Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Dhrizzle]

Out of curiosity, for those advocating that WoW is not P2W, what is winning in WoW?

It is possible to drop a huge amount of money into tokens and trade it to clear M Raids or being at the top bracket in PvP. Isn't that considered winning? You are utilizing other players, yes, but you are doing it by spending real money.

And if that that does not qualify as winning in WoW, what is? What would be considered winning.

"What is winning" in WoW is a very open question and doesn't 100% fit the "pay-2-win" model. Most of them have been stamped out but for a while there was a lot of mechanics in games where you could buy straight up buffs that meant you could perform better than someone who hadn't paid.

The reason I don't think this applies to WoW is there's nothing you can pay cash for that someone else couldn't get through playing the game. It might take a bit more work and time but you cant buy anything insurmountable.

But like you said the win conditions of WoW aren't necessarily just killing a boss or winning a battle. Once upon a time in a very similar thread I pointed out that for a mount collector WoW is very much pay-2-win because of the mounts they can only get by paying, and while this is mitigated by the token letting you exchange gold for Blizzard cash but I'm not sure how reasonable or practical it is to expect a player to get all the paid mounts that way.

[Ivanstone]

Still getting hung up on the literal use of win, despite you saying that paying real money for advantages constitutes p2w lol. Theres no hope for you

Words have meaning. I've already stated what real P2W could look like in WoW and its definitely not there yet. You can keep on tilting at windmills if you like.

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I'm not sure how reasonable or practical it is to expect a player to get all the paid mounts that way.

I have about half the game's shop mounts including those from deluxe versions of the game. I usually buy them when they have a sale. Most of my gold comes from emissaries (on 2 characters) as well as selling stuff from the adventure table and Queen's Conservatory. Yes I bought tokens.

Back in WoD when the adventure table gave better gold I bought almost all of the TCG loot. Except for the Camel which is almost impossible to get now.

[callipygoustp]

Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

This thread has, finally, definitively proven that WoW is, in fact, Pay to win.

[Chumahki]

WoW is definitively not P2W.

[Maddoc]

"What is winning" in WoW is a very open question and doesn't 100% fit the "pay-2-win" model. Most of them have been stamped out but for a while there was a lot of mechanics in games where you could buy straight up buffs that meant you could perform better than someone who hadn't paid.

The reason I don't think this applies to WoW is there's nothing you can pay cash for that someone else couldn't get through playing the game. It might take a bit more work and time but you cant buy anything insurmountable.

But like you said the win conditions of WoW aren't necessarily just killing a boss or winning a battle. Once upon a time in a very similar thread I pointed out that for a mount collector WoW is very much pay-2-win because of the mounts they can only get by paying, and while this is mitigated by the token letting you exchange gold for Blizzard cash but I'm not sure how reasonable or practical it is to expect a player to get all the paid mounts that way.

I have to disagree conserning the point about "there's nothing you can pay cash for that someone else couldn't get through playing the game." Not everyone will be able to down mythic bosses when it's current content, and not everyone will be able to reach the top brackets of PvP. But if you pay a raid group to do that for you, you're capable of getting something others never will, even if they do their best, grind it out etc.

It all comes down to the "What is winning" in this discussion. One of the arguments is about player power, making your character stronger than others by i.e. buffs or items. That does give you an advantage over other players, sure. But even if we were able to buy buffs that increased our HP and damage by 200 %, what would we win? What is the end goal/game/definition? Top brackets in PvP and clearing current content? I can do that by paying with real money.

[Ekis]

Anyone who's a consideration has to be trialed regardless of circumstances. Some people aren't going to work regardless of how they got their gear. If someone who bought their gear but delivered the goods anyways while being a cool person is worth keeping.

The point is you can't buy an advantage. A money advantage can easily be negated by a time advantage. In fact the person with the time advantage is usually the better choice from a raiding/pvping/M+ perspective. They're available to meet the guild's needs while being more practiced at their class or even multiple classes.

But that doesn't negate that without buying that gear you wouldn't have given them a second thought on trialing with them, even if they prove themselves to suck with the gear. That's an inherent advantage over someone who can't do the same either with money or time.

