They refuse to consistently add WW2, Cold War and Korean War content, what makes you think that they would invest into the least popular era when it comes to vehicular combat games?
Yeah everything come from somewhere with gaijin and that mainly through the April fools event, remember how they tested modern tanks and helicopters with the rank IX event. The same could be said for this WW1 event too.
But they still add it. They seem to try and stretch out the content of the game to keep it alive as long as they can, so it’s added at a slow (I’d probably still agree if you argue it’s too slow) rate, but they do add it.
WWI isn’t unpopular in general, just awkward when it comes to vehicular combat games like War Thunder. But if you don’t have to conform to historical match ups and instead have War Thunders BR system it becomes functional, and the event proves there’s tons of players that have fun with these vehicles, even with their RB performance outside of the event mode, so there is clearly money to be made.
Then there’s aircraft, where WWI is some of the most popular air combat in general and War Thunder could be the most widely accessible WWI air combat game with the simple controls, no need for special controls like sticks, VR or headtracking and on top of that the overall scale of the game and the options to progress from the very first military aircraft to the most recent.
I’d say “No WWI” is like “Nothing past the Korean war”, “No premium jets” or even “No submarines” where they confirmed in a QnA that they are planned some point.
They could even be doing this for infantry on the off chance their April fools announcement was more than just a quick joke, though this is the one part where I’m not quite sure how exactly they’d implement it into a vehicular combat base game.
There already are plenty of WWI plane games that are extremely simple, both in arcade and realistic flavours. Most of them aren’t online though, because, believe me or not, there isn’t much demand for it.
If they truly are testing the waters for WWI here, which I doubt for a couple of reasons, the result that they are most likely to get is that most players do not enjoy that kind of gameplay, even with tanks with buffed mobility.
I thought it had been established by now that they aren’t testing the viability of player controlled infantry. What they are testing is AI infantry and perhaps some kind of dynamic battlefield system tied to the infantry.
Yeah just funny to see people crying for uniqueness, crying for new modes ect and when one arrives they say it’s a waste of time and no one wants them because it hasn’t got the same stats as an MBT.
Precisely. WWI aviation should not be restricted, in full or in part, to a different game, especially when the other game is a VR game. I have a headset, but I hardly use it because I prefer standard PC gameplay. I would much prefer to fly it in third person with mouse aim, as I do with all my other planes. It would be especially fun to goof around with them in custom battles. And flying them in the event made me think, “wow, this is a new arena for air combat compared to what I’m used to, with everything being so slow and close in…I want more of it!” And the models look so good that it’s an utter waste that they won’t be staying.
Perhaps it’s me coping too hard, but reading through the replies, Smin’s words technically do not contain a hard denial. Every time someone asked him, “is there a chance of more WWI content coming to the game in the future?”, Smin would reply with two factual statements from the event page:
There are seven WWI vehicles obtainable in the event, and
WWI Fighters can be played in Aces of Thunder
Both of these are true, but they do not answer the question asked. Further, the second statement, that WWI fighters can be played in Aces of Thunder, does not exclude the possibility that they could appear in War Thunder in the future. Smin’s words do not contain a clear statement that they will not appear in War Thunder at some point. Also, I believe his continued evasions of the question, such that he avoids at all costs saying the words “More WWI aviation will not come to War Thunder”, is enough to be somewhat suspicious.
Again, it may just be excessive cope, but I really hope that it’s the case. At the very least, I wish we could get a clear answer on the issue. It may not be possible to get such an answer, however, if my hypothesis is correct, and he is being evasive because he wants to avoid revealing too much.
Having thought about this for a bit, I will admit that it is unusual for the reward vehicles to be placed in the tech trees, rather than in the premium/event/squadron column.
However, this leads me to believe that there may either be recurring WWI events or a special WWI mode in the future.
The reason why the tanks and the H.P.12 are being given out as vehicles useable in other modes very likely is that, as many of us have mentioned before, the fighter planes (and the zeppelin…) really are that much worse than almost all 1.0 planes, to the point that Gaijin figures that these planes only make sense in a purely WWI limited environment.
That wouldn’t mean that these planes would remain unplayable, just that they would only be playable in an environment where they actually make sense. This would also explain why the zeppelin, while feeling very half-baked, has a bouyancy mechanic tied to it.
So, I suppose I gotta admit that I may have been wrong about how viable and likely WWI content would be in WT. I will maintain however that the zeppelin and the WWI fighter aircraft do not have a place in WT outside of an environment that is restricted to WWI only.
Oh, APHE does knock infantry out, it’s just hard to hit them and you don’t get any feedback for knocking the troopers out, only for knocking the gunners out.