Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[crusadernero]

That one I cannot say. I know some who love and hate the token, on both sides of the token's release date. I just know, I've seen fewer bots, and fewer gold seller/spammer accounts since the token went live.

- - - Updated - - -



Well, the Retainer purchase is, I would say, P2W. It is one direct step.

Maybe you dont see them cause now they run dungeons 24/7 all day everyday for the most part. Theres ALOT of them if you know where to check.

[Lochton]

Yes, and thats where the focus should be. On Blizzards inability to take responsibility for theyre own game. Its lazy and frankly more people should be upset about it and tell Blizzard just that.

Instead we have people defending this shit and we all get distracted from the fact that Blizzard are the responsible ones here.

- - - Updated - - -



Well, you are wrong on that. So theres that.

Imagine if we all instead turned our attention towards Blizzard and gave the flack for not fixing glearing bot & gold seller issues withing the game. Imagine. Holding Blizzard, the company that makes & controlles the game, responsible. Ouuuf. Atleast alot of people have turned theyre back on wow, albeit for other reasons.

But they did find a fix that didn't cost too much manpower? The token brought the numbers FAR down but it is no ultimate solution. Either you make it safer and easier for the player, or you let the gold sellers and bots roam free, using people to hunt them down if reported correctly, in the hope of people are going to.

The main problem I have with Blizzard is the lack of active staff - I have no problem getting people to answer tickets - but we need people among the players, invisible or not, finding the issues but that'll have a high cost unless players start putting more work into bot reporting, some shrug it off now, I see in threads. Another issue is the waves of bans and unban, it should, when confirmed, give a direct ban, no return, not even for the credit card used for the account but then we have the issue of investors.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe you dont see them cause now they run dungeons 24/7 all day everyday for the most part. Theres ALOT of them if you know where to check.

I see them, and they are nothing compared to what they used to be.

[Chumahki]

I've played P2W games, and it was not fun. WoW is absolutely NOT P2W.

[rhorle]

Yes, gold(or other currency) is a vital part of a MMORPG. saying its not is outright ludicrious. Thats the currency you use to buy stuff from NPCs or other players. wow is filled with alot of currency besides gold,im sure you know that.

So if a game doesn't have gold (or other currency) then it can't be a MMORPG? What genre would it be? Humoring you though how is gold devalued by the token existing? All gold from the token is collected by players collecting and obtaining it through various activities. They have raked up such a formidable sum that they have no issue selling it to other players. Or they could use that gold to get a carry with out needing to buy a token.

You argued against your own point. You also are arguing that gold both has a value and doesn't. 150k isn't a lot but it is also a lot. Pick one. Not both.

[rhorle]

Mental gymnastics lol. I pay irl money in game and get a direct advantage in-game. Some gymnastics going on right there

The token doesn't confer a direct advantage. Only the level boost does. Having to find a group to sell a run to you is not "direct" even when stretching the term.

[Relapses]

Mental gymnastics lol. I pay irl money in game and get a direct advantage in-game. Some gymnastics going on right there

You pay real money for gold in the game. What you do with the gold is up to you. If your suggestion is that you buy boosts with it then you don't need to buy WoW gold from Blizzard to do that and you're probably a fucking moron if you do anyway. The "direct advantage" isn't nearly as direct as you'd like to pretend which is exactly why people are attacking your position.

[rhorle]

The gold is the advantage what? With gold you can directly bypass almost any other aspect of the game. Just because the path goes A >B>C you would say it's not p2w because it should go A>C?

How is it direct when you have to rely on a separate interaction to get the win from gold? Gold isn't winning. The path going A>B>C instead of A>C is the very definition of not direct. Lol.

[rrayy]

I don't see how that's a relevant argument for or against it being P2W.

It is relevant/. To "win" in WoW

is to complete the hardest content. You cannot buy the AOTC acheivement. Paying another player gold will not make that achievement appear on your screen as completeled. You still have to go into the raid and complete the raid to get the achievement.

[Darkeon]

It is relevant/. To "win" in WoW

is to complete the hardest content. You cannot buy the AOTC acheivement. Paying another player gold will not make that achievement appear on your screen as completeled. You still have to go into the raid and complete the raid to get the achievement.

Is it really to coplete the hardest content? Or is it to complete the hardest content on a time frame? Or is it to complete the hardest content before anyone else in the server? Or is it to complete the hardest content before anyone else in the world?

