Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Indigenously Abled]

If you think I'm hand waving arguments you're not reading my posts in this thread. So no, your use of the word disingenuous was not correct. And, if we're being honest here, kind of a little bit disingenuous. :-)

So much for not relying on semantic arguments. Your vast history on this forum is easily searchable. I've seen your performances in other threads, and as matheny2k said in the thread about Blizz co-boss selling boosts:

your tactic of putting words in my mouth and then arguing with yourself won't work here.

[geegeemacky]

I think so

[rhorle]

From the definition, so yes it fits.

Having gold is not a game play advantage over non-paying peers. All gold from tokens was already earned by players in-game. The choose to put that gold towards a token rather then a carry.

[Raelbo]

You must be joking. Hundreds of thousands of people follow the world first race and almost nobody follows who picked up the most fancy dress for transmog.

And yet the ability to buy gold via tokens has never played a part in who has won the world first race. That's pretty telling.

And before you try and counter, I'll counter-counter: Yes, gold does play a role in the World First race. But when you're playing at that level, it is far more effective to make gold in-game than to try and use tokens.

Both Method and Complexity Limit have stated in interviews during BfA that they spent gold with an equivalent value of $40 000 - $50 000 in their World First campaigns, but also made it quite clear that they acquired this gold by means of selling boes, providing boosts and receiving donations from fans and supporters.

In a p2w game this would never be the case. If a team wanted to win, they'd pretty much have no choice but to compete with other world first contenders in terms of how much they were willing to spend on the game.

It's not a strawman. It's you playing with words.

Call it what you want. You were misrepresenting what a token does.

You can literally and objectively pick up your wallet right now and pay Blizzard (fact) and all the money will go exclusively to their pockets (fact (barring their own taxes))

None of this is false, but you are conveniently omitting certain important and pertinent details in order to create a misrepresentation of what actually happens. Blizzard takes gold from another player (gold not obtained by any cash-to-Blizzard scheme). Fact. Blizzard gives that player a credit of real monetary value to spend on their website. Fact.

If you look at what has actually happened, the most accurate description is as follows:
Player A spends $20 to buy some gold from Player B. Blizzard takes a cut of the cash for facilitating the transaction, and Player B receives their payment in the form of credit on the Blizzard store in lieu of actual money.

I mean seriously, are you actually trying to refute the fact that, effectively, this is just a player paying another player for some of their gold?

and then you can literally and objectively get an achievement for mythic Sylvanas with that (fact);

And here again, you're being dishonest by omission. We all know that the token does nothing to give you any kind of power gain that will help you get that achievement. You get that achievement by getting other players to do it for you.

In effect, you're essentially just paying a bunch of stronger players than you to assist you. In a p2w game, paying money results in you becoming the stronger player.

and I find it silly when people imply this is some sort of a wonderful exchange or a wonderful representation of capitalism; it's terrible:

That is an opinion you're perfectly entitled to and I won't try and argue otherwise.

no money goes to the seller of gold (all the money goes to a middle-man/tax-man (Blizzard))

True, but again, somewhat of a misrepresentation. The seller of the gold does receive the equivalent monetary value from Blizzard in the form whatever it is they spend their Blizzard balance on. But yeah I get what you're saying, that in the end all the cash lands up with Blizzard. And while you're entitled to see that as something terrible (I have no idea why), I see at as an overall positive thing, because in effect it's simply transferring the cost burden that WoW places on its playerbase from players who want to pay less onto those willing to pay more.

and besides that: the most important part is that it contaminates the e-sport part of the game since people can pretend to have skill they do not have by paying cash.

Now this I will disagree with. Carrying someone who paid you to do so is the opposite of a competitive advantage. It's a pretty significant handicap.

- - - Updated - - -

Reading the last 20 pages, I only see that people doesn't know what pay to win means.

The fact that people thought was ONLY like paying 20€ on shop to get Thunderfuy 2.0 and winning PvE and PvP when isn't really, it speaks volume about gaming knowledge here...

Let's just put it this way: If you think that the token is p2w, you definitely don't know what p2w is.

Just like Echo did in 8.3 buying all the BoE in EU and getting money from Gallywix, that is pay to win.
And you can't say otherwise unless you want to derail the convo.

Paying Gallywix real money for gold is cheating plain and simple. It's not pertinent to the questions of p2w, tokens or boosting.

But since Blizzard isn't doing anything regarding boost is the smoking gun that show us they know how boosting + tokens = profit

That Blizzard chooses to allow boosts could mean a number of things. It certainly does not mean that profit from tokens was even a factor in their decision to do so. It could be a factor, but really, it's just speculation on your part.

And how it is the safest and cleanest pay to win without begin blatantly pay to win

Well, yeah. If we accept the premise that players will always be trying to obtain gold for money, the token certainly is the lesser evil. In my book that makes it a good thing for the game, even if you would prefer that such transactions don't exist at all. Which is kinda ironic when you consider that many here want the token removed because they hate that trading of gold for money exists.

[Subzu]

You swipe your card it's p2w

You flip burgers for $12 and hour then use that money for a game boosting it p2w

You buy skins that are poorly coded and offer bigger hit boxes, that's p2w

You swippers gotta stop swipping, the copium levels on this thread are at new levels

This is actually gotten out of control it's now beyond a joke, you have idiots defending private servers that have cash shops with bots spamming comments to claim it's not pay2win yet pay for convenience.

It's p2w nothing else

[epigramx]

Carrying someone who paid you to do so is the opposite of a competitive advantage. It's a pretty significant handicap.

No wonder people have ignored your replies (and I will too from now on); you twist the concepts to a point that they make no sense at all just to create a delusion you are right.

