It is best Pay to Win Game...

[sacrypheyes]

so it is not pay2win? well, i think deep inside your heart you hate the game! why? because you hate pay2in games ... AND you know, that GW2 is a pay2win game.

repeating it over and over won't make it a reality just so you know...

[Oogly]

so it is not pay2win? well, i think deep inside your heart you hate the game! why? because you hate pay2in games ... AND you know, that GW2 is a pay2win game.

Such ignorance is quite astounding.

[namelessone]

WoW releases flying mount in cash shop.
Gamers: OMG I no longer have to spend 1000G to pay for a flying mount, PAY 2 WIN!!!

GW2 releases gold in cash shop.
Gamers: No panic, everything is fine. It's not pay 2 win. War is peace. Freedom is slavery.

I knew the fanboyism and double standards are common in gamer community, but it looks like MMO gamers are taking it to the new heights.

[oplawlz]

Honestly OP, step back for a second and consider this. Anyone who feels compelled to cheat their way past content (gaining no advantage over anyone else in the process, btw) is just funding the next expac for the rest of us. Being lvl 80 doesn't change the game in any significant way for them, but they've essentially missed out on all the content on way, as others have stated. They'll get bored and burned out, make some silly qq thread on mmo-champ, then go play hello kitty or whatever it is they prefer while the rest of us continue on in merry ignorance of their existence.

[Deleted]

Pay 2 Win would be a gear level only achievable by spending IRL money, or items more powerful than anything you can achieve without money. Not a slight advantage. A DISTINCT advantage.

even the slightest advantage you can buy for real money is an advantage! repeating over and over, that this game is NOT pay 2 win, doesnt make this game NOT pay 2 win

and to be completely clear with that "gear" .... since there is no kind of advantage through gear. all that game is about is reputation ... how can you show your achivements in that game? through your gear! what can u buy with real money? the "best" shiny gear available?

so you can buy with real money the only thing that matters in that game ...

[oplawlz]

WoW releases flying mount in cash shop.
Gamers: OMG I no longer have to spend 1000G to pay for a flying mount, PAY 2 WIN!!!

GW2 releases gold in cash shop.
Gamers: No panic, everything is fine. It's not pay 2 win. War is peace. Freedom is slavery.

I knew the fanboyism and double standards are common in gamer community, but it looks like MMO gamers are taking it to the new heights.

Your argument is flawed in several ways. One, the games have fundamentally different pricing models. No game that charges millions of people $15 a month should charge it's users for content. Second, different people have different opinions . . . some people thought buying a flying mount in wow was p2w , you cannot assume anyone who thinks this is fine did the same. Third, you joined a thread just to insult people you don't know about a game you probably don't even play.

[Deleted]

even the slightest advantage you can buy for real money is an advantage! repeating over and over, that this game is NOT pay 2 win, doesnt make this game NOT pay 2 win

and to be completely clear with that "gear" .... since there is no kind of advantage through gear. all that game is about is reputation ... how can you show your archivements in that game? through your gear! what can u buy with real money? the "best" shiny gear available?

so you can buy with real money the only thing that matters in that game ...

Ah... Have you played this game?

There are advantages through gear. When people hit level 80, they don't instantly get the best gear. Starts with Blue > Green > Yellow > Orange. Sure you can buy crafted Orange gear, but you can't buy dungeon gear which is where the real achievements are shown. Going around in explorable modes gear is where everyone looks up to you, not crafted gear that you bought your way to.

Repeating over and over 'A game is pay to win' does not make it pay to win either. It is not a distinct advantage, therefore it is not pay to win. It is pay to skip the game, skipping a game is not winning. Loading up a completed save in a single player console game is not winning. It's skipping the game.

A full set of higher quality gear is pay to win. What GW2 has is not. If you think any cash shop that gives anything other than cosmetic items is Pay 2 Win, then a lot of things are Pay 2 Win. Hell, even by your logic, WoW is Pay 2 Win because you can buy TCG mounts on ebay and sell them in-game for fuckloads of gold, buy all the best BoE gear you can, pay people to run you through raids and get BoPs, then realise you've wasted your time and money.

[Gadgette]

i love, how the gw2 fanboys defend their game to be not pay 2 win, when it clearly IS pay 2 win ...

like i said in another thread already ....

ITS NOTHING WRONG ABOUT FLAWS IN A GAME!

when its pay2win, then it is pay2win ... nothing bad about it, nothing good, it simply is that way ...

but when all of you come out and flame the threadopener for saying that, it totaly shows your problem with that type of game model.

