5921

2nd Anniversary Celebration:

5x XP for first battle
50% off equipment
50% off crew retraining
Various bonuses and discounts

Also code for 1 free day of premium and random free normally gold bonuses (e.g., Chocolate, Coke, Coffee consumables, etc.)

5922

Also, 100% Credit Increase Per Battle for 16 Tanks/TDs, 50% Credit Increase Per Battle for 10 Light Tanks/SPGs, 30% Credit Increase Per Battle & 30% Credit Discount on 28 Tier VIII Tanks & Tier VI SPGs, as well as 15% Gold Discount on 6 Premium Vehicles (one of which is the Löwe).

5923

Wow, that’s a huge event! I think I will play some during this weekend.

5924

I haven’t played in ages, but yeah, maybe I’ll give it a shot.

5925

World of Tanks is having a Change Your Password Event. Change your password and get 300 gold. How’s that for quick and easy?

5926

Started playing this again during the last 5x weekend. Switched from my moribund clan to VPG, which seems to be really nice. Only have one CW so far with them, as the 8.5 patch came in and suspended stuff for the moment. Tank locking, riots, and ransacking promise to upend the NA server clan wars scene, but exactly how is unclear.

I’ve been futzing with the Brits, which came in after I left before, and am going to try to grind up to a Leopard in the new German medium line. Things are really different now though than when I last played. Silver for gold ammo, for one thing, has changed the landscape even in pub matches, and CW rosters are radically different. It’s all top-tier autoloaders, US and French, with things like T-62As as well, which never got much play on the US servers at least. Many of the maps, too, have been reworked, and with 8.5 you can purchase gold consumables for silver as well. A lot of changes, but some things remain the same. Every idiot who dies in the first minute of a match still spends the rest of the game calling his teammates noobs.

5927

Well what else are you supposed to do while you watch?

5928

Go back to the garage is what I do, unless my platoon mates are still playing. Though occasionally I do get the urge to say something snarky.

5929

There’s a little more to this story - this was prompted by having some info in their customer database hacked. If you ever played WoT, change your password (and in particular if you reuse passwords).

5930

Lol, it seems we quit playing and then came back at the same time. :)

Me too, I launched the game because of the event and because I was bored. What do you know, the game sucked me right back in.

I decided to grind out 81K on the 3002DB before 8.5 to get the Indian Panzer and had a lot of fun doing that. I tried that tank briefly a year or so ago on my way to the Panther and I remember hating it. This time, however, it really clicked with me and I had a lot of fun.

Now I am driving the Indian and I am loving it. Sure, it practically has no front armor (90mm, nicely sloped for ricochets though) but then again - nothing really does anymore with gold ammo for silver. Everyone is carrying some gold ammo now and is not afraid to use it if the need arises. I watched my T95 friend being raped by a couple tier 8-9 heavies in a frontal attack, how is that for armor, stuff like that never happened back in good old times. :)

Anyway, the Indian starts pretty slow but not painfully so, which is a nice change from the usual awfulness of the German stock tanks. Obviously the stock gun is crap (it’s from the DB) but the next gun is readily available, if you ever played the Tiger. The top gun is awesome in every possible way. Its aiming speed is 2.9, which is not ideal but at the same time it’s the same as on many other tanks like the Type 59, Panther 2, AMX’s, etc. The gun is accurate, has awesome penetration, some very respectable (for a medium) damage and, more importantly, it has AWESOME VERTICAL ANGLES. That’s right, it’s the first German tank that can take advantage of hills and all the updated maps have lots and lots of hills and slopes nowadays. Once fully upgraded, the tanks feels very responsive, it’s not a racer like the AMX but can keep up with Type 59 (which is btw significantly slower nowadays) and is faster than the Pershing.

Oh and it has 90mm armor on its sides, which is the best tier 8 side armor (save the AT-15) and almost the best in the game, if it weren’t for some monsters like T95 and the Tortoise. This side armor allows to “tank with the sides” VERY comfortably. This makes the Indian good at shooting around the corner kind of fights as well.

The only thing this tank is not that good at is close combat. It’s not a pushover - it has the best rate of fire among all tier 8 meds, add great penetration (again the best) and it will kill any medium in close combat but will almost die in the process itself. But then again, it’s kind of the same for any other tank in close combat anyway.

So in the end, we have a pretty mobile medium with the best gun, the best vertical angles, the best DPM and the best side armor that is comfortable at sniping as well as fighting around the corners and is not a pushover in close combat either. What’s not to like? The turret, that’s what. The turret is what balances out all the great stuff about this tank because its made of paper and anyone can penetrate it most of the time. Luckily most people don’t realize it and proceed shooting at the hull like with most other tanks.

All in all, a very fun but challenging tank. It’s not for everybody - if you don’t know how to tank with your sides, the tank will frustrate you on many maps. It’s not a simple tank to drive and is very different from most other meds (very similar to the Pershing though) but it’s a lot of fun, I am having a blast with it.

5931

Yeah, the Indien seems interesting. I rebought my DB (now minus the B) to grind that line, but it’s slow going. I’m not in any real hurry; the Leopard I seems good but sort of like a BatChat. without the autoloader. Mostly I’ve been working on mid-tier Brits for fun, and doing CW with my new clan, VPG. A lot of my old clan ended up there, and we hold a few North American territories. We run one or two battles a night usually, though that could change. We’ve been moderately affected by tank locking coming to the NA servers. We use a lot of mediums, like everyone these days, and my T-62A got killed in my first CW with the new clan; it just unlocked last night. My Patton and my E-50M are still locked. We ran out of 62s after losing a bunch in our first battle with tank locking, though at least we won the fight. Our BatChats haven’t died much but we also lost some arty to a flanking attack; we have tons of arty though, so that’s not a big deal.

