While playing on my Revanche123 World of Tanks Xbox 360 account I recently acquired the T29 in preparation of writing a Blog post about it next week, while "hulk smash"ing through the opposing team I found myself on the receiving end of quite a few premium (henceforth called "Prem rounds") AP/HE rounds. The T29 is my only really fully equiped tank as I think I'll be keeping it for awhile so it has 10 Prem rounds on board for emergencies of which I have used so far 2 perhaps 3 of them, more to try them out then to actually Pen an opposing tank. The excellent penetration characteristics of the 105 mm gun on final T29 package really negates any need for them as a general rule. I found myself wondering while under a particularly aggressive bit of Prem fire how much each round actually cost in real world money. How much, in real world terms, was this guy throwing at me in a vain effort to kill my tank or at least force me out of the choke point I was securing?
My understanding is World of Tanks for the PC currently allows players to purchase Prem Rounds at an inflated Silver cost in addition to or instead of using Gold for what I'm sure are fairly complicated in game and real world economic reasons. As anyone who has played World of Warcraft or EVE can attest, in game economics are an extremely touchy and important part of controlling how the players play the game, what they have ready access to and can significantly affect their enjoyment of it. Regardless, as of right now this is not an option for World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition players to purchase Premium Ammunition.
Ignoring the sticky issues of Taxes based on region, Differing currencies etc and using the American Dollar as my meter stick; Our current options for buying Gold are;
- 1,250 Gold for $6.99 + Tax or 1.788 g per $0.01
- 3,000 Gold for $14.99 + Tax or 2.001 g per $0.01
- 6,500 Gold for $29.99 + Tax or 2.167 g per $0.01
- 12,000 Gold for $49.99 + Tax or 2.400 g per $0.01
- 25,000 Gold for $99.99 + Tax or 2.500 g per $0.01
Prices per tank can very significantly based on tier and package chosen but;
Using the T29 as an example;
The Stock T29 package uses the 76 mm Gun M1A2 Firing Composite Rigid HVAP M93 Prem rounds at 7g per round or 70g for a solid core of 10 shells. That comes out to $0.0291 per shell, nearly 3 Cents every time you fire, $0.29 if you go through all 10 rounds.
The T29's final package T29E3 uses the 105 mm Gun T5E1 firing Composite Rigid APCR T29E3 Prem rounds at 12g per or 120g for a full 10 shots. That comes out to $0.05 per shell or $0.50 for a full compliment. Or, as I like to think of it, a can of coke every 10 rounds.
Or perhaps My favorite Tier 5 Tank the venerable M4 Sherman using my prefered M4A1 (105) package is firing HEAT M67 rounds at 10g per or 4 cents every time you pull the trigger.
Now I am not suggesting based on cost that you should never use Prem rounds, this is after all a Free to Play game and frankly every time you pull the trigger on one you are helping insure that new content will be coming out in the future. What I am trying to illustrate is the otherwise somewhat nebulous cost in real world terms when you use any of the Gold features of the game. It is this lack of transparency that helped force Xbox from using points to using actual monetary values so that players could make more informed decisions about their purchases rather then forcing them to muddle through what were essentially currency conversions.
Armed with this new knowledge the more scholarly portions of my brain find themselves being a bit more careful about my in game purchases to maximize my moneys value while the jackass part of me takes a great deal of delight when someone obviously gets frustrated trying to pen my beloved T29 and starts flicking pennies at me instead.
Rev Signing off, See You on the Battlefield!
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