World of Warships has been a very successful real-time strategy game on PC, and now there's a mobile version as well - World of Warships Blitz. I've been playing this for a little while, and very much enjoyed it, so let's take a closer look a the "free to play" setup.
The game currently offers 7v7 tactical naval battles, against real or AI players. Whichever team scores the most points within a 6 minute time-limit wins, points are awarded for controlling areas or sinking enemy ships.
Ships
Ships come in four classes: destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. Historical ships from the first and second world war are available, from Soviet, British, Japanese and US fleets (although only the Japanese and US fleets are currently properly fleshed out).
The ships are classified in ten tiers, and XP is needed to "research" the next higher tier. XP is gained from battles. Once a ship is researched, it has to be bought using silver. There are multiple ways to increase the ship's capabilities - upgrades to hull, weapons etc using "blueprints" (which are gained in battle), installing equipment (paid for in silver) or using special consumables (again, silver).
Currencies
This brings us to the classic free-to-play multiple currency setup. Silver is the regular currency, which is gained in battle, gold is the "special" currency, which usually has to be paid for with real money. Gold buys a variety of things:
- more ship slots
- create your own fleet (alliance, team, whatever you want to call it)
- profile pictures
- buy premium ships
- buy premium account time
- buy special paint jobs
- convert experience
- buy silver
Some of these are vanity items (like profile pictures), others are quite useful (like premium account time). That said, the way the game is currently set up (and the quite steep price for gold), it's perfectly playable without spending much real money.
Once you've reached tier 6 (out of ten), things slow down very considerably. The cost for new ships scales exponentially, both in terms of XP needed to unlock them, and silver needed to purchase and upgrade them. We'll be taking a closer look in future posts at what's the best path to choose to deal with these, what to expect, as well as the ship types with their strengths and weaknesses and winning strategies.
Conclusion
As always, if you enjoy the game, I'd recommend paying what you feel it's worth to support the developers. But as "free to pay" goes, it's certainly one of the good ones out there.
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