World of Tanks Development Team is happy to announce the official open beta launch date for World of Tanks that is scheduled for January 27th, 2011.

http://game.worldoftanks.com/news/general_news/wot_open_beta_launch_date_announced

Free to play tank fps/3ps, mmo style chat, voice (platoons and companies) enabled, destructible environments. Try it you might like it.

Here is my review;

World of Tanks Review


In Soviet Russia our tanks own you!!!

More on this later.

Wargaming.net (Belarus I believe) has produced a game has all the fun of driving and fighting tanks based from 1935 - 1955. World of Tanks (WoT) is an arcade style tank shooter where you can use first and third person view. Free to play with microtransactions for those who want to advance more rapidly by upgrading your account to premium or purchasing expensive ammunition.

Interface

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/8229/shot015h.jpg

Players start the game in their garage (Standard or Premium account) on the server they join, currently US, Europe (Munich) or Russia. You are given a Tier 1 tank of the various national types and is currently limited to US, German and Soviet you are also provided with a total of five slots for your vehicles. Clicking on various tanks you will see different modules such as; guns, turret, engine, radio, tracks which you upgrade with experience points you earn in battle. Additonally, there are three modules which are fitted to your tank to enhance it's capabilities including; cam net, spalling liner, gun rammer, laying drives, scopes etc. Another three slots are provided for consumables such as repair kits, hi-octane fuel, fire extinguishers. In your garage is also MMO style chat channels where you can create a channel to talk to friends or join the general chat beware though, general chat is moderated.

On the left side of the screen is your tanks' crew who receive experience points and level (100% max) as you battle. Each crewman has a primary task like Commander or Gunner and your tank only gets to its best when all your crew is at 100% training. You can also additionally train your crew in the secondary skills of repair, firefighting and cammoflage after you crew reach 100% in their primary task. Each are trained to 100% and it is your choice what skill they train in. Some good advice would be to train all in the same skill. On the right side of the screen is various stats concerning your current vehicle

Vehicle Types (Ten tiers or levels)

Tanks are divided into three classes; Light (Scout), Medium, and Heavy. Scouts are fast (well some are) lightly armoured tanks which can be used to spot enemy tanks, everyone starts the game with light tanks. Scouts aren't particularly good at killing heavier tanks but the are fun to drive and are also good against Self Propelled Guns (SPG or Artillery). There is nothing like tearing through all the oppositions tanks and wasting their arty.

Medium tanks are middle of the road types, fast but not as fast as scouts, have good armour and hit points. Most Medium tanks aren't good at sniping so they are used by the players in wolfpack like tactics or "the rush" where they attack through the opposition with the objective of capturing their base. Heavy tanks suit the description with tanks like the Tiger, King Tiger, Maus. Big slow and heavily armour with high hit points these things pack a nasty punch and take a pounding but even they can be killed by a light tank.

Tank Destroyers are the next type of vehicle. Generally they don't have turrets just a big gun sticking out the front which is good to kill your tank. JagdPanther, Ferdinand and JadgTiger are in the game, fun to play and also easy to kill if you play the right way.

Self Propelled Guns are the last type and are used as Artillery in conjunction with Scouts and all other tanks who have a long range radio fitted. Using a top down view similar to Battlefield 1942 they are nasty tank killers. One shot is common and all the tankers hate them with a vengance.

All the models of vehicles in the game are meticulous in detail and are a credit to their creators.

German Tech Tree
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4356/shot016p.jpg

Play

Click the big red button at the top of your screen named Battle (random) and you are put into a waiting list of various vehicles and tier levels. The matching system or mismatching depending on your level will select the first tanks in the system and you'll join a battle on a map, one of ten at the moment, which could be wide open fields, swamps, winter villages or even a city. In a random game nations are mixed so you can play with Soviet, US and German tanks on your side. Good guys are green, Bad guys are red and it couldn't get any simpler. Friendly Fire is on and be warned if you team kill you will be banned, permanently.

Maps themselves are as detailed as the vehicles with a level of destructable environment which includes trees, fences, wooden buildings, walls. Be mindful though arty can see a tree falling in the forest. Cars and trucks are part of the environment and can be destroyed by either running over them or firing at them. Map boundaries are solid as are indestructables which can jam your tank and cause all sorts of frustrations. All the player vehicles are capable of ramming you and destroying your tank although it's not a good idea to ram your light tank into a Maus as you will be worse off. Dead player tanks can be used as cover.

Players should expect to die often and sometimes gloriously. You can also expect moments of your own awesomeness where even Michael Wittmann by comparison is a noob as well as moments of wtf. It happens and is all part of the fun. No real need to worry about hackers as all the important data is controlled by the server.

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/9662/shot013y.jpg

The Good

Meticulous detail in tank models and maps
Crew skilling
At 250ms the game is very playable
It's free to play
Custom skins created by the players from authentic to Tron style

The Bad

Not enough maps
Memory leaks
Invisible tanks (server issue)
Ghost shots
T-54 UFOs (they tear around like scouts and kill everything like arty)
US voice acting in all tanks

The down right Fugly

Soviet cast armour being rated at actual thickness rather than 30-50% less which is closer to reality.
Mismatching system that makes some people feel worthless in game.


Rating 7.8/10

Actually, I've found a workaround for the memory leak and since running this app, I haven't experienced it again!

"Large Address Aware_2.1"

This is an application that assists in making applications large address aware. When a 32-bit application is Large Address Aware, it can access up to 4 GiB on x64 operating systems and up to 3 GiB on x86. 64-bit versions of Windows require no modifications to the operating system to benefit from this application; however, in 32-bit versions of Windows, you must increase the user memory setting. Instructions how to do this are in spoiler below. It is not advised to use this application if you have less than 3 GiB of RAM.

