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Pilots!

Since many threads were made and some information is hard to find, I decided to make a separate one for the  events from last week..

When do I get my gold?

We will be sent the results for these events on Monday, the 17th.

They will be processed at that time.

Your gold should be delivered 2 weeks from Monday, so around July 2nd.

Sorry, but this is not an automated event, and must be done manually.

Thanks for understanding!

I know that I am not even close to being able to touch the talent in this game. I make jokes here and there but I look at some of the players in this game and I'm like "Wow!"

With that said i would like to dedicate 10 days out of each month to help people in flights. I have good methods and although I'm only an average pilot I want to make the experience for new guys around here a positive one.

Guys, please be courteous in General Chat, be helpful. I know this is going to sound hippie but, love and peace is the key to happiness.

Help one another. If you help someone in the game it will make them excel and you'll wind up having someone worthy to shoot down. I like this community here and I know there is an invisible inner circle of all the guys who have been around a while. Lets expand that circle and help the new guys with hands on. Form Flights with the new guys.

If you would like to flight and have me help you with a few quirks your trying to get through just send me a message.

World of Battlesheeps... do want!

http://toddnoordyk.c.../sheep-gun.jpeg

Back on topic though, I hope this will clear up speculations about tester applications. All things come to those who wait, and we are working hard to refine the game for release.

Those players got paid 5000 gold for participating in a major stress test. I think WG knew exactly what they were doing.

Why can't they be more specific or answer a question?

I enjoy the game enough that I have no desire to lawn dart or ram a teammate at the start of the round to get my 200, but I am wondering about other crash situations. What if I hit a mountain or lighthouse during a dogfight? What if I collide with a teammate when we are both after the same enemy?

I'm paranoid that I'm going to count my 200 battles and then only find out that 185 of them were acceptable or something. I really wish there was an in game counter of battles toward the 200 goal, you'd think they'd put that sort of thing in the "achievments" menu but "achievments" doesn't seem to have the same meaning here as in other games.

You have to watch this, it's great!
Video

Dear Pilots,

We are happy to announce that we'll lift the NDA restriction on April 4th and give you the "OK" to share your experiences publicly.

Full news text

Note: Please note the FAQ applies to us here as well.
Basically, footage from this patch only!

So if you have old stuff saved, just move it to a different folder or get rid of it, so you do not post on accident.
Other than that, we are good to go!

For the purposes of data gathering, we would still like for you all to post feedback etc in the Closed Beta section.
Otherwise, the data will become very diluted and we will lose track of some of it.

As much as we read, we simply cannot get to it all.
We can however at least get to all the threads in the Closed Beta section.

Two words: Night battles.

Ok, so I have been in CBT since October, and have been trying to remain active in the game, though the long queue times make that a chore. But from what I have played of the game, I am very impressed. However, everywhere I go, people cry out how WT is superior and how WOWP is a crappy game. I would like to know if I am the only one who has played this game and liked it. Some points I'd like to make:

• It's twice the game WoT was at this stage. It has tight MM that WoT didn't see until 7.5, and the game feels way more balanced that WoT does even now. It has superior graphics, lags less, and the game rewards skill more, since camping isn't an option, and the ability of everyone to hurt everyone means low Tiers aren't as hapless as they are in WoT. The sound design knocks WoT's sounds right out of the water as well.
  
• While WoT had absolutely no competition when it came out, WW2 flight simulators are a very old genre, in fact, the oldest genre of Flight Sim (The very first flight sim was about WW2 in the pacific.). That in mind, the fact that there are many games out there that beat a game that is in Beta, should not come as a surprise. You think IL-2 was as glorious as it is now during it's beta?
  
• A lot of people are butt hurt about the exlusion of heavy bombers and landings and takeoff. I don't mind, because I think that if they want to make this game a fast paced fighter centric game, then so be it. As for takeoffs and landings, the very nature of the game makes them rather impractical. What if your base is a carrier, and you are in ME-410? And even if the type of landing strip isn't a problem, what exactly are you going to accomplish by landing? You don't need more fuel or ammo, and in the time you could land and reload bombs and rockets, you could have been airborne and fighting, taking out as many targets with guns as those bombs will accomplished. And that's assuming some enemy fighter doesn't drop a rocket on you while you are landing. Advantageous indeed!

