LemonyFreshAnarchy

Those fragile Omahas... sometimes, not to be trifled with. Can still throw down. Even better, this was its match #50, and it was EPIC

Things that never should've happened but did. That Chandler does love him some fish soup and dumplings. Best. Omaha. Ever. (for me). 776 base XP in a tier 5, 150k damage, 13 citadel hits (Hawkins, Konigsberg, Kotovsy), and a million potential damage. Love these bot-heavy teams. Bot pathfinding getting stuck on islands and too stupid to back up. Easy pickings.

Yeah, they at least added containers this morning, so that's a start. Probably what more of us would like to see, is one of those "88" sequential bundles like we had last year (88 doubloons, 188, 288, 388, 488, etc....) And, I wasn't the only one hoping that somehow, some way, the Festive Finery containers would've logically been part of a Lunar New Year sale, featuring many of the Pan Asian camos in addition to the tier 5, 6, 7, and 8 perma eco boosters like we saw in the Xmas version first iteration Festive Finery containers for December. I don't think it's out of the question that many of us were expecting to see the various Pan Asian ships offered in bundles, either: not just the regular premiums, but the special ones too, like Wujing and its Journey to the West brethren from last year's celebratory events, as well as maybe some of the perma camos in bundles, not just from containers. Pulling Yi Sun-Sin out of the commanders' list and offering him in some kind of ship bundle, like was done with Euro commander Af Chapman, could've made for an interesting sale item as well, for players who didn't get Yi Sun-Sin during his event. For some regions around the globe, the Lunar New Year is almost as significant as Christmas is to many western cultures. With the size of that player base demographic, I'm just surprised the Lunar New Year events appear to have had such a slow start so far this year. The "88" bundles would ironically carry a little more special meaning this year: in addition to seeing an 8 days of premium time drop from a container already, this will be WoWs' 8th year anniversary several months from now. Here's hoping this year, things run a lot smoother than last year.

Well this just feels.... odd. Logging in Wednesday (since NA got it before EU updated), I kinda thought, "that's why the Armory tab appears so... empty". EU didn't get it yet. Figured today (Thurs, Jan 19), now that EU update was live, the Armory would've filled up a little bit more with.... something. But all I see are the two recurring random bundle offers, the free one, and the 150 doubloons one. 12 items each, lasting for 4 weeks (28 days? thru Feb 15th) I'm guessing some kind of container offers, or ship offers, or sequential bundles, weren't quite ready to be added and offered yet? (can already collect American Tokens.... but see nothing anywhere to use them on...? AIUI, a few of the Steam players in my clan are saying they can purchase the new Ning Hai in a Steam DLC already... but the regular WoWs Store currently shows.... no Lunar New Year items.) Seeing an Armory this empty at the start of an update just seems strange. I suppose the silver lining is, currently there's nothing to lure me into wasting currency on "do I really need more of these?" things. I'm guessing something for the weekend, eventually, maybe?

I think the Vanguard "peppermint" camo is one of the fugliest (intentional spelling) camos in the game, and it literally feels like a slap in the face when they thrown throw a permanent version at you. Dozens of other one-use camos out there that would make far more appealing perma camos, and players have been asking for such a feature for some time. Maybe instead of just throwing random unattractive "garbage camo" at us, They instead award us a "Permanizer" token (copyright it, trademark it, make it yours, WG) that lets us take any one-use camo in our inventory, and the Permanizer token lets us make it permanent and link it to one ship. Even if your goal is to link a perma camo to your Black Swan, if that's what you want to do with it, it should be your choice which ship, whichever tier. The only "No" would be for special edition perma camo locked collab ships, and Black Friday B versions. Something like that would absolutely generate more interest in keeping more camos in our inventory. Those "save for later, because maybe..." hopes of getting a Permanizer to make it permanent and linked to a ship of your choice. Otherwise, containers might as well just drop us a chunk of credits instead of a camo that's worth more sold, than kept. Put the Permanizer token in the festive chests instead, put in dockyards, put it in sequential bundles, mission chains, whatever. Players are still going to buy some of those really fancy ones the Art Department creates: if there's one group that never really disappoints, it's been the Art Department. But then again, somebody somewhere forced them to give us Vanguard camos....

