World of Tanks: ASAP - 8.10 Update

My name is Stanislav Kargin and I am the game-designer of the World of Tanks project. The 8.10 update will introduce the Japanese tanks branch and redesigned maps. We will introduce some graphical features as well as the fixes of some critical bugs. Tell us about the introduced Japanese tanks branch. The new branch is really lively in general. All of the tanks have good mobility. All of them have high rate of fire, but I must note that the calibers will be smaller compared to the same tier tanks. These tanks also have great elevation angles, especially downward ones. They are about 15 degrees in average for the whole branch. And some vehicles even reach up to 22 degrees. Tell us about the Japanese tier 10 medium tank. I think that the most interesting tank of the branch is the top MT. It’s the STB-1. Tier 10. This tank has some unique features, but it’s pretty like the German Leopard-1 in total. The main feature of this tank is its sturdy turret. The armor near the mantlet reaches up to 240 mm. That is a lot for a MT. The tank also has a good cannon, so the gameplay is pretty obvious for this tank. It will surely involve tanking with the turret from behind cover, hills, rocks and so on. So we get a medium and light tanks branch that have good mobility, great elevation angles, powerful weapons, in some way, but lack in armor. The branch is fully based on really existing vehicles that were mass produced or created as prototypes. But all of them were made in metal at some point. So this update will have no paper tanks. The Japanese branch gives us a great push towards finishing the historical battles. How can you imagine historical battles without the Japanese? You can’t. So we release the Japanese now. Which maps will be modified and how will it affect gameplay? We have also redesigned several maps in this update. It’s mostly balance adjustments. And the Karelia map was redesigned for a different reason. So the map will become more flat and we also did numerous balance adjustments. The battles in the canyon will now be more even and balanced. The plateau will be much more comfortable for the medium and light tanks. We also changed the Mines a bit. Near the hill, there is an outstanding rock where the heavies of both teams gather usually. We have broken the stone a little. Now there is a nice passage there. The Steppes map was also changed. The main fault of this map is that one of the bases has an advantage near the lowland alley. We tried to even the odds in that area. For both teams. We also changed the EL-Khalluf map. This map was always known for its slow game pace. It was quite slow, really. We have added some new elements to introduce some drive into the map. The village in the middle was replaced with a big hill that separates the attacking forces of both teams. And now the combat there is much livelier. Some minor changes were made to the Airfield map. The coastline was expanded so now the tanks don’t get stuck so much and can pass all of the obstacles easily. What other interesting features will the 8.10 update bring? Some new features were introduced that make the graphics look much better. Now the cloud shadows travel the map. We also changed the fog system. It looks really good. The lights will now be more accurate and correct. It will stop blurring the rock textures, especially the ones in the distance. Another new feature is that we will now show the current events in the battle missions list. All of the current events for the server will also be shown in the game client. Also, now small objects can be shot through. Meaning the shell passes through and object and it loses some of its armor penetration. It hits a tank, but with a force smaller that it would have if it had hit the tank directly. What interesting features do you plan to introduce next? We plan to entertain our gamers by adding more graphical and gameplay features. One of them will be the ability to blow off the turret. It will be blown off in case of the tank’s ammunition blowing up. We will also introduce the detachable equipment on the tanks. These will be boxes, instruments, joints, camouflages and much more. You will learn about those in the next episodes.