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Greetings to you, aspiring commanders and sea dogs! With World of Warships Legends Alpha impending, we have thought it would be a good idea to shed some light on the design decisions, or rather approach, that we are taking with WoWs:L. This also serves as opportunity to introduce myself to you, so that you know whom to direct your constructive and polite feedback to when your favourite ship gets nerfed.:) I am AINTD and I am the Lead Designer here at WoWs:L, working diligently to bring the best World of Warships experience on consoles possible. I have had a fair share of console development experience in the past and it is my intention to put it to good use in WoWs:L. Tons of design or design-related decisions need to be made on daily basis on a title as big as World of Warships. A lot of them are fun to work on, some are a tad tedious, and some are downright annoying. It is our job, however, to answer all the questions and solve all the issues we encounter during development, so that when you get your hands on the game, you actually enjoy playing it and have a good time. Many of you may be wondering whether WOWL is "just a port" of the PC version of the game. Short answer is "No, it is not just a port". While we are borrowing existing assets as well as aiming to preserve core of the World of Warships experience that makes it so engaging, we also subject all existing features to scrutiny, never shying away from updating a feature that could use it. It is not time nor place to get into specifics, but I do want to outline some fundamental ideas behind our approach. First thing is first: a gaming console is an entirely different to PC platform, with its strengths and weaknesses spanning across hardware, networking and last, but not least, input method. World of Warships relies heavily on keyboard+mouse scheme that does not really exist on consoles, so our first goal was to make sure that all mechanics translate well to controller. We have made great strides towards achieving comfortable controls and this is one of the things I would really appreciate your feedback on during the upcoming Alpha. After all, most amazing graphics and smartest mechanics in the world will be of little consequence, if you are constantly struggling with the controls. A console controller works rather differently to a mouse. Some actions are more intuitive and easier to execute, while other (e.g. aiming) require substantial updates. It is not a good thing or a bad thing - it is just different. Complementing core gameplay is our meta-game and it also is getting meaningful updates. These span progression system, port UI, social and many other features. We see WoWs:L as a great opportunity to refresh existing mechanics without having to tiptoe around status quo. We aim to make the experience more dynamic, varied and streamlined (do not confuse with "dumbed down"). At the same time, we want to remove/change some of the features that, we believe, would thwart our players. This is both challenging and exciting times for us and I hope that you - our audience, people who we are doing this for and whose satisfaction we take to heart - will join the ride and become part of the experience of bringing World of Warships to consoles. There are many other things that I would be eager to discuss, but all in due time. For now I encourage you all to take part in Alpha, play the game, scrutinize it, talk to us about it - we listen! Happy sailing!