Free-to-play micro-transaction games SUCK!

[Swad]

...well, at least that I've found with every game I've tried which used this model to bring money in--until World of Tanks (http://www.worldoftanks.com/). I figure since a small handful of us have been playing it, it should get a mention here. It's a game which can be played entirely for free, but dropping some money can help a person progress more quickly to new tanks, open up more space to keep tanks, buy higher tier tanks right off the bat and so forth. Overall, though, spending money doesn't give you any real tactical advantage in the game. You can choose to not drop a dime and have quite a bit of fun.

While they kindof try to spin it like an MMO, it really isn't so much. It's more like a FPS game with tanks. Each round pits 15 v 15 tanks on a battlefield with the objective being to destroy the other side, or take over their flag. You gain experience and credits for various things in a round which you use to research and buy improvements to an existing tank or to work towards a new tank. There's also various angles of improving your tank crew so they are more efficient in their job.

All in all, it's worth a look if you like a good shooter. It's strangely addicting--you think you're just going to pop in for a match or two and about a dozen later, you wonder what ever happened to just playing one round. It's pretty fun to play with a couple others as well. This does bring up a big downside to it, though. Sadly, without playing in organized clan matches, you can't play with more than 3 people together at a time, and the battles are made up of random people using matchmaking. You can't get more than 3 together outside of the pure luck chance you might run across people from another platoon in a random battle, but that's pure chance (and has happened a couple times).

Give it a shot if it sounds remotely interesting. It's about a 2GB download and will cost you nothing to try out. A person can easily get into the first 2-3 tiers of tanks without much effort, and again--you don't have to spend a dime if you don't want. You could see most of the entire game without spending money, but you'll just see it at a lot slower pace. Some of us have liked it well enough that we have dropped money on it because it really is that good of a game.

[SilverTalon]

To follow up on Swad's comments, the game is oddly addictive. One more round turns into a dozen, especially when you get knocked out early by out-driving any form of support and running into something you can't handle (i.e. - "The Cannonball Manuever").

I've already sunk about as much time into in two weeks as I have into many of the AAA $50-60 titles.

One thing that Swad did overlook is the MMO aspect is hidden in the Clan Wars piece of it where you can "battle" over various parts of "Europe" and the "Med" (as is viewable at: WoT: Clan Wars (http://uc.worldoftanks.com/uc/clanwars/maps/earth/reg_01/) ). Essentially, you can grind on random battles to get your tank and crew ready to participate in large-scale organized activities with a static social group...which does bear a striking similiarity to the gameplay of...I don't know...WoW and by extension every other MMO. I just point that out random people don't think that the developers are inflating what their game is. ;)

However, we obviously have played for weeks (months in some cases) without touching that aspect and we still have fun driving by the smoking wreck that used to be CB...

[Stang]

Sorry no mines to run over and blow people up so it will bore me quickly ;). Who makes a game without that?!

[SilverTalon]

You can drive into artillery fire if it makes you feel better, I'm quite the master at it apparently. Much the same result as a mine too.

[CannonBall]

This is a really fun game. I really enjoy the history of some of these tanks. The upgrades are historically acurate, you can't put a M1A2 on T1 Cunningham. So I've been researching some of my favorite tanks M5 Stuart, M4A3E8 Sherman and that has made the game even more enjoyable.
I leveled up to the tier 3 tanks and paid nothing. The whole losing time thing does happen. Many times I've logged on for a map or two and look up and almost 3hrs is gone.

"This game is great! It is much better than Cats. I will play it again and again."for all you old farts who remember the old SNL skit.

[SilverTalon]

Swad today mentioned learning more about WW2 tanks than he ever learned in school by trying to figure out what tanks are likely to be ok and which ones are going to blow goats until you get them upgraded. :)

Of course, some tanks just always suck...we're looking at you T1 Heavy.

[Ghryphen]

I have an account, *****rc (http://uc.worldoftanks.com/uc/accounts/1000841446-*****rc/)

[Swad]

Cool--I added you.

Mine is Swad.

[SilverTalon]

I too have been snuggles adding.

Mine is the same as most contact names outside of ATF :p

[Grunt]

Ok I've actually started playing this now as well. I'll add those of you that have posted your names on here. Of course mine is SOBGrunt/ (http://uc.worldoftanks.com/uc/accounts/1000893463-sobgrunt/)

[Swad]

Cool. Dane and Skillet play as well (Danerune and Plankeye in game, respectively). CB is CBonius. Don't let Gryph fool you--he doesn't really play. :p

[Shadowspirit]

Downloading now. My user name is shadowkins.

[Grunt]

Was glad that I was finally able to hook up with you guys and get on TS tonight. Twas a good time. So I took the time to read the manual and here's the deal with Tank Companies:


Tank company is a group of players with up to 15 participants. Note
that the total level of all the tank company participants’ vehicles
cannot be less than 70 or over 90.


You also need to have a premium account. I don't think we'd have enough points to hit the min thanks to slakers such as myself....

[Swad]

Yeah, don't think we could get the numbers w/o outside help. As a reference point, you'd need 10 people with an average tank level of 7 just to do that, which we can't, really.

[SilverTalon]

Not so much anyway. It does take a bit of effort to get to the T7 tanks.

Yay Shadoez joining the dark side!

Did anyone notice they're making a warplane variant? :)

[Grunt]

Did anyone notice they're making a warplane variant? :)

Yea but that would mean having to buy a joystick if you actually want to be competitive more than likely.... :(

[Spinning Hat]

Airplanes? I'm totally in. And I have a really kick ass joystick I got as a present a few years ago that I hardly ever use.. :D

[SilverTalon]

I thought a joystick that was always underutilized was standard-issue to all married men... :rimshot:

But yes, it appears they're working on World of Warplanes (yes, questionable acronym overlap there) with the same basic model to gameplay. I don't know if they're going to go all the way back to WW1 or start in the inter-war years like WoT does, but I am curious how they plan to handle the Meteor and the Schwalbe (for those who slept through history, the first Allied and German jet fighters, respectively). Both were operational in 1944, but even back during the war they made prop aircraft pretty much obsolete; there just weren't enough available.

No dates or anything announced yet, so we'll have to see how it goes I suppose.

[Stoke]

I'm in. Just downloaded it.

Stoke85.

[SilverTalon]

Wow...it took me this long to check the forums to see Stokeles was on board. :( These are the signs that work is hectic I suppose.

Welcome aboard Stoke!

[Stoke]

Well.. I played that one night so far.... Have not had the time to get back in there because like you said... 1 quick game led to me sitting there for about 2 hours.

[SilverTalon]

My typical evening in WoT (especially on non-work nights):

1) Clear out the double XP (most of them being lines I'm working on or tanks I really like)
2) Pick "Tank of the Evening"
3) Enter match
4) Get killed doing something CB-like
5) Exclaim "Oh that was bullshit!"
6) Pick another tank until that round is over
7) Repeat steps 3-6
8) Repeat step 7 multiple times
9) Wonder why the second airing of Family Guy is on Adult Swim

[Stoke]

I was just driving around getting killed.

[SilverTalon]

Warplane version has a promotional site now at the cryptically named: http://www.worldofwarplanes.com/

Interesting that they're including jet fighters since they weren't really good dogfighters as I understand it, just vicious against big lumbering bombers.

[Grunt]

Eh, I'll try it since it'll be free but doubt I'll get into the planes much. Never been much of a flyer.

On another note, I've finally got 2 Tier VI tanks!

[Swad]

What do you have in T6?

[Grunt]

The T34-85 and the VK 3001 (H)