WoW's economy is beyond redemption at this point

[Alvito]

For me it's anything you can pay money for to skip the grind of the game, whereas others work for it. So character boosts, buying gold through token selling and all that shit. Grind is a big part of what WoW is, by paying money to skip it you're "winning" the game faster.

Not that I give a shit, I don't measure the size of my dick and wealth by the amount of purple pixels I amass in video games, just saying, this is how I see it.

So you have a problem with people buying caries in raids, trading gold for items or loot and other short cuts too I'm sure. What about gold DKP runs?

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I sat out almost the entirety of WoD and Legion. Last I played seriously a gold stash of 50-100k was rather impressive.

Coming back in BfA where people are literally swimming in gold from the mission tables of two expansions while I've got fuckall and there's no real way to make money outside of AH (which requires investment capital to begin with, besides I've always loathed the AH) really does suck.

I have no idea how they'll drain the billionaires without screwing over the penniless however.

That had to have just been the server you played on or the circles you ran in. 100k hasn't been impressive since some time in BC.

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wow tokens just jumped to 140k on na servers, i guess because of the pirate ship?

Blizzcon and panic of the price going up and not coming back down. People see it spike and buy up tokens thinking this might be the last time you can get them cheap. It was at the max 3% inflation an hour for just over 8 hours it hasn't done that in a very long time.

[kamuimac]

So you have a problem with people buying caries in raids, trading gold for items or loot and other short cuts too I'm sure. What about gold DKP runs?

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That had to have just been the server you played on or the circles you ran in. 100k hasn't been impressive since some time in BC.

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Blizzcon and panic of the price going up and not coming back down. People see it spike and buy up tokens thinking this might be the last time you can get them cheap. It was at the max 3% inflation an hour for just over 8 hours it hasn't done that in a very long time.

nah its the mount . people buying ton of tokens to buy 6 months sub .

[Themanintobuildafire]

For me it's anything you can pay money for to skip the grind of the game, whereas others work for it. So character boosts, buying gold through token selling and all that shit. Grind is a big part of what WoW is, by paying money to skip it you're "winning" the game faster.

Not that I give a shit, I don't measure the size of my dick and wealth by the amount of purple pixels I amass in video games, just saying, this is how I see it.

Dude there is no winning this game. That's the secret they don't want you to know though, so keep on that treadmill hoping you will "win".

[Othraerir]

so if i have 6 tokens in my inv, and use them all, i'd get the mount?

[Alomega]

so if i have 6 tokens in my inv, and use them all, i'd get the mount?

Convert them to Blizzard balance and buy a once off 6 months. It is cheaper that way. Don't buy one month at a time x 6.

[kamuimac]

There's becoming a huge issue now where flasks, pots, feasts, and food are priced ridiculously high to make up for the inflation. And players that may have sat out the last 2 expansions that are coming back have fuck all gold to spend on them. This isn't just an issue with gear. It's a huge quality of life problem in this game.

go reroll herbalism/alchemy and make gold . jezus you people want all proffesions to be utter complete shit dont you ?

[xmancho1]

How is the game not pay to win when high end guilds and players are running players through content for gold? That is the pure definition of pay to win... Or what about helping out with arena ratings?

Purchasable gold and everything being so RNG based is killing this game.

Can you earn/farm the gold in-game to get what you want??? Yes you can, then it is not pay to win. But you you are going to say - but..but..but the people are buying boosts and high end gear.. but...but.. Yes they are, how many of them are in high end guilds?? The high end guilds have already farmed their BOEs and any possible gear that will make their mythic Uldir easier to start.

[kamuimac]

Short sentences then.

Gold in WoW comes from player generated sources and from tokens.

Tokens make good money for Blizz.

Not all players are in a position to afford tokens. Let’s call them minnows.

Few players are in a position to afford and willing to pay for many tokens - whales. Blizz target market.

Not all players are capable of earning a lot of money from player generated sources (missions, farming, flipping, AH). It requires some skill and/or time they might not have.

Whales will be looking to boost their ego with RL money. Boosting your ego requires that you feel you are better. Some feel the need to be better than themselves yesterday. Many feel the need to be better than others.

