News

WoT recruitment program Video

17.11.2014

- there are 11 new tanks in 9.5, because there will be two tier 5′s and two tier 6′s (5: Sherman, Archer, 6: Firefly and Achilles)

- tier 10 British MT will not be replaced in 9.5

- Evilly confirms that the 9.5 branch will bring Archer, Charioteer (on tier 8) and Firefly

- tier 10 in 9.5 will be “quite mobile and agile” vehicle FV4005

- 9.5 will bring new Individual Missions (missions of various difficulties with tanks as rewards)

- the IM tanks include T28 Concept, T-55A and Object 260- a shell in the game is represented by a single point, not an object. As such, a shell can pass through holes, that are smaller than its caliber

- developers are still thinking what to do with T-44-85

- it’s possible T-34-85M will be “available before the end of the year” – it depends on whether it’s “ready” (to be released)

- developers will not disclose the internal tank module layout (the way it is in War Thunder), there will however be an “armor inspector”

- ammo rack damage (SS: as in the possibility to damage ammo racks) will not be removed from the game

- some guns have “wrong” damage (inconsistent with other guns of its caliber)? “We will definitely fix that, as soon as we recieve the data on historical damage value these guns had”

- a player claimed that certain tanks have higher chance to get certain maps and gave “Chaffee” and “Stalingrad” as an example, Yurko2F stated this is not true for the tanks the player gave as an example

- the fact that Porsche heavy tank tracks have thicker armor than the Henschel ones is “compensated by other characteristics”

- Storm admits that the ramming system is screwed. It will be reworked and simplified by removing the fact that the armor calculated currently during the ramming is the one at the point of contact. Instead, the armor considered when ramming will simply be the nominal armor, taken from the tank characteristics (nominal front/side/rear armor) on the side that rammed (or got rammed).

- T-44 in HD? “When it’s done it’s done”

- there will be a micropatch soon (between 9.4 and 9.5), fixing some of the worst issues, specifically the enemy seeing your chat channel during special battles (CW), the lagging (freezing) minimap markers, the jumping serverside aim circle and the damage from slightly touching the allies (altogether 10-15 bugs will be fixed)

- the M53/M55 collision model bug was already fixed by WG on their side

- Storm spends 25-50 percent of his free time at home reading Russian WoT forums and LJ pages

- the bug, where entering a battle in Stronghold mode gets you stucked on the “loading wheel” is known and will be fixed

- in team battles, voicechat is also bugged (both sides can hear it), will be fixed

- Storm states that Windows XP users getting stucked on loading screen might be caused by mods

- earlier, the ramming system did not work properly, the 9.4 change was in fact a fix. Storm states that the players, who want the old system back just got used to the old, bad one.

- the reload timer lagging on autoloader tanks is caused by faulty mods

- the general viewrange nerf WILL include premium tanks as well

- until the alpha stage of the game, the viewrange sectors were actually split (the vehicle saw more forward than it saw to its sides), but the developers decided not to do it due to the fact that the viewrange felt somewhat random

- the changes planned for the entire TD class are not really a nerf, more like a rebalance. More variants will be tested.

- Storm states that Veider’s statement about “rock-paper-scissors” was a mistake: “He expressed himself incorrectly. We are thinking about the roles of tanks, each of them will be interesting in its own way. That doesn’t necesserily mean that the tank class and its role have to match

- Historical battles will not come in 9.5

- TD’s currently form less than 30 percent of the vehicles in WoT

- developers are apparently considering returning the Confrontation mode (“national battles”) – the temporary solution is to hardcap vehicles to maximum of 3 vehicles of the same type (SS: as in, three E-100′s max) per team, Storm admits that this will prolong waiting times, but not to 5 minutes or something

- Storm admits large amount of bugs in 9.4, currently WG is investigating why that happened

- according to Storm, the number of online players on RU server is the same as it was last year by this time

- new serverside physics will not be split, it will come in one patch

- when nerfing viewrange, developers will take into account that some hightier mediums (Batchat, Leopard) act as scouts.

