Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Dhrizzle]

Just because not everyone chooses the pay2win route, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Obviously the value of the boost and p2w fluctuates greatly depending on what difficulty the available content has, but even then, something as simple as running armor trade groups in mythic+ to gear up for the upcoming tier will put you significantly ahead of anybody who doesn't.

The hallmark of p2w is it's either the only way to get to the toppest level or the only reasonable way. The fact that people have to clear the hardest content and get gear before other people can start paying them firmly excludes WoW from being pay-2-win.

[Echocho]

The sky is not the limit with the token though. Other players farming the gold is. It is possible for tokens to sell out and have none available for purchase.

That has never happened to me. There is always gold to buy so I can get raid gear for real money. I have money but not a lot of time so it works out great

[Relapses]

That has never happened to me. There is always gold to buy so I can get raid gear for real money. I have money but not a lot of time so it works out great

I don't believe you're actually buying WoW tokens for raid carries. If you are, you're doing it wrong because it's much cheaper to just buy the boost through a boosting community.

[Echocho]

I don't believe you're actually buying WoW tokens for raid carries. If you are, you're doing it wrong because it's much cheaper to just buy the boost through a boosting community.

I've done so in the past but then I found out that even if they're untrackable by Blizzard a lot of them deal with the shady shit that gold sellers used to, stolen accounts etc.
That's something I definitely don't want to support so I do it the legit way by using the token and a handful of guilds I've had good experiences with in the past.

[Relapses]

I've done so in the past but then I found out that even if they're untrackable by Blizzard a lot of them deal with the shady shit that gold sellers used to, stolen accounts etc.
That's something I definitely don't want to support so I do it the legit way by using the token and a handful of guilds I've had good experiences with in the past.

It takes so much time to be able to get the gold through tokens, though. If a carry costs 1M, for example, you'd have to wait for 5 tokens to go through which even at 4 hours a token is over a day (assuming you sleep). That's a lot of effort when you can pay less through a boosting community and have it done in one go. To each their own I guess. It just doesn't seem prudent to be using the WoW token when a cheaper, less-involved alternative is readily available.

[Echocho]

It takes so much time to be able to get the gold through tokens, though. If a carry costs 1M, for example, you'd have to wait for 5 tokens to go through which even at 4 hours a token is over a day (assuming you sleep). That's a lot of effort when you can pay less through a boosting community and have it done in one go. To each their own I guess. It just doesn't seem prudent to be using the WoW token when a cheaper, less-involved alternative is readily available.

It really depends on who you are as a person. I often pay more for something when it's the option that's better for the environment or if it's local for example. I could save a lot of money by not doing any of that but I sleep better at night when I do.

[Relapses]

It really depends on who you are as a person. I often pay more for something when it's the option that's better for the environment or if it's local for example. I could save a lot of money by not doing any of that but I sleep better at night when I do.

I hope you understand that you're an exception not the rule.

[Chain Chungus]

Blizzard does it this way to make sure people always buys wow tokens regulary, especially when new content arrives. And yes, most hard earned achivments means nothing, but they serve the purpose of enticing people to get boosted.

Hide cool rewards behind certain achivs = people buy token.


It would be awesome to see what would happen with wow token and the boosting services if Blizzard suddenly decided to drop m+, mythic raiding and keep with LFR+normal mode raiding & HC dungeons. Were most content was considered easy enough for most players. No more titles, mounts or gear hidden behind harder content. Its just there for everyone to collect. The only ones who could cry would be the few % doing high m+ keys & mythic raiding.

Very true. It seems like a scummy business practice to me. I wonder how much cash they made just from the brutosaur mount alone?

Also, I would be down for your suggestion as well.

[Ekis]

It takes so much time to be able to get the gold through tokens, though. If a carry costs 1M, for example, you'd have to wait for 5 tokens to go through which even at 4 hours a token is over a day (assuming you sleep). That's a lot of effort when you can pay less through a boosting community and have it done in one go. To each their own I guess. It just doesn't seem prudent to be using the WoW token when a cheaper, less-involved alternative is readily available.

