Wednesday 1 April 2015

Meanwhile on Xbox...

Hello warriors,

we get zombies, but Xbox gets the moon!




Source: http://worldoftanksxbox360edition.com/en/news/news/introducing-lunar-chaffee/

01.04.2015 Stream (ended)

Middle of the week is already here, its time now for me to stream for a couple hours. Just got 3 new tanks and will be doing some grind and depends of how things go, I may do some tank requests as well.

http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2

01.04.2015 Q&A

Brace Yourselves:

- The rumor that IS-6 will be removed from sales and IS-5 will replace it is false, IS-5 will not be a regular sold premium tank;
- Some vehicles (like T28 Proto and T29) have on SD models tracks hanging on their armor. The tracks will on HD models always be represented by thicker armor zones, but it is not sure whether  - when these vehicles are reworked to HD - the tracks will still be there in the future;
- A micropatch was applied recently to the 9.7 common test and now everything runs smoothly, there are no more FPS drops. The FPS is on average more stable as well. This is the feature of the new BigWorld engine version;
- There is no way how to create a WoT client that would be complete mod-proof (not allowing any mods) (RG: The community just really wants the turds that use mods like Warpack to be banned);
- Storm confirms the delay in the 9.7 patch at least to April 7th, the reason is the fixing of crashes and freezes, without fixing that issue, the patch will not be released (RG: completely agree with the decision)
- E50M will not get frontal gun depression buff because the gun would then clip through the hull;
- In most cases, server reticle corresponds to the usual reticle status;
- The option to sell premium tanks for gold will not be implemented;
- It's completely possible that 9.7 client will not be compatible with 9.6 mods: "use mods at your own peril";
- Japanese heavy tanks' info is based on multiple sources (for example Soviet-captured Japanese reports);
- New sound engine (WWISE) will come this year;
- Historical battles will come in far future. The main issue is to create bots that will not overload the servers, which turned out to be very complicated  (Wargaming will do that nonetheless);
- This year, a new mode will come for solo players but no details yet;
- It's possible the platoon missions from individual missions will be removed ("there are multiple variants"), developers do have statistics on how many people are "stuck" on platoon mission;
- Later on - "When will you remove platoon individual missions?" Storm: "When it's done it's done";
- HT15 individual mission will be simplified for StuG IV and T28HTC;
- Many individual mission fixed will come in 9.8;
- The option to pick which individual mission you want to do during battle countdown (based on the battlefield situation) will not be implemented;
- For now, there are no plans to return the confrontation mode (aka "national battles"), it is not being worked on currently;
- Havok status: "we don't want to make it slow and laggy and to make it well and with good performance will take a lot of time still" (RG: Agree, better take the time to make things right instead of rushing and end up with a barely playable game);
- The problem with Havok is that when you shoot buildings, the client can't handle the amount of objects (fragments) that are required to make the destruction look good, this is for example valid for the Stalingrad map;
- Technically it's possible to make Havok work like it does in War Thunder, but Wargaming wants to have a more complex solution;
- Dynamic gameplay is still WG priority "to some extent";
- Maps are not being reworked with the alleged hidden TD nerf in mind (it's just a conspiracy);
- The amount of new city maps is the echo of two years back when the players loudly demanded more city maps;
- The 9.7 "newbie protection" (separate MM for newbies) is simply based on total number of battles played of that player, nothing else;
- SU-26 is a bit underpowered, it will be buffed a bit in the future, but not by much;
- The situation with new maps is problematic - there are too many maps in the game already. New maps will be added but not very fast (RG: the problem is not the amount of maps, its how the map rotation works, is not normal when we get same map 3 consecutive times or more);
- "Autoloader" IS-3 will not have an autoloader (will just fire faster) and it also is not a premium tank, but an event one (the autoloader version was just a test and it was scrapped);
- SweetFX will not be implemented, it causes poor performance on an number of PC configurations;
- WG is using Umbra technology for 6 years already;
- There will not be a totally new spotting system, just the current one will be tweaked a bit gradually in upcoming patches;
- There are currently no plans for artillery;
- New British tanks Chieftain and Centurion Action X will not come anytime soon, the modelling has not even started yet because of the delay with obtaining the data from the museums;

War Thunder April's Fool

This days I rarely check on War Thunder but because I don't face the risk of being banned for talking my mind here went to take a look on their April's Fool.


Gaijin made a new wallpaper and a video of inflatable "SPS-255" tanks with hitpoint bars to "announce" simplified game mechanics, my first impression is that they are mocking World of Tanks (everyone else that has been trying to bring this to my attention while I'm writing it also thinks the same).



Really War Thunder, you wanna play the mocking game? I really thought your simulator battles was your April's Fool announcement:


Thank you to the little bird that sent me this. "Yaa ta ta ta ta"

Pay to Win at its finest


Hello warriors,

as you might have noticed, Wargaming started today selling (for 24 hours only) the Panzer II Ausf.J tank:

http://worldoftanks.eu/en/news/pc-browser/premium/premshop-today-panzer2j/

You can buy that bundle for 100 Euro (contains some 30k gold as well). So, is there a problem with that? After all, Wargaming was selling the BT-SV for a lot of money as well, right?

Well, as it turns out, yes, there is a problem. BT-SV had lackluster statistics, but the Panzer II Ausf.J is the single most overpowered tank in the game. According to wot-news, this tank has overall winrate of 67,43 percent (this info can be found here: http://wot-news.com/game/tankinfo/en/eu/germany/PzII_J)

The problem with this tank is that it was blatantly OP for all its existence but it was never nerfed because there were so few of them (they were awarded only at Gamescom and in gift bundles - some people paid as much as 300 EUR for this tank when buying the codes online). Now that anyone can get it, it probably is the worst case of pay to win to date. If you feel like giving uncle SerB 100 Euro for his space program, you'll get a murderous death machine.

One man built a Tiger Replica

Check out this article, in Mother Russia a man just built a German Tiger replica from scratch with blueprints he made on its own as well. There are more fotos in the source link: http://englishrussia.com/2015/03/31/german-tiger-tank-replica-built-by-one-man/

As I already covered Russian snow tanks and now a replica...Next on Status Report, I suspect: Russian man 3D prints his own tank. ;)






Wargaming's secrets uncovered - unfair MM and others

Hello warriors,

Wargaming finally decided to come clean and confirm what we have known for ages: they are rigging the game! In the following video, you'll find out how exactly - don't forget to turn on English subtitles.



Wargaming rigging includes:

- bad MM, reduction of camouflage and accuracy  for players who break chat rules and swea
- putting players in special MM queues where they always end on the bottom og the team
- manually adjusting penetration RNG

 How terrible.

April 1st in Wargaming

Hello warriors,

it's April 1st and Wargaming introduced a special flash game where you defend your stronghold from waves of zombies! Go check it out: http://wotundead.com/


In the World of Tanks game, as predicted, there's a special mode where if you destroy 10 enemy tanks, you receive special additional type of shell (equipment) which does... something :)