I will make this rather personal, as this is mostly letter is dedicated to You, our readers.
The keen eyed of you know that I have been running TAP since roughly May of 2019, and if you were here for even longer than that, I’ve also been an author or publishing few historical pieces here and there in late parts of 2017 and early 2018 as well.
Since Sebastianul has mostly left the blog mostly for me to handle, there will be many changes in the year of 2020, and they will drastically impact the post quality from here on out, most of which I will be talking about here, in this letter to You. (And if You are wondering, You will not be seeing a lot of Seb until early to mid of 2021)
What is this 2.0 project?
The whole point of 2.0 is to increase the quality of the blog, rework the interface and hopefully, if possible, reduce the negative stigma about the blog floating around, mostly taking account Your feedback about what you want to change and what sort of content do You want.
Armored Patrol 2.0 Project – Stage 1
This one is, if You are reading this the day this is published or few days afterwards, has either already arrived or will arrive soon.
1) Change of Platform
We are in the process and close to finishing full transition from WordPress.com to wordpress.org. What does this mean to us? A lot more freedom when it comes to design and maintenance of the blog. To You? A lot of awesome changes going forwards!
2) Signing up to a dedicated Ad network.
Now I know what You are thinking, “this is all about the money”, and it sort of is, but we all have our own lives and somehow we need to make a living, but this is not a decision without any sort of positive result to You. With a dedicated ad network, we will make a lot more income while also controlling the type of ads displayed (We will do our best not to include nudity or sexual content!), and this brings us to the last point:
3) Full time writing and expansion of content
With the extra predicted income, I will be able to go full time blogging and writing, meaning You should get all the juicy news the moment they come out! As well as news, I will be doing a lot of things Wargaming related, such as rework proposals, beginner guides (like the one we published recently), and also a full out content expansion, going beyond just Wargaming news into the world of different games, historical articles and things You, readers, want to see! (Wait for our polls on this soon!)
Does that sound promising? For us, it sure does! But this is not it, as we also have 2nd stage planned, which is early to talk about, but we can let You in on some juicy bits.
Armored Patrol 2.0 Project – Stage 2
1) Full site redesign
While Seb totally loves the old timey theme and look, I will be working on a more modern and easy to understand solution. People like professionalism!
2) Multilingual website
We will be working with translators of different major countries and languages (currently we are thinking about Russian and German, with the possibility of Polish) to translate the blog into your language, making it far more accessible to everyone.
The Epilogue
And that is not it, as 2020 progresses, You will surely see many different changes when it comes to how TAP evolves. Just keep one thing in mind:
Reader satisfaction is our top priority going forwards.
When it comes to new types of content and written pieces, You will decide how we alter the course, making You a part of the adventure.
And for now, that is everything we have in store for You, please express Your opinion down below on what do You think of our transition, what sort of content do You expect and want to see, and most importantly, what is Your opinion, negative or positive, about the blog and what do You want to change Yourself.
Until the next time!
Vexxed.
This sounds great!
If you need a german Translator, contact me (best would be via WoT, IGN: Rob9315)
Hey! Thanks for volunteering π If we are in dire need of translators, we will definitely reach out for you, but when it comes to German language, RagingRaptor has already volunteered to translate. Thank you!
Thank you Veroxx for letting us know what\’s going on in the future. I\’d like to offer a suggestion for the new layout. In the past I\’ve read a good chuck of negative comments because people haven\’t understood what is a reported rumor and what is official. Would you consider making a banner next to the title labeling a post as rumor or fact. I\’ve seen people comment about making in game decisions based on rumor they thought was official because they didn\’t take the time to read carefully. A banner would help negate this from happening in the future. Obviously it wouldn\’t be perfect but it could help.
That is a great suggestion, we recently faced quite a bit of backlash due to us spreading \”fake news\” even though we emphasized the fact it was a rumour and speculation. I will take this into consideration, thank you!
Noobmeter shuts down in 2020.
