WOW- Now pay to win?

[Schmilblick]

Wow have always been p2w with gold from farmers, but then it became official with the introduction of token.

[rhorle]

Imagine if a state legalizes a certain actions and some people still not choose to engage in it. The action is then not "sometimes legal". Blizzard could crack down on boosting by changing their ToS that such services are no longer allowed, but they didn't do that.

You keep arguing my point but don't seem to realize it. If an action isn't always illegal then the metaphor means that buying gold isn't always pay to win. Blizzard doesn't crack down on boosting because there is nothing wrong with boosting for gold. They have cracked down on boosting for real money and there was a high profile incident not to long ago regarding that.

Buying gold is not pay to win. You are buying gold not any power. If you use that gold to get power that still doesn't make buying gold pay to win because buying gold can also not be pay to win. Because you don't have to use that gold for character power. And if you use it for a mount you are not paying to win. If something can have two states it is not always one of the states.

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Can you buy power within the game for real money (directly or indirectly) without breaking the ToS?

Everything is indirectly being bought with real money since it is a subscription game.

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How the individual interacts with the system is utterly irrelevant, what counts is how the system can be used without breaking any agreements such as the ToS.

Right. So if it can be used in a non pay to win situation then the very act of buying gold is not pay to win. It all depends on how you use the gold.

[Kralljin]

You keep arguing my point but don't seem to realize it. If an action isn't always illegal then the metaphor means that buying gold isn't always pay to win.

Because your point makes no sense.

The point of the metaphor is to highlight the error in your logic specifically, legality is a binary state, either an action is illegal or it isn't, whether people are taking that action is irrelevant.
Things don't become "illegal" because people aren't doing it.

Buying gold is not pay to win.

It is, because gold can be used to acquire power.

Everything is indirectly being bought with real money since it is a subscription game.

Repeating a wrong argument doesn't make it true.

You pay for the access, if you are unable to play for the rewards, then that's on you.
Pay to win allows you access those rewards despite your inability, because you pay real money to acquire them, the third party involvement is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as the game ToS allow it.

[rhorle]

It is, because gold can be used to acquire power. Repeating a wrong argument doesn't make it true.

Right. So you still don't pay to win. You pay to use gold and then can win with that gold just as if you didn't pay. Paying for gold gets you no advantage. It doesn't allow you to win something over someone who earns gold 100% in-game. As you said something is either X or Y. You've already established that buying gold is not always paying to win so therefore it can not just be pay to win.

It is simply just buying gold.

You pay for the access, if you are unable to play for the rewards, then that's on you.

Which is exactly what buying gold gives. Access. You still have to play to gain any power from gold.

[Kralljin]

You pay to use gold and then can win with that gold just as if you didn't pay.

So close, yet still so far.

I find it humerous at this point that you essentially admitted that the WoW Token enabled Pay to win, but still try to save face by arguing "No, but you can also use it for other things, this totally redeems it!".

Which is exactly what buying gold gives. Access. You still have to play to gain any power from gold.

You do realize that you equate to buying a boost to actually doing it yourself?

That there is a slight discrepancy of skill (if one is even bonkers enough to argue that buying a boost requires "skill") present between these two actions keeps eluding you.

[rhorle]

You do realize that you equate to buying a boost to actually doing it yourself?

I never said that at all. Gold gives access to things including power regardless of the source of that gold. Merely having gold does not confer any power and requires other actions in the game. Buying gold is not pay to win because you are not buying power. You are buying gold that gives you access to a bunch of different things. You are not required to use that gold to buy power.

You can't be paying to win with buying gold if you can use that gold for non pay to win activities. You keep saying that something is pay to win if any fraction of it can be used to gain power. Yet keep excluding subscriptions and anything else that doesn't fit your view.

[kaminaris]

If you mean the ToS thing, that knocks out fewer than you think it would. Really only MMO's deal with money transactions like that in their ToS.


That would still leave a majority of games pay to win. Even single player games.

Yep, not to mention that something is against ToS doesn't mean that there are no ways around it.

[Raelbo]

As an outsider to you two arguing. What makes your opinion right and his wrong?

Just for a start, I wasn't talking about my opinion vs his opinion. I was rebutting his line of reasoning that because something is an opinion, that it cannot be wrong or argued against.

In his specific case I was pointing that his opinion was weak based on the Toulmin scheme of reasoning, in that it lacked both warrants and backing: In other words, his opinion not only lacked any kind of solid reasoning, it also ran counter to what is broadly accepted.

It's akin to arguing that the earth is flat, while refusing to offer any explanation for why that is, dismissing the fact that scientific consensus is that the earth is not flat, and then trying to defend your stance on the basis that "hey, it's an opinion, so it can't be wrong - we can agree to disagree".

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I find it humerous at this point that you essentially admitted that the WoW Token enabled Pay to win

No he did not. You've just twisted what he did say in order to create a strawman.

There is a fundamental difference between being able to pay in order to "win" and having to pay in order to "win". "Pay-to-win" means the latter.

