For those of you who are familiar with Wargaming.net you've probably heard of World of Tanks, the award-winning free-to-play team based MMO featuring devastating tank battles.

Well Wargraming.net is adding another action MMO to its arsenal which takes place hundreds of feet above ground and is fittingly named, World of Warplanes.

I'm here today to bring you a preview of what you can expect to see from Wargaming's upcoming title. Keep in mind, however, that World of Warplanes is still in closed beta so some of what I'm about to talk about may change. Beta is beta after all.

On that note, lets get started!

Wargaming's highly anticipated game World of Warplanes is receiving a huge update today for US and RU players, whereas EU players will get ahold of the update on the 20th. World of Warplanes is a flight action MMO that is currently in closed beta. The game is receiving a flight model update and improved mouse controls on US and RU clusters.

Well, this is something! Wargaming.net has thrown together a totally rockin CGI trailer for World of Warplanes, showing tons of awesome dogfighting action in their upcoming game. Short and sweet, it appears to have been made for Igromir 2012, a Russian game developer conference. But hey, who cares about that? They make that awesome "brrrrrrrrrowwwwwwwwwww" noise while firing their guns!

Julian "Mirai" Williams

This is probably the best Dev Diary from the World of Warplanes team yet. They talk about historical accuracy to the planes, how they are working to keep balance in check, customization both visual and gameplay (you get to hang pin-up art on your plane, how cool is that?), damage modeling, and Lead Finding Sight Assist, to make it more arcade player friendly. But my favorite bit is about halfway through, when talking about gameplay balance; "We want to make sure you're fighting an enemy, not his plane." 

I'm sure anyone who has done online games has reached a game where skill has gone out the window in favor of the instrument of death they have in their hand. Sometimes you want that, but in a game like Warplanes, I certainly don't. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Wargaming celebrated a double win at Gamescom by releasing a new video for World of Warplanes.

As announced by a press release and video from Wargaming.net, Japanese-designed WWII planes will be featured in the World of Warplanes release, including the legendary A6M2 Zero, as pictured above.

This historical plane was most notable in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Theater, leading up to WWII. Also included is the Nakajima Type 91, the J4M1 Sendan interceptor, and the Kyushu J7W1-3; three plane models that never saw combat. The planes feature high speed, maneuverability, and a wide array of weaponry. 

BigWorld is a developer who creates middleware, specifically the stuff that - in short terms - allows the World Of games series to host millions of players without security risks. According to Wargaming, it's like the Unreal Engine from Epic. Cutting the middleman out, they bought them for $45 million, allowing faster and cheaper transition into their upcoming and developed World Of games.

Since tanks are much easier to control than planes, what with the entire Z-axis coming into play, so Wargaming is expanding their support for controls greatly, including mouse and kyeboard, gamepads, flight sticks, or joysticks. The idea, of course, is to get everyone in on the game, but those who have skills or invest enough time into the game, have much greater control over their plane. For comparison, think about the difference between manual and automatic. 

Replacing the function of "capturing" a point, like in World of Tanks, was a bit of a task, and Warplane devs explain the process of inventing Superiority, including the other mission called Escort. Yes, there's escort missions, but they actually sound awesome. They also explain the new training mode, which is critical considering how much more complicated Warplanes is. the full video goes into explanation. 

The entry page for the closed beta would be good to check out right about now - the closed beta is taking off. World of Warplanes is looking to be an aerial combat version of the quite popular World of Tanks, and it's pretty slick so far. No, there are no dragons, I'm still waiting for them to announce that wasn't an April Fool's gag.