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May 19, 2013

19.5.2013

- in the new patch, the role of spaced armor vs HEAT will become more significant, but Panzer IV Schmalturm's side "grid" plates still won't count as spaced armor (too thin) - "for several reasons"
- the +/-25 RNG for pen and damage won't be changed
- the frontal spaced armor of Superpershing actually consists of two armor plates behind each other and then the vehicle armor itself. However, the second layer of spaced armor won't be taken into account, as its influence on HEAT protection is very small
- Q: "You have always said that TD's get the same amount of XP for battle as the heavies and meds and suddenly, it's different, how come?" A: "Well, that's what we are like - evil and nasty."
- Q: "How can we trust your answers then?" A: "You trust them or you don't - your choice."
- Q: "You said you wouldn't change the stats for premium vehicles, yet here you did with the LeFH - do you expect players to keep buying premium tanks after all that?" A: "Yes, based on previous experiences."
- SerB explaining how aiming and shooting works: "There is a point, where at the moment of the shot, the gun of the tank is aiming at. After that, random deviation is taken into account. After that, the shell flies along the trajectory, calculated from the point plus the deviation - and whether a part of enemy tank or nothing at all is located in the trajectory path when the shell arrives, that depends already on that specific situation." (SS: the translation is not literal, had to modify it to make better sense in English. It basically was a reaction on a player hinting that the hit/miss might be predetermined by the time the gun shoots.)
- if the game was realistic, all the tanks (except for the Russian ones) wouldn't be able to move the turret (SS: or move it extremely slowly - "handcranking") when the engine is damaged/destroyed (SS: Russian tanks have electric-driven turrets) - this was not implemented so players wouldn't whine too much
- the camo changes in 0.8.6 are not final, completely reworked camo system will come much later
- SerB doesn't expect flood of arty and TD's after buffing their XP income in 0.8.6
- the 5 arty hardcap will stay in 0.8.6
- the special arty aim circle shell distribution applies in both artymode (satellite view) and regular mode
- according to Storm, all guns will be more precise in 0.8.6 and guns that are precise now will be even more precise
- in connection with increased accuracy, the conditions for Sniper medal won't change
- in 0.8.6 there still will be differences between camo coefficients of small and huge TD's
- the camo bonus of bushes will be nerfed only slightly
- 0.8.6 won't bring crew perk/skill reset, the crew "camouflage" skill will work the same way it did pre-0.8.6
- Type 59 MM weight won't be changed apparently
- new emblems will come in one of the upcoming patches
- 0.8.6 will bring one new map
- according to Storm, Jagdpanzer IV and other such vehicles will be affected by the camo changes only slightly
- huge vehicles won't get a big camo bonus in 0.8.6
- company arty limits will be reworked, apparently Champion companies will be able to employ T7 arties (no more details)

EU Q&A: WG starts caving in...

Source: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/156105-rusove-odpovidaji-na-foru/page__st__3140__pid__4812285#entry4812285

So, here I was browsing my favourite EU forum section *trollface* - and ran into this gem from today morning:






For the most of you, who don't speak Czech: Dargnon (Czech community organizer) basically says: "We want the European players to have as much info as possible.... bla bla bla.... because every player has the right to have an access to them."

Odd formulation. Anyway, it gets better:

"It's true that a lot of info from the developers shows up only on RU forums, or on their personal blogs and only in Russian. These are interesting pieces of information and they do get to the community rather quickly (SS: I accept standing ovations, thank you :) ), for example as answers to the questions. This info however doesn't go thru the translation process and that's something we'd like to change. Translations to all the languages supported by EU forums is very time consuming, but we'd like to have an official English version. It gets simplier after that. Would you like to have an English only version, or do you think the only thing that makes sense is to translate to all the languages?"

So, basically it took months, but Dargnon is saying what I was saying ages ago, when I was still arguing with Ecturd on the EU forums. Took you long enough. The only thing that makes sense in one English version. This post (which wouldn't be posted if not sanctioned, I doubt it's just a personal rant by Dargnon) basically shows WG EU is starting to cave in and eventually, there will be some official version of FTR.

