With items like these, is WoW Pay to Win?

[Deleted]

So Runescape is not p2w too.. everyone can do everything there, just if you spend 13k € you can max out in two days.. it has been done.
You don't directly win the game by gaining something you couldn't get, just save thousands of hours. Same with L2 mobile now. You could litterally start playing now and get stuff for $ which I, f2p, would work months for, in minutes.
It is not absolute p2w by aquiring something only gainable by $, it is just bypassing huge time requirements. You can call it pay for convenience if you want

I don't say it is as bad in WoW, but is has p2w'sh smell about it. Gearing process rightnow reduce it greatly, as it would have been way worse lets say in WotLK, if wow token was there, as you would easy buy best ingame weapons from boosters and own lesser gearer players. I put put these here because of all blind "it's not p2w idiot" screamers.

[Xrxes]

So Runescape is not p2w too.. everyone can do everything there, just if you spend 13k € you can max out in two days.. it has been done.
You don't directly win the game by gaining something you couldn't get, just save thousands of hours. Same with L2 mobile now. You could litterally start playing now and get stuff for $ which I, f2p, would work months for, in minutes.
It is not absolute p2w by aquiring something only gainable by $, it is just bypassing huge time requirements. You can call it pay for convenience if you want

I don't say it is as bad in WoW, but is has p2w'sh smell about it. Gearing process rightnow reduce it greatly, as it would have been way worse lets say in WotLK, if wow token was there, as you would easy buy best ingame weapons from boosters and own lesser gearer players. I put put these here because of all blind "it's not p2w idiot" screamers.

How can you compare the runescape or L2 Mobile scenarios to WOW? And what time requirements? Who farms for that item to use it himself? Dude it's 350-355 gear, it's worthless. You realise that most raiders in 2 weeks time will have better, from starting heroic mode. It's the most worthless investment ever.

The equivalent for WOW would be if you would be able to obtain right now a full set of titanforged Uldir Gear set straight from the Shop, with $ or euros. That would be the same thing. In wow gear is gained in-game, by playing and you cannot obtain it in any other way.
That's what l2 Mobile or Runescape do, they are 100% pay to win.

[Rotted]

THat guy is some fucking idiot. Crying for weapon when he is level 110 and thats a level item for 120.. By reaching 120 and questing you will get 310 instantly.. Then just do 3 world quests and you get 325... Go to 1 mythic or two you get 340 ... IF you are so retarted to buy this shit you are just idiot.. On top of it he showed the most expensive one. This axe sells for 150k a lot of the times ... By doing quests/selling and using mining/skinning you can earn 100k between 110-120 level..

This is just absurd shit

Well I didn't want to start guessing levels, (I've only just hit 120 myself because of work times) so wasn't sure what the ratio of ilvl to level actually was. On a sad note I only made 25k from leveling, I de'd all my greens and blues to stock the guild up, sad times.

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How do people not understand what pay to win is? Pay to win isn't just spending money to get some item. Everyone has access to those weapons whether you spend a billion dollars or you spend nothing (outside of subscription), so no it's not pay to win. Pay to win is when someone provides an advantage and is only obtainable by spending real money. If you can obtain the same item without having to spend actual money, then it's not pay to win regardless of how grindy it is.

Which is why I love star treks online pay to win system. You can buy it right here right now and it is exclusive to a currency (Separate from the ingame currency you get) bought with RL currency. Or you can grind out the ingame currency and convert it to real world currency.

Everyone bitches it's a slow system to do it, but in two months using 5 characters I converted enough to buy the expansion pack. The expansion pack costs just short of 200 GBP IIRC, I got it completely for free

[Deleted]

WoW is pay to win, and not because of tokens or whatever, it's because the better computer you have, the better internet connection, the better you can be. If you have a shitty computer and a shitty connection you can never be as good as those with more expensive stuff.

[Deleted]

The game has technically been pay-to-win since the inception of tokens. The reasonable argument against this is that it’s wildly more efficient to gear up in-game, and that makes the discussion convoluted because it’s not really an either/or debate.

[Magicpot]

"Pay to win" means non-cosmetical effect items you buy outside of the game that effect you inside of the game.

