World of Tanks

[Source: Wargaming press release]

The laptop-clad Hummer is fueled up and Wargaming.net is ready to roll out for its first road tour. The studio behind the "World of Deadly Historical Battle Vehicles" franchise is drumming up publicity for its titles by staging the least gas efficient Russian invasion ever.

The Wargaming Road Tour's first stop is at the SXSW Interactive Gaming Expo this weekend. If you're attending and spot the hummer, swing by to get a first look at World of Warplanes and grab some nifty swag.

Following the Austin expo, the Wargaming hummer will travel across the United States to spend time in major cities. You can stay abreast of the promotional trip on the official road tour website.

Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi took the stage at last week's DICE Summit to talk about the ongoing evolution of free-to-play. He's what you might call an expert on the subject given that the company he founded features 1.2 million peak concurrent users as well as 1,400 employees and 12 offices world-wide.

Kislyi's 40-minute speech featured World of Tanks, but it also made mention of the firm's recent acquisition of Day 1 Studios. The move was made with an eye towards cornering the console F2P market, something Kislyi says that traditional console makers would be wise to do as well. "They keep their own prejudice and they keep to their old ways," he said. "If they keep holding to their old way, single-player box ideas they may pretty well drop."

You can view Kislyi's DICE speech in its entirety after the cut.

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Want a preview of World of Tanks' 8.4 patch? Good, because the game's official website has one. The title's tank roster will expand to include new destroyers for British and Soviet players, while German drivers will see some new light armor in their tech tree.

The update is also bringing a "visual and rendering overhaul" to four of the game's maps. Ensk, Live Oaks, Fisherman's Bay, and Steppes will all be getting a makeover. Finally, 8.4 will feature a brand-new tutorial designed to ease the new-player transition by providing training in tank controls, shooting mechanics, and combat tactics.

You can take a look at the new British tech tree after the break, then head to official WoT website for more information and a screenshot gallery.

[Source: Wargaming.net press release]

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World of Tanks' 8.3 update is now live, bringing with it 17 new Chinese war machines as well as a boatload of balance tweaks.

Wargaming.net hopes to "increase the options of speedier tanks on the battlefield in higher tier matches" via the new Chinese hardware, and PCGamer reports that the new light tanks extend into tier VIII.

The full patch notes for 8.3 are available on the WoT website. You can also see what we thought of the update in our recent hands-on. Finally, we've embedded the 8.3 preview trailer after the break.

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To keep a burgeoning community of 45 million registered users happy, the developers behind World of Tanks know to keep the content coming. After the overhauled graphics, physics, and sounds brought about by patch 8.0 last September, we're already on the cusp of version 8.3. It's out tomorrow, and that means 17 new tanks for the as-of-now-underserved Chinese tech tree.

"The Chinese are a middle-of-the-road tree," says Paul Hobbs, content manager with Wargaming.net. "They don't excel in any one attribute. They have high firepower, a fair amount of maneuverability, and decent armor and aim speed."

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Beyond amazing character design, compelling narratives, and the presence of dragons, there is one thing that all MMOs depend upon for success: player loyalty. Without returning subscribers, a loving community, or folks dropping a few dimes in the cash shop now and again, MMOs simply wouldn't be a feasible way for a games studio to do business. Smart development teams have player retention departments tasked specifically with tracking and analyzing the rise and fall of player allegiances and finding ways to leverage loyalty is becoming an increasingly important aspect of the creation process.

Even the non-gaming world is getting in on the fray. Back in November, researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Management published a study tracing the roots of player loyalties in a variety of MMO environments. The study outlined the mentalities of MMO gamers and the things that successfully encouraged them to keep coming back for more looting, more grinding, and more /hugging. Most importantly, the study declared that an MMO that increases loyalty by just 5% can increase profits by 25-95%.

We sat down with Dr. Lawrence Sanders, co-author of the study, to dive a little deeper into the researchers' methods, results, and plans for future MMO investigation.

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World of Tanks is steamrolling through the Korean gaming market much as it has done in Russia, Europe, and America. Wargaming.net's uber-successful World War II actioner launched in Korea on December 27th and has already topped 10,000 concurrent users.

According to ThisIsGame, Wargaming.net's next goal is to install WoT in more than 5,000 PC Bang gaming cafes across the country. So far, 150,000 unique users have registered for the Korean WoT service.

2012 is almost be over, and it has been a good year according to Wargaming.net, the studio behind the WWII-inspired MMO World of Tanks. WoT has grown to over 45 million players worldwide and garnered several awards, including best MMO of the year from Golden Joystick. But that isn't all; development continues to roll forward on the two company's two upcoming titles, World of Warplanes and World of Warships.

