[ALL] Casual Style

Our Saint Petersburg dev studio, Lesta, which is now working on amazing World of Warships has a couple of semi-independent divisions, one, which is pretty much known - video department, while the other one is mostly unknown - casual games department.

Those guys, by the way, did awesome job creating some of the top hidden object games out there - Nightmare Realm and Nightmare Realm In the End.

More screenshots from the latter here.

[WoT] The Tank Museum

The Tank Museum in Bovington (UK) is one of the coolest tank museums I have ever visited - and I have seen quite a few! It's enormous! I was only able to spend about four hours in the museum, and I assure you I could easily have spent an entire weekend in there, basking in the beautiful steel creatures. I took over 300 photos, including some in their private storage sheds, and I will share some of the juiciest ones here. Even more impressive, about a third of these tanks are still running and occasionally get taken out for a spin around the block!

Let's start with our favorite era, World War II... naturally, there are loads of British tanks. Of course, part of this is because the museum is located next to the Royal Armoured Corps headquarters and training base. As one of the staff there put it, whatever they can't find a use for goes into the museum. There are also a bunch of German tanks, shipped to the UK during the war for research and testing. Plus some American tanks that we left behind as just too expensive to ship back to the US. Occasional odd Soviet, French, Italian, and even Japanese tanks can also be found here. Here's a look at some of them (keeping in mind that you're only getting a small taste of the museum!).

Warning: Lots of scrolling below!

First off, the British - after all, it's their museum!

Mk IIA Light Tank

Valentine - note the target on the turret!

Black Prince - lots of tiny wheels!

Centurion Mk I

Comet

Covenanter - lots of bolts!

Crusader in desert camo - obviously a "Wallet Warrior"!

Sherman Firefly (British upgrade with 17 pdr gun)

TOG - and you probably thought we made it up!

Tortoise - this one hasn't moved in years, just like the ones I see in WoT!

This oddity consists of a tracked metal garden shed and a piece of naval artillery!

One for the French...

Char S35 Somua, with handy window for traveling in style...

And now the Germans - quite a selection!

Jagdtiger - yes, it's as big as it looks!

Panther, built by the British Army in a captured German factory at the end of the war!

Jagdpanther, also made by the British Army in the same captured German factory!

StuG III with logs (for fascine and for extra camouflage and protection)

Luchs (PzKpfw IIL) - one of only two left in the world!

A more ordinary PzKpfw II

Hetzer gonna Hetz!

PzKpfw VIE Tiger - and it runs! (They wouldn't let me drive it though!)

King Tiger with Porsche turret (this one is an original mockup with fake armor and no engine)

Another King Tiger, this one a production model with Zimmerit

Leopard (no, not the WWII scout, the postwar MBT!)

Where does this one go?

T-26 captured by the Finns (that's a Finnish swastika, not a German one!)

The Yankees seem to have left some of their equipment behind!

M24 Chaffee, named after famous American general Adno Chaffee

M3 Lee - the tank destroyer known as a tank

M22 Locust - it's so cute, I wanted to put it in my pocket!

M10 Wolverine with a coat of whitewash

This is the oldest known surviving Sherman - it's an original M4A1 (training model) sent with the first batch of Lend-Lease vehicles. Note the extra ports in the front for fixed machineguns.

M5A1 Stuart (I wonder why they didn't camo the turret?)

Patton (the tank, not the general!)

 A couple of Soviet tanks, probably re-captured from the Germans during the War!

KV-1 sponsored by the Leningrad Women's Front (although the "Za" should be in front of "Leningrad" - I think the artist thought it was an alphanumeric 3A!).

SU-76M

Meanwhile, the warehouses out back are still full of even more dusty tanks (not part of the normal tour - special for Wargaming staff!).

Yes, a halftrack Land Rover - the only one of its kind!

Interesting goodies from all over the world. Recognize any of them?

A turret's-eye view of another warehouse full of armor

What would the article be without a plug for the home team?

The Wargaming.Net Education Centre - guess who sponsors this?  :-)

In the Education Centre, students can try on hot wool tanker uniforms. Fun!

I think the body armor and brain bucket are more fun than the stuffy uniforms!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this small tour. Like I said, I have plenty more pictures, if you're interested!  :-)

[WoT] Sounds Like The Engine

You asked for reaaal engine sounds? You will get them.

Recording real-life T-44. 

Stug III with dismounted engine. Recording track sounds.

BT-7's turn.

[WoT] Will The Tanker

Not a big fan of Sims-series, enjoyed Spore though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k9-svog-uBs#t=1686s

It's even better than Golden Joystick, I think.

Thanks, Will. :)

[WoWP] Planes Need Some Love

Do you play World of Warplanes closed beta? Why? Why not? Will you join open beta once it starts?

What do you think of the current attack planes role in combat? If it's not ok, how would you change it?

Do you happen to know that NDA has been lifted?

Share your thoughts!

[ALL] Bunker Party

As you might know, this year Wargaming is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Following Slavic drinking tradition, we are going to throw parties all year round. Not that personally I'm a party goer, but couldn't resist giving this one a shot.

Preceding Russian gamedev expo KRI 2013 which we are skipping this year because of WG devcon we had a press-conference followed by party in the one and only extant Cold War underground bunker situated at 65 meters underground in the center of Moscow which territory contains an interactive museum, conference-halls, a restaurant, a banquet-hall. 

Bunker-42 in Moscow

It's really deep underground, good that they have elevators. Though on my way there, I used stairs which somewhat regretted afterwards.

Floor minus 17

All communications are on the "outside"

There used to be no red carpet back in the 60-ies

Labyrinth

Wargaming eye-check

There event started with press-conference for ~250 attendees dedicated to WG anniversary. Victor K. went deep into the corporate history, starting with DBA online (first online try), great Massive Assault series which brought company some fame, but not money, and work with publishers. 

World of Tanks became "all-in" project for Wargaming. The company invested all of its remaining resources men- and money-wise, so it was either win or lose. Luckily, the first. The key success factors were experience earned with previous projects, smart game concept, solid corporate culture, lots of luck, and support from East-European market at early stages after the launch. Nowadays World of Tanks covers most of the planet, probably apart from Japan, Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The company itself saw a 25-fold increase since the start of the project and now has personnel of 1500 in 14 offices around the globe.

Press-conference hall

My spot

WoT Blitz closed demonstration was there

After the press-conference we had first closed demonstration of World of Tanks Blitz, mobile game of iOS and Android, in Russia. Even though the game is still at pretty early stage (pre-alpha), it us already able to generate a lot of fun in dynamic 7 vs 7 tank battles, even though the demo build contained only 2 maps and 9 tanks. This demo was hopefully the last one where we used on i-devices, next time will try to go for cross-platform warfare. 

The main comments on Blitz were - connection requirements, beta/release dates, integration with PC WoT (practically covered in previous posts here and here)

My only concern now is whether the mobile market ready for that kind of deep and real-time challenge or not. :)