"Pay to win"

[Dhrizzle]

The only "you problem" is on your end, dude. If you can spend real money to buy player power, it's p2w. It's really that simple.

I disagree though. If I level a character to 70 I don't feel like a loser just because someone with less time bought a boost and only had to level 58-70. It would be different if the other person's character had paid for extra damage or gear slots that I couldn't gain.

But like I said there's no point in me arguing against feelings and if you feel like the playing the 1-58 experience makes you lose then that's how you feel.

[TheRevenantHero]

I disagree though. If I level a character to 70 I don't feel like a loser just because someone with less time bought a boost and only had to level 58-70. It would be different if the other person's character had paid for extra damage or gear slots that I couldn't gain.

But like I said there's no point in me arguing against feelings and if you feel like the playing the 1-58 experience makes you lose then that's how you feel.

You can disagree all you want. You would be wrong in doing so. Just because you personally don't feel like it's purchasing power doesn't mean you AREN'T purchasing power. This isn't about feelings. It's basically universal that being able to buy any form of player power is p2w.

[Dhrizzle]

You can disagree all you want. You would be wrong in doing so. Just because you personally don't feel like it's purchasing power doesn't mean you AREN'T purchasing power. This isn't about feelings. It's basically universal that being able to buy any form of player power is p2w.

It isn't though because that's a definition that lacks nuance, presumably it caught on because declaring everything to be pay-to-win is a good emotive phrase that drives YouTube clicks and people prefer simple things that appeal to their feelings over slightly more complicate and useful phrases.

If you're buying something that lets you skip a basic but time consuming aspect of the game like levelling then you are paying for convenience. If you're buying something that enhances your character but would involve some sort of in-game challenge not everyone can overcome you're paying for power. If you're buying an advantage that no-one can gain without money regardless of their skill or time spent then you're paying to win.

Now I get that levelling normally from 1-58 makes you feel like you're losing and I won't bother arguing against your feelings but I'm not going to accept a definition based on your feelings when my feelings disagree with it.

[Narzok]

and what do we gain after this discussion?
one side gets to be grumpy while the others can stroke their epeen for being "correct"?

let's say that we come to an answer "wow is P2W" or "wow is not P2W".

then what?

nothing anyone in this thread says will change MY PERSONAL OPINION on the game.
it might change my view of the community though...

i play the game, i interact with the different aspects of it, and i form my opinion based on my experience that will shape my like or dislike for the game.
which, by the way, can be more than just either "wow is the best and can do no wrong" or "wow is the worst garbage in history".
this might be shocking for some, but you are allowed to find something "kinda alright" or "meh, it could be better, but whatever".

i mean, if you want to go around insulting people based on their opinion, go ahead. just don't expect me to take you serious.

[Prag]

You can disagree all you want. You would be wrong in doing so. Just because you personally don't feel like it's purchasing power doesn't mean you AREN'T purchasing power. This isn't about feelings. It's basically universal that being able to buy any form of player power is p2w.

This is such a childish oversimplification of the discussion. You’ve sliced the definition of power so broadly, literally every micro transaction ever created would make a game pay-to-win.

You keep bashing people for what you’re calling feelings, but at the end of the day, you’re just against micro-transactions, and in turn, you’re diluting the actual definition of pay-to-win.

It’s not “basically universal”, lol. Try saying that out loud to yourself and not laughing.

[Kralljin]

hell Im only lvl 62.5 currently in BCC because of play time constraints.

Going to wish you best of luck when you hit level cap, because the timesink portion won't vanish once you're capped.

No one is stopping you from leveling 1-70.

Nothing stopped anyone from leveling a character in Classic way before TBC release, either.

[Dalinos]

This is such a childish oversimplification of the discussion. You’ve sliced the definition of power so broadly, literally every micro transaction ever created would make a game pay-to-win.

You keep bashing people for what you’re calling feelings, but at the end of the day, you’re just against micro-transactions, and in turn, you’re diluting the actual definition of pay-to-win.

It’s not “basically universal”, lol. Try saying that out loud to yourself and not laughing.

You know, the very first item ever on the WoW Cash-Shop, That Retarded Horse, or the Sparkle Pony in Wrath, was heralded as having elements of P2W. (Fun-fact - when WoWhead had first data-mined the model, EVERYONE thought it would be a rare drop off of Algalon, because of the similarity in the models.)

Why? Because mounts were not account bound back then, so Blizzard's solution was to mail you a Sparkle Pony on EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER you created from the time of the mount purchase onwards. This basicly meant that, by forking over 20 euroes to Blizzard, you would never have to spend in-game gold on buying a MOUNT (not the riding skill), because That Retarded Horse scaled with your riding skill. No need to buy a lvl 40 mount, lvl 60 epic ground mount, lvl 70 normal flying mount or lvl 70 fast flying mount - TRH covered it all

Is this not an in-game advantage that players who bought That Retarded Horse can benefit from over people who didn't? Sure, abit of gold here and there while leveling is NOT alot, it is NOT the end of the world, but that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing if you can get tangible in-game benefits by spending real cash. You could back in WOTLK with the introduction of TRH, you certainly can now with the WoW token.

