc will arrive with turrets coming off. :)

      Delete
    2. Well, regarding the SerB/Storm "thing"...

      http://ipic.su/img/img7/fs/3.1363609261.jpg
      http://ipic.su/img/img7/fs/stradaj-pidoras.1363609295.jpg

      That's a bit... harsh. Even for Russian standards.

      Delete
    3. Right. The downside of informal communication on an external non-official resource. I don't support this personally, but I believe the majority of RU users will understand this, in case of full context being available.

      Delete
    4. True. I think this took place during the E50 transmission trollfest, when the Russian "nemcefili" were raising hell and I guess Storm and SerB got really annoyed in the end. You are right, from what I could see, Storm became a legend for this, just like SerB is. In a way, I admire the man, he certainly doesn't screw around.

      Delete
    5. Explain the Serb thing... ok: Im originally from Poland, but I have lived in Scotland UK for a very long time now, over 10 years. I have had a lot of Russian friends even couple of girlfriends from post USSR countries. I do get Serb's trolling (answering question in his specific way, not always stupid questions are treated like that either), so for me it is funny most of the time and not that big of a problem. Some of his answers feel a bit offensive though, like he doesn't care about player base, like they are just dumb cows he milks. (I can give him that around some players in WoT you can lose your temper, but he is a representative of a globally recognizable company that one of its goals is making money and that kind of behavior in some parts of the world won't make it easier).

      Now, what for me is trolling and mostly funny (for Russians funny all the way) for other Europeans that don't know this Eastern culture is just trolling and making fun of them, just offensive talk from the person who doesn't give a rats ass about people that pay for his living. True, I am referring partially to the translated Q&A from Russian (which maybe I shouldn't cause it's a local thing) but it is also visible in ASAP videos with Serb and was commented multiple times by my friends here and people on forums.

      What I mean is that WG should treat certain markets (as in Public Relations - maybe get people that are specialists in that field who will know how people should be treated to make them loyal customers).

      I don't know if made it any more clear... I hope so.

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    6. Actually we don't allow Serb to communicate with players other than on RU side - that's something )

      Delete
    7. Actually, there was a recent Ask Me Anything session on Reddit with SerB (for NA and indirectly for EU players too, I asked there also :) ), it was actually fairly good, SerB kept the trolling to minimum, very decent actually.

      Delete
    8. Forgot about that Reddit thing. I was really good. Big plus for Serb how he answered a few questions I thought will be disastrous trolling. That was very positive and that is how most of the Europe would like to see developer talking to public (I think).

      Cutting him out from the "outside" world might work for a while, but what happens if he somehow breaks free from his cage? :P

      On a serious note though, communications with developers makes players feel closer to them and to the game they are playing, creating a bond and sense of loyalty if the communications are kept on a good level.
      This doesn't mean it need to be all serious and formal, there can be jokes, fun, but not making fun of.

      As I said, I don't mind as I understand the cultural differences, but I can see both sides and what for one culture is funny for other might be simply rude.

      (on a completely unrelated topic I would like to see some day models of tanks that have more than lets say 2000 battles on them changed to reflect the wear and tear of the tank, some missing equipment that is usually on a tank(spades, wires, track links), some broken, bent, scorched side skirts, maybe some rude field repairs - it would make it look special after so many battles and people straight out cautious of them).

      Delete
  48. is there any q&a support for Chinese Server player?
    We got no info at all!

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    1. Not sure, they are operated independently by a local company - our partner - KongZhong

      Delete
  49. Hi there Overlord! Btw had a game with You and your Batchat on Himmelsdorf, but You sadly got ammoracked and we lost! :(

    Ok to the point now...

    The major thing that bothers me and that goes imo for the huge majority of the Forum and WoT (ACTIVE) community is the great lack of communication. Silentstalker already mentioned the 83mm shell affair. Such a terrible handling of the situation... I was deeply dissapointed... There are quite a bunch of moderators on the forum and yet NOONE responded to a topic discussing it which had already 300 000+ views and more then 20 pages! The ppl were clueless for more then a couple of DAYS! Funny is that Iam getting warning points for a post that I made hours in the past... The aproach of the moderators HAS TO CHANGE.

