World of Tanks the latest Q&A of Chinese 8.3

Thanks to AngryBanana is this thread for uncovering yet another cache of answers and replies by a US chief of community (NOT a dev so take these answers cum grano salis) Mr. Kevin Van Ness AKA GeneralDirection on US forums. Please note that the answers concern US server, which does have for example an independent "gift shop" policy. Also please note that since this is a CO and not a developer and not a Russian, eg. his answers are not (and cannot) be definitive, eg. where a dev would say "no, screw you", a CO has to say "well, it's certainly an interesting idea.

I decided to run it thru and post the interesting stuff here (in order to sort it from stuff that has been answered 1000 times before).

Q: When will the type 59 make it back into the store?

　　A: Not for the rest of this year. We're making some balance tweaks to it in 8.2, and will assess where it's at after that. We're not against adding it back into the gift shop (or possibly the store), but we also don't want to flood the game with a tank we feel needs some fixing.

　　Q: can you give us an update how WG thinks the gold ammo for credits experiment is going?

　　A: So far it's going fairly well. We have seen use of the 'derp' vehicles increase as a result of the experiment, but for the most part we are not seeing any glaring issues with it.

　　Q: Tier 10 participation is getting lackluster due to the constant arty parties, does WG ever plan on implementing restrictions of arty per game?

　　A: We're aware of the issues at tier 10 and have some changes coming shortly after 8.2. I can't really give specifics because there's a major announcement being prepared for it, but I can say it's not another nerf to SPGs themselves.

　　Q: It would really be nice to have a 4th consumable and equipment slot for your tank maybe unlockable via gold or credits.

　　A: It's been discussed, though the exact unlocking mechanism hasn't. Ultimately we're pretty happy with the three equipment/consumable slots though. Adding too many removes some of the choice factor in deciding which equipment or consumables you run with on a given tank. We have tossed around some ideas of certain tank purchases starting with equipment (think gift shop purchases, etc.), but not having additional slots.

　　Q: About the botting situation?

　　A: We have a very large support staff that investigates bot reports. We take this very seriously, so any time you feel someone is botting, please report them. We have checks on our end, but we can't outright ban someone based on suspicion.

　　Q: Is there any chance of a tank like the Puma, the german scout vehicle that was given the Leopard Turret and 5cm gun being considered as a premium vehicle, even though it had 8 wheels but no tracks?

　　A: It's not planned right now.

　　Q: Also in which update will the Chinese tree be released?

　　A: The Chinese tech tree will be released in 8.3. Originally we were going to call the patch 8.2.1 (since it was a part of 8.2 before the delay), but we decided that the Chinese tech tree is worthy of its own update and reclassified it as 8.3.

　　Q: Any idea on when we might see the AMX-30 and Leopard lines added?

　　A: 8.3 is the Chinese tech tree. After that we have the British TDs and SPGs, and the German Leopard and TD lines in the immediate pipeline. Not necessarily in that order, but you should see all of them in 2013. We had to remake part of the German TD line after doing additional research.

　　Q: I saw that WG is working on improving the chat system. Any timeline on that?

　　A: This is an extremely high priority for us right now. We actually just pushed a lot of social-based feature requests to the development team, especially when it comes to the in-game chat.

Q: Most of the gift shop offers, to put it bluntly, suck. I understand WG underestimated what would happen with the T-127 bonanza, and we will probably never see something like that again, but the "special offers" that show up now are so unremarkable that I don't even bother checking when new ones are announced. What are you guys doing to fix that?

　　A: As I answered in another question, we're discussing ways of adding purchase bonuses to gift shop packages. But to put it bluntly, the T-127 package broke the game economy for a long time because of the gold per dollar value it was sold at--resulting in being able to purchase gold at about a 27% discount over spending $100 at a time on gold, and this was with a single purchase of a package priced less than $10.

　　Q: When will the new German Medium line be released?

　　A: I can't say for sure at the moment because the Chinese tech tree was pushed to 8.3, so we've reclassified most of the updates following that. Right now 8.5ish, though I wouldn't take that as set in stone.

　　Q: Are there any methods planned to speed up crew training?

　　A: We're discussing it. On one hand, having a lot of skills at 100% is a huge accomplishment, so we're worried about diminishing that. That said, it's also kind of crazy to expect someone to play over 20k battles in a single vehicle to cap all skills.

　　Q: Any plans as to when secondary guns will be implemented? The B1 and M3 could be very different tanks, and it would open the door to other tanks like the SMK or T-35.

　　A: The tech behind it turned out a little more complicated than we'd hoped. It's not entirely off the table, but it's not in the immediate pipeline.

　　Q: Will there ever be an arty cap?

　　A: I can't give a yes/no to this, sorry. All I can say is keep an eye out on the community portal soon for an announcement regarding SPGs.

　　Q: How have websites and platforms, (such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit), helped popularize World of Tanks? As best as you can tell.

