Why did Blizzard make WoW into a Pay 2 Win game?

[Deleted]

I think a game with a subscription should not offer buying levels, gold and gear (directly or indirectly). The Blizzard white knights just don't want to see how this is not ok for a game with a subscription. It would be perfectly ok for a game like Guild Wars 2 (pay once, no subs) or Free to Start (aka F2P) games.

And why exactly? I see no problem with it, but i'd love to hear your deep reasoning as to why a game should not have any of that, be it directly or indirectly.

Enlighten me. Being negative is always easy, now elaborate.

[Marakesh]

Like a lot of stuff argued on forums, this is not a binary. Its not p2w or not. If we use a 1-10 scale, I'd say opening a cash shop with cosmetic items makes a game somewhere between a 1 and 3 on the p2w scale. Depends on the items and what the game gives out for actually playing it. Free levels and gold put it much higher on the p2w scale. Thats probably a 5 for wow, there are f2p games with less than that. Some mmo site ought to have rating system in place so you could know what to expect from new games quickly. Its always a major topic for every launch.

The thing that bothers me the most though, is the transfer fees. Those were standard practice for early mmos, but looking around the competition, WoW is one of the few to keep it. Not to mention this just haven't fixed their declining population issues and are trying to mask it through crz and then profit from it. Really though, its the same with charging for level advancement. Yes, that part of the game is obsolete, but the solution is to fix the actual game in some way, not to make money off its irrelevance.

[Amerissis]

We start with no store..
At least it's not gear...
At least it's not gear with stats...
At least it's not BiS gear...
I can only buy the gold to buy the items, not the item iself...

I wonder where the goalpost will move to next.

The goalpost hasn't moved in SIX years. You still can't buy gear. Do you really still believe it will suddenly change? Come on

[Pua]

Pay to win means: You can buy stat-boost items, experience-boost items, etc. for real money to gain an unfair advantage.

You mean, exactly as you can do in World of Warcraft?

Cool, that's what I thought you meant.

To answer the OP:

Pay to win is an unfortunate side effect of the WoW token. That was implemented because people were finding that the subscription was no longer worth the money, so allowed players to stay subscribed by virtue of their gold (which, coincidentally, Warlords showers you in). This system is loosely in place for other games, EvE being the biggest example, and Blizzard adopted it because subscriptions were tanking and it's actually a way to get more cash per subscription than normal.

Unfortunately it means that you can buy gold, and that means that you can buy gear - so it's pay to win. Yes, people will argue, but that's what they're here to do. Rubbish any and all criticism, no matter how mindless their responses are.

[Kryos]

And why exactly? I see no problem with it, but i'd love to hear your deep reasoning as to why a game should not have any of that, be it directly or indirectly.

Enlighten me. Being negative is always easy, now elaborate.

I pay my sub so I can enjoy all of the game without any extra cost attached to it. If I would love to have micro payments, I would play a game like Guild Wars 2 or even a completely F2P game. When I bought the classic WoW it was the way I described. There was nothing attached to extra money outside the game. The first time this changed was with the TCG cards and the spectral tiger. I wasn't ok with that back then and still am not. But I learned to accept it. Then they added the pets and mounts in the shop and I still think it's not ok for mount collectors to have an incomplete collection when they don't pay extra money and don't have an in-game way to obtain these mounts. Then you can buy gold and transmog helmets and so on.

It's salami tactics and you guys all gobble up every single piece of the salami and even defend this decay. I don't. Drop the subscription fee and put everything in a shop. That would be honest - just like Guild Wars 2 is. Or make everything you can buy for money available in the game by farming/playing with skill.

This right now is just greedy because so many are addicted to the game that they get away with this.

Even if Blizzard would add an option to buy a full mythic T-set in the shop you would argue that a) it's not warforged and all pieces with a socket, so you can improve it b) you can still obtain it by playing the raid content c) even with that gear you haven't killed the final boss and that's all that counts... right? You would find reasons to be ok with everything Blizzard does.

[Deleted]

We start with no store..
At least it's not gear...
At least it's not gear with stats...
At least it's not BiS gear...
I can only buy the gold to buy the items, not the item iself...

I wonder where the goalpost will move to next.

The Goalpost is exactly where it always was.

By the same indirect way you "can buy BiS" gear nowadays you could do it back in Vanilla. Yes, guilds were selling gear in runs since the dawn of WoW.

The only real difference is that Blizz cut out the middle-man (Who were scum anyway) and insterted themself instead.

[l33t]

Oh my god, how many times we need to beat the dead horse.

OP, listen here, since you clearly don't have an ability to google it yourself. Pay to win is a model when BEST character power available only via in-game shop. I.e. if your 710 ilvl gear was the best gear you can get in game, and the shop had 740 gear, which you could not get anywhere in the game by playing, only by buying in the shop. That, and ONLY that is pay to win, damn it, ffs.

Now please stop spreading bullshit, thank you very much.

[F1reheart]

And then you can take that 255 bucks (realistically, more in fact) worth of gear aaaaand... sit in your garrison or an LFR queue, because no pug will take you to HFC in 710 all-pvp gear with no tier/ring.