If you're NA / US, and don't mind a $4.95 monthly fee, there's also the option of the no-questions-asked American Express Serve rechargeable card (can recharge it at various stores, thru their website, or their phone app) You "buy" a temporary one for whatever amount (can't make international purchases just yet), register on the Serve website, then wait til the "permanent" one arrives (1-2 weeks) and then can use it to make purchases from WG shops. Have an employer who offered to tie personal expense accounts to an AmEx Serve if we were interested. WG and AmEx seem to work well for US players: haven't had any refusals, so long as you have sufficient pre-paid balance on the card for your intended purchase. (** DISCLAIMER: I neither work for American Express nor Karma Koin. Over the years, I just found AmEx to have more widespread "anonymous buying utility" than the Karma Koin cards, especially since I can set up a monthly direct deposit into my Serve balance. Neither of these have any impact on your credit rating, but AmEx will want some personal info just like any other credit card, for security purposes, in case your card is lost or stolen).

Hawked from a Steam post the nephew emailed several of us, a list of the codes for some of the windows of Pirate Santa's house. DISISSANTA2022 (DIS IS SANTA 2022, no spaces)HOLIDAYSONTWITTER (Twitter code)HOLIDAYSONINSTAGRAM (Instagram code)TIKTOKFORTHEHOLIDAYS (TIK TOK FOR THE HOLIDAYS, no spaces)ITMAKESNOSCENTS (IT MAKES NO SCENTS, no spaces)BOOSTTHENEWYEAR (BOOST THE NEW YEAR, no spaces) HAVEAPRESENT (HAVE A PRESENT, no spaces, Facebook code from 31December) IF you have all the bigger windows completed that require missions (1st phase of Carol Clash, 1st dockyard phase, etc... you see what's required on each window) As of today, you should have 1 window remaining, dated Wednesday, Jan 4. (edited to update)

Like the QoL improvement of adding the numbers to our camos and signal flags so we can see how many we have, I think it's not a bad idea to have available (unused) Bonus Packages listed where we can see them all at a glance. I think this Festive Finery container is an improvement over the Distant Voyages container, considerably, solely because we now have the chance to obtain the stand-alone Bonus Packages, as well as perma camos for many ships that otherwise might not have a perma camo option (several tier 5s in there, as well as higher tier ones that have a rather unappealing default perma camo). Personally, not a fan of the current winter perma camos offered, but am very hopeful we see holiday-themed iterations of the Festive Finery container for future holidays. Some in my clan are hoping to see them for the Lunar New Year event (some of the Pan-Asian themed camos are more "eye friendly" than some of the winter themed ones). Wouldn't mind at all seeing these added as: part of monthly and holiday sequential bundles, Community Tokens Shop items, mission chain rewards (the reward tier the container offers being dependent on the difficulty of the mission, level of effort needed, or how long it takes to complete), thrown into the dockyard chain for reaching certain levels, and as purchasable items in upcoming Early Access events. But definitely, an additional inventory area that shows how many available Bonus Packages we have unused of each tier, would be nice.

What could be even more beneficial, would be to take the current selection of chapters in the Science of Victory, and Five Epochs of the Navy, and readjust many of their descriptions to include numerous newer ships that were added since those campaigns were originally written. Obviously, the newer tier 2-3-4 ships count in the first few chapters of Science of Victory, because those are not specifically named or nation dependent, only tier level requirements. But in Five Epochs of the Navy, we see many individual chapters/missions written for specific named ships, for specific reasons. Since those were written, additional new ships have come along, that certainly could be factored into many of those Five Epochs chapters/missions. There have also been several short mission chains (like that Solomon Islands one, and there was another Pacific War island jumper in there, and one that allowed Commonwealth and Dutch ships as participants.... Why couldn't we just have those mini missions added in as new permanent campaigns, with like rewards? They could be added in, so players who weren't here for this mission chain a year ago, or that mission chain two years ago, could have a go at those missions and earn similar rewards. POTENTIALLY, it ~could~ even be a small buy-in mission: if you don't want it, don't bother with it. But if you do want in to complete it, buy an activation for a small fee like coal or doubloons buying those first few collection chests, and you then have indefinitely to complete said campaign, just like any of the current ones.

Areas in North America/US, there are additional payment options... when you're logged in, and your item is selected, and you're ready to choose a purchase option, see the 1st pic here where it says SHOW MORE METHODS, opens up additional payment card option. Man, we use to blow thru those Karma Koin cards back in the day playing WoTanks. They were nice because, if you barely had a dollar balance left on a card, the next KK card you bought, you went to their website, and added both cards' serial numbers, and it created a new balance assigned to one of the cards' numbers, and you could then dispose/shred the old one... you enter that on WG's site down there where you select the Karma Koin option. You didn't have to worry about security/doxxing, because there was no need for your real name or address, just the card numbers and a registration email (in case you lost a loaded card, you could verify it was yours). Bare in mind, most stores only let you purchase Karma Koin cards for cash up front, like a prepaid card. Once the balance was used up, you pitched/shredded it, or added its remaining low balance to a new KK card you bought with a higher balance. Almost every convenience store, gas station, CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreens that had Steam cards or other prepaid game cards (Xbox, etc), carried Karma Koin cards.

