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A Russian military contractor is building huge drone tanks
A Russian weapons company named after the inventor of the AK-47 has revealed that it's building a new type of unmanned combat vehicle. The company states that its upcoming drone tank will carry both machine guns and anti-tank missiles, weighing 20 tons.
Russia's newest armored vehicle swims and picks its own shots
Russia's latest armored prototype was recently spotted rehearsing for the nation's upcoming May 9th Victory Day parade following more than half a decade of top-secret development. Dubbed the Kurganets BMP-25 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), this amphibious personnel carrier has been designed to replace all of Russia's existing tracked assault vehicles, which have been in service since the Cold War.
World of Tanks missions get personal tomorrow
World of Tanks is getting a new personal missions feature starting January 15th. You can access them via the upper left corner of your garage screen, and getting started is as easy as picking a sortie, accepting it, and rolling out to the battlefield. You can complete each mission as long as its major win condition is met, but you may want to stick around a bit longer and rack up extra rewards by fulfilling secondary objectives as well. Further details are outlined in today's WoT website update.
World of Tanks introduce pixel-tastic Winter Showdown
Ready to take on some blocky other tanks in blocky arenas with your own blocky tank? World of Tanks wants to endorse your readiness, not block you. The development team behind the game has announced the approaching Winter Showdown mode, an homage to the simpler games of youth -- assuming that you were growing up between 1985 and 1995 and the games of your youth featured online connectivity and pixels rendered in three-dimensional space, anyway. This mode is more than just a simple graphical overhaul, featuring three exclusive tank types, platoons of five tanks, and special gold rounds that hurt enemies or heal your allies. If you can't wait to start rolling in your pixel-based tank, good news: The mode will be available for play starting on January 26th in the United States. Take a gander at the trailer just past the break to see the blocky action in... um... action. [Source: Wargaming.net press release]
World of Tanks' 9.5 update detailed in new trailer, review vid
Wargaming has released a new trailer for World of Tanks version 9.5. The patch adds three new maps, a host of British war machines, an overhauled minimap, and much more. The trailer is kind of a quickie, so we've also embedded the 9.5 review video just beyond the break WoT 9.5 is now available for download via the game's official website.
The Deserter Debuff is a good thing
We talked yesterday about dungeons. Today, while crawling the blue tweets, I came upon this exchange between community manager Lore and a player who doesn't like the deserter debuff. Only Lore's side of the twitter exchange remains, for whatever reason, but it's worth reading. The disparity between tank/healer and DPS queues for heroics has always been there, and it's likely going to remain for the future. It's simply a matter of math - for every tank and healer in a dungeon, you need three DPS, but the actual number of DPS per tank and healer is much closer to what we see in LFR. And even LFR doesn't pop instantly or even close to it. But the deserter debuff isn't just implemented to control tanks and healers and keep them from dropping group at the first sign of trouble, knowing they'll immediately get a new one. It also exists to try and curb the mentality that any perceived or real failure is immediately grounds for bad behavior - because dungeons are and are supposed to be a group activity, and using the dungeon finder is essentially partaking in a social matchmaking system that breaks down is such behavior isn't penalized in some fashion. The deserter debuff exists not necessarily to punish, but rather to serve as an incentive - it is as much carrot as it is stick.
Dungeon behavior, quests, and grouping
Okay, tanks and healers, let's be up front about something: we own LFD. This came to mind while reading these posts on the forums about tanks queuing up for a dungeon solely to get the early quest item, then dropping the group as soon as they had it, forcing the group to wait to replace them. Tanks can do this because we have instant queues - if you want to tank a dungeon, all you have to do is queue up and you're in almost immediately. Healers sometimes have a bit of a wait, but usually not much of one, and can often have instant queues as well. DPS? Well, DPS players (the most popular role, so we know it's somewhat self-inflicted) have to wait. On average, they have to wait up to an hour to get into a heroic. So if you're a DPS player queuing up for a heroic, it can be immensely frustrating to finally get that group you've wanted, zone in, help the tank kill the mobs he or she needs to get to that quest item, and then the tank drops the group, at the very least setting you back a half hour if not outright dooming your dungeon run. You did your part - you helped clear to the quest objective. And your reward is more delay. Rygarius mentions that a solution is in the works (it's now live), that the end boss' death will be an objective of the quests, and I think it's a solid workaround. And the reaction of some players to this workaround is revealing in a way I find disturbing.
