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We spoke with Wargaming's product marketing manager Grzegorz Kubacki, to learn all about the recent Viking-themed update coming to the multiplayer naval game.
"Hi and welcome back to Gamereactor's coverage of this year's Nordic Game in Malmö, Sweden.
Right now we have a visit from Czechia. It's one of the teams behind World of Warships PC and I'm here with Greg who's going to tell us more about the game."
"So yeah, could you start by just introducing what is World of Warships?
So hello everyone. World of Warships, it's a free-to-play game. We have many millions registered users all around the world. It's about ships. Right now we have around 800 ships.
Everyone is more than welcome to join the game. It's a very casual game. You don't have to spend many hours. You can just join the battle, spend 15 minutes, relax. I'm doing this after a very busy day to disconnect, to reset. It's really nice fun. What we are doing here, we came here because recently, like a few days ago, we added a new commander to our game which is Ragnar. You can see Ragnar here. We try to do something in a different way and we know that many big gaming studios, when they're adding some Scandinavian Nordic content, they are not taking care too much about voiceover. They're always adding subtitles but we wanted to give something special for this, our local audience. We hired three actors who are giving the Danish version of Ragnar, Swedish and Norwegian so everyone can try them. If you'd like to try them, I'm advising you to go to our landing page which is wo.ws/ragnar. Everyone is more than welcome to join our game."
"Thank you. Your game has been out for a long time. It's 10 years old and it's constantly getting updates such as this, the new Ragnar update. Can you describe some of the journey you've been on? How has the game changed during these 10 years? Changed and expanded?
Yes, this year in September our game will be 10 years old. Very long journey but because of our dedicated community, we are still happy to do what we are doing. We're doing updates, we have monthly updates thanks to our community. Very often we are discussing with our players what they are expecting but of course we're also trying to surprise them with some new things, new features."
"Recently, in the last few updates, we added different types of ships, we added aircraft carriers, we added submarines. They don't have too many fans yet but I'm hoping in the future everyone will love them. What else? We're doing this because of the fans, like I said. Many people still play our game, they love our game. I know that some of the people they have computer only to play one game which is World of Warships. We are trying to spread the word even more, especially now in this Nordic event, Nordic game. That's it."
"Yeah, so you said it's a pretty easy game to get into. It's pretty intuitive, you can have a lot of fun without necessarily spending a lot of time to learn it. But there's also, it seems when you look at the ships and the model, there's a lot of realism. So can you tell us a bit about the research and the realism that goes into building these digital ships? This is a very good question."
"This is one of the reasons why our game is so successful, because thanks to our dedicated developers, programmers, art teams, we can have really beautiful ship models which are based on actual blueprints. So sometimes we're working with navies around the world, we're getting some information from them, and very often they are built in 80-90% exact model. Of course, they can't be built in 100% because of some addition to the game. But they are very detailed. We very often collaborate also with some museums, because for example, we have a gaming room in Belfast in London, so everyone can go to HMS Belfast, not only walk around, but you can also try yourself on the ship playing our game there in the gaming room. We work very closely with museums, because it's so realistic that instead of just reading about the ships, you can actually try them. Unfortunately, many of them don't exist anymore, because they were destroyed in the First World War or the Second World War."
"But you can still try them, learn about them thanks to our game.
Yeah, and I was wondering on a more personal note, you guys in the marketing department and stuff, have you been out sailing in some of these ships to learn more about them, or are you staying safe on the coast? So, I have a patent for Superyacht Commander, unfortunately only for the multi-territorial waters, so I'm a bit connected with sea. We have also some our community managers, players also connected with sea. Majority of them, they are more into history, so they prefer to play our game or watch some archival videos. But there is always this love to water, and many people are saying that the waves made in our game or the sea looks pretty realistic, so it's also a nice sentiment for the sea. Yeah, and obviously you told about this the Ragnar update, but what else do you have coming up in terms of content, or maybe I even hear a rumor about a competition? So, in terms of content, we are preparing some cool surprises, which I can't say too much yet. As I mentioned, we're going to have a 10-year anniversary in September, so all existing players, also the new players, they can expect a lot this year."
"Fingers crossed, they will be happy from what we prepared for them. For our local audience here, for Nordic Games, you can go to Gamereactor. We are organizing a small contest with five prizes for people from Denmark, five prizes for people from Norway and from Sweden. We are offering this beautiful t-shirt with Ragnar for everyone who will go to Gamereactor right now and answer a few questions. You can expect something super cool soon. Well, thanks for explaining about the game and enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you so much, and once again, I will maybe repeat the website, wo.ws/ragnar. Come and play with us. Thank you."