You know what saddens me most? It's people who just accept this situation without realising that everyone suffers from it. Case in point - the Tekken series of fighting games. A few weeks ago I sat and calculated with a mate of mine, by using simple addition, that you need around 70 euroes to buy every single extra character in Tekken 7. And you gotta pay 60 euroes for the game. So a total of around 130 euroes.

This is a stark comparison to Tekken 3 on the Playstation 1, where you started off with 8 characters. You played through the Story Mode with each character, saw the final clip of the aftermath of them winning the tournament, and unlocked a character. 8 original characters unlocked 8 bonus characters. Those 8 bonus characters also had their own story mode, which unlocked ANOTHER 8 characters, giving you a roster of 24 characters to play with. Adding to that, you had Gon, True Ogre and Dr. Boskonovitch, 3 characters who were SECRET characters and needed you to do very specific things in game in order to unlock them. Before the advent of the internet, unlocking these 3 secret chars was a feat in and of itself - lots of playground theorycrafting happened between classmates. You were extra lucky if someone from school had a subscription to the Playstation magazine and managed to get the strategies from there. Otherwise, you were on your own, with your mates, using good old trial & error tactics.

All that is gone nowadays. Instead of rewards being an incentive for beating the game, they are now simply payed for. And that sucks.

[Prag]

You know, the very first item ever on the WoW Cash-Shop, That Retarded Horse, or the Sparkle Pony in Wrath, was heralded as having elements of P2W. (Fun-fact - when WoWhead had first data-mined the model, EVERYONE thought it would be a rare drop off of Algalon, because of the similarity in the models.)

Why? Because mounts were not account bound back then, so Blizzard's solution was to mail you a Sparkle Pony on EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER you created from the time of the mount purchase onwards. This basicly meant that, by forking over 20 euroes to Blizzard, you would never have to spend in-game gold on buying a MOUNT (not the riding skill), because That Retarded Horse scaled with your riding skill. No need to buy a lvl 40 mount, lvl 60 epic ground mount, lvl 70 normal flying mount or lvl 70 fast flying mount - TRH covered it all

Is this not an in-game advantage that players who bought That Retarded Horse can benefit from over people who didn't? Sure, abit of gold here and there while leveling is NOT alot, it is NOT the end of the world, but that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing if you can get tangible in-game benefits by spending real cash. You could back in WOTLK with the introduction of TRH, you certainly can now with the WoW token.

That’s just validating my point. I don’t know where we went wrong where we classify not having to spend 9g on a mount - which is less than one quest at max level - in the same category as traditional pay-to-win items like special ammo/weapons/armor.

It’s the same thing. The outrage for Steed was more “I don’t like the shop”, and “p2w” was just a provocative and convenient thing to add fuel to the discussion.

I’m not saying there’s no advantage and that these aren’t pay-for-time-saved services. I’m challenging the part where people correlate that to winning.

[Dalinos]

That’s just validating my point. I don’t know where we went wrong where we classify not having to spend 9g on a mount - which is less than one quest at max level - in the same category as traditional pay-to-win items like special ammo/weapons/armor.

It’s the same thing. The outrage for Steed was more “I don’t like the shop”, and “p2w” was just a provocative and convenient thing to add fuel to the discussion.

I’m not saying there’s no advantage and that these aren’t pay-for-time-saved services. I’m challenging the part where people correlate that to winning.

Read the rest about Tekken...cause that's EXACTLY the path WoW has gone down. Now you can pretty much buy anything you want in World of Warcraft with real money. Simply because it has more steps in the process doesn't mean it does not exist. Tell me this, what's the difference between:

1) Pay 200 euro for Gladiator rankings/title/mount from the cash shop.
2) Pay 200 euro for 10 tokens, sell the tokens, make 2,000,000 gold, find the best arena players on the server, give them this same 2,000,000 gold that you payed for with your 200 euroes, and have THEM take you to Gladiator rankings/title/mount.

Simply because there's a middle man, the players boosting, it suddenly makes it NOT P2W? Sure, it's not custom armours that aren't obtainable in-game, but it IS giving out the top rewards that only 0.5% of the playerbase should be getting.

Small edit: Keystone Master costs 1.2 million gold on my server. At 20 euroes per token for 200k gold per token, you need 120 euroes to buy Keystone Master, along with the soon-to-be-removed Feat of Strength + mount that are associated with KSM.

