Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net, is the kind of guy who, when the
other kids were playing with Matchbox cars, probably waged the Battle of El Alamein with the green army men-scale tanks. I was too,
steeped on the stories about my tank gunner grandpa who served in WW2
in II Corps under the command of the Magnificent Bastard’s
antithesis, George S. Patton. Victor tensed when I made the connection,
obviously concerned that I’d get all historical-realistic on
him. If a Buddhist were to glean a mantra from themes repeated during
the interview, it was that style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks
is selectively
realistic.



On the not-so-realistic side, you can forget political allegiances or
nationalistic pretexts – any tank will fight alongside any
tank from any side in the game’s random 15v15 match type (the
only battle type currently available in beta). Those sides include
British, French, Russian, and US for now, with more coming, like the
more exotic breed of jungle-fighting tanks from Japan.


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Continuing the tour of fun yet not-so-realistic features, set your
targeting reticule on an enemy and the tank’s outline will
turn a bright green (for friendly) or red (for an enemy). You can spin
your view at will, but a blue crosshair will lazily follow, reminding
you that you can’t effectively fire until your turret catches
up to your tracking. Once your scouts locate enemy armor, artillery
snipes it from what can only be called a satellite’s eye view.



Players can purchase items in the microtransaction store that quickly
repair treads, extinguish fires, bandage up crew members, or even load
special ammunition (including what Victor referred to as the
“golden bullet” ammo at two cents a shell) that
gives you a better chance at taking out the toughest targets. And,
perhaps most not-so-realistically of all, you’ll never need
to worry about those two perennial enemies of WW2 tanks –
panzerschreck-wielding infantry and dive-bombing aircraft.


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Yet, in a multitude of ways, style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks
is staggeringly realistic. The most obvious way is friendly fire.
TOS-breaking team kills are a big problem, and for that reason,
Wargaming.net wanted to take friendly fire out of the game. Yet the
community wanted that particular aspect of realism, and the community
got it.  Victor explained that the CMs are working hard at
banning team killers in the particularly TK-enamored Russian servers.



More brutal realism: each tank has dozens of hitboxes. One hit kills
are rare, Victor explained – it takes special ammo or a
special kind of luck to cook off the ammo in the magazine or otherwise
blow your enemy to kingdom come with the first shot. That being the
case, a player’s survivability is reliant as much on
repairing damage quickly once hit as not getting hit in the first
place. Once your tank is destroyed, you’re out of the battle
– there’s no respawning a tank. That’s
not as boring as it sounds – spectator mode has its charms,
and matches only last 5 or 10 minutes.



Also on the realistic side is what Victor dubbed the
rock-paper-scissors nature of the game. There is no automatic win tank
– even the nightmarish Maus (of R.U.S.E. fame) is highly
vulnerable to a puny light tank playing his or her role correctly.
Here’s why: heavy tanks are lethal against medium tanks and
effective against other heavy tanks, but their massive turrets
can’t track faster, more agile targets effectively. 
Meanwhile, these light tanks are working as spotters for self-propelled
guns (i.e. artillery) whose huge shells can puncture even the toughest
armor from a lofty ballistic angle.


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Medium tanks are best at hunting scouts, and both light and medium
tanks are well suited at artillery hunting. These SPGs pack an
incredible punch at range, but defend poorly due to slow reload times,
low muzzle velocity, dogged speed, and thin armor. Finally, Tank
Destroyers (tanks with huge guns and a fixed turret) typically have a
low profile and work best in ambuscade, employing hit and run tactics
to avoid a running gun battle.



Another realistic touch: it’s hard to understate the
importance of the rolling, visually busy, and artistically impressive
3D terrain in style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks.
In the short time I watched Victor rack up the kills, I saw three
different maps that changed things like artillery deployment and patrol
formations entirely. Terrain is especially important because if you
break line-of-sight, you’re usually (if temporarily) safe.
Best of all, the environment is highly destructible, meaning
that if you don’t like the look of the urban landscape for an
ambush you can do all the cityscape redecorating you like.



One of my favorite features of games like the style="font-style: italic;">Silent Hunter
series was the idea of a crew, one that can level along with you. style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks
takes this concept to the next level, as your crew gains special
qualities, additional stats, and even special qualities and medals as
you level. Players can also swap out tank parts like barrels, engines,
and radio equipment (to expand the radius at which you report spotted
targets to artillery). This new tech is available for purchase with the
spoils of war – credits and experience points. Players can
also earn medals – style="font-style: italic;">WoT’s
nod to an achievement system.


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Tanks come in ten tiers in each category, from lowly pre-war era Tier
1s to wunderwaffe prototypes and Korean conflict-era models at Tier 10.
Victor was adamant that there’s no free-to-play
“brick wall” - that it’s entirely
possible to play as a free-to-play purist until Tier 4 or so. If you
play to that point, you’ll probably be so hooked that
shelling out a modicum of cash for gear, cosmetic items (camo and
emblems), and consumables won’t be a big deal. For the
time-strapped, a $10 premium offers a huge boost to experience gain.
Since experience equates to new tanks and new tech, experience is
integral to character development.



And if early returns are any indicator, style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks’
microtransaction offerings are priced favorably. In Russia, the only
region in which the game is operating commercially, over 1.3 million
players are actively playing the game. Players who choose to spend
money on the game are spending an average of $25 overall. Victor
wasn’t sharing conversion rates, but he did intimate that the
game is making money beyond their wildest hopes in Russia.



But Wargaming.net isn’t resting on its laurels. Three weeks
ago, Wargaming.net posted a highly segmented map of Europe on its
website, and suddenly style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks
had a territory control system. Control is divided among
“clans” of 100 players each, and players schedule
battles using the web interface.  Clan members keep the client
running or log in at the appointed time, and a dialogue appears when
it’s time for the territory battle.


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Clan warfare has been a rousing success, with scores of new clans
signing up daily. Victor readily admits that the system has outgrown
the European map, and he couldn’t be prouder of that fact.
“This is what I dreamed of ever since I first set my eyes on style="font-style: italic;">Risk,”
he intimated, “there’s really nothing negative I
can say about how it’s turning out.” I asked what
the plan was in the case that a single clan or alliance of clans
overran the map. Wargaming.net is employing subtle designer-y tricks to
keep that from happening, but mostly Victor relies on the fractious
tendencies of the average virtual community to keep things interesting.



That’s the real promise of style="font-style: italic;">World of Tanks’
clan warfare – that we could have all the diplomatic hijinx
and backstabbing of style="font-style: italic;">EVE Online
without the layers of spreadsheet-suited complexity. Clan warfare
mirrors what the rest of the game does so right – distills
the fun from the complexity and offers up just enough gritty realism to
keep the game well grounded. We thank Victor and the Wargaming.net crew
for their time at GDC, and look forward to the game’s
European and American launch in April.



To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Tanks Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Jeff joined the Ten Ton Hammer team in 2004 covering EverQuest II, and he's had his hands on just about every PC online and multiplayer game he could since.

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