A review from a Closed Beta Tester

[SFC Gunny]

I have not linked my Wargaming account to my Steam account - but I've played World of Warships since Closed Beta - over 3 years now.

I constantly read the complaints from players here on Steam, on Reddit, and even on the official forums concerning the "pay to advance" dynamic. Let's talk honestly about that.

A quick look through my Steam library shows 171 games, of which, I only have 10 or so currently installed. Many of those games were duds, or had no replay value at all. Average price for a Steam game runs about $40 (US Dollars). I have at least 50 games in my Steam library with 10 hours or less of gameplay. Part of that is my own ignorance on the refund policy - but the point remains, either false advertising, limited replay, or boring game mechanics led to many of those games collecting dust in my virtual Steam library.

World of Warships is advertised as a Free to Play game, and that is still accurate. If you want to ease your progression and advance quicker, a premium account (currently on sale for $45 for a full year) will make it easier.

World of Warships also has many events throughout the year which results in free ships, camo, consumables, modules, doubloons (the in game currency), credits (used to purchase ships , modules and consumables), and free XP (used to unlock upgrades or ships quicker).

I've accumulated over 8000 battles between Closed Beta, Open Beta, and Full Release. Personally, I have no problem throwing a bit of cash towards a game which has given me that much play time and replayability. If we assume the average battle lasts 10 minutes (which is an underestimate for the sake of argument), that amounts to over 1300 hours of gameplay. Personally, I don't have any other game title which even comes close to that number of hours of total gameplay.

When the game started, we had two nations (US and Japan). Since then, it has expanded to include Germany, Russia, UK, France, Pan Asian, and some limited ships for Poland, Italy, Commonwealth.

This is a game I strongly recommend, and even more so if you join a clan and enjoy the social aspects of online gaming. I'm an American on an assignment in Europe, so I've played on the EU server, started my own clan, and have thoroughly enjoyed the socialization with players from other European countries in my clan. Even when I rotate back to the US, I'll remain playing on the EU server and continuing with my clan.

So - can you play World of Warships as Free to Play? Yes - but to be honest, why would you? How many games in your Steam library were provided free? My guess is zero. If you would pay money for any other game on Steam, why wouldn't you put a bit towards a game you enjoy so you can progress a bit easier?

Many years ago, I, like many others, had words of wisdom passed along from my father...Nothing in life is free.

[Jackson]

You have a way with words I shall never have!
I 100% agree with everything.

[SFC Gunny]

Updated the original post with some mathematics on gameplay totals.

[Rockstone]

Very well spoken...
Though I have not been in WoW for that long (oktober I think and spend some 200 hours - according to Steam - which is not by a long shot my record of Cities and MW3), WoW actually has a great balance between free-to-play and money-specials....
And its actually multiple games in one... a tier 3 battle is entirely different from a tier 7... and from what I gather, that holds true for tier 10 also (though I am still working my way up there). Spending that money makes it easier, but more importantly, makes the game more fun...

And besides... these days all games have so called dlc's. Buying all of those, generally runs into the hundreds of euro's (when not on discount). Technically these dlc's are not necessary to run those games, but that is bs. All those games needs those dlc's to stay fun... in that respect, WoW is actually better. You can play WoW perfectly well without buying anything and still do well ingame... for now... loving it.

[SFC Gunny]

@Rockstone

Good points. Take a few games which use DLCs, such as Hearts of Iron 4, Jurassic World Evolution, Cities Skylines, and many others. All of which are games which cost $40-$50 (US) for the base game, plus another $10-$20 for each DLC.

I have a few of the titles above, and I've also purchased many (but not all) of the DLCs, and my time in all of those games combined is still far less than what I have in World of Warships.

For me, Warships brings a gameplay I enjoy, plus the online social aspects of the clan system. We currently use Discord (previously used TeamSpeak) - and getting online, playing some battles, and laughing with some mates makes for a great gameplay experience.

Honestly, I can't really understand the complaints I've read about the game. It seems we have an entitled, but very vocal, minority who believe everything should be provided to them for free.

[Donegali]

@SFC Gunny. Where do I recognise you from? Is it main forums or for some reason I'm thinking Heliborne forums?

But anyway, good post, I pretty much agree with it all.

[hirokaraka]

I see no reason in paying more than 3 euros for games and I still have more to play than I have time, so all those hundreds of dollars seem silly to me. How rich are you exactly to burn your money like that?

[Donegali]

Originally posted by SFC Gunny:

Honestly, I can't really understand the complaints I've read about the game. It seems we have an entitled, but very vocal, minority who believe everything should be provided to them for free.

