[WoT] Global Vision: Part II

This post is the continuation of the recent Global Vision: Part I article where we covered the CW plans for the near future.

What else we have in stock.

Sabotage and how to fight it

Sabotage is a kind of special clan consumable which represents a mobile tactical unit that can be sent behind the enemy lines with the aim to ... guess what? - Perform sabotage, yes.

It works this way: using your scout/intelligence you can assess revolt chances for a particular enemy province, the higher the chance, the more likely it is that your sabotage will be successful. The outcome of your sabotage will be known next turn. Typical sabotage effects to choose from:
- minus 1 token to enemy defense in a given province
- "railway war" - disables borders between provinces for some time
- destruction of enemy HQ
- provocation - chance of starting revolt in enemy province
- etc.

Just as revolts/pillages, this functionality is likely to be tested as CWs special.

Counter-intelligence is the best way to prevent your enemies from successful acts of sabotage. The lower revolt probability of your province, the lower enemy chances to perform successful sabotage on your territories.

Global Map Seasons

The below is a bit more distant in terms of time.
The entire mode of Clan Wars will be changed due to the upcoming implementation of seasons.
Season is a sort of global event that takes place in all provinces, i.e. active throughout the Global map. Each season is preceded by wipe/reset - everyone starts from scratch on a completely virgin map.

Season starts just as CWs beta did back in 2011 - with global contest mode - all provinces are available for landing.

Each season will last 2-3 months and eventually get its own winner and, of course, losers.
Seasons will be broken into several stages with different rules, conditions, and restrictions for each of them - e.g. vehicle tier restrictions, missions and goals (gold farming, capturing specified key provinces), etc.

Depending on the functionality available that time it can be Revolution stage with higher revolt chances for one stage, with totally different rules for another stage.

Based on clan performance during each stage special Victory points will be awarded and stage winners defined based on them.

Winner of the entire season will be determined by the total number of Victory points earned throughout the season. However, this concept is still subject to design changes. Winners will get special and huge prizes (this is not subject to change).

Seasons end with another Global map wipe/reset and shuts down for vacation while everyone is waiting for another season with new rules and new prizes. 

Make it comfortable

Such a crucial mechanics change as seasons requires an overhaul and massive improvement of clan functionality available for players. This work is going to be done in parallel. We are planning to add clan statistics, leaderboards, achievements, thinking of how to facilitate clan communication and action logging.

Obviously this would require some time to be done, but there is no other way.

Let us know

In these two posts I have given only the basic ideas on what will happen to Global map in foreseeable future. Sure thing, we have got many more plans and ideas. I intentionally left out the mercenary thing (it hasn't been dumped), CWs merger, transfers, and some other delicious stuff.

Just like with client-side updates, we are planning to communicate update notes and release plans for CWs since it's an inherent part of WoT.

[WoT] Global Vision: Part I

Last time we spoke about Global map was not so long ago, but it's about time we summarized everything, provided our feedback and some additional info on the subject. I'm going to give an update on the current state of things in two posts. You about to read the first one.   

For simplification purposes (multiple regions, multiple releases) I will use Russian (RU) server as an example.

Clan Wars mode is still at beta stage (yeah, rather continuous I must say) in ALL regions, we still have got a lot to do so as to ensure the release quality of the product.  As usual, there are lots of ideas and plans in the air on what to improve.

Technical side

On RU side (to a lesser extent this applies to EU and NA) Global map can be prone to technical failures because of high server load for the main RU1 server. To solve the issue we are going to implement new mechanics - provinces will be assigned to a separate server closest to their precise location (not just one dedicated server for all regions as it is now). Taking RU as example again, battles for Moscow and nearby regions will be played on Moscow-based hardware, same for Siberia. The thing is that it will allow not only to cope with the load better but also to prepare for making Clan Wars really global. Yes, merge is still in plans, however the ETA is unknown. Once things become global, the above mentioned feature will make sure battles for respective regions are played on respective servers. In respective prime time. :)

Because of the peculiarities of turn processing, battle room can be created only 1-2 minutes before the battle start, not regular 15 minutes. This is a known issue that is planned to be reworked as a part of code optimization.

Demand for new stuff

Clan Wars mode has been at beta stage for ... how long?... Should be around 1.5 years for now. This is very unfortunate that our end-game content suffered most from the lack of manpower and required resources. Clan Wars, as a separate project within Wargaming, got its own dedicated team only in late 2012. We have planned really a lot from game design perspective, but were shorthanded where it came to actual implementation. Now things are determined to get better.

Global Map Events are special semi-historical scenarios that last for limited period of time.

For testing purposes events were conducted only on RU server. There were 2 of them:

• Atlantida (summer) - our first try with a separate island that came to the surface in the Atlantic and later drowned again. It was defended by WG's Rattes and some of the top clans.
• Mongolia (late autumn) - for Mongolia provinces with vehicle tier restrictions - tiers 1-3 (yeah, SU-26 time!). It received a warmer welcome than the first one.

It is decided to continue such events in future.

So, what's planned?

Again we do really hope (and there are reasons for that!) that things will get better in 2013 from production point of view. New version of the portal that is planned for release on RU server in January/February will contain two major features: pillages and revolts, and on top of them - modified tank freezing mechanics.

Pillage

The concept resembles the one used in Total War series. After you have conquered the province you can either pillage it or just occupy as usual. Pillage brings you 3-day income at once, after that the province won't generate any resources to any owner for 7 days.

Revolt

With certain probability that depends on various factors each owned province can become a starting one (regular landing rules apply) till the end of the current prime time. The following factors can increase chances of this happening: clan loses any province or HQ, there are no troops / tokens in the province, etc. And vice versa.

Both pillages and revolts are almost ready and are likely to be introduced as a kind of special on RU region (with subsequent releases on other servers) to test how things will work out. If the results are satisfactory, the features will stay.

Freeze times for vehicles are meant to be changed. Successful offensives will be rewarded with decreased freeze times - let's assume that invaders capture hypothetical resources to repair their machinery while defenders have got nothing else apart from what they already have. :)

Having captured a regular province, you will get -50% freeze times, for gold province - 90%. Offensive gameplay is incentivized.

New make-up

Apart from new features, later this year (approx summer for RU), we are planning to upgrade visual part of CWs (engine) and greatly improve usability (UI). The most important change is giving up region-based system on portal - you won't have to select a separate region to view it anymore. The entire Global map will be available at a glance. Troops relocation and multiple attacks will be made easier to perform.

To be continued...

[WoT] Your Global War

Clan wars development has been rather... hm... let's say, slow lately. However, this is determined to change in future.

What new features and content would you like to be added?
More territories, historical/non-historical events, seasons for global map, wipe (!), mercenaries, clan tanks, more strategic elements (buildings and other objects to construct)? Anything else?

Any feedback counts!

New Community Portal for EU

The new community portal, redesigned similar to the current Ultimate Conquest website, has been released for US server a few weeks ago and is being released for RU server at present, and now it is planned for launch on EU for the upcoming week.

You can check out the new appearance here.

Please note that the community portal release will lead to several changes in Clan Wars mechanics: 

• If a province has no direct connection to the clan headquarters (or through other provinces), then the clan will no longer earn income from the specified province. If a clan does not have a headquarters, they will not earn income from owned provinces.
• If a clan currently owns one or more provinces on the Global Map, it cannot apply for landing.
• If there are multiple attacks scheduled for a single province, attackers must first fight against each other. The winning clan will then face the owner of the province in the final match.

These changes will be implemented in advance of 7.0 update due to many of them being web-based changes, rather than changes taking place on the game server itself.