Announcing the November Creative Contest Winners

Pilots!

First, thanks to everyone for participating in the Thanksgiving Creative Contest from last month. There were so many amazing submissions, we hope you had fun writing them. So without further ado, here's the winners:

Thanks to Wargaming

StormTroopr (tied for 1st): 20,000

Wargaming deserves fifty thousand thanks
For giving us joy of World of Planes
I spent lots of money and many nights
In search of the game that truly ignites
The flame of passion for video games

I am thankful for planes of many nations
Real World War 2 flying creations
I am thankful for making me feel I can fly
My plane and me, in game rule the sky
I am thankful for bombers and fighters so fast
Against my plane no target will last

I am thankful for damage that makes golden ammo
For accurate guns and engine and camo
I’m thankful for clan wars excitement of fight
Alongside clan buddies I spend every night

I am thankful for contests, events and Free Play
I will get some more gold right after Pay Day
I am thankful for knowledge about our past
Those history lessons are absolute blast
The graphics and physics and balance so tight
You work very hard in making it right

I thank you for game you guys are the best
I wish you long life and health and God bless
Thank you

Angels

Psyrenn (tied for 1st): 20,000

“Quickly, Yael, get inside!” The only hiding place was a burned-out automobile in the middle of the street. The lions were upon us and we could run no more. The German Tiger tank could have easily taken aim at our pitiful shelter and destroyed us, but we were Jews. We were not worth the cost of a shell. Instead, the tank commander ordered his driver to crush us beneath the great German war machine.

My daughter began to cry. I held her close in futile comfort. “Shhh, Yael, it will be over soon and we will be with mama again. God is with us. Look to the heavens and know that He is watching over us.”

With wide, believing eyes my little Yael looked up and asked, “Will He send an angel to save us, papa?” I watched in horror as the tank rolled upon us. I held my child close and lied to her for the first time in her small life, “Yes my darling, just keep watching the heavens and pray.” I began to cry, not for myself, but for her.

The Tiger was twenty meters away and closing. “Papa,” Yael whispered, “I see angels.” I kissed her one last time and closed my eyes. And the Tiger screamed as it exploded.

Above us a pair of American warplanes roared past in triumph as the great beast of Germany withered and died. I cried out in shock and disbelief, but my little Yael looked at me calmly and asked,” were those angels, papa?”

I watched as the American warbirds split off in different directions, hungrily searching for more lions of Germany to devour. My words were choked and I looked to the heavens, composing a special prayer for the pilots who just gave my last child hope in this world.  “Yes, darling, those were steel angels sent by God…and a man named Roosevelt.”

We scrambled out of our hopeless shelter on trembling legs. “Come Yael, we must find a better hiding place. This war will be over soon.”

I heard another tank explode in the distance as we glimpsed a third angel climbing into the heavens to kiss the face of God, and I knew it was true.
  
My family is here today because my mother, Yael, survived such a story. For that I am grateful.

Giving Thanks

Thilix: 16,000

Every year I’m thankful for my family, now Wargaming has given me a chance to step into their shoes in a small way with World of Warplanes. They’ve served and fought in many wars going back to fighting next to William Wallace fighting for Scottish Freedom, but my Grandfather fought during what I feel was the golden age of Airplane Design. He flew in World War II from the start to the end, flying his Beautiful A-26 Invader named for my grandmother. The Ms. Mildred served him through the war, kept him safe, and allowed him to fight to protect those that couldn’t. I don’t know the exact number of Sorties he flew, but he was flying support during the Invasion of Normandy (and later became one of the first planes to land in the newly liberated air fields), he flew support during the times bombers and attack bombers could fly at the Battle of the Bulge, and even managed to escape a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in a straight out run in his A-26 (burned out both his engines but he still escaped!).

Now with World of Warplanes entering beta, and being lucky enough to be chosen, I find myself with a chance to fly the same plane he did (if it's added). It may just be pixels on a screen, some random videogame, but for those few moments that I’m flying, I get to be a pilot. I was never able to enlist, become a pilot, and carry on the family tradition of being an attack bomber pilot (both my uncles flew B-1 Lancers through retirement). But now with World of Warplanes moving forward I find myself with that chance. For that I’m thankful.

Wargaming could have stopped with World of Tanks, but they’ve moved into other areas, and I’m more than thankful... I’m ecstatic because you’re giving me the chance to fly that I’ve never had, to revisit history and fly the planes I grew up hearing about, to experience what it will be like to be in a dog fight with them. So, Wargaming I thank you. Thank you for being a great company who doesn’t sit and wait for things to happen but goes out and makes them happen. Thank you for giving me (and others) the chance to fly these magnificent planes.