"its not like that +40 matters in any way" WELL!!!!! it does! it IS an advantage! you all know it! and denying it only shows, how much all of you hate that kind of game GW2 has become!

You need to understand there is a huge difference between being a rabid fan of something and those who are pushing actual fact instead of pure unadulterated nonsense. Properly educate yourself before making yourself look the fool.

GW2 is not Pay to Win. Pay to Level faster than other people so you can skip content, yes absolutely. Pay to Win means you get some advantage over people power wise (better than in-game gear, massive upgrades, pvp damage boosts) can you buy that from their store? No.
If people decide to spend real money to get those xp boosts, then all the more power to them. It supports Anet and I could really care less if Jonny Deeppockets wants to hit 80 a week or so sooner than I do.

[theredviola]

Do you realize that in this game you can do everything with gold?

You can't buy knowledge and experience with the profession. Congrats. You bought your way to 80 and don't know how to play the profession. This in turn makes you useless for any exploratory modes (or even story modes) for dungeons. Have fun playing alone because no one wants to be grouped with a player who knows nothing of their profession at 80.

Also: Gold=XP does not mean "Gold=Power" in the sense you're trying to use it. Power comes from ability to play... which if you buy your way to 80, you won't have any. Sorry.

[Deleted]

So lets say I am rich in my real life. I buy lots of gems and make them gold legal.

Create character, after the tutorial I head into the city as level 2. Now
1)Buy materials from trading post and raise crafting professions to 400 and become 80 level.
2)Craft the very best armor available with my crafting Disciplines
3)Create a guild and buy 10000000 affection with my gold

I have a level 80 character
full all crafting Disciplines
The best gear available
150 Slots Guild bank
T3 Cultural Armor for cosmetic
And ALL of these http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Influence

What am I missing?

How about where is the "win"? The only bit of teh game where people really "win" in is structured PvP, guess what the gear is normalised, you can't buy advantages, unlike for example LOTRO (as you mentioned it) where creeps buy skills, and there are store bought pots, brands, stat tomes, etc that do indeed give a very real advanatage and are the very definition of pay-to-win.

On the PVE side, you've spent money on a game that you bascically haven't played, sounds like pay-to-lose to me. You don't 'win' by getting to 80 quickly or getting the best crafted armour quicker, no one cares, you win by having fun, this may come as a difficult concept to those who think an MMO is a job and that even though the actual gameplay of doing a dungeon/raid for the billionth time bores you to death, the "point" is to earn currency to give you non-existant pixels better stats.

[namelessone]

Honestly OP, step back for a second and consider this. Anyone who feels compelled to cheat their way past content (gaining no advantage over anyone else in the process, btw) is just funding the next expac for the rest of us. Being lvl 80 doesn't change the game in any significant way for them, but they've essentially missed out on all the content on way, as others have stated. They'll get bored and burned out, make some silly qq thread on mmo-champ, then go play hello kitty or whatever it is they prefer while the rest of us continue on in merry ignorance of their existence.

This is all absolutely correct, and this applies to any pay2win game. I always say this when anyone brings up any p2w argument - Games exist to be played. Imagine if football had pay 2 win. Would it matter? Would we care which team payed for the title? No, we would simply ignore them because we aren't interested in who the title says is the winner, we are interested in who actually wins.

[potis]

People really havent been to 80 on this forums yet.. ;D

Get to 80 and you will agree with him..

The game at level 80 is basically..Grind-->Luck-->Salvage-->Get Ectoplasm-->Craft gear.

Now if you had lets say, 20-30 gold which you can even buy from Anet for like 50E its..-->Get online-->Buy 20 gold-->Go at AH-->Buy Ectoplasm-->Buy ores/wood/cloth-->Craft--> full gear.

Nothing about skill points etc, after you had leveled to 80 yourself the game is really pay to win or grind to win, the only difference is, there is no "There will be an update in 6 months that makes gear obsolete" so you arent in a hurry, but you simply cant say "its not Pay 2 Win"..Right now at the state of this game, having gold means everything.

The only thing Anet cant give you or the AH is skill points which you will need for your legendary, which if you leveled by crafting you cna easily go out in the world and get them over a day or two.

Gold is too powerful in GW2, way too powerful when in any game i ever saw, even in WoW Vanilla it wasnt so powerful, its a slight mistake from them.