Winning in MMORPGs is a non-term. What is winning to you can very well not be winning to someone else. I, for one, haven't given a rat's arse about end-game raiding for several expansions.

[DechCJC]

It is relevant/. To "win" in WoW

is to complete the hardest content. You cannot buy the AOTC acheivement. Paying another player gold will not make that achievement appear on your screen as completeled. You still have to go into the raid and complete the raid to get the achievement.

1) Winning in WoW is based off personal desire, you can't 'win' WoW. Pinning 'win' to one type of activity doesn't work in this context.

2) It doesn't matter. 1 step or 10, the catalyst is the purchasing of the token; None of the other steps will happen without it. I don't consider the amount of steps involved in purchasing the boost relevant to the discussion in the slightest.

[rhorle]

1) Winning in WoW is based off personal desire, you can't 'win' WoW. Pinning 'win' to one type of activity doesn't work in this context.

The problem with that is nothing can ever be pay to win. Even if WoW sold Mythic raid gear day 1 it wouldn't be able to be called pay to win if one person doesn't consider gear to be a win. You can certainly win WoW by clearing content. Blizzard has the Hall of Fame, first 100 guilds of each faction to clear the Mythic raid. That is a pretty clear "win". It is why win is better tied to character power. Because things like cosmetics are micro transactions. Not all micro transactions are paying to win.

The steps involved matter 100%. Because we already exclude that we pay real money for subscriptions and box from the discussion. Wouldn't those have to be included if it is a step of real money exchanged at some point in the chain of events? It also implies that tokens are only sometimes pay to win. Because they don't have to be used to get gear. You could even never spend the gold and you would never "win" anything.

[Dalinos]

You pay real money for gold in the game. What you do with the gold is up to you. If your suggestion is that you buy boosts with it then you don't need to buy WoW gold from Blizzard to do that and you're probably a fucking moron if you do anyway. The "direct advantage" isn't nearly as direct as you'd like to pretend which is exactly why people are attacking your position.

"Isn't nearly as direct"? I can give you a discord link of one of the best boosting services the WoW community has to offer (Retail only). They do -EVERYTHING-. And I mean, everything, from old-expansion Glories to current Mythic Sanctum of Domination, to getting you 10x +15's done for your weekly chest while you do absolutely nothing and /afk for the whole damn thing.

It's 2021. People use Discord for a number of things, so if your argument is "You still need to join a discord", it doesn't count, when we take into consideration how EASY and QUICK it is to join a Discord server.

If you set up a buy now, I can guarantee you in 2 days time you'll have whatever it was you wanted to buy. Maximum 2 days.

Now I don't use boosting services, and if I do, I'm the boostER, not the boostEE. A guildie linked me this info when our retail guild disbanded, and was like "Hey, maybe you find a new guild somewhere in here".

If this was the late 90's when the internet was still in its infancy, yes, you would have a very valid point. But this is 2021. Everyone uses chatting services, everyone uses voice software, whether it be FB calls, Skype, Discord, you name it. Even in 2004 it was super common for guilds to have their own Teamspeak and Ventrilo servers.

When the only barrier to buying literally WHATEVER YOU WANT in this game is, quite literally, 3 clicks away - Click 1: Open discord, Click 2: click "Join server", Click 3: Paste the link given to you - then yes, buying gold with real life money is pay to win. Is it egregious pay to win, like adding custom armour available nowhere in game on the cash-shop? No. Is it a damn big amount of Pay to win? yes.

- - - Updated - - -

It is relevant/. To "win" in WoW

is to complete the hardest content. You cannot buy the AOTC acheivement. Paying another player gold will not make that achievement appear on your screen as completeled. You still have to go into the raid and complete the raid to get the achievement.

You mean when you buy a boost, and the RL says "Boostees go die by jumping off X platform, but remember to HIT THE BOSS ONCE" counts as you "completing the raid"? Newsflash: it doesn't.

[Relapses]

"Isn't nearly as direct"? I can give you a discord link of one of the best boosting services the WoW community has to offer (Retail only). They do -EVERYTHING-. And I mean, everything, from old-expansion Glories to current Mythic Sanctum of Domination, to getting you 10x +15's done for your weekly chest while you do absolutely nothing and /afk for the whole damn thing.

It's 2021. People use Discord for a number of things, so if your argument is "You still need to join a discord", it doesn't count, when we take into consideration how EASY and QUICK it is to join a Discord server.