Sure, an awesome player with an awesome group of people could clear the content with time and feel accomplished. But again, for the purposes of time investment, they gain an advantage over others who can't afford neither the time or money.

[Soon-TM]

And were back to looking at FUT. Money can save you thousands of hours of game play. Thats not p2w?

There seems to be an awful lot of posters ITT trying to play dumb, covering their ears because p2skip "isn't the same" as good ol' p2w. Why? Because they say so lol.

[Dzonathan]

Of course it matters.

The reason it matters is that it speaks to the fact that who has the most gold in this game is not a function of who spends the most money. Tokens are a means of transferring gold from those who have a lot of it, and are good at making it, to those who have none and suck at making it.

If someone sucks at making gold in MMOs and ends up lagging behind then we call it divine providence as that how it should be. You suck at game, you lose or have worse time then someone who pwns in it. Swiping credit card to circumvent it violates the natural order and game progress isn't measured in how a player is good at the game but how much money they can throw at it.

That's not right no matter which parties are involved in it.

Tokens aren't giving anyone an in-game advantage. They are there to help those who are at a disadvantage to be at slightly less of a disadvantage. They're a crutch, not some super bionic enhancements, and they cannot translate into a real advantage because of the mechanism governing where the gold actually comes from ie other players.

Yes they do. You pay extra money, you get extra gold, you spend extra gold for items and boosts non-paying players cannot get for free.
Someone going to long way of grinding gold or manually getting the good enough group is not doing it at the same efficiency as someone who swiped his credit card.
That advantage cannot be replicated in same time/effort efficient fashion if you start from scratch.

p2w is problematic in that it divides the players into classes based on how much money they spend. Those who spend a lot of money become the first class citizens of the game, while those who don't become second class citizens of the game. In WoW it's actually the opposite because it is those who sell their gold to token buyers who are already the first class citizens of the game.

Except there are second class citizens in the game.

A booster swipes his card and gets guaranteed 10/10hc clears and soon 10/10 mythic clears once they become available.
Everyone else has to go do it the hard way, perhaps fail as he wastes time on wipes and even if succeds he ends up spending more time doing it legit then he would if he went doing some overtime at work in order to swipe his debit card.

The first is better off.
The second is worse off.

Also you are gullible if you think all WoW token purchases are authentic.
We're talking about a company that screwed over its female employees and lied to their investors that everything is fine.
Yet you would lead yourself to believe that they would not screw around with WoW token behind the scenes?

[Ivanstone]

Top brackets in PvP and clearing current content? I can do that by paying with real money.

You don't need real money to do that. I probably have enough gold to buy a mythic clear right now. I'd have more but I lost too many "/roll 1-50000".

Furthermore, being told to die in a corner while you watch the raid is a very different experience than actually trying to do the fight correctly. So what have you "won" if you bought a kill?

[Ivanstone]

But that doesn't negate that without buying that gear you wouldn't have given them a second thought on trialing with them, even if they prove themselves to suck with the gear. That's an inherent advantage over someone who can't do the same either with money or time.

Sure, an awesome player with an awesome group of people could clear the content with time and feel accomplished. But again, for the purposes of time investment, they gain an advantage over others who can't afford neither the time or money.

Its still an MMO. Its not friendly to people who lack the time to play it. You can't replicate time with money since money only allows you to fake your game ability. The game will almost always come down to time investment.

[Maddoc]

You don't need real money to do that. I probably have enough gold to buy a mythic clear right now. I'd have more but I lost too many "/roll 1-50000".

Furthermore, being told to die in a corner while you watch the raid is a very different experience than actually trying to do the fight correctly. So what have you "won" if you bought a kill?

No, you don't need, but that's not the point. I could make a fresh account today, and just pay my way into both the top brackets and mythic content.

And we are also not talking about the experience. Did I win by buying the kill/ranking? Yes. Was it fun? Probably not, but that's beside the point. We're not talking about P2W-while-enjoying-it-and-having-a-great-time.

