WOW- Now pay to win?

[Doffen]

I just StW; Sold to Win. Man that was easy gold.

[Nerovar]

People are stupid, plain and simple. Many people don't even consider gacha/lootboxes to be pay2win, they want more gacha/lootboxes in games, they believe it is perfectly normal to spend money and gain advantage instead of actually playing the bloody game. Just because people believe something doesn't mean it is right.

But that's how these definitions for made-up terms work (unless you want to trace the term "pay-to-win" back to the first person who used it and ask them what they meant). Enough people use it one way, it becomes the established definition of the word. Sure, there are more extreme examples of pay-to-win. No one is denying that.

There are people who still believe having white skin means they are superior.

I guess? But I don't see how this relates to the definition of the term "pay-to-win".

There's little evidence that people are paying RL money for corrupted items. Indeed the evidence we have suggests they aren't. Rather they're spending their vast reserves or writing IOUs for gold and the like. And this is literally impacting a few hundred people at most. Out of millions.

Whereas in, say, BDO, literally anyone playing for more than a week or two is impacted by vastly more literal P2W elements.

And the real problem is just that corruption is too powerful, and it's a problem that's already basically over, as the race is over. So a few hundred people had a an arguably P2W issue for a few weeks, and you want to act like it's the same as a full-on P2W MMO or a mobile game where you pay RL money for extra lives or something. Really?

If we go by degrees, WoW had like a 1.5/10 (maximum, more like 0.5 really) P2W issue for a few weeks where BDO, say, has a 7/10 one all the time, ESO has a 4/10 one all the time, and most mobile games or Asian grinders are 10/10 P2W all the time.

Storm in a teacup is what this is.

The problem seems to be that the amount of raw power you can buy from the auction house has vastly increased over the last few years, with BfA currently being the absolute peak. Of course, this is merely a side-effect of items being more and more powerful relative to the actual character classes that utilize them.
Now, I'm not familiar with the games you've mentioned but it doesn't really matter because I'm not denying that there a games that are much worse in this regard. That being said, it seems to be the case that with companies like Acti-Blizz, allowing for even small amounts of shady monetization options (like p2w) is a slippery slope and they only react to it if the outrage is big enough (like with the Diablo 3 real money AH).

[Relapses]

Yeah..I asked the same question. Nobody seems to know....I don't even have an idea if any other guild is sponsored like the two. Or if any other guild could even erform on their level, even with the same money to buy BoEs

The issue isn't whether people can perform with the Corrupted BoEs. It's if they don't do it, another guild will. And if the other guild ends up ahead because they did it, they'll look like schmucks in retrospect. (This was the core debate people had when a Chinese guild back in early WoD would server xfer to buy BRF BoEs off the BMAH while Highmaul was current content. Ironically, wowprogress deemed this "unfair to the spirit of competition" and blacklisted any guild that did it. How the turntables have turned, eh?)

I don't necessarily agree with Corrupted BoEs being as powerful as they were on launch but it's very likely this is an isolated incident confined to this patch as (hopefully) Blizzard has learned that this is not really engaging gameplay.

[Destinas]

This just Olympics level mental gymnastics where you're essentially agreeing but arguing somehow that you don't.

Well you seem happy. Whatever helps you sleep at night, bro.

[melodramocracy]

Yes, its pay to win. It isnt the only way, but its a Blizz endorsed way. The end.

Now, whether that actually impacts your game experience is another matter.

[Trend]

Yeah..I asked the same question. Nobody seems to know....I don't even have an idea if any other guild is sponsored like the two. Or if any other guild could even erform on their level, even with the same money to buy BoEs

I don't think it is about the sponsorship directly, but about how many raids had any kind of realistic shot at WF. Going 100-300M gold in debt doesn't make much sense if you're not going to finish higher than 5th no matter what. There are so few guilds with the skill and the team dynamics and the time to compete for WF. (Of course those same 4 or so guilds will have the easiest time getting the sponsorship but I think that is more of an effect than a cause.)

[Ethas]

Either you don't play this game, or you're a bot, or you're just massively over exaggerating those numbers. Even the best corruptions on the highest ilvl items won't come close to doing "30-50% of your damage".