    Another thing that personally bothers me is the support section... I all my tickets the only response I got was a damn automated bot msg in the name of the person that "accepted" the ticket... For the sake of the sanity of many ppl... Please let ACTUAL ppl answer to the tickets Iam doing reporting afkers or leeches. If a bot answers my BOT reporting ticket I feel like a clown being trolled... Iam sorry, but I dont thrust the "right click" reporting in the game....

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    1. 2 hours? Lol that's okay. I got banned for a post that was like two weeks old or something... :)

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    2. lonigus,

      remember that battle. Full HP and ammo rack (

      Thanks for feedback.

      Delete
  50. 1.a forums are 95% useless. I only read clan section (trolling is fun) and used to read SS's thread, but with him gone all you have on forums are whine topics and trolling. One year before we had people asking interesting questions about game mechanics,QA threads etc. Maybe you should hire some players to make forums better place: make contests about tank guides,game mechanics guide, encourage new players to read forums and educate (make quiz and reward first 10 players to answer questions like "will you spot t-50-2 easier if he is moving or not")
    1.b mods are behaving like forums are prison. Thats is partly because there is not much to do on forums but troll (see 1.a) and partly because they are overzealous when it comes to punishing

    2. community team should give details about weekend specials a little bit earlier. I am not saying we should know about special on monday, but in last few weekends I didnt know about specials until friday evening. Hey, thats just one news that should be put on website. Even if they are coding html in notepad, it shouldnt take them longer than 15 minutes to do that

    3. take a look at news about EU cluster. There are a lot of unanswered questions, like "can I play platoon with my friend if we are on different clusters"/"where is the new server, I want to see how it pings" and no answers. How come community team didnt see this coming? Was it too hard to write a couple of lines more and explain this issues to players?

    4. give us more info about what are you developing - I am not saying you should give us full leopard 1 stats and date when it will be online right away, but give us info wheter we will get british arty this year or not and so on...There will always be whining, but it is better to know something and whine about it then whining about things you dont know :)

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    Replies
    1. and

      5. team-damage mechanism sucks big time
      Pls give this back to support to handle extreme cases. I know it is a lot of time, but some players should be punished because of their actions, not only with credits but with a few days of ban. This is one of the reasons why random is so hostile enviroment

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  51. Biggest win: http://ftr-wot.blogspot.cz/ <- For the Record blog. EU does not have any Q&A, so this good guy lets us know what happens in WOT.

    Biggest fail: lack of dedicated Q&A / no ban for insults in in-game chat - there rarely is a line from the chat containing the word "noob" that is anyhow constructive and relevant.

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    1. Regarding the insults: this is a quid pro quo mate.

      I'll tell you an example: In the 80's, there was a spike in South African carjackings. The car security producers reacted by making a security system that killed the attacker who got near the door. The result wasn't reduced crime rate, the result was that the attackers instead of threats immediately started shooting at the driver.

      In WoT: people need to vent. Yes, I sometimes explode too - like last night, when some moron pushed me from cover and I got smashed, so I called him names and stuff. If people were not allowed to do that, they'd simply start shooting. This way you have to send a ticket with screenshots, it takes some time, so people do this only for very special kinds of morons (for example I report only nazis saying "heil hitler" or some other crap, luckily this is not very common). It's in balance.

      Delete
    2. I don't get why people are so upset about in game insults. Why would anyone care about what some random person says in battle? Insults are like gifts they are only yours when you accept them.

      Delete
    3. Well... when you think about it: why should anyone bother with arty, bugs, anything in WoT really - it's just a bunch of pixels anyway. But there still are thousands of people who actually care whether they win or lose or whether they get insulted in this virtual world. It's just the way people are.
      Besides, in real life there are VERY few people who genuinely don't get harmed by insults.

      Delete
  52. the biggest issue is that the EU part of the game community seem to exist in a vacuum, the Q&A section is closed so much of the time that it's pointless, any issues raised never seem to get anywhere, the Moderators range from terrible to decent, with a lot of weight in the terrible end of the scale, the EU forums consists of 2/3rds of the same whine repeated over and over and over and over, it's nigh impossible to find any half-way relevant discussion between all the "ARTY IS OP! NO IT'S NOT!" crying.

    my personal "pet peewee" is the scaling issues that plague the British line (especially the Centurions), it has been discussed at length in the EU forum with as much "proof" as can be produced and nobody seems to notice, or indeed care about it, logically i would raise a question in the Q&A forum, only it's closed at the moment, and the last time it was open was in February for a whole three days, so maybe it will open up again in April ?

