Lunch with the Developers: Part 3

With Part I and Part II out of the way, here's the third part of our interview with World of Warplanes developers Oleg Gotynyan and Miroslav Baranenko.

	Oleg Gotynyan General Manager Persha Studia	Miroslav Baranenko Head of Art
Interviewed by World of Warplanes EU Editor, Elijah Tabere

In this article, we discuss:

• Historical Accuracy
• Free-to-Win
• Tablet version of the game

Just a couple of months ago, the re-introduction of controversial inscriptions and insignia to World of Tanks sparked a huge debate across all our international communities about historical accuracy in the game. How did your team perceive this discussion, and what's the developers' position on these types of decorations in World of Warplanes? How far can historical accuracy go in your opinion?

MB: What we will try to do is stick as close as possible to re-creating authentic aircraft with all the small details featured on them. If this means adding a specific tagline which has historically appeared on such a plane, then it's likely that it will find its way into our game. However, we will not show any symbols or words that are illegal in any of the countries where our game is being played. Other than that, we don't make any political affiliations and try to recreate historically correct planes in an authentic, yet fun environment.

OG: Quite frankly, we followed the entire discussion about potentially controversial writing on the tanks from afar. The entire thing is less relevant for planes because historically, there was far less inscription on warplanes from our era. What you will see in terms of visual customisation options in World of Warplanes will be mostly symbols, portraits and nose art that were much more widely used during that time.

MB: We already have a lot of additional designs in stock which we'll include to the game over time. They are not really hard to produce and take little time in development. Painting a cool logo to be added as an optional texture is one of the easier tasks, but it is not essential for release, so we are keeping it for later. We will get to it, once we've finalized all the essentials. However, there will be an additional slot on the planes for extra emblems, and we're already working on that.

Will Free-to-Win features make an appearance in World of Warplanes as well?

OG: Yes, absolutely. We'll have basically exactly the same principles for our economics as the ones that you're already familiar with in World of Tanks. Expect to see the option to buy Premium consumables for credits in the game very soon, probably at release. The ability to acquire high-end consumables for Gold/Tokens is already ready for the game right now. As soon as we've figured out the final pricing details, we'll make a lot of Premium items available for Credits as well.

We're not concerned that this will destabilize the game. In the end, we never sell any game-changing items. The skill of the player piloting the plane is still the defining factor that determines the overall rate of success. In this regard, we're able to build off what World of Tanks has already established. Our company has laid out clear guidelines for economic structures to follow in all Wargaming products, and we intend to make this a reality in the game as soon as possible.

Anton Sitnikov, a Producer for World of Warplanes, recently mentioned in an interview that it's not impossible to see a tablet version of the game sometime in the future. Here during gamescom, you've been asked about this by fans as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

OG: The idea has been discussed. However, it is way too early to get excited just now as this project is still far from becoming a reality. As we said here during our Q&A's, we need to concentrate on finishing the PC version of the game first. Only after that can we start to think about porting the game to other devices.

MB: You have to keep in mind that the game is of a very fast nature and that converting it to a device with a touch interface such as a tablet is a very complicated matter. It already takes a lot to be able to understand the ways of a fast-moving plane in 3D space on the PC. Handling this accurately and being prolific at using the controls to hunt down other moving targets isn't exactly child's play and could be even more difficult on a tablet.

OG: This is why I personally prefer the idea of bringing World of Warplanes to consoles first. You already have the option to use a gamepad for steering your plane right now. Making the transition from your PC screen to a TV, keeping these same familiar controls, should be an easy step to take. If we ever release a tablet version of World of Warplanes, it will look and play more differently from the PC original than what you can see with Blitz for World of Tanks. As we've said though, it's still way too early to speak about this now in any concrete terms.

In the last part of our gamescom talk with the developers, we speak about how new game modes are created, ask if World of Tanks has influenced the development of World of Warplanes and get to know Oleg and Miroslav's thoughts on gamescom itself. Find out this and more in the fourth and final part of our series soon, right here on the portal!