Back in the days of TBC I had a friend who earned a hefty sum of gold through playing the AH.
He used his gold to bid for items that drop in the raid, since he also was very fond of topping the meters.
Now I wonder if you guys would classify that version of the game which enabled such transactions a P2W game.
If there is no problem with buying power using in game currency, then the problem must be with gold purchase.
However, with the token system the game could also be classified as W2P. I can boost people and earn a million a week easily. Then I use this gold to purchase my monthly sub. I am winning to pay for the game.
People who pay to get the boosts are not beating me at all. So they are not winning.
I'm OK with this.
I did look it up, and found this:
"PTW is used in gaming with the meaning "Pay to Win" to refer to games that allow players to purchase items or abilities (e.g., more powerful weapons, additional health points) that give them an advantage in the game, either over other players or NPCs (Non-Player Characters)."
Notice that this just says "advantage" not "a very big advantage".
Found another definition that says:
"Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying."
In fact, I wasn't able to find a definition that says or hints at "a very big advantage". So, at a minimum, that emphasis seems to be in the minority of definitions.
[QUOTE=NotGeorgia;53394817]...
Buying WoW tokens that other players buy from you with real gold for game-time isn't an advantage over people in the game.
.../QUOTE]
So, the ability to buy gold actually fits most definitions of P2W; counter to your statement here. You can gear out a brand new toon with better gear than people who spend significant time grinding for that same gear.
So, specific to WoW, there are players who can get to an ilvl that will be accepted in groups simply by purchasing that token, covert it to gold, and buy really good gear. Contrasted with people who can't get into those same groups regardless of their skill level simply because they haven't been able to grind that gear, or grind the gold to buy such gear, or have simply gotten unlucky with drops.
Personally, I would call it pay to progress (i.e. paying to progress more rapidly than you can by spending time in the game). But regardless of how you want to argue definitions, once Blizz started selling tokens, you can't claim that WoW doesn't sell advantages for $$$.
I feel like tons of people on this forum are warping traditional definitions of p2w because they love wow. Which is fine. But there are definitely games that sell boosts to xp/gear chance/daily quest completions etc... that have been lambasted by this SAME COMMUNITY for being P2W. The New World shop "fiasco" is a great recent example. People playing WoW calling it p2w while tolerating what's essentially the same thing in their game under a different disguise.
Personally, I have no stake in this. I don't mind people who have time gearing that way and people who have $$ but not time gearing a different way. As this poster I quoted stated, it's not like you *have* to pay. You can achieve everything people who pay can achieve, if you have the requisite time and skill.
I don't mind that. But what I do mind is the clear double standard/cognitive dissonance that goes on around these discussions lol
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What do you mean nowadays? Since BC, there have been logs and ranking systems for individuals and guilds. For guilds, it's always been based on progression. "Which bosses did you kill, and at what speed did you do them." Since wrath, there has been a world first race, and a top 100 guild culture. There has been a gear system in which one can have and acquire more gear than others, and it is tracked.
Of course you can "win." And it isn't nowadays. You could win since some of the earliest versions of this game. Just because *YOU* might not care or define it as winning doesn't mean you can't win. And the supposition that it's somehow a recent phenomenon is... absurd.
We've literally had tournaments and championships for longer than we haven't. In PvE *and* PvP. We've had challenge modes and achievements for longer than we haven't at this point. And we track who does those things, how fast they do them, etc. That, by its very nature, makes it competitive. And there is a reward for achieving these things, whether it be in-game rewards that you can collect, or notoriety (E.g. Method's players or Venruki).
You could make the argument that the wow token is p2w because you can use it to buy a boost.
But that's nowhere near as egregious as some eastern MMO's like BDO, or on private servers where you can buy items like shadowmourne for real cash.
So long as I can *also* acquire shadowmourne the normal way, what's the difference?
If I pay a group of 19 people $$$ to get me shadowmourne vs just buying it from a shop... what's the difference, really?
In both cases, I'm spending $$ to get the same outcome. This is the line I don't really understand.
So long as you're not removing the traditional way to get shadowmourne so that someone who wants it can just do it through time/skill, I don't really get the difference between using $$ to buy the carry and just using $$ to buy the item.
It's like "technically" different, but not functionally
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I mean again I hear you that they're 'technically different,' and that there are levels to this... but I'm not sure they're *functionally* different
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Boosting before the token with gold wasn't p2w simply because gold was an in-game currency. Yes, people bought gold with $$ illegally, but that wasn't blizzard sanctioned and a core part of the game design/intent. They banned people for doing this.
The token itself is what makes it p2w
Most games are pay to win now.
I baught the new smash brothers game at Christmas and paid my buddies kid to unlock all the characters for me.
I really wish Nintendo would get their shit together.
Pay to win is not fun.
I wonder how many posters in this thread sell their tokens to buy boosts and are actively engaged in this thread on a self convincing debate with themselves about the topic in this thread. For the rest of us it's pretty clear
See this is what I'm talking about. Like so many people clearly miss the point of this discussion because they're either not following it or have logical gaps. It makes it impossible to talk about.
Obviously no one thinks p2w involves the use of money to pay people to do things for you OUTSIDE OF WHAT THE GAME WOULD NORMALLY ALLOW OR ENABLE. Smash brothers doesn't have an in game token that lets you get game currency for real dollars.
Yes, by your logic, every game is p2w because I can technically pay anyone to do game stuff for me. But that's like obviously not the point of the discussion and obviously not what people are talking about.
Fairness between players is literally the least of Blizzards concerns, lol. And who cares about microtransactions, blame capitalism for ruining your favorite games if it rustles your jimmies so much.
We have WoW Tokens because Blizzard realized there was nothing they could do to stop RMT. RMT is bad, not because it is cheating, but because it means there's someone out there profiting from their game, and Blizzard's legal department are too well funded to allow that to happen.
Last edited by shoc; 2021-09-27 at 02:44 PM.