Tuesday 10 November 2015

Interview with Vyacheslav "Slava" Makarov

Interview with Vyacheslav "Slava" Makarov, one of the people who invented World of Tanks. What he mentioned during his interview on Cyprus with some Russian streamers:

- World of Tanks really grew a lot. The ideas of how to develop WoT did not correspond to the expectations of players, and that's where the huge number of issues from the past comes from
- WoT currently doesn't need development, it needs fixing and in some things returning to the roots, in other things it need an overhaul (artillery, perks, sound, vehicle classes)
- the problem with artillery is that it's not how it used to be, it now has variety and is fast, this broke the game somewhat. Some individual vehicles do have issues + the tier 10 artillery appearance was problematic
- the connection of artillery and light tanks got broken - earlier, if a LT came to arty, the arty was dead, period. This is no longer true.
- early on, TD's were designed differently: as a mix of turret-less vehicles with unique gameplay. Early TD's played very differently, like inverted heavies with long range gun but without a chance to survive close combat. The solution would be the same as with artillery: take each class and give them unique features, because right now all the classes are mixed up. Currently there should be 10 classes in the game and that's just the vehicles that were already implemented
- all classes should be rebalanced
- arty fix would be only a part of such rebalance, it should be divided into two subclasses (mobile arty and slow arty) and separate each class by the task it should be doing, but that's one hell of a job
- Slava Makarov is a huge opponent of removing artillery, because arty players would be really screwed
- Panzer V/IV Alpha should be reworked, it really sucks
- the danger of current development is that if you do too many things at once, the game could completely break down
- how Slava Makarov would fix WoT: first step would be gaining massive feedback from the players. The first thing to be fixed would be random battles (that's what everyone's playing), specifically map and vehicle balance. New physics should be added soon. The developers should simply sit down and solve problems, starting from scratch from patch 8.0 state, then tell players about the plans, use the test server to test ideas, gather feedback. Balance, physics and maps in this order. Sound is needed as well.
- the crew system should be completely reworked, the important part is not to deprive players of anything and to move to the WoWs crew system


- Viktor Kislyi is now getting involved in the WoT development, which should help WoT
- many people were changed in World of Tanks team, which accelerated some things considerably
- reworking the WoT controls for Xbox controllers was quite a quest, it took half a year and a lot of trials
- Slava Makarov likes WoWs a lot
- WoWs is intended for western market and it works really well
- Slava Makarov didn't believe Blitz would work, but it is working nicely, the development team has its own ideas
- if you don't like arty, play Blitz
- when it comes to cybersports, Wargaming took things too fast. The cybersports is supposed to develop along with the game but they rushed and tried to bring a huge tournament and when that happened, the game was not ready yet. Currently the developers are considering what to do with it.¨
- WG is working on an interesting project in Seattle
- apart from that, WG is working on two yet to be announced projects, one of which could turn into a beginning of a long story - they will be announced in 2016
- Slava Makarov thinks he actually has an idea for a game more interesting than WoT

HD Screenshots: KV-3, LTP, Type 97 Chi-Ha, SU-152, AMX AC mle. 48 and T30

*Edit: Added more screenshots/angles*

Hello Warriors,

more HD screenshots for you:

See also: MS-1, M44, Comet, Type 98 Ke-Ni, T29, M7 Priest and KV-5

KV-3

HD Screenshots: Cruiser Mk. I and Cruiser Mk. II

Hello Warriors,

2 new HD screenshots for you.

See also:




Cruiser Mk. I

Chieftain in aerial view.

Hello Warriors,

Expect things to be a little bit slower as the 9.12 is pretty much a copy of the 10.0 but with cancelled features, do have work in hands but will take some to write it down. 9.13 Info is starting to come out so things should start gaining steam.

Meanwhile, remember those aerial tank videos that I found couple months ago?

There is a new video of another Chieftain and I know how much you lads/lasses like it:



Already asked in the comment section where this was recorded, seems like a fun place where I can satisfy my Armored Vehicles bug who is currently suffering from driving withdraw.  :P