There will be hordes of minnows. Many of them will lack the skill and time to generate gold from player generated sources too. Compared to them, whales will always have better mounts, pets and sometimes even gear - if the minnow is also lacking the skills for successful endgame content.

Blizzard is actively making sure to cater to low skill players by prunes and ez modes. In fact grinding low skill content for countless hours is better for your results in WoW than having moments of glory.

The number of low skill players and minnows will melt into the group of players whales can feel better from. There will be plenty of them.

All of this is making money for Blizz as they shifted from their subscription model to the well known WDM model. Have a read about WDM here: https://www.billboard.com/biz/articl...the-gaming-and - ever heard of comparing “RNG” with gambling?

So no - tokens were not to crack down on scams and theft. They were a major shift in money making possibilities for Blizz.

Whales and dolphins are the customers who get what they want. Mythic raiders are usually closer to dolphins than whales.

Only Blizzard knows what their whales and dolphins spend money on. I guess much is spent on buying boosts, as it has become the new epeen to have a high ilvl and raider.io score.

I am part of the product. I don’t pay money, I spend gold I earn via player generated sources and I don’t spend it to boost me - I use my skills for that and I accept my fails when the game demands more skills than I have. I don’t bypass those situations with gold and money. I am the one who will have worse ilvl than whales - I don’t raid anymore - so they can feel better. I am the background noise for whales. As long I enjoy the game, I’m fine with that.

Kids (minnows) and new players (low skills) will feel the need to grow their epeen as they are much more susceptible to peer pressure than adults. They will either turn to be dolphins and whales themselves (money for Blizz right there!) or spend more time in the game to make up for their low income and/or low skill and effectively become part of the product too. To a much greater extent than I ever will be - times of my game addiction are long gone.

You personally may not fall for it. Plenty people will. It’s designed to help people spend more time and/or money.

so aparently noways having 10euro for sub and like 20 euro for token to have gold for anything i need makes you a whale. something which skilled person earns in less then 1 hour of work .

wow . wont lie feels nice to being seen as "whale " aparently im "rich whale " (even though i have milons of gold from playing the app game with nothing to spend it on in game because aparently leveling alts and setting order halls requires very high skills ;0 ) ^^ holy fuck my ego just rose to the sky

[Vaelorian]

Oh look another guy who has no clue what is actually means to be in a game that has Pay to Win. What a surprise.

So pay to win means: getting ingame currency for real money so you can with that gold buy ingame stuff to get an advantage over others. This is actually paying to win.
But in WoW it does not work that way does it? I mean you are not actually winning anything if you buy crafted gear (or random drops). Sure you'll have invested less time in your character. But you will not be able to touch the race for world first or close to that. Nor would you suddenly have a "PvP-winning" scenario ahead of you. So in truth you do not win. You'll just be that schmuck that needs to pump money into this game to be taken along for PUG's.
I am such a schmuck too. I just can't play this game anymore at the level I once did. And to be able to come closer to what my standards are... I'll sell some tokens for gold. I just don't have the time. And I am happy that they did this as well. I would otherwise just quit. (well I have quit - but this was before, one of the reasons I was somewhat enjoying myself)

[Deleted]

So pay to win means: getting ingame currency for real money so you can with that gold buy ingame stuff to get an advantage over others. This is actually paying to win.
But in WoW it does not work that way does it? I mean you are not actually winning anything if you buy crafted gear (or random drops). Sure you'll have invested less time in your character. But you will not be able to touch the race for world first or close to that. Nor would you suddenly have a "PvP-winning" scenario ahead of you. So in truth you do not win. You'll just be that schmuck that needs to pump money into this game to be taken along for PUG's.

Semantics and the beauty of them is - they can be different for different people. So for you winning is something else than for me (as an example).
http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/09/yo...lling-emotion/

[Alvito]

nah its the mount . people buying ton of tokens to buy 6 months sub .