You also have to take into account:

1.) Someone who would buy from a boosting community knows/frequents those communities (or at least have caught wind of them) and

2.) Someone who would be okay with doing exchanges outside of Blizzard in that manner (and given Blizzard's stance on it, not likely unless they, the buyers, don't give a crap).

Sure, a cheaper-yet-possibly-riskier option is always available, but normally people do not hedge risks to reward in that manner when it could lead to their accounts being suspended/money disappearing with nothing to show for it. That's why the WoW token is so ever prevalent nowadays than when they were first introduced (and ditto on price-to-gold ratio).

It takes significantly less time and less risk to buy the WoW Token than it would to do things the normal way. It may be cheaper and faster to do things outside of that, but then you have to factor in the risk: If things go sideways, how can you remedy or at the very minimum reduce loss?

[arkanon]

Bob the what? And you think I make no sense...

And I'm not defending the MTX in WoW, I'm correcting people who don't know what p2w actually is.

"Bob the average wow whale". That's what they mean.

[Relapses]

You also have to take into account:

1.) Someone who would buy from a boosting community knows/frequents those communities (or at least have caught wind of them) and

2.) Someone who would be okay with doing exchanges outside of Blizzard in that manner (and given Blizzard's stance on it, not likely unless they, the buyers, don't give a crap).

Sure, a cheaper-yet-possibly-riskier option is always available, but normally people do not hedge risks to reward in that manner when it could lead to their accounts being suspended/money disappearing with nothing to show for it. That's why the WoW token is so ever prevalent nowadays than when they were first introduced (and ditto on price-to-gold ratio).

It takes significantly less time and less risk to buy the WoW Token than it would to do things the normal way. It may be cheaper and faster to do things outside of that, but then you have to factor in the risk: If things go sideways, how can you remedy or at the very minimum reduce loss?

You're greatly exaggerating the risk with these boosting communities. They've been around so long that they're pretty much just as legitimate as Blizzard these days. There's so many layers of culpable deniability that there's zero chance of your account being compromised/stolen. These communities have so much raw gold currency that they're only interested in your cash; they really don't need to steal/compromise accounts anymore.

[Ekis]

You're greatly exaggerating the risk with these boosting communities. They've been around so long that they're pretty much just as legitimate as Blizzard these days. There's so many layers of culpable deniability that there's zero chance of your account being compromised/stolen. These communities have so much raw gold currency that they're only interested in your cash; they really don't need to steal/compromise accounts anymore.

I'm not exaggerating the risks considering I was part of it. I'm talking about how people view them.

I know very well the risks, thus for someone like me it was easier to navigate. But you can't honestly expect the entirety of the WoW community to know of them and how to maneuver through it all, or even want to attempt it given its past of being plagued with stigma and the demonization of said communities.

Thus, the WoW Token helped with reducing that risk/stigma; it made all things possible through it. Much less risk of money being since Blizzard facilitates it, and Blizzard offers a bit of buyer protection if the deal goes sour (i.e. the run didn't happen but you paid someone for it? Just write a ticket.)

[Relapses]

I'm not exaggerating the risks considering I was part of it. I'm talking about how people view them.

I know very well the risks, thus for someone like me it was easier to navigate. But you can't honestly expect the entirety of the WoW community to know of them and how to maneuver through it all, or even want to attempt it given its past of being plagued with stigma and the demonization of said communities.

I'd say the ubiquity of current boosting communities proves they're currently anything but demonized. My position is simply that if you're going to spend a bunch of money on WoW, I figure most people would sooner use the boosting community lump-sum option as apposed to the proposition of buying multiple WoW tokens over and over again. Obviously I can't reasonably prove which is more popular, I'm just basing it off intuition.

