46 pages of pointless mental gymnastics to philosophise why pay to win isn't pay to win.
Can you buy BIS items from AH? Yes, you can. Can you buy items from websites for real cash like Diablo 2 days? Yes you can. Are world first guilds power buying the best items across multiple realms in order to gain a competitive advantage? Yes they are. Can you buy gold with real cash used to purchase these items from AH? Yes you can and from Blizzard themselves, who profit more when you do.
Yes it's pay to win, if that hurts your feelings you can rationalise or mind bend your way around it to make you feel better but that doesn't change the facts or the perception, either way it's not going to change so play or don't play.
Last edited by Bigbazz; 2020-10-11 at 03:40 PM.
Probably running on a Pentium 4
Obviously not everyone did. I'm terrible at making gold, so I never did, but tons of people made gold hand over fist. In order for that gold to mean something, there have to be items in game to spend it on. Whether you agree with the notion of inflation or not is rather irrelevant. It did happen. If players like you or I didn't take advantage that does not mean that plenty of others missed the boat.
With how people comprehend what pay to win is these days, sure u could. You’d pay the best pac-man or frogger player in the world a handfull of money, and he could get a highscore so high nobody could compete.
Pay to win can litterly be used on ANY game.
If people think so small minded about it.
PvE win = Clearing Mythic Raids or high-level mythic plus dungeons.
PvP win = High rank Arenas/Rated BGs.
Not seeing where mounts fit in.
Pay-to-win has a simple definition: The developer (Blizzard) selling equipment with stats. Mounts are not pay-to-win. Cosmetics are not pay-to-win. Player-sold loot/runs are not pay-to-win.
WoW is not pay-to-win and will not be pay-to-win until Blizzard starts selling non-cosmetic equipment.
Grand Crusader Belloc <-- 6608 Endless Tank Proving Grounds score! (
Dragonslayer Kooqu
Just because the easy methods are gone doesn't make it impossible. If somebody applies themselves to playing the AH and/or selling in game services, it is still a goal to be accomplished. It may take a while, but it's more than doable. In some ways it's almost like the original sprint to make 1000 gold for the epic mount in Classic. A long term goal that requires careful planning and dedication.
A lot of us were clearing the old raids for gold, or creating alts to perform a lot of the gold world quests for raw gold - but I kid you not, I have friends with like 10-20M gold just sitting there from WoD Garrisons - the amount of gold people made back then was insanity
I'm actually surprised Blizz hasn't released a 9M mount for SLands yet
WOW isn't pay to win but it is Pay2SaveTime. Everything can be obtained by an organic means and there's nothing locked behind a cash purchase so yeah p2W doesnt apply at all really. If I want to buy AOTC to get the Nzoth mount or Mythic Jaina rather than return and spend the time finding a guild and progressing through it then I see absolutely no issue there because it can all still be done without spending a penny.
Blizzard doesn't sell gold, they sell WoW Tokens. WoW tokens are tradeable game time. The gold used to purchase those tokens already exists in the game as a result of player activity.
Achievements are not a win-condition, no matter what a player's intentions are. WoW is an MMORPG. Gameplay in WoW is either PvE or PvP. Achievements are a byproduct of these systems and would not exist on their own. One does not win at Xbox just because they have the most achievements. One does not win at Playstation just because they have the most trophies. One does not win at WoW just because they've got a nice collection.
Anyone can play the game however they want, but your personal goals are just that: Personal goals. They are not in-game win conditions.
Remember: You can collect all the mounts you want, but you'll never be able to collect as many mounts as someone who has been playing since day one, got the Scarab Lord mount, got the first two Glory mounts, and got any other mounts that were removed from the game... or achievements that were removed from the game... or anything else that was removed from the game. Achievements and collections do not exist on a fair playing field like Raids, Dungeons, and PvP do, nor are they tracked in any official capacity like Raids and PvP are.
PvE and PvP content are the win conditions. End of story. You can play the game however you want and enjoy it that way, but your personal goals are not the game's win conditions.
There's no achievement for having all of the achievements. There's no achievement for having all of the available mounts. You might want to think about why that is.
One last thing to consider: Some players are trolls. They exist to make other players mad. Their sole goal in this game is to piss people off. Are they winning at WoW when they are successful in doing so?
Last edited by Belloc; 2020-10-11 at 04:32 PM.
Grand Crusader Belloc <-- 6608 Endless Tank Proving Grounds score! (
Dragonslayer Kooqu