If you set up a buy now, I can guarantee you in 2 days time you'll have whatever it was you wanted to buy. Maximum 2 days.

Now I don't use boosting services, and if I do, I'm the boostER, not the boostEE. A guildie linked me this info when our retail guild disbanded, and was like "Hey, maybe you find a new guild somewhere in here".

If this was the late 90's when the internet was still in its infancy, yes, you would have a very valid point. But this is 2021. Everyone uses chatting services, everyone uses voice software, whether it be FB calls, Skype, Discord, you name it. Even in 2004 it was super common for guilds to have their own Teamspeak and Ventrilo servers.

When the only barrier to buying literally WHATEVER YOU WANT in this game is, quite literally, 3 clicks away - Click 1: Open discord, Click 2: click "Join server", Click 3: Paste the link given to you - then yes, buying gold with real life money is pay to win. Is it egregious pay to win, like adding custom armour available nowhere in game on the cash-shop? No. Is it a damn big amount of Pay to win? yes.

The question isn't whether boosting communities exist. It's where the gold people pay boosting communities comes from. Dude I replied to seems to think it's all from the WoW token and my intuition tells me it probably isn't because the cost of a lot of boosts is much higher than what you'd get from a token and the tokens are logistically difficult to come by since you can only buy one every four hours. I don't doubt there are people who feel that the P2W aspect of boosting is legitimized by the token (that's in fact what many dozens of discussion in this thread are about); but like I said on the last page, I don't see why you'd spend weeks collecting WoW tokens when you can just RMT a lumpsum of gold for less than what you'd pay in comparative tokens and get it done even faster.

[Dalinos]

The question isn't whether boosting communities exist. It's where the gold people pay boosting communities comes from. Dude I replied to seems to think it's all from the WoW token and my intuition tells me it probably isn't because the cost of a lot of boosts is much higher than what you'd get from a token and the tokens are logistically difficult to come by since you can only buy one every four hours. I don't doubt there are people who feel that the P2W aspect of boosting is legitimized by the token (that's in fact what many dozens of discussion in this thread are about); but like I said on the last page, I don't see why you'd spend weeks collecting WoW tokens when you can just RMT a lumpsum of gold for less than what you'd pay in comparative tokens and get it done even faster.

That has...absolutely nothing to do with what I said.

Point 1: You can buy gold with real money.
Point 2: Easily accessible communities (3 clicks away) take gold and give you power.
Point 3: Buying gold with real money leads to players getting power that they did not earn.

Conclusion: WoW has a level of P2W, since you can swipe the credit card and transform that swipe into tangible player power.

[Relapses]

That has...absolutely nothing to do with what I said.

Point 1: You can buy gold with real money.
Point 2: Easily accessible communities (3 clicks away) take gold and give you power.
Point 3: Buying gold with real money leads to players getting power that they did not earn.

Conclusion: WoW has a level of P2W, since you can swipe the credit card and transform that swipe into tangible player power.

If you define the ability to trade real world capital for virtual player power, yes, WoW is P2W. But this is such an unnecessarily simplified generalization that by that token (sic) pretty every video game that's ever existed is "P2W" using those parameters. It seems kind of pointless to reduce the argument like that which is why I personally disagree with that generalization.

[Darkeon]

If you define the ability to trade real world capital for virtual player power, yes, WoW is P2W. But this is such an unnecessarily simplified generalization that by that token (sic) pretty every video game that's ever existed is "P2W" using those parameters. It seems kind of pointless to reduce the argument like that which is why I personally disagree with that generalization.

My dude. Literally my dude.

[Relapses]

My dude. Literally my dude.

Did you have a point? I've said that multiple times in this thread.

[Darkeon]

Did you have a point? I've said that multiple times in this thread.

I'm just glad I got that to point out to whenever someone here claims that WoW isn't P2W. So straight to the point and precise.

[Relapses]

I'm just glad I got that to point out to whenever someone here claims that WoW isn't P2W. So straight to the point and precise.

So then your position is that everything is P2W. Glad you paid your P2W cable bill so you can post on this forum, I guess.

[Darkeon]

So then your position is that everything is P2W. Glad you paid your P2W cable bill so you can post on this forum, I guess.

Everything that offers the, eh ehm lemme read, "[...] ability to trade real world capital for virtual player power, yes, [...] is P2W.".