[kaminaris]

Why waste 3-4 days? The top guilds can do sylvanas mythic with 1 dead player from the pull.

10 minutes from credit card to the hardest content in the game no problem.

So you figured it out, clap. Now think bit longer about it. Because token is not the issue.

Remove mythic achievement and mount, suddenly nobody cares while token still exists.
OR
Make mythic doable with pug in couple nights (xrealm, no lock, lower difficulty, everyone gets a mount) and suddenly boosting goes down while token still exists.

[Th3Scourge]

P2Win? What would this players even win after spending 10.000€ worth of gold this way?

Fucked if I know. But people do. Why don't you ask them?

We had one buyer during Nyalotha that would come for our Mythic reclears every week for tmog. The guy was dropping lots of cash each week just for tmog.

Different things motivate different people. I don't necessarily care that people do it, but to deny that you can definitely P2W in wow is false

[kaminaris]

You're greatly exaggerating the risk with these boosting communities. They've been around so long that they're pretty much just as legitimate as Blizzard these days. There's so many layers of culpable deniability that there's zero chance of your account being compromised/stolen. These communities have so much raw gold currency that they're only interested in your cash; they really don't need to steal/compromise accounts anymore.

It has been like this at least since MoP. I knew a guy who literally made it a job. And reality is, he got his account banned couple of times but from what he said, he has never had issue that one of his boosted guys got banned. So that would be ~3y period.

Now for him, getting account banned is just a business expense to buy another one and grab some gear.

[Raelbo]

Clearly 3000 posts means somebody cares.

How disingenuous of you. 3000 posts mean people care about the topic of p2w. That doesn't make the "competition" to get level cap on a new account relevant in the slightest.

Personally i prefered the game before p2w, i'm under no illusion that the game will ever become that again though.

Given that the game is not, and never has been p2w, it's hard to know what you're actually talking about here. I am going to assume you prefer it without boosters? In which case this is what you should be saying, rather than calling it p2w, which it isn't.

That said it's okay to like p2w, mobile games make up 80% of all gaming revenue in the world, gacha games and p2w reigns supreme in the majority of the gaming space these days.

I don't like p2w. And if WoW were p2w I would have a huge problem with it. You just don't understand what makes something p2w.

Just realize that the game wasnt always like this, and it has changed the game towards a boosting centered economy, if you enjoy that just stick with it.

The token never created boosting. Boosting predates tokens. And if you honestly believe that without the token, boosting would die, you're completely delusional. Now, sure, some people are only able to get boosted because they have option of using a token, and some boosters are probably more motivated to boost based on the fact that it can help them play for free, but in the grand scheme of things, the total amount of gold traded via tokens is pretty damned small compared to the WoW economy at large, and as such, token gold accounts for only a small fraction of boosting activity.

And even if the token had never existed, that would hardly have stopped the existence of trading cash for gold and gold for boosts, it just would be pushed underground, and amplified the massively negative effects of goldselling activities.

So sure, I get it, you don't like boosting. Fair enough. But blaming tokens for it is just ignorant and lazy

Trying to somehow justify the token being a fair game mechanic, and "not p2w" is just a huge meme.

No, trying to call the token a p2w feature is the meme, there for lazy incompetent people to use as a scapegoat.

And don't be ridiculous with this expectation that an MMO game should, or even could be fair. You are playing in an environment where other people play a significant role in your success, and a huge part of the game is figuring out how to use other people to get ahead. And yes, having more money to spend on the game is always going to be an advantage and that has nothing to do with p2w, it's just how the world works. You need to learn to deal with that.

p2w, very specifically, is about the game giving you rewards in exchange for cash, that you can't reasonably be expected to obtain simply by playing the game. Player interactions (involving money or otherwise) are something entirely different.

[Ekis]

p2w, very specifically, is about the game giving you rewards in exchange for cash, that you can't reasonably be expected to obtain simply by playing the game. Player interactions (involving money or otherwise) are something entirely different.

