Ahoy, commanders!
Very soon, we’ll upload the first autumn update—0.7.9,
which will open the British cycle.
For three updates in a row, we will reveal the content
we have prepared beforehand on the history of Britain in WWI and WWII.
Our game and website will become a real historical archive,
and its first classified files will be the updated port of London,
the Royal Navy competition,
a completely new game mode,
and an updated clan base.
And, of course, British destroyers, the workhorses of war.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and go talk to the developers.
Hi, Danya!
This update brings us an updated clan base.
I know that your department worked on it.
Can you tell us what’s in stock for our players?
Our players will be given four new buildings.
We revamped the old ones a bit,
but the main effort was, of course, the new buildings.
I’m talking a Steel port, a Coal port, an academy, and a design bureau.
Initially, the historians took the lead
by collecting all the references on what the "real naval bases" looked like.
This was the first reference.
Actually, the second reference was, you know,
our wish to give the players a bit of a flashback
and let them enjoy the same experience as their heroes—
like, say, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or something like this.
New buildings offer bonuses, right?
Let's talk about the Coal port.
The Coal port will be interesting, probably, for most players,
since it gives bonuses to Coal accrual,
which you can later exchange in the Arsenal.
And use it to buy, for example,
upgrades, containers, patches, and camouflage.
A full branch of British destroyers
will be available in the second update of the arc,
but Tier V through VIII destroyers Acasta, Icarus, Jervis, and Lightning
will be made available now with early access.
Missions offering them as a reward
can be randomly found in special British containers.
We were trying to give British destroyers
some features typical of the British cruisers
already available in the game.
Such as tube-by-tube torpedo launching and large smoke screens.
And more than that, we added special equipment—
Hydroacoustic Search,
which makes them essentially invulnerable to torpedoes,
allowing for their detection.
At the same time, their spotting range isn’t too large.
That is why they were originally developed as defense-type destroyers.
We changed the smokescreen mechanics,
so now they stay up for a very short time—40 seconds.
This means that you have the feeling that the instant you get your screen up,
you fire a few shots,
release your torpedoes and off you go,
because the smoke screen is running out and you’ll be detected.
We like this sense of urgency and we kept it in the release.
Come on now, real talk—
so you have this new update,
and you can get a mission from a container.
Which ship do you want for yourself?
Give me the seashells!
The Royal Navy is the main in-game event of the British arc.
This isn’t just an individual competition,
but also an excellent way to get the new tokens for the Arsenal—
Sovereigns and Guineas.
Sovereigns help you get Gallant, Warspite, camouflage for Gallant,
a new commander Bert Dunkirk, and the new British arc camouflage.
How do you participate?
It’s easier than it sounds.
Each update will have 4 stages, each lasting a week.
Each stage will have 4 directives,
each directive—from 5 to 7 missions.
You just need to complete the missions and get rewards.
Vladimir, you know everything about the Royal Navy.
What is the main part of this competition,
what new things can our players expect?
Well, firstly, this is probably not so much a competition
as a way to repackage our missions that players found a bit confusing before.
We’ll offer them in a new way—
more attractive, more stylish—
and we’ll make them unlock the Hall of Fame.
So, it’s both the competition and the missions themselves.
I know that players who generally don’t complete all missions
will be happy to see that there are more missions here,
and they’re also better presented.
They may very well not complete the stage,
but they will still get many rewards as they progress.
Each directive has a completion reward
and there are smaller rewards for each individual mission.
The tougher the mission, the better the reward.
Right. And Guineas are a special case.
Guineas are a special type of token for acquiring a specific ship.
The more Guineas you collect,
the bigger the discount for Premium Tier VIII destroyer Cossack.
Cossack costs 50 Guineas,
and you can get as many as 48 in the game.
So it’s quite lucrative to be able to get a Premium Tier VIII destroyer for $1
A real deal.
Yes, players are probably getting confused as to why,
for three updates in a row now, each one introduces new tokens.
First, we had Eagles and Sharks,
then birthday tokens,
and now Sovereigns and Guineas.
First of all, I want to make it clear
that these are temporary resources for the Arsenal,
they appear there for a short time and are event-specific.
