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Lerxst
Member UncommonPosts: 648
I’ve posted a couple times about this game, but here’s a final review after going through the tiers and the different tanks the game offers.
At first, WoT seems pretty straight forward; you shoot another tank and they go boom – you get shot and you go boom! Outside of those simple mechanics, it has most of your standard role-playing elements thrown in as well – you win, you get “experience” and “money” (credits). For the most part, these are proportionate to the damage you do, which then goes up based on the level of the match you’re in – bigger tanks, mean you can do more damage!
The first couple tiers (level) are just the basic version of this equation. Many of these tanks, you’ll discover, are here just to give you a feel of what the gameplay in each is like. You can choose a traditional “light tank, SPG (artillery) or Tank Destroyer but at these tiers all of them are still fairly weak and horribly inaccurate. In other words, matches as these tiers are like a comedy of errors.
Then you start to progress to the middle tiers. This is where you start to see the game shine though! Different tank types for different nationalities really start to stand out and each start to take on their own unique roles in a match.
This middle section is also where you start to experience one of the woes of the game – the Match Maker; the code that sets the 15 vs 15 battles up with the players. The math the devs used to create the Match Maker system is a bit of a mystery to everyone in the game as one team can easily overwhelm the other, despite being “matched” against one another by the system.
The latter tiers are where the pitfalls of the game show through loud and clear. If you make it this far, you’ll start to see the “pay to win” mentality the devs have blindsided you with. You know how they say the best way to boil lobster is to start it in warm water and slowly raise the temperature so that it doesn’t even know its being boiled? Welcome to the pot of lukewarm water!
The entire game up to this point has been slowly progressing and dropping hints at spending money on “premium” accounts and tanks. Until the later tiers, you really have no reason to bother with any of this since all of the experience you need and credits you get are still reasonable. At the higher tiers, however, the cost of repairing your tank and resupplying your ammo start to eat away at your overall profits in a round – in some cases you may even get negative earnings in a battle!
At this point, those hints that were being dropped for the past several weeks of gameplay now sink in – A premium account earns credits and experience much faster than a standard account. A premium tank costs a fraction to repair vs the standard tanks. Of course at this point you’ve invested weeks of time into playing the game and have a certain attachment to some of the vehicles you’ve purchased. That’s what they’re replying on to get you to spend money!
WoT breaks one of the cardinal rules in an RPG. The rewards and challenges in an RPG should increase proportionate to your character’s level.
Flash back to the early 90’s for a moment. Imagine playing a game like FFIII/VI for the Super Nintendo and by about level 50 you actually start to lose money for each battle if you take some damage. Now image, they sold and add-on to the game that allowed you to actually continue gaining money once again so that you can advance levels and buy the better equipment, but required you to purchase it on a regular basis to keep your earnings in the black.
What kills me is that games like that would have been crucified for pulling stunts like that. People would have been protesting in the streets if they found out a game they spent weeks playing, now required them to pay a regular fee once they hit a certain stage in the game if they wanted to continue. But… release it over the Internet and call it a free-to-play game and suddenly people are OK with it? As if the game wasn’t good enough on its own merits to ask for a $25 price tag right from the start?
Small developers have been doing that for decades, starting back in the 80’s with Shareware. You knew what you were getting and if you liked it, you could pay for it. More recent games like Minecraft and Mount & Blade took that old, direct model and applied it to their games as well. And they’ve both done very well for themselves!
World of Tanks, on the other hand, took the sneaky, less direct model in hopes to sucker people out of their money without them even noticing! So be warned, the primary, end-goal of this game is to get your money following a distant second is providing a fun experience.
Comments
The primariy game of every game is to get your money. Your conclusion about theirs being less direct is a non issue. Going in you know about the premium account, and they will be happy to tell you what benefit you get from spending your money. Very up front.
The question isn't really one of money, because as I stated at the beginning, all companies are trying to make money. The real question is if you enjoy the game that is trying loosen the money from your pockets.
I for one enjoy the game, and have no problem throwing them a few coppers periodically to help them maintain and improve the game.
I self identify as a monkey.
I've known programmers and game developers for 20 years now. Making money isn't the reason they decided to get involved in making games. They do so out of a love for gaming and a dedication to their product.
