World of Warplanes open beta taking off soon, beta phase features outlined

Wargaming.net's aircraft-based free-to-play online game, World of Warplanes, is about to enter open beta testing phase, according to a post on the game's official site.

Currently in closed beta, Warplanes will enter two open beta stages before the game's full release. The game will undergo a "hard wipe" before entering stage one of the beta that will reset players' earned achievements, planes, credits and gold. In-game "Test Gold" will also be replaced with a "Token" system. The amount of Tokens awarded to a player depends on the gamer's accumulated experience during the closed beta.

The second beta phase will see another wipe and Tokens will be replaced with Credits or redeemed for Premium account time. The game will receive another wipe at the conclusion of the second open beta stage. Once World of Warplanes is officially released, players will be able to purchase in-game gold with real-world money. Converting "plane specific experience" to "free experience" — similar to the World of Tanks model — will also be enabled.

Wargaming.net recently revealed that it will axe the "pay-to-win" microtransaction model across all of its games in favor of a "free-to-win" model.