That's why I am talking about the defintion of winning in WoW, and what the advocates for "WoW is not P2W" and their definition of winning is. It is claimed that P2W = Increased Player Power that others can not have. And if that mechanic was implemented, for the sake of the argument, what would it lead to? How would you win then?

[Ekis]

You don't need real money to do that. I probably have enough gold to buy a mythic clear right now. I'd have more but I lost too many "/roll 1-50000".

Furthermore, being told to die in a corner while you watch the raid is a very different experience than actually trying to do the fight correctly. So what have you "won" if you bought a kill?

You don't need real money to do anything aside from subscribe to WoW. But the point remains is that it's an option available to those who have bigger wallets than they do time to play.

What they "win" if they die in the corner? Access to loot they wouldn't have even if no loot dropped for them. Loot if it did drop for them. The ability to see or interact with content directly instead of on a YouTube video. It may be a different experience, might even cheapen the experience overall, but it's experience nevertheless that others would not have. There are plenty of players who dream of going into a Mythic raid but probably won't get the chance because they cannot make time commitments to raid regularly with a group that normally clears it, gear issues, etc. This has always been that way since time immemorial.

I mean, I've even sold Mythic boosts back then with no illusions of what it meant when I wanted/needed gold.

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Its still an MMO. Its not friendly to people who lack the time to play it. You can't replicate time with money since money only allows you to fake your game ability. The game will almost always come down to time investment.

But none of that matters in the overall grand scheme of things. We know MMOs aren't friendly to those who can't commit time to them. You can't replicate time, but you can definitely gain it or make more efficient use of the time you do have. When you see someone in a public area with awesome gear, I'd literally bet everything I own that you aren't thinking "How much time did they spend on getting it" - you're likely thinking "how can I get that myself"?

Think of it this way: You got a family of 4 to feed. If you could get a job that pays $120k outright with very little barrier of entry other than say a $20 certification that required you to only enter your name on a form, you'd more than likely take that over working your way up to $120k in 5-10 years. Path of least resistance applies here much like buying gear/runs with WoW tokens. It's an advantage nevertheless.

[Ivanstone]

No, you don't need, but that's not the point. I could make a fresh account today, and just pay my way into both the top brackets and mythic content.

And we are also not talking about the experience. Did I win by buying the kill/ranking? Yes. Was it fun? Probably not, but that's beside the point. We're not talking about P2W-while-enjoying-it-and-having-a-great-time.

How would you win then?

Its still a game. The experience of playing the game absolutely matters. Why is paying for kill/ranking a "win" but enjoying the game and earning a kill/ranking not a "win"?

You wouldn't win. You might still have some enjoyment. I do play games with blatant P2W mechanics in them. WoW doesn't have equivalent mechanics. I'd probably still enjoy WoW if they instituted actual P2W mechanics although I would probably avoid PVP entirely.

[Dhrizzle]

I have to disagree conserning the point about "there's nothing you can pay cash for that someone else couldn't get through playing the game." Not everyone will be able to down mythic bosses when it's current content, and not everyone will be able to reach the top brackets of PvP. But if you pay a raid group to do that for you, you're capable of getting something others never will, even if they do their best, grind it out etc.

You can make gold by playing the game and use that to pay the raid group to run you through the content. You can have friends willing to carry you if you don't have the time to dedicate to progressing through content.

It all comes down to the "What is winning" in this discussion. One of the arguments is about player power, making your character stronger than others by i.e. buffs or items. That does give you an advantage over other players, sure. But even if we were able to buy buffs that increased our HP and damage by 200 %, what would we win? What is the end goal/game/definition? Top brackets in PvP and clearing current content? I can do that by paying with real money.

And this gets back to what "pay-2-win" refers to. You give cash to the developer and in return you receive a gameplay buff that improves your chances of winning whatever content you are approaching. It's most obvious in PvP games where 200% additional damage and health gives the most obvious benefit over someone without that enhancement, but for PvE you can look at it as effectively paying to nerf the content.