Very true, but I think it can be explained from what I've read. That is that the average age of wows players is higher than the average age in your average PC gaming community, and they still appreciate the value of earning something. The younger generation is more used to being given stuff without having to work for it (this is a generalisation, I appreciate this is not the case for everyone). Just look at the 'why can't I get a Stalingrad' posts on the main forums, they don't understand that it was a reward for committing time to ranked and achieving rank 1, or the P2W posts from people who can't earn enough to get to T10, they're just not used to putting the effort in (again, I know I generalised).

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

I see no reason in paying more than 3 euros for games and I still have more to play than I have time, so all those hundreds of dollars seem silly to me. How rich are you exactly to burn your money like that?

It's not down to being rich, it's down to priorities and disposable income. I have hundreds of hours of fun with the game, I have disposable income, so it's nice to put some of that towards supporting the game.

It looks like your priority is to buy games as cheaply as possible, and thats totally understandable, I quite often only buy games once they are on sale, then if I like them I pay for DLC. It doesn't make me or you silly, it just means we have different priorities.

[SFC Gunny]

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

I see no reason in paying more than 3 euros for games and I still have more to play than I have time, so all those hundreds of dollars seem silly to me. How rich are you exactly to burn your money like that?

I'm certainly not rich, but I'm quite comfortable, thank you for asking.

[hirokaraka]

Originally posted by SFC Gunny:

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

I see no reason in paying more than 3 euros for games and I still have more to play than I have time, so all those hundreds of dollars seem silly to me. How rich are you exactly to burn your money like that?

I'm certainly not rich, but I'm quite comfortable, thank you for asking.

Good for you!

[Jackson]

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

I see no reason in paying more than 3 euros for games and I still have more to play than I have time, so all those hundreds of dollars seem silly to me. How rich are you exactly to burn your money like that?

For someone with a job, it's mostly insignificant. I'm far from wealthy and have a family but we get by and have a few pennies left over for entertainment.

There are different standards for entertainment, and that's fine. But for many people a $3 game doesn't cut it. There's usually reasons it's $3. If the devs could charge $50 and have anyone buy it, you can be sure they would.

Take premium battleship Tirpitz for instance... I've played hundreds of battles in that. Let's just say that's about 100 hrs. I spent like $50 on it. That's half a dollar an hour. That pales right down to "nothing" very quickly.

Have you been to a movie lately? With a date? With kids? $50 for a few hours of entertainment is a pittance.

[hirokaraka]

Originally posted by Jack:

There are different standards for entertainment, and that's fine. But for many people a $3 game doesn't cut it. There's usually reasons it's $3.

Age of Decadence, Bastion, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, FTL, Half- Life 2, Different Hitmans and Splinter Cells, legend of Grimrock, Life is Strange, Mark of the Ninja, Metro 2033, Metro Last Light, Portal 1 and 2, Soma, This War of Mine, The Witcher 1 and 2, Volgarr the Viking, X-Com... Each of them costed me no more than 3 dollars and is considered to be a great game.

Originally posted by Jack:

Take premium battleship Tirpitz for instance... I've played hundreds of battles in that. Let's just say that's about 100 hrs. I spent like $50 on it. That's half a dollar an hour. That pales right down to "nothing" very quickly.

Metro 2033 alone took about 80 hrs of my live and I payed ~2.50 $ for it. Human Revolution - 50 hrs.

Originally posted by Jack:

Have you been to a movie lately? With a date? With kids? $50 for a few hours of entertainment is a pittance.

Where I live a movie ticket costs between 2 and 5 dollars/euro, while your salary brings you about 3 dollars per hour - and I think that's the reason for different points of view regarding premium ships etc. in WoWs. Wargaming doesn't really bother with regional pricing: the cost will be the same for a person living in UK and in Romania.

[Donegali]

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

Wargaming doesn't really bother with regional pricing: the cost will be the same for a person living in UK and in Romania.

Ooh, would you mind posting in this thread, don't think we have a Romanian in there yet.

My personal view was if they did, you would suddenly get a lot of 'Romanian' players playing WoWs for the cheaper ships, sucks for you though.

[hirokaraka]

Originally posted by Donegali:

Originally posted by hirokaraka:

Wargaming doesn't really bother with regional pricing: the cost will be the same for a person living in UK and in Romania.

Ooh, would you mind posting in this thread, don't think we have a Romanian in there yet.

My personal view was if they did, you would suddenly get a lot of 'Romanian' players playing WoWs for the cheaper ships, sucks for you though.

I'm not romanian, that was just an example. :]

[SFC Gunny]

@hirokaraka - Wargaming, nor any other company, software developer, car manufacturer, or any business at all, needs to cater to regional pricing to make something affordable to you on an individual basis. Sorry, that's the real world.

[Ryuu]

Well, actually prices are a bit different but they can't differ too much because it's a multiplayer game, so it would cause an unfair advantage and other types of exploits.