So, I am just here to point out that WoWP has some very strong points, and that we should be grateful that WG has learned from their previous games and is showing improvement in it's series. Every time you ragequit and leave due to the game not meeting your very well measured standards, you delay the games release by depriving the devs of valuable game data, meaning the game will take longer to get to it's full potential, which I see as very glorious in the future. Also, it delays WoWS, which I really want to play, more than WoT and WoWP combined.

Stop QQing and get airborne!

Greetings, pilots, and those who may know me from that earth-bound branch of the Wargaming family.

As seems to be all the rage here, I'd like to share my thoughts on the game, now that bribe event has been completed.

First off, I love aerial combat history, as well as most flight related games.  I consider myself a fair pilot.  Far from great, and barely good on my best days, but I understand the physics of it, at least.  I've been looking for an excuse to try WoWP for some time, so this event was perfect.  I wrangled an invite the week before the event, and started warming up on low tier games.  It took a while to dial my stick in, but I eventually trimmed it out and strted pointing the shootey end of my plane at the red guys.  I took a couple of days off to let the anticipation build, and then started in on day 1.

Of course, a patch hit while I was on my break.  And I immediately noticed a change:  The joystick fumbling I boldly misnamed "evasive flying" was no longer evading anything.  People seemed to follow me through any maneuver I could imagine.  Even throwing the joystick while yelling loudly didn't help.  I soon figured out why.... new default mouse control.  Point at a spot on the screen, and the game flies you there.  Zoom out so you can easily follow the enemy's maneuvers.  The game was no longer a technical excersise, it was now point and click.

As much as I disliked this, I was determined to put the game through its paces.  I switched over to Maus mouse control, bound roll keys so I could correct my plane's tendency to go inverted while 10 feet from the ground, and got back to shooting.  The game was quite frustrating for quite a while.  I concluded that my tier IV 109 was cursed.  I had something like 1.8 kills per battle (quite good in WoT terms) but was only winning a third of my battles.  A similar trend manifested in its tier V brother.  But, as I learned, things got better.

As I walk away from the event, I've gone from excitement, to disappointment, to hatred, to tolerance, to an actual enjoyment of the game.  The tier V 109 is working for me now, and the F4F Wildcat has been great fun.  I may (gasp) keep playing the game for a while.

That being said, the game does have a few issues:

1.  Tier spread doesn't work quite as well as it does in WoT.  Tanks offers such things as scouting, or using hard cover to overcome tier disadvantages.  Here, there are no scouts.  There is no cover.  You're simply in a plane that is weaker in every way than its up-tier brethren.   Sure, with sufficient skill, you can overcome that disadvantage, but it's rough out there for a tier 3.

2.  The game can't seem to decide if it wants to be a sim or arcade.  I wish the game would lean more toward one side.  The arcade elements disrupt the sim experience, and the reality based elements disrupt the arcadey fun.

2a.  The game needs to take one step toward arcade, and borrow WoT's repair kits.  First shot of the game takes my engine?  I don't even want to play the match anymore.  I'll admit, there were a few times when I simply bailed to garage after that happened.

2b.  Ramming.... Oh, my, the ramming.  It should either be heavily penalized, or done away with entirely.  It's simpy too effective a tactic for too many people.  I understand it wasn't as bad before the event, but some adjustments still should be made.

3.  I think heavy fighters/ground attack aircraft set a bad precedent.  Rather than making a player learn how to control their plane well enough to shoot a foe, you give them the option to attack stationary targets, and also give them an AI gunner.  So many times, I saw late game leads lost because our GAA pilots didn't have anything left to shoot at, and could not take down a numerically disadvantaged foe.  I wish I had a better solution.