　　A: It's been pretty incredible to be honest. We've collaborated with the EU team on Facebook to put together a pretty remarkable strategy when it comes to engagement. We're closing in on 400k likes, and reach more than 80% of our fans every single day through our geo-targeted posts. We engage over 10% through likes, comments and shares. We have a lot of plans for next year when it comes to social media, as I alluded to in my intro, and that includes expanding to Instagram, Tumblr and ramping up activity on Twitter and here on Reddit.

Q: What plans are there (and can be revealed) to make tanks more customizable? I know the other day on Facebook it was asked what people wanted, and frankly, I would love to make my tanks more unique.

　　A: Emblems and inscriptions were a huge step in this direction. We'll continue to add to the options there over time. Outside of that, I can't really share anything yet because right now a lot of the ideas are "whiteboard" only.

　　Q: Will the day ever come where players can create custom maps? Just thinking about how it would be fun to have contests where you release map packs for players to use in creating their own for submission.

　　A: I won't say never, but we don't currently have plans to allow custom maps. That said, the map design team was definitely inspired by some of the submissions in our map design contest that we ran earlier this year. So while we're not allowing custom maps, player ideas definitely influence map design.

　　Q: Any chance of a larger platoon size?

　　A: For random battles probably not, since it would diminish the truly "random" aspect of it. In addition, there are a lot of balance concerns the development team have with it. The matchmaker tries its best to not include a lot of the same type of vehicle unless that's all that is in the queue. Imagine if we allowed 5-player platoons, that you could then bring in 5 T110s, 5 T-62As, etc. into a single battle with ease.

　　Q: Any chance at ever seeing historical maps introduced?

　　A: Most of the maps in the game are based on real locations. For example, Highway is based on Kansas (some players have actually found the city in Kansas that it's based around), and Live Oaks is based on Louisiana.

　　Q: Will there ever be upgradable premiums?

　　A: No current plans, since being able to upgrade premiums would push them close to the balance of upgraded standard vehicles of that tier: or easier said - pay to win.

　　Q: With F2P games on the rise, with heavy-hitters like PS2 and MWO coming out, do you have any exciting plans for snagging new players in this expanding market and beating the competition into a bloody pulp?

　　A: We're working on some pretty exciting ideas that will change the way players approach tank companies and clan wars. I can't get into specifics just yet (PR would not be happy), but some of the changes are being made to add more instability to the map.

　Q: What are your thoughts about matching players according to their "skills (i.e. some sort of elo rating), or if it's not possible to do for individual players, could it be implemented for tank companies or platoons? It might be a way to implement 5 men platoons that some have been asking for a while.

　　A: Because of the tier based system, skill matching for random battles would be extremely difficult to get right. There's no guarantee that 1800 rated player A and 1800 rated player B will play the same tier at the same time, so this is going to make it pretty difficult for the matchmaker to determine where those two players go. However, we are tossing around ideas for ratings in other areas. Nothing to announce yet, but we are looking at it.

　　Q: Two things get under my skin - Zero damage penetration. It must be a tough nut for you guys to crack. Any insight you can give us on either fixing it, or explaining it better?

　　A: For the most part I think we can do a better job explaining it, more than anything else. The mechanic overall works the way it should: you're not always going to hit something when you penetrate the tank, so you're not always going to deal damage. That said, better educating players on that is something we need to look at.

　　Q: When do you believe multi-core support will be added into WoT? Without it i find it hard to play on my laptop. thanks for the AMA!

　　A: Multi-core support for the longest time was difficult to get added in due to it being within the Big World code of the game client. Now that Wargaming owns that code, it'll make it easier for us to get it added into the production schedule. When that is I can't say, but it's not going to require jumping through as many hoops as it did before.

　　Q: How hard is it working with a mainly Russian team? Can you talk about about the challenges which exitst with this? I have seen you say things before only for someone from the RU site to come over with conflicting information the next day.

　　A: There are definitely challenges, primarily when it comes to some of the difficult design-related questions. We can't get immediate answers because of the timezone differences. Luckily I've been given an opportunity to learn Russian, so it's going to be a lot easier to communicate with the development team since some of them don't speak English. I'm also learning a lot about the way Russian translates into English, and now better understand how difficult it is for the team in Minsk to translate their answer from Russian to English without it coming off as offensive, when that isn't the intent at all.

　　Q: Why do we not have premium vehicles such as the BT-SV, SU-85i and the MTLS-1G14 PZ4 hydro, etc never been released in NA? (SS: applies for EU too)

　　A: Those vehicles were not really designed to be sold in the game or in the gift shop--they were designed for special box editions, given out at events, etc.

　　Q: We know the Chinese are coming in 8.3 but can you give any insight into what the 8.4 tanks will be if any and what maps will be reworked for 8.3 and 8.4?

　　A: Since 8.3 was originally a part of 8.2, there won't be any maps reworked for it. In 8.4 we'll be reworking 4 existing maps. I can't really give details on the tanks in the update right now since things are in flux.

　　TLDR: 8.3 Chinese, 8.4 Brit TD's + arty, 8.5-ish Germans (med or TD), German TD line was redesigned, a major announcement for arties is coming.

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