PS: Another pertinent point here that disqualifies the token from being "pay-to-win" is the fact that you can't use gold to buy power from the game. The means for converting gold into power is by enlisting the aid of other players. And while that might have some similar outcomes, and as such, to the uninitiated, appear similar to pay-to-win, it's actually something else entirely.

[Vorkreist]

That is not the meaning of "pay-to-win" though. Yes, it's part of it, but missing the critical part - the part that makes "pay-to-win" bad.

Pay-to-win means that in order "to win" you are required to "pay" and that trying to win without paying is going to put you at a disadvantage that is either impossible or impractical to overcome.



So, as you admit, the game doesn't give you gear for your money. It's other players that are helping you.



It matters because WoW is a multiplayer game in which players are able to help each other in many ways. And a player helping another player in an MMO is not pay-to-win, even if that player is only doing so for money.

Also there are very important implications for how this affects the game, stemming from the fact that gold has to be obtained from other players and isn't simply generated by the game. Notably, there is a severe limitation on how much gold can bought and what can be done with it.

Not everyone can buy gold for $$ - for every buyer you have to have a seller. It is quite literally impossible for it to become mandatory that people pay money in order to obtain gold. And the more people that try to buy gold, the more advantageous it becomes to those who actually play to earn the gold.



Firstly, no, gold does not give you "everything in the game". As you've already pointed out, what it can do is enlist the aid of other players. Which means that they are the ones helping you "win" (if you can even call it that).

Secondly, and importantly, the ability to make gold in this game is not limited by your ability (or lack thereof) to spend money in order to acquire it. The fact that tokens source gold from other players ensures this. Simply put, the people who have the most gold in the game didn't get it by buying tokens, and if you really want a lot of gold, tokens can never be the best way of achieving it.

In real, practical terms the token simply provides a mechanism (and incentive) for the best players in the game (the actual "winners") to help the weakest/worst players in the game.

You pay real money for massive advantages in the game. It seems you also forgot the meaning and origin of p2w trying to argue semantics now.
"Oh gee do you really win" ? Oh wow its gold from players as if you are paying cash directly to players and not Blizzard or even that were the case the lack of logic and relevancy to the Pay Real Money for Massive Advantages problem.
It doesn't buy you EVERYTHING in the game ? Damn check mate. Clearly no longer p2w. You just have to settle for Cutting Edge and Gladiator boosts with all the gear reserved.

Edit: I just noticed your last paragraph. So you must be one of those selling boosts. Now all this non defence of this p2w mechanism makes sense.

[Garybear]

I guess we're down to either buying the darned wow-token or becoming m+ boosters if we ever want to afford a mount again.

Just think its a sad development, we have plenty of rare % dropchance mounts. We dont need to overprice vendormounts to keep them "rare".

It could be solved too if just all loot was BoE but rarer. It would solve the boosts issue and allow casual pvers to accumulate gold.

[Lollis]

After reading through this joke of a thread, if we say we agree with you that WoW is P2W will it make you people like, you know, quit the game, and shut the fuck up?
Anyone who thinks WoW is P2W has never played an actual P2W game like Neverwinter where you could directly buy superior gear that was literally locked behind grinds if you didn't want to pay irl cash.

WoW is pay to catchup at the absolute most.

There is no meaningful thing in wow that you can buy that puts you on a higher level than everyone else that doesn't buy.
If you buy boosts, you STILL require that people already have the gear to boost you. If you buy gear, you STILL require that people have made or farmed that gear: was TBC P2W if you bought mats off the ah and got a crafter to make good items for you before everyone else had it?

People in this thread keep talking bullshit about corruption because it was objectively providing much stronger bonuses than it perhaps should have and therefore buying a piece was P2W. These people are wrong and again completely disregard the fact that those items come directly from the playerbase which, excluding extreme levels of luck, would require that the farmers already have an at least semi-competent level of gear. And talking about corruption, with it gone is WoW still P2W because of it according to certain posters?

Anyone who thinks WoW is a pay to win game, go and play an actual pay to win game first and then come back with some arguments that aren't full of shit.

[Raelbo]

You pay real money for massive advantages in the game.

Not true. You pay real money to other players to get them to help you out by giving you some of the gold they made by playing the game. And the amount of gold you acquire through tokens, by design, is small relative to what it is possible to make in the game. It's neither this "massive advantage" you're making it out to be, nor is it the game doing anything for you.

It seems you also forgot the meaning and origin of p2w trying to argue semantics now.

It seems you don't know the meaning and origin of p2w. Which is a player donates money to the game in order to access a game feature that gives them a significant advantage over players not using the feature.

"Oh gee do you really win" ? Oh wow its gold from players as if you are paying cash directly to players and not Blizzard or even that were the case the lack of logic and relevancy to the Pay Real Money for Massive Advantages problem.

You're just being hyperbolic (while ironically trying to tell me I'm the one lacking in logic ). You're not buying any "Massive Advantages". You're paying another player to give you some of what they have obtained in the game.

It doesn't buy you EVERYTHING in the game ? Damn check mate. Clearly no longer p2w. You just have to settle for Cutting Edge and Gladiator boosts with all the gear reserved.

