World of Warplanes

World of Warplanes is still in testing, but it's been playable at a few events now and has staked its claim as a distinct entity from World of Tanks. Wargaming.net's CEO Victor Kislyi and global operations director Vlad Beloserov were at GDC recently showing off more highlights from the game, which promises to deliver exactly the sort of high-energy dogfights you would hope for.

As it stands now, the game has about 10 maps and 100 planes. Each of the planes can be fully customized, while each map is meant to play differently rather than just being different background scenery -- some maps are foggy, some have skyscrapers or mountains, some are set at different times of day, and so forth.

Actual gameplay has continued to receive polish tweaks; the game retains both easy and expert control modes, with the latter playing more like a flight simulator and the former allowing you to simply point your mouse in the direction you want to fly. Enemy planes and your own can be riddled with holes that show the sky through your shredded wings, and the UI allows you to track your plane's optimal speed and altitude to maximize performance in combat.

One extra tidbit revealed on the show floor was that players of both World of Tanks and World of Warplanes can reap extra benefits from both games, as experience earned in the former can be used to improve in the latter. While there's no set release date for the game at this time, the game continues to impress and will be flying into more open testing as soon as Wargaming.net's teams are happy with its performance in smaller test venues.



Massively sent its ace reporters to San Francisco to bring you back the biggest MMO news from this year's GDC, the largest pro-only gaming industry con in the world! Whether it's EVE Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic or that shiny new toy you've got your eye on, we're on the case, so stay tuned for all the highlights from the show!

Wargaming.net's Dmitry "Overlord" Yudo has posted a brief World of Warplanes-related update on his dev blog.

The arcade-style aviation shooter's 0.4.1 closed beta update will apparently feature a "soft wipe/reset," as well as joystick tuning updates, reworked upgrade UI elements, new premium aircraft, and two additional maps (Arctic and Harbour).

Head to Overlord's blog via the link below for a handful of gorgeous new in-game images.

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.

If you're in World of Warplanes' closed beta test, you can look forward to a substantial update this week as the free-to-play action title rolls out a new flight model and enhanced controls.

The control update involves improved comfort and ergonomics for mouse users, and Wargaming.net says that players can now "focus less on their efficiency in piloting and more on their mastery of technical skills." New graphics are also the order of the day. You can get a look at those -- as well as a behind-the-scenes peek at the WoWP production, in the new dev diary after the cut.

The update goes live today in the U.S. and Russia. European World of Warplanes players will see the patch on February 20th.

[Source: Wargaming.net press release]

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Wargaming.net's Dmitry "Overlord" Yudo has hinted at World of Warplanes' next major update on his development blog. The free-to-play World War II aviation shooter is due for some substantial upgrades including a new UI, "enhanced controls," and "massive visual improvements."

Yudo focuses on that last bit in his latest dev diary, and he even provides a series of before-and-after screenshots to showcase the game's upgraded aesthetic. World of Warplanes is Wargaming's free-to-play followup to World of Tanks, and it is currently in beta testing.

Oh, I had a great Perfect Ten prepped as the first list of the year, but my meanie-face editor slammed on the veto button and told me, point-blank, that I was going to be counting down the best MMO prospects for the year. Then she drove a lawnmower through a Nordstroms while huffing paint thinner and throwing empty cans at the security personnel. Even so, her idea is probably more interesting than what I had.

Let me give you a few notes on today's list because I sense that I'm going to tick more of you off than normal here. My goal was to sift through the possible releases for 2013 and pick the 10 most promising, both in "will it actually launch this year?" and in its potential for success. The combination makes it a tough call because some of these will undoubtedly be delayed to 2014 or beyond and some of these we still don't know as much as we'd like about them.

But who cares? Let's have some fun and kick this year off right. Here are my picks for new MMOs to watch in 2013.

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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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A couple of months back we reported on Wargaming.net's plans to recover and preserve a cache of World War II fighter aircraft in Burma. This week the firm unveiled its Project Spitfire blog that aims to chronicle the ongoing effort and drum up a bit of publicity for the company's upcoming World of Warplanes action title.

The journal is penned by Tracy Spaight who serves as Wargaming's Director of Special Operations. There are currently four entries, ranging from a historical look at the Spitfire itself to specifics on the aviation archaeology team and updates from the expedition.

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."

Making World of Warplanes is not all Wargaming.net does to pay homage to the World War II-era aircraft. The studio has announced that it will fully fund an expedition to try and recover vintage British Spitfires in Burma.

David Cundall, an aircraft enthusiast with experience in aviation archaeology, has already recovered a number of other WWII craft in the UK. Over the last 14 years, Cundall has researched rumors of Spitfires buried in the Southeast Asia. Now, thanks to the funds provided by Wargaming.net, he will be able to work together with the Burmese authorities to continue the project and hopefully recover the aircraft.

Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming, emphasized the company's dedication to historic preservation, stating:

"Since its founding, Wargaming has been dedicated to bringing military history alive, whether through video games or more recently through historic preservation and educational initiatives with museums. When we learned of David's long quest to track down the Spitfires, we reached out to support him, not only to recover the planes if they are there, but also to help tell the story of the air war in Burma –- which is of great interest to our community."

Wargaming.net will also launch a blog chronicling the expedition's progress.

Wargaming.net CEO Viktor Kislyi is a busy man in charge of one of the fastest-growing online studios in the world. Since the launch of World of Tanks and its rise to superstar status, Wargaming.net has grown to encompass 1,200 people in 11 offices around the world. Half of these are developers on the studio's three main projects, while the other half run support for the highly lucrative World of Tanks.

With World of Tanks under their belts, Kislyi and his team are preparing to press the starter switch for World of Warplanes. If you haven't paid much attention to it yet, perhaps you should, particularly if you're a fan of flight simulators. World of Warplanes covers the early days of air combat from 1930s-era biplanes to Korean War jet fighters.

We grabbed a few minutes of Kislyi's time at GDC Online this week to see how World of Warplanes was shaping up and whether there were any new surprises that the team was prepared to reveal at the event. Read on, flyboys and flygirls!

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Wargaming.net has dipped into its deep pockets for another CG video designed to show off one of its World War II action titles. The star of this particular show is World of Warplanes, which is now in beta testing.

Well, actually, the star of this particular show is the F4U Corsair, which everyone knows is the most beautiful machine ever built. There are some other airplanes in the video, of course, and a bunch of explosions, a ship or two, and even a train, but really you can just start at 1:08 and get your Corsair fix.

WoWP is coming to Igromir 2012, a gaming and pop culture exhibition held in Moscow's Krokus Center. The trailer marks the occasion, and you can view it after the cut.

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Interested in specific aerial stunts and combat tactics? The fifth World of Warplanes developer diary delves into some of these, offering bits of history along with explanations of certain moves. It also discusses design goals and specifics of flight modeling.

Although the game offers faster and more nimble aircraft than would participate in dogfights in real life, Wargaming.net is taking pains to make the experience as authentic as possible by considering different logistics including weight and resistance strength of bomb loads and underwing weapons. Although the types of aircraft are set and authentic, players will have the opportunity to customize their planes through modifications and even pin-up art.

For full details, watch the dev diary after the break.

[Source: Wargaming.net press release]

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