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  54. I think you need a "SerB" for the European/North American Community i.e. we need more of you. SerB does hand out a lof of info, but as you alluded too he approaches it in a "Russian" way and that is something that just doesn't fly very well with a lot of people on our communities. Call it a cultural difference/clash if you like.

    I have to say I'm pretty pleased with things in general regarding WoT/WG. One MAJOR complaint I have and reading this topic it seems it is considered a problem is the detailed announcements of the weekend special events which almost always appear on the friday (late) in the afternoon. Having those announced like wednesday late in the afternoon or early evening would be pretty much picture perfect IMHO.

    Another thing is the patchnotes. Seems like they lagg behind a lot compared to those on the other servers.

    Great that there's a new server btw. It was really needed and the EU community has waited for it for quite a while. Props!

    The Forum. Well, I hardly go there. It seems like the only one doing some real "damage control" around there is Ectar and he does his best, but he shouldn't be the only one. There are also some moderators who could really use a kick up in the a** (as in: "Goodbye!") to be honest. Seems like they are more into moderating "selectively".

    I like your blog. Not as many "scoops" as there used to be, which is a pitty, but on the whole it seems like atleast someone is listening. SilentStorm's blog is my main source of info though with the translations and all that he gives us.

    PS: I thought you were mainly working on WoP what are you going to do in the near future (as you were alluding to earlier)

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  56. Some good stuff coming out here. My 2 cents and note these are *perceptions*, I'm not necessarily saying they are factual criticisms as someone who's been around since Beta:

    a) The EU Community areas just don't work - Yourself, Ectar & Challenger apart. They seem to concentrate too much on policing / firefighting criticism and not informing & engaging with the playerbase. It says everything you need to know when the best, indeed only worthwhile places for info are your blog, and that of SilentSleeper (who's given more back in to this Community than WG or we have any real right to expect from an individual). Overall the EU feels like the unwanted step-child who gets fed the scraps with an edge of 'too little, too late' to any crumbs of info dropped our way

    b) WG got criticism before when they gave out info on future plans and have backed off from doing so since. TBF the backlash was partly WG's fault - if you give info be CLEAR on what is long term / almost aspirational, and what is still at concept level and thus subject to lots of change during the Dev process. We still need and want (more than ever!) info about where the game is going long term, so its a clear gap you need to fill. BUT - if you give info, don't attach such specific dates, or if you do, be VERY sure you are going to meet them so don't take a huff when there's a backlash if you don't.

    c) The game itself is doing well, and still has a lot of potential. As a long term player I feel that there's a gap though in mid-game content. Early on there's lots of shiny tanks & tech trees to run up. At tier 10 there's Clan Wars (though that's so exclusive to people who can spend a lot of time in-game and in a big clan, its almost irrelevant to many). During the long tier 7/8/9 grinds there's just randoms and companies - not perceived as enough. You also need new content that a variety of tanks can take engage with as part of the grind up - Companies you must admit become very specific to certain vehicles at the limited tier bands you have now and they become boring very quickly (e.g. ah, another team entirely composed of KV1-s and Grille's, what a surprise) - hence few play them.

    d) The 'WG knows best' and 'Stats tell us everything' that appears to be way WG run the development and balancing of the game. Player perception & experience, once you get past the whines and very specific individual preferences, also have a story to tell, often quite different from the one stats give, and it needs to be taken into account somewhere. We feel we have a legitimate interest & input to give as people who really do care about the game, but it is perceived that attempted input gets ignored or belittled (or maybe that's down to point a) and the EU community side is just not working well).

    Overall, there's a lot that's great about WG and WoT - it's held my interest longer than any other game title I can recall, but there are fundamental (and maybe it is cultural?) flaws in how WG engage with the player base - their customers, and I think that could be damaging in the longer term unless its addressed properly.

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  57. I would like to see more information about things being looked at. I wouldn't put a timeline, we all know what happens to schedules. Just knowing what you're looking at doing, what you're going to implement and so on is nice. When you get close to release you can put a time table up and so on.

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  58. I think the communication you have now in NA is pretty good. It has one major shortcoming that I'll get to, but what is there is pretty good. So don't take this as everything-is-bad.

    The one additional thing I'd like to get from developers is intent. For instance, tank classes imply that all TD's share core characteristics. But that's not really the case. Or in the recent blog post about arty, it's hard to make suggestions because we players do not necessarily understand what role you want arty to perform.

