How much does Wargaming live.Net?

More recently (October 29), another round of testing of the game “Caliber” from, well -known, well -known, Wargaming.Net. This time the game reached its final stage before the official release – OBT. This means that we have a rare occasion to talk about Wargaming’s projects, as well as about the company as a whole outside the framework of the only world of tanks.

Probably, now no one will remember how at one time with what pomp was the announcement of the game “Caliber”. I remind you that this event occurred during the so-called WG Fest’a in 2017 on December 17. The developer was 1C Game Studios, who promised players the opportunity to try on the role of an employee of one of the special. units, realistic behavior and use of weapons, modern equipment. The PVP and PVP were promised by PVP and a lot more.

And so, after almost two years, the game goes to the finish line after short “open weekends”, about which people learned literally by accident, and after an hour and after their end, for some reason the game is very quiet, without the usual active and, one might say, aggressive PR company, comes out for the general public. There is a logical and, at the same time, obvious question – why?

The brief answer sounds quite simple – the game came out not just raw or not interesting. And it’s not even a small amount of content or clumsy physics in conjunction with the poverty of animation and banal capabilities of fighters. The point is precisely the sum of all these shortcomings, which we will briefly talk about later.

Caliber now is not just the failure of Wargaming.Net. This is her real disgrace.

Let us, for starters, consider all the disadvantages and, nevertheless, some successful moments (it is successful moments, since it simply won’t turn their pluses of them) the game “Caliber” itself, and only then we will trace the whole path of WG, from its first projects, to the very caliber, in fact, “caliber”. All this ultimately helps us answer two important questions raised in this article – how Wargaming has come to this, and, most importantly, what will happen to the company?

“Caliber” and all-all-all

The first question that arises in a person who has played this project for some time-for whom this game? That, according to the developers, is the target audience of this game?

If the CAR of “caliber” is tankers, then this is not at all like. The main reason for the fact that the World of Tanks is still functioning, why play the average tanker to play something else? Moreover, the gameplay of the “caliber” is quite fast (compared to tank), there are no bushes, artillery analogues, and Time-to-Kill is enough (again in comparison with the tank). Well, and most importantly, as mentioned above, why, if there are already tanks?

If the game is aimed primarily at lovers of realism, then here the “caliber” awaits failure. Despite a number of fairly interesting fitness related to realism, and those killed by the developers themselves a heap of other simplifications, the fighter’s gameplay capabilities are as poor and scarce as this could be done at all. Think about whether it is impossible to move in plastunas or to lie down, to look out from around the corner, it is impossible to conduct a premature of the terrain and a lot of those things for which military simulators appreciate the type of Arma 3 and their like. In a word, this tsar will simply not be interested in playing the “caliber” for the reasons described above.

If the game is aimed at lovers of fast arcade shooters like Call of Duty in the best years of this series or the Counter Strike series, then the developers are waiting for a nudach. The reasons why this would be enough to write a small book, but we will only list the most obvious-slow gameplay, poverty of animation and capabilities of a fighter (lack of jumps, straps, look from the corner and other modern features of the current arcade jockeys), and a number of elements that complicate and slow down the gaming process, such as the presence of a scale of fatigue and itSlow restoration, as well as reloading the whole store, and not standard arcade dialogue for the clip until full.

In a word, one gets the impression that the developers did not understand for whom they are going to release a “caliber”.

Question two or, more precisely, a problem that smoothly follows from the above – the developers of the game did not find the balance between arcade components and realism.

The entire store of the store is taken as a basis – this is really an original and, at the same time, a realistic solution that distinguishes the “caliber” from its competitors. However, the inability to replenish stores between rounds in the PVP, a huge temporary ban on replenishment of these same stores at points (5 minutes in PVA and as many as 15 minutes in PVP), almost completely kills any tactical component of the game. So that you understand, Cool-Down does not last on a separate round, but for the entire match. That is, a long and intense match of 5 rounds will end rather than Cool-Down will subside. In addition, some operatives do not have the opportunity to carry many stores with them. Even after their complete pumping (about which below). Of course, the desire of developers put players in the framework where each cartridge on the account is good. However, why prohibit players to replenish horns between rounds? And most importantly, what kind of tactical task the player should solve immediately at the beginning of the round, rushing to the next box to replenish stores on one of the ends of the card?