Pity we don't really have a breakdown of the available Collections, as to which ones should a new player start first... Majority of them, you start by buying the first container with coal, and they're "subscription" collections, so your resource containers have a chance to drop a piece. One notable exception being, Yamamoto's collection: you either buy the first 5 containers with $ or doubloons, then finish as a subscription. Anybody good doing those instructional youtube videos? Some collections are kinda meh, others worthwhile but take a while. We don't really have any sort of good instructional video for new folks, suggesting, "go for these collections first, worry about these other ones later..." Obviously, book all the subscription ones prior to any that are purchase-only.

In a related pickle.... maybe. OP, you're referring to your WoWs anniversary coupons(s), and NOT the bonus ship coupons we get around Xmas (that expire January 7th), correct? I seem to have been sent, in error, a "Congratulations on two years in WoWs" email, ... catch is, I've only been in my clan since the day we started it... 595 days ago (so quite a bit shy from 2 years). Sent in a Support ticket and am postponing all gameplay until answered, because I don't want to risk being incorrectly awarded stuff, and have an account locked when They realize the mistake, and I have to pay for stuff to unlock an account. If the NA staff are out until after New Years, this puts a damper on everything, basically shutting me down for the next week. I might not play a ton, but I don't need the risk of an account lock.

Dallas' last throwndown before Helena, and it was EPIC! Even completed one more of the 5 Years on Steam missions, as well as earning the Pearl Harbor 80th anniversary symbol. (would've posted yesterday shortly afterwards but was rudely interrupted...) 751 base XP, with Blue-Blank-Blue-Blue eco boosters (blank on the ship XP because was so close to Helena. Did not expect a bot-heavy match to be so dramatic and contested). 9 red bots, and I took at least a piece out of 8 of them.

I question my Distant Voyages containers. I also only bought the 12500 doubloons (for future use) with the bonus 1250 summer tokens, and grabbed 100 with the 500 Community Tokens, so I, too, could get in total 5 DV containers. I got 3 of the now-reduced value perma camos (so I also question that "value added" aspect").. Unsinkable Sam for Bismarck, which I'll most likely use because it looks far better than those last mission and sunken Bismarck ones. The Roman camo for the Caracciolo. I hear it's decent, but lack the ship yet. And the Grigio-azzurro chiaro for the tier 5 Montecuccoli, which basically only looks like a fresh coat of paint, removing rust from the ship. This is the one I question most: nothing fancy at all, just that "fresh coat of paint" look to it. AIUI, there's one for the tier 6 Trento also. But as it's absolutely basic in appearance, this is one that should be listed by default under the ship's EXTERIOR --. CAMOUFLAGE tab. Because it's basic, there's no longer a justification it should cost more than the 100 doubloons (discounted first perma camo for a tech tree ship), since the eco boost was removed. I get it: the summer tokens were technically a free addition, so none of these perma camos actually cost me anything separate. But if it's for a tech tree ship, since the eco-visual separation, any of those should just added into the ships' default camouflage options section (see screenshot). Several other tech tree ships already have the simple perma camos displayed for purchase. Not sure why the Italian fresh paint camo isn't shown by default there instead: something that cheap (100 doubloons on other tier 5s and 6s, so this should've been as well), at that price I'd be wasting doubloons to buy it up for tech tree ships that don't have any other perma camo options, and the Company would be making something off of it. This where I would make the suggestion, when we go into the Premium Shop, the CUSTOMIZATIONS tab should actually be these customizations, NOT nothing but containers like it is now. Containers (collections or other) should be their own tab. Customizations should be a massive page where we can opt to buy many of the perma camos (tech tree and premium) that are almost never sold any other time, and only have the rare drop chance from DV containers. They could also factor in for the original perma camo price pre-eco/visual separation, if it's for a tech tree ship, you can select a perma camo AND get the eco boost, for the original price. Most of these get a sale once ever, and never seen again. That's lost revenue right there. I'd be all for either of those options: add more of the perma camos under the tech tree ships' exterior customizations/camouflages, or actually make the Premium Shop's Customizations section actually BE customization bundles for ships, not collection containers (put those under their own area). But as I'm seeing the rest of my clan hasn't faired as well with their DV containers' drops (no perma camos), here's where I'm gonna stand in agreement with them, and say, "no more of these for me" (DV containers). Here are two perfectly logical and rational revenue suggestions, allowing players the opportunity to directly purchase something they might want. But yeah, I think I'm going to stand in agreement with the clan: no more gamble crates. If they're not sharing in my luck, the Company isn't sharing in my revenue. Give us better direct sales options for this content.