World of Tanks

Everybody loves tanks. We don’t love them because of their potential to blow things up, no, that’s boring anyway and not something that’s exactly been underused in action gaming, we love tanks because of their power. Because when we drive one of the things down the street (in videogames of course, I‘m no advocating you take one of them to demolish your neighbours poorly constructed conservatory) there’s an awesome sense of being unstoppable, ploughing through anything and everything that gets in our way then looking back to marvel at the twisted ruins someone once called home. Tanks are great.

So, being told of the prospect of taking one of these huge, hulking beasts into a battle against up to 59 other people in a massive online skirmish isn’t just appealing, it’s probably one of the best concepts I’ve heard of in a long while. And that’s exactly what World of Tanks proposes, a huge scale action game featuring a plethora of replicated 1940‘s/50‘s tanks.



In the hands of Wargaming.net, WoT certainly has the right amount of potential and talent behind it. This is a developer already familiar with the inner workings of developing a small but sustainable online community with their turn based strategy opus Massive Assault Network, and have experience with creating a WWII Real Time Strategy game with the more recent Order of War. This is a developer who knows what they’re doing, but their past releases are by no means their only sources of influence.

Early trailers already poked gentle fun at MMO giants World of Warcraft and Eve Online, and WoT certainly does seem to possess numerous traits of the genre. But this is not an MMO. It’s similar on many levels, but perhaps is best described as a hybrid. Mixing action with strategy, Massive Online Gaming with faster paced small scale battles, World of Tanks is a game that doesn’t owe itself to one particular genre.



The “character” screen bares the most resemblance to anything you’ll find in any of the big online RPG’s. It’s here the entire game centres around, your own personal tank depot where your collection of tanks are stored and can be viewed or taken into battle. It’s here you get the most options to play with. This is more than just a mere showroom, every single tank (there are around 50 in the BETA but expect there to be many more in the full release) each have their own tech tree to be researched.

Experience and money you gain from fighting can be spent slowly but steadily researching new pieces of hardware that will then be made available in the depot. A new turret to improve the turning speed of the main gun, a faster engine to increase movement speed, a larger cannon for more precise targeting, once researched these items can be attached to your tank to improve it’s killing potential and survival ability. It’s essentially World of Tanks method of awarding “epic” armour.



But the tech tree also serves a duel purpose. As well as upgrading current technology, clawing your way through these huge tech trees (there‘s one for each playable nation) is also the only way you’re able to unlock better tanks. Oh no, the game doesn’t just let you pick and choose to fight it out with a Tiger or SU-152, those monsters you must first unlock, and the heaviest of hitters certainly won’t come soon or cheap.

In this regard WoT comes up trumps, while the desire will always be to get your hands on one of the huge tank destroying behemoths, the game holds a vast array of tanks differing in size, strength and effectiveness. You have your choice of which to pick. Light tanks are the cheapest, fastest but also weakest of the bunch, Medium tanks offer better survivability but still lack the punch of the larger vehicles, Heavy tanks tend to be slower but do possess more powerful firepower, Tank destroyers are some of the largest vehicles in the game capable of devastating attacks but struck with painfully slow movement and turning speeds while the SPG’s (mobile artillery) can pound targets from a distance but are extremely vulnerable up close and struck with some overly long loading times.



Choices are, however, limited to start with. You begin your illustrious career as tanks commander in something that resembles a topple over wardrobe with tank tracks and a giant elongated cardboard toilet paper tube stuck on top. It’s no joke that the first German tank you’ll be given is called a ‘Traktor.’ Initial battles can be trying, but these early level tanks can at least be entered into recruit battles where they’re matched with one another and the heavier stuff is kept out. But it highlights the need to upgrade and move on as soon as possible. Early tanks battles do at least neglect any costs involved with repairing a damaged or destroyed tanks.

Yes, you do have to micromanage to some extent. Getting damaged or destroyed can happen allot, and when it does you must spend your accumulated experience points and money on repair costs. The larger the tank you have, the higher these costs can become, so there’s a real need to enter a fight with a little more tact.



