"Pay to win"

[arkanon]

If only we had examples to look at. Maybe a game that offered something unique and powerful (and unattainable in game) that caused a mass exodus, compared to a game that slowly introduced a few “niceties” and saw steady attrition over… let’s say 10 years.

Sure, all you need to prove is that this "exodus" was CAUSED by the P2W structure of the game, and that the second game suffered no losses or players not touching it because of its P2W structure.

[zorkuus]

45 pages in and people still can't comprehend that this game isn't P2W.

Back when I played Destiny 2 people were saying its purely cosmetic store is pw2. So I'm not surprised.

[Steelangel]

I do see a lot of people saying "its a good system, but it is clearly P2W"

And every single one of those people are wrong. The boost gives immediate content access but nothing else of immediate value. It does not provide "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear" or whatever.

Some people want to play only the outland content for this specific game. This is not "winning". P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop, not a barely-able to quest in the intro zone character.

[Kralljin]

P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop

What does a hypothetical "attunement skip" on the cashshop do?
Saves time and gives access to content.

What does a character boost do?
Saves time and gives access to content.

Consider reaching 58 as the attunement for questing in Outland (which it actually is), then what?
You can't even step through the Dark Portal unless you're 58, which is oddly similiar to how Attunements in TBC work.

[Daymanmb]

And every single one of those people are wrong. The boost gives immediate content access but nothing else of immediate value. It does not provide "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear" or whatever.

Some people want to play only the outland content for this specific game. This is not "winning". P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop, not a barely-able to quest in the intro zone character.

So in your mind, being able to buy an unobtainable item from a cash shop suddenly fits the definition of winning? What are you winning?

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What does a hypothetical "attunement skip" on the cashshop do?
Saves time and gives access to content.

What does a character boost do?
Saves time and gives access to content.

Consider reaching 58 as the attunement for questing in Outland (which it actually is), then what?
You can't even step through the Dark Portal unless you're 58, which is oddly similiar to how Attunements in TBC work.

this guy aced it.

[arkanon]

And every single one of those people are wrong. The boost gives immediate content access but nothing else of immediate value. It does not provide "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear" or whatever.

Some people want to play only the outland content for this specific game. This is not "winning". P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop, not a barely-able to quest in the intro zone character.

Oh dear. Dear oh dear oh dear........purchasing an attunement would be p2w, but skipping 58 levels is not? Let's break those down, shall we?

Purchasing an attunement gives you no immediate power, and simply allows you to save time.

Purchasing 58 levels actually DOES grant you immediate power compared to someone who did not purchase it (if you are not 100% sure, duel a lvl 58 on your lvl 1 and see who wins) but you randomly introduce two obscure definitions out of nowhere. "Extra player power" and "special unobtainable gear"? Huh? Why are you just randomly making stuff up? But more importantly, why do you then IMMEDIATELY prove yourself wrong by saying "buying an attunement, now THAT is p2w" even though it grants no "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear".

What a shambles. And I should point out a few other points. A boosted 58 absolutely STOMPS intro quests in outland and is in full questing gear by lvl 59 anyway. It literally takes 1-2 hours to burn through 58-60, and although the gear is crap, it doesn't matter at all. Next, nothing about p2w says you need to purchase a win - but rather an advantage. This is very well established, and can easily be looked up.

[chiddie]

I am astonished this thread is still alive.

With boost you win about 150 hours of /played BEFORE the relevant content begins.

It is a sort of “win” for sure, the magnitude of the “win” varies depending on people. Someone thinks it’s irrelevant (given also its “once in a lifetime and for one char only and not for belves/draenei chars” usage) someone feels it’s huge, there’s not much to do to make the two factions converge.

[pahbi]

So in your mind, being able to buy an unobtainable item from a cash shop suddenly fits the definition of winning? What are you winning?

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this guy aced it.

When I see, "Pay to Win" I think more along the lines of a special ability or weapon or something.

If I was, "King of WoW" for a day, I would take away level boosting for cash.

But I would add account wide everything.

Account wide currency, reputation, attunements, achievements... everything except trade skills and quests. Heck, I'd even have account wide bank boxes.

[Daymanmb]

I am astonished this thread is still alive.

With boost you win about 150 hours of /played BEFORE the relevant content begins.

It is a sort of “win” for sure, the magnitude of the “win” varies depending on people. Someone thinks it’s irrelevant (given also its “once in a lifetime and for one char only and not for belves/draenei chars” usage) someone feels it’s huge, there’s not much to do to make the two factions converge.

An earthquake is an earthquake regardless of magnitude.

[kail]

And every single one of those people are wrong. The boost gives immediate content access but nothing else of immediate value. It does not provide "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear" or whatever.

Some people want to play only the outland content for this specific game. This is not "winning". P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop, not a barely-able to quest in the intro zone character.

Yeah you dropped the ball with your attunement comparison.

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I am astonished this thread is still alive.

With boost you win about 150 hours of /played BEFORE the relevant content begins.

It is a sort of “win” for sure, the magnitude of the “win” varies depending on people. Someone thinks it’s irrelevant (given also its “once in a lifetime and for one char only and not for belves/draenei chars” usage) someone feels it’s huge, there’s not much to do to make the two factions converge.

150 hours is quite valuable IMO. Can't speak for everyone.

[arkanon]

An earthquake is an earthquake regardless of magnitude.

It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning's winning - Dominic Toretto

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150 hours is quite valuable IMO. Can't speak for everyone.

You dont need to speak for everyone - they are speaking for themselves, by paying for the boost.

