"Pay to win"

[TheRevenantHero]

But it's not. It's really not. The only argument would be "WAAH WAH IF YOU BOOST YOU GET A HEAD START". But is it an advantage? Not really. Because the one who didnt boost might be both better and have more time on his hands, which means that the boost is simply just a boost. And they didn't clear Karazhan or even reach 70 faster.

Pay 2 Win is when you buy an obvious ADVANTAGE (not a boost) like special items, armor, skills that other players can't get unless they also buy them. It's NOT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND. It's actually quite saddening to see how so many people go out of their way to justify that Blizzard / WoW use P2W just to hate on it.

Then quit the damn game, because it's not P2W and you just hate the game.

So basically because you don't think it's an advantage, that means it's not one? Do you know what the definition of advantage is? As you said, it's not hard to understand. You are directly purchasing player power with real world money. That makes it p2w. There is nothing in game that grants you the ability to skip 58 levels of content without spending real money. This isn't a case of people hating on the game. This is a case of you bending over backwards to avoid saying anything negative about Blizzard.

[Prag]

So basically because you don't think it's an advantage, that means it's not one? Do you know what the definition of advantage is? As you said, it's not hard to understand. You are directly purchasing player power with real world money. That makes it p2w. There is nothing in game that grants you the ability to skip 58 levels of content without spending real money. This isn't a case of people hating on the game. This is a case of you bending over backwards to avoid saying anything negative about Blizzard.

Leveling != power.

And while I agree it’s muddy water, pretending or disregarding the fact that you can literally sit from 1-60 at a dungeon entrance to get leveled for gold (that you purchased) is just not painting the whole picture.

Or we can talk about GDKPs where people are actually buying power.

You aren’t winning anything in TBC by being level 58. It doesn’t make you better at the game. It doesn’t equip you better for Outlands questing. It’s literally buying time, at a significant cost when you have 0 reputation, professions or gold.

Leveling 1-58 via questing with adjusted prices will get you leveled professions, reputations, and most of the way to an epic mount. That’s the trade-off.

[TheRevenantHero]

Leveling != power.

And while I agree it’s muddy water, pretending or disregarding the fact that you can literally sit from 1-60 at a dungeon entrance to get leveled for gold (that you purchased) is just not painting the whole picture.

Or we can talk about GDKPs where people are actually buying power.

You aren’t winning anything in TBC by being level 58. It doesn’t make you better at the game. It doesn’t equip you better for Outlands questing. It’s literally buying time, at a significant cost when you have 0 reputation, professions or gold.

Leveling 1-58 via questing with adjusted prices will get you leveled professions, reputations, and most of the way to an epic mount. That’s the trade-off.

Stop getting hung up on the "win" word. Because otherwise, p2w games simply don't exist. Not getting rep or professions is irrelevant. Your character's power increases with level. Since you can buy 58 levels worth of power(something that takes A LOT of time in classic and TBC), you are spending real money for power and that's a form of p2w.

[Prag]

Stop getting hung up on the "win" word. Because otherwise, p2w games simply don't exist. Not getting rep or professions is irrelevant. Your character's power increases with level. Since you can buy 58 levels worth of power(something that takes A LOT of time in classic and TBC), you are spending real money for power and that's a form of p2w.

Except they do exist. APB, Warframe and a ton of Chinese MMO’s are actually pay to win. They’re not some watered down “we’ll get you to the point where you can play current content”.

The boost is a money grab of course. But charging someone $40 or w/e and then making them grind another 50 hours is a hard sell on winning.

You don’t like being stuck on “winning” for a reason. You can’t actually point to what the fuck anyone’s winning, other than actually being able to play the expansion you’re signing up for.

[TheRevenantHero]

Except they do exist. APB, Warframe and a ton of Chinese MMO’s are actually pay to win. They’re not some watered down “we’ll get you to the point where you can play current content”.

The boost is a money grab of course. But charging someone $40 or w/e and then making them grind another 50 hours is a hard sell on winning.

You don’t like being stuck on “winning” for a reason. You can’t actually point to what the fuck anyone’s winning, other than actually being able to play the expansion you’re signing up for.