This is not pay to win because the items are already found inside of the game.



Good point here, however, how would game time tokens give one player a clear advantage in any aspect of the game (PvE, PvP, pet battles, professions) over another player?

By buying boosts with gold, which is officially allowed.

[Nerovar]

Only way to win this game is having fun.

Pretty sure that holds true for every game. By your definition one could argue that there aren't any pay2win games at all just because it doesn't fit your definition of fun/beating the game. Even p2w aspects like "saving time" (aka skipping content - is that also fun?) has no place in an MMORGP from my point of view. What's so hard with the principle that everyone starts at 0 and has to work their way to the top without any shortcuts you pay for with cash? If one person has to work hard for something and another person just throws money at the screen (and don't tell me it's just leveling/starting gear blah blah) then that's a classic pay2win aspect. Would you also defend a wotlk private server selling items like Shadowmourne for 50$?

[Deleted]

There is no guarantee that you'll be winning with said item though, you could buy every BOE on the market to gear up and still suck at the game. Additionally, this gear is easily acquired post raid progress.

Gear =/= Success
Gear =/= Winning

By that definition P2W doesn't exist because no matter what kind of power advantage you purchase, you can still lose.

Sorry, but that's bullshit.

P2W isn't used strictly to define payment for guaranteed victory but payment for tipping the odds in your favour. P2W also means buying power, so quit with the semantic game mkay?

You're gonna have to perform some impressive mental gymnastics to convince me that buying token as a middle man to buy gold and then using said gold to purchase gear that objectively improve your character numerical performance in terms of DPS/HPS is somehow NOT P2W.

[Deleted]

You once again are refusing to read what YOU posted and what I REPLIED to:

So again I ask: how would game time tokens give one player a clear advantage in any aspect of the game (PvE, PvP, pet battles, professions) over another player?

YOU said it's P2W because of game time tokens.

game time tokens.





So the gold you get allows you to buy items from the AH or other players; items already found IN-GAME. They aren't being bought outside of the game and brought into the game. They exist in the game already for anybody and everybody to access.

There is no need for items to be bought outside of the game for it to become pay to win, pay to win is the moment you can spend money to increase your power. And at the moment that is exactly the case because of paid tokens.

[Deleted]

And then what exactly? What did they win? What did they beat? Are they going to be able to beat people in PvP with it without knowing that class well? Will the top dps charts?

What does having the same gear as others else get you?

Numerical advantage that tips the balance in your favour?

Two players PvP against one another. Both of those players are of equal skill. One has higher HP, def and attack stats because of token middle man gold buying. Can you really say with a straight face that the one who has lower stats is more likely to win? Get serious would you?

Two players who play the same class apply to the same raiding guild. They are both trials of equal skill and potential for development. However one purchased game tokens to deck himself out in gear the other cant get in time before the raid tier becomes irrelevant. Both perform the boss dance equally and perform their rotations the same, however the clear numerical advantage shows in favour of one who bought game tokens. Are you going to tell me with a straight face that the guild officers are going to dismiss the better performing trial who has the advantage of needing less gearing? c'mon man, dont be conceited.

[Ahlae]

Mmhm, still pay to win. Guild of top gear level > guild of lowest gear level every time. Can buy top level gear, level boosts, anything considered end game with gold. Stop trying to dispute that fact. <3

[Vorality]

Game is not pay-to-win. First you got to ask yourself - what is the person "winning" at? If a person spends $1000 on a new weapon, but only uses it to clear dungeons, open world content, even normal/heroic raids, what are they winning at? The "competitive" or rank-able systems are mythic raids and arena. Items bought on the AH for gold have no use in these areas because there are better items available to the rest of the player base.

Like the 350/355 BoE items on the AH right now - players are using to clear dungeons, world content and skirms - things that don't affect another player negatively. On the release of arena, raids and m+, the majority of the player base will have a higher ilvl weapon in that first week, making the BoEs completely pointless.

Pay to win is if a player can buy items that another player can't obtain. The person that is buying BoEs is simply paying for convenience, or to save time, not to win anything.

