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I see the Yo Lang effort of being offered unblundled a surprise! (positive one in this case). Maybe it is a TEST to see how this pricing strategy performs on the EU server for future deals. As for me despite the fact that a Tier VIII premium DD is something I might consider to buy, it is not a good deal especially because of the Captain Training factor. Since I have other premium ships the benefit of credit and XP generation is not a big deal anymore, but captain Training can be - but what will I do with a captain out of a nation for which no other ships present? on a small note I would like to remind you that when Tirpitz was first on sale there was no German tech tree at all.... so who knows the future?

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So just I do not always quote myself again, I quote you - and twice if I may so I remind myself where you stand on the issue. See, the point you are suggesting to get back to more "normal" bundles is noble and understandable. My argumentation was working alongside the line to illustrate why making it happen may be a bit more difficult than you would expect. I'm sorry to hear that reading through my post is complicated and only simpler things are acceptable. I believed that forums like this are also good to go in-depth discussions and not just "scratching the surface". In an effort to try to help you, here is the executive version: 1. Bundle Pricing and overall profitability of World of Warships as game not only depends on Wargaming, but the other owner (Lesta Software) as well, therefore it may never work the same way as an exclusive WG titles. 2. Furthermore based on comments in the video and also from Ectar the sales figures are not proving for the decision makers that the pricing does not work - quite the opposite 3. Last but not least, forum players including silent readers represents only 1% of the active player community altogether that is not a significant weight in the eyes of the WG Management.

it is absolutely free of charge... and will remain like that for sure, no worries. my apologies if the taken example was too sharp and I took it to the extreme, however I see a lot this attitude of being regretted about past decisions in light of new facts and wanted to make a point to try to see things differently.

I'll quote myself as the last part of the topic is like everybody is talking about his/her own thing without considering the other posts... So I join this

My personal opinion is that playing Tier II is especially funny. It is because battles can vary a lot in quality and style. It is truly random as how many "newbies" and how many experienced players (stepping back to low tier) you meet that shakes up style and excitement. One of my most remarkable DD vs. DD duel was fought in Tier II with my Tachibana! Try it! I tend to agree that as long as the pace won't change significantly by changing rules (i.e. missions) we will reach 10millP at week 5 most probably. With this in mind collecting the 260 pearls is reasonable even without doing each and every frag or ship type missions... Question is: are there any more surprise ahead of us? For one I noticed recently that the WoWs launcher advertises Project R. After all this a player has to be very noob (nicely put) if not checking out and clicking the join button... ...that may drive many late comers speeding up the pearl collection. The big point in the above post is what the addicted vs. casual player attitude is written. Since there is no way you STOP doing missions after you reach 260 pearls indeed everybody in this situation is simply cannibalizing other's options to reach 260 as long as they play in such way that missions are progressing... And this is the "fun" part of the community moral behavior. Individual interest vs. community interest... Server stats will speak the numbers if we are good team players or not :-)