I play Warframe. You don't "win" by paying money in that game. You can pay real money for extra stuff that increases player power but there is no "winning". Am I saying it's not p2w? No I'm not. but it's p2w in the exact same way WoW is. You spend money to skip time. Why is it when Warframe does it it's p2w but when WoW does THE EXACT SAME THING it stops being p2w?

Buying character power is a form of p2w by definition. So therefore, paid character level boosts are p2w.

[Prag]

I play Warframe. You don't "win" by paying money in that game. You can pay real money for extra stuff that increases player power but there is no "winning". Am I saying it's not p2w? No I'm not. but it's p2w in the exact same way WoW is. You spend money to skip time. Why is it when Warframe does it it's p2w but when WoW does THE EXACT SAME THING it stops being p2w?

Buying character power is a form of p2w by definition. So therefore, paid character level boosts are p2w.

You can’t still buy platinum and weapons? I didn’t play, just happened to catch some streams.

I guess we’ve kinda established that there isn’t really “winning” and boiled the argument back down to not liking micro-transactions.

[TheRevenantHero]

You can’t still buy platinum and weapons? I didn’t play, just happened to catch some streams.

I guess we’ve kinda established that there isn’t really “winning” and boiled the argument back down to not liking micro-transactions.

Much like the WoW character boosts, you can achieve those items buy buying a blueprint and grinding the game. Buying them with platinum just speeds it up. Both the Warframe example and the character boosts in WoW are examples of p2w. Because spending the money grants you character power immediately as opposed to people not spending money who have to do a lot of grinding to get to the same point.

[Kralljin]

When they’re forced to release a WoW token because players literally can’t afford raid consumables and pre-bis gear, don’t blame Blizzard. Blame the community.

Yeah sure, Blizzard being lazy as fuck when it comes to banning bots is naturally the fault of the community.

Blizzard not enforcing their own ToS is also the fault of the community, i guess.

When they’re forced to release a WoW token because players literally can’t afford raid consumables and pre-bis gear, don’t blame Blizzard. Blame the community.

Blizzard also watched the entire World buffs fiesta without lifting a finger until a few months before TBC and those were far more powerful than every craftable and consumable in TBC combined.

Be real, the only thing "forcing" them to release the WoW Token in TBC is a bad quarter.

[Prag]

Yeah sure, Blizzard being lazy as fuck when it comes to banning bots is naturally the fault of the community.

Blizzard not enforcing their own ToS is also the fault of the community, i guess.

Blizzard also watched the entire World buffs fiesta without lifting a finger until a few months before TBC and those were far more powerful than every craftable and consumable in TBC combined.

Be real, the only thing "forcing" them to release the WoW Token in TBC is a bad quarter.

If gold buyers were as much of a minority as you’d like to convey with this sentiment, then the demand wouldn’t justify the number of bots. They’d just funnel more into a game with higher demand. So yes, the community is at fault and the issues I pointed out exacerbate it.

What if - crazy idea time - the reason they don’t enforce it as much as you’d deem “acceptable” is because it is so ubiquitous?

Calling that out doesn’t absolve Blizzard or bots from their faults, either.

[Stardrift]

So, there are 2 sides here.

1 that wants wow to be P2W so they can cry about it.
1 that just Google, Read the definition of P2W and realize wow has none of it.

Pick your side.

I find wow is P2W while having used the boost and have no problems with it, or desire to see it changed lol

I paid IRL cash to skip a large portion of the game. P2W.

[Dhrizzle]

Look up the word advantage and don't get hung up on the "win" word. Because if you base it off the literal word win then p2w games don't exist. But in reality, p2w means you can spend real money to gain an advantage in a game over other players through character power. Since you are able to spend money to skip 58 levels of content, you are directly purchasing character power and have an advantage over players not buying the boost.

Pay 2 win games have existed in the past. World of Tanks used to sell gold ammo that penetrated armour and could only be bought for real money. RIFT had trinket slots for your character that could only be accessed with real money. Those are actual tangible advantages that were only accessible to people who paid for them.

[Kralljin]

If gold buyers were as much of a minority as you’d like to convey with this sentiment, then the demand wouldn’t justify the number of bots.

Because it doesn't take a lot of people to pump hundreds of thousand of gold into the economy.