[Super Kami Dende]

P2W is when a power can be gained for Money that can't otherwise be earned in game. I.e. Games like Dragons Nest where Bought "cosmetic" Outfits gave stat boosts you could not get without paying for it.

Anyone that thinks WoW is P2W is straight up a moron or doesn't know what pay 2 win is. Though they both aren't mutually exclusive.

[Ahlae]

"Pay To Win. When you are paying for advantage which normal players don't have access to unless they either pay too or will have to grind very long (weeks and months)."

"When money provides an objectively better experience when playing, meaning that if the purchasable content creates a noticeable distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

Anyone that argues WoW isn't p2w when they sell gold, is a moron and doesn't know what pay 2 win is. You can buy anything in the game with gold, including end content runs. = P2w, bye~

[Azerate]

"Pay To Win. When you are paying for advantage which normal players don't have access to unless they either pay too or will have to grind very long (weeks and months)."

"When money provides an objectively better experience when playing, meaning that if the purchasable content creates a noticeable distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

Anyone that argues WoW isn't p2w when they sell gold, is a moron and doesn't know what pay 2 win is. You can buy anything in the game with gold, including end content runs. = P2w, bye~

Yeah, and you can also get all that without paying real cash for it, so it's not p2w.

If there was a special tier of items with higher ilvl than anything available in the game that you could purchase just for real life money, then that would constitute a p2w game. This is not the case in wow. There's plethora of games where that is the case, and those can be called p2w, if they are indeed multiplayer games.

[Deleted]

Tfw OP doesnt know the difference between p2w and p2skip

[KaPe]

What I find funny is that even if someone argues that they can get the best possible gear in the game by buying Mythic Raid boost and thus the whole thing is *obviously* P2W ... they can only do that after someone else has the raid on deep farm. At this point, you're not "winning" anything, you're paying large amount of money for table scraps they no longer need. While this might seem impressive to guys who never raided and are stuck wearing low ilvl gear, anyone else can easily check that you were boosted and laugh at your supposed "victory". The only one who "win" in this scenario are the boosters themselves - they do what they were already doing anyway and get a ton of gold for it.

[Deleted]

I feel it's pay to get an advantage, but it's so small and insignificant, that I just can't see it as P2W. Also because there really isn't anything to win. You won't get better at PvE or PvP and the chances of being equally skilled as someone else and those few ilevels for a few weeks make a significant difference are horribly slim.

It's just not comparable to games where you have to grind for 5 years 24/7 to get at the same point as someone who paid 5000 bucks. Also, you can't keep throwing money at WoW and continue to improve. There's a very low limit before it gets useless to spend more. Real P2W games make sure you can spend 1000s of bucks and still get stronger, plus you often get items/advantages that are unavailable to non-payers, which is not the case in WoW.

All in all, I don't find this P2W.

[Vorality]

"Pay To Win. When you are paying for advantage which normal players don't have access to unless they either pay too or will have to grind very long (weeks and months)."

"When money provides an objectively better experience when playing, meaning that if the purchasable content creates a noticeable distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

Anyone that argues WoW isn't p2w when they sell gold, is a moron and doesn't know what pay 2 win is. You can buy anything in the game with gold, including end content runs. = P2w, bye~

You're practically going against your own statement. "Which normal players don't have access" and "noticeable distinction". When people buy end content runs, this content has usually become trivial, in which case a large majority of the player base has already received these items with their own means, thus making those pay to win quotes null.

Those two definitions you provided do not apply to World of Warcraft. If a player doesn't have the items obtained by another - months into the content when people begin sales, then it's at the fault of those players that didn't do the content in the first place. If I didn't raid for the first month or two, and a player decides to buy a carry, that's not p2w...that player is catching up, and now i'm at fault for not doing the content in the first place...very simple concept.

[Jervaise]

WoW token is a means of trade between players. When you sell a token in game, you swap another player's gold for their one month subscription fee. If blizzard didn't provide this service, you could technically ask another player in game gold for in return paying their subs. I know that would be against the ToS, however that doesn't change the nature of the transaction.

A trade between players is not clear and absolute pay to win. Though it's very very close to it.

I'd call it borderline.