War and Game

Join Chris “Steelgrave” Mohon as he kicks the treads on World of Tanks and goes out for a spin.

Nice Paint Job!

World of Tanks is a massive multiplayer online game, a next generation gem which has already attracted almost two million players worldwide. At its basic level, World of Tanks is a 15 vs. 15 team shooter that puts you behind the turret of a Tiger I searching for a target or in a Wespe self-propelled gun tracking enemy movements as reported to you by the Stuart scouting the ridge ahead. Or you might be in the T-34/85 angling to get a shot in at the side of an advancing Pershing, while behind you; a SU-85 hidden behind bushes tracks your every move, hand steadying for the kill. World of Tanks has dozens of beautifully modeled units representing Russian, German and American war machines, with tanks, tank destroyers and self-propelled artillery filling your garage. The tanks look amazing…they are beautiful beasts, represented in fine detail. I guarantee that you’re going to want to drive one home from the showroom!

The graphics are easily one of the biggest draws of the game. The tanks look like their historical counterparts and the terrain you drive and fight over seems real. Trees sway softly in the breeze, dust flies up from behind your tank as you travel down dirt roads, and smoke belches from behind your iron beast as it moves along. On the battlefield, the terrain is destructible, which can be useful in itself...if you are setting up an ambush in a tank destroyer, you can knock over a tree that blocks your line of sight, then scurry back behind the bushes and wait for your target to approach. Seasoned players learn to search the terrain for clues as to where their enemy might be advancing...rash tankers in a hurry will knock over trees and walls, providing visual clues to their approach. A bright artilleryman will watch for exactly that kind of movement and may well send a shell your way, just to say hello. Adding to the immersive feel of the tank you are driving and the terrain you are crushing beneath your treads is the sound. Tanks are loud, and guns going off are noisy. Often you will hear an approaching tank before you see it. Shells banging off you armor are real attention getters and the sound effects of this game add to the rich battlefield feel that you will experience.
One area where World of Tanks truly shines is in vehicle characteristics. The designers have gone to great lengths to recreate the feel and abilities of the tanks involved. Yet World of Tanks is not intended to be a true tank simulation. While the tank exteriors are accurately modeled, there are no complicated interior controls to learn. You won’t be jumping from the commander’s hatch to the driver’s seat to the gunner’s position.  In many ways, you are the tank, not the crew. The designers have captured that elusive balance between realism and playability, and done it well. Driving a new tank is more of a process of learning its capabilities and limitations, rather than worrying where the starter switch is.  A light tank zipping along at 60 mph drives differently than a heavy tank churning its way up a hillside, as does a medium tank which you have overburdened with upgrades but failed to put a new suspension in. When you are chugging up a hill at 6 mph with artillery shells starting to fall around you and you feel like you might as well have a neon bull’s-eye painted on your tank, believe me…your next purchase will be an upgraded engine or suspension, and that new gun will wait.

Let’s pop the hood…

There are roughly a hundred basic models available at this time, divided into American, German and Russian units.  Some Japanese, British and French lines will supposedly be joining the battle in the future, as will American tank destroyers. Keep in mind that this is a game about tanks...period! There are no pesky infantry to avoid (or conversely, to overrun), no anti-tank guns hidden in farmyards, no fighter-bombers patrolling the skies just waiting to turn your tank into a burning hulk.  This is strictly tank vs. tank dueling, with glory going to the survivors and the losers slinking back to their garages to hammer the dings out.
You start off with three very basic light tanks, a Russian MS-1, an American T-1 Cunningham, and a German Leichtetraktor. Don’t worry; you won’t spend much time in these relics. Each vehicle in the game has a tech tree which it follows in order to gain access to higher tier equipment and units. From each of these starter tanks, you can research other tank lines, moving up the tech tree into light tanks, medium tanks, and heavy, but you also can branch off into tank destroyers and self-propelled artillery from here. Each vehicle can be individually upgraded, with a better suspension, a more powerful engine, upgraded turrets, heavier guns, a longer ranged radio and a more experienced crew, so that the M-4 Sherman you are facing might have almost a dozen different configurations, not to mention special equipment that can be purchased, such as faster gun loaders or better ventilation systems that give bonuses. The units are very customizable, and while some might rush through the tech tree to get to the monsters at the top, there is a lot of satisfaction to be had in driving a maxed-out lower tier tank with an elite crew and a long range optic system and making kills well above your pay grade. Many players have expressed the opinion that the game is just as much fun at the lower tier levels as higher, an opinion which I share.

Your tanks are stored in a garage which has a capacity for up to six vehicles. This can be expanded by the expenditure of gold, the in-game currency (more on gold later). The garage is where upgrades take place and where you can rearm and refit your tanks. Your garage has a barracks attached, so if you have a veteran crew, you don’t have to lose them when you purchase a new tank. You can just upgrade their training, hand them the keys to their new Panther, and point them in the direction of the battle.

C’mon, let’s go for a test drive!

