Tuesday, September 28, 2010

World of Tanks: a Very Brief Impression

Massively was giving away beta keys to World of Tanks yesterday, and I decided to give it a shot. On paper a MMO focused strictly on tank combat sounds...well insane to be honest. I was motivated to try it mainly out of morbid curiosity. To my shock I actually came away fairly impressed.

As near as I can tell the NDA is still in force, so unfortunately I can't go into a lot of detail. I will say that the tech behind the game is impressive, with a speedy install and convincing graphics. The open beta game is a fairly simple PvP match game. However, there are some deep advancement mechanics on hand which could potentially be pretty addictive. I expect that match options will be expanded as the game develops.

Unfortunately, the current newbie experience is a lot like putting on a suit made of bacon and jumping into a cage filled with ravening wolves. I was dead within less than a minute in the matches I played. I assume this will get smoothed out by the open beta. As long as a few common sense changes are made to the introductory experience, I will definitely be giving this game another look in a few weeks or months. Color me surprised.

2 comments:

  1. Ah, advancement in a PvP game. Of course good matchmaking and a healthy community can offset any problems. But getting that wrong is part of why APB failed. Best of luck to World of Tanks.

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  2. I will say that if they don't section of the game according to tiers of character power, or atleast have a cordoned off newbie area, the game is going to crash and burn pretty horribly imo. I was impressed by the tech, but not so much by the "log on and get ganked by a vet instantly" aspect of it. I am definitely giving them a lot of benefit of doubt because it's still in closed beta.

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