Hello warriors,
0.9.7 Test 4 is now active. It has no particular set of changes compared to test 3, the only change listed is (according to Russian server) "fixed numerous bugs and issues". It's possible it's the last round of tests.
Friday, 10 April 2015
10.04.2015 Stream (Ended)
Happy Friday everyone! Hope the week treated you nicely!
I will be streaming now as usual for a couple hours, had a good night sleep and I'm all energetic for some viewer platooning!
Get that groove on: http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2
I will be streaming now as usual for a couple hours, had a good night sleep and I'm all energetic for some viewer platooning!
Get that groove on: http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2
10.04.2015 Q&A
Here it is:
A developer (only introduced as "Nikita" in an official stream), a programmer responsible for the matchmaker, explained the issues with XP bonus for tanking and why it was delayed as such in an official stream:
In fact, the bonus XP for tanking depended on the normalized thickness of armor at the point of impact. The game designers decided that this was a good idea despite the fact that under some circumstances, the effective thickness of armor could be extremely high due to the angle of shell impact. There was a divisiom by the angle (cos) (effective armor calculation) - the problem is that this value is not limited in any way so extreme impact angles (ricochets) gave extreme results (in one case, a ricochet caused 5000-6000 XP bonus). This mechanism was not fixed on time and required a complete overhaul, hence the delay.
The moderator of the stream was shocked, why armor thickness should be actually taken into account and not just the shell damage. The answer to that was that there is another solution already and it will be released at some point.
- Batchat in HD will not come in 9.8;
- It's possible that 9.7 test 4 will come this week still;
- IS-3 in HD will not come in 9.7 despite the delays;
- HD KV-2 will have the same guns it has right now;
- Average duration of battles on mid tiers? "No comment";
- No plans to add crew-member visual models to vehicles (RG: Games like WoT and AW don't like very much the idea of having real crew shown due to the age rating of the game, its understandable);
- Light tank hit-points will not be increased across the board;
- long testing of 9.7 does delay 9.8, but not by much;
- Storm states that the information that vehicles present in Kubinka will be allowed by the museum to be photoscanned the same way the IS-3 was is false;
- Type 59 in HD is being worked on, including possible collision model (armor) overhaul, no decision was taken yet though.
A developer (only introduced as "Nikita" in an official stream), a programmer responsible for the matchmaker, explained the issues with XP bonus for tanking and why it was delayed as such in an official stream:
In fact, the bonus XP for tanking depended on the normalized thickness of armor at the point of impact. The game designers decided that this was a good idea despite the fact that under some circumstances, the effective thickness of armor could be extremely high due to the angle of shell impact. There was a divisiom by the angle (cos) (effective armor calculation) - the problem is that this value is not limited in any way so extreme impact angles (ricochets) gave extreme results (in one case, a ricochet caused 5000-6000 XP bonus). This mechanism was not fixed on time and required a complete overhaul, hence the delay.
The moderator of the stream was shocked, why armor thickness should be actually taken into account and not just the shell damage. The answer to that was that there is another solution already and it will be released at some point.
- Batchat in HD will not come in 9.8;
- It's possible that 9.7 test 4 will come this week still;
- IS-3 in HD will not come in 9.7 despite the delays;
- HD KV-2 will have the same guns it has right now;
- Average duration of battles on mid tiers? "No comment";
- No plans to add crew-member visual models to vehicles (RG: Games like WoT and AW don't like very much the idea of having real crew shown due to the age rating of the game, its understandable);
- Light tank hit-points will not be increased across the board;
- long testing of 9.7 does delay 9.8, but not by much;
- Storm states that the information that vehicles present in Kubinka will be allowed by the museum to be photoscanned the same way the IS-3 was is false;
- Type 59 in HD is being worked on, including possible collision model (armor) overhaul, no decision was taken yet though.