[Ivanstone]

You don't need real money to do anything aside from subscribe to WoW. But the point remains is that it's an option available to those who have bigger wallets than they do time to play.

What they "win" if they die in the corner? Access to loot they wouldn't have even if no loot dropped for them. Loot if it did drop for them. The ability to see or interact with content directly instead of on a YouTube video. It may be a different experience, might even cheapen the experience overall, but it's experience nevertheless that others would not have. There are plenty of players who dream of going into a Mythic raid but probably won't get the chance because they cannot make time commitments to raid regularly with a group that normally clears it, gear issues, etc. This has always been that way since time immemorial.

I mean, I've even sold Mythic boosts back then with no illusions of what it meant when I wanted/needed gold.

But none of that matters in the overall grand scheme of things. We know MMOs aren't friendly to those who can't commit time to them. You can't replicate time, but you can definitely gain it or make more efficient use of the time you do have. When you see someone in a public area with awesome gear, I'd literally bet everything I own that you aren't thinking "How much time did they spend on getting it" - you're likely thinking "how can I get that myself"?

Think of it this way: You got a family of 4 to feed. If you could get a job that pays $120k outright with very little barrier of entry other than say a $20 certification that required you to only enter your name on a form, you'd more than likely take that over working your way up to $120k in 5-10 years. Path of least resistance applies here much like buying gear/runs with WoW tokens. It's an advantage nevertheless.

People not having time doesn't make the game P2W. And you still have to consider what you won even if you did pay for it. Transient gear who's only lasting function is filling a slot on the transmog tab. Again, I have no issue with people paying for decoration. Decoration can be obtained through money or time. There's always that option. If you have neither time or money, then I suggest you just take what you can reasonably get. We used to have a DK tank who literally logged into raid (2x3 hour raids per week) and then logged off. Its all the time he could manage and he was reasonably content with that.

If I see someone in a public area with fat loot I'm not thinking "How can I get it" or "How much did they spend". More likely I didn't notice them at all unless they had a cool transmog.

Real life considerations do not compare with in game considerations. Your so-called path of least resistance involves boredom. I would hardly consider that an advantage.

[Kehego]

No, you don't need, but that's not the point. I could make a fresh account today, and just pay my way into both the top brackets and mythic content.

And we are also not talking about the experience. Did I win by buying the kill/ranking? Yes. Was it fun? Probably not, but that's beside the point. We're not talking about P2W-while-enjoying-it-and-having-a-great-time.

That's why I am talking about the defintion of winning in WoW, and what the advocates for "WoW is not P2W" and their definition of winning is. It is claimed that P2W = Increased Player Power that others can not have. And if that mechanic was implemented, for the sake of the argument, what would it lead to? How would you win then?

I mean to be fair, you'd be relegated to being a buyer cus your parses would be dogshit and noone would take you as an active participant.
If doing a boss on the floor and afk is your idea of content, by all means.

[Ekis]

You can make gold by playing the game and use that to pay the raid group to run you through the content. You can have friends willing to carry you if you don't have the time to dedicate to progressing through content.

While that is true, consider those who don't have the time to earn the gold necessary to afford a run with aforementioned raid group. There's still a time investment involved and not everyone can farm gold efficiently enough even if they DID have time. People also don't always have friends either that also play the game as well as play it at a high enough skill level to obtain access to content they want to do, let alone clear it. How does one make trustworthy (and skilled) friends without again making a time investment?

That's what the boosts do; they provide a workaround to an obstacle or obstacles that would otherwise prevent them from doing so.

And this gets back to what "pay-2-win" refers to. You give cash to the developer and in return you receive a gameplay buff that improves your chances of winning whatever content you are approaching. It's most obvious in PvP games where 200% additional damage and health gives the most obvious benefit over someone without that enhancement, but for PvE you can look at it as effectively paying to nerf the content.

That's one way to look at it. I guess, my question is when we're referring to WoW not being pay-to-win, are we saying that because the developer isn't directly giving a buff or nerfing the content so one could play?