Of course it is the ship it bumped when that was announced

[Prime92]

What gold sellers? You are trading your gold for battlenet balance or gametime. And the price being lower than the past few months means that more people are buying it. And seeing how a lot less gold is rewarded and items are quite expensive, people are willing to pay the 20 euros for the 170-200k to get some new shiny. It is not pay to win in any way...

ROFL. If that "new shiny" was a vanity item - sure. If that shiny is an unfarmable BoE titanforged bullshit that boosts your dps/healing/survivability in basically every aspect of the game (both pve and pvp), gets you easy gear boost from boost sellers, gets you a title/mount for "achieving" something supposedly hard in the game - that's the definition of P2W and tokens do that. The only difference from other games PoV is that you're getting those things not directly from the ingame store but from other players and blizzard acts as a middle-man munching on 50% extra cash, which is actually tottaly retarded. There's hardly anything in this game you can't buy with gold.

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Can you earn/farm the gold in-game to get what you want??? Yes you can, then it is not pay to win. But you you are going to say - but..but..but the people are buying boosts and high end gear.. but...but.. Yes they are, how many of them are in high end guilds?? The high end guilds have already farmed their BOEs and any possible gear that will make their mythic Uldir easier to start.

OK, next time someone says that buying shit from Desert Online or whatever other games store that boosts your gathering speed or lowers downtime, increase exp gains, eliminates AH cuts or anything of that sort is P2W, I'm going to redirect them to your post and they're gonna definately see they're wrong as fuck and none of that is p2w in any shape or form, right? Cause even if somebody has 400% increased gathering gains, gets instant max level characters, gets something time-gated instantly or w/e you can get all of this as well. I'm so fucking curious what you'd deem worthy calling a p2w, where is the boarder, cause by your logic there's no such thing as p2w unless you can buy a 3 times harder hitting weapon in the store compared to what's available in game. What if the drop rate of such weapon was 1:10^6? What if on avg one dropped for the whole community once per month? That's still available, so it's not p2w, right?

[Flarelaine]

All of this is making money for Blizz as they shifted from their subscription model

Have they? I never got the memo and last I looked they are still billing me monthly.

[bonewax]

When even the devs are encouraging and happy that people are buying gold and pay2winning their way in the game, you know any hope of balancing it is out the window. From he front page:

"This means that more people are buying the Tokens with real money faster than those buying the token with gold. Thus causing the price to fall. It unfortunately means a little less gold for your token, but the market dictates that is how much it's worth at the moment. Lot's of gold is moving around as its still the start of an expansion. It's pretty normal.

In fact it means the opposite of what you're proposing, its good for WoW as a whole because it means people are buying plenty of tokens to sell for gold. Slightly negative for token sellers if anything.

I totally see the point you're making though, in that it implies less people are buying tokens with gold. Which isn't necessarily the truth but rather the value of those selling them for gold has drastically changed causing the price to fall."

It's good for WoW as a whole...how in the unholy fuck is gold buying a good thing?
Negative for gold sellers...you ARE gold sellers.

And of course the usual PR bullshit, they can "totally see what we're saying" and "isn't necessarily the truth" and "it's pretty normal". It's fine. Everything is fine.

It's "fine". The game is in a "good spot".

people on my realm are selling 116 greens for 6000 gold. Nuff said

[Lougarou]

Short sentences then.

Gold in WoW comes from player generated sources and from tokens.

Tokens make good money for Blizz.

Not all players are in a position to afford tokens. Let’s call them minnows.

Few players are in a position to afford and willing to pay for many tokens - whales. Blizz target market.

Not all players are capable of earning a lot of money from player generated sources (missions, farming, flipping, AH). It requires some skill and/or time they might not have.

Whales will be looking to boost their ego with RL money. Boosting your ego requires that you feel you are better. Some feel the need to be better than themselves yesterday. Many feel the need to be better than others.

There will be hordes of minnows. Many of them will lack the skill and time to generate gold from player generated sources too. Compared to them, whales will always have better mounts, pets and sometimes even gear - if the minnow is also lacking the skills for successful endgame content.

Blizzard is actively making sure to cater to low skill players by prunes and ez modes. In fact grinding low skill content for countless hours is better for your results in WoW than having moments of glory.

