Hello everyone,

what follows is the summary of Storm’s stream, that ended literally minutes ago. Holy crap, Storm talks FAST. I think it should be mostly correct, some things I didn’t hear properly or am not sure for, but that’s all in the text. Please note that if I made any mistakes, I will fix them later after I compare my text to the one of a Russian author.

- XP for tanking temporarily removed, will be tested and will return

- 9.4 – hopefully more vehicles will recieve split of transmission

- there have been many problematic cases where various accidents were considered “suicide”, that’s why the suicider punishment was removed for rework

- the bug where “early leaving” is punished when leaving a replay will be fixed

- the HD texture split only includes textures in maximum quality, they are almost needlessly detailed, they can be viewed only in hangar during zoom, therefore these were split for players who don’t need them not to download them

- developers will monitor the popularity of the HD textures

- EVERYONE will have HD models (as in, high polygon models), the only difference will be the texture quality and resolution



- HD maps – there is one “integration map” (testing all new tech, new landscape, tree, water rander, HD textures, new texture techniques on one map)- FPS is being tested in order to work on bad computers, no ETA on HD maps, but they are working on it actively

- currently, they are using Abbey map for that

- HD models in the future – the speed will increase, until now, process was complicated, in the future, HD tanks will come faster and faster

- graphic effects – more impovement in the future (destruction of objects and such)

- dynamic armor destruction is very expensive PC-resource-wise, it was tested

- ripping off various junk that is hanging on the tank by shots/explosions will come in the future

- night battles, the gameplay is not exactly fun, it’s pretty, but it doesn’t play nice. Developers don’t want to make visibility-reduced maps.

- weather is being experimented with, performance is the biggest problem, it’s planned, no ETA

- a lot of work is being done on sounds, many are being recorded, the sound feedback was positive, devs want to release sounds of many tanks at once, explosions and shots are being recorded as well in real life, devs are also experimenting with it (volume etc.)

- Havok – only client-side, it will only influence object destruction, only visual effect, it will NOT influence suspension and tank motion physics (both are separate systems) or shell ballistics. Currently, developers are working on Havok content (cutting houses to bricks and pieces). Then it will be tested.

- the first map with Havok will be Stalingrad (many buildings are destructable)

- Havok will be optional – if disabled, everything will look like it does now

- devs tested a building, that consisted of individual bricks and its destruction, but this is too detailed – bricks will come in “blocks” and these blocks will fall from the wall

- some objects will remain undestructable (stones etc.)

- Havok building parts will disappear in time (after their destruction) in order not to clutter maps with too many objects

- multicore support – WG is working on it, but it will only increase FPS by 10-30 percent (depending on the PC)

- gun barrel rings (marks) feature is basically finished, might be just tweaked a bit

- perks/skills rework and new perks: WG is working on that (reworking old and introducing new) in order to make some currently useless old perks more interesting

- Sixth sense – there is a plan to make it a radioman feature (it activates when the radioman base skill reaches 100 percent – here I am not totally sure however, if it was “main skill” or “first perk”)

- retraining crew to different role (radioman to loader for example) will come, any role will be switchable to any role, it will come in one of upcoming patches

- 9.4: nothing really gamebreaking, it will be about bug fixes and preparing for 9.5 plus some new features – 9.5 will be big (no info for now)

- 9.0 had many bugs and negatives according to Storm

- Sturmtiger, Brummbär – it was planned in a regular branch, but it was scrapped, there is no way to balance Sturmtiger, FV215b with 183 is bad enough when it comes to oneshotting and Sturmtiger would be even worse by a lot. It might come in the game as a PvE element, as a bot. But not a regular vehicle. Brummbär might be a regular vehicle in the future, but no decision for now.

- multiturret mechanism – only for a very limited amount of tanks, that’s why it wasn’t implemented, most are early to midtiers. Very few hightier vehicles have more turrets. Multigun mechanism – could work for Maus, but it’s kinda useless. ST-II could benefit from multigun mechanism, it’s possible it will be implemented. Currently developers decided both will be implemented (multigun, multiturret), but they don’t have high priority (medium KTTS – usually means within a year)

- FV4202 – will be transferred to premium, because the current tier 10 is unhistorical (IRL it had different gun, engine, much thinner armor), it will be replaced by Action X Centurion (it’s a Centurion variant, with a tough turret, 200+ mm, 150mm on sloped surfaces, L7 gun 105mm)

- it’s still possible everyone will get FV4202 for free as a premium á la T34 – or not, or there might be a mission with FV4202 as a reward, it’s not decided yet, but these three are the options. It will come in one of the upcoming patches.

- FV215b will be switched to Chieftain Mk.2 because it’s a fake (it was made because there was no other candidate for tier 10 at that point), one of the factors is also that players don’t like rear-turret ones

- Chieftain Mk.2 will come apparently in the same patch as the FV4202 switch, it’s “Conqueror on steroids”, very good gun, not very tough armor, FV215b (120) will likely disappear from the game

- devs don’t want to have more fake vehicles

- new French HT and MT’s – HT branch was scrapped due to lack of info, some tanks in the old branch were fake etc.

- French MT branch will come, but there is not enough stuff for full branch – there is nothing for tier 6-8. There will be lowtier tanks that actually fought in the war as a lowtier minibranch (Somua etc.) and then there will also be AMX-30 Proto and AMX-30 on tier 9 and 10 (SS: they will follow after AMX-13/90)

- more British TD’s will come very soon (likely this year) in a British branch. Half of branch is MT’s (lend-lease – Stuart, Grant, Firefly) and TD (Archer, Achilles, Challenger, Charioteer, Conway) – there was a variant to make FV4005 Stage 2 on tier 10, but it was scrapped due to the fact it has a 183mm gun and devs don’t want to make more of those, so the branch will end with tier 9 and merge with old branch (FV215b 183)

- the closest premium tier 8 tank is the Panther 88mm and the M56 Scorpion, both will come soon, there will be some more premium vehicles (tier 8) as well (to those nations and classes that are missing yet)

- tank motion physics – will be more realistic (taking intertia and others into account), tanks will have more inertia, will stop slower. Storm confirms the “handbrake” option to make sharp turns. Currently the development of the features is finished, they are testing it now. It’s possible there will be a special common test to test these options. No ETA on that.

- tanks will be possible to tip on their roof, for example when running fast into a very steep slope

- tanks will lose much less speed when going over small obstacles

- apparently, “hard” surfaces will be easier to drift one

- “too many corridors” on maps – according to Storm, this whine only came lately as a reaction to every change on each maps. Some maps indeed had corridors, for example El-Halluf now has corridors. This is not intentional program to make all maps with corridor.

- new Murovanka does NOT have a “corridor gameplay” according to Storm

- developers will try not to make more “corridor-y” maps and maybe some with “corridors” will be reworked

- there will be new tank filter in hangar

- the mod that displays names of tanks on minimap reduces a lot of FPS according to Storm, they are working on a version that doesn’t do that

- gold shells for silver will not be removed, changed or hardcapped

- when they find new data about armor for example, the developers rework the tank armor to historical level. This happens during HD rework as well. It’s possible that premium tanks will not get any armor changes during HD rework at all.

- new types of shells (anti-concrete for example) will not be introduced apparently, they would be superfluous

- tier 9 and 10 premium tanks will not come (reward tanks will, but will not be sold)

- Roaming is basically developed, but it was decided not to implement it for now due to technical difficulties