WOW- Now pay to win?

[Kralljin]

the analogy you make is flawed, its like saying theft doesnt exist because its not legal.

No, it's not, the analogy explicitly acknowledge that theft is still happening despite laws.

The point is that simply because it still occurs, doesn't justify to call the distinction arbitrary.

What the ToS says, counts, because it's written by the devs, they state their intent for the game, if the players then can circumvent that without breaking the ToS, it's up to them to fix that loophole, if they don't, they allow pay to win to happen.
However, i don't expect the devs to keep ToS breaking activities down to 0, because that's not a reasonable thing to expect.

I'm not going to further entertain this notion, because arguing over what is forbidden by the ToS should be self evident.

[Ihazpaws]

It bothers me how many people defend tokens here. You literally pay real money to buy advantages in the game. Gear, achievements and rating in arena (big no no). Mounts and pets do not add much to the pay to win in meaning way but still they get achievement points by buying the rare mounts and pets with money they got from the selling tokens.

I've seen so many players with absolutely no idea how the game works and still they are literally maxed out in gear from mythic raids and dungeons. Many of them have even said that they bought it all. And then there is a people who buy rating pvp in game... Can't even start to explain how many things is wrong with that. Token is the plague of WoWs economy aswell. Second biggest plague is multiboxers. AH is totally ruined for people who play the game casually and don't spend real money on the game.

[Vorkreist]

It seems you don't know the meaning and origin of p2w. Which is a player donates money to the game in order to access a game feature that gives them a significant advantage over players not using the feature.

So that is totally not the case when you give Blizzard real money to get gold that buys you mythic raids boosts m+ or glad.
I mean there is no advantage there. Its totally the same to give that gold aka real money to Blizzard and receive zero effort mythic runs, loot and even way worse than p2w , trivialize the very idea of those progression milestones.

I get it you sell boosts hence the need for that drivel but you must realize how silly and bad faith you sound by now.

- - - Updated - - -

It bothers me how many people defend tokens here.

Its obvious they are either selling boosts or one of those who buy. You can't in all honesty and sanity say the tokens are not p2w.

- - - Updated - - -

In real, practical terms the token simply provides a mechanism (and incentive) for the best players in the game (the actual "winners") to help the weakest/worst players in the game.

This gem here just made me chuckle. We get it. You are the best player in game and deserve that gold.

[rhorle]

This is the logical implication, if you can buy gold without breaking the ToS and are allowed to buy boosts for gold without breaking the ToS, you are able to buy power without breaking the ToS. If you are able to do that, you have effectively a pay to win game.

Is it effectively or actually? You can use gold to buy power. You have been able to since day one. That doesn't make any portion of using real money for gold pay to win it just means you have used real money to buy gold. Gold doesn't always give power and doesn't always have to be used to buy power.

[pepine]

Anyone who thinks token isn't pay to win is delusional and not worth talking to imo.

Like you can literally buy the best shit with real money right now. That's winning. And Activision-Blizzard (let's face it this was an Activision move) know it.

It's a disgusting practice. Gold should be one way to pay for sub. Not the ability to buy gold. Activision knew they could siphon even more money from them while making them fire more employees so they did it........ Record profit years and yet they're firing left, right and center and even during a global pandemic. Disgusting.

[rhorle]

Like you can literally buy the best shit with real money right now.

You can only buy what is for sale. If no one offers boosts or BoE's for sale then there is no power to be bought. So tokens are not pay to win because they provide gold and not power. Gold enables the ability to buy power because it is the main currency of the game and things like Bind on Equip are designed to be bought and sold.

[pepine]

You can only buy what is for sale. If no one offers boosts or BoE's for sale then there is no power to be bought. So tokens are not pay to win because they provide gold and not power. Gold enables the ability to buy power because it is the main currency of the game and things like Bind on Equip are designed to be bought and sold.

Sure you keep telling yourself that. I won't respond again as like I said not worth the time. Ciao.

[rhorle]

Sure you keep telling yourself that. I won't respond again as like I said not worth the time. Ciao.

