Update 1.0 happened at last!
A huge amount of work, thousands of man-hours, millions of nerve cells—
all for the long-awaited release.
New graphics, visual effects, engine, music—
you've already seen all of that.
But what did the developers feel during the release?
In general, I feel very similar to the way I felt
when World of Tanks originally released…
This is a huge event for me
because all the work inside of the company
that hasn't been available to players, is finally available to the public.
A lot of hard work…
And, in just a single moment, you finish it, then sit back to see what happens.
I can't recall the initial feedback.
It was a really long day, we released the update ahead of time,
more specifically, we released the update in Russia.
The first thing I can recall: I watched somebody's stream.
I don't remember who was streaming, Neru or Gran, one of them.
They were driving vehicles and saying, wow-wow-wow-wow!
That’s the first bit of feedback we got from streams.
Somebody noticed that performance was ok.
Somebody said the new graphics look nice!
Players liked our approach, and that was really positive for us!
At the start, players went through the roof:
wow, how cool, WG, dears, the best WG update!
Then time passed, people started to take
the current graphics and optimization at face value,
they started to look closer: there was some freezing here and there,
we don't like this particular music track…
And that's true! It's impossible to detect all the bugs in the tests.
However, your feedback helped us solve
the majority of the post-release problems very quickly.
There was so much feedback. We started investigating these issues,
i.e., looking into what actually happened.
We received a lot of bug reports:
something is hanging in the air, a stone is levitating, bushes are huge…
But bushes should be huge
because sometimes those bushes can hide even the Type 5 Heavy.
This is just a gameplay thing.
The majority of players
experienced long loading times on the maps after the release.
The explanation is very simple:
there’s ten times the amount of content now,
so players with old fragmented hard drives might experience this problem.
We’ve also encountered cases when the armor penetration system
wasn't working properly in all the vehicles.
The KV-5 could even appear on the map upside down in some cases,
i.e. it was just lying upside down at the respawn point.
Don't ask me. I don't know.
No. No-o-pe.
Moreover, it was actually physically lying upside down,
it wasn't just a glitched model.
There were issues with FPS in the sniper mode
while looking through bushes.
We fixed some issues very promptly. There were micropatches from day one.
But there wasn’t anything major that would stop you from playing the game.
Preparations for releasing Update 1.0 were long and thoroughly planned.
The probability of forgetting something crucial was extremely low.
In general, the release was smooth from the technical point of view.
Players continued to play at different settings.
Step by step, we're approaching a time
where it feels like it’s always been like this.
It's a good feeling
because I sometimes watch videos with the older graphics
and it feels like, phew, it's high time to change the visuals!
Well, of course, we won't film this all again,
but it's a fact that the new graphics are something homelike and common for us.
But where the graphics are, there are also the locations.
Hence the question: what about the maps?
From the artistic point of view,
players definitely found all of our maps to be good,
but we continue to follow the feedback
on the most problematic maps prior to the update.
Erlenberg, Fjords, and Cliff received the most complaints.
We're comparing the before and after results, and we'll continue doing so;
we'll continue taking the required steps.
We've returned Overlord to the game;
now we're monitoring the feedback on the map
because it was quite a negative map before.
Monitoring and reacting accordingly.
The main surprises for players are always similar:
as soon as a new map or patch is released,
players start to act like mountain-climbers.
It's clear that every player wants to climb somewhere
to get an in-game advantage.
But, on the whole, it's not ideal
to spoil the game for 15 or sometimes even 29 people.
Therefore, a lot of drive-throughs will be blocked.
They weren’t planned— sorry, guys. It will all be blocked.
Definitely, the gameplay has slightly changed.
But now we can say that we haven't broken anything.
We've changed some minor aspects on the maps;
players will definitely spend some time getting familiar with the new maps.
However, I don't see any feedback saying
that some new maps are worse now than they were before.
Based on the surveys, players liked all the reworked maps;
even Erlenberg got more than 70% positive feedback.
We've discussed this with the Level Design Team
and decided that it's too early to introduce any changes.
How to modify some things were clear:
close some shoot-throughs or put some bushes on the Ravaged Capital.
Map Balance Changes are coming.
We'll implement Balance Changes on roughly 10 maps;
the changes will be light, we won't rework the maps completely.
We have data that says it's not needed at the moment.
We can't say that we're happy with the reworked maps.
We can't say that we're 100% satisfied with the Glacier
because there are some issues on it.
We're going to continue working on these maps,
collect feedback on them, and modify them accordingly.