Wishing everyone a happy holidays, the studio released a video montage highlighting the year's accomplishments as well as the developers behind the games. Interspersed throughout are clips of in-game footage from all three titles. Want to see just what kind of shenanigans go on at the Wargaming offices? Check out the video after the break.

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Cue the down-tuned guitars and ready the rock-hard action movie fonts because it's time for a new World of Tanks trailer. Wargaming.net is gearing up for the title's 8.2 update, and what better way to do that than by unleashing one minute and 12 seconds of testosterone-fueled gameplay footage on the masses.

Sharp-eyed tankers will spot T21s, T71s, and the T54E1 just to name a few of the machines on display. As always, head past the cut for the full clip.

[Source: Wargaming.net press release]

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Wargaming.net producer Dmitry "Overlord" Yudo is fishing for player feedback on his development blog. His latest post titled [WoT] Your Global War focuses on World of Tanks' clan wars mode, which he says has been rather "slow lately."

Yudo mentions several possible feature additions, including more territories, historical and non-historical events, seasons for the global map, mercenaries, clan tanks, and more. He even hints at a wipe and object construction as possibilities, so head over to his blog and make your voice heard.

The news of a possible revamp comes after Wargaming.net announced that the clan wars mode will be temporarily frozen over the Christmas holidays.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a relatively new TV show that's garnered a huge geek audience, is now invading the most non-pony of places: World of Tanks. Modder RelicShadow has combined several of his and others' modifications for WoT into a definitive 5GB overhaul package. The result? A ground-up transformation of World of Tanks in which ponies pervade every inch of the battlefield.

"I was playing this game well before I became a fan of Friendship is Magic," RelicShadow explained. "My newfound interest lead me in search of potential mods for it. After all was said and done and I had my big pile of mods, I decided I might as well be the one to make [the megamod] happen."

The conversion package includes 90 audio tracks, renamed nations, new achievements, pony tank skins, and rainbows out the wazoo. Reportedly, it is a somewhat tricky to get the mod to work correctly, and RelicShadow recommends that no other mods are installed in addition to this one.

If you're interested in this powerful pony mod, you can either download it here or check out a video of the voice changes after the break.

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I think it's safe to assume that we all love games. If we didn't, I wouldn't be in this crowded, noisy coffee shop writing this and you wouldn't be blowing off some sort of important responsibility reading it. We're all here together, engaged in this somewhat-anonymous internet back-and-forth, because games have touched our lives. It sounds corny, but it's true.

For many of us, games have a deeply personal and specific meaning. We like the games we like not so much for their craftsmanship or content but for the way they engage our minds and spirits. Games create incredible, irreplaceable moments infused with emotional resonance, and it's only natural we would feel some sort of personal connection when a piece of digital entertainment syncs just right.

It is precisely this personal connection that leads many of us to act like total morons.

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In today's installment of world-conquering updates to World of Tanks, Wargaming has announced details for a new line of Chinese tanks. Update 8.2 will bring to the game 17 armored vehicles (some that never saw production) plus the Chinese tech tree that will consist of modified versions of the Soviet, French, British, and American tanks. Because Chinese tanks were mostly modifications of existing foreign tanks, they represent the best traits of each, including the maneuverability of the Americans, the accuracy of the Brits, the rapid firing of the French, and sheer power of the Soviets.

Update 8.2 will also bring an overhauled rendering and lighting system to four maps in addition to five new tanks to the American tech tree. Be sure to check out the gallery below with the tech tree, screenshots, renders, and artwork, and a video trailer after the cut.

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Wargaming.net's Victor Kislyi is never short on words when it comes to either talking about either his studio's games or the advantages of the free-to-play format. In an interview with GamesIndustry, he said that the global market is a "Wild West" and offers unlimited opportunities -- if companies can find their niche, that is. "The market for such games is endless, it's a blue ocean," he said. "The beauty and the curse is you have to be very, very good, because you can't fool people."

Admitting that World of Tanks "looked like crap" when it first launched, Kislyi said that the company worked hard to bring it up to par with the games of today, not of 2008. Wargaming.net has come to a point that it's not as concerned about raking in money. Kislyi noted that Japanese and Russian players were the most willing to spend money, while Chinese players tended to be more tight-fisted with funds.

In regard to World of Warplanes, he talked about challenges of balancing fun, quick action with an accurate flight model. In fact, getting the controls right is the reason Wargaming.net is holding off from stating a release date: "We have two or three parallel control scheme groups developing their own variants. You need to make the controls perfect. You have to find the right balance between making the game historically accurate, and at the same time, fun."