Na.wargaming.net

Fun But Rigged and Expensive - In-Game Mechanics Manipulated by Russian Developer At first, this game seems like it would be fun. My son started playing along with me at age 8 because he was interested in WWII and military history. We soon found out that the game requires you to spend money to advance and upgrade your tanks, and the game is not historical at all. All of the game mechanics are rigged to favor mostly Russian tanks, and that's because the game was developed and currently operated out of Russia. They have programming offices around the world but their HQ is in Russia. The game is not historical at all despite having a "WWII" theme. Its team-based play on a global multiplayer platform and the company has divided the world into various servers (North America, South America, European Union, Asia, etc.). But you can sign up for any region when you register and the US-North American server is littered with foreign players who can't speak English so "team play" doesn't happen because players can't understand each other. While billed as a "free to play" you'll quickly realize that if you play without paying some money for upgrades you'll soon be out of in-game currency. The reason is the Russian owners and programmers have PURPOSELY altered the game mechanics so there is little chance of winning matches. As a result, the US-North American (and global) "Win Rate" is 46% meaning YOU LOSE 54% of the time -- MORE THAN HALF of the matches you play. It's akin to GAMBLING -- you think you can win with random matches and odds but in fact behind the scenes, THE HOUSE always wins. You can't beat purposeful programming designed to make you think you need to keep spending money to win. Winning or losing wouldn't be a problem BUT you can only ADVANCE if you WIN. Upgrades and climbing the ladder to higher-tiered vehicles IS IMPOSSIBLE when you lose that much UNLESS you spend $$$ at some point in time. That's because LOSING makes you EXPEND more in-game credits and earns you fewer rewards to help make it possible to advance. When you lose that much you run out of in-game currency and you are through. The net result is FRUSTRATION and the desire to SPEND $$$ only to find out it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE because the game is purposely rigged to make you want to spend your money HOPING it might help you win more. While decision making and a tad bit of skill can be acquired to play better and win more often, it takes more than about 1,000 in-game matches to master the skills of each tank out of more than several hundred different types of vehicles. Some players without any upgrades are immediately killed off in the first 60 seconds of the match. Frequently the matches end in less than 9 minutes even though billed as a 15-minute match. This is because players die faster than they can play. THERE IS NO RESPAWN so if you explode in the first 60 seconds then you're done -- time to move to a different tank and a new match. The mechanics are "rinse and repeat" over and over again and it never changes. This would be an OK game for someone who likes tanks in general, but its not a WWII realistic or historical game. Technically its an ARCADE STYLE GAME that is hit or miss and lose more than half of the time with no results. Professional Players do exist on this game platform, but if you research their accounts you'll note that they study which tanks at the present time have been BUFFED by the Russian programmers and usually they are the tanks at the highest tiers which takes more than a year to actually earn. The way the professionals do it is they spend about $500 upfront and buy in-game GOLD and then CONVERT it into FREE EXPERIENCE and expend that experience by unlocking the low-level tiered tanks completely by-passing them so they don't hurt their in-game statistics that help them earn upwards. Then they use that experience to train their crews to 100% (crews in tanks start untrained which makes them lose even more) and then give them additional skills (about 4-5) which generally can only be earned by WINNING games or playing thousands of losing games to acquire them. In this way, they keep only about 10 tanks of the best that programming allows at the time (and it changes every three months or so) and they now have an ADVANTAGE over the typical player because they have tanks that have crews that are fully trained, fully upgraded, and fully skilled. This is why they can achieve a 65% to 75% WIN RATE in this rigged game -- but for someone who wants to master the game the same way from scratch then FORGET IT. It won't happen unless you spend MONEY. Overall I would only recommend this game to kids 10-15 years of age under the parental conditions that 1) NO MONEY WILL BE SPENT ON THE GAME, 2) DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU WIN OR LOSE, 3) PLAY ONLY FOR FUN. Overall it will keep a kid's interest for about 6 months to a year and then they will move on. Lastly, there are EGOTISTICAL players on the platform servers who use bad and foul language, racist remarks, sexual talk, drug and substance abuse references, and other things you wouldn't want your kids to hear. There is a filter you can control to automatically have the bad words blanked out (which I suggest), but if your kids can read they can probably guess what the word is from the sentence written. Lots of rude and vulgar teens and young adults on this game platform.