WOW- Now pay to win?

[SirCowdog]

so untill we know or at least can assume there was something like that, there is only information that we know - no significant movement of the price, hence we can say that demand for token did not have significant increase as long as we dont have different information we can factor in...

That would only be true if you already knew, with certainty, the existing influences on the token price.

The token price is a black box. We don't actually know what effects it. Sure, we can speculate with some certainty. But not enough to claim one thing and not another. If you can't say one thing effected the price, then you can't claim the opposite either.

If I make a drink that's 20% rum and 80% coke, it's still 100%. If I make a second drink that's 80% rum and 20% coke, it's still 100%. That's just an analogy to illustrate the point, but I hope you can understand what I'm getting at. It's entirely possibly that 100% of current token sales are going directly towards buying BOE corrupted gear, to the exclusion of other sales. The price of the token might not move significantly, but the portion of total token sales that goes towards buying BOEs is unknown.

Therefore it's not possible to say with certainty that BOE didn't influence token sales. For all we know the token sales might have dropped significantly without the availability of BOEs.

[Sinfelle]

A few of the things that can be bought in wow with gold that you can buy for cash and can be considered p2w:
1. Mythic dungeon keys boosts
2. Mythic raids boosts
3. Levelling parties boosts
4. Vision runs x the masks you want boosts
5. Arena boosts
6. RBG boosts
7. Transmog runs with mount loot option
8. Transmog runs with specific gear loot option
9. 25 kill weekly runs boosts
10. Island expedition mythic runs
11. BoE gear that can sometimes surpass the value of BiS mythic gear.

Lets also remember paying money RL in vanilla to secure your rank 14 week (back when servers were on their own)
Lets also remember MC boost groups then BWL boost groups etc all for real money
Do we even know if there has not been any scarab lords that paid for that privilege?

We run around saying "this shit doesn't affect me" but it really does.

None of those are offered by Blizzard. That’s just players trading goods. And none of that requires IRL money. I have a gold farmer that I boost regularly. He’s never purchased a WoW token for cash, but still has a ton of gold.....that he gives to me

[SirCowdog]

or in real situations its not as powerfull as people think based on simulations...

Except that it IS that powerful in actual practice. NOT sims. That's what we've been trying to tell you.

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this might be, but not 40% as some people claim in this thread... thats not even real in ideal conditions on dummy

Except when it is. :/ But you refuse to listen to the practiced, experienced expert who would show you that data. So where does that leave things?

[korijenkins]

buying BoE’s has been a thing since
Classic so if that’s your metric then the game has always been P2W.

It wasn't sponsored by Blizzard, moron.

You could, theoretically, get banned for buying BoEs with real money.

[SirCowdog]

A few of the things that can be bought in wow with gold that you can buy for cash and can be considered p2w:
1. Mythic dungeon keys boosts
2. Mythic raids boosts
3. Levelling parties boosts
4. Vision runs x the masks you want boosts
5. Arena boosts
6. RBG boosts
7. Transmog runs with mount loot option
8. Transmog runs with specific gear loot option
9. 25 kill weekly runs boosts
10. Island expedition mythic runs
11. BoE gear that can sometimes surpass the value of BiS mythic gear.

Lets also remember paying money RL in vanilla to secure your rank 14 week (back when servers were on their own)
Lets also remember MC boost groups then BWL boost groups etc all for real money
Do we even know if there has not been any scarab lords that paid for that privilege?

We run around saying "this shit doesn't affect me" but it really does.

I think you should carefully consider that none of those things you listed are sold directly by Blizzard, but rather by other players.

Now, as I said in an earlier post, I believe that having the ability to leverage your real world money to effect the game like this does fall under P2W. But I can see why people would try to draw the technicality between a player selling something and the game itself selling it. To those people I would say that the Token is part of the game, and thus anything you are enabled to do with the token is therefore P2W.

[Raelbo]

Yeah it is HIS definition and it is as valid as your, because when I google the definition of pay to win, guess what? I cannot find a trusty dictionary that explains it, except https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...erm=pay-to-win

Well, let's have a look at what that source says shall we?

pay-to-win
"Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying."

"Several games nowadays have the option to pay real money to enhance the experience of the player, often frustrating him unless he pays up."

"Pay to Win is a situation in gaming (usually MMOs or Massively Multiplayer Online games) where companies allow you to buy items or advantages with real money that cannot be obtained normally by playing the game."

"Paying real life currency to beat players who are inherently better than you in any game."

