The filth of the EU community

Hello everyone,

today, I am going to write about something pretty serious, at least in my eyes. As some of you know (and others might have figured out from the blogspot.cz domain), I am Czech. For quite some time (practically my whole WoT career, until December 2012) I was a part of the Czechoslovak community and I left for reasons unrelated to this article.

However, after more than a year spent on the official Czechoslovak forums, I must say that I consider the Czechoslovak community to be one of the worst EU server communities, possibly THE worst. While some members are quite nice people and great to talk to in real life and in the game (you know who you guys are, next beers are on me), I have never EVER in any other forum section (I generally go thru the German, Polish, sometimes French and naturally the overall english sections) seen such vile hostility, anti-semitic and anti-Polish rants and more. Especially the last issue seems to dominate the Clanwars, but not only that. Last November, during the Polish Independence event, the Czechoslovak thread about this was the only thread from what I could see that degraded into a vile anti-Polish rant. It was so bad the Polish community organizer had to come in and actually apologize for the Polish having the event. It was totally humiliating. I know I myself sometimes made "siemka" jokes in the English and Czechoslovak forum sections both, but this was just ugh....

Of course, it wasn't the only case. Only yesterday in an official forum CW thread some pretty vile comments sprung up. Everything started with player Cnnk (who is Czech, but also a member of a Polish clan) posting that certain Czechoslovak clan (CTB-P) spouted anti-Polish bullshit in Clanwars chat.

Translation: What happened yesterday on the CW channel around 21:45 ...that was again an example of the Czech cream of the crop - insulting Polish, insulting homosexuals, insulting the Jews... genocide, threats.. etc. I can take a lot, for in my whole time this was for the first time when I took screenshots a bit and sent a support ticket ....some people should really think on their behavior - especially the CTB-P clan, of which most of the offenders came, including its leadership...

Well, it didn't stop there. The mentioned clan came to have a "nice chat" in that thread.

Translation: And we can get insulted by the Polish? You didn't see that? You cowshit... don't forget to send screenies to support, you collaborator. It was a Polak who provoked it, you didn't see that? How do we calculate the escape velocity of a Jew from a concentration camp? The height of the chimney + wind velocity. PS: black humor






As you can see, such "jokes" of poor taste are not banned from the CZ section of EU server. At least not for a while - I really hope the Czech mods will pull their shit together and ban these fuckers. If there is something I really can't stand, it's antisemitism. Also, as you can see, a Czech player playing with the Polish players is not tolerated and is called a "collaborator" (as in "with the enemy"). Anyway, Cnnk reacted by stating he'd like them to get banned for this, because they behave like pigs. The reaction came swiftly:

Translation: For cNNk - Pigs? Are you normal? Looks like my taxes are paying for the computers in Bohnice mental asylum! That's where you belong, for starters. You aren't supposed to talk about us, you asshole! Mind your own business and keep us away from your conversation, did someone attack you? If you don't like what we write in the chat, leave and go play tic tac toe... you'd be better off with other mental retards talking about new pills! You are a complete shit, who acts like a nations delegate! The worst people come from Poland and that's a fact, but everyone gets mad when they hear the truth. Go play in a sandbox and don't talk about us you pig! Or the Polaks (SS: "pšonci" is a derogatory Czech term for Polish) will learn what "Vanďák" is. (SS: Vanďák is a local name for the town of Varnsdorf, which is partially Polish - basically it's a call for national conflict).

And to top it off, one last player from the same clan posted a really nice wish:

Translation: We might not be a better race, but to meet such a collaborating cripple like you are.... I can only say a few words... take a pill and change the tyres on your wheelchair and go play with your own kind and I think the avatar you are using is your authentic photo and that speaks for itself.




Nice, isn't it? This is not an isolated incident. This sort of shit happened several times in the past. I have never seen such crap in other sections. Anywhere. To be fair, other "usual" forum members didn't approve of this crap, but this is why the Czechoslovak community has (often rightfully) the reputation of one of the worst and most aggressive communities of WoT. Yes, I do not like them in general. That much is known and after the "Czechout incident" and their reaction to it, I like them even less. But that doesn't change the fact that this sort of shit really shouldn't happen.