As a result, players are forced to spend the first minutes of subsequent rounds not on occupying any favorable positions, not to receive a tactical advantage, any planning, etc.D. And to reach the next box in the corner of the card to replenish your already meager supply of cartridges. By the way, exclusively shops are replenished here. No grenades, no shells for RPGs and other funds – it is not provided. That is, the active gameplay proceeds only in the first rounds of the game – in the future, players use only small arms.

Another moment causing at least bewilderment is the impossibility of a fighter to look around the corner. What kind of tactics can be about, if the fighter of a special unit hardened in training and, with a high degree of probability, having real combat experience, instead of gently peering out due to shelter or angle to evaluate the situation, must literally jump out with his whole body on the enemy? And the inability to lie down and crawl in principle puts a cross on any attempt to realism in Caliber – any consultant (but not in WG) will confirm that the most effective and effective position for shooting is the position of lying. In addition, the lying fighter is most protected from the enemy’s response, and most disguised on the ground.

However, even the possibility of moving sitting, which is made in Caliber also does not withstand any criticism – shelters are made in such a way that you can only hide behind them, but not fire. However, if you think that these shelters can reliably hide you from enemy fire, I hasten to disappoint. And the point is not even that they are destroyed (which is good), the point is that, despite the fact of the fighter behind the shelter, the enemy still has the opportunity to come close enough, and shoot a specialist sitting behind this very shelter. Moreover, for this, he does not even need to rise to any hill. Therefore, the only reliable shelter in the caliber is the banal wall of the house. Realism in pure form, yeah.

I would like to mention the scale of the endurance of the security forces separately. It was made in order to return the “caliber” to the channel of realistic simulators again and not let the players be thoughtlessly worn on the map, shooting at all of the thigh 24/7. However, the implementation of this mechanics is made in the best traditions of games from Wargaming. Not only is it practically not replenished when your fighter’s rest is, in principle, it is not replenished between rounds in the PVP, which leads to a situation when your fighter is simply not able to run (even at super -short distances) already 2 or 3 of the round. What is even more sad – the possibility of your fighter is directly tied to this or that special for which they take it: the medic stops treating, a sniper – to carry out the intelligence of the terrain, a machine gunner – the possibility of obtaining a temporary bonus to armor and perseverance, etc.D. Moreover, there is simply no logical explanation for all this-both from the implementation of the elements of realism in the game, and from the creation of some game restrictions for the sake of something.

This looks especially funny in the context of developers’ attempts to create a certain element of realism: fighters who have passed hard selection, who gave several years to improve their physical form, have passed heavy trials, fighters of special forces, selected, selected and trained to transfer all the hardships that may fall to their share during certain special operations, as well as leadingcombined arms and special battle, are not able to make short bastards from shelter to shelter after passing several hundred meters. Even after short -term breaks or completely leaving the battle. Moreover, this applies to all types of operatives, regardless of the weight of their equipment, equipment and weapons.

A separate, third point, a whole heap of problems can distinguish a system of pumping and progression in the game. For people who are familiar with the world of tanks there will be no revelations here – it is linear. That is, you will have to go into battle for the same operative over and over again, play the same cards (which, by the way, do not abound in the game at the moment) for the sake of pumping the next opportunity for your fighter. Moreover, the possibility of choosing what to download before, and what – later, no one will give you. The developers themselves thought for you and set up progression in such a way that the most necessary modules are such as replacing a standard sight or the opportunity to take additional stores, was given to the player as later as possible. If you bring an analogy with tanks, you are literally forced to play 100-200 battles by car before you allow it to pump it to at least some dosage state. Free experience? It is, however, because of the linear system of progression, you will have to open all those unnecessary and less important elements before you are given the opportunity, finally, pumping additional. shops or good sight. In a different way-nothing. Here, it is already recalled not the phrase “periodically must be postponed” ©, but by the completely distant expression of Sergei Borisovich: “suffer, n%; as, your torment delight us”.

Of course, all this https://new-king-casino.co.uk/ is done with the only purpose – to make the player as soon as possible (and as much and more often as possible) start investing real money in the game.