Wotlabs is dead in 2020.
WoT is dying in full decline mode (powered by Slava Markarov).
TAP goes professional in 2020.
Priceless.
Hey, we never were competent at what we do.
Very good things then !! Well done . Never easy to change format , challenge the \” never done it before\” mentality.
If you need FRENCH translation then give me a shout on WOT: TANKAVENGER
Would be happy to help
no…WoT is in decline due to Murazor… thanks to his idea of tanks without weakpoints and p2w tanks, better than standard counterparts…
thats why wot is dying
+ more and more credit sinks along with prem account buff…wich means guess what? P2W
Have you read the interview Slava gave? It was posted on TAP recently.
that is the confirmation of the WoT state…not the main reason why is WoT in this situation now
is just the \”official\” recognize after fkin 2 YEARS OR MORE about what we already saw…and what was started at same period…
Great, some content with clear vision will be good… Only what scares me are words like \”modern\’ and \”professional\” in terms of look…
These ruined so many webs, applications and other projects in my eyes π
We will take all factors into account, to make sure it\’s not \”too modern\” π We will stay faithful to the old days, you can be sure of that
Will the WG moderation team still be able to moderate TAP?
Of course.
Why do you give power to the WG people here? This is a fanmade site not an official one.
I thought that was a joke by Saville, who is from WG here and moderates? As far as I am aware the only moderator is me.
hopefully…because if i complain about their imbecile p2w concepts on their official sites i get banned
anyway….i hope they can see this : NO MONEY FOR YOU ! FCK GOLD AND P2W ! BALANCE YOUR GAME!
WG has more control over fan sites than you think….and has the power to shut down and moderate sites at will. Presumably exactly what they have done here on tap, having insiders reporting names, IP numbers etc….leading to a banned WG account.
So unfortunately, fan sites are soon a memory. This is just a fine example on how free speech are nonexistent in Russia etc – the ghosts of NKVD, KGB, Beria and Stalin.
It is true that WG have the power, but only to those who are affiliated with them and get what I call \”preferential treatment\”. We don\’t have that sort of thing, and our relations with anyone within Wargaming are minimal, so you can be sure that nothing is getting released to the WG behind the scenes, not that it ever will, doing such a thing is against the law anyways.
Please with the redesign give us an alternate dark theme.
Y.E.S
YES
yes
Yes
Yes!
Yes in every way
THIS. thanks.
Please, please, please don’t mess up the mighty fine design of TAP! It’s clean, it’s neat, it’s just great. Maybe a dark mode, but don’t mess it up.
Good luck for the future.
Let’s hope WoT don’t die in the next 10 years.
Keep up the good work Veroxx and TAP. I would like to request a dark mode as an option. Otherwise I am mostly happy with the UI & design of this blog/website.
I already disabled adblocker for TAP, I hope the new monetization way won\’t be too intrusive.
Reader experience is what matters most, you have my word it will be non-intrusive.
We will make sure it is not
Veroxx, i think you are doing a great job and i\’m looking forward for 2020 with TAP.
Sounds interesting, good luck on the redesign π
Sounds good. All the best TAP!
I have been here from earliest days of TAP and felt all ups and downs especially those school related wink wink @Seb…
You are doing fine job and keep up with it… I wish you a lot of success in coming years guys…
As they say evolve or die! Good luck with your future.
Hopefully you can pick up more where I have failed in posting warthunder, work is just to damn much. I also enjoy the wows news.
Taken into consideration π
1. If all this changes will help you to provide better and more content to your readers… GREAT!
2. You know there\’s more portuguese speakers/readers than german (ex) right? I just believe if you are addresing it to \”all\” just have a look on this first! Before you all start \”yelling\” saying Polish and German are more that Portuguese…. carefull because there\’s a LOT brazilian players also playing this on NA and EU servers! Do the math!
3. Keep up the good work!
I agree, but the bulk of our views comes from US, Germany and several other EU countries.