Good day everyone,

Digest Q&A from around the RU community from several members among the WoT Dev team. The short bit towards the end is from Anton Pankov at the Grand Finals.

* A few people know this, but in your company there is a sort of “Department” for Player Happiness. What is it and what do they do. Are the players really happy?
– Yes there is. This is a fairly new department for us. It unites several teams at once, their task is to monitor and understand in what way and how problems arise among players. This is a new phenomenon that is slowly developing and yielding certain results.

* With the pace of premiums releasing, are you planning on expanding the trade-in? Perhaps with other features such as rentals and the like?
– Trade-ins were recognized as quite successful and will soon be available again in Russia and will remain the main mechanic for related to premiums for the moment. We have rentals, but we use it mainly in Asia and China. There are no other plans yet.

* You have a very good sound department. Are you guys planning on further updating the audio and in-game soundtracks?

– Yes, certainly. The guys are now working on soundtracks, there will probably be made available in albums and tracks.

* Once upon a time they talked about interface 2.0 in the hangar and similarly for chat. The question is: Blizzard Entertainment, for example, has a huge number of emoticons (Emoji) for chat. Some in-game and others for purchase. Can I at least “default” expand or insert one of Emoji’s versions into chat for tanks?
– Well, in general, chat is a sick subject. It is developed on very slowly and has a whole range of problems. Regarding the interface, yes, we’re quietly reworking. The first part will be released with 9.19 and in the future we’ll upgrade bit by bit. As for emoji, this is not a priority.

* Regarding the Rostelecom partnership, will there something similar for the residents of Ukraine?
– At the moment we have no plans for partners in Ukraine, if we find a good partner, then we will do it.

* Regarding the “New Years Boxes” what conclusions did you draw and what will happen next with these boxes and this concept? Can this be on a constant thing? It’s no secret that some games are held up solely on microtransactions for similar things. Another question: Third party services receive tens of millions a month on similar things, surely you don’t like all of that going past your pockets? As you said, it is difficult to fight them.

– Players use third-party services at their own risk and we do not guarantee and will not guarantee that we will continue to support the activities of these comrades and will not punish them at some point. As for the Christmas boxes, in general they performed well. We’re not planning on this being an ongoing thing.Though there is already some thought on the next event. Part of the box functionality will be in Ranked Battles (RB). It was interesting, but not for permanent use.

* There’s been a bit of a decline in the population recently, what is it related to in your opinion?
– Firstly, it’s seasonality. Secondly, was and earlier outflow of the audience. It can not be said that after 9.18 everything has fallen right in front of us. We will try to make a few activities for the summer and autumn. As well as this, we’ll have a few things for out long time target audience, the ones who have been with us for a long time and understand the game.

* We recently heard of some merged functionality with a new app. What can we expect from this, combined mobile chat or the like?
– It’s in testing now. As soon as it’s ready we’ll show it off.

* What are the next set of mods that we can expect to enter the client?

– A couple are now in the works, but I can’t be specific. We need to get the interfaces working and check over the statistics.

* Have you analyzed the black market for accounts? Of course, on your background, it’s a small %, but it still happens.
– We analyze it as far as possible, but there are restrictions keeping us from going further. That said, we stand on the position that you can not transfer accounts to 3rd persons.

* About “Defender” it’s already been asked, but what about sales of the “Scorpio G”?
– Everything is fine with it, the tank will periodically go on sale.

* Is it better to be a 42% win rate super-tester or play WoWP?
-Hmm, from my point of view, it’s better to be a 42% super-test.

* The question of new nations and branches. Wargaming has already taken the tradition of introducing one new nation each year to WoT. In 2015 – Czechoslovakia, in 2016 – Sweden. I wonder whether this tradition will continue and further, should a new nation be expected, or will the WG carefully complement the already existing countries?
– In 2017, you should not wait for new nations.

* Are you planning on introducing the concept of separating heavy tanks from super-heavies, such as the Maus or the Type 5? Mostly for MM reasons, as there are often teams of 5 such things, with an opposing team having 0.
– There are such thoughts, yes, but it’s better to ask someone related to balance.

* Any more planned restrictions on LTs?

– No.

* Will there ever be any improvements on the in-game platoon chat? Getting a bit hold constantly having to press Q.

– Voice Activation has it’s strengths and weaknesses. We’ll look into it though.

* Can you say anything new about Personal Missions 2.0?
– Far from being finished.

* Did you know that now you can bypass the chat restricitons?
– Yes, this is a bug, it’s been fixed with 9.19.

Anton (Evilly) Pankov (World of Tanks Publishing Director) communicates with players in LiveJournal:

* When is the next wave of bans?

– Soon.

* So we should wait until the next patch for the remade Personal Missions?

– Yes, certainly not before then.

-Online in the summer and online in the winter are different things, let’s not compare them.

* Anton, did you do anything to physics?

– No, they did not touch anything. We’ll look over any replays for anomalies though.

– The new MM in 9.18 is only the first iteration, we will refine it based on the collected statistics and reviews. It will take several versions.
Any feedback on MM, bugs, problems, are welcome in any format.