Wargaming have more fingers in pies than a twenty-fingered pastry poker in a bakers, not only are they opening new studios all over the world, hosting film festivals, funding open source foundations up and down the land, and releasing new trailers for World of Warships but they’re somehow finding the time to release details of their upcoming World of Warplanes open beta.
The open beta is to be run in two stages, the first will mark the end of the closed beta and a wipe of all those accounts. Nothing will pass from the closed beta into the open beta except for accumulated experience which will be converted into in-game tokens, representing the currency accrued by all players as they play. This exchange will allow seasoned players to purchase equipment ahead of the new rookies. The second phase will introduce credits, a currency players can buy with the in-game tokens.
When the game finally releases all the accounts will be wiped again and credits will be replaced with a variant currency which can be bought with real money.
Each stage of the beta is designed to help Wargaming test the different elements of their in-game economy, develop a fair in-game conversion rate which rewards players for playing but also encourages them to buy credits to get ahead.
There’s no announced release date for the first phase of the open beta, though apparently details of the launch will be released soon.