Since the topic is totally diverted from its original intent and also some main comment elements are being ignored (or not heard or disputed silently) there is not a lot to comment. Therefore I choose the above slice to demonstrate why WG does not need to worry about players buying stuff from the Premium Shop. What the example shows us is how a happy customer becomes a disappointed customer because the perceived value of an in-game item changed. There is an entire bookshelf of psychology books written about this and yet each and every human being falls into the same trap again and again (including myself!) First thing is that when somebody makes a purchasing decision (i.e. to buy X item for Y amount of money) it is important for the ego to feel that IT WAS A GOOD DEAL. It is especially critical when the decision was difficult (took big effort to find the item or the price was higher than normally the person could afford, etc...) One way egos are reassured is that after buying the item the persons keeps going back checking options and pricing just to collect evidence that his own decision (now in the past) was the best one. And of course in many cases it becomes evident that there have been better options... HOWEVER what the ego forgets here is the fact that by this time the person already posses the item, stared using it and enjoys the benefits. This seems secondary despite the fact that it is the more important element by that time! Chasing a "better deal", a "better option" a "better solution" becoming a habit, a mania, but after all it leads to nowhere. There is always a nicer house to buy, a better girlfriend (or friend) to find, etc. but you have to settle with a point in time decision. The trick is to train your mind to ENJOY it and be happy with it! (Who cares if the Fujin will be "free" now for a few people when you have it since October and probably helped you a lot improving, grinding and enjoying the game!) You have to realize that if everybody all the time would just wait for a "better option", no sale could be realized. Think about Steam's Xmas sales deals. Why would anybody buy at any other time of the year on Steam when they know better price will be available at Xmas...? Same here - what you do today is your today's decision and do not try to over analyze it later, especially not adding new facts to the picture that was not available at the time of the decision. WG treated everybody fair in this scenario that you describe above. Will you be mad at your grocery store when they "dare" to reduce prices. Or to Intel when they decrease the prices of a given CPU you purchased for your PC...???? ---- On the other hand: WG's treatment of the EU market it still a big question mark, especially for World of Warships. But one thing is for sure: the guy in the video says somewhere that for World of Tanks 75% of the playerbase never paid. This means 25% did pay at least once! And looking at benchmarks this is a VERY GOOD statistic for a free to play business model. If this is the case on the EU market as well for World of Warships WG has not a lot to worry about. There are roughly 200,000 player accounts playing each week. On the hottest forum topic about the Kamikaze R main prize there were 165 members contributing with at least one post. Multiply it by 10 to add the "silent watchers", this is 1650 players that is less than 1% of the playerbase!!!! Think about that. and of course my post 68! that is till valid.

First, I point out my comments in my post 68 that tries to explain anomalies around World of Warships vs. other WG titles. But perhaps not all forum members read back all posts that are new since they were here... Regarding the pricing - I don't know about you but if you watched the video that is in the first post in full you can see what the message is - related to World of Tanks at least. Point 1 - It is evident from the video that the global CEO of Wargaming (the guy sitting left side facing front the camera) has absolutely no clue about this EU Premium Shop pricing issue. He diverted the question immediately to the WG CEO of EU region (the guy sitting of the right side facing the camera) Point 2 - The EU CEO said that the question will be addressed from February (as the January packages are already done). He repeated it twice and also smiled on the comment from the Global CEO who noted that what he is saying is recorded on video. Point 3 - What the guy said is that they will go back to an earlier system in which premium tanks will be offered with and without bundle... ...and that they will find ways to make bundles more attractive to persuade players to buy them rather than the one item. But for the point is still what will happen with World of Warships. Again. If my points are even partly true (see post 68) our situation will not change that quick as the economic drivers here are different. I encourage everyone to put on the thinking hat and try to give some thoughts to the comments. After all the forum is for that...

I for myself was expecting the Gold and FreeXP sharing for World of Warships from the get go, but it quickly become clear that it won't happen anytime soon. There was a ticked I put to Customer Service about the issue back then and the response was that WG has technical difficulties making it happen - that I honestly did not buy as a response, but did not press further. Ever since then the topic is raised from time to time and I see the PROs and CONs of that surfacing. My selfish personal preference is that GOLD and FreeXP must be UNIFIED. First of all GOLD (or Doublon) is the virtual currency of the Wargaming universe: the link between the real world and real money and the in-game economy. Since the company operates this currency and in-game prices I do not see any reason why different games from the same company should use different currency - any disparity can be managed through in-game pricing. There is one tiny little detail that casts a shadow on this general picture: WoT and Clan Wars: as of today this is the only regular in-game feature that continuously generates GOLD into the virtual universe that has no direct real money connection. So the question for which we do not know the answer is this: why is it a problem for WG to connect World of Warships to a system like that especially when World of Warplanes has this feature? Why is it a problem to buy ships from (free) GOLD when it is not a problem to buy planes? Or convert XP? FreeXP is a bit different story as for me this is the currency of time in the Wargaming Universe: XP is the only thing you can not buy for money you have to earn it by playing, therefore investing your time. So normally why would it be a problem to grind XP using a TANK and develop a ship out of it...? No problem for me seeing inexperienced high tier captains (or tank commanders) as those are easy frags and they will not enjoy the game after all --> nature will balance things out. Bottom line here is that you spend your time playing on the servers, you generate attendance and you rewarded with progress. Simple as that. So why Warships is soooo different than Tanks or Planes? My speculation is this: based on the historical news the developer company Lesta made strategic relationship with Wargaming many years ago. World of Warships is partly (mainly?) a Lesta development with probably some influence and idea sharing from Wargaming, not to mention technologies (i.e. BigWorld engine) If this holds true World of Warships may look like a Wargaming title, but it is not entirely owned by them, it is more a joint venture with Lesta - unlike the other games! As a consequence of that, profitability of World of Warships is shared between the two owners. Therefore most probably WG is not willing to "confuse" the financial picture of the products by allowing resources flowing between them. In this view World of Warships is an individual universe on its own. If this holds true the sharing of GOLD (and FreeXP) may never come - only perhaps if Wargaming buys out Lesta entirely and gets 100% ownership of this product as well. The answer to this is certainly known at the Cyprus HQ of Wargaming, what I do not understand is why letting us chasing the rainbow instead of just telling us their decision...?

