Originally Posted by
Thelxi
People are not talking about the same thing here. No one is criticizing the fact that everyone has access to everything. That is fantastic and absolutely necessary for a cash shop of this magnitude to be tolerated by western costumers. The exact same identical cash shop has been in many FTP asian MMO's like PWI/Jade Dynasty for many years and it works great. No one is arguing that.
The issue is not the cash shop itself, it is the conversion of real dollars into gold and visa versa. In GW2 gold=dollars, there is no arguing that.
Now that would not be a big issue in a game like WoW where gold will not get you very far at all, however in GW2 you can do nearly everything relying purely on gold. That does not sit well with some people, no arguing that either.
It does not sit well with some people either that some others get instantly what they farm weeks and weeks for.
Now, the person above me said that the cash shop is optional in GW2. That is false. Gold=dollars in GW2. The moment you have gold in your bags, you have cash shop currency in your bags. It is the exact same thing. Whether you use it to shop in the cash shop or not, all the gold you generate is part of the economy.
WoW does have a cash shop, but it is very much separated from the in-game economy. You can have a cool sparkly pony to ride on if that makes your boat float with real cash, or you can farm ashes of alar with real effort if that is what you like. You have the freedom to choose between the two, but in no way can you get ashes with cash, or a pony with gold.
On top of that, gold in WoW does not even get you remotely close to BiS gear, contrary to GW2.
GW2 is a fantastic beautiful game, but the D3-esque economy certainly takes it's toll on it's quality.