Overview

Tank Rewards is a rewards program for the AAA PC Game World of Tanks. Players earn points by completing missions, and unlock levels of prizes that they are able to choose on the website. The system is very flexible and features prize selection, prize level unlocking, user-polling, raffles, loot crates, scavenger hunts, and even custom mini-games. As of January 2018, Tank Rewards has been visited by more than 1 million players.

The Technology

Tank Rewards has evolved over the span of 2 years, with the original code being from the Fantasy WGL project. The project is built with PHP and has a completely custom-built front-end and back-end on both the site and the administration suite. Javascript, jQuery, and AJAX are used quite heavily, uses OpenID authentication (allows players to use their game accounts) and the site also integrates with the official Wargaming API.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX (Post-Release) Artwork API Integration

Additional Work By:

Michael Dobbins : UI/UX (v1.0)

Kelsi Mannhalter : UI/UX (v2.0), Artwork

Overview

The Fantasy Wargaming League was a fantasy eSports platform designed to compliment the WGLNA professional eSports league. Based on the massive success of things like fantasy football, the aim of this project was to increase viewership - and it succeeded by multiplying the viewing audience by 4x! When the league shut down, not all went to waste - several parts of this project were able to be re-used in other WG products both internal and external, including the massively successful Tank Rewards.

The Technology

Fantasy WGL existed across 5 seasons of the WGLNA league, evolving with the league the whole time. Built in PHP, it also utilized Javascript/jQuery/AJAX heavily in some features, including live-scoring by importing game replay files. Other unique features were prize selections, an achievements system, a developers API (for players to build their own tools), automated bracket generation for playoffs, and all the statistical information a player could ever want. Accounts were based on Wargaming's own OpenID authentication, and the website integrated with the official Wargaming API for pro player statistical information.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX (All Versions) Artwork API Integration Reactive Layout

Additional Work By:

Michael Dobbins : UI/UX (v2.0)

Overview

After a few seasons and the introduction of many features, Fantasy WGL was a success. The system had collected so much data and there were so many interested players, including several with development experience, that it made sense to open it up and get some user-generated content started. Unfortunately the project was short-lived, as the league was shut down shortly after the API's beta release. There were about a dozen developers who created things such as Slackbots (bots for the Slack chat system), predictive models for player results, and other smaller scale projects. Had the league not closed, eventually the API was also going to evolve further to change the main website to a MVC architecture for version 3.0.

The Technology

The system is a pretty basic, but forgiving for the end-user, REST API. It's programmed in PHP, and capable of outputting to the user in either JSON or XML formats. There were 13 different requests in the last version, with more than 15 on the way. The system's backend had the support for private and authenticated requests, however they had not yet been developed.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX Artwork API Integration

Overview

Wargaming America is an award-winning AAA game publisher based in Austin, TX (PC) and Chicago, IL (Console). Launched in February 2018, the Wargaming America homepage is the company's official corporate presence on the web.

The Technology

Both the website and its control panel are built with PHP, HTML5, and Javascript. The website is a completely custom-build, while the control panel utilizes the Bootstrap front-end system for simplicity and continuity within internal Wargaming systems.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX Bootstrap Artwork Responsive

Additional Work By:

Kelsi Mannhalter : Early UI/UX

Overview

Tank Academy is a resource for new players to World of Tanks to learn the basics of the game, which has many levels of depth. Through a series of videos a player learns about several subjects to improve their experience and skills.

The Technology

The project has a PHP backend and uses AngularJS on the frontend. It is fully integrated with the YouTube API, the Wargaming account system (OpenID) and also with another WG product - Tank Rewards.

My Role

Back-End DB Design API Integration

Additional Work By:

Michael Dobbins : Front-End, UI/UX, Artwork

Carl Smolka : Video Content

Overview

Total War: Arena is an upcoming realtime strategy game being developed by Creative Assembly and published by Wargaming, in cooperation with Sega. The website project was intended to last pre-beta through post-launch, however despite internal satisfaction, this version was shortly lived, being replaced by one developed by Wargaming HQ.

The Technology

The project has a PHP backend and uses AngularJS on the frontend. It uses the Wargaming account system (OpenID). The website offers support for pre-beta features (such as Beta registration, promotional pages) as well as post-launch functionality (News system, update notes, landing pages, game documentation, etc.).

My Role

Back-End DB Design Responsive

Additional Work By:

Michael Dobbins : Front-End, UI/UX, Artwork

Overview

Online gaming creates some amazing communities, however it's no secret that within every community exists some level of toxicty. Free-To-Play games are especially prone to this modern problem. Launched in January 2018, this tool was created to aid Wargaming's player toxicity team in gathering data and tackling the issue. The tool sifts through chat data for 3 titles - World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes - and flags players deemed to be causing a disruptive environment, then makes it easy to impose chat restrictions on these players and generates statistical reports.

The Technology

The toxicity tool is built using PHP. As it is an internal-use only tool, the front end was built using Bootstrap for continuity with other internal tools.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design Bootstrap UI/UX API Integration Responsive

Overview

As Wargaming's portfolio expanded, marketing emails became more tedious to do and designs diverged. The Email Builder came in to fix these problems, and reduced work required by staff by over 90%! The tool allows emails to be built using several pre-designed blocks, fully skinned to the product being marketed. Emails are made by choosing one or more templates, entering the data (text, image url, etc.), and hitting export - no manual coding is required.

The Technology

The email marketing tool is built using PHP. As it is an internal-use only tool, the front end was built using Bootstrap for continuity with other internal tools. The emails it outputs are backwards compatible with just about every email client imaginable, and even work on IE5.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design Bootstrap UI/UX Responsive

Additional Work By:

Michael Dobbins : Some templates (email building blocks)

Overview

In 2016 Wargaming started a new initative to prevent the use of unfair game modifications in World of Tanks. However a short-term solution was needed to track violations and collect statistics on violators until a more sophisticated and robust system was in place. For a short while, this system filled the gap.

The Technology

The FATS system is built using PHP, with a custom html5 front end. It's a fairly simple tool, however one unique feature is the ability to export statistics and charts into presentation files.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX API Integration

Overview

Tournaments in the Americas region for World of Tanks were having player-balance issues, which led to difficulty in getting newer players involved and retaining less-skilled players. The matchmaking system was the solution to both problems. The first step was to segregate players who were new to tournaments, and match them only with other newer players. For those with some experience, players' past performance determined their groups, so better players faced each other, and less-skilled players faced each other. The results were more thrilling tournaments, a slight bump in increased monetization, and happier players. Due to the silent roll-out, few players understood why they were having more fun, but as word got out, it earned the approval of most who knew of the sytem.

The Technology

The tournament matchmaker is built using PHP. The backend and frontend are both custom, however the tool was more built for function than form. The underlying skill rating system is Glicko 2 (modified for a team environment), which accounts for skill, volatility of the player, and confidence of measurement.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End DB Design UI/UX API Integration

Overview

The Wargaming America office has several TV's spread around that keep employees updated on company news, promotions, work anniversaries, new hires, etc. The problem was that they were a hassle to manage content for the IT Department. This tool builds a slideshow for the TV's which can be managed remotely.

The Technology

This tool is extremely simple, and utilizes PHP to build a Javascript slideshow. The control panel is very simple, allowing uploading of images and editing of a simple configuration file. The tool is capable of hosting multiple slideshows.

My Role

Project Manager Front-End Back-End