Wargaming.net are all about planting the odd strategic feather or necessary paperweight on one end or the other of the perpetual seesaw that is MMO balancing. And in World of Tanks’ 8.6 update, that means a complete overhall to the game's artillery tier system.
In 2010, Wargaming opened a portal to this strange world in which there are tanks, and only tanks (Who refuels the tanks? Do they refuel each other? How do they pour the jerry cans with their single, static limbs?). But the company had been knocking about for a good decade or so before then, building games with words like ‘MASSIVE’, ‘WAR’ and ‘ASSAULT’ in their nondescript titles. To celebrate their latest anniversary, they’re going to hold an international tournament.
Hope you had a wonderful bank holiday. What did you get up to? Oh that's nice. Yes I heard it's lovely this time of year. Huh? No, I don't think that's legal. Wait, that's a terrible hiding spot. I think you might need to leave the country for a while until this all blows over. While it does, why not peruse the latest batch of screenshots from the ineffable World of Warships? It's the only Navy battleships MMO that uses the whole of the boat, organically grown by local shipyards.
Wargaming.net reported at the weekend that World of Tanks passwords had been hacked, and some personal (though not financial) information compromised. Oh no! But it seems that the looming threat of a stolen identity isn’t enough any more - so much so that the developers have organised a Change Your Password Event to entice players into doing just that.
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World of Tanks 8.5 has been in public testing for the best part of a month, during which time players have been privy to a slew of new light and medium tanks for Soviet and German force still warm from the production line. By the end of the week, those updates will have been applied to the game proper* - alongside a shop tweak that renders the game just a touch more free-to-play.
Wargaming have discovered a security leak within their account database that could mean their users account passwords have been compromised. The publisher has advised that everyone change their password and, if you use the same password for any other pages, that you change those, too.
Victor Kislyi saved Gas Powered Games. Not a moment too soon, and perhaps a few too late, the Wargaming CEO stepped in to offer the onetime Supreme Commander developers a future, and the opportunity to rehire some of the staff founder Chris Taylor had been forced to let go during the disastrous Wildman Kickstarter campaign.
The match is a good’un - but under its new management, it seems GPG’s PC-only days are over.
World of Tanks isn't as young as it used to be. To celebrate the second birthday of the game's European and North American servers, Wargaming have cut the cost of tanks and components, boosted experience bonuses and are running a several special events between now and 09:00 GMT April 16. That gives you plenty of time to get stuck in.
They're also offering a small birthday present to all their players, a one-day premium account bundled with a selection of consumables.
Developer Wargaming have pried open the doors to their World of Tanks test server once again, and this time players have the chance to beta test version 8.5 before it sees general release. Among other things, version 8.5 features a host of new light tanks and a new map called Pearl River.
World of Tanks creators Wargaming.net have today announced an iOS and Android-based spinoff, built from the ground up for mobile devices but “inspired" by its PC parent game.
Gas Powered Games may have been upon the brink of closure, it may have been three years since the game’s release, and it may have been two years since the last patch but Supreme Commander 2 has received a new update that provides a hefty reworking to the games mid to end-game stage.
Gravity’s harsh laws restrict us from leaping from tree to distant tree, leaving for work via a deft drop from the eighth floor window, or easily throwing washing machines around in the garden for sport, but it consider the meek tank destroyer: usually the poor creature cannot even lift one tread higher than the other, so bound to earth is it by mean old gravity.
That’s not the case in Wargaming’s latest trailer.
A trailer that also shows off the newly overhauled maps, ten new tank destroyers, and the good time the two can have together.
Wargaming aren’t rushing World of Warplanes: a year and a half after the game’s first alpha took off, the game is still in closed beta. While World of Tanks has been a runaway success for the developer; World of Warplanes, while it’s built upon a similar model, has so far developed as a very different game. Often a far more challenging one.
To discover what’s changing, I’ve spoken to World of Warplanes’ Director of Global Operations, Vlad Belozerov about how one of my most anticipated games of 2013 was ticking along.
We learned earlier this month that the next iteration of World of Tanks, the 8.4 update, would bring a cavalcade of new tank destroyers and a bunch of newly updated maps but now you can actually play around with the new update. And you can do it all before the update actually launches too. This is because Wargaming.net have decided to load the update to their public test server to see what the world thinks of their work.
The most recent update for World of Warplanes will be a welcome release to all those in the closed beta. It updates the game's visuals, particularly the shaders used to decorate the planes - now they'll look closer to the materials they're constructed of. Also, more importantly for the actual enjoyment of playing the game, the controls have been revamped, making for a more intuitive experience, apparently.
For one day only, World of Tanks is offering a promotional code that will give every player a premium account for 24 hours, entitling them to earn 50% more XP and credits every time they take to the battlefield. The code will work for both both the European and stateside servers and if you don't want to use it right now (perhaps you'd rather wait for the weekend?) then don't worry, the code expires on March 1st.
Wargaming.net, the developers behind the enormously successful MMO World of Tanks and the forthcoming World of Warplanes, has bought the struggling studio Gas Powered Games. GPG recently cancelled their Kickstarter for Wildman, which didn't look like it was going to make its target, and in an emotional Kickstarter update a few days before, studio head Chris Taylor explained that he'd had to lay off the majority of his team.
Wargaming haven't yet revealed how much they purchased GPG for, but Taylor will remain with the business. "Wargaming's growth in recent years has been tremendous, and we're looking forward to joining one of the fastest growing gaming companies in the world," he said, in a short statement.
We’ve managed to prise the lid off a tub marked ‘8.4’ we found in Wargaming’s larder and spoon out the chilled scoops contained within. There are new tank destroyers in both British and Soviet flavours, light tanks that taste unmistakably German, and visual and rendering overhauls for four of World of Tanks’ maps. I can’t think of a good dessert metaphor for the latter. Sorry.
Wargaming.net suffered an expensive disappointment earlier this month, but Victor Kislyi and co. haven’t lost their taste for spending just yet. The World of Tanks developers today announced the acquisition of Chicago’s Day 1 Studios for a cool $20m.
A wizard visited me in a dream last night. We were sitting cross-legged in that infinitely long corridor out of The Matrix, idly rocking back and forth and trying not to make eye contact, both waiting for the other to speak first. "Have you--" I started, before the greying wizard silenced me by placing his gnarled wooden staff against my lips. "Steve," he spaketh. His voice was like that sound when Indiana Jones pushes a button in a tomb and the ceiling starts to move. "It is important that we carry out our work before you wake." He gestured to the old grandfather clock from my dead nan's house, how on earth did that get there!?
The wizard used two dusty fingers to slide a plain white card across the floor between us. I picked it up and turned it over. In gently embossed embossed Helvetica I saw written on the card a collection of gaming news stories. But not any gaming news stories: gaming news stories that had not yet come to pass. This week's upcoming gaming news stories.
I can share them with you now.
