World of Tanks EU: ELC EVEN Early Access
3 min readWorld of Tanks sure have a lot of surprises throughout the year, and each regional Wargaming office has its own moments where they think they had a great idea, that turns useless and utterly unnecessary: Early Access.
At this time we are all familiar with the new French mini tank ELC EVEN. What is considered of the of the worse Tier VIII Premiums to ever been released, is already available in China, ASIA and NA regions, but it is yet to come to EU and CIS.
With a lot of content released from EU Community Contributors recently, we would expect it to show up in the Premium Shop soon, but instead of having it directly there, the Wargaming EU office decided it would be a good idea to release the tank on Early Access. Yeah, you have read it right, some players who have Premium Account and have been playing the game for a while now, got randomly selected to be able to be the first ones to buy the tank. Believe me not? Check this image shared by FreeWillieW on Reddit.
If you were lucky enough to get picked, you can now spend 25.05€ on the tank before anyone else. Now, my question is: WHY?
The idea is that for now the ELC is an “Early Access” offer for Premium Account users as an additional perk. This is the first time we are trying out an offer like this and we can’t guarantee that similar offers would be available in the future for any other vehicles, but we will see how it goes.
Senior Community Manager
Why do we need an “Early Access” perk in the game, where players who have Premium Account can get access to Premium tanks and others have to wait? Is this the sort of gap we want to introduce between players who pay and players who don’t? If this is considered a success, what happens when it’s an “overpowered” vehicle, like for example Object 252U?
I tell you what would happen: players would start accusing players who bought it of “Pay to Win” and it would be true. World of Tanks doesn’t need Early Access to any paid content, neither any other Wargaming game and we players certainly don’t need more reasons to be toxic with one another and with Wargaming.
We don’t need these kinds of perks for Premium Account owners, we need something else, like for example retraining a crew for free, dismount equipment for free, change the portrait and name of crew members for free, and so many other things!
Make Premium account more attractive for the right reasons, not for the wrong one’s Wargaming.
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Its an interesting idea, and I like it since I am a premium account holder. It’s a perk by WG for being a loyal customer.cI really dodon have a problem with WG doing this or with American Airlines letting me on the plane early because I am a frequent flyer with them.
I still don’t get the whole point – what will it bring to me to get this tank days or weeks earlier than others? It’s same price – maybe ACE tanker is easier with early access, lol.
I dont know what is that worse on an early access if people pay for the game.
in a lot of games you get early access if you pay for the game.
maybe it is better for the game. so there are not thousand of tanks on the official introduction day in the game.
is nothing what is doing the game to „pay to win“.
at the end people who spent money finance the game. without them we wouldnt be able to play wot.
There’s P2W in this game: gold bullets.
This is Early Access. Not P2W. When will you “community contributors” start fighting back against the truly P2W game elements?
Wait, don’t answer that. I’m sure the answer is ‘soon™’.
First of all it’s Premium Ammo, not gold bullets 🙂 Second, Premium ammo has been one of my points with Wargaming for a long time. Me and loads of other CCs are trying to “fight” the good fights, but when WG simply doesn’t reply to questions or doesn’t give you any feedback it’s hard to get anywhere. I never said Early Access is P2W, and on his case clearly is not. But let’s say that instead of the ELC EVEN they were giving early access for the first time Defender? Or the Chrysler K GF?
Still, what’s the problem? Wait a couple of days and you can return the favour, if you think it is worth it. Still do not get the point here … sorry …
The point here is WG starting to bring things like early access to other things. You give WG a finger they will take you whole. What we are going to get next? Early access to new tech trees? Exclusive access to some Premium tanks if you have Premium account? I just don’t like this whole thing of early access, specially if other regions already got the tank straight away.
If this experiment goes according to plan you pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Then part of the community will revolt against it and waste time and energy fighting against it.
Meanwhile gold bullets (or, Premium Ammo as you so affectionately call it) will continue to plague the game.
Oh look it’s pay to w- ahem to have early access… o.O ok, that’s different, I’m not against the idea though.
I don’t see how its Pay to Win. Its not like the tank that comes for the non supporters is any better. You just get to show off the new tracks a little early. No reason to shed the tears.