- Veider states that the logic behind the viewrange nerf is that the developers want to make tanks fit more in their role on the battlefield in order to return to the “rock-paper-scissors” principle

- Veider is aware that the viewrange nerf might cause more “vanishing tanks in the middle of a field” issues, that is another matter WG will address

- the “vanishing tanks in the middle of the field” will be fixed by the following principle: currently, a tank shoots, gets spotted due to camo penalty for shooting, but when that penalty wears off, its camo is improved and the tank disappears. In the future, the penalty will not wear off until the vehicle leaves enemy viewrange zone

- developers are “discussing furiously” the option of reducing the viewrange only when the tank is camping in bushes

- various viewrange sectors (SS: a tank would see forward further than to the sides) would be hard for players to understand and it would be very expensive server resource-wise

-another look at the reward camo for CW campaign 3

- women form no more than two percent of WoT playerbase

- the main playerbase of WoT consists of men from 28 to 35 years

- lately, the number of clans was increasing (for various reasons, from CW to the fact the people want a clantag)

- the info above led to the development of Strongholds, as clanners needed some sort of “ecosystem”

- developers are experimenting with Stronghold mode “bunkers”, created in some sort of building (their strength depends on the level of the building, the bunkers are being tested on Malinovka)

- these bunkers and other SH consumables will be deployed by clan commander via a “tactical tablet”

- current version of premium account/tank XP is temporary, premium tanks (or account, unclear) will be buffed further

- Storm won’t participate in WoWs development “Tanks are 200 percent enough for me”

- Stalingrad will be further fixed (players complained about the “small yards”, Storm added that the map is difficult as it is even without them)

- PvE mode: “when it’s done it’s done”

- 3-caliber rule will not be cancelled (“tell that to players shooting big guns at light tanks”)

- a player proposed a theory, that some of the lags are caused on the client side by energy saving CPU functions (EIST, C-States, Turbo Boost). Storm: “Until you present us with evidence of these “mysterious” lags, it’s unlikely we will do anything”

- Storm confirms that the theory that low hp tanks bounce more shots is crap

- a player was complaining that (unlike earlier), now the position of mouse cursor, when pressing Escape in battle, isn’t as it was earlier (on the “leave battle” button) and he has to scroll the mouse to get to it. Storm stated that they just didn’t pay attention to it, it’s not intentional.

- on the new HD models, the textures are in the new (higher) resolution, but the textures of visual camouflages remain in the old (low) resolution

- hitting a dead tank with a HE shell (arty) does not generate splash, this is intentional

- the decision to remove ultra HD textures was influenced by the fact that practically noone downloaded the HD pack in 9.3 (0,1 players) by the fact that the difference between the (current HD) regular and ultra HD textures is negligible

- developers are still thinking what to do with the SU-76I, nothing was decided yet

- Mountain Pass map will be investigated, heat maps will be checked (there is a suspicion that one side has an advantage over the other)

- Ruinberg on Fire will be removed from the game

- apparently, there is a minimap bug in 9.4, causing the minimap to display wrong enemy tank positions under certain circumstances (enemy left the render range, his icon got “stuck” on minimap and moved only when the player moved and the enemy tank appeared in render range again), Storm was made aware

- 9.5 will come out this year

- Storm does now know, when (or whether) the number of players in clan will be increased

- no plans to buff or nerf arty

- no comment on supertest leaks (AMX-13/57)

- AMX-30 and its “branch” will not come in 9.6, but later (when it’s done it’s done)

- Storm states that his earlier quote about WG not willing to put more paper project into the game did not mean historical paper projects, only WG made-up ones

- T92 Light Tank is not in plans for 2015

- Storm knows about the M53/M55 armour model bug, will be fixed

- Storm states that he didn’t have any problem with capturing on (playing) the Stalingrad map

- the profitability of Object 416 is not lower or higher than the one of other vehicles of the same tier

- customization of tanks (specifically, optional gun mantlet cloth cover) will apparently not be implemented

- World of Tanks models will not have cloth anti-dust covers on the guns (the way War Thunder models have for example)

- it’s not certain that Panther 88 (SS: and thus patch 9.5) will appear until New Year, but Wargaming “will try”

