Probably, many World of Tanks players have heard the mention of some kind of potato more than once in various news, videos, and other materials, or simply in chat conversations. Water makers especially like to mention it.
Initially, this causes bewilderment, and then sooner or later the question arises - what does this perennial herbaceous root crop have to do with the world of tanks?
Anyone who is at least a little familiar with the origins of WoT can answer this question. In the community of World of Tanks players, potatoes are called not only the game itself, but also, first of all, the development company “Wargaming”.
The thing is that the company’s main office is located in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
There is even a phrase that has become a separate gaming meme: “ Potatoes as always " - it means that Wargaming has again made some kind of mistake, released a crooked patch, or is simply acting illogically and to the detriment of players.
« But what does this have to do with potatoes? " - you ask.
And despite the fact that Belarus is associated in the mass consciousness with potatoes.
There are a lot of memes about this on the Internet. But if you ask exactly how Belarus and potatoes are connected, then hardly anyone will answer you.
Most likely they will say " Well, probably because Belarusians eat or grow a lot of potatoes».
And they will be wrong- the consumption of this root crop in Belarus is hardly more significant than in other countries, and they import it even more than bananas.
In this short but entertaining article, we will lift the veil of secrecy over this issue, which undoubtedly excites some curious minds.
Historical reference
As you know, potatoes were brought to Europe from America in the 16th century, but they appeared in Russia only under Peter the Great, and at first they were considered the food of aristocrats. A little later, peasants began to grow it, but there were very frequent cases of poisoning from improperly prepared young potato tubers. Therefore, after some time, the Moscow Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church imposed a ban on potatoes, calling them a poisonous “Latin fruit,” which the Catholic Church allegedly promotes on the territory of Rus' in order to destroy the Russian people.
However, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which at that time covered the territory of modern Belarus, was not subordinate to the Moscow Russian Orthodox Church. A special form of the Catholic Church, Uniatism, was widespread on its territory. Therefore, the peasants there continued to calmly eat potatoes. For this they received the nickname “bulbashi” (from the Belarusian “bulba” - “potato”), that is, “potato eaters”. It was deliberately spread by Russian clergy as a mockery of the “Uniates,” that is, representatives of another religion.
However, when Catherine II ascended the throne, she ordered the lifting of this ban, arguing that potatoes were not poisonous at all, were very unpretentious, and could be grown in large quantities. Since then, potatoes began to spread en masse throughout Rus', and dishes made from them can be seen on every table in any Russian family. The nickname “bulbash” remained assigned to the Belarusian people, although now there is nothing offensive in it. And the potato itself began to be associated in the mass consciousness with Belarus.
In fact, it is unknown who and when decided to call the Wargaming company a potato in connection with its Belarusian origin, but certainly few people knew that the roots of this name go back centuries and are associated with long-standing religious differences.
While playing World of Tanks, many players may have heard references to some unknown and incomprehensible “potato” - this concerns a message in the team chat and, of course, similar words can be heard from many top water makers who throw this word around left and right.
At first, many players simply do not pay any attention to such messages, and then gradually interest arises in what kind of notorious “potatoes” they are and why top water makers and many ordinary players talk so much about them.
In fact, the answer to this question is quite simple and any player who knows at least where the game World of Tanks came from will be able to answer this question without any difficulty.
Players call “potatoes” not only one game, but rather the development company that created World of Tanks for us and is now engaged in its further development.
The fact is that the main office of the developers from Wargaming is located in the capital of the country of Belarus - the city of Minsk. There are many interesting phrases related to the company's activities. If the developers, for example, again made some mistake, the players will not miss the opportunity to say: “potatoes - as always.” You still don’t understand what the potatoes have to do with the development company. Yes, because potatoes have long been associated with Belarus.
However, no one can give a normal answer why Belarus is so associated with potatoes, because in fact its residents do not consume more dishes from this vegetable than in other neighboring countries where it is grown. Many answer the question of why Belarus is called potatoes, but it obviously has nothing to do with reality.
Historical reference
In order to understand this issue, it is necessary to look at the pages of history. If anyone doesn’t know, potatoes were brought to Europe only in the 16th century from the new continent of America.
At first, potatoes were not widespread and were only popular among the upper strata of the population, but over time, peasants also began to grow this vegetable on a large scale. As many of you may know, potatoes were brought to Russia by the first emperor of the empire, Peter I.
It’s interesting, but when potatoes had just appeared among the peasants, they could not cook them and were poisoned. Because of this, potatoes were banned from growing for some time and called the “devil’s plant.”
But in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there was no such ban, so the peasants continued to eat potatoes. From Belarusian, potato is bulba, for which Belarusians themselves began to be called bulbashki. This nickname was used by the Russians to mock potato eaters.