First off, if you're having to pay someone else to boost you to CE or Glad, how on earth do you call that "winning"?
Secondly, since when was buying a boost something exclusive to token buyers? Buying a token isn't getting other players to boost you through hard content, it's getting other players to give you gold, which is a mundane task that any player can do.
Thirdly, if it's another player helping you, that's not p2w because the game isn't giving you an unfair advantage over others, it's the other players that are giving you that advantage.

Edit: I just noticed your last paragraph. So you must be one of those selling boosts. Now all this non defence of this p2w mechanism makes sense.

Not at all. I am not good enough at any of that content to be able to sell my assistance for gold like that.

But it's interesting that you have to reach for conspiracy-theory like explanations when the argument has been so clearly laid out for you. I guess you have just this massive irrational problem with tokens that you prevents you from being able to have reasonable discussion here.

[Kralljin]

I never said that at all. Gold gives access to things including power regardless of the source of that gold.

This is the logical implication, if you can buy gold without breaking the ToS and are allowed to buy boosts for gold without breaking the ToS, you are able to buy power without breaking the ToS.

If you are able to do that, you have effectively a pay to win game.

No he did not. You've just twisted what he did say in order to create a strawman.

There is no strawman, you and him are just trying to argue that simply because you can also buy something else with gold, somehow creates a new state, which is blatantly false.

There is a fundamental difference between being able to pay in order to "win" and having to pay in order to "win". "Pay-to-win" means the latter.

By that logic, almost no game is pay to win because then it only applies to games where you are forced to buy power.

The existence of a cash shop where you are able to buy power (or just the currency that can be used to acquire power) turns it into pay to win, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.
"Just because i'm not using it, means the game is not pay to win!" is utterly stupid and yet perfectly encapsulates your argument, the attempt to redefine it is just a poor excuse to defend this business practice.

[keldarepewpew]

This is the logical implication, if you can buy gold without breaking the ToS and are allowed to buy boosts for gold without breaking the ToS, you are able to buy power without breaking the ToS.

If you are able to do that, you have effectively a pay to win game.

There is no strawman, you and him are just trying to argue that simply because you can also buy something else with gold, somehow creates a new state, which is blatantly false.

By that logic, almost no game is pay to win because then it only applies to games where you are forced to buy power.

The existence of a cash shop where you are able to buy power (or just the currency that can be used to acquire power) turns it into pay to win, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.
"Just because i'm not using it, means the game is not pay to win!" is utterly stupid and yet perfectly encapsulates your argument, the attempt to redefine it is just a poor excuse to defend this business practice.

Any game with currency has illegal ways of buying said currency with real money. If i follow your definition i can only conclude that every game with currency is by definition pay to win.

[Kralljin]

Any game with currency has illegal ways of buying said currency with real money. If i follow your definition i can only conclude that every game with currency is by definition pay to win.

I'm losing count of how many people keep bringing up this supposed to "loophole", yet i'm telling you the same thing i've told the last person: Read the previous posts.

You are neither special nor smart to bring this up, just too lazy to read.

Edit: Fuck me, i realized that it's even in the very post you've quoted.

if you can buy gold without breaking the ToS and are allowed to buy boosts for gold without breaking the ToS, you are able to buy power without breaking the ToS.

If you are able to do that, you have effectively a pay to win game.

[Queen of Hamsters]

People using the term "Pay to win" for WoW are using a term they do not fully understand because they think using it makes them sound like they have a valid point.

[keldarepewpew]

I'm losing count of how many people keep bringing up this supposed to "loophole", yet i'm telling you the same thing i've told the last person: Read the previous posts.

You are neither special nor smart to bring this up, just too lazy to read.

Edit: Fuck me, i realized that it's even in the very post you've quoted.

Thats a nonsense arbitrary disctinction you choose to make. Putting your head in the sand and ignoring reality doesn't magically make the way you think true.

[Kralljin]

Thats a nonsense arbitrary disctinction you choose to make. Putting your head in the sand and ignoring reality doesn't magically make the way you think true.

It absolutely isn't, when people who break an agreement or law, it's something different to a situation when people can do the same action without fearing any repercussions.

Like, imagine saying "People are still stealing, hence theft being illegal is a arbitrary restriction".
It's a pretty simple distinction, really.

[Kharadin]

Depends what you mean by win. Pay to get power? Sure, but it's mostly "pay to get power sooner" which only matters if you're competing for WF etc. Do you need to pay to be competitive at the highest levels? Yup, gotta get that big BoEs ASAP.

You can pay to get a lot of cosmetics, achievements, boosts. But what are you really winning by paying? Mostly you're paying to skip content, and people paying for power upgrades doesn't really affect me, so, is it a problem?

Some people pay above the sub, some don't, doesn't really bother me either way.

[keldarepewpew]

It absolutely isn't, when people who break an agreement or law, it's something different to a situation when people can do the same action without fearing any repercussions.

Like, imagine saying "People are still stealing, hence theft being illegal is a arbitrary restriction".
It's a pretty simple distinction, really.

the analogy you make is flawed, its like saying theft doesnt exist because its not legal. That is the reasoning you are using, you can pay to win the game by buying gold illegaly but you are pretending you cant pay to win because its not legal.