Sadly one thing this the current BETA highlights is that no matter the tactile nature of the game, the players themselves approach it as they would your standard FPS, and yes I hold my hand up as one of those. Far too often matches begin with tanks launching themselves into the open as each player desperately attempts to gain themselves a kill before the battle ends. Trouble is, this game isn’t really built for such foolhardy attempts at glory hunting, there are numerous constraints playing against such gutsy moves.

Tanks are hardly renowned for their speed. Here the larger they are, the slower they move. Even Tank Destroyers, with their massive cannons firing off armour-piercing rounds, are next to useless when outmanoeuvred by their smaller counterparts, weaker though they may be, a tank destroyer just can’t turn it’s turret fast enough to destroy something smaller and faster than it. Terrain also plays a huge part. Most tanks are hidden within the fog of war until an enemy player spots them, so the more tactful can use things such a wooded area or a small hill to hide behind while they lie in wait for their prey. Obviously, the higher the levitation of the ground your on, the longer the range you can fire your cannon.



And yet still, it’s rare to play a game now where the entire team doesn’t just split off and spread out, eager to do their own thing rather than organise any form of attack or defence. Artillery players suffer the most because of this. Weak, and unable to fend off tanks at close range, often they’re left to fend for themselves while everyone else heads to defeat the other team. Many game that I’ve played that where lost could quite have easily been won had there been some sort of command structure guiding us to victory.

Though the BETA hardly gives a full or truthful picture of how team play may play out in the final release. There’s only one game mode, a team dethmatch style of play where two teams of 15 tanks either have to destroy one another or capture the rival teams flag position. Team orders are restricted to people being able to draw the teams attention to a specific part of the mini-map but not much else. You can’t form squads, you’ve no order that can be issued and no real ability beyond the chat function to call for assistance. Games currently descend into mass, dis-organised brawls that usually end up with many of the tanks left as little more than burning carcasses.

That kind of FPS mentality that many players are displaying in the BETA is unavoidable, and will be something that will be a problem during the opening weeks of the games release. But once it settles, and those seeking the ever elusive top position on the score board realise that rushing in without due care or attention is not the way you gather points, hopefully more organised battles may emerge. You occasionally see glimpses of it now, as people slowly start to realise that WoT is a far slower action game that rewards patience and discipline over eagerness and a disregard for cooperation.



The full version will boast new game modes, and the clan vs. clan battles should provide the game with the team play structure it seems to work best with. Far more intriguing is that clans will be involved with important battles via historical campaigns, where a global map of Earth is separated into smaller territories that can be fought over. Clans will also be given options to form non aggression pacts with one another or share intel on a common enemy.


Added to this the inclusion of America and it’s assortment of tanks, the possibility of seeing even more nations represented in the game via future updates, newer territories and maps gradually becoming available and already World of Tanks is looking like a full and complete package. But by far it’s greatest feature is that all of this, the tanks, the fights the entire game, won’t cost you a penny. Adopting a free-to-play model, so long as you’re willing to forgive the use of advertising this is a game you’ll be able to enjoy without forking over any cash, and considering the amount of content planned for it’s final release, that’s quite an impressive deal.

There still remain the occasional gripe however. The near pin point accuracy of artillery, the completely random nature of tanks shells power and accuracy, to the potential problem of unbalancing issues when it comes to seeing large heavy tanks faced off against the smaller no-hope-in-hell-of-surviving-the-onslaught light tanks. Problems inevitably exist at this early stage in the games development, but what’s been shown so far remains highly polished, remarkably deep and above all else, quite enjoyably addictive once you get into the swing of things.

World of Tanks has clearly got a niche all to itself. An action game with simulation, strategy and Role Playing overtones, it might not topple the mighty MMO games is so eagerly and openly mocks, but will provide one of the more unique online gaming experiences of the year, and all of it at a cost of nothing. Free tanks essentially, probably the best endorsement for the game yet.

Heh, Kind of reminds me of Seek and Destroy for the Ps2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnTaD4Syrlk), man... I played that game so much in 2005 x3

wow someone else that's played Seek and Destroy, man that game rocked. :)

I played Seek and Destroy too, I only had the demo but the game was awesome, my friend and I used to spend hours playing it.