Hi, everyone! My name is Milos Jerabek.
I am the Development Director here in Minsk on World of Tanks PC.
And we have some news about our new game mode.
We were playing for a long time with the idea of a battle of many tanks at the same time.
You know, something where actually… it’s not only 15:15,
but there’s actually massive push towards one place, having a feeling of a great battle.
So we started developing this mode
after we decided to create and test a big map,
integrate this technology into World of Tanks,
and, accordingly, increase the number of players who battle on one map, on one arena.
Previously our limitation was 15:15
or the map of the size maximum of 1 kilometer to 1 kilometer.
Right now in any new mode that we will be actually testing on Sandbox,
our maintenance are going up,
so the mode’s going to be 30:30 with a map almost of the size of 9 normal maps.
So we are talking about huge scale combat with various scenarios for both sides.
It’s actually attack versus defense.
One side is actually defending a landing on the beach.
It should… almost remind us Omaha Beach,
the situation from the D-Day, when the Allies were coming to Europe.
We started looking into how can we actually scale up the team,
while, you know, using more experience from other studios.
Basically, bringing experience from outside to World of Tanks.
And Bongfish was actually one of the greatest teams to do so.
Over the years we worked together with various great partners
like Namco, Red Bull, Microsoft, and now with Wargaming.
Bongfish has great experience with making games.
And I think the strategic partnership to work with them
on the new mode for World of Tanks was a really great decision.
We don’t treat them like outside partners: they’re part of the team.
For us, they’re like our colleagues here in Minsk,
only they are physically located in a different place.
All our teams, including level design specialists, developers, and game designers,
they all collaborate closely with these guys.
They have recurrent meetings and go to see each other.
We travel to see them, and other times the guys travel to Minsk to see us.
We are passionate about authentic gameplay in vast open spaces
and because we share this passion with Wargaming,
we have a great partnership on this.
So, of course, when we started working,
not everyone on Bongfish side were World of Tanks players,
but I must say, that changed very quickly.
I spoke with many of their guys, they visited us here, we visited them in Graz.
And I must say the team loves Tanks, they are really World of Tanks players, you know.
They have their heart in the right place, they understand the Tanks,
they understand the mentality of the players, how they play,
they ARE players in their own right now. And that’s a great thing.
They all have developer accounts and they all play World of Tanks.
They take part in all play tests and, usually,
almost their entire team joins us on such occasions.
If we have a play test, all Bongfish guys attend it.
So what we’ve done at Bongfish is we already used existing features,
existing technologies from the BigWorld engine
and enabled them for the big maps.
Let’s be honest, every single new thing at the beginning
was a bit clumsy, there were problems, it wasn’t smooth.
But right now I am super happy,
our engineers are really happy to work with them,
the level designers are actually working with Bongfish
almost like it would be our own team.
The cooperation is great. And Bongfish is actually doing a great job
of working on the mode and understanding World of Tanks.
Occasionally we are having discussions about the play, discussion about new features,
and they are always content, they are always on the top of their game,
you know, telling us immediately their feedback:
what they would do, how they will actually integrate it into the mode.
It is great cooperation and I am really happy to see the guys at work.
Why are we rolling it out in the Sandbox?
There are two goals for us here.
First of all, we need to gather a bulk of data.
We need it for all things related to game balance, map balance,
so that we can look at the numbers and see,
“Ok, so players can’t move further here. Something isn’t right.
Their attack gets blocked.”
Or learn, for instance, that in, let’s say, 30% of situations the attacking side loses.
Secondly, we really need to collect feedback from players.
As developers, we’re too immersed in our project:
we work on these features, process countless iterations,
and see all these things so many times that we might lose touch with reality at some point.
So, we need detached and impartial feedback from those people who play our game.
Because we’re making this game for them.
Sandbox is intended for our core audience, our most loyal fans;
our hardcore players who always strive to improve the project.
Right now, we’re rolling it out in the Sandbox to see if players will enjoy it.
We want to understand if it is exciting and learn how much time
our players are willing to spend on this new mode.
So I believe that Sandbox is a great platform.
It actually provides us with all the information we need from players.
I… You know, I am a player on my own.
When I started six years ago, a little bit more,
at the time of closed beta on the European server,
I still remember the times, when we were actually
sending feedback to developers, talking with them on forums,
and discussing the new features, new systems that were coming in play.
I would really love to bring this back home,
I would love to bring the connection between the developer and the gamer
just back to where it was six years ago, when the players actually felt like,
“By providing my feedback I can actually change something!”
We need the players’ feedback.
Currently, the mode includes one big map,
with an area of three by three kilometers.
Each team has thirty players, so there are 60 players in a battle overall.
There’ll be no economy for now, we’ll work on it later.
The map available in the Sandbox is still a prototype, it’s not a final version.
It’ll be further improved and the release version will be different.
Of course, the distinction won’t be too drastic,
but certainly, those who try it in Sandbox and then play it after the release,
they’ll notice the changes made to the map.
For them, those changes will be apparent and very visible.
And we have most of the core mechanics implemented
so there’s the respawn, there’s the system of pushing the bases,
unlocking bombardment in case they actually take over our base
and the enemy actually needs to push back the defender.
During the battle, you will have a strategic map
and you can use it to plan out your battle.
We’ve designed the game in such a way that there is a front line there.
At the beginning of a battle, only one line is available to a player.
To unlock other lines, players must capture all bases.
Players will see right on the tactical map
which zones are already available to them,
which zones are still closed,
which zones have been captured and unlocked.
It is of key importance for this mode that we managed
to create dynamic battles thanks to specific gameplay elements
like time limits, points of interest, and objectives that we set for players.
These features push players to keep moving forward, without stalling.
During internal tests,
this trait was noted as one of the most positive features of the game mode.
It’s really the fierce tank action that we strived for:
extremely fun to play, players always have opponents to fight,
and there are so many strategic and tactical decisions to make!
The game is really cool thanks to all these things.
We don’t yet know how this mode will look in production.
This is why we need Sandbox:
to check how players feel about this mode, how they feel about the gameplay,
and how much time they are willing to spend on it.
Well, thank you very much for listening, guys.
I would like to say one last thing:
please, send us your feedback, play the game,
play Sandbox and send us what you think.
Because this is very important for us.
This is the way how not only us, but we together, can actually create the game.
WE can work on the future patches and make sure that the game is great.
Thank you very much for your time and see you on the battlefield.