4.  WoWP should also import some of WoT's post battle reports.  Details are good.

5.  The entire ground attack/superiority mechanic seems off.  I rarely see ground attacks making a difference.  Usually, when one side focuses on ground attacks to get an early advantage, the other team's fighters kill all of the non-bombing planes, leaving the GAA vulnerable.  I can only recall a couple of games where a team with lesser numbers at the end won due to superiority.

I work with some truly amazing people.

One of which is a retired Air Force fighter pilot.  F-4Gs, F-5s, and F-16s.  Weasel.  Aggressor.  (If you don't know either of these terms, look them up - "Wild Weasel" and "Aggressor Squadron").  One of the nicest guys and best sticks I've ever flown with.

In a discussion of World War 2 aircraft, he said I should watch this video.  He said "It'll put a lump in your throat".

I thought, yeah, right.  Until I watched it.  And he was right.  I watched it again, and again, and again.  Now I never flew in the military, but nearly every male relative I have served in some part, including Army, Navy, Army Air Force, and Marines.  It just....well....watch for yourself:




Then there are the guys that exemplify this video.  While I don't work for this specific company, I LOVE flying with guys like the ones you see here.  They come to work, and make you want to be there.  To go out, flight after flight, day after day, and say "yeah, this is what I do".




Thanks guys.

No more "ghosting" through enemy plane carcasses!

Real collisions please. If you want a kill so badly that you don't pull away in time to avoid the enemy wreckage, it should kill you.

I would like to see the Autopilot removed and replaced with an "Air Cushion," as was stated would happen quite a while ago.

http://ic.pics.livej...5/25716/900.jpg
Photo from E3 2012

Dear Future Pilots.

Welcome to Wargaming

Wargaming currently has three major development offices:
Minsk (Belarus) for the released World of Tanks,
Kiev (Ukraine) for World of Warplanes, and
Saint Petersburg (Russia) for World of Battleships. (Not to be confused with World of Battlesheeps)

World of Warplanes has recently progressed from Alpha to Closed Beta, and is open for players to apply for access to our closed beta phase.
Closed Beta is as it states is closed to the mass public, but available via application to a limited number. As we progress to release the number of participants within the Closed Beta will increase astronomically, up until we reach the "Open Beta" stage where it will be open to the mass public.

How long does it take to get into the Closed beta?
Applications to join World of Warplanes opened in February 23th with the introduction of Alpha, Within the first 24 hours 100,000 applications were received, With 600,000 applications received by the end of Alpha. Due to the closed beta status of World of Warplanes currently, applications far exceed the amount of closed beta testers. Please be patient as you wait for access, and enjoy our forums and World of Tanks.

I applied for Alpha, Do I need to re-apply for Closed Beta?
No, applications for the Alpha stage are still valid for the Closed Beta stage. You do not need to reapply.

When will Open Beta phase commence? When will World of Warplanes be released?
When World of Warplanes is ready to rock the gaming industry, it will be ready to progress to Open Beta and then release.
At the moment, there is no official ETA's , Please be patient in regards to this, and try to avoid speculation of dates within the forums.


Enjoy your stay, And I hope to see you in the air soon.

Just wanted to pass on what happened this morning.

went to a 7/11 this morning not the usual place i go as it was early.

got my coffee and cake (breakfast of champions).

when i got to the checkout to pay the clerk said "its taken care of."

one of the regulars had left money to pay for my coffee and cake.

as  usual I had my Vietnam Veteran hat on.

it bought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes.

I wanted to do the same for him but the clerk said John  wouldnt want that.

so I wrote john a thank you note and will drop that off with a few lottery tickets for him.

vac_mo

I would like to see the ammunition implemented, with various types of ammunition and the ability to set up a 5 round sequence with any type/order of ammunition.
i.e. if I wanted AP, HE, HE, HE, AP, or HE-I, HE, HE, AP, HE.

Sinking ships as opposed to the floating wrecks present in the game now.

Over the weekend I dove into WoWP, playing 130+ battles – other than being a way to pretty much kill the weekend, it gave me a chance to take a good look at it, and I now offer my thoughts to the community at large.

