How Long Until Pay To Win Happens?

[Seranthor]

How do you figure? According to your own definition p2w means exchanges a some of RL currency for any in-game advantage.

Buying access to a new level cap and higher ilvl gear seems like a massive advantage over those who don’t purchase the expansion.

Seems by their definition of p2w then wouldn't it be be p2w to even sub? since folks are getting an advantage over those that aren't subbed?

[Theoris]

When the game goes free-to-play, which will probably be by the time it's in its death throes.

[Nynax]

How do you figure? According to your own definition p2w means exchanges a some of RL currency for any in-game advantage.

Buying access to a new level cap and higher ilvl gear seems like a massive advantage over those who don’t purchase the expansion.

This is just a case of a "technically literal" understanding is very far removed from the pragmatic one.

Perspectives and use cases matter here. An expansion buys you access to new content and levels, but whether or not you are ahead of the curve still depends on your play time. That new curve is very important, though, because it means buying an expansion is actually paying for participation. The new level brackets actually make it less p2w.

p2w would be more like: buy this expansion, instantly get boosted to the new level cap, also here is some new top gear. Oh, and you still compete with everyone who is now 10lvls lower than you.

[Rendark]

How do you figure? According to your own definition p2w means exchanges a some of RL currency for any in-game advantage.

Buying access to a new level cap and higher ilvl gear seems like a massive advantage over those who don’t purchase the expansion.

There's a difference between selling new content and p2w.

[Galathir]

Selling gear and materials for real money would completely destroy the games economy, so hopefully never.

Yeah, this. The day it really happens is the day I'll finally unsub because leaving a f2p p2w economy was the reason for me coming to WoW in the first place after leaving several other MMOs behind.

[cuafpr]

when subs drop below 500k, maybe 100k and the game goes F2P for the last few years of its life.. sadly the sub drop is due to the decimation of the human race in the great intergalactic zombie war so this doesn't work either and wow dies as the final bastion of humanity (Blizz HQ) falls to the space zombies resulting in the servers crashing in data centers across the world.... a final Loktar'ogar was heard echoing threw the cosmos. or so the legends say.

[crox]

P2W isn't always a glaring red line that's super obvious once it's crossed. Character boost and WoW token already are technically P2W. It's a spectrum from conservative to liberal implementations.

I don't know the current ilevel in WoW atm, but if people can buy a full set of LFR / catchup gear, is that such a bad thing? Really it's just sparing people a grind, not letting them leapfrog challenge.

[StPaul]

If something can only be earned in game then it's not p2w.

I always thought it's other way around: if something in-game can only be acquired using real cash, then and only then it's p2w. Otherwise you're just cuting edges and skipping the grind. But you still don't have any in-game advantage over a player who can achieve the same results without spending a cent, but griding shit out of this game

[Uko]

It wont happen until they calculate the money made will counteract the massive sub losses from people noping out on that. Every year new mmo's come out most of them start out fine but as soon as the pay to win stuff apears the game dives off a cliff in popularity and die. So wow would have to be deader than dead population wise which is far in the future.

[Ryonas]

WoW Tokens

/thread

[agentsi]

You can just buy tokens to get mythic gear as well as carries. It's already pay to win without Blizzard directly providing it. Blizz gets an additional $5 arbitrage for each token exchange.

Paying another player, isn't Pay2win. That term comes from paying the developer for the items, instead of another player.

So no, its really not. You're basically helping another player support their mythic guild or their activities in the game when you pay them to "carry" your sorry ass through a dungeon or raid. As someone who has sold carries for raids and dungeons, most folks are so low ilvl wise, or just bad with tons of time to farm, that this makes their personal life more enjoyable in game. Rarely do these folks EVER try to push high end content. They're almost all solo players without enough time to do this normally. So more than anything, they're adding to the economy by being able to farm materials, etc.

[Big Thanks]

Nice joke.

Never

Blizzard already has a confortable scenario of income. Makes no sense to possibly anger the community with "obvious" pay to win in the game.

[GreenJesus]

Paying another player, isn't Pay2win. That term comes from paying the developer for the items, instead of another player.

So no, its really not. You're basically helping another player support their mythic guild or their activities in the game when you pay them to "carry" your sorry ass through a dungeon or raid. As someone who has sold carries for raids and dungeons, most folks are so low ilvl wise, or just bad with tons of time to farm, that this makes their personal life more enjoyable in game. Rarely do these folks EVER try to push high end content. They're almost all solo players without enough time to do this normally. So more than anything, they're adding to the economy by being able to farm materials, etc.

I kind of agree. Blizzard isn't directly offering epic consumables like food or flasks, gear, or artifact power 200% exp boosts from the store. Blizzard gets the best of both worlds. Someone else provides food/flasks/gear while Blizzard acts as the middle man with a large commission. The good thing is that it isn't intrusive to gameplay and it also infuses gold into the economy since people that wouldn't have gold but have cash can now buy things off the AH. It still equates to if you have cash then you can advance your character through the game and "win". (even though you can't really win an MMO). The token system is a lot better than ESO (loot box mounts/flasks/food/exp boosts/mobile bank/vendor/transmog crafting recipes or even FF14 in some cases with paying subs for each retainer over 2 or 3. The token system is better because players still need to create/get the items in the game and insert them into the economy themselves.

[Aliven]

It will happend the moment Blizzard calculate they gain more than lose.

[Drigs]

Token isn't pay to win. You aren't winning anything when you buy gold. If blizzard offered a 450 helm for 9.99 then that would be pay to win. With the token you are buying gold from another player, not from bliz. For carries you are buying that carry from another player, not bliz. you can easily do that without every buying a token. There just seems to be a lot of people here who use p2w as a term for things they don't like.

[hyphnos]

As stated in Title. How long now until they offer official Box gear boost or the likes? "For 19.99 Get 450 Raid ready items" You need flask? For 5.99 get 200!

I for one hope it does not but if it does how far out do you think we are from this reality.

The day the token was introduced. Log onto any big server and all you will see is "mythic +200 carry, stacked group" etc.

If you don't consider the ready availability of gearing via gold that can be bought with money isn't pay to win, you're just quibbling because blizzard is only selling it indirectly.

[Relapses]

I wonder if this thread will have more ridiculous correlations between the cash shop and a slippery slope leading to legitimate P2W features.

::reads first page::

...yep. Stay salty, friends.

[callipygoustp]

Tomorrow.
{10char}

[Wilian]

It already is and was ever since gold and level buying was introduced. There's always someone who cannot grasp that inserting money and obtaining advantage in-game is a P2W mechanic, even if it's just to skip something is a P2W mechanic.

[Noxina]

It already is and was ever since gold and level buying was introduced. There's always someone who cannot grasp that inserting money and obtaining advantage in-game is a P2W mechanic, even if it's just to skip something is a P2W mechanic.

But you don't win anything, how is that pay to win? You pay to progress slightly faster than the one not paying real money (or gold for that matter).