Also..ELC EVEN the worst tank? Not by a long shot. I like that I can hide it behind a shoe.
and still have enough canon to make a heavy turn and worry.
I guess this early acces is about wg who want to see how manny people are willing to buy a bad premium tank…they now how many are now in the game and how many will be bought. After they,ll have the data they,ll decide if they will sell it as it is or they,ll buff it and then sell it.
So is a wise decision from wg.
If they let the tank to anyone then all the server will be full of it and nobody want that.
Wg decide to reward the fidel players with this early acces and there is no problem for me with that.
Maybe early acces is the right way to sell any premium…people who try it knows what they are buying and the others can for sure to say after they fought against it how bad or op is it.
Since when defender or chrysler k are op?’…if they are so op why are so rare in randoms?
I dont see a problem here, i actually like this idea of early access. So this article does not represent me as far as “we as premium players dont want that” i certainly want it!
A bonus on crew retraining and equipment swaps would also be nice though. I would also like a special set of camos that comes free with premium subscription and can only be applied as long as the subscription lasts. Maybe some historically accurate ones with division and army markings.
This is my opnion, and I’m not saying I represent any player base neither I want people to change their opinion because I have a rant 😀
I can understand players being being sceptical given the company we are dealing with is WG however, on this rare occasion I believe this is a noval idea and gives a small something back to those that enable others to play for free.
There is a reason he calls it “premium” and its because there is actually no “gold” ammo in the game, nothing affectionate about it, just simple ****ing fact.
Everyone can buy premium ammo, even non “premium” players. So please stop calling it “gold”. Prem ammo just has a higher silver cost vs standard ammo.
That would make sense if it actually worked like that. Right now the selection seems sort of random. I know players with premium accounts who haven’t received this offer yet, and players with far younger accounts who have.
His point is, what if the tank they offered actually is better? What if they started offering the T-22 to (only certain) premium accounts?
Secondly, without any real word on how much earlier they get it, we really don’t know anything. For all we know, the rest gets the offer 6 months later.
“Since when defender or chrysler k are op?”
Have you been living under a rock??
lol, hide behind a shoe! Great comment 🙂 I got it as well and I like it – I tend to like LT play over MT and HT. As to the early access – I can understand the criticism and agree to some degree. I think that Harkonen’s suggestion on rewarding premium with different perks makes more sense.
I completely agree with you,but wouldnt it be WAAAY better to make equipment demount, crew training and the likes free for premium account users? That would get rid of the horrible unfairness at low tiers as well. (Even though the balance still is awfull, but thats awfull at anything below tier 9, so…) A new player has premium account so he can retrain for free, where currently there are a bunch of tanks with terrible crews and then 2-3 seal clubbers on either team, with a 5 skill crew, cause they played 5k battles in their m2 light.
You already get stuff back for doing that. It’s called the premium account features…
Indeed they did. Saw one on the battlefield yesterday ( tier 10 game) Player confirmed he bought in shop.
I played alongside one last night on Redshire. The guy knew how to use that little beast and lit up the entire eastern flank for 3 of us in TDs.
What a brilliant little beast it can be. I am going to buy one.
If you don’t have the news yet, WG f*cked up in the ELC EVEN 90 thingy… again …
“Ph3lan #194
Posted Today, 04:21 PM
Senior Community Manager
We talked to our Marketing people a bit more about how exactly this offer works to figure out what is happening here. It seems that, due to the fact that this was the first time we did a pre-sale, a very small percentage of premium users were not included in the campaign. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the campaign, we won’t be able to add players who were not on the list from the beginning. The good news is that the same offers for the ELC EVEN 90 will be available for everyone in about a week and you will be able to buy it with the same conditions as during the pre-sale.
I know that waiting a week for a tank that you want to drive right now is not ideal, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused! “
Seemingly, premium users who currently own a premium shop coupon are rhe “small” percentage of users, who are excluded from early EVEN 90 access. I can confirm that for myself (coupon yes, EVEN no). Any more info on that available?
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/660943-no-elc-even-90-early-access-for-premium-shop-coupon-owners/