How Individual Missions Came to Be

Source:http://wargaming.com/ru/articles ... al_missions_in_wot/

Wargaming’s corporate blog posted an article on how the IM’s came to be. Let’s check it out. The bold parts are highlighted by me.

官方资讯：个人任务研发的前世今生

The first part of the post deals with what are the IM’s. Nothing really new there. But then comes the history part.

这篇报道的第一部分讲的个人任务是啥，没啥新鲜的，就不多说了。但是接下来讲的就是它的前世今生了。

The idea for this new made was tied to the development of team battles and clanwars (or, rather, clan functions). In Spring 2014, team battles were already implemented, as was the CW mode and stronkholds were under development. But solo players didn’t have any long term goals in the game, apart from playing random battles to unlock new tanks. This caused a wave of discontent amongst solo players – they complained that they are at an disadvantage to clan players, especially when it came to handing out special reward tanks for campaigns, all the while there was no way to get these solo.

个人任务的主意和联队、领土战（或者说是军团功能）的研发密切相关。在2014年春，联队模式已经在游戏中实装，与此同时领土战和要塞模式也正在开发，这对于有军团的玩家是个大福利。但是那些单野玩家除了打打随机模式、研发新坦克之外，就没有什么长期目标了。这在单野玩家中引起了一阵不满，他们都在抱怨自己处于不利地位。特别是有军团的玩家可以从活动中领取特种车，而单野玩家根本不可能有途径去获取这些东西。（二雷：不怕！只要你有钱，一切皆有可能。）

Development

研发阶段

The IM concept came to be in very early 2014 and did not change ever since – the concept was that the players would complete long chains of missions and would be rewarded with attractive prizes for them. The model was then developed and existed in many interations, but the backbone, theconceptremained the same.

个人任务的概念产生于2014年年初，而且从那时起就基本定型了—— 玩家通过完成一系列任务来获得比较吸引人的任务奖励。模式雏形很快就被做出来了，并历经多次改进，但主题和概念一直没变。

The mechanism of having to start the IM’s manually was added intentionally, because with regular missions, it was percieved as a problem that the players didn’t have to do that and that they could just complete a mission without even knowing about it. The IM’s introduced a concept of knowingly having to accept the conditions of the mission, also knowingly setting a goal for next few battles, the players have to see what they have to do and what will their reward will be.This was done to psychologically and emotionally tie the players to the missions. When a player accepts the goal himself, he gets more positive emotions and is interested in staying in the game longer.

手动开启个人任务的机制是有意为之，因为开发者认为要是设置成自动的，那么玩家会稀里糊涂地完成了某个任务，而他们自己却不知道原来还有这么个任务啊。个人任务通过引入手动接受任务条件的理念，就相当于有意为接下来的几场战斗设置了一项目标，玩家由此可以知道他们应该怎么做，做到了又会有怎样的奖励。这就使玩家与任务有机得联系在一起。玩家是想去完成这个任务，而不是被迫完成任务。他从游戏中发现了更多乐趣，那么就会花更多时间玩这个游戏的。

Development from the first idea to the release took almost a year. The concept appeared in Spring, the development of UI started in July, the mode was ready in November. There were changes to this idea too.First, it was considered to allow the players to complete unlimited amount of missions on one class of vehicles, but it was considered that allowing a player to progress through one class of vehicles and leaving it at that reduced the interest and involvement of the player.Therefore, in October, it was decided to split the missions into several groups (based on how complicated they are) and to introduce a reward for each such group. This motivates players and gives them the opportunity to play all types of vehicles.

开发工作从最初设想到完工差不多用了一年时间。在春天时提出了这个概念，7月份开始做界面，11月模式完工。这期间，模式理念也发生了一些改变。最开始是打算允许玩家用任一种类型的车完成无限数量的任务。但是玩家一直用一种车做任务迟早会玩吐了，最终就丧失兴趣不了了之。因此，在十月份，开发人员决定根据任务难度把任务分成几组，每一组任务都有一份奖励。这就让玩家有做任务的动力，并且有兴致去体验不同类型的坦克。

The UI was also changed. At first, a player had to not only pick up the mission manually, but also manually turn it in.After a laboratory user experience testing, it was found out that turning the mission in (after it is completed) automatically will not reduce player’s emotional tie to this game mode and action awareness and as a result, the “turn in” button in UI was scrapped.In the beginning, a player also recieved a system message, that had to be viewed and a button had to be pressed in order to move towards the next mission. Instead, a nice greeting window was introduced after the battle was over.

界面也做出了改动。之前玩家不仅要手动接受任务，还要手动完成任务。一个内部人员测试之后发现，在任务条件达成后自动完成任务不会降低玩家对这个模式关注程度，反而看起来更方便实用了。所以，“完成任务”按钮就从界面上移除了。最开始玩家在完成任务后会收到一条系统通知，你必须点开它并点击按钮后才能继续下一个任务。后来它被一个恭喜完成任务的窗口取代。

Girl Tankers

女性车组乘员

The girl crews came to be after one of the devs, Levon Zakharchenko during a brainstorm session looked at a “magazine for men” Wargaming employees recieved as a New Year gift and proposed the crews to be girls after seeing the girls on the cover.(SS: Wargaming employees sure recieve interesting gifts). Everyone liked the idea and the historical consultants confirmed that there were women tankers in WW2 as well. And so, a spontaneous idea was quickly implemented (SS: my ass, this was proposed MANY times over the years by dozens of players on every server).

女性车组乘员的点子是咋来的呢？是开发人员Levon Zakharchenko在一次集体讨论会议上看到一份“男性杂志”的封面女郎后突发奇想提出来的，而这份杂志...是WG雇员收到的新年礼物（SS：WG雇员总是收到各种神奇的礼物）。每个人都觉得这个主意屌爆了，历史方面的砖家也说在二战中真的有女坦克手。然后，这么一个自发形成的主意很快就被贯彻执行了。（SS：卧槽！在过去一年中，已经不知道全世界有多少玩家提议加入女坦克手了！你们竟然说这个主意是你们自己想的！？）

Future

展望

IM’s will come in seasons. It would be stupid to stop after one set, as the UI WG developed is too good for that. The first campaign will take about half a year and player feedback will be taken into account in future development.

个人任务将会按季度发展下去。既然已经做出来这么个不错的产品，搞一期就完结显得太蠢了。第一季活动将会持续大约半年，这期间的玩家反馈意见将会用于完善改进接下来的研发工作。