- 9.4 causing mods to stop working again? “Try playing on a clean client. You will get fewer issues :)” (SS: according to Russian feedback, a LOT of mods stopped working again)

- official 9.5 info will be available around the time when 9.5 hits the open test

- 9.5 Firefly branch will “start with medium tanks and then turn into TD’s” (SS: actually, that’s technically wrong, it will start with light tanks – M2A4 and Honey)

- the bug, where when you played a Stronghold battle and it didn’t count towards statistics was fixed

- in 9.4, the Chaffee Sport crew gets automatically retrained to regular Chaffee (not in RU patchnotes apparently)

- according to WG statistics, in last patches, the game performance (FPS) was increasing for players, it should be the same in 9.4

- Stalingrad will not be added to CW anytime soon

- developers are still working on motion physics

- the 7/54 format for team battles was chosen based on player feedback

- Sixth Sense will be reworked in one of the upcoming patches

- 9.4 is 655 megs large

- individual missions? “When it’s done it’s done” (SS: 9.5)

- it’s not true that every tier 10 battle ends with credit loss, some end with small gain (with premium account and while winning)

- artillery accuracy was not nerfed in 9.4

- E-25 is apparently fine, when it comes to its characteristics – it’s worse than regular vehicles of the same tier

- Wargaming has many HD models almost ready, they just need a bit tweaking

- there will be no HD pack with ultra highres textures for 9.4 (or ever again)

- the reference (invite) system is still being tested, it won’t come with 9.4

- 9.4 will not bring the gun sounds from 9.4 test 1 and 2, they were withdrawn for rework

- the artillery fire support effect (before the missionj starts) was also removed from the final patch 9.4, it will be reworked

- the T-54 Light camo factor was actually buffed in 9.4, it will become less visible

29.10

- in 9.5, Sherman Firefly will be researchable from Sherman III and Sherman III from Grant (SS: the connection between new/old branches will be Valentine to Archer)

- it’s possible Churchill Gun Carrier will lose the 32pdr gun and will drop to tier 5

- Q: “Back in the day, it was possible to always find a strategy 1vs1″ A: “In +/-3 MM as well?”

- in 9.5, Challenger and Avenger will be mixed into one vehicle. It’s possible those vehicles will exist as separate hulls, when alternative hulls are implemented.

- FV4004 Conway has “frontal armor roughly like a Centurion”, only the FV4005 has paper armor

And now, for interesting news – Storm: “Most likely, we will reject HD resolution” (he means HD texture resolution on high-polygon models), he reasons as such:

“HD textures for one vehicle have cca 80 Mb. 400 tanks * 80 Mb = 32 Gb of textures only for tanks. 80 Mb * 30 tanks in battle = 2,4 Gb in video memory only for tanks. And then there are maps and environmental objects, so the number above can be roughly multiplied by two. Maybe in 10 years from now on, we will return to HD. When resources and internet channels are sufficient.”

This matter was already decided. Storm adds that the display of HD textures on your own tank only was the first thing they did a patch ago to reduce the stress on memory. But after calculating the total size of the game client, it was decided to remove the HD textures altogether.

- individual missions will come in 9.5, along with their respective reward tanks

- there will not be the option to test individual mission tanks before they are implemented

- no large vehicle rebalance is planned for 9.5

- New Year gift tank? “No comment :)”

- Storm on possible E-25 removal from the shop: “Wasn’t my decision. Ask those, who are spreading this piece of information :)”

- apparently, when IS-3 is transformed into HD, it will have worse lower frontal plate angle, but otherwise, the armor level will improve – in case of side armor significantly

- Storm confirms: around 150 HD models are currently in rework

28.10.2014

Please note that the 122mm HE Soviet shell alpha buff is unintentional and will likely be cancelled.