Me:

Ok, I wrote an epic-length review here; it’s only fair to tell you who I am to give you a reference point; call it establishing ‘forum cred’ if you will. I’m a 19 year USAF pilot, with about 5000 total hours (if you’re not familiar, this is a respectable amount of flight time, but not a huge amount – just means I’ve been flying for most of my career…) A disclaimer: I am NOT a fighter pilot – all I’m arguing here is that, as a career pilot, I should have a feel for how airplanes work…    I also make no claim to be better than anyone else here at WoWP by reason of my job – heck, I’ll post my stats at the end, so you can get a good laugh…

On with the review!

The Flight Physics:

At first, I was frustrated by the game’s overall lack of realism in the realm of flight physics. The very first thing I did after entering a training game was point my little tier one airplane at the sky, to see how the game handled stall mechanics – and here I was pleasantly surprised, as the airplane slowed nicely, gave me a polite warning, and a gentle stall. Cool.

What did bug me on some levels is the lack of a lift vector calculation of some kind – meaning, the wings generate the lift in a given direction based on the aircraft’s orientation… well, tell ya what, let’s skip Aviation Physics 101 and go to an example with what I tried after my stall experiment – rolling my little tier 1 into a 90 degree bank, and just holding it there. Nothing happens… Now, in a real airplane, as I’d have just pulled my lift vector out of vertical and placed it parallel with the ground, nothing would be offsetting the force of gravity. Translation: I’d fall out of the sky.

The other aspect worth mentioning is energy – managing energy is pretty important in an airplane, and WoWP does give you some changes – your speed decreases as you climb, increases in a dive, allowing you (to an extent) to change energy states; it’s not quite as drastic (in my opinion) as in a real airplane, but it gets the idea across.

You’ll note I started the section with ‘At first I was frustrated…’. Here’s the thing – the more I played, and the more I found myself thinking of this less as a full-blown flying simulation and more of an arcade style game – and I think that’s on purpose. (if it isn’t, well, forgive me!) The more though I gave the issue, the more I realized that there is just enough flight physics to make things fun (yes, you CAN pick up too much speed at the bottom of a loop close to the ground, for example, and pancake yourself into a hilltop! Or, uh, so I’ve heard…) without so much ‘realism’ that it becomes more work keeping your airplane in the air under control than to actually fight the other team. Once I got my mind into ‘arcade mode’, I found I was enjoying the game a lot more. It still bugs me sometimes – mostly when I notice I’ve been in 90 degrees of bank chasing someone for an extended period of time, or that I’ve been inverted for about half the battle and the physics don’t change – but for an arcade, casual shooter, I’ve come to believe the game does a great job of including just enough physics to be fun, without too much; a nice balance.

Controls

Again, much like the flight physics, the game does a nice job of giving you just enough options in the flight control department that the airplanes are responsive and fun to control without having to really understand the basics of the controls – anyone who’s played flying video games is going to feel right at home.

At the same time, there is enough there that folks who DO understand flight controls are going to find some bonuses – coordinated turns with the rudder pull your nose around faster (as they should) allowing you to get inside of the guy you’re tailing; using the vertical can help you pull tighter turns; the flaps (on aircraft equipped with them) can also tighten the radius up – so, mirroring my comments on physics, I found the controls to be a good balance; just enough meat there to be satisfying in the environment without being overwhelming.

The one thing that was hard for me to get my head around ties back in to the lack of a lift vector – in an airplane, if I push the stick to the left, I roll my wings left – a change around the longitudinal axis, and the game does this, so we’re good so far. In real life, I’ll also have tilted my lift vector to the left, so the airplane will start to turn left all by itself, just by virtue of the bank and the altered lift vector (note: I’ll also have to add some back pressure to hold my altitude if I want to make a level turn). In game, though, it’s not enough to induce bank to turn, you HAVE to pull yourself around a turn by banking then pulling. I mention this because I’ve seen folks in lower tiers who attempt to evade fire, and just end up in a straight ahead aileron roll – I think they THINK they’re turning away from a threat, but really they’re just holding the stick to one side and rolling without going anywhere. So, again – good for arcade style once you get used to it, but one aspect that I wish was better. Then again, I’m not sure they could change anything – a more complicated physics system would truly be more trouble than it’s worth, I think.

