Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[mbit]

No it isn't, since you can earn all things

Idiots along the way forgot what Pay2Win actually means.

Good news everyone, money doesnt matter irl because you cant buy immortality.

[Super Kami Dende]

Good news everyone, money doesnt matter irl because you cant buy immortality.

What point are you even trying to make with that inane babble.

[Mysterymask]

Good news everyone, money doesnt matter irl because you cant buy immortality.

TBF in the real world you can't just make another character to be your farm alt and another to be your get into the stock market alt so your main can spend his free time playing wow

[ceall]

No it's not. Pay2win is buying stuff DIRECTLY from a cash shop in order to get an edge over other players. For example, if you could buy yourself a (or multiple) 100% damage increase and damage taken decrease in arenas, THAT would be p2w.

Buying gold to buy boosts doesn't make you better at the game. It may give you some gear and achievements, but you'd still be shit at the game. Even if you paid limit double gold cap per week to be boosted through <insert current raid> on mythic difficulty every week and get fully mythic geared, maybe even get the famed slayer achievement, I'm pretty sure, once you're entering a pug, you'd be the first to be kicked cuz of low dps and/or failing mechanics. Good gear =/= 90th percentile logs.

[mbit]

What point are you even trying to make with that inane babble.

That your criteria is dogshit. As long as paying nets benefits it will continue to matter.

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TBF in the real world you can't just make another character to be your farm alt and another to be your get into the stock market alt so your main can spend his free time playing wow

Thats what proxy companies & family members are for.

[Biomega]

If you include outside parties, almost any game is p2w. Which is why it makes little sense to do that.

Would you call LoL p2w? Probably not. But I could totally buy a world-class team to carry me in a premade. OH LOOK, it's a p2w game now.

See how silly that sounds?

[DechCJC]

The issue to me is that supposedly pay2win only exists if the player is gaining an advantage that is not achievable in game. At least that’s what a fair few people on this forum defending it state.

Despite the definition, WoW definitely feels like a pay2win game, perhaps a different term is needed. Pay2skip? I personally think it’s coming down to semantics for the most part, you can still pay to achieve basically anything in the game. Is that not ‘winning’?

Edit: Honestly, does P2W even have a set definition? It doesn’t seem like it the more i research it; it seems more that people just interpret it however they want, and that interpretation decides whether they think it exists in WoW or not.

Google Pay2Win, it’s definition seems highly subjective. It’s quite frustrating to be hurled abuse at for something which I genuinely believe to be an opinion.

[Accendor]

So the answer to this question is a very clear yes. When then token was introduced, Wow became P2W.
I know there are some people that argue "its not Blizzards fault if the community organizes to sell boosts for gold", it doesn't matter.
Right now gold can buy you EVERYTHING in the game that is theoretically available. Every armor, every item, every achievement, every mount etc. And you can buy that gold with money.

So yes, P2W it is.

[mbit]

If you include outside parties, almost any game is p2w. Which is why it makes little sense to do that.

Would you call LoL p2w? Probably not. But I could totally buy a world-class team to carry me in a premade. OH LOOK, it's a p2w game now.

See how silly that sounds?

People have been calling lol p2w for a different reason for a long time already -you can buy meta champs to boost winrate. f2p needs excessive noliving to reach same level. Was one of the main arguments in the dota vs lol fights.

[Accendor]

If you include outside parties, almost any game is p2w. Which is why it makes little sense to do that.

Would you call LoL p2w? Probably not. But I could totally buy a world-class team to carry me in a premade. OH LOOK, it's a p2w game now.

See how silly that sounds?

The difference is that the possibility to buy the world class team is not offered directly by Riot.
If you want to get the right comparison it would be that Riot lets you transfer RP freely to other players for carries and lets you also use them to buy all future riot games and dlc and cosmetics in all other Riot games. And yes, THAT would be p2w and it is exactly what Blizzard/WoW does.

[Super Kami Dende]

That your criteria is dogshit. As long as paying nets benefits it will continue to matter.

The "benefits" don't provide anything that indicates "winning" so your point is useless.

Also it isn't my "Criteria" it is literally just what P2W actually means. Not the dumb shit People who like to complain on here "feel" it is.

[Accendor]

People have been calling lol p2w for a different reason for a long time already -you can buy meta champs to boost winrate. f2p needs excessive noliving to reach same level. Was one of the main arguments in the dota vs lol fights.

That is a really screwed argument IMO because if you are so good that actually picking and targeting the meta champs, you have most likely played the game so much, that you own the champion already anyway. Champions gets thrown at you without end and normally people do not pick the mega champs and are actually good with them. In fact, for most people the winrate does not change at all. For those where it does, it again doesnt matter because they are so good already, that they have to have an extensive champion pool.
In addition to that, free champions are rotating each week and its currently a lot (30 I think?).