As for your "p2w" - you could buy all the boes you wanted, and you still wouldn't come close to clearing mythic raid. There's something called "skill" involved as well. Do boes help? Of course they do. But that has always been the case. It's somewhat more noticable this patch, true enough, but it's still nowhere close to any actual "p2w", and anyone who tries to call it that never played a game that is ACTUALLY p2w.

Care to provide examples? Any game which sells power for real money is pay to win by definition no matter the amount really. More so for the game where everybody pays the same subscription fee and should have the same conditions.

I do see this whole situation as p2w but not because of WoW tokens, just because somebody screwed up balance and allowed really good items to pop up on auction house.

[SirCowdog]

While i usually believe that large companies don't leave any sort of profit up to chance, i think this time i'll apply Honlons Razor (Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.).

Let Shadowlands be the judge of that, if they repeat it, it sure as hell is not a coincidence.

The problem I have with that is that Shadowlands is the eighth expansion. Were 15+ years in. This isn't even remotely near the first shady, money-grubbing, profit-at-the-expense-of-all-else thing they've done.

I don't think honlon's razor applies in this scenario.

[Soluna]

Not like this...corrupt effect does like 30-50% of your damge sometimes. Have never been like that before that BOE are so powerfull. Or maybe it have but that is bad gameplay.

- - - Updated - - -

yes but never this powerboost? 30%+ of your damage from one BOE? Really?

- - - Updated - - -



I agree. Feels bad man!

Ah yes, let's forget now with classic that there is an item called LIONHEART HELMET, which costs around 800-1k gold to make, which in retail translates to around 900k-1.5 million gold. And there are many more items like this that cost half a million or close to a million, sash of mercy in phase one? Easily 800 gold, same with freezing band. Corehound belt/hide of the wild now costs around 400 gold. Game has always been P2W, you just wanna jab it cause you are salty af.

[goldentforce]

Preach's point is being wildly misrepresented and what he is describes pay to win is not the same definition everyone in the thread is using. His point is this is the first time since the creation of token that something so powerful, which is soley down to rng drop, can be bought with real money through blizzard. Yes you could buy gold illegally through gold sellers but that is not blizzard. There are very few items EVER as strong as corruption on 8.3 launch. So the combination of most powerful items in wow, hard to reliably get the corruption you want because of the system makes the easiest way to get the best through auction house BOE's, and you can buy wow tokens with real world money, is what he is describing as pay to win. He is not saying that its P2W to buy items with wow gold, that is not what P2W is. He also differs that something like buying a cutting edge/dungeon boost with wow gold is different (which blizzard is okay with) because it really only effects the player that buys the boost, and does not have an impact on the world first race (which is in his eyes the "win" of P2W) where guilds with more gold/resources can get as many of these limited items during the race keeping them from other guilds, which could make the race only between a couple guilds with significant gold instead of a being community event with many horses in the waste. He also said its disingenuous to say "you can always buy boes so its always been p2w" because its nothing of such noteworthy power where buying all the BOE's of the best corruption is essentially BIS gear because of the sheer power of corruption traits and that it is so rng and limited to get the best, and that BOE's in the past were never at this level. Sorry if I misrepresented any points. Personally I think corruption should of never been so limited, so rng, and most importantly so massively powerful that the traits rolling dwarf anything else in the game (as shown by that manufactured picture of a low lv item having corruption put on it and being a bigger dps increase than current tier no corruption weapon).

[SirCowdog]

Preach's point is being wildly misrepresented because what he is describing as pay to win is not the same definition everyone in the thread is using. His point is this is the first time since the creation of token that something so powerful, which is soley down to rng drop, can be bought with real money through blizzard. Yes you could buy gold illegally through gold sellers but that is not blizzard.

There are very few items EVER as strong as corruption on 8.3 launch. So the combination of most powerful items in wow, and buying wow tokens with real world money, is what he is describing as pay to win. He is not saying that its P2W to buy items with wow gold.

He also differs on something like buying a cutting edge/dungeon boost with wow gold(which blizzard is okay with), because it really only effects the player that buys the boost and does not have an impact on the world first race. Which is, in his eyes the "win" of P2W. Where guilds with more gold/resources can get as many of these limited items during the race keeping them from other guilds. Meaning the race is only actually between a couple guilds with significant gold, instead of a being community event with many horses in the race.

