gamescom Developers Q&A

The development of World of Warplanes never stops. We have a road map for things that  we want to tackle for a long time, even after release. The first step will obviously be to continue to balance the game so that it stays fun with all the new content which we will have released by then.

How about the long-rumoured bomber escort missions? Any news?

Yes. Last year we announced that we were working on new game modes. This year we can confirm that testing of these new modes has progressed significantly so that we’re much closer to the moment when we’ll be able to reveal concrete information on this. Expect to hear on this soon in one of the coming updates. 

Are there any plans to combine the three ‘World of…’ games?

The three games each feature a very different play style, so it would be very challenging to combine them in one single mode and have the game still be balanced and fair for everyone. Our most imminent objective is the unified Wargaming account (granting shared Gold and Premium status over all future Wargaming titles). Later we will work on a mode which will combine all of our games in Clan Wars to make it become something truly unique.

Will there be a Company Mode in World of Warplanes just as in World of Tanks?

We’ve experimented with this option for World of Warplanes, but haven't decided yet if or when we'll introduce this feature. 

How many nations are planned for the game in total? Will there be more after the Brits?

As you pointed out, we’re preparing for the release of the British aircraft at the moment. Their arrival is not too far away and will keep players busy for a while. After that, we will concentrate on first filling out the various branches. In time, more nations will become possible. We’ll tell you more about that when the time has come.

Can we expect to see World of Warplanes on consoles as well?

First we have to release the game for PC. Then World of Tanks needs to come out for XBOX 360. Then we can concentrate on thinking about releasing World of Warplanes for consoles as well. Right now it’s still too early to tell.

Will we see more World of Tanks-inspired maps in World of Warplanes?

Stand-alone maps for World of Warplanes that are at their core inspired by maps which we already have in World of Tanks are possible and could be introduced in the future. Right now, we are focusing on creating original and new material to excite the players. A true combination, where exactly the same map as in World of Tanks would also appear for the planes is not possible for balancing reasons. Maps in World of Tanks are specifically built with tank-appropriate conditions in mind that are difficult to transfer to the World of Warplanes. However, we will continue to unify and solidify the Wargaming universe by expanding on the idea of Clan Wars and a unified Premium Account, which will give benefits to players across all three future Wargaming titles.

How many programming hours in total did your team put into developing World of Warplanes so far?

(This question causes both developers to laugh.) Well, it’s got to be some crazy amount of hours by now. You could actually calculate a rough estimate! We have around 30 programmers who’ve been working on the game for 3 years now, all hours of the day. So overall we must be getting close to a million working hours for our programmers alone.

Our team is still growing by the way! So if you’re a gifted programmer who wants to work in the video games industry, you should check our vacancies and maybe apply!

Will we see bigger maps that will allow for an increase in players to have 30 vs. 30 players matches?

Right now we want to keep things at 15 vs. 15 battles. This is what we find to be the number of players that ensures the most balanced and productive gameplay for all our testers. However, we will continue to monitor the situation and it may become a possibility for the future, if the fans still demand it by then.

How about more city maps for World of Warplanes?

We already have one major city map in the game with “Bay”, which resembles San Francisco or rather a generic city in the Bay area in the US. We know that players like it a lot and will continue to create new maps that will have the players discover new locations all around the world. It’s very likely that another city map will join the roster of already existing maps sometime in the future.

With the arrival of the British, will we see new classes of planes introduced into the game? Or just new planes?

For the moment we’ll stick with our four existing classes and just add new vehicles to fill their branches. In the British tech tree you will find two classes: Fighters for iconic planes such as the Supermarine Spitfire, and Heavy Fighters for heavier bomber aircraft such as the Mosquito.

We will continue to fill up the rosters from one update to the next. You need in keep in mind though that it’s a hefty task to introduce a new plane into the game. A plane takes on average 1-2 months from the first idea to the final balancing before it is ready to be put to use in World of Warplanes. For the British aircraft, the construction process for just one single Spitfire takes about 4 weeks. Planes that have more detail and are bigger in size such as the Heavy Fighters that you will see in the British tree, require even more work because of their complexity.

Over time, there will be a lot more planes in the game. Don’t forget that we’re still in Open Beta and that the game has not even been released yet. There’s still so much to come!

That’s it from the Q&A but not all from Oleg & Miroslav. Later in the day, we sat down with both developers again to have an exclusive interview during which we swooped up even more juicy details on the game. You’ll see it here first in our continuing gamescom news coverage!

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