Untitled

Silent_Scope: 14,000

“What are you thankful for?“ is a very common question that goes around the Thanksgiving table. Everyone replies in turn the common answers “this meal”, “shelter”, and money”. But after this year, what will I say?

So much has happened this year. I was accepted in WoWP as a Closed Beta Test Pilot. That alone is a blessing. Do I tell about the time I shot down my first plane? Or what about my first Ace? So many possibilities.

I am thankful for the graphics that make the WoWP sky look so real. But that wouldn’t do to say in front of my grandmother. She would just say, “If you want real, just go outside!!” Then there was the time that I could not figure out how to drop a bomb. I was worried for a moment, but then I remembered the forum. The forums are a completely different kind of blessing.

How many times have I written LOL on the forums?! The number escapes me. The forums are so classy; yet add that humor and laughter that the day needs. From Heh’s picture post to Crag_r being scolded for excessive NDA Breach Calling. “Rookies," as they are called, writing their first post in the completely wrong section and pilots needing words translated because of language difference. Madness101 quirky little post (Heh still has him beat) to pavement and his always willing to help attitude.

Sweet is starting to form on my face. I have lots of things to be thankful for, but which one will I say? When asked on Thanksgiving “What are you Thankful for?” Family will be my answer answer.

I am Thankful

Hyberion: 12,000

I am thankful for a man, a friend to my family, and a role model in my younger years. I knew him as Doc, the nickname he earned as a fighter pilot in World War Two.

I am thankful for the hours spent around the kitchen table listening to him recount events from his time in the air force. From those stories, I learned about strength and courage. I shared in the excitement of adventure, and the pain of loss. I learned that the greatest sacrifice a man can make is not always to lay down his life, but to pull himself up and continue on when the fight is gone out of him.

I remember long talks about the different warplanes he flew, what he loved about them, and what he hated. He spoke of the strengths and weaknesses of each nations machines, the strategies he employed as a fighter pilot, even the different armaments and ammunitions used. His knowledge covered planes used by all the participants.

When he spoke of combat, I could almost imagine myself there in the cockpit with him. I am thankful now that I can play a game like world of warplanes that brings to life so many of the stories he told. From dogfights, to attack runs on naval vessels. The sights and sounds could be taken straight out of our long hours around the kitchen table.

Perhaps I am most thankful for one lesson in particular. One evening after a long story about how his squadron attacked bombers, I asked Doc how many planes he had shot down. He erupted on me with a fury I had never seen before, and never again after. He told me it was none of my damn business, and that a man never brags about killing, and if I ever asked him something like that again I would "get it good". This was how he taught me that there is nothing glorious about killing another man, even as an act of war.

I am grateful for games like World of Warplanes because they give me a chance to experience the thrill of combat without having to take up arms. In some small way I can relive the stories of my childhood, and the memory of a great man, without having to visit the horror that is war. For this, I am very thankful indeed.

Dear World of Warplanes

Trojankv: 10,000

Dear World of Warplanes, thank you for giving us the Messerschmitt Me 410. When I log on for the first time each day, or after a relaxing round of World of Tanks, and I haven't quite shaken the cobwebs from those lightning-quick reflexes we all need so badly for dogfighting, she's always there waiting for me in the hangar. "Don't worry if you're a little rusty," she seems to say to me. "Just point me at planes and let me do the rest. I'll only need a second or two for all these pretty cannon and rockets to light up the sky. And if they don't go down in flames," she reassures me, "don't worry about doing anything too fancy. Just keep flying right on by. We'll turn around eventually, and give it another try." And thank you for my partner in crime, my tailgunner friend who sits quietly behind. Always doing his best trying to keep those fighters behind at bay. Never judging me for failing to impress him with some fancy flying. And never a complaint, even that time when I face-planted us both in that dive that, let's face it, we both knew was too steep. So thank you again WoWP and thank you Willy Messerschmitt. Nothing beats a little boom 'n zoom in my 410 to get me loosened up before a little turn 'n burn.

Winners should receive a PM from us at some point in the 24 to 48 hours to ask if you'd like the Gold applied to your World of Tanks profile, or to World of Warplanes (once it's released). Again, thank you for all of the amazing submissions and keep an eye on our portal for future contests!