Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Raelbo]

In Aion, I could either play the game and earn powerful rewards, or I could swipe my credit card and get those rewards instantly. Just because you CAN earn the rewards through gameplay does not make being able to buy them any less pay to win.

It depends on how much effort would be required to earn those rewards in-game. I never played Aion, but from the way you describe its pay mechanisms, it sounds very different to the token.

If you're paying IRL cash and you gain a hard achievement or loot reward without putting in the skill-based time to earn it, then it's damaged the integrity of the game.

I'd love for you show me where I can buy said things in the WoW shop

What you are carefully avoiding here is the fact that nothing the shop does helps you attain those rewards. The only way to obtain those hard achievements and loot that you're talking about is with the assistance of other players. The game does jack for you. Yes, it is a MASSIVE distinction.

You can argue all day and night over the exact specific definition of what "winning" but the only reason the defenders of this are even trying to play the semantic game over what "winning" is, is because they all know and realize that the integrity of WoW has been permanently damaged by this.

lol. The people in this debate who like to argue of the semantics of "winning" are those who are trying to argue that the token is p2w. I don't even care to debate them on that anymore because it isn't pertinent to the discussion.

Core to being p2w is that players are pretty much required to pay if they want to compete, regardless of how you define "winning". WoW does not demand that you use tokens to acquire gold, ergo it cannot be p2w. It's that fucking simple.

When you beat Ragnaros and had peridition's blade back in 2005, people KNEW you earned that shit. Now you can run around town and know that a huge number of people wearing fancy gear just swiped their credit card for it.

That strikes me as a very paranoid way of seeing things. And I don't think it's an accurate assessment at all.

And what's most important is, the staunch defenders of this don't seem to care about the health or the future of the game, because WoW is in rapid decline. People are leaving for numerous reasons, and many bemoan that their achievements don't feel special any more because anyone can buy them now.

That is patently absurd. The WoW token has been around for 6 years already. If your doomsaying had any merit, the game would have been dead years ago. But it's still going strong, in spite of the fact that it has been in decline for reasons that have nothing to with token for 7 years preceding the introduction thereof.

If anything the token is helping to keep the game alive on two fronts: 1) by giving a portion of the playerbase a means of playing for free and 2) by giving some other players who were not prepared to put enough effort in to make the gold they needed for the things they wanted to do an alternative.

If you want a dead game, keep pretending this is all fine and dandy. Keep arguing about the exact definition of "winning" is because at the end of the day, you know we're right, and it's the only thing you can do to defend your position.

My take on it is this. If the game is dying, it's not because of tokens. And trying to scapegoat tokens is only going to result in missing the real problems.

[rhorle]

Great, then we agree on that levels = power. Then obtaining gear, achivs, titles & mounts via token(gold) = power. Better gear = player power. Obtain certain achivs = Gains access to do more content. Therefore buying token = Skip content to reach the stage of being relevant.

You can obtain power through gold. That is a normal part of game play and a a normal function of gold. Buying gold however is not buying that power. When you buy flour at the store you don't get charged for bread just because flour can become bread.

[epigramx]

3000+ posts and people are still arguing tokens aren't pay to win. Get real bois.

Say we both have a fresh account, which one of us will get to endgame fastest assuming all else is equal?
Me who can buy both the shopped level boost, and gold to get boosted all the way up to progression-ready mythic gear by people who have bis gear already.
it'll take me ~3-4 days to be decked out and ready to parse on the newest raid.

you will spend a month, assuming you can only use boost services which require gold you'd have to farm. Or actually gear up and level up the old way.

Why waste 3-4 days? The top guilds can do sylvanas mythic with 1 dead player from the pull.

10 minutes from credit card to the hardest content in the game no problem.

[shadowmatrix]

3000+ posts and people are still arguing tokens aren't pay to win. Get real bois.

Say we both have a fresh account, which one of us will get to endgame fastest assuming all else is equal?
Me who can buy both the shopped level boost, and gold to get boosted all the way up to progression-ready mythic gear by people who have bis gear already.
it'll take me ~3-4 days to be decked out and ready to parse on the newest raid.

you will spend a month, assuming you can only use boost services which require gold you'd have to farm. Or actually gear up and level up the old way.

Pretty sure back in vanilla there where people selling characters and accounts so your back to square one.

[crusadernero]

If anyone wants to have a serious discussion about this: make a new thread about "is wow more pay to win now than it was in the past?".

It is clear that the thread is massively derailed by people being pedantic about the phrase's meaning; the meaning itself is irrelevant compared to the extend that pay to win is happening; the meaning is just a language convention with no substance other than that.