In this case I told you that the game should adhere to e-sports ideals; you reply by saying "boosters ruin their own performance!111".

In terms of e-sport: nobody gives a crap about the farming of others; it's about knowing who progressed without boosting.

[Subzu]

No wonder people have ignored your replies (and I will too from now on); you twist the concepts to a point that they make no sense at all just to create a delusion you are right.

In this case I told you that the game should adhere to e-sports ideals; you reply by saying "boosters ruin their own performance!111".

In terms of e-sport: nobody gives a crap about the farming of others; it's about knowing who progressed without boosting.

eSports is the cancer that killed wow day by day, the souless one path dungeons for the zoomers to speed clear has sucked the innovation out of map designs.

[epigramx]

eSports is the cancer that killed wow day by day, the souless one path dungeons for the zoomers to speed clear has sucked the innovation out of map designs.

Nonsense. The best instance in the game ever created was Ulduar. Killing Algalon world-first or Yogg-Saron no-keepers was a great event and it was clearly an e-sports event because hundreds of thousands of people (or even millions back then) followed closely those great players and they wanted to reach their performance.

[rhorle]

In terms of e-sport: nobody gives a crap about the farming of others; it's about knowing who progressed without boosting.

First of all WoW is not an e-sport. If nobody gives a crap about the farming of others in an e-sport then why do you care if they get carried? Why does it matter who progressed without doing it themselves?

[epigramx]

First of all WoW is not an e-sport.

Wrong. Read the reply above yours. If you believe that hundreds of thousands of people or even millions of people following great players' performance and striving to be like them is not an (e-)sports event then you have little understanding on how humans operate.

[Dioporco]

Having gold is not a game play advantage over non-paying peers.

Yes it is.

Forgot 8.3?

- - - Updated - - -

Paying Gallywix real money for gold is cheating plain and simple. It's not pertinent to the questions of p2w, tokens or boosting.



That Blizzard chooses to allow boosts could mean a number of things. It certainly does not mean that profit from tokens was even a factor in their decision to do so. It could be a factor, but really, it's just speculation on your part.



Well, yeah. If we accept the premise that players will always be trying to obtain gold for money, the token certainly is the lesser evil. In my book that makes it a good thing for the game, even if you would prefer that such transactions don't exist at all. Which is kinda ironic when you consider that many here want the token removed because they hate that trading of gold for money exists.

1. Not really because they asked gold loan due to tokens system limitation. Every Top Guild did borderline stuff like this, otherwise they would have flipped tons of Tokens.

2. Blizzard is a scummy company we saw recently so is safe to assume they allow boosting so people buy tokens, it took them years to do 20min fix in the LFG and Bots are still rampant. They allow to gain profit. thinking their main reason wasnt profit is a bit naive, the same company that periodically drops 6 month sub + mount when there is no content at all? The same company that made War3 Reforged and pushed the pre-order because they knew it would be flop and people would ask for refund?

Not a case.

3. Token was the less evil in the short term but now after years it has become the main problem enabling boosting botting and p2w

[epigramx]

Oh man; did someone just say "profit may not have been a factor in Blizzard's decision to make the token"? Don't people realize companies' main purpose is not charity? There is a reason you are "banned" from the game if you are a poor orphan from africa.

[DechCJC]

I don’t know why this is still going on, it’s really not a hard question.

The game does not seem to fall under literal definitions of P2W, but you can still pay money to win on a subjective level. No one is wrong.

The problem is that for something to be ‘P2W’ it has to fall under a specific set of criteria, to the point where even if WoW sold gear on the store you could argue that it’s not P2W.

Despite that, regardless of how it’s dealt, it’s hard to argue that being able to swipe your card and thus gain a leg up on players (either directly or indirectly), isn’t paying money to ‘win’ the game (based on your goals).

Again, no one is really wrong here, it just depends on how literal you’re being with the term.

[rhorle]

Wrong. Read the reply above yours. If you believe that hundreds of thousands of people or even millions of people following great players' performance and striving to be like them is not an (e-)sports event then you have little understanding on how humans operate.

The race to world first may be close to an e-sport but that doesn't make the entire game one. People wanting to be like world first raiders doesn't make them competitors in that race. Lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes it is. Forgot 8.3?

So what did gold give in 8.3 that it doesn't give now or in the past? Exactly. What you refer to is the advantage tied to BoE items. A normal game mechanic that isn't earned by simply having gold. They first need to drop through normal game mechanics in order for them to be put on the Auction House. It isn't pay to win to use gold for normal game stuff.

You are buying gold and all that is a micro transaction. There is no win inherent to the the transaction. It requires people, or the game, to provide a win under the same circumstances as any other player in the game. So you are paying to be the same as others.

[klaps_05]

Why not let WoW be pay2win? The guild system has been a joke for a decade so boosting communities are actually what brings a lot of people together. Everyone can make millions of gold without buying a token be it via AH, boosting themselves, etc. so if anyone can get millions of gold to buy something extravagant, why not let it just be like that? And if you dont have much time, just use a token for it.

Seems a lot of these topics come from people being insecure about their great "accomplishments" in wow while someone else buys them.

[melodramocracy]

Fans of the game will continually make excuses as to why the game isn't P2W (spoiler: it is), and even if it was, how does that affect you / why do you care, etc.

[Triceron]

Depends on your definition of winning.

If anything, it's still pay2play.

[subsidalos]

I think the real question is how is WoW not pay to win?

[Dhrizzle]

I think the real question is how is WoW not pay to win?

Anything power advantage (boost, gold to buy stuff) you pay real money for can relatively easily be gained through normal gameplay. In fact thanks to the token mount/pet collectors can get the store mounts without spending any real life cash.

[Eyechewer]

175 pages of mental gymnastics just to avoid the simple truth.