[namelessone]

Your argument is flawed in several ways. One, the games have fundamentally different pricing models. No game that charges millions of people $15 a month should charge it's users for content. Second, different people have different opinions . . . some people thought buying a flying mount in wow was p2w , you cannot assume anyone who thinks this is fine did the same. Third, you joined a thread just to insult people you don't know about a game you probably don't even play.

Third one applies to you buddy. You make assumptions about someone you know nothing about. Yes I do play it, level 30 Charr warrior. I'm just going to ignore everything else you said because of this by the way.

[Gadgette]

A full set of higher quality gear is pay to win. What GW2 has is not. If you think any cash shop that gives anything other than cosmetic items is Pay 2 Win, then a lot of things are Pay 2 Win. Hell, even by your logic, WoW is Pay 2 Win because you can buy TCG mounts on ebay and sell them in-game for fuckloads of gold, buy all the best BoE gear you can, pay people to run you through raids and get BoPs, then realise you've wasted your time and money.

And you can tell the people who do this sort of thing by the screaming fact they have virtually no knowledge of what they are doing. I see this so often in PvP (and a lot back when I was raiding) in a wide array of games, people toting the best gear possible and are so clueless it isn't even the least bit amusing. Money can't buy skill.

[Deleted]

Why are people stupid?

Pay to win isn't paying real money for things you can achieve without spending a dime. Pay to win is spending real money for distinct advantages that can otherwise not be acquired in-game

'Blah blah buy gold craft gear' not pay to win. 'Blah blah spend gems buy gear more powerful than exotics' pay to win.

[Thelxi]

GW2 general awesomeness has definitely overshadowed the fact that it is a clear cut P2W game. Having played many MMOs for many years, I know for a fact that there are many gamers that secretly enjoy P2W aspects of games, especially if the P2W is not blatantly obvious as in selling shiny BiS stuff in the cash shop interface, but they have to juggle currencies/items starting with dollars in order to end up with BiS stuff.


On a side note, I think that WoW's gold, and how extremely little it affects the ultimate goals the game has to offer (HC raiding, rated PvP), has been one of the reasons WoW has been enormously successful throughout many years. The only game I have played that is similar to WoW in terms of gold/cash affecting the game is LoL, and guess what? that is enormously successful too, not to mention truly free.

[Hanto]

If you count getting max level as fast as possible winning... then.. yeah, I guess so. Not much you can do at 80 that you can't already to at lower levels.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Your argument is flawed in several ways. One, the games have fundamentally different pricing models. No game that charges millions of people $15 a month should charge it's users for content. Second, different people have different opinions . . . some people thought buying a flying mount in wow was ftp , you cannot assume anyone who thinks this is fine did the same. Third, you joined a thread just to insult people you don't know about a game you probably don't even play.

Why shouldn't they charge users for content? They obviously can and people want said content, so why not? Why should they hand stuff out for free? Should they hand us all WoW-related merchandise for free because we pay the very low fee of 12 euro a month and a new expansion pack every 2+ year? The store content is vanity only, people do not lose out on not purchasing said items.

Your opinion is that they shouldn't charge, that doesn't make it so.

On topic:

GW2 isn't really p2w and that's final. You can pay to get some advantages, but in the end all you do is pay to make something go faster...something you COULD do by, you know, playing the game...

In the game that shall not be named, people buy boosts for their toons to obtain gear. It's against the ToS when they do it for real money of course, but still. This ain't happening in GW2 at all. Small perks and paying for in-game gold ain't my idea of paying to win at all.

[Sylvanie]

even the slightest advantage you can buy for real money is an advantage! repeating over and over, that this game is NOT pay 2 win, doesnt make this game NOT pay 2 win

You mean like using a Scroll of Resurrection on your old second WoW account to get an instant level 80 character?

[namelessone]

Why are people stupid?

Pay to win isn't paying real money for things you can achieve without spending a dime. Pay to win is spending real money for distinct advantages that can otherwise not be acquired in-game

'Blah blah buy gold craft gear' not pay to win. 'Blah blah spend gems buy gear more powerful than exotics' pay to win.

Thing is there is bazillion different interpretations of "pay to win" and as we learned from this thread, different interpretations apply to different games based entirely on whether it's cool to hate that game. I agree with you, by the way, now could you please go to D3 forums (for example) and convince the haters that RMAH is not pay-2-win according to this definition?