You can stretch it and say that PacMan is pay to win because you could pay someone to play for you etc. so the only important discussion here is if they made it worse.

Im probably one to blame for this thread going on for so long, but now im done. It doesnt seem it gets anywhere anyway. I get passionate about this cause I really like wow/warcraft and it sucks seeing the games downfall over the years. Now the game is where it is, and I find it really sad and frustrating seeing people defend certain aspects of the game, like the token.

And yeah - theres probably a language barrier and/or an unclear definition of what pw2 really is. Personally, I dont see p2w as a white/black thing were its either 100% p2w or 100% not. I think it all depends on what game it is, in what genre, is it multiplayer or solo etc. The definition people have used here might be correct in some games, but it doesnt fit the bill for every game.

Anyways. thats it for me! Thanks for the debate.

[Darkeon]

You can obtain power through gold. That is a normal part of game play and a a normal function of gold. Buying gold however is not buying that power. When you buy flour at the store you don't get charged for bread just because flour can become bread.

Why use Apples to Oranges examples when you can use game to game?

Lots of mobile games don't let you purchase power directly with real money and instead rely on their own in-game currency purchases that, in turn, can be used to purchase the actual power.

Are those also not P2W?

[epigramx]

Im probably one to blame for this thread going on for so long, but now im done. It doesnt seem it gets anywhere anyway. I get passionate about this cause I really like wow/warcraft and it sucks seeing the games downfall over the years. Now the game is where it is, and I find it really sad and frustrating seeing people defend certain aspects of the game, like the token.

And yeah - theres probably a language barrier and/or an unclear definition of what pw2 really is. Personally, I dont see p2w as a white/black thing were its either 100% p2w or 100% not. I think it all depends on what game it is, in what genre, is it multiplayer or solo etc. The definition people have used here might be correct in some games, but it doesnt fit the bill for every game.

Anyways. thats it for me! Thanks for the debate.

There's just no correct and no wrong definition. Those are just language conventions; you agree with what it means and then you move on; the actual value of a discussion comes after that convention is agreed.

This thread is spammed by people who try to convince others to use another convention; that is almost of 0 value; so assuming "everything can be pay to win if it's stretched" (which is objectively true) then move on and talk only about what is "more" pay to win.

[rhorle]

Like, seriously, how can you possibly think like this? I realize you've rationalized it in your head, but it's mind boggling that people can be THIS stubborn to hold onto their viewpoint that they completely defy logic.

If I buy flour from the store I've also bought a cake, a noodle, bread, and everything else flour can be turned into. Or I've just bought flour. It isn't stubborn to look only at the transaction that is directly happening. You and others keep talking about the "What if" that gold can turn into. Those are all secondary transactions.

The token doesn't create gold. The token doesn't directly give power. The wins that gold can give do not by pass RNG. They do not bypass normal mechanics of the game. Carries are considered a normal part of the game. It is not pay to win but a micro transaction for gold. You pay real life money and get gold out of it. The end. Having that one extra step is all the difference because a "win" is not guaranteed at all and can be unavailable.

[Raelbo]

3000+ posts and people are still arguing tokens aren't pay to win. Get real bois.

Say we both have a fresh account, which one of us will get to endgame fastest assuming all else is equal?

Who cares? Honestly. This game is almost 17 years old. If you're starting with a fresh account, you're miles behind everyone else, with or without tokens, and the reason you're there is entirely due to the fact that you're 17 years late to the party.

If you want a relevant question, who has a better chance of doing well going into a new expansion, the person spending $$ to buy gold, or the person not spending $$ to buy gold?

Hint: It's a trick question. It's the person who did better over the last 17 years (and odds are, that is not the person who has to buy his gold, lol)

[Kaykay]

Pretty sure back in vanilla there where people selling characters and accounts so your back to square one.

So because people steal and murder, we shouldn't have laws against it?

There's a huge difference between people risking their accounts and their friends accounts by buying gold/accounts from 3rdparty when it was against TOS, to blizz spoonfeeding you tokens ad libitum.

[rhorle]

Lots of mobile games don't let you purchase power directly with real money and instead rely on their own in-game currency purchases that, in turn, can be used to purchase the actual power.

Gold is not a currency set up just for micro-trasnactions or buying power. You don't even redeem gold for power. You redeem it for the chance at power by a group in-game. It not coming from Blizzard also matters.

[Dhrizzle]

It is a defense from you. Why you cant see the issues tied to token is absurd to me and I cant fathom why you would bother defending it, at all.