I agree with MrFingers and the similar opinions that based on the current valid rule-set we will reach the 10million P and it will be much earlier than the announced max threshold date. The big IF is of course the stability of the current patterns most importantly the weekly missions. This same question of rule-set was asked in different threads and I made my points not here but there and wish not to repeat myself. A suggestion for the Forum Moderators is to compile the same subjects into one thread and stop the fragmentation. Two closing comments: 1. The reason I raised this question of rules was the direct consequence of WG announcing the 260P target for guaranteed TOP PRIZE. If anyone among us believed that Wargaming was throwing out this limit "random" is at best naive. Nobody should think that they suddenly become Aunt Teresa - it was a fair reaction with give and takes. 2. To me the most interesting thing now is that the situation WG has created (assuming these rules will be the same till the end) a very interesting game theory situation. As the community is now tested on moral behavior. There is a personal goal and the community goal and the two conflicts. One example is: once somebody reaches 260 pearls will it stop playing if has non-completed missions to slow down the counter for the other's benefit? The other is: will late comers who does not have a chance to reach 150P at least will not join and play, despite the personal small benefits, for the same reason: to give others more chance? And in the funny way, through the server stats WG will see this epic battle unfold between us...

+1 from me to Ectar to edit the topic, keep only the "to the subject" posts and move it back to GENERAL - what I see here is that we got a lot of input and valuable views and explanations on a subject that seems to be important to the forum visiting part of the player community...

This is exactly why I'm interested in the official Wargaming intent on the rules. Because in one case (when Project R stops as soon as the 10million pearls reached) there will be a time-race between the players to reach their personal goal BEFORE the global goal is reached - I envision this to unfold in such way that on the week (probably 4 or 5) when the 10 million pearls are in reach what will matter is who can sign up and play as soon as the weekly missions are reset (Monday morning) so be among the first ones reaching their goal and pushing to the 10 million global pearls. In the other case (when Project R stops at the 24th of February) it is more of a personal comfort to play and do the missions every week and get to your personal target - in a hope that enough player will do the same so the 10 million pearls are reached so the TOP PRIZE gets unlocked. (Looking at the current progress I believe the 10million is an easy reach before the deadline.) The two scenarios have a very different "win chance ratio" for one given individual. Obviously I have a personal preference, however it does not matter now. What matters for me is to know which one is the correct assumption because both can not be true at the same time!

