Commanders,

The time has finally come to let Swedish reinforcements loose on the battlefield. Along with the new Tech Tree which introduces some cool new mechanics, we’ve also buffed a number of Premium vehicles based on your feedback.

Here's the final round of info you need to know before rolling out in 9.17.

World of Tanks servers will be down on 14 December from 2:00 to 8:00 CEST (UTC +1) to get everything in order. Also, we’ll be freezing the Global Map for 24 hours, temporarily closing the Clan portal and cancelling Strongholds battles (except skirmishes). - For the SD client, the patch size is 495 MB

- For the HD client, the patch size is 860 MB Current Premium players will be credited an additional 24 hours of Premium account time to make up for the maintenance period. If you’d like to make any in-game purchases, please wait until the servers are up and running again.

In the weeks leading up to release, we revealed details about the update's new content in a series of posts. Click the images below to jump to more detailed coverage.

What's New

Swedish Vehicles

The Swedish tree comes in two flavors: tank destroyers and a mixed branch.

The TDs are lightly armored, making them quick off the mark. They can bring the pain with their decent guns and stay safe with their low silhouettes. At tiers VIII–X, the TDs introduce Siege and Travel modes. The former considerably ramps up your ability to deal damage. The latter is for when you need to secure your position.

The mixed branch has light, medium and heavy tanks. Early-to-mid tiers have good elevation arcs and can slip into a number of combat roles. At the higher end, the EMIL I, EMIL II, and Kranvagn have the nation’s trademark gun depression and autoloaders.

Premium Vehicles

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve built on the first round of changes to several Premium vehicles, tweaking the combat parameters of the FV4202, STA-2, M4A1 Revalorisé, T26E4 SuperPershing, WZ-111, Löwe, Panther 8.8, T34, M46 Patton KR, and 112.

Improvements were also made to the French heavy tanks АМХ 50 В and АМХ 50 120.

Sounds

On the sound stage, we’ve made a few improvements:

Those of you with 5.1/7.1 surround systems now have associated presets in Settings

Locking onto a target is now followed by a sound notification

The option to turn on a mic is now available in the “Sound” tab

New sounds for hitting the ground and collisions with natural obstacles that signal the severity of the collision

Minimaps

9.17 refreshes the looks of seven more minimaps: Karelia

Pilsen

Sand River

Mountain Pass Tundra

Windstorm

Winter Himmelsdorf

HD Models

11 more vehicles now have HD models: B1

Conqueror GС

Pz.Sfl. IVc

Sturer Emil Pz.Sfl. IVb

VK 28.01

SU-85I

SU-122-44 KV-2

SU76I

Tetrarch

The revised overmatch and ricochet rules (initially planned for 9.17) were postponed. All the data and your feedback from the Common Test showed that their introduction could lead to some deeper changes to vehicles strong and weak spots. Just like you, we wouldn’t want that. That's why we're taking some extra time to fine-tune these elements. Until it's all ready and meets our high standards of quality, we’ll stick to the old, time-proven mechanic for all vehicles, including the Swedish TDs. Head over to the 2nd Common Test article for more details.

As usual, your contributions during the test period were extremely helpful in making World of Tanks a better game. Head to the forums, talk to your fellow tankers, and let us know what you think about the final release!

See you on the battlefield.