At GDC 2017, Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi spoke about past mistakes. Above all, the botched Rubicon update for World of Tanks. At the same time, he believes in the lasting success of World of Tanks, even though it is a significant challenge.
Wargaming’s boss Victor Kislyi spoke at GDC 2017 in San Francisco with colleagues from Polygon about past mistakes and plans for the future of the games World of Tanks and World of Warships. He also admitted to some unpleasant failures.
World of Tanks – Rubicon wasn’t that great
One of the worst failures in the history of World of Tanks was the Update 9.12 (formerly 10.0) “Rubicon” at the end of 2015. The update was supposed to bring new maps and a game mode called Rampage, which allowed limited respawns like its competitor War Thunder. Additionally, there were artillery strikes to call in and even gas attacks to eliminate the enemy crew.
The gas attack was then removed because “gassing” people in a game about tanks and World War II was probably too disrespectful and also poorly balanced. Then there was the terrorist attack in Paris in November 2015, and out of respect, one of the two new maps, the Paris map, was also removed from the patch.
Only the Rampage mode remained, in which you could win an extremely good T-22 tank. This tank was very strong and was supposed to serve as a reward for top players. However, some guilds cheated and arranged victories among themselves to quickly get the super tanks. The Rampage mode was later removed, and according to Kislyi, the players, especially the Russians, were still angry for years.
World of Tanks: Praise instead of Trolls
As a consequence of the Rubicon debacle, Kislyi radically restructured the team. Until then, the team had been strongly Belarus-focused, with a headquarters in Minsk and a rather poor understanding of the English language. Therefore, Kislyi brought new people into the team and made everything more international.
All of this took years, but now the Wargaming team is much better at responding to player requests and improving the game. According to Victor, this is evident as players are playing more than before. But also according to Victor’s own experience, improvements can be observed.
The big boss plays World of Tanks himself every day for an hour, and under his real name. This is well known, and he always receives numerous messages from players. In the past, these were mainly complaints, insults, and trolling. Today he mainly hears gratitude and praise.
More Freedom for Warships and Warplanes
Part of Kislyi’s changed company strategy is that he wants to have less direct influence on his developers. Especially with the ship offshoot World of Warships, the boss insisted too much that the new game should be like World of Tanks with ships. In hindsight, this was a mistake, as many players have turned their backs on World of Warships after its initial success.
The development teams now have more freedom and are supposed to decide for themselves how to evolve the games based on player feedback and community requests. Overall, Wargaming wants to focus on the flagship World of Tanks in 2017.
World of Tanks: “Winter is Coming and Will Not Pass!”
The plans for World of Tanks in 2017 include a complete graphics overhaul of the game. This is expected to be completed by August, keeping World of Tanks fit for the future. Kislyi said:
“We have recognized that World of Tanks can exist forever. But we must prepare for a long winter. Winter is coming and it will not go away. But this is a good problem. The approach should be to make a game that is built like the pyramids, for centuries or millennia.”
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