[2021] WG Thanks for adding more diversity to the commanders

One of the biggest challenges we have specifically for adding historical commanders, that most do not know about, is legally getting permission can be difficult if someone has passed away and we have to try to contact an estate or representative for that person.

It's not as easy as just grabbing images and making it happen. In this respect, the example of Leroy Jenkins, we actually reached out directly to him. This process still, however, takes a long time and has been a project that has been ongoing for almost a year.

Trust me as a retired CPO and someone that use to teach naval history and knows a lot of US Naval history, there are A LOT of commanders I would like to see in the game, but after working for WG for over a year, I have seen how much time and effort has to be put in, in order to make it happen. And at the end of the day, we could reach out to an estate or representative and just never get a response, in which case, it can be a hard stop for us at that point.

Mahalo,

-Hapa

Our addition of Mr. Jenkins into World of Warships had nothing to do with that character, but with Mr. Jenkins specifically, because he is a veteran, we have worked with him in the past and we wanted to honor him specifically.

-Hapa

So in World of Warships, we have historical commanders, we have special commanders and then we have legendary commanders. Doing this allows us to represent more commanders without flooding the population with a lot of commanders that have those perks.

For us the "Historical" commanders are a good way to honor someone's service (Like Mr. Leroy Jenkins) without adding a lot of development work to ensure a commander is balanced.

So case in point, Mr. Jenkins as I said above still took almost a year to get everything together to put them into the game, where as Lutjens was probably in the development cycle for well over a year.

Is there a chance for additions in the future? Sure, do I know if it WILL happen or not? No. Sorry for the long round about answer.

-Hapa

No unfortunately because Mr. Jenkins is getting up there in the levels, we couldn't coordinate all that.

-Hapa

Hey Captains! I'm thrilled to see that you can appreciate this new addition. We are planning to publish an article with the reasoning and history Mr. Jenkins has with the USS Kidd in addition to mission briefings and how you will be able to earn him. Please Standby :)

We have had several interviews with him and he was part of a video series we did on the USS Kidd in the past.