Why Over 30,000 People Are Boycotting World of Tanks
About 30,000 people from various clan communities decided to boycott the new season on the Global Map. This include people from the top clans and alliances of the RU server for World of Tanks. This group of people has created a movement named CONTRAS.
Members of CONTRAS have already put forwards their list of demands to the company. The first one being: they want to meet with the leadership of Wargaming and discuss with them the perspectives for the development of the clan mode in the game. This has already been responded to by Wargaming and things certainly look more positive right now. Vyacheslav Makarov, the new head of the Wargaming office in Minsk has asked CONTRAS to email him suggestions, ideas and thoughts on improving the situation. Makarov also offered to meet with representatives of CONTRAS personally. The meeting will be held at the end of July in the Wargaming’s office in Minsk.
Targeted killing of strategy on the global map
The global map was created as a mode in which the strategic component was dominant. But WG itself, despite stating that they support this, deliberately kills off active strategic action with its’ decisions.
The political interaction and balance of power between clans is being replaced by quests to achieve amounts of destroyed tanks, amount of battles etc. – marathon principles from random battles. As a result, clans are forced to abandon conquered lands. Such a global map could very well be replaced by tournaments with gold as a participation prize. But the global map department receives a glorious statistic and reports to the upper management that activity in the mode increases. That today’s activity influx will be replaced by tomorrow’s desertedness is not discussed.
Demotivation of clans
WG’s last years decisions led the way for clans to lose motivation for improving their gameplay and increasing their standard.
The constant prioritization of the amount of battles over their quality in all modes leads to each clan member wasting more and more time on the game, this scares away normal players from clan activities.
Equalization of prizes leads to a clan receiving the same amount for a battle against a tough enemy and a weaker enemy.
All of this leads to reluctance of fighting against stronger enemies. Instead of searching for ways to increase the combat capabilities of the clan, they search for loopholes in the game rules.
The recent developments lead to planned destruction of the clan segment of the game, players are more inclined to play Ranked Battles, mini-tournaments and other modes non-dependant on clans, since they are more profitable and easy.
Disrespect towards players and clans
The lack of a proper plan for conducting certain activities for the clan community does not allow for clans to plan their operation to demonstrate maximum results. We would like to understand the future plans regarding clan content. We shouldn’t be panicking to train games on tier 8 or 6 because the global map department announced an event or campaign a week before it starts. A clan does not consist of 5-6 people, but of several dozens which also have a real, non-tank life: family, studying/working. They are ready to adapt to the schedule if needed, but they should know this schedule in advance and not two days ahead.
Closed nature of the global map department
Complete lack of feedback between the global map developers and the playerbase – all community proposals are met with replies about expensiveness and labor intensity of the development or trolling about lust for gold. There are no contact groups to discuss upcoming improvements and proposals on a permanent basis. We only see rare trips to Minsk by some representatives of the community, based on which, reports about working with the community are made, since these meetings did not bring any real changes.
What does CONTRAS demand?
Return of the prestige of the global map
We propose to return the glory of holding land on the global map.
To do so, a change in prize distribution is necessary with lowering the reward for deployments and increasing it for holding provinces. Stimulating battles shouldn’t happen through quests, but by creating conditions where it is advantageous and neccesary for a clan to fight. Alternative prizes on the global map (scrap, bonds, clan reserves etc.) should stimulate activity of developing clans without increasing the gold resource on the global map. We’re fighting for several years already to expand the clan portal and would like to see our rewards we’ve earned on the global map.
Popularization of the global map and clans
We demand that the WG staff responsible for the coverage of the game faithfully perform their duties regarding the clan component.
It is neccesary to easen the understanding of the global map mode by creating training content.
It is also necessary to provide clans with the possibility to inform the playerbase of their successes themselves.
Provide the clan press the possibility to publish news on the official portal of the game, like it was before 2015. Create an official video channel with the company’s support to broadcast battles on the global map.
Regularly cover clan activities and reward clans which advertise the game mode.
Regularly publish news about the global map, events, map freezes etc. so players and commanders can plan ahead.
Development of the global map
We propose to include an alliance functionality into the game, which was unofficially present since the start of the global map.
Alliances are the top level of socialization between players and should be understandable and accessible. This would provide players with an unique feeling of depth in the game process. Socialization is one of the most important achievements which keeps active players in the game.
Feedback
We propose to create a department or designate a personal manager to work with the clan community.
We deem it neccessary to create a focus-group which will consist of the most experienced clan leaders and alliance leaders.
The main task of this group would be assisting the new department in optimizing the proposed changes and working on documents regarding clan activities, and also collecting feedback to constantly improve the quality of the global map. Feedback is neccessary to provide the community with a means to influence the taken decisions.
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