British battleships will be sailing into World of Warships later this week. We had the chance to chat up Community Manager Trevor Smith to learn more about how these new ships will affect the larger game as well as try to ferret out a few other details. Read on!
MMORPG: You're introducing British battleships to the game. Do they fill a particular niche in the current fleet meta?
Trevor Smith: These ships are going to fill an interesting spot in battleship meta at high tiers. They have a fairly good concealment for ships and really good concealment for battleships. Using this, their good maneuverability, and their specialized fast heal ability you become a great hit and run ship.
Lower tiers are characterized with very heavy armor, making those ships ideal for brawling it out with other cruisers and battleships. You just need to be wary of torpedoes.
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MMORPG: How many ships will be sailing in? Are there any particular ships that you're most excited to see players trying out?
TS: There are 8 ships being added to the tech tree as a line as well as one extra that is a special ship that can only be earned using Free Experience. This constitutes a full line of ships from tier 3 to tier 10.
I am most excited to see some of the lower tiers like Iron Duke getting into some precarious positions in a match and fighting their way out as well as the higher tiers being used as assault ships. Sailing in, throwing out some heavy damage, and then sailing away, becoming undetected, repairing up, and coming back to terrorize the enemy team once again.
MMORPG: Are any iconic, well-known ships part of the deployment?
TS: Some of the most iconic ships in the line would include Iron Duke, who was at the Batlle of Jutland, Queen Elizabeth, who was part of the Grand Fleet and only missed Jutland due to maintenance, and King George V, who, among other WWII action, was a major part of the sinking of Bismarck
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MMORPG: Were there any special challenges you faced making the new ships?
TS: There were a fair few challenges. This is possibly one of the most anticipated lines of the game and there is a huge expectation attached to them. On top of that, getting information from a government about some of their biggest war machines in the pursuit of “putting them in our video game” can be highly difficult.
MMORPG: Are the ships on the test realm yet? How are they being received?
TS: British Battleships have been tested for about a month now both in a closed testing environment as well as being on the live server being used by the Supertesters. Generally, the ships have been well received by testers and the feedback has been positive.
MMORPG: Will any new captains be introduced with the battleships? If so, who? If not, will there be in the future?
TS: We have actually just added a special British Commander (Jack Dunkirk) with the Dunkirk mode, Operation Dynamo. Will there be a new special captain for the British line in the future? Only time will tell.
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MMORPG: Are there future plans to introduce more British ships or other craft into the game?
TS: Unfortunately we can’t give you exact details about future lines right now, but don’t be surprised if we do see something in the future!