On the battlefield, you are going to be teamed up with 14 other players and will be facing an opposing team of equal numbers. Each team will be roughly equivalent in strength. World of Tanks utilizes a 10 tier system, which ranks a unit before assigning it to a battle. Tiers are based on your tank type, with a Tiger I being a tier VII and an M3 Lee being a tier IV, but you can inadvertently raise your tier by upgrading your iron ride with a higher tier gun…so that your nominally tier III tank destroyer might be rated a tier IV. Got all that? If not, don’t worry….just get in your tank and go shoot something. It’s a great stress reliever!
Many battles will have a tier difference of as much as three steps, so if you are in a tier IV tank, you might be top dog with many of your comrades and opponents being lower tiers or you might end up at the bottom of the pile on your side, facing higher tier opponents. But that is far from an automatic death sentence! There is great satisfaction to be found in being the weakest unit on your side, then killing some steel cowboy who goes racing past your ambush spot, allowing you to put a shell into the weaker flank armor of his now burning tank. Being a kamikaze driver on treads results in a short match for you and a kill painted on the side of  my Jagdpanther. In every match there is always a bozo or two who will go charging towards the enemy on his own, then berate his teammates for not supporting him. I call this “dinner”.
The rest of your “dinner” will likely be harder earned. World of Tanks enjoyed a long beta period, and many of your teammates and opponents are veterans who know how to scout, how to use terrain, know when to defend and when to go for the kill. The matches are 15 minute timed periods, with very few matches ending in a draw. Battles are usually bloody and more often than not come down to a small pocket of survivors on each side angling for the win. There are no bots in this game, no AI to fool. Every kill you rack up is against a living opponent, and every time you go up in smoke, a real person is doing a silly victory dance behind their monitor.

World of Tanks does not divide teams based on the nationality of the units.  Each side may have a combination of German, American and Soviet units working side by side, stalking the opposing team. This is slightly disconcerting at first, but WoT is not intended to be a replay of WWII battlefields. World of Tanks is a game which matches the hardware against the hardware, not nation against nation. In battle each unit has a red or a green icon over it designating friend or foe.
While most of the matches in World of Tanks are random affairs, you can also create a platoon with a couple of your friends and join into battle together. Taking this one step further, if you can gather at least 15 players, you can create a clan and with this comes new maps and longer term strategies as you battle other clans over the spoils of Europe. I haven’t gotten to test drive a clan battle yet, but a Wargamer.com clan has just started up and I’m looking forward to reporting from the front soon.

Okay, time to look at the sticker price…

In what has to be my favorite new trend in MMO’s, World of Tanks is free to download and play. Seriously. Now, I know your daddy told you that nothing was free in this world, and I’m not here to call him a liar. He’s bigger than I am, and I tend to bruise easily.  But if World of Tanks is not on your hard drive right now, go to their website, download it for free, and play. It’s just that simple.
Now, there are two types of in-game currency found in World of Tanks, gold and credits. Credits, like experience, are given at the end of each battle, with the winning team receiving about double that of the losing team. Credits are used to fund your basic expenditures: repairs, replacements, and upgrades to equipment. Gold may be purchased via real money, with the current rate being 3,000 gold for $14.95. This is enough gold to upgrade your account to Premium status for 30 days, with 500 gold left over to spend as you wish. Premium status grants more experience and credits per battle, which translates into faster upgrades and puts your seat in the higher tier tanks sooner. With gold, you can accelerate training for your crew, or even buy tank bling, such as better ammo. Yet it is entirely possible to have a great time with World of Tanks and never, ever buy gold. While, as in real life, rewards come much quicker with a little gold to grease things along, gold alone won’t buy you victory.

Okay, okay, I’m sold! Wait...is that a dent in the side?

World of Tanks does what it intended to do very well. It’s a load of fun, and the hard work and attention to detail which the designers have put into their product is very evident. Even so, there are some things that I would change about the game if I could.
First and foremost, I’m big on customizable interfaces. World of Tanks allows me to tinker with the keyboard and assign the basic functions to whichever keys I like. That ability is a must have for me, so they have that base covered. But not in the actual battles unfortunately. There is a very small map at the bottom right hand side of the screen which shows all units, both allied and enemy, which you are aware of. I would like nothing better than to move that mini-map elsewhere, but no dice. The lack of customization available on the battle screen is a frustration which I hope they will address in the future.
Perceived tier problems are a constant gripe. I think that a lot of that is because many players don’t understand how tiers work, or how upgrading your tank can bump you up a tier. But it could definitely be improved. Three or even sometimes four tier differences are frustrating if you are on the wrong end of the stick and should happen far less often. Nonetheless, to gamers unhappy with this aspect of the game, I would simply point out that the first US Sherman tanker who encountered a German Tiger I on the battlefield probably wasn’t overjoyed either. Sometimes you eat the Tiger, sometimes the Tiger eats you.

A big, big player complaint revolves around artillery in the game. The argument rages back and forth over whether or not artillery is overpowered. Artillery is the proverbial hammer wielded by an eggshell. Artillery has a powerful punch, but one light tank that slips behind the lines often means game over for artillery units. The very best suggestion that I have heard would be to limit artillery units to 2 or 3 per side per battle. The occasional match which spits out 5 or 6 artillery units apiece isn’t all that much fun, even for the artillery.

Clank, clank, I’m a tank!

Yes, yes I am, and my heartfelt thanks go to the designers at Wargaming.net for that! They have created an outstanding game which will suck hours of my life away for some time to come. This is a game which rewards team play and good decisions, a game easy to play but not so easy to master, lovingly built from the chassis up, a tank buff’s delight and a game which often favors the bold but just as often drops them in their...tracks. Clank, clank, I’m a tank...yes, I am…and I’m hull down over that hill, just waiting for you to show!

Review written by: Chris "Steelgrave" Mohon, Staff Writer