In Russia, potatoes returned to gardens only with the coming to power of Catherine II, when she called this vegetable not at all poisonous, but quite useful and capable of overcoming hunger in the country. And then the cultivation of potatoes gained scale until almost every peasant household began to grow it.
But the nickname “bulba” or “bulbash” remained assigned to the Belarusian people. However, now no one is insulted with such a nickname, as in the old days.
And yet, answering the question of who was the first and why began to call the development company Wargaming a “potato” is incredibly difficult and maybe even impossible. After all, now thousands of people are saying this - who sowed the mania for “potatoes” is a big mystery. However, now you at least know how this amazing root vegetable is connected with strange Belarus.
The usual picture of a battle for a level 10 tank, your MAUS timidly moves away from the base, looking for the nearest bushes. "Business" is the only reasonable tactic in a game where the entire gameplay is built on the developers' fraud. That is why the owners of the game are making titanic efforts to “explain” to the players how bad it is - “sitting in the bushes”. But MAUS somehow nestled in (the game developers don’t know what a “closed, equipped position” is; they probably, like all the nerds, didn’t serve in the army), that is, they stood up “just as best they could”, after 30 seconds another “miracle machine” illuminates it. T-50-2 and over the next 30 seconds your MAUS is torn to shreds by the OFS immediately from 3 ARTs.
That's it, the game is over for your MAUS, but the question remains - why is a tank of the 40s destroyed by a guided projectile developed in the 80s-90s, such as "Krasnopol", since a hit by a conventional OFS into a tank turret from a long-range howitzer is an event from the realm of science fiction. This is just one of many examples of unfair gaming situations, of which there are a great many in World of Tanks.
For tanks of levels 10 and 9, the following statistics have developed:
In 40% - 50% of battles, your tank is destroyed by ART.
In 50% - 60% of battles, your tank receives more than half of the damage from ARTA.
If you ask on the game forum why it works this way, you will quickly be awarded the following titles: “whiner, deer, noob, shkolota, etc.,” and will also be given advice to “straighten your hands.” At the same time, a quick google of the characters creating a “reasonable” information background shows that these are hired “prostitutes”, for a modest “200 gold per day” they “shit on the forum” in favor of the owners of “World of Tanks”.
How does a player see his goal when starting to play World of Tanks?
It would seem that everything is simple, logical and clear, but this model categorically does not suit the owners of “World of Tanks”, since it has a beginning and an end. Once a player reaches the top, they are bound to lose interest in the game, which is bad for business.
Therefore, the developers use the old trick of all scammers: they force the player to run in a circle, like a donkey chasing a carrot hanging on a stick.
The “Miracle Weapon” is introduced into the game - ART, which for some reason, looking at the battlefield from above, destroys ALL tanks with one or two hits. Then their business is in order, the players “see the carrot” and begin to run in circles, unfastening their money on the way to London, naively believing that they are helping fraternal Belarus.
The most remarkable thing is that for deception in the game two types of impossible and magical tanks are used at once:
Fireflies T-50, T-50-2, Chaffee
ART - of which there are a great many in the game
Their key tactical and technical characteristics are in fact impossible and magical, since in the game they must do things that would be fundamentally impossible in real life.
Because of this, a naive player, thinking that he is playing a “realistic tank simulator,” comes into complete bewilderment when faced with a T-50-2, the cornering speed of which corresponds to the speed of a good racing car, with its weight of 14 tons. And then a 200 mm High Explosive Fragmentation Projectile weighing 80 kg flies into his tank from somewhere above, and blows his tank to pieces.
An excellent business idea - your tank was first “lit up” with a magical “firefly”, and then destroyed by a guided projectile of the “Krasnopol” type, using satellite guidance from space. But at the same time they tell you that you are playing “realistic” tanks from the 20s - 40s of the twentieth century.
2. More ART - More Money
All players in the game strive to reach tanks of levels 9 and 10; they reasonably believe that by playing on the most powerful tanks they will finally be able to fight for real. But this completely logical course of the game categorically does not suit the owners of “World of Tanks”; if in the end only high-level tanks remain in the game, then they will only have to fight among themselves, but the owner of an IS-7 is not very happy about a shootout with another IS-7, he wants to destroy weaker tanks, otherwise why did he “pump up” for so long? The game will start losing players again. The first thing the potato growers came up with was to make battles with high-level tanks unprofitable; if a team is defeated in battle, the net loss ranges from -20,000 to -50,000 in-game silver. And now players are forced to buy a “premium account” and “farm” on “golden tanks”, and the blessed cash flow rushes to London, to the greedy owners of the game.
But the appetite comes during meals, how to increase collections from suckers? The solution is simple and quite in the spirit of real scammers, they simply increase the number of “Miracle Weapons” in battles beyond all measure, leading players to a desperate situation.
Here are examples of the balance of power in high-level battles.