- according to Storm, the statement that limited MM is one of the premium vehicle characteristics is incorrect, as large part of the premium vehicles have normal MM

- Storm states that nerfing limited MM to regular MM happened only once for a premium tank – with Type 59. The tendency for premium tanks is more like the opposite, as it was recently with the AT-15A and M6A2E1

- WoT is using Scaleform for UI ever since beta test

- Archer will likely play the same way as the Crusader SP (SS: going faster backwards than forwards)

- Storm confirms that more than half of Waffentragers E-100 don’t even finish shooting their first clip before they are destroyed

- for now, there are no plans to buff M48 Patton

- the best ETA available for the Sixth Sense rework is “next year”, it will most likely come with the complete perk overhaul

- Storm states that the importance of perks will most likely not be improved, because it would make old players with many perk crews overpowered

- Storm states that the HD model experiments were conducted on IS-4

- the Havok got delayed, because developers “were ashamed” to introduce only small object destruction in first round and went to work on building destruction instead and now they are “stuck on the issue of performance”

- Storm states that if artillery gets “normal accuracy” (SS: as in, pre-nerf one), it would have to be compensated by alpha reduction, aimtime and shell flight velocity, which is something the developers really don’t want to do

- developers considered the variant, where HE shells would be split into normal HE shells and artillery HE shells (with reduced damage), but they considered that unrealistic

- according to Storm, there is no guarantee that patch 0.9.9 will be followed by 1.0.0, it’s completely possible to have 0.9.20 for example

- there are no plan for complete tier 6-8 rebalance in connection with new vehicle introduction

- Storm states that if you want to use the 0.9.4 gun sounds, it’s no problem to use them downloaded, because the sound engine did not change

- Storm doesn’t consider the “intro video” to be a problem that should have an option to disable it, as you can simply press escape to skip it

- Storm states that 9.5 will definitely come before New Year

- according to Storm, there is no delay in work on HD models, only a delay in their release, as there are really many vehicles in remodelling process at the same time

- turning LT’s into “paper MT’s” by reducing their MM to normal was not discussed by the developers

- for now, the LT rebalance will consists of only viewrange buffs and nerfs

- for now, the developers haven’t thought about garage customization or selection

- there were some ideas about allowing players to customize the look of their tanks, but it all was postponed after all the tanks are reworked to HD

- for now, the developers haven’t worked on dynamic tank characteristics

- developers are also considering a new PvE mode of team battles versus a team of bots

- “very large” maps will not be implemented for now, but there will be tests with larger maps, such as 1,2×1,2km or 1,4×1,4km. These might also come to random battles, tests will show. These larger maps might simply be extended original maps, the way it was made with Murovanka.

- Storm admits that many didn’t like the Murovanka rework, because a lot of people liked camping in the forest and firing at everything that got spotted

- developers considered making the small medal count the way it is in Xbox version (SS: I have no idea how it is in Xbox version)

- Storm confirms that all models will be completely reworked to HD

- it’s not sure yet, whether HD KV-220 will get its IRL (T-150) turret

- the “critical hit bell” sound will not return, it was scrapped as “uninformative”

- minimap will soon be reworked apparently (SS: to resemble the XVM one partially)

- developers will consider reworking HESH mechanics

- for now, no data are available yet on the statistics the developers collected on gold shells

- tournament tanks (tier 7-8) will not have priority for HD rework

- for now, there is no info whether new sounds will appear (again) in 9.5

- apparently, the option of displaying the statistics of only tanks in your hangar (the ticker that “unticks” every time) will become permanent (won’t untick with every client restart)

- the 9.4 sounds were completely scrapped, there won’t be a separate mod release

- there is no ETA or Dx11 support

- 340mm Japanase mortar artillery will likely be implemented, but definitely not in 2015

- there will be connections (SS: bridges, links, not sure what word is used commonly) between the old British branches and the 9.5 one

- modelling of the HD FV4202 hasn’t started yet, same goes for Chieftain – developers are waiting for photos and other data from Bovington (SS: I heard it was delayed, do not expect it in 9.6)

- “many” modellers work on HD models

- Storm is aware of the M103 gun barrel bug (it’s SD)

- Storm states that creating ingame PvE bots is not as easy as taking an existing player bot and implementing it – the bots players use are working client side and are unoptimized, while WG bots have to work server-side without overloading it

- Storm said regarding the recent “bot waves mode” leak that they are planning such a mode for historical battles as well

26.10.2014

- apparently, the feature where top three players of losing team get extra credits will not be implemented

- Chi-Ri had several variants of suspension, it’s possible that one of the heavier ones with 88mm will be added to the heavy Japanese tank branch (SS: SerB is mistaken here. The 88mm Chi-Ri is a fake, started by American engineers exploring the Japanese vehicle plans after the war)

- Chinese-used Chi-Ha did not have any special Chinese designation

- apparently, SerB is participating in alphatesting of WoWs, but he’s hiding

- when removing interface in battle (pressing V), FPS goes up a lot? “Most likely your card doesn’t do well with Scaleform – that’s a Flash-like engine, widely used for interface creation. Please note that we are not responsible for Scaleform-based mod optimization.”

