I’m typically a fan of FPS (first person shooter) games. However, I do occasionally enjoy games that require some strategy, dexterity and a good challenging learning curve. In the spirit of trying something new, I gave World of Tanks a shot at PAX Prime 2011 (in Seattle!). I was a bit curious about what all the hubbub was with these new free-to-play games showing up. Little did I know just how interesting the game and story behind it would be.
World of Tanks
World of Tanks (WoT) is a free-to-play and pay-to-play 32 player team based pre and post World War II tank shooter style war game. FTP players start off with three tanks: one from the USSR, one from the USA and one from Germany.
As you play many rounds, you earn experience and gold allowing you to research new modifications to improve your tanks. Eventually, you max each tank out with upgrades and unlock better tanks for which the upgrade cycle continues along with your accumulation of experience. There are over 110 combined tanks to experience as you go from little toy tanks to one-shot steel eating behemoths using the exchange gold to buy them. There about 24 maps to play through as you progress with more on the way.
Once the four free tank slots are filled, players will have to purchase additional slots if they want to keep their first. Or, one can sell the old tanks and continue upgrading and progressing using just the four original slots. If you choose this route, you will need to put in a lot of turret time.
Each tank comes with a crew that can be trained to put out fires, repair damage, apply first aid and camouflage each tank to improve effectiveness on the battlefield. The higher the experience, the better chances of quicker recovery and a win on the battle. It’s important to help out the team or you may eventually find yourself struggling to get enough experience and exchange gold to repair and resupply. This isn’t much of an issue for premium account holders. Whether you win or not, you still get experience and exchange gold. But a premium account entitles you to double of each. Players can also use regular gold to buy elite status tanks which can be a good or a bad thing.
Premium Account Benefits
Premium account status can be secured by using Gold purchased through the WoT site. A 30 day ($29.99 US) premium account status gives you double experience and exchange credit and will make your progress noticeably quicker. Gold also gets you things like composite-rigid tank rounds and Consumables which include extinguishers to put out engine fires (common hazard of tank war fare), extra rations, chocolate and Cola to raise the tank crew’s morale.
Free account players can create platoons but not tank companies. However, you can join a tank company created by a premium player. Platoons make it possible to play with one friend. The benefit to tank companies is that commanders can control who comes and goes. Naturally, companies generally consist of more level headed players who understand the importance of team work. If you’re still moving up the ranks, consider using a smaller faster tank for drive by spotting so artillery can take out or severely soften up the opposing force.
Discipline of Steel – Should You Buy a Tank?
So, you want to purchase some gold to buy a new elite status tank. Even if you purchase your entire elite arsenal at the start, you will quickly be defeated on the battlefield unless you learn this important fact: Team work will result in victory over sheer braun just about every time! There in lay the discipline of steel.
Remember, every tank maneuvers, aims and shoots differently. You will require experience to be effective in your new big bad tank. You can bet that experienced progressing players with highly modified tanks that rival or surpass yours are on the opposing side. A better experienced opponent will quickly defeat you given the game matches up tiered tanks rather than based on player stats. It takes practice to figure out each tank class’ performance.
Lone wolves and small groups who don’t plan on playing with the team should know that without team work, defeat is imminent and you won’t progress as quickly. There is no amount of armor or weaponry that can save a tank if your entire team scatters like ants near a fire leaving artillery and flag exposed. If you don’t plan on ever supporting the team, the game isn’t for you.
In regular game play, friendly fire is always on. Accidental damage or team killing is automatically, heavily penalized. If you TK or damage too much, your name turns blue. That’s your warning that your account is in jepordy. Again, it does make tank companies all the more appealing. It unfortunately will cost you real money at some point to have that kind of control.
The System Requirements
The game designers chose to use DirectX 9 (DX9) with some high detail mapping, but not enough to require the latest computer hardware. It’s possible they could really fancy it up further like Batman: Arkham Asylum but that would defeat the goal. The minimum system requirements are actually a little on the weak side if you’re running 1080p or higher resolution with medium to high details. An AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000BE CPU, 4GB DDR2 and NVIDIA 9800 GTX system ran the game relatively well keeping a 30 FPS average.
I found that a GTX 260 or HD 5770 was much less restricted and could maintain smoother game play with medium to high textures depending on your resolution. Newer video cards like the GTX 550 Ti or better can handle 8x and higher Texture Filtering on most anything. Expect average frame rates pushing 60 FPS with cards at this level using high details.
Note: When you use the Auto-Detect option in the Graphical tab, the game will unexpectedly freeze for a random amount of time. However, be patient as it will come back with settings ready for you to apply.
Pros and Cons Observed
After a couple weeks of play time, I’ve seen the good and bad. WoT offers a great deal of game time, a lot of technical data to keep you entertained when properly equipping and operating your tanks. Servers are typically pretty stable and average 110 to 130ms latencies. But, it’s not all sunshine and daisies.
Sometimes players will find themselves in a server where they can’t possibly damage the opposing team’s heavier top tier tanks which means quickly being taken out. However, it’s too common that free player higher tier tanks won’t earn enough points to recoup the cost of repairs and supplies even though you win. This is a very common complaint among free players. There’s also no way for progressing players to earn free gold or tank slots.
Last on my list is that you can’t pick your map which would be an awesome feature as some tanks are completely ineffective (even pointless) on certain maps. While one player can’t over spam attack locations on the gride map, a platoon with several immature people can.
Final Thoughts
The game designers at WARGAMING.NET put an enormous amount of planning and research in to World of Tanks creating a unique historical mechanized gaming experience. The challenge for any free/pay to play game is finding a good cohesive balance that gives both types of players an experience that values both whether paying or not. There is easily weeks of turret time for any account type player. By planning more tanks and maps, the value is continually added.
Calculating what I used so far to experience the largest portion of the game, it’s easy to spend between $60 and $75 in a short amount time. On the other hand, for as little as $30 and turret time, you can get pretty far up the food chain which is very good value. Fighting your way to the top will make you a far superior player and you’ll end up respecting the team experience. However, it would be great to see more given to the faithful free players as mentioned in the previous section.
If tank battles don’t interest you, WARGAMING has World of Warships and World of Airplanes all in the works. They are still under the virtual knives in the studio. Keep an eye out for something new this fall. And, one can only hope to see a WoT featuring newer era tanks.
Pros
- Weeks of Free to play time
- Over 110 tiered tanks play
- 24+ playable maps
- Content and updates added
- Premium accounts get more experience and exchange gold
- Doesn’t require a high end system/graphics
Cons
- Can’t select the maps
- No way to earn gold or tank slots (for free players)
- Free players earn less experience and exchange gold
- Free players too often can’t repair and resupply their high tier tanks
- Slightly longer wait times for high tier tank matches
Overall Rating: 8.5/10.0
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