Totally worth it!

You know, I had been playing vanilla so long that I forgot people are under the impression that mythic raiding is the only thing that matters in WoW and doing anything else is irrelevant, even pvp.

[Deleted]

Hearthstone P2W, literal topkek. Anybody who thinks that are literally clueless and shouldn't be allowed near a computer.

And OP seems to think that's the case, based on his argument for wow

[Restors]

I kind of agree with OP, it is P2W game.
Just the option from level 1 to level 100 in full ilvl 710 gears within few seconds sure is P2W in my book.
The general term for P2W model is either pay up real money or spend alot of time grinding to have a chance on the same item.

[Perudo]

I kind of agree with OP, it is P2W game.
Just the option from level 1 to level 100 in full ilvl 710 gears within few seconds sure is P2W in my book.
The general term for P2W model is either pay up real money or spend alot of time grinding to have a chance on the same item.

The thing is it would require you to sell X amount of tokens or have a lot of gold on other characters as dacoolist have pointed out in the start of the thread.

You can save that 10-20k champions honor and just arena for a few hours for full gear too lol. Save yourself the gold/real money. Everyones had full pvp gear for 3 months easy.. I don't see an issue with the catchup system or people blowing 10-20k a pop for just 1,000 conquest lol (takes 27,000 for a full set, meaning 270,000 at the least if you had it cheap somehow, 60$ boost plus like 140$ just for a toon you can level in 8 hours, and gear in 2? I mean, sure I make 200$ net/cash in 10-12 hours, but what's the point of the game? Lol

Considering the current token prices it would mean a EU player would have to buy and sell three tokens and a US player would have to buy and sell 6.5 tokens.
That of course also depends if you can buy all those Champion's of Honor for 10k a pop.

[FlemmMinis]

I kind of agree with OP, it is P2W game.
Just the option from level 1 to level 100 in full ilvl 710 gears within few seconds sure is P2W in my book.
The general term for P2W model is either pay up real money or spend alot of time grinding to have a chance on the same item.

This may be true. But the Level 100 boost gear isn't nearly ilvl 710. It's in the low 600's. So... no. It is not pay to win.

[Deleted]

P2W is one of the reasons i left wow.

[Deleted]

You know, I had been playing vanilla so long that I forgot people are under the impression that mythic raiding is the only thing that matters in WoW and doing anything else is irrelevant, even pvp.

Good for you. So, if not mythic OR heroic raiding (success in which is gated by gear unobtainable with gold) and not rated PVP (success in which is gated by... rating, strangely enough), what is it that constitutes "winning" in WoW in your opinion? What? Being able to look nicer while sitting in your garrison? Being able to kill world trash mobs in 10 seconds rather than 20 seconds? Being halfway on the dps list in LFR (over afkers and people who wear quest greens, under all the bored alts of raiders running this shit for valor)?

Again, what a splendid way to spend almost 300 dollars! Much pay, great win, gee gee.

[Deleted]

People are saying that Reckful can get better gear than what he got from the shop,
i thought 710 is max for PvP nowadays, or do you want him to be a dragon slayer?

[Soulwind]

People are saying that Reckful can get better gear than what he got from the shop,
i thought 710 is max for PvP nowadays, or do you want him to be a dragon slayer?

710 is max PvP gear when not in PvP.

710 PvP gear scales up to 740 in PvP combat.

A day in Ashran gets you a full 700 (730 in PvP) set, which makes the 710 "P2W" a waste of gold.

You can pay to skip the leveling, which takes a week, and pay even more to skip gearing up, which takes a day. What a winner.

[Etrock08]

You can buy full 710 gear from Blizzard via the gold selling they are offering now.. You can also buy 3 parts of 725 gear.

- - - Updated - - -



So with full 710 gear you dont get an advantage over people who are playing the game without paying cash for their gear? Would you take a 640 geared guy to the raid, or the 710? Who do you think wins in pvp, either its arena, ashran or BG?

Luckily they dont sell better gear then what you can achieve by actually playing, but offering full BIS pvp gear for cash is kinda bad in my opinion..

If it took 2+months or more to get the same results than sure it could be p2w, but right now you can get the same results in a day or 2 of farming, no real advantage there in the scope of an mmo.

[Deleted]

710 is max PvP gear when not in PvP.

710 PvP gear scales up to 740 in PvP combat.

A day in Ashran gets you a full 700 (730 in PvP) set, which makes the 710 "P2W" a waste of gold.

You can pay to skip the leveling, which takes a week, and pay even more to skip gearing up, which takes a day. What a winner.

Waste gold but you can BUY GOLD in Blizzards store with tokens, pets and what not right?
no leveling doesn't take a week.

[Deleted]

I kind of agree with OP, it is P2W game.
Just the option from level 1 to level 100 in full ilvl 710 gears within few seconds sure is P2W in my book.
The general term for P2W model is either pay up real money or spend alot of time grinding to have a chance on the same item.

What are you "winning" here? Exactly?

[lonely zergling]

Argh so many people who dont get what "P2W" means. It hurts.

WoW is not p2w. /endthread