- Storm realizes that STA-2 (upcoming Japanese premium) is worse than STA-1, but “unfortunately, we haven’t simply found any other candidate”

- Evilly states that in 9.5 or 9.6, premium vehicle profitability will be further buffed (“indirectly”)

- it’s possible that the AFK punishment system will be changed to take game crashes into account

- Storm states that the difference between FV215b (183) and FV4005 Stage 2 will be: “One will be armored and slow, the other unrarmored and relatively fast.”

- Storm himself is bothered by the modellers always saying “sorry, we don’t have any new HD models for this patch”, but he can’t do anything about it

- there will be third test of 9.4

- Storm states that the situation where on GTX550Ti enabling shadows causes you to lose 20 FPS is normal

Little News

- Confrontation mode will return when it is rebalanced

- acting on XVM win prediction is “self-deception” according to Evilly – even 45-46 winrate players can carry a game

- troll platoons will be fixed

- apparently, developers were planning a system, where you get notified, when someone you reported gets banned. This function however is tied to the “new chat” system, which is not developed yet.

- regarding the question above, Storm states that the developers are working on a chat system, unified for all three games, the server side is ready and it’s already partially in use in WoT

- Storm states that PvP historical battles with “simulator” motion mechanics (as in, very historical tank motion) would be played by too few people (points out that War Thunder tanks are played by very few people)

- new regular vehicles will come next year

- apparently, an improved tutorial (along with extended tank info, such as armor inspector) are planned for next year

- in the future, team battles will have a mode for tier 10′s

- Battlefield series have different target audience than WoT according to Storm

- Evilly states that the problem with leavers in Garage Battle mode is perhaps the most important one – if they are banned from leaving, they will actively undermine their own team. It’s possible that the leaver punishment for garage battles will have to be stricter than it is now in WoT

- Storm confirms: FV4005 Stage 2 will be tier 10 TD

- the option to flip tanks on their roof will come with new motion physics

- Q: “When will we have a good sound engine, capable of “bending sound” around obstacles like in BF4?” A: “As soon as we can afford to have 10 Gb of sound content”

- for Wargaming, client size is a very, very important parameter

- there are plans to transfer WoT to new version of Bigworld – again.

- IS-7 lowres HD model will not be fixed in 9.4

- on Supertest, the STA-2 (upcoming Japanese tier 8 premium tank) did perform fine, so it’s possible the stats leaked yesterday are final

- next Tuesday, there will be a PvE test

- next Wednesday, there will be the player invite/referral system test (oddly enough, it’s being only tested AFTER it was announced in 9.4, so if the test goes bad, this feature will not come after 9.4 as promised)

- ISU-130′s depression was buffed to -3 and gun traverse to the right changed from 9,72 to 10

  Also, the Insider has a hunch that after the STA-2 testing is over, T-54 Model 1945 (Soviet tier 8 premium MT) will be next.

- Storm confirms: Sixth Sense will not be simply a perk, it will be radioman’s “ability”, that will work always

- a player was complaining, that the role of armor in the game is decreased by vehicles (guns), that are too new, being introduced into the game. Storm states that it’s not about the age of the vehicle, but only the gun’s penetration. Whether gun penetration will change Storm cannot say for now, he needs to analyze additional statistics. He thinks that he’ll recieve the statistics soon.

- Storm played a lot on new Murovanka and he thinks the map improved, you have more freedom to act.

- Q: “Maus had 265mm frontal armor, buff!” A (SerB): “That’s complete crap and ignorance on the matter unfortunately.”

