Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[cFortyfive]

Degenerates who buy tokens and boosts all day might have shifted the overton window but yes of course it's pay 2 win.

[Amaterasu65]

It very much is.

[Trickstah]

Sorry if this is discussed anywhere else, could not find any Thread related to this.
Also Sorry for my English, it´s not my 1st Language

So I thought about my discussion following "New World" and the monetising System they want to add, by selling boosts and other convenient Items in addition to cosmetic Stuff. Most people claimed this would be p2w and I have to think about WoW in it´s current state and thinks you could buy by real Life Money.

You can buy all these Mounts and other shiny stuff from the Ingame store, and that´s total OK for me, because you don´t push your Player power with these items.
BUT, you can buy Character boosts. This is a bit tricky for me, because you buy some sort of Player power, but it doesn´t affect the Endgame, it´s just a Time Safe for these people, but it´s definitely something which is discussable.
But the most annoying thing is definitely the WoW Token itself. You can buy WoW Gold with real Money and can use it to buy BoE Items, which is definitely an increase in Player Power, and so some kind of Pay to Win. And you can buy boosts for M+, Raids, PvP with these Gold. This is not only an increase in Player Power, it´s the pure definition for Pay to win! "You want this? Just pay me X Gold and you get it."

I think WoW is going a dramatic way towards p2w, and this is not only Blizzards fault.
Blizz did the Mistake in the first, to make it possible by adding the Token, just because they wanted to address illegal gold selling.
The Only thing I can imagine at this point to address this, is to forbid boosts for Gold and remove boe items (in Raid quality) from the Game.

What do you guys think? Is WoW really pay to win nowadays or am I just over interpreting something in this?

Thanks for Reading

Wow became the biggest boosting game in pve and pvp where people are buying high keys or titles. Blizzard dosent care because mostly part is buying to tokens to get their boost. That means blizzard are earning money on it.

[Askyl]

No. WoW is in no way at all pay 2 win.

There's no other true answer than that. Sure, you can get a small "boost" buy buying a boost, but you CAN'T BUY ADVANTAGE in this game, which is what P2W is about.

[Lochton]

yeah, thing is i dont mind if someone wants to think wow is p2w even though i disagree, but when someone says its p2w since token i grind my teeth, as selling gold/boosts/BOE items (especialy for twinks) was present since vanila... so either its not p2w or it always been...
personaly, i think its not p2w as you cant buy advantage that cant be gained via regular play

Aye. That is where my confusion is. For if the token is P2W, then all MMORPG's are P2W because they have a currency that can be acquired by a service, legal or not.

[Soon-TM]

Sure, buying mythic raids, arena carries or KSM doesn't make you "win". Neither would buying a full mythic set from Blizz store, right? You wouldn't be "winning" anything, would you?

[Lochton]

Good news everyone, money doesnt matter irl because you cant buy immortality.

Yeah.. That is not an example to be compared with a game..

[Soon-TM]

Aye. That is where my confusion is. For if the token is P2W, then all MMORPG's are P2W because they have a currency that can be acquired by a service, legal or not.

Sadly, you are right. The difference is that if the service is illegal, it's considered cheating.

[Lochton]

Wow became the biggest boosting game in pve and pvp where people are buying high keys or titles. Blizzard dosent care because mostly part is buying to tokens to get their boost. That means blizzard are earning money on it.

Sooo... All MMORPG's are P2W, you say?

[HCLM]

Not sure who is bigger troll, OP or people who answer here saying WoW is P2W.

[Lochton]

Sadly, you are right. The difference is that if the service is illegal, it's considered cheating.

WoW had that before. They just made it safer and hold more value, 1 person gets gold and another gets game time. Rather have the token than have gold farmers and account hacking being at the insane amount that it used to be. So, we've confirmed then, that all MMORPG's currently running, are P2W, so.. I guess the future goal is to figure out the actual value of a service to make an in-depth assessment of what is actually P2W?

I mean, the selection is huge among the games, and depending on the player, the term 'winning' can be anything if even a currency is P2W.

[Delever]

So a common argument I see thrown around is that if WoW is p2w then every game is p2w because everywhere you can buy boosts etc.
This would be true if other games were also directly offering you the means of doing this and you didnt have to illegally and riskily do it through external sources.