The number of low skill players and minnows will melt into the group of players whales can feel better from. There will be plenty of them.

All of this is making money for Blizz as they shifted from their subscription model to the well known WDM model. Have a read about WDM here: https://www.billboard.com/biz/articl...the-gaming-and - ever heard of comparing “RNG” with gambling?

So no - tokens were not to crack down on scams and theft. They were a major shift in money making possibilities for Blizz.

Whales and dolphins are the customers who get what they want. Mythic raiders are usually closer to dolphins than whales.

Only Blizzard knows what their whales and dolphins spend money on. I guess much is spent on buying boosts, as it has become the new epeen to have a high ilvl and raider.io score.

I am part of the product. I don’t pay money, I spend gold I earn via player generated sources and I don’t spend it to boost me - I use my skills for that and I accept my fails when the game demands more skills than I have. I don’t bypass those situations with gold and money. I am the one who will have worse ilvl than whales - I don’t raid anymore - so they can feel better. I am the background noise for whales. As long I enjoy the game, I’m fine with that.

Kids (minnows) and new players (low skills) will feel the need to grow their epeen as they are much more susceptible to peer pressure than adults. They will either turn to be dolphins and whales themselves (money for Blizz right there!) or spend more time in the game to make up for their low income and/or low skill and effectively become part of the product too. To a much greater extent than I ever will be - times of my game addiction are long gone.

You personally may not fall for it. Plenty people will. It’s designed to help people spend more time and/or money.

Interesting take on this. Much of it I agree with and much I don't... or rather don't agree with those that are yelling Pay to Win is horrible. What those folks don't realise is that it's actually Work to Win <copyrighted>... that is, I went to school... earned a degree in somethingorother... make a very comfortable living. I'm also 60. I play this game to raid. No, I'm not in a mythic challenging guild... we will get to mythics, but are still in the midst of heroics, so nothing the "contenders" have to worry about. The gear the whiners are complaining about is left behind by the contenders (or dolphins in your vernacular). Folks that are buying that stuff either a) Have shit-loads of gold from farming/crafting/whathaveyou or b) ...like me, they can afford a few tokens now and then. But those that are buying the gear aren't winning anything except maybe a few PvP battles and that and $1.00 will get you a cup of coffee just about anywhere.

If you skipped the last few expansions, well that was silly. The point being, is that it isn't Pay to Win... because I work hard IRL for my filthy lucre, and I'll fucking spend it on whatever I want.

Today, it was a pirate ship. ;-)

#shouldhavestayedinschool

[potis]

Semantics and the beauty of them is - they can be different for different people. So for you winning is something else than for me (as an example).
http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/09/yo...lling-emotion/

Winning is the same term for everyone.

Being so bad at something you play that you dont know how you actually win is the problem with people thinking there is any sort of "Pay to Win" in WoW.

So no, emotion and how you perceive winning is irrelevant cause WoW has 1 winning element, and thats completing the now called Mythic raid in a relevant timeline, cause that is the start and end of the game, raiding.

Its not getting the achievement for it, its not having 2.8k Arena rating, its literally to level, to gear up, to raid and clear the content before it becomes irrelevant because you have to gear up again.

Every game-genre has a core, WoW is a MMO, a western genre MMO, which means:

Reachable Level Cap.
Gearing up progression, or gear chasing which WoW does with Raids.

Compared to what Asian MMOs were when the "Genres" were assigned,

Unreachable Level Cap and the actual endgame being "Reach the max level eventually".
Unreachable gearing up or reachable through tiny % crafting.

thats why a third genre of MMOs appeared and they are called "Western Influenced Asian MMOs" which basically just made all the new Asian MMOs the last 10 years:

Reachable Level Cap. (The Western Element)
Gearing up progression (Western Element) combined with unreachable gearing up or reachable with tiny % through crafting.

Which is where the P2W in MMOs appears, in all these western influenced Asian games, were they literally sell "fail-safes" for crafting.

TLDR:99% of World of Warcraft players in 2018 do not even know what game genre they are playing, therefor they dont even know how to "win" it.

[Deleted]

Winning is the same term for everyone.