So what would we call it then if the precise wording of "pay to win" does not fit? It's not simply just microtransactions since we all know it existed before there was a legal-by-the-ToS way to spend money to get gold.

I'd refer to it as Pay for Advantage as it clearly allows another player to get geared faster than the guy who doesn't pay (doesn't mean he'll be first but he'll definitely beat his then-equals). It also gives that player achievements and gear that would get them invited to groups over someone who doesn't have them or cannot get them the intended way. And while, there are plenty of unskilled players with wallets bigger than some, there's also skilled players who couldn't be arsed to do things with a raid group or progress to that content, or simply at that point in time does not have a lot of free time to actually complete it.

Community-driven Pay for Advantage with P2W elements sprinkled therein?

[epigramx]

So you figured it out, clap. Now think bit longer about it. Because token is not the issue.

Remove mythic achievement and mount, suddenly nobody cares while token still exists.
OR
Make mythic doable with pug in couple nights (xrealm, no lock, lower difficulty, everyone gets a mount) and suddenly boosting goes down while token still exists.

That's a stupid argument. People are competitive so hard content will always be competitive.
You are supposed to be playing a game; not collecting stamps; games are competitive.

[Raelbo]

Why do you keep om repeating yourself?

I am not. I am repeating the same claim, but I am re-explaining the argument to try and make what should be a simple concept comprehensible to even the simplest of minds. Clearly not working though.

"can a token get you an advantage that is not reasonably easy to obtain by playing the game?"
Thats simply not true. Maybe you are a good wow player that consider most content "easy" and/or you have a big guild+friends that makes the process of clearing m+, arena & raids a rather easy experience, but thats not your average wow player.

Again, the token doesn't give you any of that. It simply gives you gold. Ergo, you do not need to be able to compete with mythic raiders or +20 key mythic plus players. You do not need to be an arena god, or be part of a special guild. All you need to do is make a bit of gold, and this will give you access to anything that a token seller has access to.

And no, making that much gold is not that difficult. Sure, you're not going to get it sitting your ass all day doing nothing, but if you actually play the game in a semi-competitive way (which is requirement of winning) then you're going to be just fine.

In order to obtain all of this stuff a player gotta commit lots of hours into gearing up, learn his class, other peoples class, boss mechanics and so so much more. There should be some merit to the players that do so, but thats long gone. It holds literally no value anymore in a living MMORPG world. Why? Cause boost & token is there to let you skip not only most of the leveling process, but also the endgame features.

What you need to understand is that there is a massive distinction between a boost and a token. Clearly you have an issue with boosting. And you want that make that issue synonymous with tokens. I am telling you that it's not. You're trying to create a co-dependent relationship between tokens and boosting that simply does not exist.

Tokens are not used just for boosting. Boosting does not happen just because of tokens. If you have an issue with boosting, fine, but it's a different issue entirely.

And once again - you didnt answer my question, you just countered with another question. So I try again:
can you or can you not log in, buy token, get gold and obtain gear, mounts, titles & achivs right now and in the forseable future?

Oh bugger off with your asinine and stupid question. I already told you why I won't answer it. You and I already know the answer, but if I actually dignify this nonsense by answering it, you'll try and claim it proves something, when really, it doesn't. So I'll save you the effort.

As I said, if you're trying to test whether tokens are p2w, there are questions that you can ask. But not that one.

It is a defense from you. Why you cant see the issues tied to token is absurd to me and I cant fathom why you would bother defending it, at all.

I am not defending anything. I am opposing what I view as a massively flawed, poorly substantiated, illogical and clearly biased viewpoint. The fact that it would put my viewpoint on the side of tokens doesn't mean I actually care about tokens at all.

What is ironic in your accusation though is that it's pretty clear that you guys want to attack tokens, and by proxy, the game, and that has clearly biased your arguments here.