Storm writes on the topic of maps for the third time

A reaction and summary of cca 500 player posts written under the previous article (Storm summarizes the player input)

"Negative vote" leaders (maps considered worst by players)
- Dragon's Ridge (bad gameplay in general, only a small part of the map used)
- Port - annoying tank "rocking" when driving over the railway all the time, annoying "maze" of railroad wagons, upper spawn area easily scoutable (lighteable) by scouts on the bridge, lower spawn area too difficult to scout and to shoot at
- Serene Coast - too few ways to attack, often ends up in a "standoff", the hill is dominating too much
- South Coast - generally considered as "bad", many players are annoyed by the map being labyrinth-like
- Widepark - railroad camping, arties die too fast, the upper side gets scouted too quick

Negative moments of the other maps, that are frequently mentioned by players
- Ruinberg - make the roads straighter (SS: possible sense also "not so full of holes") and to remove the broken terrain in the east open part
- Karelia - too much broken terrain (SS: "bumpy")
- Abbey - too bumpy on the left flank (SS: Russians call it "the ear"), one base can be scouted easier than the other
- Prokhorovka - too bumpy, players complain mainly about the field part
- El-Halluf - too bumpy on the slopes, too little cover from arty
- Redshire - too little cover from arty after the middle "ridge" was lowered, the northern side is dominating
- Highway - southern team has it more difficult to go to the city, there is the railroad and not enough cover for one side
- Cliff - players are annoyed by the fact that scouts can reach the mountain now - if the teams generally have slow tanks, a scout from the northern team can easily get on the top of the mountain and light up the entire map from there

Most frequent wishes
- open maps such as the Steppes
- more sand and snow maps
- more clean city maps, such as the Himmelsdorf
- many players wish special maps designed for the new modes

Individual bugs
- crossing the railway - there was already one case of fail on the test server where on the Ensk map, while crossing the railroad, you rock the tank so much that actually you get stuck under one of the rails, this is just an example of railroad bugs
- small tanks, such as the Somua get stuck on the railways often, M41 got also stuck badly in some situations

Also unpopular is the inability to destroy the house accessories, such as the stairs, ladders etc., it's considered a nonsense that stairs can stop a 50 ton tank going full speed ahead. And also the indestructible tractor.

SS: So much for the article, this whole thing (asking players what they want) is Storm's own private initiative - after that, he'll take the results as an input for the map-making developer section. The results of this debate will be discussed with the mapmakers tomorrow. Russians also cry out for more "Russian-themed" maps, but that's not really considered as the maps are made for all the regions.

This post and the fact

22.1.2013

- Russian server new player record is 728k at the same time
- the Tiger(P) might appear in historical battles, because one vehicle fought in real life (SS: I hope I translated this correctly)
- it's not clear whether there will be more "boss battle" events (SS: regarding the White Tiger event where 15 T-34's fought against the special Tiger P), not specifically denied however
- there will probably be no developer plan published for 2013 (Serb thinks it's not really needed)
- there is no way of detecting whether the camo bonus on the fallen tree is "working", Serb states "use common sense" (SS: it was answered earlier that the camo bonus of the fallen tree activates only when the tree hits the ground and "stops" moving - and only for the crown part of the tree)
- SerB doesn't watch WoT streams
- it is possible that the whole German arty branch might be lifter up by one tier when the tier 10 arties come (eg. new vehicles get inserted at tier 2-3), it's also possible that ALL arty vehicles might be rebalanced in connection with that
- SerB answering to a player complaining about the Chaffee not having any advantages over T71: "Neither of them has any significant advantage regarding their sum of characteristics. If there were any advantages found, the characteristics would get changed. There is no need to lobby on their behalf, we are not the US Congress."
- the devs are tracking average battle time, it's roughly 7 mins and it didn't change too much in last year
- the type of shells loaded has no influence on the vehicle's MM (SS: if you load gold ammo, you won't get worse MM)
- regarding Chinese crew radioman perks - they always apply on the person that is responsible for the radio (historically), f.x. Type 62 - the commander etc.
- Leopard 1 will most likely have the L7A1 gun (the same as the FV4202 has), it will probably fire HESH shells as gold ammo
- the chat quickcommand "ready!" is not planned for near future
- there are "several millions" of players, who play the game at least once per month, but the exact numbers aren't disclosed apart from the public PR releases
- when tier 10 arties are introduced, the XP and credit price of the whole branch unlock will be roughly the same as with the other branches
- SerB states that the players do prefer the tanks of their own nation (Russians the Russian tanks, Germans the German tanks etc.)
- it's not excluded more TOG-2-like tanks (WW1 relics, slow, lot of HP) will be introduced
- no plans to increase the crew rank beyond "Major"
- no hardcap (SS: as in maximum number per battle) planned for light tanks (because they have the same gameplay as other tanks and because SerB views the hardcap as a temporary and bad solution) - Storm earlier said there would be a solution for light tanks, but that's more along the lines of "the same amount of scouts per battle"
- according to SerB, all the server populations had their difficulties: "Americans don't like challenges, Russian servers had performance issues and the Chinese love pay-to-win".
- player rating re-work? "if we plan to do it, we'll tell you sooner or later"
- the new German medium line won't have its modules unified with other German lines, as the guns and the engines are quite different
- Q: "EU server has march for 8.4 and the RU server has february, will you troll us every month like that?" A: "Will you troll us every day by not reading previous answers and posting bullshit?"
- the Chinese tier 2 Vickers' cylindrical turret is historical
- the prepared Stalingrad map is meant for WoWp, not WoT (SS: there were rumors of Stalingrad map being prepared)