Armored Warfare: The Sheridan Story Part 1
Like Armored Warfare did with the BMP-2 they now uploaded the first part article about their newest introduced light tank, the Sheridan:
http://aw.my.com/us/news/general/sheridan-story-part-1
As someone who just started getting familiar with more recent tanks I find it to be a good read.
AMX 13 57 Review
Finally I'm able to share this with you, couple weeks ago Wargaming EU gave me access to a press account so I could test drive the new French premium AMX 13 57 and do something that I haven't done in a year, a tank review:
(It was funny the amount of rant messages I got in game of players who thought I was a staff member)
Königsberg operation
Wargaming RU just uploaded another reenactment together with real footage, this time they take us to the Königsberg operation, there are English subtitles available:
I'm enjoying this WG series so far...
On Wargaming behavior analyst team
Source.
Hello warriors,
you probably didn't know it - I did not - but Wargaming is not just about games, it's also about psychology. They have their own player behavior analyzing team working on the data obtained from live servers in order to make players as happy as possible - sorry, to make the most money of course :) Andrey Yarantsev (WG vice-president) and Sergei Kadomsky (player behavior data analyst) reveal how it works. Here is a summary of what is written in the Russian article above.
- analyst work consists of routine (reading reports, discovering issues and solving them, discovering negative trends) and special commission when a client comes and asks "it was like this and changed to this, why?"
- in game industry, analytics can be split into marketing (to achieve high return of investment) and development (internal)
- in WG case, the analysts segment the player-base into blocs (payers/non-payers, newbies/hardcore etc.) and treat them accordingly
- one of the latest reports was the report was an analysis of why players are leaving WoT and what players groups are the most risky
- on average, WoT player plays 20-25 battles in one session
- the amount of traffic on RU server is hundreds of terabytes of data per day
- analysts are collecting analyzing all kinds of data apart from the obvious (XP, grind speed, damage done etc.) , for example socialization (when the player plays in platoon, in company, when does he join a clan) or behavior in chat, purchases (consumer behavior of the player)
- marketing is also collecting and connecting practically all the data available - for example how long does it take players from clicking on the ad banner they saw somewhere to buy their first premium tanks: even the smallest issues in this chain have to be remedied
- the most important data that are looked at first are the online numbers, new registrations, payments and expenses
- the most typical reason for various non-standard behavior in this sense (payment drops etc.) are technical issues with the game (server downtime), even smaller fluctuations however trigger an investigation
- WG analysts are also taking regions into account and studying each region separately as well
- the most important values for the analysts are CCU (concurrent users), new registrations, payments, CPI (costs per install) and LTV (life time value, eg. what the player spends during his gaming career in total)
- when WoT started, players were split into very basic groups (newbies/potential core/core + payers/non-payers). Later on, the analysis became more complicated (for example "how is the non paying core part of players behaving")
- another phenomenon that was investigated was the one of "paying newbies"
- regarding various groups of players, CW players for example are motivated "by the need to win and lead an army", e-sports players are motivated by the option to earn money and to accomplish something. The motive of random players is mostly "fun"
- developers are trying to stimulate team-play "from the bottom" - first incentivize players to play platoons, then companies, then clans, because socialization is what keeps the players in the game
- random players are incentivized by minigames, discounts, events and competitions
- one of the most important elements that keeps players in the game is user-generated content (social networks, videos, streams)
- stimulating players to buy stuff is actually pretty difficult, they have to start thinking that they actually need something, like premium account. One way to motivate them are various discounts - but there's a huge problem: if they come too often, people get used to them. That's why WG is trying to attach discounts to various very important events and tries not to make them like a regular thing.
