Things seem to be going according to plan for Wargaming.net as their first jump into the console world continues to garner attention and gain steam with World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. The beta test has been going quite well on most servers as the bugs get worked out thanks to the outstanding communication between the community and developers. I have been taking part in the beta test and enjoying my time in the game, and as part of an ongoing impressions piece, here are some tidbits from the first few weeks of open beta.
- The American, German, and British tank trees are now available, though the British line just opened up in the last week. We're still waiting to see the Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and French trees.
- Tank Destroyers are a ton of fun to play with. Most of my time is spent currently with the American T25 AT and the British AT 2, although I have been getting into the heavy tiers a little more lately.
- While the bugs get worked out, it can be difficult avoiding getting spotted. "Sixth Sense" has been replaced with "Detection" though you may not get an alert right away.
- Balancing out each match is getting better every day. Early on, it seemed tough to avoid getting tanks that were two to three tiers higher than what I picked, but it has improved drastically ever since the British tank tree became available.
- Finding weak points on stronger tanks is difficult, but gives a distinct advantage.
- Yes, this is going to be a cash shop style game, but in the end, everyone can still earn their way to the top. Gold will just get a player there faster than others. There is nothing wrong with that.
- If you want proof that Wargaming.net is really paying attention to its community, how's this for a gift? Last weekend, there was a bug that caused random freezes so often that the developers instituted a system where every time a player locked up was logged, notated, and would result in each crash being a gift of 10 free gold each time. That's rewarding your players for finding the problems.
That's it from World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition for now! For those taking part in the beta, if you want to team up or simply want to share your thoughts, you will find me on the NA servers as GN Punk. I'll probably be doing something stupid like taking my tank destroyers out to the front line, but it's all in great fun!