Can read more Here


Tanks I currently have:

Artillery:
SU-14 (fully upgraded)

Light Tank:
VK 1602 Leopard (fully upgraded)

Medium Tank:
VK 3001 (P) (fully upgraded) - Elite
VK 3002(DB) (fully upgraded)

Tank Destroyer:
Jagdpanther (fully upgraded)
Ferdinand (fully upgraded)

Loving the game despite the occasional balancing issues (it works in your favour just as often as it doesn't.

Well my vehicles are;

Panther II (Elite)
T-34-85 (Elite)
KV-3
King Tiger (Elite)
JagdPanther (Elite)

3500 battles under my belt too.

IS-7
IS-4
KV-3
T43
S-51
Stug
Leopard
T1 Heavy

Can't wait for the softwipe so I can ditch the german tree & arty and go into a IS-7 & T-54 path with the left over heading into Object 704.

Can't wait for the softwipe so I can ditch the german tree & arty and go into a IS-7 & T-54 path with the left over heading into Object 704.

I doubt we'll get a softwipe, release is only about a month away.

That's right FraktuRe, no softwipe and release is slated for the end of February. Which means total wipe or hardwipe step.

there is definatley a hard wipe when the game goes live at the end of feb/march.

its been confirmed many times recently.

its a beta, its always known that everything you've done will be wiped - we helped them make it a great game - i'll be starting again when it goes live now that i know what sort of tanks i want *cough* russian *cough*

gunna d/l now looks cool easy to pick up?

seems to crash when I hit the play button and it opens the client.. :S

nah its fine

like any beta, its a beta, it must end for the full release to be an even playing field.

i remember the diablo 2 beta, everyone whinged because they wanted to keep their crappy barbarians with like 20 points in the first skill and their dodgy gems

fast forward one month and all was forgotten.

Well the grind to the IS7 was painful enough once, sorry just don't see myself doing it twice. Many people who I've spoken to state the same, they've had their fun with the game but will walk away once the hard wipe happens.

You forget the Clan Wars side of the game.

You forget the Clan Wars side of the game.

Still meh if it's going to be reset.

http://www.ausforums.com/images/icon7.gifI couldn't get into this at all. Was a little bit of fun, but nothing I'd want to spend much time investment on. Seems really 1 dimensional and doesn't seem to be that much strategy involved.

I think that could change if you could create squads or if they made it easier for friends to be on the same side. In general terms, they need better ways for groups to work in a cooperative way. I'm still having fun anyway :)

^There are platoons of 3 friends. Working together really adds to the game.


Once you're in a bigger tank it's much less just point and shoot, actually aiming and positioning becomes very tactical.

So, do you know w=someone that has created a premium account? I cant see a way of doing it without that.
I could be wrong mind you. I've only played it for one day.

i gave this a bash. Really does seem to be a big camp fest. Everyone moves their tanks behind some cover and sits there looking across the map waiting for someone to venture forward.

give it time, you need to learn where to shoot.

pro tip: when aiming at an enemy tank, if your reticle is red or orange you dont have a good chance at penetrating, aim at a different part until it goes green and youll hit harder

pro tip: if your normal armour piercing bullets arent doing much damage or you are against a much tougher tank, switch to your high explosive he rounds, you may not big number damage, but you will destroy all his components and if you aim at his tracks probably blow his tracks off as well.

pro tip: if you are in a fast firing tank, and you arent damageing it, just keep shooting it fast in the turret. it will make his life absolute hell trying to aim/focus, until your big friends clean him up.

pro tip: once you shoot, generally its best to relocate if the artillery have found you

pro tip: hiding in trees does not camoflage you, only bushes do, and if ANY part of your tank can be seen, you will be spotted. zoom your camera around, if you are a white sillouhette only then you are actually hidden (until you shoot then generally all cover is gone.. sometimes this is buggy).

its best to play with friends, always save up gold for a premium account to create squads and get more xp/credits after each battle.

some games you lose, some you win. its incredibly fun if you spend enough time to learn how everything works, then you /pwn 6 noobs in one game

*disclaimer, pro tips are not pro, just hard earned newb knowledge

Plus open beta is $250 gold a day atm instead of $150

Try and use cover as much as you can when going 1 - 1
Always put a building or landmark between you and artillery where possible so as to get the best possible advantage in a 1 - 1

Depends on what sort of ammo your using and whether you penetrate or not.

You can set someone on fire an they burn out rapidly
blow up their ammo
Look for things like view ports an such, always take off their track where you can so you got a sitting duck :)

Oh, an more importantly, get ready for someone to steal your kill just at the last second :)

ok, i've taken all the advice you guys have offered and put it into practice. mostly i seem to be doing ok, but when driving my t-46 i just get annihilated... probably because it's the worst tank ever and i keep being put up against guys with 500 more hp than me

I am just about over this. I just had 4 rounds and lasted an average of 20 seconds once I was spotted. Now that I have my first medium tank, I'm up against apprently much stronger opponents and I'm dead in no more than 2 shots.

I dont know whats going on with the server balance but my poor ol M2 is usless as DOG S*** against just about everything else going.

What is the best Tech Tree to be on do you think Frakture? I'm two levels from getting a Sherman which can have a 76mm gun. I thought that would have some punch but I cant say I've seen others in the game. Maybe its a dud as well.

The biggest problem I have at the moment is I'm up against Stug III's and Hetzer's and I've got f*** all chance with them.

Even if I get the drop on them, my shells bounce off, they take a little cover and just wait for Arty to smash me.

Oh god, I'm going to start again :p

Thanks Frakture.