And frankly, when word gets around that Blizzard does not enforce their own rules (a.k.a. does not ban the people that engage in such transactions) then other people will also be more inclined to engage in it.
Rules after all need to be enforced, the ToS isn't something that works off the honor system.

What if - crazy idea time - the reason they don’t enforce it as much as you’d deem “acceptable” is because it is so ubiquitous?

Type /who Blackrock Depths Rogue to see what i mean.

The solutions are:
(1) Those mobs around the Arena no longer have their pockets respawn
(2) Those mobs no longer have something to pickpocket
(3) Accounts that have nothing but a boosted Rogue on it which spend the entire day in BRD get flagged, so a assigned person can look into the matter and potentially perma ban them

If you want to see another source of that gold that people buy: try /who Zul'farrak Mage

Do you also notice something strange about the level of those characters?


When a /who search already reveals a multitide of bot accounts, with bots enganging in farm methods that people have known since Classic, then you can't come around and talk about "ubiquitous", because Blizzard doesn't even get the basics right.

[Super Kami Dende]

I find wow is P2W while having used the boost and have no problems with it, or desire to see it changed lol

I paid IRL cash to skip a large portion of the game. P2W.

What did you win though?

[Prag]

Because it doesn't take a lot of people to pump hundreds of thousand of gold into the economy.

And frankly, when word gets around that Blizzard does not enforce their own rules (a.k.a. does not ban the people that engage in such transactions) then other people will also be more inclined to engage in it.
Rules after all need to be enforced, the ToS isn't something that works off the honor system.

Type /who Blackrock Depths Rogue to see what i mean.

The solutions are:
(1) Those mobs around the Arena no longer have their pockets respawn
(2) Those mobs no longer have something to pickpocket
(3) Accounts that have nothing but a boosted Rogue on it which spend the entire day in BRD get flagged, so a assigned person can look into the matter and potentially perma ban them

If you want to see another source of that gold that people buy: try /who Zul'farrak Mage

Do you also notice something strange about the level of those characters?


When a /who search already reveals a multitide of bot accounts, with bots enganging in farm methods that people have known since Classic, then you can't come around and talk about "ubiquitous", because Blizzard doesn't even get the basics right.

Either you missed the point or don’t know what ubiquitous means. Either way, none of this does anything but confirm that there are tons of bots because there are tons of gold buyers.

A quick search shows some inventories on popular servers in the millions of gold. If they weren’t confident the demand was present, they wouldn’t have wasted the resources.

Tl;dr - the community perpetuates the massive demand by inflating costs (gear, mats, consumes, GDKP) to a point where it’s out of reach for the average player, which is the target. Above average players don’t need most of this - they either have it within the guild or have gotten equivalent/better through content.

Edit to add: agreed they really need to make an aggressive campaign against it. It’s out of control.

[Vash The Stampede]

What did you win though?

Paying money to not play a game they payed for. Sounds stupid when put into that context.

The p2w "definition" that you purchase items or powers that other cannot get in the game is also stretched and distorted to "well you get to the endgame faster and thus to items that make you more powerful" or "well, by paying for boosts you get powerful items that you otherwise wouldn't get".

Pay to win clearly doesn't have a single definition and a lot of game developers like this because it allows them to sell more micro-transactions. Cosmetic micro-transactions obviously don't sell as well as ones that actually have tangible benefits. Just to inform you that some moderators here are actually game developers, though to what games I don't know. They clearly like to change the definition of what is P2W, but it really doesn't matter because it's what the community feels is P2W and that isn't going to change by moderating a relatively small forum. A good deal of people outside of MMO-Champion feel that paid boosts are P2W.

Not enough for some people to quit the game because the benefit to a paid boost is limited to a certain amount of time. Once everyone is 70 and settled down then you don't have any particular advantage anymore. That still doesn't change the fact you did and will abuse it for at least a few months.

So apparently WoW was already "p2w" way back in Vanilla, where guilds sold spots in their raids, only then the gold needed could only be purchased illegally if you hadn't farmed it. Another interesting aspect...as ppl rather see scammy goldsellers profit by Blizzard.

It's not P2W when the corporation who made the game isn't the one selling it. It's a community problem and therefore not P2W. It's actually promoted by Activision not going after gold sellers. We are paying $15 a month so Activision can afford to pay someone to go after bots and gold sellers better.

