Into the Unknown

[NMA101]

Summary: Another addition to the long list of broken WG promises!

In the aftermath of yet another "miscommunication" disaster a few years ago, WG pledged to disclose their long-term vision of the game in the form of regular "Waterline updates". 

https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/general-news/important-message-for-the-wows-community-2/

Quote

We plan to update the roadmap quarterly and accompany it with Waterline videos and streams.

For the most part, they stuck to their word, publishing articles roughly 4 months apart previewing upcoming features and game modes. That is, until now. 

It has been 5 months since the last Waterline was released: https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/general-news/waterline-fall-2023/

A few weeks ago, when the devblog for update 12.10 (asymmetric battles) was published, I was completely surprised since I did not remember reading about it in the last waterline post. Sure enough, almost everything in the "Fall 2023" waterline has been implemented, covering the time period up until Black Friday. Strangely, strategic operations, animated commanders, and most strikingly, Soviet submarines have gone MIA. Of course, no accompanying explanation for why they went missing (or if/when they will reappear). 

Then, just last week, the 12.11 devblog (holiday dockyard) was published, and none of its content was present in the last Waterline either. At the same time, the Lesta (Russian) version of WoWs published their own Waterline, which did include events going into Spring 2024. 

Finally, today's article (official news for 12.10) mentioned a new season of ranked, which was not mentioned at all in any article, devblog or Waterline! Some were even speculating ranked battles would be on break temporarily, but I guess WG servers need more power from the grind hamster wheel. 

https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/game-updates/update-1210-asymmetric-battles/

The only concrete dates I can deduce going forward are: 

• 12.10 will run from Nov 8 to Dec 5 (NA and Asia, for EU one day later)
• 12.11 will run from Dec 6 to Jan 10, 2024 (based on when asymmetric battles and ranked are ending)

By the way, the 12.11 update will be a break from precedent. Previously, every year the holiday update was 6 weeks long, this time is only 5. So less margin of error for those who are away from the game (mostly during the Christmas-New Year week) and need the time in early January to catch up on missions, grind for resources, etc. 

We are now (re-)entering the pre-2021 phase where game development direction is completely obscured. 

[NMA101]

Just read @Project45_Opytny explanation for why some of this is happening. Very interesting theories: 

 

[Elijah2159]

According to Ahskance there was a waterline in the works but it got postponed - I suspect that we're going to be getting one around new years

[Project45_Opytny]

As I have posted earlier above, I suspect this is the direct consquence of a still little-known internal strife between WG and Lesta that started in Summer 2023 basing on the speculation that they have cooperated well after their separation until recently (and we haven't complained that much on merely different event arrangements). The Waterline roadmap was made under the assumption that things would go on as before. It did not.

Strategic Operations, Soviet submarines and animated commanders have all been available for Mir Korabli players at around Patch 12.8; the Soviet submarines event "Heroes Archipelago" itself uses the strategic operations form.

Perhaps even the current WG developers themselves are not sure about what they can surely promise to create and implement to the players, with their currently very limited production capability.

[Yedwy]

WG has no staff to develop WOWS, possibly not even a proper new space yet, they prob intended on making the transition faster by "borrowing" from Lestas stock but it might have backfired, maybe not enough of their people said yes to relocation or maybe just some key individuals without whom  its hard to keep the momentum, in any case it was allways clear whose baby WOWS really is and where the content is made, WG was basically just a publisher for Lesta and here we are...

[Admiral_Karasu]

20 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

WG has no staff to develop WOWS, possibly not even a proper new space yet, they prob intended on making the transition faster by "borrowing" from Lestas stock but it might have backfired, maybe not enough of their people said yes to relocation or maybe just some key individuals without whom  its hard to keep the momentum, in any case it was allways clear whose baby WOWS really is and where the content is made, WG was basically just a publisher for Lesta and here we are...

Does this mean we are going to end up stuck with some obsolescent game version like the Chinese server?

[Project45_Opytny]

7 hours ago, NMA101 said:

We are now (re-)entering the pre-2021 phase where game development direction is completely obscured. 

What is more dismaying is that, judging from recent trends, we have little faith in what Wargaming may develop for the future sustainability of the game we like. It's more than the uncertainty of where we are going, it also includes concern over whether we will continue moving forward after Michelangelo and alternative USN CV at all. And there is another factor:

7 hours ago, NMA101 said:

Then, just last week, the 12.11 devblog (holiday dockyard) was published, and none of its content was present in the last Waterline either. At the same time, the Lesta (Russian) version of WoWs published their own Waterline, which did include events going into Spring 2024. 