- SerB states that the situation where you have the Intuition loader perk, that activates as soon as the countdown reaches 0 when you switch shells during countdown is correct

- 9.5 will come around New Year apparently

- the project World of Warships will “finish the trilogy”

- WG has several projects they are not talking about yet beyond that

- regarding the alleged drops in WoT playerbase, Evilly states that the peak was in January (over 1 mil online), then it dropped due to summer and issues with 9.0 and now the playerbase is returning

- third CW campaign will start soon (on RU), its reward will be Object 907, but it’s possible there will be a choice from three tanks (907, M60 and VK7201)

- developers are planning further development of CW and Stronghold mode

- for individual players, the next big thing will come in 9.5 – individual missions

- individual missions will be more complicated than current missions, they will also have more valuable prizes

- FV4202 change to premium will not come this year, but in first quarter of 2015

- FV215b will be replaced by “Chieftain prototype” (SS: as far as I know, this is wrong – Mk.II is the right answer)

- FV4202 will not be given out for free automatically, there will be a mission for current tier 10 FV4202 owners, when you complete it, you can get the premium one

- German Panther 88 will come at the end of this year, it will be followed by Soviet tier 8 premium medium tank (SS: T-54 Model 1945) and Japanese tier 8 premium medium tank (SS: STA-2B)

- no plans to make a movie about Wargaming for now

- roaming is already functional (developers are sometimes playing on EU or US server), there are no plans to introduce it for now however, developers want to first find out how to monetize it etc.

- Evilly confirms that Russian players are better than Europeans or Americans

- developers are monitoring other games (AW, WT)

microDigest

- War Thunder sounds being better than WoT 9.4 sounds? Storm: “There’s no ‘impact’, ‘density’ or ‘bass’ in their sounds.”

- for now, there is no ETA for “XP for tanking” (SS: keep in mind that it takes an entire patch cycle just to collect proper data, so it’s possible that it won’t appear in 9.5 either)

- Storm states that the new sounds will not come for everyone, but as a downloadable mod pack, the way ultra HD textures were in 9.3, this mod will come in 9.4

- it is confirmed that no other server than ASIA will get a Type 59 on sale (thanks to Not_Me for this info), EU will apparently get some other exclusive tank on sale in December

- apparently, all the servers (including ASIA) will have the M24 Chaffee Sport crews, left over from Chaffee race event, retrained to regular Chaffee for free in 9.4

- Storm wants to apparently nerf the camo a bush provides to your tank by 20-25 percent

- there will apparently be a video, showing how the new gun sounds were recorded

- there was a “funny” episode in World of Warships development – at one point, there was a piece of land with some indestructible houses. Everything was fine, but the developers discovered that the FPS is dropping a lot, whenever these houses appeared on the screen. The issue was investigated and it was found out that inside one of the houses there was a bathtub and inside it, there was a model of a small plastic duck swimming, which would be a silly joke from one of the artists, were it not for the fact that the duck had around one million polygons…

- Storm confirms that the 9.4 gun sounds are the same as the ones from 9.1 Test 1, excluding high calibers. Some other filters were applied as well.

- developers are currently working on 9.4 Test 2

- developers are working on implementing polls and votes to WoT interface

- new HD tanks? “When they are done”

- developers now admit that the feedback on the new sounds is negative, they however are not sure, whether it’s just because those who like them stay silent and those who don’t whine

- from now on, every test client round will not be downloaded as a patch, every test will downloaded separately as a complete client (cca 7,7 GB). This was decided because “unfortunately, a huge part of playerbase was not able to follow the patching instructions”

- Havok coming this year? “It’s possible, but no guarantees”

Supertest:

Garage Battles

According to the source listed above, the testing of new “Garage Battles” mode has begun on supertest. It’s a 15 vs 15 battle (of an unspecified tier, but I am assuming it’s tier 10 mode) where you have three lives.

Basically, you can respawn twice. After your death, you can choose where you respawn from several options. Hulls of the destroyed tanks do not remain on the map, they disappear.