Based on six weeks of results, we'll collect the big data and heat maps,
and we'll react accordingly.
Again, it may lead to the lightest Balance Changes possible.
As pretentious as it sounds, we're constantly staying tuned for more news
and we listen to all of your feedback.
We aren't going to confine ourselves to the graphics and gameplay.
A new engine leaves a lot of room for technological development.
Our friends from Intel are helping us with that.
Yes, during the release, I was at GDC, International Game Developer Conference,
where, together with Intel,
we presented our work and vision for World of Tanks for the future.
The new engine opens up new possibilities
in creating new visual and physical effects,
as well as increasing the efficacy of code execution on new processors.
I mean, this is work on improving physical simulations in the game
using multi-core rigs,
as well as usage of the multi-core feature to accelerate in-game rendering.
All this is needed to increase FPS if your rig has four or more cores.
The results that we've achieved
in the last 4 years of our collaboration are impressive.
However, the Core 1.0 engine opens up completely new possibilities
for continuing our partnership and creating new visual effects,
and new player experiences that will definitely put the game on a new level.
Thanks to the collaboration that’s been taking place over several years
between Wargaming and Intel,
we’ve been able to implement new features within the upgrade.
And after that there’ll be a lot more coming over the next few months.
We feel that will allow gamers to get the best gaming experience possible.
And we’re talking about the level of realism, graphics, sound, maps—
the overall experience is going to be improved.
And I’m sure everyone will enjoy it.
Multi-core? Sounds excellent!
But it's much better for us to stay strong in the pursuit of our goals!
Update 1.0 was really important.
But it has already happened, so that means it's time move on.
To be honest, we have a ton of plans!
Well, our plans for the maps are no secret.
The Province map was for the Italian Tech Tree.
So to say, it's a specialized map.
Province is already being tested,
and it's possible that many of you've already seen it.
Of course, the map isn't that big
even after we've increased its size to 850 by 850.
We'll see how it will be played,
but, from the artistic point of view, it looks very cool. We'll see.
Studzianki will be for the Polish nation, obviously.
Studzianki is a Polish map, give or take, judging by historical location.
But it's no city, so it's easier.
It will be a rural map, quite open.
There are two primary options regarding Kharkov.
The first is to update the old Kharkov,
and the second is to move the map, and make a new Kharkov,
but the Gosprom will be there nonetheless.
We're trying to reanimate several old maps.
I won't say their names, it's definitely not Dragon Ridge.
We're now trying to reanimate very old maps
that have been out of the game for quite some time, to give them a second life.
Old maps…
We have the idea to return Port back to the game.
A curious thought, two-in-one.
We're working on new maps as well.
We're working on an urban map, semi-rural map,
and on some specific regional maps.
Of course, our engineers are going to fix issues,
add different visual effects, etc.
We can make a lot of interesting stuff using Havok.
We'll see, there's a lot of experimentation going on right now.
We have the technology, and we'll use it naturally.
We'll be adding new things.
There's no reason to specifically promise night battles or twilight,
or any destruction features and weather effects.
If players like those, then we'll add some of them.
You should understand that 1.0 is no new frontier,
it's just a steppingstone for making something new,
because the new engine allows us to do much more.
There are new optimization possibilities.
The new optimization implies new features.
Graphical improvements, interactivity.
World of Tanks 1.0 isn’t a patch that we've released and then relaxed.
It's just a new countdown.
And that countdown has already begun.
We thank you all for your dedication.
For your feedback. For your positive criticism.
And for the chance to make you happy and do what we love to do.
The graphics were just a step. We've made this step together.
And now we can move beyond.
The graphics, we think, are good. The graphics, the sound design.
Now we have other priorities. I mean, we've released some components,
now other components are more important for us.
Now we're releasing new content:
the Italian and Polish Tech Trees, we've mentioned them before.
The Italians will have a new gameplay mechanic;
the Polish Tech Tree will have several interesting vehicles,
the Tier X vehicle is very interesting, the Tier VIII vehicle is also good.
There will be new gameplay features, new modes this year.
There will be several interesting gameplay things as well.
Personal Missions 2.0; we mentioned them in February.
We're working on them, and we'll release them this year.
We're going to work on new crews intensively,
we'll see, will it be this year or next year? We're trying to do them this year.
We'll work on different events for fans.
Additionally, we'll work on the discount Premium vehicles.
Now the KV-5 is going to be tested;
while the updated version will go for the Supertest.
Matchmaking issues, the number of artillery and light tanks in battles,
these types of issues.
Actually, there's still a lot to be done.