He also said its disingenuous to say "you can always buy BOEs, so its always been p2w". Because of the disparity of power between corrupted gear now and BOEs of the past were never at this level.

Sorry if I misrepresented any points. Personally I think corruption should of never been so limited, so rng, and most importantly so massively powerful that the traits rolling dwarf anything else in the game.

Sorry, I had to edit. Wall of text combined with run-on sentences made REALLY hard to read.

[Tident]

Ah yes, let's forget now with classic that there is an item called LIONHEART HELMET, which costs around 800-1k gold to make, which in retail translates to around 900k-1.5 million gold. And there are many more items like this that cost half a million or close to a million, sash of mercy in phase one? Easily 800 gold, same with freezing band. Corehound belt/hide of the wild now costs around 400 gold. Game has always been P2W, you just wanna jab it cause you are salty af.

You can't buy gold in classic though least not without risking a ban. I also don't think that any of those items are rng based...

[BrintoSFJ]

But that's how these definitions for made-up terms work (unless you want to trace the term "pay-to-win" back to the first person who used it and ask them what they meant). Enough people use it one way, it becomes the established definition of the word. Sure, there are more extreme examples of pay-to-win. No one is denying that.

I guess? But I don't see how this relates to the definition of the term "pay-to-win".

It seems like you are hellbent on ignoring logic and continue with drivel. Now that I look at your other posts in this thread, I regret replying to you at all. People are stupid indeed.

[Beuargh]

You could always buy BOEs for money, so either wow has always been p2w or never.

Bullshit. You could not always buy gold for real money and BOE could not randomly become that powerfull.

And dont come back talking about chinese gold farmers.... its not the same as blizz selling its own gold for real money with the token.
One way was a ban, the other is completely ok, even encouraged by blizzard.

Stop bad faith, you gold buyers........

[thilicen]

Ah yes, let's forget now with classic that there is an item called LIONHEART HELMET, which costs around 800-1k gold to make, which in retail translates to around 900k-1.5 million gold. And there are many more items like this that cost half a million or close to a million, sash of mercy in phase one? Easily 800 gold, same with freezing band. Corehound belt/hide of the wild now costs around 400 gold. Game has always been P2W, you just wanna jab it cause you are salty af.

Can you just fuck off with the "it was always like that" fanboy bullshit already? Did those BoEs back then have corruption effects that came with a 20% dps increase? No? Just shut the fuck up if this is the best you can dig up, it's just embarrasing.

[Lolites]

Can you just fuck off with the "it was always like that" fanboy bullshit already? Did those BoEs back then have corruption effects that came with a 20% dps increase? No? Just shut the fuck up if this is the best you can dig up, it's just embarrasing.

freezing band maybe didnt do 20% of your raw DPS (neither does corrupted item unless you are in low blue gear or moron who cant play his class) but it was WAAY more powerful than that, i can only assume you never seen it in action, frost mage with that ring would kill you before you could do anything, didnt even have to be skilled, just needed the right talents and the ring and you were screwed

[Askyl]

freezing band maybe didnt do 20% of your raw DPS (neither does corrupted item unless you are in low blue gear or moron who cant play his class) but it was WAAY more powerful than that, i can only assume you never seen it in action, frost mage with that ring would kill you before you could do anything, didnt even have to be skilled, just needed the right talents and the ring and you were screwed

And where did you buy gold legit from Blizzard during vanilla to get that Freezing band? You couldn't. And yes, people bought gold and some got away with it. But a huge majority of everyone I know who did was banned, so it's not like "YEA JUST BUY GOLD LOL".

[Lolites]

And where did you buy gold legit from Blizzard during vanilla to get that Freezing band? You couldn't. And yes, people bought gold and some got away with it. But a huge majority of everyone I know who did was banned, so it's not like "YEA JUST BUY GOLD LOL".

