Tuesday 7 April 2015

More 121B pictures

Hello warriors, just a few more pictures of the 121B Chinese tank.





07.04.2015 Q&A

Here it is:

- Storm was confronted with the fact that on one hand he claims that the French heavy line would not be original (in the sense of the game style being the same) while on the other hand we get spammed by premium clones of existing tanks (such as the Japanese Tiger). Storm's reply was that the premium clones are "rare";
- In 9.8, some individual missions will be simplified. Players who did complete them previously when they were harder will not receive any compesation;
- M48 Patton and SU-122-54 are "normal" statistics wise;
- The East German T-55A will not receive different marks of excellence than the Soviet ones, it would require an overhaul of the code and "that's not worth doing for one tank";
- Storm confirms that the first two HT15 missions will be simplified;
- The XP for tanking bonus will come soon. HE shells counting towards this bonus however - no ETA on that;
- There will definitely be a penetration nerf of very high penetration guns;
- In 9.7 test 3 the French hightier tank characteristics are already final;
- M56 Scorpion is NOT a regular premium vehicle. It will be sold or given away only during some events;
- Ferdinand in the game is "historical" according to Storm - with the exception of guns and engines "but that's unhistorical on almost all the tanks";
- Ferdinand is reasonably popular (not too many play it but also not too few);
- Historical Ferdinand setup will also not be introduced as tier 7 premium;
- M48 Patton will be buffed ("when it's done it's done");
- Developers are considering unifying the launcher for all the WG games (RG: maybe also allow us to change servers with only one downloaded copy?)
- When reworking vehicles in HD, hightier and premium vehicles do have priority;
- It's possible that when historical battles return, they will also cover smaller local conflicts (but no guarantees);
- ARL 44 turret will be made historical when the vehicle is reworked to HD;
- It's possible artillery will be changed "not to be so frustrating for players". Storm later adds that WG "does not consider artillery to be a problem", but "there are some ideas how to solve it";
- No planned changes to Karelia and Mines maps;
- There are no plans to limit MM to less than +/-2;
- Limited MM premiums will be removed from sale because "they are breaking the food chain";
- There will not be a special initiative to rebalance the light tank class. What there will be however are fixes of all vehicles that will include LT's as well;
- There are no plans to nerf the E-25 (RG: Good);
- Fake Panther III aka E79 will not appear in the game;
- Developers are not planning to introduce premium tanks as a part of regular branches (as in you'd have to buy it to progress further);
- There are no plans to convert existing tanks into premium status;
- WG does not consider bad players a problem;
- There will apparently also be round 4 of the 9.7 test (RG: Again, let WG take their time with it, better waiting than receiving something rushed and barely playable);
- Artillery exping will likely not be made any faster because developers are afraid of "large concentrations of artillery on high tiers";
- There will be more premium tanks in 2015 (apart from those in 9.7);
- There will be more hightier regular tanks this year as well (apart from the 9.7 branch);
- Perks will not be reworked this year;
- Minsk map will not come this year (it's possible it will not come at all);
- The Paris map is only being tested so far;
- Players are whining a lot about the VK4502B historical nerf (80mm of armor) Storm: "the old gameplay based on armor will remain with the prototype Maus on tier 9";
- Mauschen (VK4502B replacement) frontal turret is 240mm thick and it doesn't have the machinegun weakspot. The only real weakspot of the Mauschen is the lower frontal plate, but its area is 3 times smaller than the one on the VK4502B;
- Mauschen upper frontal plate is 200mm thick (31 degrees);
- Dx11 support is still deep in development, too early to talk about it;
- AMX ELC will not get a 360 degrees rotating turret;
- There are no plans for third Soviet TD line (turreted) for now;
- According to WG statistics, IS-4 and IS-7 are not the worst tier 10 heavies;
- For now there are no plans to review the XP and credit profitability of tier 8 LT;
- Regarding reworking the artillery for less alpha, bigger splash and more randomness inside the aim circle, this will not happen - Storm states that this would in the end produce higher damage output and frustration to non-arty players;
- Currently, high-end content is the main direction the WoT development is heading to;
- Current accuracy level in WoT is final, no other plans for accuracy buffs or nerfs;
- There is no single player discrimination in WoT (Storm refers to the presence of platoon missions in the individual mission program);
- 9.7 ETA: "when the bugs are fixed, we don't want to release a broken patch";
- Developers are planning to introduce vehicle customization in the future - players will be able to hang track links, fuel tanks and other stuff on their tank. These will influence the collision model (will act as extra armor) (RG: Now that's interesting).