A few words about Donat. More recently, on Open weekend, half of the operatives in caliber was available exclusively for donat. Of the 22 operatives presented in the game, 4 were for packets of “early access” and another 7 – exclusively for game gold. There were also 7 free operatives, not counting 4 training sessions, which were given to you initially in order to familiarize yourself with the game, classes of operatives, and its gaming mechanics. Now the player can save a long time for the opening (still) not all the operatives in the game, or open them immediately behind Real Madrid. Moreover, as the developers themselves hypocritically write, having done this, you will save time by buying everyone exclusively for real money. Apparently, the laurels of the developers Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint do not allow Wargaming to live calmly.Net.

As mentioned above, you can list all the disadvantages of the game for a very long time. We will touch only a superficial one of another important question that all games are asked without exception – for which it is worth playing in Caliber?

For the sake of PVP? At the moment, there is no rating system or “hall of glory”. In fact, there is no award for a good game in the PVP mode now and, it is unlikely, is expected in the near future.

For the sake of pv? This regime is quickly boring due to the monotony of what is happening. You play on the same cards, the number of which does not exceed 6, the same for both modes and made completely mirror. Bots appear in absolutely the same places that you will memorize after the 20th passage of the card simply by heart. The tasks are simple and the same type to terrible – reached, clench, neutral.

For the sake of interesting gameplay? In addition to the problems described above, the cards themselves do not represent something interesting. The environment and physics are strictly crept in, objects can be destroyed in strictly defined places, and the cards themselves are an analogue of tank cards-three corridors, between which there are one or two passes. And so here everywhere.

For the sake of the declared tactical depth? She simply is not here, both in PVP and in PVA modes. All tactics in the PVP is to choose one of the three corridors and walk along it strictly in a crowd. If both teams guessed the corridor, there will be a fight. If not, repeat before the blue or get up to capture the base (oh yes, even here there is the possibility of capturing the base, you also dreamed about it, yes?). In the case of more or less sane commands in the match, everything ends with a reduction in the distance to any non-destroyed wall, and then everything decides from who will pass the first nerves and he will go out under the bullets of the guys standing behind it. As mentioned above, you can get around quickly from the rear (you can get around, of course, only take it the time of 2-3 real time), neither look around the corner, nor often use any improvised means in the form of grenades and other things will not work out from the word at all. As in tanks, the “caliber” does not encourage the player for conducting active hostilities. Unless the developers have not brought here double bushes.

In order to pump all operatives? So because of the horse donat, even half of the operatives you will not be able to pump out without investing real money.

For the sake of some thoughtful and multifaceted pumping of operatives, allowing both the weapons themselves and the security forces themselves and their abilities? And this is not here. Instead of studying the experience of other shooters, understanding why people love this genre, the developers have clicked their proven for years and not the most successful concept of linear pumping, a base, slowed gameplay and increased TTK, and setting all this up for maximum squeezing of money from the consumer.

Even at the beginning of his path, World of Tanks (players can remember) had various options for pumping a number of tanks. Until now, some of them have retained the features of this variability-the KV tank (before its spacing on 2 different KV-1 and KV-2 machines) allowed the player to choose a tower, a different gun and it was from this choice that the gameplay of this machine radically changed. The most beloved tank of Sergei Borisovich mentioned above-the T-44 also made it possible to choose several guns to choose from, which also significantly influenced the gaming process of the tank-either he was more DPM’Nom and played the role of the middle tank, or the player set the other gun, with a high alpha and a penalty that makes the tank more similar in the game to a heavy tank, rather than the middle one with all that came from all flowing from allwith pluses and minuses. And there was also a promised promise to introduce various interchangeable tank corps and other elements of variable pumping. And what we see in terms of the variety of gameplay in Caliber?

If in other shooters, both arcade and simulators, great attention is paid to the body kit, its variability, it is possible to individually configure the weapons, given a choice of several sights, several layout options with or without laser designer, with or without under -core grenade launcher.D. It is possible to choose equipment to a fighter, options for protective body armor-from light to heavy, various helmets and helmets with the possibility of installing rangemakers and night vision devices on them, the possibility of forming unloading, such as and number of stores and grenades, then there is not even close to the caliber, and most importantly, there is no hint that something similar will appear in the near future.