    Each tank has a role, an intent or a design for what it's supposed to do, where it's supposed to go, etc. And I understand that part of the fun of the game is finding some of that stuff out. But I think devs could do a better job of being transparent about intent.

    I know you don't want to be more transparent about the schedule, and that I understand. But when a new player somehow slogs through the AMX 40 and gets the ELC, they're stunned by a massively different MM ranking and tank characteristics. The game has too many blindsides in it similar to that one, and I think better communication would help. Ideally this information would be in-game, but that's optional.

    Please note that communicating intent does not have to be tutorial-like. For instance, giving players rewards in-battle for fulfilling their role is a great way to train people how they should be playing their tanks without sending anyone through a training course. I know that's a big change, but I wanted to make it clear that training is not the only solution.

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  59. I see Ector and Challenger getting mentioned a lot for EU. What do you think of these guys Overlord? Have you met them before?

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    1. Truth to tell, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to check their performance personally. )

      As far as I see, the feedback on them both is fairly positive which is good.

      Delete
  60. Dear Overlord, in 2012 you wrote on your blog about :

    Publicly available hitboxes

    It is planned to display hitboxes (without internal stuff) in the game client, specifically in hangar submenu. Clicking on a particular spot, one will get its exact armour thickness and possibly angle of possible impact (based on camera angle) - thus it will be more clear what and where you can penetrate and when you have little chance.

    What happened to this feature?

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    1. It was pushed back a bit, however it's still in plans.

      Delete
    2. Oh that's good then. Seems nice and i was afraid it got cancelled. Thanks :P

      Delete
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  62. I would say the biggest thing WG can improve is community relations, especially outside of the RU server. If you think there are communication problems on the EU server, you should come to SEA.
    Pretty much what I would like to see if the community managers participating in the forums at least. They respond to the odd query here or there mostly in announcement threads, but apart from that there is barely anything. They need to engage with the community at large.

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  63. Wargaming.net has garnered a lot of my respect throughout the time since World of Tanks' launch, with a few humps here and there. To boil it down, they hit enough of the right notes the right way, that I let slide some of the minor and even major issues I have with this game, and still play/support it.

    To get straight to the point, though, I'll just make a bulleted list of the ups and downs...

    What I like best about WoT/WG:
    - Frequent major updates. You guys have regularly introduced large amounts of fresh content with new tanks, new nations, and new maps, while also revisiting old maps, adding new systems such as camo, revising old ones (physics), etc. Bravo on this. It's really nice to see a gaming studio create so much content for a F2P game, so quickly, with fairly consistent (and steadily improving) quality.
    - Balance; WG.net usually seems to have a fairly good grasp of game balance, with very few tanks in the game being "bad eggs" not worth playing. Usually the "bad eggs" are simply more difficult tanks to play well, and that's fine.

    ...(This probably hits the character limit; will continue post in reply)...

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    1. And what I'm not so fond of:
      - Sometimes the trolling of the community (namely by SerB) is funny, but can be unnecessarily cruel at times.

      - Would really like to see a version of the global map where instead of player clans fighting each other, there are pre-set nations or factions that anyone can join and fight for. I have no interest in player-clan wars.

      - Recently, and I've made several mentions of this, there have been some decisions made about tanks that I'm really not a fan of. I'll list the major offenders here:

      > KV-1S still has too much alpha for a fast, decently armored (bouncy turret) heavy in tier 6. I still think the 122mm needs to be removed, and substituted with the 100mm D-10T as a new top gun. That, I feel, would balance it out.

      > SU-100Y is not suitable for a tier 6 vehicle, let alone a premium. Too much alpha, with the only real drawback being that it's large and has basically no armor. In the proper hands, this vehicle can devestate tier 6 matches. It should be moved to tier 7 and rebalanced appropriately.

      > Conversely, the Churchill Gun Carrier is... horridly underpowered. It's slower than the SU-100Y, has half the horizontal gun arc, is still quite large and just as uselessly armored, and the 32 pounder gun isn't good enough to counter these problems. Compare to the ARL V39; the long 90mm on the french TD is slightly worse in every regard, but only very slightly, and the V39 has 3x the power to weight and ~2x the top speed, while also being much smaller.

      > S-51/SU-14 guns are much too powerful. A tier 6 SPG can one shot a tier 10 tank? Explain why this is appropriate again?