Being so bad at something you play that you dont know how you actually win is the problem with people thinking there is any sort of "Pay to Win" in WoW.

So no, emotion and how you perceive winning is irrelevant cause WoW has 1 winning element, and thats completing the now called Mythic raid in a relevant timeline, cause that is the start and end of the game, raiding.

Its not getting the achievement for it, its not having 2.8k Arena rating, its literally to level, to gear up, to raid and clear the content before it becomes irrelevant because you have to gear up again.

Every game-genre has a core, WoW is a MMO, a western genre MMO, which means:

Reachable Level Cap.
Gearing up progression, or gear chasing which WoW does with Raids.

Compared to what Asian MMOs were when the "Genres" were assigned,

Unreachable Level Cap and the actual endgame being "Reach the max level eventually".
Unreachable gearing up or reachable through tiny % crafting.

thats why a third genre of MMOs appeared and they are called "Western Influenced Asian MMOs" which basically just made all the new Asian MMOs the last 10 years:

Reachable Level Cap. (The Western Element)
Gearing up progression (Western Element) combined with unreachable gearing up or reachable with tiny % through crafting.

Which is where the P2W in MMOs appears, in all these western influenced Asian games, were they literally sell "fail-safes" for crafting.

TLDR:99% of World of Warcraft players in 2018 do not even know what game genre they are playing, therefor they dont even know how to "win" it.

Well ... nope. Multiple nope, to be more precise.

[JSA2422]

the first week of BFA I bought about 2mil worth of gold for $150 ...the following week $150 was getting you 500k ..support your local china farmer.

[xmancho1]

ROFL. If that "new shiny" was a vanity item - sure. If that shiny is an unfarmable BoE titanforged bullshit that boosts your dps/healing/survivability in basically every aspect of the game (both pve and pvp), gets you easy gear boost from boost sellers, gets you a title/mount for "achieving" something supposedly hard in the game - that's the definition of P2W and tokens do that. The only difference from other games PoV is that you're getting those things not directly from the ingame store but from other players and blizzard acts as a middle-man munching on 50% extra cash, which is actually tottaly retarded. There's hardly anything in this game you can't buy with gold.

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OK, next time someone says that buying shit from Desert Online or whatever other games store that boosts your gathering speed or lowers downtime, increase exp gains, eliminates AH cuts or anything of that sort is P2W, I'm going to redirect them to your post and they're gonna definately see they're wrong as fuck and none of that is p2w in any shape or form, right? Cause even if somebody has 400% increased gathering gains, gets instant max level characters, gets something time-gated instantly or w/e you can get all of this as well. I'm so fucking curious what you'd deem worthy calling a p2w, where is the boarder, cause by your logic there's no such thing as p2w unless you can buy a 3 times harder hitting weapon in the store compared to what's available in game. What if the drop rate of such weapon was 1:10^6? What if on avg one dropped for the whole community once per month? That's still available, so it's not p2w, right?

How come buying thing in game with in-game gold is pay-to-win. Everybody is able to farm the gold if they want to, yes some people are buying it from other players ( which before was from goldsellers). But this is not pay-to-win. People were selling boosts waay back in the day, people were buying BOEs waaay back in the day, and now it is a problem, because you can shift some gold between the players!? Come on... So in generall because blizzard is offering the players a way to buy gold officially, which was done since the game launched but unofficially the game has become pay-to-win. And sorry, if you are in a raiding guild and you are soo poor that you are not able to afford some gems/enchants/flasks nobody is forcing you to spend the 20 euros on a token to get the 180-200k gold... You can awlays earn gold... I bought a token 10 days ago, for 184k, my main was left with just 9k, today i have 250+k ... And i skipped few days, or just did my emissaries and less than 30 mins of AHing..What i see is that you, because for some reason, are jelous of the players that earned a lot of gold in the past and now are able to buy boosts or some boes.. If you want to you can always put more effort and go earn everything yourself. SO no the game is not pay-to-win.

[Super Kami Dende]

Always seems the only people that complain about the WoW "economy" are lazy people who refuse to do anything in the game that people actually do to MAKE the Money.