Why do you want to ignore the truth? If no one offers power for sale buying a token can grant no power.

[kaminaris]

Anyone who thinks token isn't pay to win is delusional and not worth talking to imo.

Like you can literally buy the best shit with real money right now. That's winning. And Activision-Blizzard (let's face it this was an Activision move) know it.

It's a disgusting practice. Gold should be one way to pay for sub. Not the ability to buy gold. Activision knew they could siphon even more money from them while making them fire more employees so they did it........ Record profit years and yet they're firing left, right and center and even during a global pandemic. Disgusting.

And you could do that since vanilla by paying other players to do shit on your account, boost you while you are dead on the ground or straight up buying accounts with rare mounts and achievements.

Like someone earlier said. Just because it's against ToS to pay real money for boost doesn't mean it didn't happen or that somehow it wasn't possible and WoW token "enabled" that. This is pure delusion.

And you can't buy best shit with real money "now". It was always possible.

[Capultro]

I see 475ilvl items with socket and good corruption for like 2-3 million on the AH. So now ppl buy wow tokens for real life money and then buy this items...

Is this good gameplay or not? Pay to win?

Blizzard probly happy about it as they earn more $$$

yes of course the 2 things.it is pay to win with real money,and blizzard earn more money with it,OF COURSE

[Sansnom]

Anyone who thinks token isn't pay to win is delusional and not worth talking to imo.

Like you can literally buy the best shit with real money right now. That's winning. And Activision-Blizzard (let's face it this was an Activision move) know it.

You could do that since the game started. You could that in other games too. Everyone knew. Not just Activision-Blizzard. Not just you.

It's a disgusting practice. Gold should be one way to pay for sub. Not the ability to buy gold. Activision knew they could siphon even more money from them while making them fire more employees so they did it........ Record profit years and yet they're firing left, right and center and even during a global pandemic. Disgusting.

I always though it is odd that people thinks gold should transfer to money but not the other way round. Why is that? So people managed to horde vast amounts of gold. Why should they be able to transfer to real money? Because other games does it? Well other games allows money to be transfer to in game currency too.

We do not know the real reason Activision-Blizzard decided on the token. Maybe it was an attempt to make more money. Or maybe it they see it was inevitable. Other games already has it and it was better if they provide a safe way to allow people to sell their excess gold.

I personally would rather not jump into personal bias and subscribe to conspiracy theory as to why they introduce the tokens.

[Raelbo]

This is the logical implication, if you can buy gold without breaking the ToS and are allowed to buy boosts for gold without breaking the ToS, you are able to buy power without breaking the ToS.

If you are able to do that, you have effectively a pay to win game.

No. You have something that shares some of the attributes of a pay to win game. That doesn't make it a pay to win game.

• When you buy gold, you are buying a simple commodity from another player in a multiplayer game.
• When you buy a boost for gold, you are enlisting the aid from other players. The game doesn't boost you.

These are the fundamental differences between what tokens are (a mechanism for exchanging gold for cash between players) and what pay-to-win is (the game boosting you in exchange for cash).

you and him are just trying to argue that simply because you can also buy something else with gold, somehow creates a new state, which is blatantly false

That is not what I am arguing.

By that logic, almost no game is pay to win because then it only applies to games where you are forced to buy power.

Obviously it only applies to games where you are "forced" to buy power if you want to win. Where you get this notion that there are almost no games like that I have no idea, but clearly you haven't looked at many games.

The existence of a cash shop where you are able to buy power (or just the currency that can be used to acquire power) turns it into pay to win, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.

No it doesn't. And your continual and repeated insistence that it does, without addressing my arguments doesn't change the reality.

Honestly, it seems patently obvious to me that you simply want to be able to slap the label of pay-to-win onto WoW so that you can take a cheap shot at the game that, for reasons unknown to me, you want to shit on. The irony of course is that if we accept your definition of pay-to-win, then it isn't even something worth getting upset at in the first place.