Look at some of the well known developers in the past 20 or 30 years. Names like Peter Molyneux, Richard Garriott and Sid Meier stand out. Their financial success came because they made products they loved for the sake of making the products - regardless of anyone personal opinion of them.
When it comes to developers and publishers, some of those respective companies like Interplay, Bullfrog and even EA once upon a time, were started... as Interplay puts it "By gamers, for gamers". The games came first, the money came second.
Wargaming.net reverses that practice, designing games that are made to earn an income first, and provide entertainment second. The way they hold people's feelings of fun as ransom for a few measly dollars here and there in games like World of Tanks, demonstrates their mentality.
World of Tanks would be a good game if they released it from the confines of their marketing scheme and stopped holding its fun value for ransom to only the people willing to make continuous payments to them. As a stand-alone $30 investment, it would be well worth the price. But any company that devises devious schemes to milk people's bank accounts for anything they're willing to part with, raises automatic alarms in my mind.
Although they do advertise outright, the benefits of a Premium account, as I said, for the first few weeks of play it just seems like more of a luxury than a necessity. It's not until your gaming rounds start costing you more than you make that the reason their Premium accounts exist start to reveal themselves.
To each his own, but you know what they say about "a fool and his money"...
every game needs to make money - the developer need to be paid in some way
some games choose to bill you up front - $50 in others like WoT you can pay if you wish along the way.
$50 can get you pretty far in this game - so stop whining about the cost, be happy that you can also play for free
Totally agree fish, you can play for free but............you pay to win.
That is a horrible model for a supposed F2P game and will be just one more part of the downfall of this game. Check out Wargamming's history, they don't have a stellar track record.
The animosity being generated by this game toward the company, the lack of customer support, the ignoring obvious problems that people have been complaining about for over a year will ensure that World of Battleships and World of Planes will both be stillborn.
Once you screw up in the mmorpg world, you never recover. Ask all the SoE, Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc *cough* fans.
I have to agree here. The playerbase is growing tired of the "carrot on a stick" the Devs keeping promising.
As for not paying for the title. Well, you can purchase it in the stores for $20. You will get a low tier premium tank, some gold, and a week of premium service. So, the game is out there for purchasing if you wish to "support" their efforts. Plainly put, this game does not offer enough content to warrant as much upfront cash as most MMO's on the market.
What this game fails(consumer PoV) at is its overall design to grab money and keep grabbing for as long as you play. Not only is it a pure greed driven business design, but it actually 'punishes' you for leveling up as you are supposed to. Once you breech the mid tiers in this game you will start to lose money, win or lose, with a standard account. If you are thick skinned enough to reach the top tier you will need a premium tank, to make credits, so you can use the top tank you worked hard to get. Now, if you really desire to play the upper level of the game, and proceed to get involved with clan wars, you will not only need a premium account ($14.95mo), But you WILL have to purchase gold rounds thus increasing the rate at which this game demands your cash.
If you still have a hard time trying to grasp the cash demands of this game imagine this:
WoW: $14.95mo sub price (WoT premium acct $14.95)
Upon reaching level cap you find the repair costs are so high you need to run many low level alts to ease the repair bill burden. At some point you will need to purchase a "sword of credit making" for a mere $30 to go along with your premium account credit making bonus . Now, that you are set with credit making you decide you want to try end game content i.e. - raids. Well, before you roll on into that dungeon you are told you must use "epic swords of doom" that will cost you real cash on a 'per swing' basis.... Would you continue to play?
Started last week and got into a IS-1 last night.
Bought premium status and making lots of profit.
Bad players are not rewared in this game in higher tiers.
Good players can make good profits.
The real problem lies in the matchmaking system, and this is where the big fail in this game lies.
My KV get matched versus T8 as a T5 tank alot.
My KV-3 is often cannon fodder versus T8 - T9 - T10....
Had 2 matches in my IS1 so cant comment yet, but those 2 matches where versus the T10 also.
This is a very addicted game, but the match maker does diminish your fun to play big time.
Each tank you farmed hard for feels les powerfull as you fight stronger and tronger oponents wich makes you feel like a dweep aster farming your eyeballs out for that new piece of armor -_-
Yes i rather play this then WoW / SWTOR
So its a good rating from me its just the match maker that fails the makes this game balanced.
Because the MisMatchmaker is intended for you to buy a Tier 8 premium tank where roughly 80% of your matches will be tanks Tier 5-7.