World of Tanks Devs Detail v7.0 Updates
Lead Game Designer Michael Jivels and Deployment Team Lead Vitaliy Kuhta recorded an interview for the Wargaming.net YouTube channel detailing some of the updates coming with v7.0 for World of Tanks.
The updates coming to World of Tanks are not small. For players, they will appear to be nothing huge – though some of the in-game changes will be really cool. What is really changing is the back end of the game’s hardware. Currently, WOT is hosted on single servers that are handling 250,000 or more players on their own. This is causing high ping rates and occasional outages as they overload – especially on the Russian servers which have the most players by region. The v7.0 upgrade will move the servers to clustered technology where they will work in tandem but still remain separate, giving them the chance to spread the load in various ways.
In-game enhancements are relatively few, but are fun. In the video, Jivets talks about the upcoming camoflauge skins and how they’ll deploy. While they will not change game mechanics (meaning the visual camo does not make a tank easier or harder to spot during play, though it was made obvious that this could change in the future), they do enhance the feel of the game and give players a chance to customize their tanks in a way that all other players will be able to see – versus current custom skins which are only used on the player’s machine. These camo patterns will be offered for sale using player credits (earned in-game) on a subscription-style basis or as permanent purchases using gold (in-game currency purchased for real money).
Changes to how Company Battles are handled will be implemented as well. Battles will be organized by tier with both player-specific caps and total tier numbers caps in place. Battles will take place on Tier 4, 6, 8, and 10 levels. These will act as the cap for the individual players (no tank over that tier cap will be in the battle). In addition, each team in the battle will be limited to a specific total cap (called Team Points), requiring them to mix smaller-tier tanks or fight with fewer tanks.
Further changes are also coming to the in-battle minimap (radar). It will see some long-awaited upgrades that players have been clamoring for. These include a “Help!” call beacon, changing the color and beeping to indicate a friendly tank who’s called for help (currently these calls only enter the chat box, making it difficult to know exactly where a teammate in duress is located).
Finally, new special effects including game sounds, graphics, and so forth are being added. Some tanks will have individualized motor or equipment sounds, explosions will change depending on round type (high explosives will make bigger booms, for instance) and so on. Coming with this are the return of tracers.
Tracers are something that were removed because game hacks were using them to give hackers unfair advantage in-game. They will be returned in a more limited fashion, but still helping observant players pinpoint the source of hidden attacks – something that some artillery and counter-battery players are eager to see again.
All in all, v7.0 is a huge update for WOT.