Storm is writing from his vacation, so there is some new info today :)

- 90 percent of all feedback on El-Halluf rework was apparently positive

- Storm confirms Malinovka will be reworked

- 9.3 test will come soon

- supertest of 9.3 will start on 28.8. (this Thursday)

- Havok: “when it’s done”, it’s apparently almost ready, but there is a lot of content to rework to make it work properly under Havok (its ETA is close to medium future)

- it is not sure whether the premium Panther will have limited MM, as the vehicle was not yet created, it should however come around New Year, unless the outsourced modellers screw it up

- FV4202 premium tier 8 for free? “We will decide closer to New Year”

- new LT’s in 9.3 will come in HD quality

- there will be further development of the Stronghold mode

- SerB like the Panther a lot when he played it

- there will be tank descriptions on minimap in the future

- Storm does not apparently consider “corridors” on maps a problem (“It’s not a problem. It’s variety. And an advantage for certain classes of vehicles.”)

- Storm on map corridors: “Earlier it was not considered a problem. There were maps with corridors and there were maps without corridors. Together, it made for normal variety. Why did lately everyone start to take interest in it? Because El Halluf and Severogorsk got reworked?”



- Storm will meet and discuss the “corridor issue” with the chief of map departments, one he (the chief) returns from vacation

- Storm states that it was cool that WG banned 8000 botters (most used a bot program called “Cyber tank”). He does not know however why WG doesn’t sue the bot makers like Blizzard did

- Storm on bots: “If bots start to play better than players, I think it will be possible to play with them together.”

- developers haven’t thought about marking players with disabled chat in battle

- there will be no “premium account freeze” button, it is unprofitable for WG, this was decided long ago

- new motion physics will come in close to medium future, developers already found a way how to make it correctly

- new camo system and reworked landscape to HD will come in medium future

- first premium tanks to be reworked to HD will by Type 59 and Jagdtiger 88

- developers decided not to change the damage model of hatches (SS: as in, earlier there was some idea that hatches hits should cause less damage as the shell doesn’t penetrate the tank directly, or to turn them into spaced armor), it would be counterintuitive for players

- 25 percent RNG does not have a linear distribution, it’s considered sufficient and won’t be reduced

- it’s unlikely that Type 59 armor will be changed when the vehicle gets reworked into HD

- it’s unlikely that any premiums will have their HD model armor changed, because they are premiums

- some maps that people were satisfied with got reworked because their stats were not very good – base winrates differed too much

- for now, it’s difficult to say how the new LT’s will play in the game, Storm hopes they will not become simply nimble medium tanks with nerfed hitpoints

- no major buffs are planned for premium tanks, but some of them will be buffed a little

- RU251 will be the fastest and more agile light tank of all the new 9.3 light tanks

- apparently, hightier light tank income will not be buffed since developers also have to consider that such a change would cause more gold ammunition use

- T34 premium tank apparently will not be rebalanced

- a lots of bad players getting drawn into the game by bonus events destroying the game? “Those people live around you” – Storm is not bothered by them: “dumb but sincere and good people I like much more than smart but evil”

- Storm confirms that Kharkov and Windstorm both have 7-8 percent lower FPS than other maps

- developers haven’t thought about tying the gold-per-money course to Euro

- Stalingrad will have the same type of gameplay as Kharkov (SS: a “labyrinth”)

- developers are not working with mod makers when it comes to UI development

- FV304 nerf is planned

- developers do not want to make more turrets on tier 10 vehicles (SS: as in, Maus II turret for Maus is not planned)

- there is not much info on top tier Soviet and Chinese mediums turret armor, it’s not sure whether their turret armor will be changed (the way T-54 was in HD) when they get reworked to HD

- T-34/100 as tier 7 premium? “No guarantees”

- Panzer IV Schmalturm will not get its side armor screens as spaced armor: “we decided not to do it, because the plates are huge and they will generate tons of 0 damage hits, when the shell hits the plate, but passes beyond the main tank armor” – later Storm adds they will think about it more

- Storm will not participate in the “developer car trip”

- Slava Makarov (one of the original WoT producers) moved on to work on new upcoming WG projects

- introduction of new LT’s is connected with the need to improve the LT class as a whole

- more “atmosphere” will be added to maps to make them look like battlefield, but slowly – as it turned out, it’s actually quite expensive to produce

- the split of engine module to separate transmission and engine modules is already being worked on and will be done soon

- IS-3 in HD will come in 9.4

- IS-6 will definitely not be buffed, it’s doing fine statistically

- Object 907 will apparently be worse than regular tier 10 tanks, just like a premium

- regarding the alleged incorrect armor of the 113 tank (SS: something about side spaced armor and mudguards), Chinese sources confirmed that it’s correct the way it is in the game

- 9.3 will bring more punishments for AFKers, leavers and suiciders (developers are however aware that arty players don’t move much and sometimes do no damage even if they try)

- if you commit suicide even against unwinnable odds, you will be punished

- there is no plan to award top 3 tanks of the team with bonuses, because there are cases when the entire team sucks (even top 3 get very little XP) and developers don’t want to reward that. A threshold of minimum XP is also not a solution, because people will complain that they got for example “required XP-1″ and didn’t get a reward

- the XP reward system wasn’t changed for a very long time

- Garage battles will not anytime soon (not in 9.4, 9.5 or 9.6), the previous info that a hightier mode for solo players will come soon was wrong info

- FCM 50t will not be buffed

- M6A2E1 “Alien” will be reworked to HD soon and its armor will be fixed. It will also recieve a buff.

- experience for “tanking” (soaking up damage with armor) will come in 9.3, only XP (no extra credits)

- no plans to introduce more Chinese medium/heavy regular tanks

- no plans to buff HE shells

- IS-7 will also not be buffed in armor

- roaming will be introduced at some point

- VK4502B with rear turret will definitely be switched for Maus prototype

- there are not enough tanks to create two separate British branches (TD and MT), hence they got merged into one (the Firefly one)

- apart from 9.3 LT’s and the Firefly line, no more regular tanks will come this year, only a few premiums

- new motion physics will not come in 9.3

- Jagdtiger will not be reworked to HD along with JT88