So yes, I kinda see the argument/discussion point here, yes, I just think its on a completely different (and way less bad) level than it is in WoW.

[Soon-TM]

The difference is that the possibility to buy the world class team is not offered directly by Riot.
If you want to get the right comparison it would be that Riot lets you transfer RP freely to other players for carries and lets you also use them to buy all future riot games and dlc and cosmetics in all other Riot games. And yes, THAT would be p2w and it is exactly what Blizzard/WoW does.

Bravo, good sir/ma'am. Finally someone who gets it, instead of disingenuously parroting a narrow definition that was first made more than 10 years ago, when the gaming landscape was fairly different to today's.

[dacoolist]

The issue with p2w games is that you literally put your credit card in, and it literally just makes you win. You can do anything you want in WoW to get ahead, but it doesn't just make you win. You can pay gold for pvp gods to team up to carry for gear/rating, you can do the same for pve content.. but the deal is: it doesn't automatically make you win.

The old idea that WoW became pay 2 win when the token became buyable for gold always made me laugh because many times in the past out of game currency could be used for in game gain such as Trading Card Game mounts/pets, also their was a store pet that was tradable as well

[Super Kami Dende]

The difference is that the possibility to buy the world class team is not offered directly by Riot.
If you want to get the right comparison it would be that Riot lets you transfer RP freely to other players for carries and lets you also use them to buy all future riot games and dlc and cosmetics in all other Riot games. And yes, THAT would be p2w and it is exactly what Blizzard/WoW does.

What do they Win? Can you link me the shop item that makes someone always better purely from paying for it?

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Bravo, good sir/ma'am. Finally someone who gets it, instead of disingenuously parroting a narrow definition that was first made more than 10 years ago, when the gaming landscape was fairly different to today's.

It's a narrow definition because it is a straight forward definition that doesn't require expanding on. Literally adding onto it makes it not the definition.

Its literally the "If my Mother had Wheels she'd be a Bicycle" argument.

[mbit]

The "benefits" don't provide anything that indicates "winning" so your point is useless.

Also it isn't my "Criteria" it is literally just what P2W actually means. Not the dumb shit People who like to complain on here "feel" it is.

Winning is a subjective criteria in itself... some think world first raiding matters while others consider it a waste of time. Same for arena rankings. But thats beside the point. The basic question is if people pursuing some goal can archive it easier through buying tokens and the clear answer is yes. The easiest example here is highest legendary is too expensive for normal players. So you wanna easy boost? Token ->Gold -> max legendary. But of course the effect is bigger buying straight carries.

[Daedius]

P2W, to me, is paying for an advantage (that is offered by the Devs officially) over other players that isn't available in-game.

WoW offers no such thing, er go it isn't "P2W". Plenty of F2P MMOs do, but WoW doesn't...

The gold people charge for boosts, gear and what have you ANYONE can make in-game.

[Cuppy]

Many here follow the logic where you can buy boost, so it’s pay to win.
Every game is pay to win with this logic.
Mario kart? I paid the best player to play for me = pay to win
Tetris? I paid a guy to get that 228K points or whatever = pay to win
Dota? Bought a boost and now my account is in top 100 = pay to win

On a more serious note, no, wow is not pay to win because you can’t buy items or power with money.
You don’t unlock last row of talents with $, you dont buy Sulfuras with €, you dont pay £ to play a class.

[Rageonit]

BTW, you can also Makefriends2Win. It works exactly the same way, only you don't have to pay any gold, because you will get boosted for free.

[mbit]

That is a really screwed argument IMO because if you are so good that actually picking and targeting the meta champs, you have most likely played the game so much, that you own the champion already anyway. Champions gets thrown at you without end and normally people do not pick the mega champs and are actually good with them. In fact, for most people the winrate does not change at all. For those where it does, it again doesnt matter because they are so good already, that they have to have an extensive champion pool.
In addition to that, free champions are rotating each week and its currently a lot (30 I think?).

So yes, I kinda see the argument/discussion point here, yes, I just think its on a completely different (and way less bad) level than it is in WoW.

This doesnt take any skill as tools provide guides for newbs. You literally can have an overlay telling you what to do. The bigger issue is you need a champ pool not just one champ and this is what actually bites into the f2p limitations. Building a full pool to counterpick is hard for f2p and impossible if you decide to play another role. Pros arguably can ignore this more than beginners because onetricks do better on their main than switching to meta which invalidates caring about meta for them.