"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 "


I think the theme is pretty clear here. It's not just about being able to buy something for real money. It's primarily about the penalty you suffer for not paying.

Other than that everybody is apparently making up their own stuff to fit their narrative..why else would there be this reddit thread if you could just google an actual accepted definition by a dictionary?

I agree with you. Most people in any p2w argument are trying to push some narrative. Like the OP.

Here's the thing: Generally speaking, the term p2w is viewed with disdain. It's something undesirable for any game to be. So detractors of the game like to try and argue that WoW is p2w so that they can prove just how shitty tokens/the game/Ion/Blizzard are. But to any astute observer this is a pretty obvious strawman. Sadly not everyone is that astute.

Given that context, that people attach a lot of negative connotations to a game if it is deemed to be p2w, it follows that any meaningful definition of p2w needs to account for the things that cause those negative connotations. Otherwise it is nothing more than a strawman.

To that end, IMO, what really makes p2w onerous is when people are coerced into spending money to buy stuff or face the reality of being left behind. Honestly, why should anyone care if some random person spent $200 to buy tokens so that he can buy a BoE ring that boosts his dps by a little bit? Why would that be any worse to me than if a Method raider bought that ring with gold made from selling boosts. Or if an AH goblin with 50M gold bought it. Or if some lucky bastard just had it drop for him on a trash pack before the first boss of the instance?

No, what matters to me is simply whether I need to spend a similar amount of money to compete. And given the rarity of such items, and the ease of making gold in the game, the ability to buy gold with tokens is entirely irrelevant.

[Eurhetemec]

A few of the things that can be bought in wow with gold that you can buy for cash and can be considered p2w:
1. Mythic dungeon keys boosts
2. Mythic raids boosts
3. Levelling parties boosts
4. Vision runs x the masks you want boosts
5. Arena boosts
6. RBG boosts
7. Transmog runs with mount loot option
8. Transmog runs with specific gear loot option
9. 25 kill weekly runs boosts
10. Island expedition mythic runs
11. BoE gear that can sometimes surpass the value of BiS mythic gear.

Lets also remember paying money RL in vanilla to secure your rank 14 week (back when servers were on their own)
Lets also remember MC boost groups then BWL boost groups etc all for real money
Do we even know if there has not been any scarab lords that paid for that privilege?

We run around saying "this shit doesn't affect me" but it really does.

I actually agree that these are things and not ideal, but lack of a token spike and the decreasing value of tokens suggest that they are at least not getting worse.

Further, as you rightly say, all the way back to Vanilla people bought this sort of stuff for RL money, and not infrequently. I'm really skeptical that most of those are actually regularly paid for with IRL money even via tokens though. I mean God really who pays RL money for mythic islands or transmog runs? I've never even seen those advertised.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Is this good gameplay or not?

That's not what the word gameplay means. At all.

[Sinfelle]

Thats the definition of circle jerking. Blizzard doesn't sell those services they just sell the gold to purchase them. How convenient.

Blizzard doesn’t sell the gold either. It’s player gold. Are you purposely trying to be wrong?

[SirCowdog]

Thats the definition of circle jerking. Blizzard doesn't sell those services they just sell the gold to purchase them. How convenient.

Blizzard doesn't generate the gold. Players do. All blizzard is doing is facilitating the transaction.

The problem I have is as I said before: It's allowing players to leverage out-of-game currency to influence in-game currency. Which is where I find myself defining "P2W".

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It wasn't sponsored by Blizzard, moron.

You could, theoretically, get banned for buying BoEs with real money.

Blizzard took a token effort to say it’s technically not ok while still raking in money from it for years. Saying they didn’t sponsor it is meaningless when they let it happen because they kept making money off off of it.

[Eurhetemec]

Thats the definition of circle jerking. Blizzard doesn't sell those services they just sell the gold to purchase them. How convenient.

I think you mean circular logic or keeping their hands clean, because er buddy no that is not any definition of circle jerk (neither literal nor metaphorical). I get what you're saying but...

[reauxmont]

None of those are offered by Blizzard. That’s just players trading goods. And none of that requires IRL money. I have a gold farmer that I boost regularly. He’s never purchased a WoW token for cash, but still has a ton of gold.....that he gives to me

So what? The entire point of this thread is that people are able to purchase gold, and purchase items with this gold, meaning wow is "pay to win", according to OP.

Your gold farmer might as well but a corruption item BoE with gold.

[Sinfelle]

So what? The entire point of this thread is that people are able to purchase gold, and purchase items with this gold, meaning wow is "pay to win", according to OP.

