[WoT] Dusty Shelves: Gameplay Screenshot

Below is one of the earliest screenshots of World of Tanks. This version was intended for the initial focus-testing, press meetings during KRI (game expo in Moscow). Check out the brutal UI and "3rd personish" controls.

Funny thing that the player - http://worldoftanks.ru/community/accoun

ts/453-genrikh/ , is currently lead level designer of WoT. He was one of the few people, who discussed the prototype of the future game on December 29, 2008.

[WoT] Digging Through Archives: U-20-II - Compactness as it is

Along with U-20 project an alternative tank destroyed prototype based on T-34 chassis was in development. It was named U-20-II.

Some details. Just like U-20, U-20-II used T-34 chassis, had open-top turret for the crew of 3.
Front turret was 75mm, side turret - 40mm, a substantial increase comparing to basic U-20.

Moreover, the new prototype was lower (2475mm, a bit higher than T-34) and the gun stuck out in front of the full for only 200mm, however, the ammo load dropped from 76 to 60 rounds, which was still more than enough.

Another question is what was sacrificed to achieve such compactness.


General blueprint

 Longitudinal plan

Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence, fund 81, inventory 12038, case N90

52-K AA gun which was mounted without any sort of modification left next to nothing for the loader. Unsurprisingly, the project was eventually dumped in April 1942. That was the end of T-34 based TDs with 85mm.

[WoT] Major Update is Coming

"We've been working hard on implementing new physics for the game for quite some time," says Sergey Burkatovskiy (aka Serb), Lead Producer of World of Tanks. "This update is a huge milestone for the team. The improvements and enhancements will really change the way players experience World of Tanks."

Link to the original post

PS. Latest poll results (votes / %):
How many battles in WoT have you played so far?
5000-9999  - 1282 (43%)
1000-4999 - 749 (25%)   
10000-20000  - 725 (24%) 
20000+ - 91 (3%)
500-999 - 34 (1%)

100-499 - 30 (1%)

less than 100 - 12 (0%)
 
The new poll is up.  

[WoWS] Warships Tested

The development of World of Warships has progressed a lot for the last few months. A lot feautres and new content have been added to the game, and even more concepts and game design documents have been devised for future. However it was the right time to put the game through so-called focus-testing (by a small group of people representing the target audience) that took place in late July in Saint-Petersburg, Russia (this is where the developer Lesta Studio is located).

15 luckers were given an opportunity to check out the early build.

Lesta producers are really impatient

Playing the game

Tired game designer

The enemy is going to the bottom

Everything goes as intended, Serb makes a lunch-break

It appeared that girls liked battleships most

Basically everything went good which means that the core gameplay will be finalized or nearly finalized quite soon.

More stuff on WoWS is to come.

[WG] Wargaming-BigWorld Deal

Wargaming, publisher of the spectacularly successful multiplayer title World of Tanks, has acquired Australian online-game software maker BigWorld for $45 million.

Full text here.

Hopefully, this will enable us to integrate this middleware to our games better in future. It surely can be regarded as technological breakthrough.

[WoT] Digging Through Archives: U-20 - Soviet Turreted Tank Destroyer

The first research related to T-34 based tank destroyer dates back to the summer of 1940. Two chassis were sent to Kaliningrad plant N8 (Kalinin's plant). Two open-top turreted prototypes with 85mm AA gun 52-K were planned. However the development took longer than expected, and eventually the work was stopped.

In the autumn of 1941 plant N8 along with all staff who worked on the project were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Later, in November, a similar project was started. It was called U-20.

On January 3, 1942 the prototype was presented to the command of Uralmash. The development was led by famous gun system engineer - F.F. Petrov.

The first U-20 prototype was basically a T-34 tank with open-top turret for the crew of 3. Front turret armour was 45mm, side - 20mm. Instead of 52-K gun, U-10 was used. It was basically the barrel of 85mm K-52 gun mounted on the gun carriage of 122mm howitzer M-30. This design decision allowed to decrease the overall size and get a relatively compact construction. However the gun stuck out in front of the full for some 850mm, which was considered as a huge drawback.

General blueprint

Longitudinal plan

Together with turret and its inner layout

Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence, fund 81, inventory 12038, case N90

After the discussion held in the April of 1942 following the resolution of GRAU it was stated that the project was a failure. In the meantime, the Americans were working on T35 SPG (future M10 Gun Motor Carriage).