I’m thinking, however, that if we get to the point of having to field three teams a night, we’re going to be down to Tier IX and Tier VIII stuff eventually…

5932

I am not into CW anymore but it does sound like a cool system. I wonder how it’s going to affect clan wars in the long run.

5933

Jury is still out for NA servers, but it’s been in place in EU/RU for a while apparently. I suspect that people will adjust, but in the short term smaller clans will have difficulties.

5934

RU servers are a very different species though. With about 4 million active players in any given week (compared to the US’s about 210K active players) the dynamics there are quite different. EU has about 1M active players a week. Although, it’s kind of a moot point anyway because I don’t know anyone from RU/EU clan wars, I don’t read about them and have no idea how this new system affected them either. :)

5935

Just a quick heads up - WoT is having a huge event this weekend to commemorate the end of WWII. 5x exp for the first battle, gazillion discounts on everything, stuff like that.

5936

Some of the details:
[ul]
[li]Military Parade Weekend
[/li][li]Military Parade Bonus Code
[/li][li]Military Parade Gift Shop Bundles, May 9 - 12
[/li][/ul]

5937

(Seems like big news, at least for those who dislike free-to-play business models.)

Source: gamasutra.com

“Wargaming kicks ‘pay-to-win’ monetization to the curb”

One of the most successful free-to-play online game companies on the planet has announced a sweeping change in the way it monetizes all of its games.

World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net told Gamasutra in an exclusive Q&A that it would be removing all “pay-to-win” purchase options from all of its current and upcoming titles.

The initiative has already begun in the company’s flagship online game World of Tanks, and will continue with upcoming titles such as World of Warplanes and World of Warships.

5938

Hmm, I’m not sure there are any “pay to win” elements in WoT, beyond the indirect things that Wargaming already is saying will remain (premium accounts, premium tanks). The article actually indicates what seems closer to the truth–WoT already is built on this “new” philosophy, especially after the shift to premium ammo purchasable with in-game currency. The premium tanks in WoT have always been balanced by being better than the stock tanks of their tier, and worse than the best of their tier. Even the gold ammo was generally unbalancing not in favor of the people who paid cash but those who were in big clans which held lots of gold-producing territory.

5939

Lol this is the biggest marketing bullshit news I’ve seen in a long while. :)

Premium (or “gold”) ammo always was and still remains a pay-to-win feature. When premium ammo was available for either real money or for participation in clan wars, it was pretty rare to see them used in random fights and even when it was used, the vast majority was bought with the “free” gold from clan wars. A whole bunch of users were excluded from Wargaming’s money making machine, only a few rich people would buy gold rounds (or other premium consumables) with real money.

Now that premium ammo is available for silver, its usage in random fights grew exponentially. There are tanks that are now mostly being driven with ONLY gold rounds, like Hetzer, M4 or M4E2 (I was driving the later for a couple of weeks to unlock the T-29 and just for fun and, overall, it even makes some silver when using 100% gold ammo. On a premium account, of course), thank god they seem to be fixing most of them in the next patch. There are tanks that are not viable (or at the very least very frustrating and not performing at their full potential) unless you are shooting gold, like T69 or E100. There are also tanks (like Maus, Tortoise, T95, M26E4, etc.), seeing which makes people automatically switch to gold, which, accidentally, killed the entire class of heavy armored tanks. Like yesterday, my supposedly impenetrable tier 5 AT-2 was almost killed by frontal attack from a puny tier 3 light tank.

With so much need for gold ammo, how do you get enough silver? Of course, you can grind lower tiers (and enjoy getting one-shotted by gold shooting M4E2’s) until you are blue in the face but the most efficient and painless way is to get a premium account and a premium tank. You can do that, however, with real money only. One fight with something like Lowe will allow you to freely use gold ammo on your regular tanks for about 5-10 fights, depending on your tier, of course.

As a result, in old days, only a few were willing to “pay to win” and they didn’t affect random games that much. Nowadays, everyone is forced to pay real money just to stay on equal grounds with the majority of the players. How is that for “kicking pay-to-win monetization to the curb”?

What used to be a little bit of “pay-to-win” had become mostly “pay-to-be-on-equal-grounds”.

It’s still a somewhat fun game but player skill plays less of a role now while Wallet and Random have much greater effect.

5940

Well, yeah, but this has always been true. I agree that the announcement is total BS, but I don’t think having a premium account is precisely “pay to win” in the sense that most people look at these games. The things you directly need to buy–like special ammo, for instance–don’t directly require cash, just in-game currency. Indirectly, yes, the best way to get that currency is to buy a premium tank and have a premium account, but again those are indirect. In game, there is nothing you can go right out and buy, that you can’t buy with in-game currency, that will give you a direct, immediate battlefield advantage. Premium tanks certainly don’t, as their value is long term for money making.

But yes, I agree, as a total package the game is at least “pay to avoid utter frustration” if not pay to win. Though I have to say, even in my relatively competitive clan (VPG) there are people who compete very well with standard accounts, though I think everyone has premium tanks.