Reference library · Australia

A reference to online naval combat games

How this reference is organised

The library is arranged by concept rather than by product. If you arrived wanting to know what a tech tree is, or whether your laptop will run a game of this kind, or what happens to money spent on in-game currency, there is an entry for each. They are short enough to read in one sitting and cross-referenced, so an unfamiliar word in one entry usually links to the entry that defines it.

• Naval combat games explained

  What the category actually contains: team-based warship battles, the difference between an arcade and a simulation treatment, and how matches are structured.

• Free-to-play economies

  Soft currency, hard currency, premium time and randomised containers — what each term means, and where real money enters the system.

• Desktop platforms and requirements

  Why a title can be built for Windows and macOS but not for Linux, what a system requirement is really telling you, and how to read one before downloading.

• Reference entry: World of Warships

  A single product entry, limited to what the advertising programme behind the game states. Where a detail is not stated, the entry says so rather than filling the gap.

• Account safety and common scams

  Passphrases, two-factor authentication, account trading, and the bonus-code and free-currency approaches that are used against players. Australian reporting routes included.

• Classification and parental guidance

  How computer games are classified in Australia, where to look a classification up, and what in-game purchases mean for a household decision.

• Glossary of terms

  Around forty terms a new player meets in the first week, defined once, in plain words, with links to the longer entries.

What the term “naval combat game” covers

A naval combat game puts the player in command of a warship in a match against other players, other computer-controlled ships, or both. The genre borrows its shape from team shooters rather than from strategy games: a match has a fixed map, two sides, a scoring condition and a time limit, and it ends in twenty minutes or so. What makes it distinct is the pace. A battleship takes the better part of a minute to turn, shells take seconds to arrive, and a torpedo fired at where an opponent is now will miss. Players who enjoy the genre tend to describe it as a game of anticipation; players who bounce off it usually say it felt slow for the first few hours.

Underneath the match sits a progression system. Ships are arranged in tiers, from small early-twentieth-century vessels up to large post-war designs, and playing one ship earns the experience needed to unlock the next. This structure is the reason a free-to-play naval game can hold a player for years, and it is also the reason the economics of the genre are worth understanding before you start. The naval combat games entry goes through match types, ship classes and the arcade-to-simulation spectrum in detail.

Where the money is in a free-to-play game

A game that costs nothing to install still has to pay for servers, art and staff. In this genre the money generally comes from four places: a premium currency bought with real money, a subscription-like “premium account” that multiplies earnings for a period, individual ships sold outright as bundles, and randomised containers whose contents are not known before opening. Cosmetic items sit alongside these and change nothing about play.

None of that is hidden or improper, but it rewards attention. The practical question for a new player is not whether a game has purchases — almost every game in the category does — but whether the version of the game you get for nothing is enjoyable on its own terms, and how quickly the pace of progress drops without spending. That is a judgement only you can make, and it is easier to make after a few evenings of play than on the download page. The economies entry defines each currency type and explains how to work out what a bundle actually costs in Australian dollars.

The product entry in this library

One product is covered in depth here: World of Warships, a free-to-play online naval combat game for desktop computers. The entry describes what the game is, the platforms the advertising programme lists, the commission arrangement that funds this site, and the points a reader should check on the vendor’s own site before committing time to a download. It is deliberately narrow. Where the programme materials do not state something — a price, a system requirement, a current promotion — the entry records that it is not stated rather than guessing.

The link below is a paid one: Creative Cover s.r.o. receives a commission if you create and activate an account after using it, at no additional cost to you.

Visit the World of Warships website

If you would rather read first, the full reference entry covers the same ground without a link above the fold.

“Desktop only” and what it excludes

The advertising programme for the game described here lists Windows and macOS desktop computers, and states that Linux is not supported. It is worth taking that at face value. A title that is not supported on an operating system may still be coaxed into running through a compatibility layer, but an unsupported configuration means no help from the vendor when an update breaks it, and anti-cheat systems in particular are prone to rejecting environments the developer has not tested. There is also no mobile or console version listed in the programme materials, so a phone or tablet is not an option here. The requirements entry explains how to check your own machine against a stated requirement, and what the difference between a minimum and a recommended specification means in practice.

Australian services worth knowing about

Several Australian government bodies publish material that is directly useful to someone playing online games, and all of it is free to read.

• The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes step-by-step guidance on passphrases and multi-factor authentication, which is the single most useful thing to set up on a game account.
• Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, is where scams can be reported and where current approaches are described.
• The eSafety Commissioner handles online abuse and harassment, including reports about conduct in multiplayer games.
• The Australian Classification Board publishes classification decisions for computer games, along with the consumer advice attached to each one.
• The ACCC explains consumer rights under the Australian Consumer Law, which apply to digital products bought in Australia.
• The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is the privacy regulator and takes privacy complaints.

These are linked throughout the library where they are relevant, rather than collected as a badge of legitimacy. Describing what they do accurately matters: none of them endorse this site, this publisher or any game named here.