For me what Ectar explained as financial model was very clear from the get go, and honestly the way Wargaming implemented the free-to-play but pay-if-you-want concept is very successful. I have no issue with that at all. What I mean by not understanding Wargaming strategy is this: we can not know (and shouldn't!) in which financial phase Wargaming is, therefore for what strategic goal they optimize pricing? Few examples to be more clear: A) Assumption: World of Warships can be looked as a separate profit center inside Wargaming in a sense that it has to pay for its own development.and operation. If this holds true as of now WG can be in the financial phase to earn back the money it invested into developing World of Warships during the past 3-4 years! So in this model WoWs has not yet made financial break even. In a situation like that maximizing margin (profit) comes first as the owner / investor is still "running after their money" B) Assumption: World of Warships is a lifetime extension into the Wargaming universe to keep player-base attracted and present. In this case it does not really matter financially that developing World of Warships costed a lot as World of Tanks revenues will "pay the bill". In this strategy Wargaming would want to attract and expand player-base to prolong the lifetime of the entire universe, even if it costs them some money on the short run Unlimited scenarios can be developed but only one is that Wargaming is actually living - and of course it is not our business to dig into that, however it impacts us a lot through many ways, one of which is bundle pricing. The problem what I see on this forum is that there are far too many issues are combined into the bundle price "problem". Regional income differences, gameplay balancing, revenue optimization, preferred markets, special promotions, etc..., therefore at the end nobody is even sure what the real problem is. The symptom we see is that players are complaining about not being able to buy premium ships on their own. To think of an example I came up with McDonald's which is a different business but has a bundle strategy as well - a different one than WG of course. So in McDonald's nobody complains about bundles and high prices, because the option is open to buy any bundle items separately. HOWEVER as many of you probably realize buying the individual pieces separately will cost you much more at the end! So what WG may want to analyze is to create an economic system for World of Warships where every premium ship is available ALWAYS as a individual item and also as a bundle. My guess is that in this theoretical case considering all other "problem factors" BOTH the individual items and the bundles may be more expensive than now... Anyways, I'm glad that at least we are having a good and calm discussion on the subject! Cheers

Well with understanding and not debating anybody's interpretation of the rules I still would like to see a Community Manager post here that clarifies the rules around the end date or cut-off date for Project R. Just the simple fact that posters interpret it differently shows that it is not clear. Do not get me wrong - I do not want to argue for one particular interpretation, it is up to WG to determine the rules here. BUT what I want is clarity and transparency - that we absolutely lack now in this subject!

As of now I'm positive about the fact that our voice has been heard. I hope what I wrote meant that. My speculation about very little to expect on bundle pricing was an effort to put the complaints we see here on the forum and other channels into perspective ("Big Picture") if you like For any company PRICING is a very sensitive issue as this is the ultimate key variable for success, therefore I understand (and hope) that anything WG does on this field have a reason and it fits into a Corporate Strategy. What I think is the issue is that this strategy is not understood by us (and for fact does not need to be!). All I was saying that as long as we see 7.5% of battles played by Premium Ships it is (to me at least) an indication that sales is doing well, therefore reducing the prices may not be good for WG, unless they want to change strategy. Bottom line is that we will see what will happen, and the absolute feedback for us and for WG will be server attendance and sales figures.

To bring the topic forward I propose to thing about the following statement from our Community Manager that actually the first time I see a real response to the bundle issue on this forum. I'm particularly interested in one part that is "please consider also that if they weren't working for us, they wouldn't be used." I was making posts previously to demonstrate the weakness of the EU bundle pricing (other topics) based on stats to come to a conclusion that WG is working against itself sometimes (i.e. Kutuzov pricing) After reading what Ectar said I went back and calculated the stats as how many battles has been fought over the past two months and what was the share of premium ships. In total more than 17million battles were fought by our ships and the share of premium ships is 7.5% on the EU server. This means (as we often see it when we join the battle) that there is almost in every battle on average 1.6 premium ships. To me it shows that our global interest in Premium Ships is high and despite the pricing issues many of us decided to pay for them in fact. So the question is really that by dropping the prices how much MORE of us will be paying and is this going to be a good financial deal for WG? I start to fear that the silent part of the community is heavyweight in buying premium ships (in bundles as well), therefore whoever is seeing the sales figures month by month is not so worried about forum complains. If this holds true we have very little to expect...