121B tier 10 Chinese tank on supertest

Hello warriors,

a new vehicle appeared on the supertest - a tier 10 Chinese event medium tank, 121B. Basically it's the 121, only with 105mm L7 gun (British top medium gun) and 130mm hull front. There's no way to confirm whether this vehicle is historical or a fake, but there's a description.

This is most likely a Clanwars vehicle.



Description:

121B is the a modernized variant of the "121" Chinese medium tank, developed in the sixties. Compared to the prototype, the 121B had more modern 105mm rifled gun, improved suspension and improved frontal armor. The vehicles of this type were equipped with IR lamps and laser rangefinder. Thanks to the optics used on the 121B the tank had very high accuracy on the move compared to the Type 59.

Tier: 10 MT
Hitpoints: 1950
Engine: 580 hp
Weight: 40 tons
Power-to-weight: 14,8 hp/t
Maximum speed: 50/20 km/h
Hull traverse: 50 deg/s
Turret traverse: 41,7 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 0,671/0,767/1,438
Viewrange: 400
Radio range: 782,1

PZ II J platoon = 14 kills! Much Balance!

This last weekend during my Easter stream with the RITA clan, we decided to test how supreme the PZ II J can become for the viewers, when three people use it while platooning. And the results? 14 dirty kills...

I usually celebrate my "crucial contribution" medals, but in this case I could only facepalm while thinking about how wrong it was to sell this tank to everyone using the premium store. I did not take any pride in the battle.

Seems a bit hypocritical when WG is working on an anti-seal-clubber system and then decides to sell this tank. Is this the last (and excuse for my words) butt fuck of the newbies before the newbie protection gets implemented? Because they sure are taking it hard currently.
I am so glad that it was sold only on EU, I hope other servers don't repeat the same mistake in the future. So much for the anti P2W business model that Wargaming proudly advertises.


"Kitbashed" Panzer IV Ausf.J in Thun

Source.

Hello warriors,

Yuri Pasholok recently visited the tank museum in Thun (Switzerland) - the post yesterday was from him as well, I am sorry I forgot to mention it. This time, he had a look at the Panzer IV Ausf.J they have there - and he found out that the vehicle was heavily kitbashed and some parts of it are not original.

Basically what happened was that the vehicle arrived in Switzerland incomplete and was likely bought (received) as a wreck from somewhere. Yuri Pasholok does not mention from where but judging by the way the vehicle restoration was performed (especially the suspension kitbash), it's possible it came from Czechoslovakia along with the G-13 tank destroyers at some point (numerous Panzer IV tanks were "restored" there and used for several years under the designation of T-40N (not to mistaken with Skoda T 40 TVP prototype)). In any case, as he correctly mentions, it's good that the vehicle was "restored" like this instead of being scrapped. Some parts were clearly made from scratch, like the side mudguards. The vehicle also has the hatches and access ports on the top of the hull wrong apparently.



Luckily, Switzerland has a restoration group that is experienced in bringing the vehicles to the working order, so it's possible that this Panzer IV Ausf.J will be historically restored as well.

RU WoWp Fans making "Save the Game" petition

Hello warriors,

as you probably well know, World of Warplanes turned out to be one huge failure. On Russian server, the number of players online was around 30k - but ever since, it has dropped to roughly 4-6k. A couple of players therefore decided to make a petition to the Wargaming CEO, Viktor Kisly - they want him to "save the game". The players complain that the game becomes worse and worse each patch, FPS drops more and more and the game looks terrible. The are also complaining about the wonky plane physics. The solution they propose is to fire the incompetent development team and to fix the bugs in the game. Oddly enough, they also demand the moderators to be investigated (and fired) for "incompetence". Considering Wargaming practically already pulled the plug on this project, there is very little chance that this petition will change anything. Still, if you want to participate, the link is here:

Petition.