Because I'd say that in WoW terms it's not that different than buying a boost from a guild that's clearing that content; they're essentially buffing themselves with a group of people that without that transfer or facilitation of currency they wouldn't have access to. That group would be good enough to clear the content consistently with less than the required number of players (i.e. they can clear it with 22-24 of their people instead of the 25). The developers in this case may not be directly interacting in the transaction but they are facilitating it and receiving real-time money when one pays $20 for the facilitation so the only difference is that there are added steps.

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People not having time doesn't make the game P2W.

Again, it's not them having time, it's about making efficient use of the time you have. If a run costs $20+2 hours of your time, and I make $15/hr working, I've gained a benefit to spending money over spending time. Sure, I could've earned $30 in that 2-hour timeframe, but I also didn't have to spend hours preparing to clear that content, including obtaining necessary gear, various trial-and-error runs, studying up on the fight beforehand. All of that is time-consuming, time that could be better used doing other things in-game and out of it.

And you still have to consider what you won even if you did pay for it. Transient gear who's only lasting function is filling a slot on the transmog tab. Again, I have no issue with people paying for decoration. Decoration can be obtained through money or time. There's always that option. If you have neither time or money, then I suggest you just take what you can reasonably get. We used to have a DK tank who literally logged into raid (2x3 hour raids per week) and then logged off. Its all the time he could manage and he was reasonably content with that.

If I see someone in a public area with fat loot I'm not thinking "How can I get it" or "How much did they spend". More likely I didn't notice them at all unless they had a cool transmog.

Real life considerations do not compare with in game considerations. Your so-called path of least resistance involves boredom. I would hardly consider that an advantage.

But what you consider does not matter as that is a subjective opinion. It's an advantage nevertheless regardless to how you feel about it. I too would likely consider it boring; I like accomplishing things on my own accord. But how I feel or what I think does not matter as that is subjective to me and only me. There are plenty of players who's objectives are only getting gear or cheesing fights to get maximum reward for the least amount of effort. They might consider us spending time and doing things the hard way "boring". But does that really matter in the grand scheme of things?

[Ivanstone]

Again, it's not them having time, it's about making efficient use of the time you have. If a run costs $20+2 hours of your time, and I make $15/hr working, I've gained a benefit to spending money over spending time. Sure, I could've earned $30 in that 2-hour timeframe, but I also didn't have to spend hours preparing to clear that content, including obtaining necessary gear, various trial-and-error runs, studying up on the fight beforehand. All of that is time-consuming, time that could be better used doing other things in-game and out of it.



But what you consider does not matter as that is a subjective opinion. It's an advantage nevertheless regardless to how you feel about it. I too would likely consider it boring; I like accomplishing things on my own accord. But how I feel or what I think does not matter as that is subjective to me and only me. There are plenty of players who's objectives are only getting gear or cheesing fights to get maximum reward for the least amount of effort. They might consider us spending time and doing things the hard way "boring". But does that really matter in the grand scheme of things?

That still doesn't make the game P2W. Its just time management. I'll just boil it down to 4 options: Earn it as intended, pay for it with real money, pay for it with gold earned in game or settle for less. The person picking option #2 hasn't really gained an advantage.

In the grand scheme of things that person is just choosing to do the thing that's more exciting to them. They are exercising an option that has other valid options. I don't really think they're making the wrong choice since the money route at least has options that can give the same outcome.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I bought one carry once in the game. My guild wasn’t really running anything and I didn’t want to go join a new guild. And then I broke my elbow in five places and getting AOTC became impossible. Since it was WOD I was drowning in gold from the Adventure table so I bought the AOTC for Hellfire. I don’t really value it because I didn’t earn it like all of my AOTCs. In any case I have no advantage over anyone.

Bragging about your pixels isn’t an advantage. It just means that you used your time to earn real money. Your time spent earning real money might have you got you some nice pixels but it’s not the same thing as actually doing something. I get that some people just like having stuff but the point of a game is to actually play it. I collect a lot of shit in WOW but I still enjoy running around smashing stuff with my shield the most.

