Well… Wargaming.net has finally released an update for World of Tanks (WOT) that actually changes the game. Update 8.0 was released a few days ago and for the most part I like it. No. I love it.

For those unfamiliar with World of Tanks, WOT is a Free to Play (F2P) tank based MMO game where you can select tanks from World War 2. There are no factions but you can join clans, be in a platoon or company, or play by yourself. Once you start the game you are placed on a team and are pitted against another team to either destroy all the tanks from the opposing team or capture their base. That’s the basic general idea of the game.

The biggest change of the game is the physics. Prior to 8.0, as a tank you’re unable to go over an edge and fall. Now with the update you can drive up to the edge of a cliff and slide down the cliff side or plummet to your death.

Here I am in my Tetrarch tank demonstrating what the physics engine can do. I honestly was hoping to kill myself to rob the enemy the gratification of a kill and experience points that they would gain from my death. Sadly my death counted as one of their kills. At the end of this post you can find a YouTube video that reviews the physics of the game.

Another aspect of the physics upgrade is that now you can drown in your tank. Before you would drive over water and have your tank barely submerged. Now you can literary drive your tank into the deep end and never come back. During the first day of the update release there would be at least one player in each match killing themselves by either driving off a cliff/bridge or going for a swim lol.

Then there is the graphical aesthetics of the game that has  been rendered beautifully. Even though I run the game with the graphic setting at the lowest that it can be, you can see how beautiful the landscape can be while playing WOT. And if you run the game at a higher visual output, there can be a lot more details that you can see.

The sounds of the game has been improved as well. Shots fired from tanks sound more real now than before, giving the game a more real life experience of what it would be like caught in the middle of a tanks squaring to each other. The lingering bass from an SPG’s and low tier tanks with auto-cannons sounds pretty bad ass!

One of my favorite feature to the game is the battle report. Before the update players would only have a few seconds to see how they fared in the game; how many tanks they destroyed, which tanks they hit or detected, see how much experience and credits they gained, and to see who earned some medals from the game. Now after the match you are thrown directly to the garage and see an overview of the battle.

If you’re a numbers guy and wanted to see a more detailed report on how well or bad you did in the game you can now select ‘Detailed Report’ to view all that information. What is great about the detailed report is that you can see how much total damage you did, how much damage you received, how much gold you will receive after repairs, how much gold and xp you could had received if you were a premium player, and much more. How you interpret the date is up to you.

With the update comes some nerfing. One of the tanks that was nerfed was my favorite PzKpfw IV. The nerf took away the Darth Vader turret from the tank and replaced it with a Scmalturm turret. The PzKpfw IV also lost it’s snipping ability. This is good and bad. I just now have to play my favorite tank in a different style.

So far, the only thing that I don’t like about the update is the cost for painting your tank. You would, if you want but not necessarily, purchase a paint scheme for 3 different season for your tank. Then there is a cost per emblem  (max 2) and to add a saying to the tank. Well, I guess that Wargaming.does need to find a way to the game profitable with it being a Free to Play (F2P) game.

For more information about the 8.0 update you can look at the release notes for a full detailed list from the game play option, tank rebalancing, fixes, and more. Like I said above, I do love the update since it made the game feel fresh like a new game.

Please note that some of the images above shows the game altered with some mods from Beals. If you would like to download the mod pack you can download it from here:  http://beals.forbesthosting.com/beals/beals_8.0.zip