[Prag]

Read the rest about Tekken...cause that's EXACTLY the path WoW has gone down. Now you can pretty much buy anything you want in World of Warcraft with real money. Simply because it has more steps in the process doesn't mean it does not exist. Tell me this, what's the difference between:

1) Pay 200 euro for Gladiator rankings/title/mount from the cash shop.
2) Pay 200 euro for 10 tokens, sell the tokens, make 2,000,000 gold, find the best arena players on the server, give them this same 2,000,000 gold that you payed for with your 200 euroes, and have THEM take you to Gladiator rankings/title/mount.

Simply because there's a middle man, the players boosting, it suddenly makes it NOT P2W? Sure, it's not custom armours that aren't obtainable in-game, but it IS giving out the top rewards that only 0.5% of the playerbase should be getting.

Small edit: Keystone Master costs 1.2 million gold on my server. At 20 euroes per token for 200k gold per token, you need 120 euroes to buy Keystone Master, along with the soon-to-be-removed Feat of Strength + mount that are associated with KSM.

Sorry, this is focused on Classic and the boost. I’d agree that the token is closer to p2w than the boost, but I think the rhetoric in this thread is volatile enough, so I’ll leave it at that.

[Dalinos]

Sorry, this is focused on Classic and the boost. I’d agree that the token is closer to p2w than the boost, but I think the rhetoric in this thread is volatile enough, so I’ll leave it at that.

Now you're just being dishonest mate. I gave you a simple question, with clear definitions. Have the cojones to answer.

[Prag]

Now you're just being dishonest mate. I gave you a simple question, with clear definitions. Have the cojones to answer.

How is a retail shop item relevant to the discussion and why do you think courage is required to answer it? I didn’t answer it because it wasn’t relevant, and I answered it in the context of retail, where it IS relevant.

You can’t buy “anything” in Classic. You can buy a boost.

You can’t transfer tokens to gold to PvP titles because you can’t buy tokens.

Nothing you said pertains to Classic and if you could even cobble together a point, it’d be “retail is p2w so Classic is too”, or even worse, some slippery slope shit.

[Dhrizzle]

Read the rest about Tekken...cause that's EXACTLY the path WoW has gone down. Now you can pretty much buy anything you want in World of Warcraft with real money. Simply because it has more steps in the process doesn't mean it does not exist. Tell me this, what's the difference between:

1) Pay 200 euro for Gladiator rankings/title/mount from the cash shop.
2) Pay 200 euro for 10 tokens, sell the tokens, make 2,000,000 gold, find the best arena players on the server, give them this same 2,000,000 gold that you payed for with your 200 euroes, and have THEM take you to Gladiator rankings/title/mount.

Simply because there's a middle man, the players boosting, it suddenly makes it NOT P2W? Sure, it's not custom armours that aren't obtainable in-game, but it IS giving out the top rewards that only 0.5% of the playerbase should be getting.

Small edit: Keystone Master costs 1.2 million gold on my server. At 20 euroes per token for 200k gold per token, you need 120 euroes to buy Keystone Master, along with the soon-to-be-removed Feat of Strength + mount that are associated with KSM.

This hardly new to WoW, though back in the day (original TBC time) players were just selling characters directly with a higher charge for better loot. Most expensive I heard of was a Rogue in T6 with the Twin Blades of Azzinoth for about 2000 Euros but they got banned because they publicised the sale.

Hell way back in the day a player-run economy in Diablo 2 was allowing people to "pay-to-win," I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of game is what inspired devs and publishers to start their own pay-for-power MTX. Come to think of it Diablo 2 also charged you for an expansion to unlock extra characters...

[Dalinos]

How is a retail shop item relevant to the discussion and why do you think courage is required to answer it? I didn’t answer it because it wasn’t relevant, and I answered it in the context of retail, where it IS relevant.

You can’t buy “anything” in Classic. You can buy a boost.

You can’t transfer tokens to gold to PvP titles because you can’t buy tokens.

Nothing you said pertains to Classic and if you could even cobble together a point, it’d be “retail is p2w so Classic is too”, or even worse, some slippery slope shit.

I didn't read 39 pages worth of posts, re-look at what I originally replied to. A definition of P2W was what you were looking for, a definition was offered.

[schwank05]

Going to wish you best of luck when you hit level cap, because the timesink portion won't vanish once you're capped.

Nothing stopped anyone from leveling a character in Classic way before TBC release, either.

I never expected it to disappear, I plan on it taking time. That is the best part of Classic is it isn't going anywhere. And that way I can just jump into a farm group and don't have to waste my time on progression wipes.

[Prag]

I didn't read 39 pages worth of posts, re-look at what I originally replied to. A definition of P2W was what you were looking for, a definition was offered.

And your examples were:

- WoW token: not relevant to Classic (yet)
- Tekken: Where you buy 7 characters unavailable through the game (? - sorry, I don’t play it)


The token is closer to p2w than the boost. The Tekken thing sounds like it if they aren’t available through in-game means.