- instructional videos (for example "How to play XX") also stimulate players to buy stuff because players that do not know the vehicle are afraid to spend money on it
- one of the cases where analysis failed were historical battles that expected much higher interest from players, one of the main reasons the format failed was "lack of balance and the absence of garage battles"
- another huge failure was the 9.0 improved graphics where the developers overestimated the desire of players to upgrade their PC, expected 30-50 percent of players to switch to improved graphics immediately and in result only 5 percent did
- one of the things that surprised the analysts is how long some memes can survive, some RU memes survive for years ever since the betatest
- 70 percent of RU players claim that WoT changed their attitude towards history (reading more books about it and stuff)
Hello warriors,
you probably didn't know it - I did not - but Wargaming is not just about games, it's also about psychology. They have their own player behavior analyzing team working on the data obtained from live servers in order to make players as happy as possible - sorry, to make the most money of course :) Andrey Yarantsev (WG vice-president) and Sergei Kadomsky (player behavior data analyst) reveal how it works. Here is a summary of what is written in the Russian article above.
- analyst work consists of routine (reading reports, discovering issues and solving them, discovering negative trends) and special commission when a client comes and asks "it was like this and changed to this, why?"
- in game industry, analytics can be split into marketing (to achieve high return of investment) and development (internal)
- in WG case, the analysts segment the player-base into blocs (payers/non-payers, newbies/hardcore etc.) and treat them accordingly
- one of the latest reports was the report was an analysis of why players are leaving WoT and what players groups are the most risky
- on average, WoT player plays 20-25 battles in one session
- the amount of traffic on RU server is hundreds of terabytes of data per day
- analysts are collecting analyzing all kinds of data apart from the obvious (XP, grind speed, damage done etc.) , for example socialization (when the player plays in platoon, in company, when does he join a clan) or behavior in chat, purchases (consumer behavior of the player)
- marketing is also collecting and connecting practically all the data available - for example how long does it take players from clicking on the ad banner they saw somewhere to buy their first premium tanks: even the smallest issues in this chain have to be remedied
- the most important data that are looked at first are the online numbers, new registrations, payments and expenses
- the most typical reason for various non-standard behavior in this sense (payment drops etc.) are technical issues with the game (server downtime), even smaller fluctuations however trigger an investigation
- WG analysts are also taking regions into account and studying each region separately as well
- the most important values for the analysts are CCU (concurrent users), new registrations, payments, CPI (costs per install) and LTV (life time value, eg. what the player spends during his gaming career in total)
- when WoT started, players were split into very basic groups (newbies/potential core/core + payers/non-payers). Later on, the analysis became more complicated (for example "how is the non paying core part of players behaving")
- another phenomenon that was investigated was the one of "paying newbies"
- regarding various groups of players, CW players for example are motivated "by the need to win and lead an army", e-sports players are motivated by the option to earn money and to accomplish something. The motive of random players is mostly "fun"
- developers are trying to stimulate team-play "from the bottom" - first incentivize players to play platoons, then companies, then clans, because socialization is what keeps the players in the game
- random players are incentivized by minigames, discounts, events and competitions
- one of the most important elements that keeps players in the game is user-generated content (social networks, videos, streams)
- stimulating players to buy stuff is actually pretty difficult, they have to start thinking that they actually need something, like premium account. One way to motivate them are various discounts - but there's a huge problem: if they come too often, people get used to them. That's why WG is trying to attach discounts to various very important events and tries not to make them like a regular thing.
- instructional videos (for example "How to play XX") also stimulate players to buy stuff because players that do not know the vehicle are afraid to spend money on it
- one of the cases where analysis failed were historical battles that expected much higher interest from players, one of the main reasons the format failed was "lack of balance and the absence of garage battles"
- another huge failure was the 9.0 improved graphics where the developers overestimated the desire of players to upgrade their PC, expected 30-50 percent of players to switch to improved graphics immediately and in result only 5 percent did
- one of the things that surprised the analysts is how long some memes can survive, some RU memes survive for years ever since the betatest
- 70 percent of RU players claim that WoT changed their attitude towards history (reading more books about it and stuff)
Berlin map reworked
Hello warriors,
remember that May event "Berlin" map from supertest? It was reworked. Here's the new version (on the right side, the left one is the old one).
remember that May event "Berlin" map from supertest? It was reworked. Here's the new version (on the right side, the left one is the old one).
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