Dear ilhilh, Thanks for the math, no offense is taken. Looking into the weekly player statistics, based on your calculation WG was very generous here with the limits. What we can see on the chart is that there were 34,918 players on the EU server who played 50 or more battles last week (IF I interpret the http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/dense_eu_week.html data properly. So it means plenty of us will have the chance for the reward ship!

I respectfully disagree with a few points here. Most important is that the reason I want to clarify the Rules & Conditions of Project R is not that I want to be in the grey area, more to be able to make an INFORMED DECISION about my participation and chances. I'm not a hardcore player in a sense that only have limited time to play as I have work, family and other hobbies and responsibilities. Therefore I would like to be able to judge how far I can get - this is nothing more just transparency. The most detailed rule-set of Project R is this It does specifically say the END DATE being 24th of February, but does not detail out any other elements I was looking for. And if you read my post carefully I did not use words that implies that WG MUST do what I ask (or else) - all I was saying that it would be good to have the answers from the Community Managers (I did not even speak to WG directly!) With this in mind WG is allowed and of course have the right to change anything in the Wargaming Virtual Universe - nobody denies that. But for me at least transparency and clarity is important regarding what are the current actual Conditions and Rules!

This question belongs very well into this topic and I was thinking about it myself as well. The chance for getting the 260 pearls that brings the guaranteed top prize is what? 1. for one I was also working with the assumption that as soon as we reach the 10million pearls barrier the project is over. 2. However one can speculate that since there is an end date announced, no matter how many pearls are collected, the project will be finished on the given end date, and IF at least 10million pearls are collected the Kamikaze R ship can be developed so the 150 pearls lottery and the 260 pearls guaranteed prize can be given out... These are different conditions and I can not find anywhere which one is the correct? This should be answered first! Next questions could be that according to WG / EU Managers, what is the planned maximum pearls that the Project will offer? So we can see where the 260 is relative to that. Last but not least it is also unclear as for XP gathering oriented missions WHAT XP is counted, more precisely what XP modifiers count and what not? so: - daily first win multiplier? - Premium Account +50% - XP booster flag? - XP booster camo? Thank you in advance for the Community Managers to either answer these questions or point us to the direction where the answer can be found.

+1 for me: win 1 battle and win 5 battles are not reset...

Just for the fact: 165 players contributed here. Fuzzy warm feelings are OK with me. It is different doing something for an announced reward, or BEING REWARDED without knowing about it in advance! The point is the recognition for the effort that improved the global community wellness. To remember them: in the below list is everyone who were here: cheers!

Well on the post above I have a better suggestion: a special flag that goes to whoever manages to get the Kamikaze R AND supported this forum thread that made it possible for everyone to get it guaranteed. THIS WAS THE achievment - staying around for almost a week and making contribution to the debate. (even better would be to award the Kamikaze R for everyone who posted in this thread as it was the voice of the community to make things fair that supposed to help WG to better understand its players and correct mistakes they made - but probably this is too much to ask for :-D ) --- So for now the challenge is on, enjoy the game and the have fun!

1. I appreciate that WG made a step and effort to address the issue. Reading the posts about the calculation if the 260 pearls can be reached I'm not sure how generous this offer is, but for now I'll approach it with good faith and try to believe that it is reasonable. If this turns out to be a cover smoke and mission impossible steps will be taken. 2. Regarding Post 665 - that was a response to my comment in which I wanted to clarify the uncertainty about the news showing up and disappearing: the tone and mood of handling the issue like that is clearly rude and does not meet the level I would expect from official WG staff. If this is what he could do he should have remained silent. 3. Regardless of how things will turn out at the end I also thank all of the members who kept this topic alive and shared their view and opinion. My belief in this community being able to join forces and work towards a common goal has increased a lot - applause for everyone!

I would prefer an official communication on this matter from WG and the Community Managers... I can't seem to find this article on the website. (besides: has anyone gave some thought as what it really means to gather 260pearls? I mean: amount of tasks/mission to do to reach it when considering that you only have time till the total count reaches 10million?)