"Just because i'm not using it, means the game is not pay to win!" is utterly stupid and yet perfectly encapsulates your argument

Again you're strawmanning. That is not the argument I made. You've replaced my actual argument with one that is much easier win. The fact that you seem to regularly resort to this fallacy is basically an admission in my books that you simply don't have a counter for my actual argument.

the attempt to redefine it is just a poor excuse to defend this business practice.

And there we have it. The proof of your actual motives...

- - - Updated - - -

So that is totally not the case when you give Blizzard real money to get gold that buys you mythic raids boosts m+ or glad.

But if you take the effort to analyse this, that's not really what you're doing now is it?

Blizzard simply facilitates the transaction between players. What you're actually doing is paying cash to one player in order to get their gold, and then paying that gold to another player in order to give you a boost. In effect you're paying the booster the money. Blizzard takes a cut, but neither they, nor the game has anything to do with the boosting that happens.

I mean there is no advantage there. Its totally the same to give that gold aka real money to Blizzard and receive zero effort mythic runs, loot and even way worse than p2w , trivialize the very idea of those progression milestones.

I am not trying to deny that WoW is a game in which you can get other players to help you "win" certain objectives. But that isn't pay-to-win. It is not Blizzard or the game that are trivializing anything. It's other players helping you out that does it.

I get it you sell boosts hence the need for that drivel but you must realize how silly and bad faith you sound by now.

So if I could demonstrate that I do not sell boosts, would you accept that maybe you're not properly understanding the argument here? (and by implication that you're probably wrong about your other conclusions too?).

Its obvious they are either selling boosts or one of those who buy.

The fact that you even think this simply points to the more obvious fact that you don't really know what you're talking about. Nothing in what I have said is at all contingent on me selling boosts (it cannot be since I, in fact, do not)

You can't in all honesty and sanity say the tokens are not p2w.

Look buddy, I totally get why you think they are. But that simply demonstrates that you have not applied sufficient thought to this issue.

What's actually rather amusing here is that guys like you and @Kralljin clearly have a bone to pick with Blizzard which is driving your narrative here. So it's ironic that you'd assume that those who have the gall to call you out on the biased nonsense you like to preach would be doing so from some of their own vested interests.

[Koward]

No. You have something that shares some of the attributes of a pay to win game. That doesn't make it a pay to win game.

• When you buy gold, you are buying a simple commodity from another player in a multiplayer game.
• When you buy a boost for gold, you are enlisting the aid from other players. The game doesn't boost you.

These are the fundamental differences between what tokens are (a mechanism for exchanging gold for cash between players) and what pay-to-win is (the game boosting you in exchange for cash).

Because gold is exchanged between players instead of generated by the game does not prevent it to be a p2w mechanic.
Sure, the pile of gold on the table stays the same. But the reason why gold is distributed around is quite important.
The gold won't move to your side of the table because of time invested ingame, or skill, or luck. It will move to your side because of your IRL money.

And now you might agree or disagree, but many considers that an unfair criteria. That's purely it.

But you can still agree with that concept of course.
Just realize those who disagree are not insane or ignorant, it's just we all have different concepts of fairness.

[rhorle]

The gold won't move to your side of the table because of time invested ingame, or skill, or luck. It will move to your side because of your IRL money.

But just having gold doesn't win anything. It requires skill, luck, or time invested to gain power with that gold. Players boost you in exchange for that gold. Whether through selling you a BoE or carrying you. You are not paying for power so it isn't pay to win. Just having the ability to spend real life money on a game does not equal pay to win.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Yes, WoW has become Pay to win.

I fought with this idea for so long until a friend of mine came back to playing in 8.3, because in my mind, Blizzard is not directly selling gear and it's not their fault that the community is selling boosts/offering/ and people are buying.

BUT!

He literally bought tokens on 4 accounts since he got limited to 10 tokens a week or something on a single account.

In less than 2 weeks he was in mythic raid gear, and was farming arena wins (which got him to 2400) in order to buy corruptions and essences.

All he did, was buy tokens, and exchanged the gold for carries/wins/gear.