World of Tanks' replay files vulnerable to code injection
Are you a World of Tanks player who watches match replays from Wargaming's free-to-play arena battler? You'd best be careful, as the company has publicized a vulnerability that allows third parties to "inject malicious code into replay files." The problem will be addressed in WoT's 9.5 update as well as the 1.7 patch for World of Warplanes. In the meantime, Wargaming says that "the code is executed automatically when opening the compromised replays via the game client. Your system may be at risk if you download potentially modified replays from the internet."
SWTOR's Guardian, Juggernaut discipline changes detailed
Another day has brought us another Star Wars: The Old Republic dev blog detailing the class changes coming in the Shadow of Revan expansion. This time around, the focus falls squarely on Jedi Guardians and Sith Juggernauts. BioWare says that both versions of SWTOR's single-saber tank will get new passives, new utilities, and more thanks to the discipline tweaks scheduled to hit the game's class trees in December 9th's 3.0 update.
World of Tanks' 9.4 adds Stalingrad map, tweaks strongholds and more
World of Tanks' 9.4 update is now live, assuming you're playing from North America or Europe. If you're in Asia, well, you'll have to wait until tomorrow. The patch reworks WoT's team battles mode, adds a new historical map (Stalingrad), and improves strongholds. "Strongholds and the structures that produce reserves for a clan have been extended to level 10," Wargaming says. "In addition, clans now have the ability to seek out and attack other clan strongholds and each clan is able to designate specific times where they are available to defend opposing clan attacks." Click past the cut to watch the strongholds trailer. [Source: Wargaming press release]
War Thunder prepares to roll out Steel Generals
Do you enjoy being able to roll around on the ground in War Thunder while taking out anything on the business end of your tank's main guns? Good! The game's next update is giving you new ways to do just that. War Thunder: Steel Generals is due out by the end of the year and is aimed at spicing up the ground game with the addition of US military hardware to the game's lineup. How many pieces of hardware, exactly? Try 30 new tanks and AA units from the appropriate time period. It's exactly the sort of update that can appeal to players who like the game so far but feel it just doesn't feature quite enough tanks. No specific release date has yet been announced, but it's due out before the end of the year, so you won't have to wait long to get your US-based tank on. [Source: Gaijin Entertainment press release]
World of Tanks 360 edition gets French tech tree
If you're an Xbox 360 World of Tanks player, you'll be glad to know that today's update adds the French tech tree, 28 new tanks, and two new maps to the game. The new content is technically free to download, but it does require an Xbox Live Gold subscription. We've embedded a new six-minute dev diary including French tank footage just past the break.
Tank racing coming to World of Tanks on September 29
Wargaming is adding racing to its ubiquitous World of Tanks battler. Tank Rally mode will "pit players against each other on a racing track full of destruction and explosive action," according to a new press release. The catch is that it's only playable from September 29th through October 12th, so you'll have a limited amount of time to perfect your tactics. Teams of three tankers will compete to capture a control point, destroy each other, and race across a track filled with ramps and explosives. Participants will be limited to the new M24 Chaffee sport tank which will be given to all registered players for free. [Source: Wargaming press release]
Warlords of Draenor: Tank changes
Technical Game Designer Chadd Nervig, aka Celestalon, has been answering some inquiries on Twitter lately, and hinted at a few of the changes we can look forward to with tanking. It seems all tanks are up for tweaks, in some fairly overarching ways. .@abcart311 All tanks. Current plans: Tweak the design of Resolve. Lower tank health. Lower tank mitigation. Lower boss damage. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 29, 2014 If you're not familiar with Resolve, it's essentially what Vengeance has become in Warlords of Draenor, albeit with some changes. Currently, Resolve improves self-healing and absorbs done by the tank to the tank and partially converts mastery to attack power. How it will be further tweaked in Warlords remains to be seen, but the overall change itself should help tanks be tanks without overshadowing the DPS. The rest of the tweet is much more intriguing, but does fit with the overall theme of scaling down we're seeing in Warlords. Lowering tank health and mitigation seems risky, but if boss damage is also reduced, then it shouldn't be a problem. For a long time, Blizzard has made noises about how they wanted to slow down the pace of boss fights, especially in the final tiers of an expansion. Damage that's less devastating, healing that is slower pace and choices that are more meaningful. To me, these changes read as being in line with that philosophy. I will be interested to see them implemented, and how they affect gameplay in the beta.
