Currently as I type this, World of Tanks is in its beta form for the Xbox 360. A quick background is it is a free to play game ( first of its kind on the xbox ) tank game in which you drive a wide variety of tanks from all over the world in a MMO. The concept for those that don't play PC games is that a free to play will mean the game is free to play ( not so hard ) but the game makes it's money by in game purchases, of which I'll explain later what those are.
Since this is a beta and the actual full game is not out yet there may be fixes in the pipelines to any issues that are posted in the blog that are either in development or awaiting MS certification. Also to make this simpler, I'll be adding in screen shots and showing the main things within the game. I would add my own video but the quality of my capture card would not do the game justice in terms of graphics and level of detail.
So let's begin.
The game on a whole is a nice idea, to bring a game to the Xbox that is free to play means that any number of people can choose to play for free without the need of buying items within the game store and on top of any other games they have, it could be a nice distraction from the occasional game of CoD or Forza. The other side to free to play is that you will come across people that pay real money to play which yes gives them an advantage but until you progress further into the game shouldn't be that much of an issue.
Garage
Starting off fresh will bring you to the garage, a one stop shop for any tanks you buy within the game with silver and XP ( there are two different types of XP of which I'll explain later) accumulated in battles as well as gold which is an optional purchase. In the garage is where you can upgrade your tank, select the next one for battle, view in depth details on current vehicles or ones that you can get in the future. At first the layout looks complicated but alas after an hour or two or playing and coming back you'll get to grips.
Currently there are issues within the garage, some like not being able to buy ammo since you get a message "not enough silver". Its known and should be resolved when the full game comes out but in the mean time there are ways of getting around it. The navigation around the garage is quick, easy to learn and on each tank available to you, small snippets of information to each tank and package upgrade. There are tanks that you may not recognise in the game as a few of them were based on prototypes or blueprints.
Matchmaking
This is the beta so the main issue surrounding MM at the moment is the games you are placed into and the people that are both on your team and on the other team. The idea is that tanks are based on tiers going from 1-10. The idea being that Tier 1 is the start off and Tier 10 is the last part with some of the best tanks available. The issue with the beta is that you should only get spawned into games within 2 Tiers of your tank choice. In the event of a platoon of 3 people playing with 2 Tier 5's and 1 Tier 6 the game tends to go off the Tier 6. As a result of there not being many people in the beta, roughly 100 or so people are in the Que at any one time, you may often find yourself in a higher than normal Tier game. As more people play the full game this shouldn't become an issue as you'll come across a lot more people your own Tier.
Finding games is relatively quick providing there is enough people in the Que and that they are of a similar Tier. One press from the garage to roll out and within a minute you could be playing a game on one of 5 maps with a few different game modes all of which are random. A few problems may come from MM based on connection. There are some issues with people not spawning into games before the game starts but a lot of this is down to your connection or the connection on a whole. Other than that you should have a smooth game.
The game is based around team work so using a microphone is a must although if you don't have one you can use radial commands to give instructions or acknowledge other peoples commands. The one flaw with this is its difficult to use whilst moving. Using your left stick to accelerate your tank and trying to give commands at the same time means sacrificing tank movement in place of saying that you need help or asking people to defend the base. This becomes more of a problem when you are looking to repair your tank module. You have certain things on your tank that can be damaged. For example if your tracks are hit in a certain spot your tank will be immobile or your gun is hit so your accuracy is reduced. When you're on the move and trying to repair in the heat of battle certain modules whilst at the same time as moving out of harms way can mean that certain equipment is not repaired resulting in missing that shot or not repairing your tracks in time before you're shot and killed. I've not seen as this is something that they will fix so it may be something you'll have to get used to.
Gametypes
Encounter - 15min
Basically one flag CTF. There is a neutral flag in the middle of a map for both teams to either capture or eliminate the other team to win.
Standard Battle - 15min
Team Deathmatch at its simple basis but capping the other teams flag also wins the game.
Assault - 10min
Attack and defend again at its simple form. One team defends a flag whilst the other tries to cap it. More often then not the attacking team wins from taking out all of the other team or the defending team wins because the attacking team hasn't killed them all and the timer has run out.
Tanks
There are 5 different types of tanks within the game. Light, Medium, Heavy, Tank Destroyer and Artillery and within the beta 3 nations that you can get tanks from. Germany, America and Great Britain They all play different roles although be warned, people play to their own way so you're likely to see heavy's sitting on base, artillery moving forward and tank destroyers acting like heavy's and running forward into a barrage of fire. Generally speaking, the higher Tier you go the better then tank is in terms of armour and fire power. All the tanks have strengths and weaknesses again as an example the artillery has a very good chance of dealing damage to Tiers higher than itself if it hits but its armour is weak, reload time is long and accuracy may mean you miss more than you hit. The AT7 tank destroyer has lots of frontal armour and a quick firing gun but is slow to move, can only point its turret forward and has a weak spot on top which, from the front, is the thing to aim for. Getting used to what you like early on in my opinion is going to happen. The low Tier tanks don't offer a lot in showing you what you're working towards. It's a case of seeing what other people think or what you see on the battlefield. Personally I have the artillery and tank destroyer both on the American side of which I enjoy using and when the full game is released, it is what I'm going to be aiming for.