Your gold farmer might as well but a corruption item BoE with gold.

If the gold farm bought a boe with gold that’s not even close to being pay to win. He played the game and didn’t do anything bout of the ordinary. Got gold in game, bought an item off the AH. Wow, game breaking.

All Blizzard offers is a means of which players can trade game time/blizz balance for gold safely. That’s it. They don’t make/print/generate gold. They don’t sell power items, they don’t sell boost. That’s all the players. It’s trading. You want my time/skill this is what you can offer, because the items I want need you can’t trade or can’t get yourself so gold it is.

[Raelbo]

Now...ofc people can say people might want to win other things...like server first. Or a raidspot. Or the dps meters. Fine. Let them call the game P2W, nobody is gonna convince them differently (has anybody on the internet actually ever changed their mind? Is there a documented case? )

I have no problem with people choosing to define p2w however they want. My objection is to the way that p2w is frequently used as a strawman in order to drive a more sinister narrative. If someone wants to define p2w in such a way that it's completely benign and harmless to the game - fine. But then they shouldn't go arguing that because it's p2w, it's terrible and harmful to the game. To me that's just dishonest.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The gearing dynamic has completely changed in 8.3.

You can literally buy entire BiS sets of gear from the AH since 8.3

So yes, the switch to P2W was made in 8.3

It costs a shit ton of gold and dollars to do it though, but it's there since this patch.

Method literally spent 50k dollars on this patch, because they could.

Exactly. It's not an every man can p2w situation but people can certainly p2w. Which means it is p2w. Just an extremely expensive one.

[SirCowdog]

I have no problem with people choosing to define p2w however they want. My objection is to the way that p2w is frequently used as a strawman in order to drive a more sinister narrative. If someone wants to define p2w in such a way that it's completely benign and harmless to the game - fine. But then they shouldn't go arguing that because it's p2w, it's terrible and harmful to the game. To me that's just dishonest.

I think there's some confusion when it comes to this topic.

1) The token is often viewed as beneficial. Largely because it solves the issue of black market gold selling. However, the truth of the matter is that the token is simply a lesser evil. One in which Blizzard actually profits from. That should bear careful consideration.

2) Corrupted gear is actually the larger issue at the moment. Largely because it throws traditional balance and power progression out the window. BOE corrupted gear is just combining the worst parts of a bad gearing system and the token system.


Whether or not these things constitute someone's narrow and specific definition of "P2W" seems irrelevant. The important thing here is that Corrupted gear, BOE or otherwise, is bad for the game. And being able to "buy" it indirectly with real world money is just throwing gas on the fire. :/

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The gearing dynamic has completely changed in 8.3.

You can literally buy entire BiS sets of gear from the AH since 8.3

So yes, the switch to P2W was made in 8.3

It costs a shit ton of gold and dollars to do it though, but it's there since this patch.

Method literally spent 50k dollars on this patch, because they could.

Tier sets raid mounts pvp elite sets ect ect. People have been selling every thing for real money for ever and blizzard for the most part has let it be as they have always made money off of it.

The only meaningful difference is that blizzard gets more of a cut now compared to letting gold sellers/buyers make account after account. There are even gold sellers on classic because blizzard does next to nothing to stop them and never has.

[Kralljin]

Tier sets raid mounts pvp elite sets ect ect. People have been selling every thing for real money for ever and blizzard for the most part has let it be as they have always made money off of it.

The only meaningful difference is that blizzard gets more of a cut now compared to letting gold sellers/buyers make account after account. There are even gold sellers on classic because blizzard does next to nothing to stop them and never has.

Is the best argument really "criminals have always existed, so it's okay if the crime becomes legalized"?

[Eurhetemec]

Is the best argument really "criminals have always existed, so it's okay if the crime becomes legalized"?

That's a whole interesting argument by itself and it's not a simple one - it depends on the nature of the crime (whether it's truly harmful or merely illegal, for example), and on whether legalizing it will reduce harm or not. I mean, with selling gold, I think it's clear tokens have reduced harm, just like legalizing weed does. But no-one is legalizing murder or letting you pay to grief people, say.

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Did they win? Or did Limit win because they spend 60k dollars? So I guess it is really "pay to have a chance at winning"?

But anyways..wow..that is crazy....sponsor money or actually their own?

I dunno about Method, but doesn't Complexity Limit provide housing and some kind of salaries/expenses for its raiders? Seems like that would have more impact than buying gear or the like.