World of Tanks

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Wousides, Apr 7, 2014.

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  1. Wousides

    Wousides Member

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    Been playing this with my son recently. A lot of dum fun!

    Anyone else play it?
     
  2. gazra_1971

    gazra_1971 Knights of Legend

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    Yes, or at least I have played it in the past. Having a life-long interest in World War 2 and in military vehicles (especially tanks), I eagerly started playing this free-to-play but pay-to-win computer game years ago. With dreadful pings of over 300ms, you can just imagine how badly I faired on the American server against American players with their sub-100ms pings.

    Like everybody else at the time back then, I started developing the German tank tree. Only later did I realize that the Russian developers of this computer game seriously nerfed the German tanks (except for the tier 9 and tier 10 tanks), and made all of the Russian medium tanks and heavy tanks the best vehicles in the game. I think that the Russian tanks are no longer the best vehicles in the game now. I think that the American tanks are the best vehicles in the game now (although those Russian tank destroyers can be devastating!). I had the most fun playing SPGs until the Russian developers nerfed them and made them no longer fun to play any more.

    The game is very silly but can be quite addictive and fun. It's basically Counter-Strike, but with tanks and mobile artillery instead of a first-person shooter using personal infantry weapons. It's just death-matches and/or capture-the-flag involving 15 random players versus 15 random players, with a time limit of 15 minutes per battle. In each random battle, it's just the luck of the draw whether you are put in a deadly team or an incompetent team. I've had countless winning or losing streaks. You have the option to platoon with friends and/or clan-mates.

    Complete strangers in the game can and will type offensive text messages during battles about players who don't perform well. I've often quit the game due to bad experiences involving reading very offensive and unfair text messages addressed to me by complete strangers.

    If you join a clan, then there are also clan battles for the possession of territories on the clan map.

    The silliest aspects of the game are that there are vehicles from different eras of history (so you might have a Panzer IV tank fighting a T-54 tank), and that tanks from any nationality can fight with or against tanks from any nationality (so you might have British, American, German, French, and Russian tanks on your team fighting against British, American, German, French, and Russian tanks on your opponents' team). Also, the Russian developers seriously stuffed up the capabilities of some of the tanks so that they are anything but historically accurate. For example, in this computer game, it's possible for a Sherman tank to beat a Tiger tank (I'm not talking about a Firefly (i.e. a Sherman tank used by the British that had the standard gun replaced with the British 17-pounder (arguably the best anit-tank gun of World War 2)), but an American-made Sherman against a Tiger tank (silly!)). The last silly aspect is that there are vehicles in the game that you can use that were only prototypes (such as the German Maus of late World War 2, that never saw action). Silly!

    There are 3 types of vehicles that you can use: tanks (that have turrets and the most armour), tank destroyers (that are usually turretless, and have more powerful guns with a faster rate-of-fire, but usually have less armour than tanks), and SPGs (Self-Propelled Guns or mobile artillery) (can fire a ballistic trajectory at targets that are on the other side of the battlefield and not within your own line-of-sight). Each vehicle has its advantages and disadvantages, and requires a completely different way of playing the game. There are also light (scout) tanks that are used for spotting enemy vehicles. It will take you some time to learn how to play each of the 4 types of vehicles. In this computer game, I personally think that tanks are much better than tank destroyers and SPGs, especially considering how useless tank destroyers and SPGs are on some of the random maps.

    The grind to get the top-tier vehicles is painful unless you spend money on the game. You can spend real-world money to buy gold vehicles, which allow you to immediately use those particular higher-tier vehicles, and you don't spend as much in-game currency repairing damaged gold vehicles (compared to damaged standard vehicles). Players who buy and use gold rounds for their vehicles to fire WILL win the most (regardless of skill). The game gets monotonous and tedious after your initial addiction wears off and you realize that, although the graphics and tank models and combat game-mechanics are superb, the overall game-play is boring and stupid. Still, you can't complain for a FREE game.

    If you want to see how dreadful my combat performance is in this game, my in-game name on the South East Asian server is gazra. Just remember, I have not spent any real-world money on playing this game, I have never been in a clan, and I had a ping of over 300ms when I played against American players on the American server. I think that the most kills that I've ever had from a random battle is 9 (I think that I was in a KV-1 or a Panzer IV at the time).

    To learn about how to best play the game, see the following links:

    http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/Main_Page


    Explaining Mechanics: Armor Penetration:

    http://worldoftanks.com/en/media/6/2053/


    Explaining Mechanics: Camouflage:

    http://worldoftanks.com/en/media/6/2052/
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2014
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