      > Artillery in general has too low of a skill basement (any novice can jump in an SPG and do serious damage to enemy players almost regardless of skill), and does too much damage, while also having little risk to themselves (stays in base, these days CB is near non-existant. Also when MT/LT do make it through lines to attack arty, the MT/LT are usually quite damaged and arty have a good chance of finishing them off before dying).

      > VK1602 Leopard should have got the option to use one of the 75mm guns that the VK2801 had at tier 5 previously. 5cm is woefully low on pen, and 3cm is way too low on damage, for the higher tier battles the Leopard can get into. Again, compare it to the ELC with the 90mm, which has very little trouble penetrating front and sometimes side-armor of tanks in any tier battle it gets into, and does decent damage to boot.

      > Now that there are high tier LT in the game, it is completely unnecessary to force the tier 4 LT into high tier battles. The MM bracket for tier 4 LT should be the same as any other tier 4 tank. (T-50 can be exception, due to speed/maneuverability it is the only tier 4 light that can effectively scout high tier battles)

      Delete
    2. - Really, truly despise the 70-degree automatic bouncing rule in the game. A 122mm shell from an IS-3's BL-9 can bounce off of the top plate of the AMX-13's hull, without ANY damage to the AMX's chassis/structure? Bullshit. Remove this ridiculous feature.

      - Zero damage criticals; i.e. when a module/crewmember soaks the damage of the shell and the tank takes no HP damage. As hitpoints are an abstraction of the hull's integrity, this is nonsensical. There is a hole in the armor, thus, the armor is weakened. Thus, damage to overall hitpoints should occur.


      (Didn't cut my reply up properly, here's the rest of the good:)

      - Really appreciate WG.net's stance so far on modding the game. It's nice to see such openness with modding, that we can have things like XVM and such that hook directly into the client and give the player more information, but no definite game advantage over his opponent.

      - Love that the game includes such a wide array of vehicles. If there were only production-model tanks in the game, it'd be far less fun toys to play with :) Also very happy to see some of the early cold-war designs available, such as T-54, T-62, M48 Patton, M103, Conqueror, and soon the Leopard 1.

      - What drew me into this game and keeps me playing is that it's got a lot of abstraction and simplification to allow almost anyone to play it, but it still has the underlying depth of an armor penetration model that, for the most part, is accurate to real-life physics. The particulars may not always be 100% accurate, but the basic concept of armor angling, etc. comes into play and gives the game depth. I hope to see WG.net continue to add depth in this way, such as we saw with the introduction of Physics.

      Delete
  64. Hey overlord i got a question regarding the arty move to tier 10!
    Do you really think, that this will reduce the arty amount in the high tier battles?

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    1. That will allow to ditinute spgs for equally among battle tiers at least. So shouldnt become worsenfor sure,

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    2. But every player who got a tier8 arty, will get a free tier 9 or 10 arty and then they flood the hightier games again or am i wrong?

      for me the the better idea would actually be, to reduce the arty tier to 6! ( take the tier 7/8 artys out of the game and let the parameters of the tier6 artys stay the same as they are now) Because then you could spread the tier6 arty down from tier 7 or 8 up to tier 10!

      Delete
  65. Thanks for your Blog. WG biggest FAIL is the inability to transfer an account between servers. Example from NA to EU. We now have over 90 members in the NA2EU clan and over 1500 votes in the forum post that's been going for over a year!

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  66. WG favours people/countries/servers. It makes me sick, I have a perm chat ban and forum ban because I openly said what WG is doing wrong.
    And they have THE most retarded mods and customer service

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  67. WG's biggest FAIL is that, you can not decorate your tank with the flag of the European Uninon! [While you can put the flag of the Soviet union on your tank, LOL]

    Some said, that is because EU did not exist in the 1940s-50s-60s.
    I think, their arguement is invalid, because there are already some flags(states) implemented, that did not exist that time! For example, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina!

    So I would be really happy if you guys implemented the EU flag, so I can put it on my tanks.

    Cheers

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  68. Easrter is celebrated in Europe, wg doesnt mention it. Gj, after all it is pissing on europian culture...and you ask us what to do? Epic...

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    1. Easter for me is on the 5th of May.... Pretty sure for Belorussians to! Not all Europeans are Catholics.

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    2. Youre right. Then neglect the majority. GJ.

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