Wargaming claims over 100 million registered users
How many players has Wargaming amassed via its ubiquitous World of titles? Over 100 million registered souls across all platforms, according to the firm's latest press release. The company of course neglects to mention how many of those 100 million players are active or how many of them have spent money, but we suspect it's doing OK for itself in both departments. You can read the full blurb after the break. [Source: Wargaming press release]
Gamescom 2014: Obsidian and My.com release Armored Warfare trailer
Obsidian and My.com have released a new trailer for Armored Warfare at this week's Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany. The clip runs for just over a minute and it features plenty of heavy metal war machines doing what they do best in urban environments. See for yourself after the break.
Do certain roles encourage bad behavior?
I still like tanking and healing more than anything else in the game, but they have their deficiencies while you're trying to smash Hexos into a well-deserved stain on the floor. In order to finish off Brawler's Guild achievements, I went DPS for the first time in 6 years and then thought, "This is actually kind of fun. Let's try some LFR and see what this puppy does in a raid." In a matter of days, I and my hapless raid-mates encountered the following: A tank who RP-walked to everything. (Spoils took forever.) A tank who posted the meters after each trash pull and boss to make fun of the least well-geared DPS. Tanks who couldn't be persuaded to kill the blademasters in Gates of Retributon, trapping the entire raid in perma-combat. Tanks who kept taunting Thok back and forth to alternately breathe on or tail-swipe the raid. Notice a pattern?
Red Steel Rain is coming down to World of Tanks on the Xbox 360
It seems incomprehensible, but World of Tanks on the Xbox 360 is about to get even tankier. I mean, the game already has a high concentration of tanks, but there will be even more tanks. It will be tanked up to the next level. How is this possible? Well, the Red Steel Rain update adds in 15 new vehicles, including the Soviet Artillery line, thus ensuring that you have an even wider variety of tanks to tank about with. Do you not need more tanks? That's all right. The update also includes two new maps with weather conditions as well as the new Platoon battle format. The former gives you more places for your tanks to do whatever tanks do (arrange decorative flower garlands), whilst the latter offers a chance for organized team play with pre-made groups, a mode that the developers will be watching closely to determine the optimal size. Red Steel Rain goes live on August 12th. [Source: Wargaming.net press release]
World of Tanks builds strongholds for Update 9.2
Wargaming is betting that players will fight even harder than usual if it's over something they built, which is why the company introduced strongholds with today's Update 9.2 for World of Tanks. Strongholds are a new game mode in which players can lay out a virtual base and fight over it. If a clan can upgrade its base enough, it will be treated to limited-time bonuses that will cover all clan members across the game. Update 9.2 also comes with eight reworked maps, more medal achievements, HD upgrades to a few tanks, and the Fire Arc battle arena. Check out what 9.2 has to offer in the update video after the break.
World of Tanks delivers big Xbox 360 update
The Xbox 360 edition of World of Tanks has grown by leaps, bounds, and treads today with the sizable Rapid Fire update. This patch added two new maps to the game: Arctic Region and Erlenberg. In addition, Rapid Fire has introduced American autoloader tanks and a group of additional German tank destroyers. We've got the action-packed trailer for this update lurking right below the cut, so be careful!