21.1.2013

- Chinese M5A1 Stuart radio module will not be compatible with the US tree, despite the fact it's basically the same radio ("Chinese tankists educate themselves with Chinese translations of the US radio operating manuals. In this hard work the American tankers can't help them in any way.")
- French B2 premium arty has the same MM as every other tier 4 arty, despite the rumors of it having "special" MM
- the Leopard 1 in the game will be the one with cast turret, not the one with the welded one
- Q: "Historical sources (Doyle) mention 80mm frontal armor on the VK4502 both Ausf. B and Ausf. A, why is it not like that in the game?" A: "Here (for the rear turret variant) we applied the Ahnenerbe technology, otherwise Germans would get rather sour" (SS: "Ahnenerbe" is one of the SerB's running jokes, he explains every German (unrealistic) buff with "Ahnenerbe magic")
- Q: "Will the tier 10 arty cost approximately the same as other tier 10 tech?" A: "We'll see"
- premium tanks don't differ from promo/gift tanks principially in anything
- Storm commenting the fact that the 8.4 patch in the RU "in development" section is scheduled for February and in the EU one for March: "both are correct"
- fog in Dragon's ridge has no masking effect
- Soviet ZIS-30 TD (57mm ZIS-2 gun mounted on the T-20 "Komsomolec" tractor) - maybe, definitely not in 2013
- M48 tank will not be replaced by M60 (SS: emphasis on "replaced", eg. M60 might appear alongside it), because "M48 is where it belongs" (SS: as in "on its place")
- Q: "When will be the German 2nd branch and German tier 8 prem medium tank?" A: "Germanlovers und Germanloverettes nicht erste post of the topic readen? Ordnung mus zajn, darum fircen tage nicht schreiben" (SS: sorry, this is just really hilarious in Russian, very hard to translate tho. The original: Немцефилен унд немцефилкен нихьт ерсте пост тема читайнен?
Орднунг мус зайн, дарум фирцейн таге нихьт шрайбен! - one of the funniest things I've ever read from SerB)
- if the tank gets destroyed by killing off the entire crew but it has HP's left, the whole crew will recieve an XP penalty for dying (SS: there was a rumor they don't)
- SerB on whether the teamdamage penalty system will be reworked: "If necessery. And we decide what's necessery."
- Q: "Why do you answer the way you do (SS: sarcastically etc.), did you see somewhere World of Warcraft, Terra and Aion developers answering questions like that?" A: "Show me the Aion, Terra and World of Warcraft design vice-president's answers, and I will think about my behavior :) " (SS: later SerB states he considers his way of answering normal and basically he doesn't give a damn about AION)
- (related to the previous question) Q: "You'll sing a different tune when WoT has a good competition, I'll see how you talk then" A: "Yes, we are scared of this terribly good competitior for three years already, still nothing happened, so far we are still alive" (SS: after that a bunch of troll questions and answers follow in relation to how War Thunder will kick WoWp's ass - SerB trolls for a while and then replies "If you like it so much there why are you here?")
- currently an unified menu interface for WoT, WoWp and WoWs is in development ("when it's done it's done")

EU tree: Swiss tier 10 TD project

Hello everyone,

I found recently (while looking for other vehicles) a new project (quite interesting actually) that could fit the tier 10 TD slot in the incoming EU tree. Introducing:

MOWAG Taifun prototype



History:

The Swiss company called MOWAG is not a newbie on the field of weaponry. In the 60's, it competed for the German Marder IVF program with its own prototype and later it built several prototypes for the German Kanonenjagdpanzer program. From there on, the company used its considerable experience in creating a line of light tank destroyer designs - the Gepard and the Taifun. The Gepard (looked a lot like the German Kanonenjagdpanzer) was not successful in entering the service and neither was the other similiar project, the Tornado (designed as an IFV). The development of both was privately funded, because the company expected Switzerland to start replacing the old AMX-13 tanks (classified in Switzerland as TD's) and the US M113 APC's. In the end, only a pre-prototype (functional model) was completed and the vehicle never entered service. It can be regarded as one of the last real tank destroyers and most likely (along with the S-Tank) one of the last turretless "oldschool" Jagdpanzers.

The Taifun was basically a development of the Gepard (Tornado) chassis. It was a very light vehicle  - its armor (50mm?) protected the 4-man crew basically only from HE shell fragments and from light autocannon fire (it could withstand only 25mm shells however). The armament consisted of the classic 105mm L7 clone (however, an upgrade to the Rheinmetall 120mm L/55 was considered - not an option for WoT though). The considered turbocharged dieselengine was a 575hp Detroit Diesel 8V-71T - the same to be fitted to the ill-fated Tornado IFV. Combined with the light chassis (estimated 25-30 tons), this vehicle could move fast. Real fast.

In World of Tanks?

As you can see, this vehicle looks badass. It's like the ultimate Jagdpanzer IV on steroids. And crack. And heroin. While the project itself was developed in late 70's (yes yes, I see you all rising your eyebrows now), its roots actually run into early 60's. The chassis is old - it's basically the same (although modified) chassis used for the 60's Tornado - and that's not so bad. The armor is obviously very thin (think 30-50mm), but - as mentioned above - the vehicle is very light and has a very powerful engine, therefore it will be fast. Really fast. Cca 70 km/h on the road is expected and that's just the "basic" powerpack. With upgrades, it could be the tier 10 Hellcat-meets-Jagdpanzer. The main gun is adequate - the ubiquitous L7 is already in the game and despite the fact it would be fitted with advanced sights and other 80's thingies in real life, one can easily imagine this vehicle having Leopard 1-grade optics. Naturally, in order not to get oneshotted by pretty much anything, the suspension would have to be really nimble, which is actually something totally new - we don't have that in the tier 10 TD vehicles.

Stats:

Crew: 4
Armor: 30-50mm (estimated)
Weapon: 105mm (L7 clone?)
Ammo: estimated 50 rounds
Speed: cca 70km/h
Weight: estimated 25-30 tons
Powerplant: Detroit Diesel 8V-71T, 575hp

8.3 matchmaking (MM) table

In Russian, the order from up to bottom at each tier is: LT, MT, HT, Arty, TD

20.1.2013

- special statistics for CW battles? "Possible, but not soon"
- SuperPershing was modelled after the book from Hunnicutt plus the data provided by the experts from the US WG office
- apparently the second WZ-132 engine (that differs from the stock one only by 10kg weight) is okay the way it is
- if you destroy an enemy tank without anyone spotting him (for example by firing at tracer source), it counts as if you lit it up yourself for the sake of XP award
- the platoon and company hangar interface will be changed a lot to provide better functionality
- SerB is answering players' questions voluntarily - if he gets annoyed or tired, he'll stop
- German 2nd TD branch is partially modelled already ("it's done when it's done")
- Q: "Was Jagdpanzer VII Jagergepard considered for implementation?" A: "Yes. No comment for now."
- regarding the implementation of more very exclusive vehicles (Panzer IV/V, A-32 - style): "If needed, we however don't focus on exclusivity"
- E-50-, E-75-based and postwar German TD's? "We won't comment that for now in order to avoid questions like "when?!" "
- In the Russian movie "Приказ: огонь не открывать" (Order: do not open fire) (about the Japanese-Soviet war), Soviets made fake Japanese tanks. SerB states that they are based on the MTLB chassis and it's hard to say what Japanese tanks are they trying to imitate.
- tank crews have 1hp, that's why almost every shot that kills a crewmember continues further (with full strength) (SS: I hope I understood this correctly)