Instead of giving various options for equipment and equipping a fighter, the opportunity to choose a weapon’s body kit, the number of stores, grenades and their type, try to find a balance in all this (for example, we can install either LCA or Sub ”, you can take less hand grenades with you on a task, but then you will have to take less hand grenades, etc.D.) the developers decided to follow the simple and clumsy path – the path of uniformity and maximum monetization.

As a result, the “caliber” now is one continuous misunderstanding with a pile of bugs and shortcomings that is made incomprehensible for whom. The developers never decided what the game should have more – realism or arcadity, and most importantly – it is completely not clear why it is worth playing the game.

How logical such a result is? Is it a chance or many years of Wargaming’s long -term policy result?

To answer this question, we should recall the path of this company in the electronic entertainment industry market.

Prior to the creation of the famous MMO World of Tanks, the company managed to create several truly interesting projects that brought it good money at that time (early 2000s). Wargaming and Bagration Operation, and a series of games Massive Assault.

And in the relatively distant year, it enters the CBT, and then to the release, the famous tank simulator (as developers position this game themselves). The game, despite all its shortcomings, turns out to be quite successful, receives a whole pile of awards and, most importantly, the hopes of players for the future. The developers did not lag behind, distributing one or another statement or promise (which for the most part remained on paper).

Time passed. The developers have announced the following games of their trilogy – World of Warplanes and World of Warships (both in 2011). Many of those promises, and remained promises, and the developers’ answers changed with “we think about the possibility of realizing that” and “yes, it will be introduced, we are already testing this”, the famous “CTS” or “Perhaps everything, but why?”, As well as the banal” too complicated, so it will not “.

As a result, by 2012, the player began to lose his audience – slowly but true. The most creative and active players began to leave the game, people who can be called fans of the game, those who spent numerous hours on the forums and created countless pages into the internal Wikipedia, developing it and sharing historical materials. Unlike the same “caliber” where the concepts of Laura do not exist in principle, which does not give the player any motivation, the game ENT was still present and developed, for the most part, the game community itself in the World of Tanks.

If you look at the game awards, we will see the following picture-the World of Tasks received his last significant award in 2013 (Golden Joystick Awards 2013 The best online game), except for the two controversial Golden Joystick Awards in the Still Playing nomination for 2017 and 2018, respectively, respectively.

Since 2013, patches were more likely to be a cosmetic character, and the patch-butt itself decreased more and more, reaching A4 format by 2015. Moreover, the most famous patch 10.0, proclaimed by developers as one of the most significant events in the history of the development of tanks, fit on A4 sheet. In fact, the developers were engaged only in the stamping of new premium tanks, which did not significantly give new sensations from the game or any mechanic, and constant answers in the style of KTTS.

And then there was a “Rubicon”, which finally launched the players towards leaving the project, despite all the statements of the developers, attracting Glory to Makarov for several months to develop the game, with promises to correct everything, open letters of Victor acid and so on, so on, so on. The company is still trying to clean the Internet from the remnants of the Rubikon in order to forget it as a terrible dream. Meanwhile, Rubicon itself is the result of many years of Wargaming policy.Net, not the desire to work on your project and stupid human greed. But the Internet has not forgotten, the Internet remembers. Like the World of Tanks community.

What happened at this time with other Wargaming projects.Net?

Goes to CBT (and then to the release) planes. Due to the fact that the developers could not bring anything radically new to this genre-the game, despite all the excitement around it in the first months, naturally begins to die. The developer company has encountered a problem that will subsequently faces the developers of the “caliber”-they could not determine who this game is for and where is the balance of realism and arcadeity, which must be observed in World of Warplanes. For lovers of simulators and realism, Wg planes were too simple and arcadna, as well as arcade lovers – World of Warplanes was a real primitive. The whole game strategy was whose plane has a higher height ceiling and has the best maneuverability – it wins. In the first case, the player could attack those who flew below with impunity, due to their low performance characteristics, and in the second case, the best maneuverability allowed the player to discard the pursuer from the tail, not allowing, at the same time, to do this to his opponent. As a result, in the game, significant problems with the balance sheet, not solved to this day, immediately appeared, and all the planes shared exactly two categories: imb and mediocrity.