I also never get a reply when I ask those ppl if they are sticking to their guys and quit the game.

The people who made TBC are not the same people who are running the company now. You want to play your game but now some other terrible company took it over and is now trying hard to ruin it by making sort term profits. This is why 50% of players are leaving Activision/Blizzard games because they got sick of it. There's no reason for an OverWatch 2 when OverWatch one is all you need, but this is just another quick path to money that is just going to divide the community and cause more people to leave OverWatch to play other games. You know like TF2 which is older and still popular for people to play on.

In extension I truly hope that since Blizzard's game model disgusts them, they are now taking the good fight to companies like Apple or Amazon. I mean...when also exploiting and underpaying their workers and filling the pockets of their CEOs is truly making them so mad like this "LadyGagz" guy on page one who uses a profanity as every other word in caps.

Who doesn't hate Amazon and Apple? Pretty sure they're one of the top most hated companies today.

[Stardrift]

What did you win though?

Quick and easy access to endgame. A load of talents. Gear to help me along the way. Decent sized bags. A little bit of gold. A mount and mount training.

I consider all those things a win, considering you start with none of those at the beginning of the game, and may even have only *some to none of those by the time you hit max level.

A week later and TBC released. I was fresh and ready to go. I never got any /spits, and I was even invited to a ZG and AQ20 pug. Ran them all the way through, even got a few pieces of gear. No insults, no refusal to invite, nobody even questioned me on my communal gear. In fact some players even gave me tips.

It's quite the opposite of what some weirdos are saying here, claiming buying a boost made their lives harder lmao

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Paying money to not play a game they payed for. Sounds stupid when put into that context.

What are you talking about? I'm playing through TBC. I just didn't wanna quest through classic because everyone had already moved on to preparing for TBC. Azeroth would be double empty by the time TBC went live as well. Also, this is a new account I'm playing on, as I no longer have my old one and do not wish to go through what I've already gone through a second time.

[Prag]

Paying money to not play a game they payed for. Sounds stupid when put into that context.

People are holding way too tightly to this assumption that everyone wants to completely re-experience the whole journey, or that they should have to.

If someone knew they wanted to play TBC and wanted to experience Classic, they’d have started playing literally any time over the last 2 years.

Despite assumptions, it’s obvious the re-releases are intended as siloed experiences. You have Classic Era, TBC Classic and I assume at some point more Classics. If the intention were a linear re-experience, they wouldn’t have separated Classic Era and TBC in such a way.

[Darkeon]

What did you win though?

What are you winning on other P2W type games?

Or is your intention to state that the label P2W is not accurate and that no game is really "Pay to Win"?

[Ringthane]

Quick and easy access to endgame. A load of talents. Gear to help me along the way. Decent sized bags. A little bit of gold. A mount and mount training.

I consider all those things a win, considering you start with none of those at the beginning of the game, and may even have only *some to none of those by the time you hit max level.

A week later and TBC released. I was fresh and ready to go. I never got any /spits, and I was even invited to a ZG and AQ20 pug. Ran them all the way through, even got a few pieces of gear. No insults, no refusal to invite, nobody even questioned me on my communal gear. In fact some players even gave me tips.

It's quite the opposite of what some weirdos are saying here, claiming buying a boost made their lives harder lmao

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What are you talking about? I'm playing through TBC. I just didn't wanna quest through classic because everyone had already moved on to preparing for TBC. Azeroth would be double empty by the time TBC went live as well. Also, this is a new account I'm playing on, as I no longer have my old one and do not wish to go through what I've already gone through a second time.

So you won time. Wow. You're a champ.

You do know you're really running out of time, though, right? You have been since the day you were born. So no matter if it takes five minutes, five days, five weeks, or five months, it really doesn't matter in the long run.

[Stardrift]

So you won time. Wow. You're a champ.

You do know you're really running out of time, though, right? You have been since the day you were born. So no matter if it takes five minutes, five days, five weeks, or five months, it really doesn't matter in the long run.

I just wanna be there for the launch of TBC, when everyone is doing everything. Idc about "saving time".

Also, what's your point? Lmao