Mir Korabli exists and have been, since autumn, showing what may have been done like before when the game had its dedicated group of professional developers: new ships with more efforts involved, tests on new battle mechanics (Fog of War that conceals all details of enemy warships until actually spotted and all ships can slowly regenerate HP), refurbishing of dated models, maps and ports, new resource ships can become available in a less greedy way. That we lose access to due to an ongoing war and also possibly an internal strife of the game's developers and management, of which players around the world other than those playing MK become... collateral casualties.

19 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Does this mean we are going to end up stuck with some obsolescent game version like the Chinese server?

Seriously, I have been waiting for this analogy.

I hope that day will come when peace would be achieved in Europe and the "WoWS cyber civil war" would end with Belgrade/Nicosia's capitulation and brings a reunion of development efforts. Though at present nobody can predict the potential toll of all the disruption. For reference, players of CN Server endured around two years (from French battleships update to Spring 2020) before the final settlement of that problem.

Brace ourselves and prepare for a bleak prospect.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Project45_Opytny

[Aragathor]

The issue with the game currently is a compound one, and of WG's own making.

The first mistake, was to think they would be able to move from St Pete's easily. People don't want to move countries on a whim. Especially if the company culture is not international, but national.

Second mistake, was to move the offices to Belgrade. Serbia is great for Russians, but not for anyone else. It's not in the EU.

Third mistake, was the expectation people would move to an authoritarian backwater, from the EU. Since the RU team stayed put, the open positions in Belgrade remained open as there is no interest.

WG made many assumptions and they all were wrong. There is most likely no WoWS EU/NA/ASIA team, save for a few people. There is no one at the helm of the team, as that position is still open and will celebrate a one year vacancy anniversary soon.

 

And I would not expect any sort of reversal of the split, ever. EU will remain steadfast in the sanctions, as they are politically handy (lack of cheap fuels from RU fuels Green party politics).

Edited November 7, 2023 by Aragathor

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 minute ago, Aragathor said:

The issue with the game currently is a compound one, and of WG's own making.

The first mistake, was to think they would be able to move from St Pete's easily. People don't want to move countries on a whim. Especially if the company culture is not international, but national.

Second mistake, was to move the offices to Belgrade. Serbia is great for Russians, but not for anyone else. It's not in the EU.

Third mistake, was the expectation people would move to an authoritarian backwater, from the EU. Since the RU team stayed put, the open positions in Belgrade remained open as there is no interest.

WG made many assumptions and they all were wrong. There is most likely no WoWS EU/NA/ASIA team, save for a few people. There is no one at the helm of the team, as that position is still open and will celebrate a one year vacancy anniversary soon.

 

And I would not expect any sort of reversal of the split, ever. EU will remain steadfast in the sanctions, as they are politically handy (lack of cheap fuels from RU fuels Green party politics).

I think Belgrade was a good choice especially because it wasn't in EU and Serbia being great for Russians... so it should have made it easier for their Russian team to move to Belgrade rather than in Prague.

What they should have done, perhaps, is set up the Russian team in Belgrade, and a non-Russian team firmly in Prague and make those two work in tandem.

[GMMF]

Is it ok to be pessimistic about WG? Yes, it is.

We only know about the new ranked recently but before, we had earlier announcements about it way before the patch notes. And the fewer new ships compared to MK, it's just recycled ship models. I think Maine will be milked by WG since its delay. 

Reunification might be hard since there's many changes in just a few months, the most positive outcome might be Lesta sharing some resources to WG. Can only hope for that. 

[Project45_Opytny]

2 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

I think Belgrade was a good choice especially because it wasn't in EU and Serbia being great for Russians... so it should have made it easier for their Russian team to move to Belgrade rather than in Prague.

What they should have done, perhaps, is set up the Russian team in Belgrade, and a non-Russian team firmly in Prague and make those two work in tandem.

Another problem is that which speculation is closer to the actual situation? A very long shared roadmap that has worked for more than a year, or actually cooperation on WoWS's development between separated WG and Lesta continued for about a year before ending in around Summer 2023?

2 minutes ago, GMMF said:

I think Maine will be milked by WG since its delay. 