Premium Tiger

For some really weird reason, Wargaming added a premium tier 7 Tiger in historical configuration (88mm L/56) to the supertest. It’s identical to the regular Tiger, but in roughly historical setup (132 pen on tier 7 (yay!), 650 hp engine), but it has 1700 hitpoints (instead of 1500) and 3000 DPM (elite Tiger has cca 2200).

It is not known, what is this vehicle for. I asked around at WG and noone seems to know, it’s possible that it will actually be a regular premium tank (to be sold). Some speculated that it’s something related to Fury (“raid boss”), but we have no indication that there is such a mod in preparation (far too late for that).

Here are its stats (for 100 percent crew)

Hitpoints: 1700

Viewrange: 380

Turret armor: 100/100/80 (identical to regular Tiger elite turret)

Gun: 88mm L/56

Penetration: 132

Damage: 220

DPM: 2928

Reload: 4,507s

ROF: 13,313

Accuracy: 0,307

Aimtime: 1,73

Depression: -8

Engine: 650hp

Weight: 56,57 tons

Power-to-weight: 11,49 (elite regular Tiger has 12,15)

Hull traverse: 30 deg/s (elite regular Tiger has 26)

Maximum speed: 40/12

Terrain resistance: 1,055/1,151/2,397 (1,151/1,342/2,781)

Clones for the clone gold!

WG plans

- Stalingrad will come “soon”, it will be in the next test round (9.4 test 2)

- apparently, the IS-7 gun model is still SD (developers didn’t manage to get a proper model for 9.4)

- developers are currently collecting statistics in order to implement the XP for tanking

- Storm is aware of the bug on 9.4, where shells fly through tanks, he will investigate

- the feedback on the new gun sounds is “contradictory”, according to Storm – half of players really likes it, half hates it

- the fact that some tanks were paper only or prototypes does not mean they will automatically be reworked to HD after existing vehicles

- in patch 9.6 or 9.7, WoT will transfer to new Bigworld version. Storm states that it should mean a small performance boost for the game.

- Storm confirms that after M4A3E8 is reworked to HD quality, it will get the same armor as the current Fury

- artillery won’t be buffed

- not having enough time to manage your Stronghold? “That means you are not the target audience for that mode”

- Storm states that the sounds of the high caliber guns in 9.4 are “realistic” and historical

9.4 Model Changes

In this post, you can find 9.4 model changes. Most are quite subtle. The patchnotes tell us that visuals of some models were fixed (you know, SU-100 and others). Well… not exactly. From what I could gather, what WG basically did is they fucked up the texture resolution in 9.3 and introduced some HD models with lowres textures. In 9.4, this is getting fixed.

You can see it really nice on the SU-100 example, watch the mudguards (rightclick-view image for higher pic resolution – the pictures are big, so be careful):

Jagdpanther gets a new track color and a brace for the gun:

KV-85 – top turret gets these purple… thingies, that detonate HE shells. Kinda important if you don’t want HE shells flying inside the space of your cupola, but nothing gamebreaking. Nevermind the missing mantlet, I removed it in the viewer when I was checking the space behind it for changes (gotta be thorough, you never know when WG fucks up)

M24 Chaffee – apart from slight recoloring of top turret, I haven’t found any changes in visual or collision model.

RU251 – it’s widely known that in 9.3, the collision model is wrong, the turret doesn’t correspond to the visual model. In 9.3 common test, there was a bug where they moved the turret too low (it “sank” into the hull). In 9.3 release, they corrected the visual model but not the collision model, which remained “sunk”, now they are correcting it again.

and finally, T-34 – the tracks got a bit thicker and the turret got the periscope on top removed (collision model did anyway).

Apart from these changes, there was a bug with the tracks of several vehicles (specifically Jagdpanther and Panther), where they acted weird, when it came to seeing them highlighted as silhouettes in WoT, I suspect this got fixed.

Oh and M41 Walker Bulldog got a depression buff actually – in 9.3, the vehicle has limited elevation (worse by 2 degrees) in the sectors between 70 and 169 degrees on each side (from the axis of the vehicle, facing front). This was corrected and now M41 has the same gun depression it has when facing the turret to the front all around. It’s not really a buff, it’s a bug fix – the worse depression was there before because the early model had some visual elements that caused clipping, which were removed when it came out.