There was a time when blizzard would try (and fail) to combat the bots that sold gold. They also banned people advertising boosting for RMT.
What they chose to do with the token is basically what Rohan online did back in the day with boting. They gave up battling bots and they made gold selling legal on their own just like Rohan gave up on trying to combat bots and literally added a bot that you could purchase from the cash shop to farm for you.
Ever since the addition of the token, the trade chat has EXCLUSIVELY become a spamming fiesta for boosts that scrolls faster than asmongolds twitch chat. Boosts always existed but you cannot tell me it was ever as bad as it has been the last 2-3 expansions. I remember the occasional boost advert during MoP for challenge modes but trade chat was still primarily people selling/organizing pugs/guild recruiting.

TLDR: When the company itself legalizes and provides you directly with the means of purchasing power, it is p2w.

[Steelangel]

And Black Knights are already chiming in with "yes, it's totally pay to win even though GENUINE pay to win games explicitly make payment systems that are an absolute advantage over everyone that doesn't pay"

Anyone saying WoW is P2W does not understand the definition of P2W

This.

Gatchapon games charge you up to $90-100 for a bunch of "diamonds" that allow you to roll the dice for the possibility of getting a limited time random SUPER POWERFUL character from their treasure boxes. They more $ you spend, the more chances you have to win, and get all the characters that allow you to dominate the arena or the "raids" or whatever.

Whales rule those games. I'm pretty sure that whales exist in WoW too---I know a dude who spent 1M gold on a boost to 1800 in RBGs, but they aren't sought after, and definitely don't have the skill to demonstrate they earned their titles.

[Hellobolis]

yes its pay to win

the price to really win is prohibitive enough that it's not ruining the game.

but the price to win on a modest level (m+ boost/raid boost) is very affordable which has already irrevocably damaged the games economy.

(good luck buying all those 100k+ mounts and what not if you aren't a booster or token buyer, used to be fairly doable to keep up with gold prices of that kind of item pre-token as a normal player.)

[Lochton]

TLDR: When the company itself legalizes and provides you directly with the means of purchasing power, it is p2w.

So, because a company is selling game-time tokens for real money that can be marketed for gold - which it does not have to be, which another player gives you, it is P2W?

So, if we rewind to the old days before the token, a player could buy from another player, game time for gold, which was against ToS, does not account as P2W?

So, it is only P2W if the company offers the service directly for you to gain power?

So, that means, World of Warcraft can only be accounted as Pay 2 Win because of selling mediocre character boosts, for they are not selling anything else that gives you power, they are selling you game time, that you choose to go sell to a player. But instead of it breaking ToS, it is now legal to trade game time.

I mean, we can compare to other games that sell (yes, they sell it) services in the form of items to advance your game faster than others for a currency that cannot be obtained in the game, but has to be purchased with a credit card. That is Play 2 Win.

The only thing WoW has that is close to P2W, is the boost, and even that is so low down that you aren't winning anything than time, and you are losing other things on the way like reputation, gear, unlocks, currency, etc.

[panda040]

Yes, it is.
1) You can use $$$ to buy a token which is equal to WOW gold.
2) WOW gold can buy you: BOE gear and boosts (more gear).
You can basically use $$$ to buy raid achieves (AOTC, KSM) and gear now.
Blizz does nothing to stop the boosting because it drives token sales (goto line 1)

This. Because blizzard has essentially created a monetary vehicle to obtain anything in the game. The online thing that you really can't pay for is rank 1 in pvp.

[Nnyco]

You cant buy advantages that are otherwise inaccessable. So no.

[Accendor]

What do they Win? Can you link me the shop item that makes someone always better purely from paying for it?

Are you talking about WoW or about Riot? For Riot I can not, because they are not offering a real P2W service (which was the point of my whole argument).
For WoW sure I can, the WoW token as it provides the gold.

[panda040]

wrong they also sell boosts, which allow the player to gain an advantage via monetary purchases

[Lochton]

For WoW sure I can, the WoW token as it provides the gold.

The token gives you the option of gold from another player, and you give them 1 month of game time. To make the token P2W would mean it creates the gold for you, but in this case, you are just legally trading game time.