Original date of blog: December 8th, 2014
I’ve never been that big of a gamer, and as such, I’ve not played all that many massively multiplayer online games. The few I have played were games where you made clans, and the incredible mess that gave and the amount of drama that came with it has really put me off of mmo’s, and especially mmorpgs, for life. I like to game, but I don’t want that kind of stress and drama just because of a game. It should be fun, something to pass the time, and nothing more than that. So, I avoided online games where you actually play with other people for eight years.
Until World of Tanks Blitz.
It started this summer, when we had this big family reunion, and my uncle was talking about the game and how much fun it was. I promised to install it, even though I really wasn’t interested in it, and did it just to humour him. I immediately sent my uncle a friend-request, hoping to play with him once, then be able to de-install the game forever more. I never did see my uncle on there until very recently. I later learned he spends very little time in the chat, and apparently didn’t see my messages, so he had no clue who I was. I did see him in a battle once though, when I was tier V. My team pwnd his, so that was fun, even if I didn’t manage to kill him myself. =(
As I started playing the game, I got really addicted to it. Driving around as a tank with six random people accompanying you and blowing up seven other tanks, or capturing the base, turned out to be a lot of fun. The controls were simple enough (I have never been able to play games where you need to use the mouse and keyboard at once, but that’s not an issue on the iPad), and once I got to know the different maps a little, I learned where to go and what to do in each one, depending on your tank and where you started. The consumables turned out to be very useful, saving my life loads of times. They cost quite a bit of coins to use though, so use them wisely, but remember to always get them whenever you get a new tank.
The areas in the enemy tanks that your ammo can’t penetrate turn red when you have them in your visor. I recently learned that this isn’t the case for the pc-version of the game, there you just have to know where the weak spots are. Me, I’m very glad with this tell-tale hint that tells me where to aim.
I grew very fond of the tank destroyer line of the German tanks as I climbed up the tiers. Not only do they look more awesome somehow than the others (to me), they also have the most fun names. The USSR-tanks go for Object *insert numbers* or IS, or T’s, the USA-tanks also use mostly numbers and letters, but almost all the German tanks have actual names. Not too long ago, we got a new German tank-line which has a tier X tank called “Maus” (for the non-German amongst us: Mouse). I think that’s adorable, considering it’s one of the biggest tanks about and there’s nothing shy or skittish about it. It apparently has such good armour that it is hard to kill. I’ve not noticed that yet, since I drive tanks that are meant to penetrate the most armour.
Despite it not being a tank destroyer, I must have that tank. I have already started working towards it. I am currently at tier V, and so far I have hated both tiers IV and V tanks for it, and I already know I’ll hate the VI, VIII and IX tanks for it too, as I have a tendency to hate all the V.K.-tanks. VII is a Tiger though, so that might still be fun. I say might, because I’m not too sure. Two of my platoon mates are pretty enthusiastic about the V.K.-tanks, but they manage to be excellent no matter what tank they drive so I’m not sure they qualify when it comes to giving a sound opinion 😉
Anyway, during September I didn’t get to play a lot, but when October started, I got back into it. I don’t think there’s been a single day since then that I haven’t tanked for at least a little bit, and I kind of miss it when I don’t get to play. Aside from being addicted, I’ve found that it is a great stress-relief too. Blowing up stuff makes you blow off steam quite nicely, and there’s always the people you regularly play with that you can chat with too. You can even let yourself get lost in the random that is the general chat.
But even when I’m not in the mood to be sociable – that’s okay. The game doesn’t require you to be social at all, not even during battles. If you want to head off all by yourself, that’s just fine. It might not lower your frustration levels one bit when you meet the enemy team on your own and get shot dead really quickly, but it’s your choice. And if you do play with the rest of the team, you don’t need to say anything, respond to anything.
And I think that is what makes this the perfect multiplayer game for me. With a select few, I can have a lot of fun, and I can tell them about myself, and to the rest, I’ll be as much a stranger that they battle with or against, as they are to me. There’s no clan-building, or managing forums for said clan on the side that gives an opportunity for craploads of drama to appear. The computer-version of the game does have clans and forums and such that go with it, but that just makes the app-version all the more appealing to me.
On the other hand, it would be grand if you could platoon with more than one person. I have a bunch of regular platoon mates that know one another from platooning as well – it would be grand if we could drive into battle together in threes or more. On the other hand though, I can understand the developers not wanting to do that. There are only seven team members or enemies in whatever battle you drive in to. Upping the platoons from two members to three would mean an increase of roughly 14% more platoon in the battle, totalling at around 43%. You could make an epic platoon that would beat practically everyone all the time. That is precisely why it would be so much fun, and precisely why the developers will never do it.
My suggestion; just make bigger maps, add more time and add more people to each battle =D That might be something for the future – since with the last update, the app is now open to a lot of Android devices, meaning an influx of noobs and beginners. So a lot more people will be playing the game overall, which might make it more interesting to make bigger battles. We’ll see. And hope *fingers crossed*
Battles fought: 2,606
Winrate: 55.41%
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