Then they are removed, and if you are left with some sitting in your account,
they will most likely be converted into credits.
We changed the North and Islands of Ice maps—
the landscape and the outlines of many islands,
and we rotated Islands of Ice 90 degrees,
so that it’s more convenient for you.
Now both locations give more opportunities
for getting back to where the action is,
especially if the battles are over on your side of the map,
while allies in the center need support.
Now we’re going to talk to Ksenia,
the designer who will explain these changes...
This version has changes for the North and Islands of Ice maps.
This is the new North.
Previously it often happened
that several battleships would go as far as line 9-10
and completely leave the action for god knows how long,
because they got separated by large islands.
So what did we do?
First of all, we made some islands smaller.
Even if battleships want to go to lines 9-10,
they can very quickly return to the action.
Because the size of the islands was reduced.
You won’t have huge impenetrable walls anymore.
Now there are all kinds of interesting firing positions.
Islands of Ice had absolutely the same problems as North and even more,
and we tried to make the map easier to navigate.
It used to be a bunch of white islands
so we even had the artists work on it to make these islands differ in appearance
for better team coordination.
That is, while previously it was nothing but ice,
now we have ice and rocks.
We added settlements, which can also be used as references
when telling the team where to go and what to do.
This is a British update.
Therefore, the historical Operation Dynamo returns to the game.
It was created on the basis of real events from 1940—
a rescue of British and French soldiers from the city of Dunkirk
surrounded by German troops.
You have to escort transport ships from Dunkirk to Dover,
bypassing the dense minefields and fighting off attacks
from enemy aircraft and torpedo boats.
We had a very large number of battles fought,
a great deal of positive feedback,
and many requests to bring this operation back.
So, we did, but did we bring back the exact same Operation
or will players see some differences?
Not quite the same.
We have tweaked the mechanics of the minefields,
but also significantly expanded
the fleet of destroyers that players can take into battle.
This isn’t just the destroyers from Great Britain, France and Poland,
we have expanded the list to enable players to take ships from the USA,
the USSR, and also Canada.
And what about the minefields, why did we change the mechanics?
We changed the mine mechanics
so that we won’t have players sinking all the time
and to get them interacting with the minefields more—
saving those in distress,
safely leaving the area by moving at a one-quarter pace.
We had two problems with flooding.
The first problem was that it was impossible to detect
that enemies around you in battle get flooded.
The second problem was that the player, when flooded,
was not always able to react or could simply miss it in the heat of battle.
We addressed the first issue
by adding an emergency light signal to the ships
that are being flooded,
added water pumping,
and also every few seconds, all ships, except diesel ones,
will blow steam high enough to be seen even at long distances.
For the player's ship flooding,
we also added some effects.
Like fire, flooding now has a pictogram
next to the ship's icon at the bottom of the screen
and we added a full-screen flooding effect.
But at the same time,
we remembered that not everyone likes these bells and whistles,
so we also made it possible to enable simplified flooding,
just like with fire.
In this update, we improved the part of the interface
that helps us choose the right skills.
What did we do exactly?
We decided to make it easier for players
and at the same time reduce the number of mistakes
that a player can generally make when learning skills.
To do this, we have implemented a system
that informs the player that a certain skill,
depending on the current ship,
is ineffective in this configuration.
Such skills bear a special pictogram
but are still available to the player to learn.
So, players can themselves decide
whether the skill will be sufficiently effective
and learn it anyway.
Update 0.7.9 offers a completely new test battle mode.
We will now talk to the game designer about all these features.
Yes, indeed,
Update 0.7.9 introduces a new Arms Race mode.
And its significant difference from the usual game modes
is that in this mode
you are fighting not over the zones that give you points,
but over the areas with the power-ups.
These power-ups give you either
a significant improvement to the ship’s specs,
or they give permanent repairs,
so taking a risk to capture these power-ups makes much more sense.
Friends, Captains. This episode is coming to an end.
We hope you enjoyed it and now know more about our studio’s work.
This is only the beginning of the British arc,
expect more news, subscribe, "like" us, and see you soon!