Furthermore buying gold, gear and runs has been happening since Vanilla. My original Vanilla guild definitely sold MC and BWL runs and we weren’t that remarkable.

So the argument has basically come down to... "Sure, they can buy the same achievements, gear, titles, mounts, etc. but they didn't get the TRUE experience so there is no pay to win."

So what people define as "winning" is experiencing putting in the work of clearing stuff themselves?

The goalposts of this discussion have moved all the way to China at this point. Basically the only bastion people have left to defend boosting as not harmful to the game is that only the experience of putting the work in is what matters.



Everyone says the Genshin is a pay to win game, right? Well, I'm a low pay genshin player. It's taken me months of work putting into my account, but I'm basically finally at a level where I can compete with the whales. The whales bought all the good stuff right away. I took my time earning it. So by the argument that no game is pay to win if paying means you skip the gameplay experience for the rewards, then Genshin isn't pay to win either.


Obviously the above is sarcasm. I just find it funny the knots people will tie themselves into to justify boosting as something that's not harming the game.

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That's only an "advantage" if you define it as reaping the rewards of a run without playing. That ain't an advantage. It just shows that those type of people care about the prestige of having gear and achievements without having to play the game they apparently do not enjoy. They still aren't getting anything that a player who actually enjoys playing can't get. They aren't getting anything that a player who doesn't enjoy playing all that much but has enough integrity to not enlist someone to carry them has access to either.

Honestly, if you think you're getting some advantage over anyone else by having someone effectively play for you, then this clearly is not the game for you. If you happen to not have time to run some instance that you just refuse to miss a week of and thus elect to pay for a carry or whatever then cool. Everyone else in the game can do that too if they so choose, which of course invalidates the notion of there being any advantage to gain from the practice. We all still have access to the same loot table, just as we all only get that one run before lockout. Now if you were somehow able to do other content on the same character while someone else is taking the time to run them through whatever instance, then that would totally give you an advantage over other players.

"If you pay to skip content, that's not paying for an advantage, that's just paying to skip gameplay. That's not pay to win."

As I mentioned, it seems the goalposts for pay to win has rocketed into orbit. If all that matters is getting the gameplay experience, then every gacha game is not pay to win either, because the free players put in far more work to reach the end result, where the whales pay to skip it. It's the EXACT SAME THING in WoW. If you think Chinese games are pay to win, WoW is pay to win. Period.

[Ekis]

That still doesn't make the game P2W. Its just time management. I'll just boil it down to 4 options: Earn it as intended, pay for it with real money, pay for it with gold earned in game or settle for less. The person picking option #2 hasn't really gained an advantage.

In the grand scheme of things that person is just choosing to do the thing that's more exciting to them. They are exercising an option that has other valid options. I don't really think they're making the wrong choice since the money route at least has options that can give the same outcome.

#2 gains an advantage over 1, 3, or 4 by the very nature of the options you gave.

A person having to settle for less - obvious disadvantage to someone who pays for it. Someone wanting to clear content on a Mythic level or obtain Mythic level gear can't.

Earning it as intended - the person who pays for it "earned it" and didn't have to put in the same time or effort doing so. Advantage.

Pay for it with gold - The average WoW player does not earn the amount of gold necessary to facilitate the purchase, and if the average person did the prices would either increase by the nature of supply and demand. Someone who bought gold with money didn't have to spend hours upon hours farming it, just a few seconds of entering in credit card information. Saved time = advantage.

To do things as intended would mean spending time finding a decent group to clear content, get gear to clear the next level of content, and maintaining both of these at a level enough to clear the content, not excluding coming ready with enchants/raid consumables, etc. Buying a boost literally negates these obstacles, meaning it's an advantage. Not everybody could clear Naxx in Vanilla when it was relevant. Not everybody can do Mythic Sanctum of Domination today for the same reasons. But if I paid for it, I clearly gained an advantage compared to those who cannot.

Again, subjectivity does not come into play because people find not raiding at all and playing Pet Battles a majority of the time more "exciting". We're not talking about what's exciting. We're talking about effectively using RL money to circumvent disadvantages to doing things "as intended".