I just don’t consider a boost that allows someone to play TBC Classic specifically, without having to also play Classic, as p2w. I see the releases as targeted play-throughs of a specific expansion. I just don’t see them in the same ballpark as buying unattainable weapons/ammo/characters or whatever from other games, and I think that’s the context that people want to ignore.

[TheRevenantHero]

It isn't though because that's a definition that lacks nuance, presumably it caught on because declaring everything to be pay-to-win is a good emotive phrase that drives YouTube clicks and people prefer simple things that appeal to their feelings over slightly more complicate and useful phrases.

If you're buying something that lets you skip a basic but time consuming aspect of the game like levelling then you are paying for convenience. If you're buying something that enhances your character but would involve some sort of in-game challenge not everyone can overcome you're paying for power. If you're buying an advantage that no-one can gain without money regardless of their skill or time spent then you're paying to win.

Now I get that levelling normally from 1-58 makes you feel like you're losing and I won't bother arguing against your feelings but I'm not going to accept a definition based on your feelings when my feelings disagree with it.

Once again, I'm not stating my feelings. It's literally a form of p2w. If you can spend real money for player power then it's p2w. You can desperately try to say it's not by calling it everything else under the sun but you would be wrong each time. Just because you refuse to say anything negative about WoW doesn't mean you're right.

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This is such a childish oversimplification of the discussion. You’ve sliced the definition of power so broadly, literally every micro transaction ever created would make a game pay-to-win.

You keep bashing people for what you’re calling feelings, but at the end of the day, you’re just against micro-transactions, and in turn, you’re diluting the actual definition of pay-to-win.

It’s not “basically universal”, lol. Try saying that out loud to yourself and not laughing.

Every microtransaction is not p2w. Buying a mount, pet, or transmog item isn't power. Spending $60 to skip 58 level of content IS buying player power. I'm not diluting anything. People like you are who are diluting things because you refuse to say anything negative about WoW.

[Prag]

Once again, I'm not stating my feelings. It's literally a form of p2w. If you can spend real money for player power then it's p2w. You can desperately try to say it's not by calling it everything else under the sun but you would be wrong each time. Just because you refuse to say anything negative about WoW doesn't mean you're right.

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Every microtransaction is not p2w. Buying a mount, pet, or transmog item isn't power. Spending $60 to skip 58 level of content IS buying player power. I'm not diluting anything. People like you are who are diluting things because you refuse to say anything negative about WoW.

I signed up to play TBC and a boost doesn’t let me skip a single piece of TBC content. Not one.

I’ve got plenty to say about Blizzard/Activision. Where would you like me to begin? Oh, you just wanted to try and paint me as a white knight because I disagree with you on this?

Where’s this industry-recognized definition of p2w you keep referencing? You must have one, right? There’d be no other reason to come and repeat the same declarative statements without one…right?

The topic is contentious. People disagree on the definition. Accept the fact that you’re not changing anyone’s minds here based solely on “cuz I said so”.

[TheRevenantHero]

I signed up to play TBC and a boost doesn’t let me skip a single piece of TBC content. Not one.

I’ve got plenty to say about Blizzard/Activision. Where would you like me to begin? Oh, you just wanted to try and paint me as a white knight because I disagree with you on this?

Where’s this industry-recognized definition of p2w you keep referencing? You must have one, right? There’d be no other reason to come and repeat the same declarative statements without one…right?

The topic is contentious. People disagree on the definition. Accept the fact that you’re not changing anyone’s minds here based solely on “cuz I said so”.

If we're going to base it on what the industry calls p2w, then it wouldn't exist. Because companies will NEVER admit something is p2w. The only people who say WoW isn't p2w are people are the players that avoid saying anything negative about WoW at all times. Once again, you are buying player power with real money so therefore it's a form of p2w. You can try and say it's not all you want but you'll be wrong each every time.

[Dhrizzle]

Once again, I'm not stating my feelings. It's literally a form of p2w. If you can spend real money for player power then it's p2w. You can desperately try to say it's not by calling it everything else under the sun but you would be wrong each time. Just because you refuse to say anything negative about WoW doesn't mean you're right.

For mount collectors the store-only (or special-edition only or whatever) mounts are a form of pay-2-win because it's something they can only attain through paying cash.

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If we're going to base it on what the industry calls p2w, then it wouldn't exist. Because companies will NEVER admit something is p2w. The only people who say WoW isn't p2w are people are the players that avoid saying anything negative about WoW at all times. Once again, you are buying player power with real money so therefore it's a form of p2w. You can try and say it's not all you want but you'll be wrong each every time.

If you think being able to buy a boost to the start of an expansion is a bad thing it will be bad regardless of what you call it.