This is the confusing part of the argument. "Its not P2W because its really easy to level from 1 - 58" ok then why did so many people pay Blizzard a decent amount of coin for the boost? I say decent amount because I have zero stats regarding who did or did not pay for the boost, but i did play in the pre-patch, and was there at launch. I played with the boosted toons, I witnessed the extensive use of the boost first hand. And lets be clear - if this boost was not popular, this discussion would have lasted 1 page.

I am not sure how long it would take these days for the AVERAGE player to get from 1-58, but I suspect 150-200 hours is fair. Some are faster, some are slower - some spend time keeping their proffs up to date, some dont. Some play with friends, some dont. I know the OLD vanilla estimate was 10days played from 1-60, which would be 240 hours, so with xp nerfs and slightly better quest flow, i think 150-200 is fair. Now lets say these average players are putting in 15 hours per week - thats 10-13 weeks. Two and a half - three MONTHS.

As someone who I think represents the middle of the pack as far as leveling goes - I used questie but nothing else, played vanilla and classic, no boosted dungeons or anything like that (something a fresh lvl 1 wouldnt have access to), i got my alt to lvl 41 around pre-patch time. Thats roughly half way, being quite generous, and i had nearly a week off over that time due to being unwell, so on those days I played a LOT more than usual. I think it would have taken me roughly 8-10 weeks to get to 58/60.

[Daymanmb]

It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning's winning - Dominic Toretto

Look at us agreeing

[arkanon]

Look at us agreeing

Do we normally not agree? It certainly seems we do here. And I can without a doubt say that for someone who is leveling the "old fashioned" way and is level 15 standing next to another lvl 15 who instantly becomes lvl 58, yeah, im sure they agree too, especially if they are not in a position to fork over the money. Personally, I looked at it this way - I own 7 copies of Resident Evil 2 - multiple platforms originally, and 2 versions of the remake. In theory, i paid for the same game 7 times. This time around, i wanted to swap characters from my Classic character, and had ZERO interest in leveling again, so in my head, I thought of it as a purchase price to enter TBCC. Thats NOT how i justified the P2W nature, thats how I justified the price.

Are there more egregious examples of P2W in other games? Yeah, absolutely. Does that mean that this is not also an example of P2W? Nope, not how these things work. As such i thought your example was pretty bang on.

[Daymanmb]

Do we normally not agree? It certainly seems we do here. I honestly think the vast majority of people agree on this topic, but the few who don't are very vocal and committed to their narrative.

Are there more egregious examples of P2W in other games? Yeah, absolutely. Does that mean that this is not also an example of P2W? Nope, not how these things work. As such i thought your example was pretty bang on.

Im in a special position to understand why. If you were to go back to inception of this thread, I was on the other side arguing the nuance of win, until other posters showed me the light.

[arkanon]

Im in a special position to understand why. If you were to go back to inception of this thread, I was on the other side arguing the nuance of win, until other posters showed me the light.

Welcome..................To the real world.

I have made many "I was wrong / have changed my mind" posts and man, I give you nothing but respect for being open minded enough to look at an argument, and say "well shit, they are right".

[munkeyinorbit]

And every single one of those people are wrong. The boost gives immediate content access but nothing else of immediate value. It does not provide "extra player power" or "special unobtainable gear" or whatever.

Some people want to play only the outland content for this specific game. This is not "winning". P2W would be the ability to purchase attunements on the cash shop, not a barely-able to quest in the intro zone character.

Pay to win is purchasing power OR skipping timegates. A boost is skipping a timegate. It is P2W.

The average player takes about 100 hours to level to 58. Purchasing a boost puts you 100 hours ahead. That's 100 hours of level 70 content and gear. Purchasing a boost is an advantage.

[Steelangel]

Pay to win is purchasing power OR skipping timegates. A boost is skipping a timegate. It is P2W.

The average player takes about 100 hours to level to 58. Purchasing a boost puts you 100 hours ahead. That's 100 hours of level 70 content and gear. Purchasing a boost is an advantage.

Leveling 1-58 is not TBC, it’s just vanilla; in the same way, leveling 1-68 is vanilla and TBC in Wrath.

A boot gives access to do the TBC content, not skip the relevant TBC content.

But whatever.

[Kralljin]

Leveling 1-58 is not TBC, it’s just vanilla; in the same way, leveling 1-68 is vanilla and TBC in Wrath.

A boot gives access to do the TBC content, not skip the relevant TBC content.

That's just semantics.
Anyone that doesn't purchase the boost still has to go through that content, despite not being "TBC content".

[munkeyinorbit]

Leveling 1-58 is not TBC, it’s just vanilla; in the same way, leveling 1-68 is vanilla and TBC in Wrath.

A boot gives access to do the TBC content, not skip the relevant TBC content.

But whatever.

You are having a lot of trouble understanding. Let's try something you might be more familiar with.

In Candy Crush you have limited lives. When you play a game you use a life. That's OK. You regain a life after a time period. What happens when you run out of lives but you still want to play? You purchase an item to let you continue playing. A timeskip if you will. Candy Crush is P2W as you can purchase timeskips. Now this is the tricky part. What are you doing when you purchase a boost in WoW? You are ..... Thats it. You are using a timeskip. That makes WoW.... Right again. That makes WoW P2W.

WE GOT THERE!

[chiddie]

Yeah you dropped the ball with your attunement comparison.

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150 hours is quite valuable IMO. Can't speak for everyone.

Oh, back then it would not be much, nowadays for me 150 hours in game = 4 months in real life. I’m not interested in replaying TBC Classic, but if I was and had no chars at 60, for me it would be surely a win, at least time wise.

BUT I can also understand people that associates winning with clear current content/endgame advantages over the others (player power or gold, mostly) and it’s just fine that for them this type of boost is not a win by any meaning.

In the end, as i said before, it entirely relies on everyone’s concept of winning.