The speculation I read in CN communities is that perhaps Maine overperforms in testing yet the developers are struggling to find a correct "sweet spot" of nerfing between overpoweredness and underpoweredness, and then Belgrade studio comes forward the commander skills rework (a good move indeed), which again causes significant delay as new skills may have much synergy with Maine's already significant survivability focus.

[Yedwy]

1 hour ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Does this mean we are going to end up stuck with some obsolescent game version like the Chinese server?

Yes and no, CH was one server and 4 others were updated this is in other direction - 1 is updated and 4 are not, game might end up beeing less developed then MK but opsolecence as such is a questionable thing to call out in this circumstance... However at least for a while it looks like the influx of really new stuff will be slowed down, its possible they delayed the russian subs and other stuff exactly for that reason ie realising they are  starting to run out of premade content they took with them when the split happened and now they need to draw it out untill they can get the "production line" running or they can re-unite with Lesta if sanctions get lifted...

[Admiral_Karasu]

5 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

Yes and no, CH was one server and 4 others were updated this is in other direction - 1 is updated and 4 are not, game might end up beeing less developed then MK but opsolecence as such is a questionable thing to call out in this circumstance... However at least for a while it looks like the influx of really new stuff will be slowed down, its possible they delayed the russian subs and other stuff exactly for that reason ie realising they are  starting to run out of premade content they took with them when the split happened and now they need to draw it out untill they can get the "production line" running or they can re-unite with Lesta if sanctions get lifted...

Great! So now they'll finally have the time to fix all those old bugs that keep popping up.

Right?

[New_Jersey_prpr]

39 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

they can re-unite with Lesta if sanctions get lifted...

I believe if WG wants to buy content from Lesta, they could. This is not a trade that involves real goods, just some pixel ships and some codes, they can go around the sanction with no effort as long as they keep it 'secret'.

However:

1. I won't be surprised if WG prefers to continue making low effort contents (e.g. more 'salvage for victory', more '39 '41 '43 CLR......ships, more early access premium ships) to milk more from whales instead of spending money to buy fresh ones from Lesta. How many ships WG introduced this year are directly available at armory just like the veterans?

2. Lesta may not agree to sold their contents to WG, since the two dev teams' relationship seems to worsen over time.

I'm dreaming the reunion on the very first day of the split because it's pretty obvious that Russian developers are mainly responsible for new contents, after one and a half years the fact is blatantly clear and needs no further explanation.

Anyone who supported split before due to whatever reason should reconsider their opinion after seeing the mess of nowadays' WOWS.

[Asym]

The one thing a game in a Red Ocean paradigm should never do is "stall"......even, if they control the niche, they can't control the first world players frustrations with excuses....   They are losing the battle if they think they can delay much longer....

[Wolfswetpaws]

As much as I enjoy reading the "news" and the "opinions-editorials", I hope we don't mis-label suspicions & speculations as verifiable news.

Brainstorming the possible future outcomes is fine as a mental stimulation or a contingency planning exercise.
That said, I also want to be able to clearly see the "past" and the "now" with nothing but the facts.
Comparisons can be entertaining, but confusions are not beneficial, in my opinion.

[Pugilistic]

Ive been saying for some time that they kept the best of the devs and the art department, and we got the tech tree version. 

[MnemonScarlet]

10 minutes ago, Pugilistic said:

Ive been saying for some time that they kept the best of the devs and the art department, and we got the tech tree version. 

We definitely got the tech tree version, but I wonder if the dev/exec who was responsible for the 'vision' of the CV rework/way subs shaped up and the way balancing overall was done came over to us in the exodus, or if he/she stayed in Lesta. If the latter, they are welcome to him/her. 🙏

[Ensign Cthulhu]

4 hours ago, Pugilistic said:

Ive been saying for some time that they kept the best of the devs and the art department, and we got the tech tree version. 

Remember - it's not always premium ships that get banned from KOTS. 

[Project45_Opytny]

https://nga.178.com/read.php?tid=38338215

Original post in Chinese but with English-speaking screenshots from Flamu.

WG Belgrade is still looking for an Art Director and Manager that have to be able to use both English and Russian, presumed to be able to read older documents, and willing to live in Belgrade and being paid in Serbian standards.

[Guest]

It's obvious the real brains behind WOW stayed with Lesta and we get the muppets who you wouldn't trust to use a shovel in a pig farm.