Blizzard says this is fine, which translates to p2w. Call it whatever you want to call it, that's p2w.

If Blizzard said that you may not buy carries, full stop, it stops being p2w and becomes black market, which ALL games have.

[Koward]

But just having gold doesn't win anything. It requires skill, luck, or time invested to gain power with that gold. Players boost you in exchange for that gold. Whether through selling you a BoE or carrying you. You are not paying for power so it isn't pay to win. Just having the ability to spend real life money on a game does not equal pay to win.

That's a much more solid argument than "yes gold is power but it's okay because it just exchanges it between players".
And you're right in saying that gold is not enough. But now I guess the real debate is actually about whether gold matters enough or not in this game to consider it p2w.
If gold itself is irrelevant, then even if gold for money is unfair, then it is such a small amount of unfairness that's it does not matter.
A lot of games work like that, and offer currencies for money that only have a minor game impact.

Personally I believe gold is still too significant in WoW for it not to be P2W. Of course if an expansion completely changed that and turned gold into something more cosmetic I would change my mind, but right now it just has too much value.

[Caerrona]

That's a much more solid argument than "yes gold is power but it's okay because it just exchanges it between players".
And you're right in saying that gold is not enough. But now I guess the real debate is actually about whether gold matters enough or not in this game to consider it p2w.
If gold itself is irrelevant, then even if gold for money is unfair, then it is such a small amount of unfairness that's it does not matter.
A lot of games work like that, and offer currencies for money that only have a minor game impact.

Personally I believe gold is still too significant in WoW for it not to be P2W. Of course if an expansion completely changed that and turned gold into something more cosmetic I would change my mind, but right now it just has too much value.

The game doesn't say "only available to purchase mythic runs" when you convert a token to gold. By your logic wow has been pay to win since 2004 cuz I have bought gold (now token) in every single expansion that has existed.

Your comparing buying currency which has 1000 uses (and just focusing on people selling carries, which again has been around since 2004) with games that sell "mythic raid gear" for $20.

Its literally not "p2w" so get over your bias towards blizzard.

[Basil2]

Because people got away with doing illegal things, makes it okay?

No way. That people must be banned.

[Lolites]

Thats a lot of confidence you're portraying despite your complete ignorance, but thats how a lot of people are like irl as well.

and you are shining example yourself

- - - Updated - - -

As an outsider to you two arguing. What makes your opinion right and his wrong?

as an outsider too, one is basing is opinion on definitions and general consensus, other on his ego and making his own definitions...
doesnt take much to know which opinion is completely useles

[Raelbo]

Because gold is exchanged between players instead of generated by the game does not prevent it to be a p2w mechanic.
Sure, the pile of gold on the table stays the same. But the reason why gold is distributed around is quite important.
The gold won't move to your side of the table because of time invested ingame, or skill, or luck. It will move to your side because of your IRL money.

Look, I totally get what you're saying, and I don't really disagree with it. But this is a discussion about terminology, and pay-to-win has an accepted meaning that entails a whole lot more than the "mechanic" of being able to use IRL money to help you progress. And the problem in this thread, and others like it, is that the usual suspects want to make up their own special definition of "pay-to-win" in order to push their own narratives.

Pay-to-win is about needing to use IRL money to progress competitively.
Pay-to-win means that spending IRL money is the optimal way to play.
Pay-to-win means that IRL money beats skill.

An actual pay-to-win "mechanic" is that you, as a player, pay the game, and the game then hands you what you need in order to win. That which everyone here who is complaining about is simply part of WoW being an MMO, a game in which a big part of your success is contingent on working with others to achieve goals.

What would make the token pay-to-win would be if/when the "right" way to get gold (for competitive players) is via IRL currency. But it should be pretty self-evident to observers with any kind of analytical competence that as long as the token is used as means of transferring gold between players (as opposed to creating gold) that this can never happen with the current token system.

And unless an actual p2w mechanic is introduced, one that meets those important criteria I listed above, people really need to just calm down and stop insisting on wanting to see something that simply isn't there.