APB: Reloaded deployed its 1.5 beta update last week and following the release, Reloaded Productions began sending out another 35,000 beta invitations. So if you've been waiting to get in, be sure to check your inbox. A new patch was deployed over the weekend to address more stability issues and bugs.

A hot topic on the APB: Reloaded forums in recent weeks have been over the leasing of in-game weapons for virtual currency. The blog notes that while many weapons in-game can currently be bought for virtual currencies; there will at a later time be some made available for real cash. The fact that you can lease and not own many weapons right now is not the planned process for later and the devs do intend to add permanent weapons as well.

There WILL be permanent weapons in the game. There will even be permanent weapons you can buy for REAL CASH too. Just NOT NOW while we are trying out game balance and watching player behaviors. And since the GAME IS FREE, we feel somewhat entitled to running various tests in Beta that we think will give us the required information before we come back with a new permanent weapon system both for in-game cash AND for real world cash. This will clearly let us design the best system to keep the game alive for the long term.

Sources:

APB: Reloaded Blog - Beta Invites and Update

APB: Reloaded Blog Patch Update