Together with technical problems, the strange policy of the contractor (Persha Studia in Kyiv), the project now, even despite the output of a fairly good update 2.0 in 2017, represents a sad picture. Not only is it unprofitable, but its closure will lead to serious reputation losses, and most importantly – Wargaming.Net did not decide for himself what was better – to close the project or leave in a similar form.

As for ships that had already reached the backdrop of Rubikon in 2015, a little more was lucky. The project has its own small audience, which does not last because of some gameplay features of the game (it is even more primitive than any other project from WG), but, most likely, because of the lack of any competition in the market now. However, the project is unprofitable both periodically and it shakes its, small, against the general background of the negativity of Wg, scandals.

By the way, at one time Wargaming tried to enter the online KKI market, and to do this even before the advent of giants as MTG: Arena, Gwent or Hearthstone. Few people remember now, but in 2011, together with the announcement of other projects, the public was also presented to the public called World of Tanks: Generals – browser KKI in the setting of the Second World War. Moreover, as the WG development itself stated, it was started back in early 2010. The archive of the tank website still stores the news and diaries of the developers of the card game, and on the official channel you can now watch several videos related to the already closed project. A few words about him.

The project itself was developed by people (programmers and community managers) from the little-known wide circle of people (but well-known at that time in narrow circles) by BYTEX (Saransk, RF). This company is known at that time the only project-the online version of the board game Berserker. However, the fate of this project was sad. By the level of donat, Berserk-Online would give the head of a widely discussed project from Ubisoft, since in Breakpoint the most part of the whole player can receive and without investing real money in the game, the player could not get 95% of the content in the project without investing without investing. In addition to absolute greed, the game had problems with the balance sheet, which the developers managed to break, despite the presence of a well -injected card version of the game, had big problems in terms of technical implementation (bugs were commonplace). Meanwhile, the very concept of Berserk, as KKI, could compete in terms of the thoughtfulness of the gameplay, balance and other aspects with the current giants of the genre. Moreover, the game itself (card) is still one of the most successful and promising, ever created in the CIS space.

As a result, Baytex sold his project mail.ru, while remaining the main developer of the project. It is still not clear how people from Male.Ru agreed to this, and most importantly-for what, since, firstly-the project has not been served and has not been updated since then, but still has not officially closed. And secondly, even before the sale of Baytex, he officially announced another project in this universe, which was supposed to be a continuation and improvement of the original berserker-online, t.e. In fact, a direct competitor of the game that Mail bought.ru.

However, subsequent projects from the Baytex studio (Berserk: Renaissance, Berserk: Cataclysm, etc.D.) I waited for a failure, the cause of which was invariably three whales of Baytex itself-greed, not solved technical problems and the absence of at least any sane balance in the game. In a word, Wargaming and Bytex have found each other.

Despite the fact that the game was in the stage of alpha and closed beta for 4 years, changed several concepts and remoded from scratch at least three times, could not take off. As a result, the generals acquired all of us by the familiar type of “another game from WG”, with a meaningless and merciless pumping of cards (when we were forced to play the same deck, and, sometimes a card, several dozen or hundreds of games for the sake of opening the next), where the concept of balance simply did not exist, because the cards were divided into levels (like tanks in the World of Tanks)The subsequent map of a higher level was an order of magnitude better and stronger than the previous ones (with the exception of a pair of IMBs, always playing well), a rather sluggish gameplay and an incomprehensible ultimate goal. The leaves did not calm down on this, and in the best (or the worst) traditions of WG, attached premium cards for real money, which, again, were several orders of better than the pre-pumped, premium staff (the basis of the entire general system), as well as the premium account (which was not associated with the premium account from the WG trilogy).

Ultimately, the project was closed on April 16, 2016, since it was unprofitable during the development, and after the release to play it (after the release of Hearthstone) became a couple of hundred enthusiasts from the force of a couple of hundred enthusiasts. Wargaming is still trying to disown this project by deleting any mention of it from all its pages and sites.