Correcting people for using the wrong term isn't defending the game. If you think the existence of the token and boosts makes the game awful then the game remains awful regardless of what it is called. That's why I'm saying it's pointless stretching the term pay-2-win to cover WoW, other than the emotional hook to get clicks on YouTube or whatever there is no reason to call it pay-2-win when there are clear and obvious examples of what pay-2-win games are like. Try again when paying cash to Blizz gets you gear 15 ilvls above Mythic raid gear and you'll have a point.

[Hawg]

At least there is an option to buy gold without violating the TOS. People still did it before tokens, complained when they got caught and banned or had their accounts hacked, But even then no one called it P2W.

[Darkeon]

At least there is an option to buy gold without violating the TOS. People still did it before tokens, complained when they got caught and banned or had their accounts hacked, But even then no one called it P2W.

Blizzard sanctioning the purchases, increasing their revenue massively and thus incentivizing more and more of said purchases, might have something to do with it.

[Kaykay]

Who cares?

Clearly 3000 posts means somebody cares.

Personally i prefered the game before p2w, i'm under no illusion that the game will ever become that again though.

That said it's okay to like p2w, mobile games make up 80% of all gaming revenue in the world, gacha games and p2w reigns supreme in the majority of the gaming space these days.

Just realize that the game wasnt always like this, and it has changed the game towards a boosting centered economy, if you enjoy that just stick with it.

Trying to somehow justify the token being a fair game mechanic, and "not p2w" is just a huge meme.

[Dhrizzle]

Wait what ? Now you are telling me bob de average wow whale has magical raiding skills to do mythic progression in a few months if he wants ?
You make no sense and again these mental gymnastics to try and defend this p2w cancer feature are weird.

Bob the what? And you think I make no sense...

And I'm not defending the MTX in WoW, I'm correcting people who don't know what p2w actually is.

[Kaykay]

Gold is not a currency set up just for micro-trasnactions or buying power. You don't even redeem gold for power. You redeem it for the chance at power by a group in-game. It not coming from Blizzard also matters.

Lets be real, gold will be the most efficient way to obtain power. Wether the game literally lets you purchase it from a vendor, or you spend 30 minutes (opposed to months of progression) for a chance at your weekly loot +- whoever you pay to trade you offpieces and so on.

The sky is the limit when it comes to how efficient you can be about your gold to power conversion. a raid with 14 hunters in bis gear trading you everything that drop for them every reset? it's possible, with gold.

[Dhrizzle]

If anyone wants to have a serious discussion about this: make a new thread about "is wow more pay to win now than it was in the past?".

It is clear that the thread is massively derailed by people being pedantic about the phrase's meaning; the meaning itself is irrelevant compared to the extend that pay to win is happening; the meaning is just a language convention with no substance other than that.

You can stretch it and say that PacMan is pay to win because you could pay someone to play for you etc. so the only important discussion here is if they made it worse.

The thread is called "Is WoW Pay 2 Win?" so some discussion as to what "Pay 2 Win" means is inevitable. If the stretched definition of "any microtransaction that gives any sort of in-game help" was universally accepted the thread would have one reply saying "yes" and that would be it.

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Lets be real, gold will be the most efficient way to obtain power. Wether the game literally lets you purchase it from a vendor, or you spend 30 minutes (opposed to months of progression) for a chance at your weekly loot +- whoever you pay to trade you offpieces and so on.

The sky is the limit when it comes to how efficient you can be about your gold to power conversion. a raid with 14 hunters in bis gear trading you everything that drop for them every reset? it's possible, with gold.

If the best and most efficient way to get geared is through being boosted, how do the boosters get geared up and clear content?

[rhorle]

The sky is the limit when it comes to how efficient you can be about your gold to power conversion. a raid with 14 hunters in bis gear trading you everything that drop for them every reset? it's possible, with gold.

The sky is not the limit with the token though. Other players farming the gold is. It is possible for tokens to sell out and have none available for purchase.

[Kaykay]

The thread is called "Is WoW Pay 2 Win?" so some discussion as to what "Pay 2 Win" means is inevitable. If the stretched definition of "any microtransaction that gives any sort of in-game help" was universally accepted the thread would have one reply saying "yes" and that would be it.

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If the best and most efficient way to get geared is through being boosted, how do the boosters get geared up and clear content?

Just because not everyone chooses the pay2win route, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Obviously the value of the boost and p2w fluctuates greatly depending on what difficulty the available content has, but even then, something as simple as running armor trade groups in mythic+ to gear up for the upcoming tier will put you significantly ahead of anybody who doesn't.