I’ll put a blurb here for my thoughts on having a cockpit view – I’m actually against it in this style of game. To me, a cockpit view is a hallmark of a flight sim – and, as I’ve said, I think this really is more of a multiplayer arcade shoot-em-up with airplanes (again, that’s not a bad thing!) I think a cockpit mode really isn’t needed – however, I know there are folks on the forum who feel differently; just thought I’d weigh in with my opinion, for whatever it’s worth.

The Game Itself:

If you’ve read the novel here up to this point, you’ve seen the theme: if you’re looking for a high fidelity combat flight simulator, this isn’t it. (But, to be fair, I don’t think it’s billed that way!) If you, on the other hand, are looking for a casual arcade-style flying sim – then yeah, I think WoWP does a nice job in this realm. It has a nice balance of fun vs. physics, and has a model which rewards skill while at the same time being very playable by beginners, too. I’ve had a great time with the beta, and will most likely stick with it after we go live.

Wait times for battle queues seem to be pretty under control – granted, I’ve only played fighters up through Tier IV, but from what I’ve seen, wait times averaged just over a minute with the shortest being 30 about thirty seconds, and the longest being just over 2 minutes.

Issues/glitches:

I’ve only seen one real glitch to date – where the program failed to draw the airplane I was chasing, so I couldn’t see it. I could see the targeting circle in front of it, the symbol above where the airplane was supposed to be, but the airplane itself did not render. (I’ve seen this twice; in one instance it appeared I still could damage the invisible aircraft, in the other it appeared I could not). In both instances, the other aircraft in question was one of the early german heavy fighters – Tier II, I believe. That’s it – two isolated incidents in 130+ battles, so from what I’ve seen, the game runs great.

My performance!

OK, I did promise you a laugh. Keep in mind, this includes a disproportionate amount of dying in the first 20 missions or so – first I was getting used to the game, then I finally decided a gamepad wasn’t doing to for me and switched to a joystick (not required, but in my opinion, highly encouraged to really get the most out of the game!) A couple of shameful midairs with friendly aircraft early, and lots and lots of CFIT (edit: sorry, that's an acronym for Controlled Flight Into Terrain - smacking a perfectly good plane into the ground for no good reason!) – and, honestly, still every once in a while if I get disoriented following a bad guy and lose awareness on where I am in relation to the ground! But, here ya go – the Air force guy has, as of this writing:

Battles: 131
Victories: 72 (55%)
Defeats: 59 (45%)
Survived: 45 (34%) (Ouch!)

Aircraft destroyed: 129
Assists: 0 (???  How do you get assists, anyway?)
Ground targets destroyed: 25
Hit ratio: 20%
Damage caused to aircraft: 8287
Damage caused to ground targets: 7690
Targets detected: 222

Total advantage points: 137
Experience: 85160
Avg experience per battle: 254
Max exp: 1060

So, yeah – not all that impressive, probably a lot of folks with much better track records out there! I do find, for some reason, I really love the tier III and lower aircraft – I’m having a hard time adjusting to the tier IV aircraft I have available, and they’re frustrating me (for example, while I can generally pull a reversal on someone if we’re in II’s and III’s, if you get on my tail in my IV I’m pretty much toast. Not sure why it seems so much harder in those airplanes…) I’m afraid this trend will continue – have to see when I unlock the V’s if it’s the same way…  Oh, well, worth a look!

Good hunting! Wave if you see me out there (before or after you shoot me down, your choice!)
Jeff

Static "distance to target" indicators as there was before, or at least add an option to enable it. So instead of having to press Alt to see that I am 2528m to my ally and 1395m to my enemy it always says so. If not that, add static indicators to the locked target for the HUD as well as on the locked target camera in the bottom left corner. Unlike in World of Tanks where distance doesn't determine how far your shots will carry, distance in World of Warplanes is a crucial element of the battle and should be readily displayed -at all times-.