And so, we went smoothly by December 2016, when we were solemnly announced the next project “Caliber”. A huge number of promises, the opportunity to move away from the setting of the Second World War, but not from the surroundings of hostilities. And there was silence, which lasted more than a year, when nothing was known about the game and just six months before OBT the so -called “developers’ diaries” began to be published, in which they showed even the future gameplay, but the prototypes of this gaming process showed in fits. Moreover, what was shown caused a bewilderment of bewilderment: the scatter is akin to the tank for the fighters of special units, poor animation of movement, corridor cards (almost all of this one or another entered the CBT version). People who are tired of silence and expectations were simply disappointed in the project. Perhaps anticipating your shame or banally without begging the money from the publisher (Wargaming.Net) for a wide advertising company, an “open weekend” was held, about which most learned from several sightseeing rollers after the end of the “weekend” themselves. Perhaps this was the reason for their re -launch in a week. Yes, and the himself output to the stage of the CBT went without a traditional active advertising company in the media for WG. Which led to the thought that the “caliber” came out very far from the ideal.

Summing up everything written above, now it’s hard to say what will happen to the project in the next couple of years (if he can live for so long). However, the prospects for him are completely not rainbow. Of course, in the next six months the Caliber will support, but there are not many options for the development of events.

The first, and most likely, is that the project will develop too slowly. It will prevail a premium content, many bugs will not be repaired, and the scarcity of the gameplay will not be solved. As a result, the project itself will be declared unprofitable and close.

The second option, more rainbow, but at the same time, sad (and traditional for “WG games”)-the project will develop very slowly, so slowly that when it will be brought to at least some sane product state, for which it can be stable 5 or 6 out of 10 (a good average rating for most projects, by the way, after which you can hope for rainbow prospects), the “caliber” will simply be interested in no one is not interested in nobody.Need. But it is possible that by that time several good ones will be released both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the technical implementation of competing games, which will finally bury the prospects of the “caliber”.

The third option is little likely, but possible-that the game will finish in the next couple of months to a more or less sane state. It is difficult to hope for this, especially since it will solve this only problems of the gameplay, but will not relieve issues of excessive donat in the game.
Of course, options for further development of events around the “caliber” – sets. However, which of them is realized in the future, the situation around the game itself is not the result of an accident or a combination of circumstances. The Caliber project itself, the level of its implementation both in technical terms and in terms of tuning gameplay is the result of a long -term targeted Wargaming policy, its attitude to players. Indeed, even now, despite the numerous requests of Wg players, continues to go against the majority (so far) of the remaining players of the same tanks, introducing the wheeled equipment, not wanting to do anything significantly with the art-Sau class in the game, etc.D. Of course, there are attempts to reanimate the project – this is the next stage of tests of low levels of tanks (“sandbox”), and the renewal of individual aspects of the game (high -explosive shells), and testing new (over the past 6 years!!) modes (the first pv-mode in the game). However, in the best traditions of WG, all this happens so slowly that it is difficult to say whether all this will be relevant at the moment when the developers still manage to bring all their ideas to mind.

But what exactly can be said now – the Caliber project for WG is becoming a turning point in the entire history of this company. This is another “Rubicon”, after which Wargaming may not rise, rolling into the niche of game companies that produce mediocre video games living in past successes that were so long ago that only professional game journalists will remember when the last one happened. And most importantly – minimizing the invested funds in the development of their projects, gradually closing them one after another. And not producing alternative, the same massive ones, which gave together with the negative and many hours of positive, when we, tired of tank battles and endless bugs, went to the client for the sake of those people with whom we spent many hours, driving in the platoon or in command/company/clan battles. Given us a whole list of video bloggers, most of which, no longer go into the game, illuminating other projects.

I am sure that, despite everything that happened, everything that is happening at the moment and will happen to the World of Tanks game, we will still remember her in the context of nostalgia. Despite all the unnecessary pathos created by WG around the tanks, it must be admitted that the WOT really had a cult status on the territory of the CIS. The whole question is whether we will recall Wargaming with the same warmth and nostalgia.Net?

And most importantly-whether Wargaming will exist in the current form after the “caliber” exit after a couple of years? Or the “caliber” will become the beginning of the end for the WG, after which nothing good will simply be?