1. you could buy gold in vanila
2. you DONT HAVE TO buy gold in retail, i have some 3m gold without ever buying token, if i wanted to waste it i could buy corrupted item... gold is incredibly easy to get by on retail, you can farm milions easier than thousands in vanila... (not to mention since you can pay sub with gold you can actualy play without ever spending a dime on wow)
3. most importantly, your argument i reacted to wasnt if you could get gold, but that you could buy item in auction that WAS incredibly powerful...

[SirCowdog]

1. you could buy gold in vanila
2. you DONT HAVE TO buy gold in retail, i have some 3m gold without ever buying token, if i wanted to waste it i could buy corrupted item... gold is incredibly easy to get by on retail, you can farm milions easier than thousands in vanila... (not to mention since you can pay sub with gold you can actualy play without ever spending a dime on wow)
3. most importantly, your argument i reacted to wasnt if you could get gold, but that you could buy item in auction that WAS incredibly powerful...

You could illegally engage in grey-market RMT, breaking the TOS and probably several real world laws in order to obtain a digital game currency. That is absolutely NOT the same as buying a WoW token.

The problem is that you're equating single BOE items in vanilla that were outright lower increase to performance, that couldn't be bought with real money facilitated by the game itself....to Corrupted gear which is FAR more powerful and easier to obtain, with no legal risk to yourself or your account.

Claiming that Vanilla was P2W is a gross misrepresentation of the situation, and a blatantly disingenuous attempt to prop up a failing argument.

[ophion1990]

If I have 10M gold and you have 10M gold, does the ability to buy more gold with a token make any difference? Absolutely not.

That's why tokens are not p2w. Having gold is important, yes. But spending real money to get it is not.

Only 3% of the WoWhead profiles have the brutosaur mount, so I'd argue that using 10 million is not a fair example, as the average player will not obtain quite that much gold to begin with and the lower your income from in-game activities, the more lucrative buying gold becomes.

It's only a competitive advantage if getting the gold without tokens is unreasonably difficult.

I can't really comment on this as I have no idea how much gold the average player has. I can tell you that it's a lot quicker for me to spend €100 on tokens than it would be to farm 1 million gold, though.

That's a very good question indeed. Why did they go into gold debt if WoW is p2w? If WoW was p2w then surely they would have just spent $$ and avoided that gold debt.

(on the question you actually wanted to ask, yes, gear does matter)

Because they can make the gold back quite quickly as they are the best guilds in the world and can sell boosts very reliably. Boosts which are paid for by gold, which may or may not come from people who buy gold with real money. Not everyone makes these millions as quickly as the top guilds do, which is where my friend Mr. Card (first name Master) can come in and help. This doesn't only illustrate the importance of gear, as you mentioned, it highlights the significance that gold has, when it comes to acquiring gear.

1) In-game currency is still obtained in-game. The difference now is that you can buy it from other players (using Blizzard as the intermediary).
2) Obtaining gold via credit card is never, nor has ever, been necessary. You can obtain it just fine in-game for a reasonable amount of effort.

1)I don't know about this one, chief. I thought I laid it out relatively clearly that I was talking about it from the perspective of the person spending real money for gold. The money isn't obtained from me farming or whatnot in the game, it's obtained by spending money, which I get from working. I literally buy it in-game, if that's what you're alluding to. In which case I can only assume you're making a bad faith argument or your response is a misunderstanding on your part which stemmed from a lack of clarity on mine.
2)It's not necessary to spend money in any game and I never claimed it was, I claimed it gives you an advantage.

Honestly, if you find yourself needing to resort to your credit card in order to get enough gold to be competitive, it was never a lack of gold holding you back....

Throwing a jab at someone is a lazy way to undermine an argument. Either way, if I'm horrible, I can now spend my money to get an advantage over other horrible players.


Honestly, just look at this situation: you have average Joe guild#1 and average Joe guild#2, both have cleared normal and killed an equal amount of bosses on HC, over an similar amount of time. You now give #1 a €100 per raider to buy tokens for gold, which will be spent on BoE's. Does that guild now have an edge over the other, knowing that you yourself said gear is important? Please do refrain from coming at me saying "They can't even clear HC?", my original post starts with pointing out that the most important thing is comparing 2 players at equal skill level.

you do realise people were selling and buying gold/items/boosts since vanila?

You do realise it was against ToS and could get you banned? Good talk, brother.