Be sure to understand that a lot of thought and effort has been placed into this game going down to small things such as being able to hit and do damage to other tanks. There is a lot that is taken into account within the game when you're busy shooting another tank. What round you're using, how your tank is sitting, what position the other tank is facing you, what type of tank they have, are they damaged a lot already so don't be surprised to see shots bounce off because their tank is angled to give the best chance of a ricochet. The aimer does sometimes help in giving you a Yellow circle for 0% chance of penetration, Orange for 50% and Red for 100% but again a Red circle does not mean its a guaranteed to hit and do damage. I've used AP rounds which have a high penetration chance and see that the shot bounced off from short range against my own Tiers.
Maps
The 7 maps that are on the beta are Cliff, Mines, Province (for low Tier games only) Westfield, Sand River, Mountain Pass and Malinovka. All are different in their own way but because the map and gametype that you are going to be playing is not known until you start the game, you may find yourself at a disadvantage before the game has already begun. I'll post pictures of the map from the map view once I've published this. A perfect example is say you use a slow tank destroyer such as the AT7 and you spawn on Westfield which is a valley map, if you get spawned at the bottom your choices for what you can do are limited since there is a large hill to climb and may take you a couple of minutes to do and a lot can happen in 2 minutes.
Images for the maps are from www.worldoftanksguide.com
Cliff
Mines
Malinovka
Westfield
Province - Low Tier games only map
Sand River
Mountain Pass - Xbox version is snowy
The tanks are somewhat easy to handle. There is a small but noticeable delay from when you move your left stick in a direction and for the tank to react. I believe it's something built into the game but one thing to account for when playing that even though you move your stick back to stop moving, you will carry on going for a bit longer. Few annoying things I've come across is the inaccuracy of the artillery. I really like playing with it but it feels like there are games I cant hit anything even if its stood still and other games I'll hit and do damage to everything. Another annoying thing is the "coincidence damage". Shooting opponents and taking off a large amount of health, example being a tank may have 1200 HP and your shot takes off 1189, but not killing them. It happens far too often for it to be something that I'm not doing correctly and is rather annoying. Another thing is when someone you;re shooting is one shot from death the next shot is more likely to bounce than kill. It could just be me that is thinking this.
Boosts
Within the game are boosts that allow you to boost things on your tank to either, help spotting range, increase damage with rounds, increase chance of penetration, decrease chance of detection, increase reload speed etc etc. Depending on what tank you use should dictate what you take into battle as an extra. Other things that you can take are consumables. They really do help in the heat of battle and can mean the difference between life and death and is something that is worth buying. Having a repair kit to instantly repair tracks or a fire extinguisher to put out an engine fire help. They have made it so that each tank will be able to get boosts like these and are a great addition to what should be a great game experience.
Misc
As I come to the end of the blog post here are some other things that I fell aren't right.
When you upgrade tanks to the next Tier, most of the time your next tank gets an underpowered gun which may not seem so bad but because you have moved up another Tier you now come across tanks 2 Tiers above yours who even with their standard guns will be able to deal a lot more damage to you then you can to them. In my opinion, its something that may make people spend real money to avoid but if you can't do that then be warned. The grind, as its called, is a lot harder when you move up Tiers and don't have the power to make a positive contribution to your teams efforts in winning the game. Example; The T25AT is a Tier 7 tank destroyer. Fully upgraded is the 105mm gun which is good against Tier 8 and below. Tier 9's tend to bounce unless you are close to which your armour is good enough to withstand more than one hit. When you move up to the T28, a Tier 8 tank destroyer, it starts with the 90mm or the 105mm if you got that on the T25. Both these guns are not that effective against high Tier tanks and not with the added fact that it moves a lot slower than the T25 you are immediately placed at a disadvantage within the games you should be placed into. Be aware this is a similar story to all tanks and their Tiers so again be aware of it.
Detection is a big issue within the game and is something that you will come to hate. All tanks have a view range and much like the chance of shots bouncing off armour, being spotted and spotting are all based on different things. What cover you are in, are you moving, where are you looking, is the tank that you can see wearing camo, do you have bino's and the type of tank you are in. This isn't so much the problem. The main issue is the game telling you when you are and are not spotted. It should tell you that you have been "Detected" but it will not tell you when you are not detected. There will be times that you are shot at and nothing appears to tell you that you have been seen by the enemy till either you're shot or in fact you are killed. Again this is something that Wargaming have said is normal so it will take time for you to get used to the whole detection system and learn to say "well nothing I can do about it".
Overall the game is great. When it's released I would advise getting it but be aware that it is a free to play game and there will be people that pay to win and this may degrade your experience. Personally the size of matches will still allow you to have fun and it may not be something that you will notice playing. Unless your face to face with someone, you can't be 100% sure who or what hit you so assume it was something a lot bigger than you and maybe run away :D.
As always please comment on anything and also share around the world!