Of course, Dargnon is wrong on one thing: it doesn't "get easier" after that. Typical example is the confusion about the "one map developed" from the last translation batch. I was in a hurry and translated it so that it can be interpreted in two different ways. What I meant was basically that one map is developed (as in, the developed already, the development was finished) and this map will come in 8.6. But the some people (notably the Czechs who are doing the translation of FTR to Czech, ironically enough) took it as "WG is currently developing only one map", which isn't true (there are two winter maps - "Stalingrad" (not sure it's a final name) and some open map "Tundra" from what I heard, plus one new "American" map).

Anyway, rejoice, folks, you might get "official FTR" at some point :)

Update: Storm on 0.8.6

Just a few more tidbits from Storm's comments:

- 0.9.0 (SS: for which the complete rework of camo mechanism is planned) will come much later
- regarding the mentioned economy changes: "Many people will be surprised."
- core mechanics changes in 0.8.6 have already been disclosed, eg. for example more changes in penetration mechanism won't come in 0.8.6
- during the 0.8.6 arty changes, when you have for example a on tier 6 only improved suspension unlocked and it gets moved to tier 7, both the tier 6 and tier 7 vehicles will have a new suspension unlocked. If you have a new suspension unlocked for tier 8 arty and it gets moved to tier 10, which has no new suspension, you will apparently lose that XP (eg. recieve no compensation)
- 7/42 companies won't come in 8.6 or 8.7
- currently, only one new map is developed atm
- there are currently no concrete plans for buffing the premium accounts (the plans for that were revealed earlier)

May 18, 2013

Wow...

Public thanks to GradiusZA for the 2500g donation, it's very appreciated :) Thanks mate.

Update: Upcoming changes on FTR

This post concerns the post from earlier today about the changes on FTR. I got an interesting offer I am currently thinking about, so the changes might not come after all, but it's going to take a while to implement. For now, everything stays as it was (with perhaps a bit slower response time as I announced), but if it works out, it's going to be....    interesting :)

So stay tuned.

Storm on 0.8.6

Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/195897.html

Basically, what he wrote is that we can expect some more "bombshells" of the "same magnitude", as the stuff revealed today in the patch 0.8.6, that will be revealed next week. Storm mentions changes "game economy and balance".

As always, Storm was (well, is even at this moment) posting in the comments. Info from those comments:

- these changes will be uncovered the following week
- Komarin and Swamp is atm in the process of re-work (won't come in 0.8.6 apparently)
- camo values for tanks won't ever be disclosed
- SU-5 won't have bigger ammo capacity - quite the contrary, WG will make it smaller, but the shell damage will be buffed
- reworked fire extinguishers won't come in 0.8.6
- the economy changes will "hurt"
- Storm would like to tell the players more, but this info has to be published steadily because of translations etc.

Upcoming changes on FTR

Hello everyone,

this is something that's been on my mind for a few weeks already. Simply put, FTR started to take too much of my time and considering I never got anything for it at all, it's not really sustainable anymore.

Wot-news.com and other big blog sites have some income from ads, which I can't really put here, since it's running on blogger.com and moving to my own website is way beyond my IT skills and time possibilities. Another factor is that I will be spending some time abroad and I doubt I'll be able to work on FTR there, but that remains to be seen.

Some of you noticed I made several hints on quitting altogether. Frankly, there was a point I was pretty much decided I'd quit, but then again, I guess that would be a shame, so here's what will happen:

- I will most likely not write many (if any at all) historical articles for FTR (other authors are not limited in any way, they have full access to post anything they feel like whenever they feel like)
- I will also most likely not respond on e-mails, unless it's really important - I get roughly 30 per day and I try to respond (at least with 1 sentence) on all of them, but this is very time consuming
- FTR developer translations will be made as they were now, but I will cut off SerB's trolling completely in order to save time, unless I specifically have some time to kill
- it's possible news will be posted with more delay, I won't be checking the usual sites/forums so often (I am not sure how everything will look).

To sum it up: I am tired of WoT (I hardly play at all) and at this moment, FTR feels more like a second job than a hobby. I don't exclude there will be other changes, if the stuff above doesn't work for me either. We'll have to see.

Offtopic PS: I removed the WG lawsuit post, because it was really pointless without the original lawsuit text itself, which I got asked not to publish.