Is there any debate that WoW is P2W?

[Valshaw-stormrage (Valshaw)]

Every MMO, including WoW and FF14, is pay to win so I don’t see what’s new. What someone defines as winning is what matters.

[Archangels-area-52]

Everyone knows it’s p2w. There are some people that will split hairs to troll. Ignore them. All they are going to do is egg you on and repeat their definition over and over and over like captain screwtape or whatever his special character failbot name is.

[Scrèwtape-proudmoore]

@Archangels-area-52

Everyone knows it’s p2w.

Everyone knows people spewing “WoW is P2W” are just looking for attention.

[Sentenzà-illidan]

@Scrèwtape-proudmoore

You can change the definition for yourself

There are games where the game world is in a bottle - its own world - and there are games where real-world wealth is entangled with in-game wealth.

Seems pretty straightforward. Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is best. 1450 reply thread trying to defend the inconsistencies of your personal definition vs a boiler plate clearly understandable delineation… I think I’m going to go with the simple and logical definition.

[Angelicus-faerlina]

bro, he can’t afford those words
dial it down to $2 words so he doesn’t need to rush out and buy a dictionary

[Bigspanky-area-52-1447558]

@Scrèwtape-proudmoore

The ability to boost is not EXCLUSIVE behind a pay wall.

Again. You are choosing how you are defining Winning in the game to suit how you feel about it. Which is why no one can be right or wrong in this argument. You are choosing to define it by saying goals must be exclusively behind a pay wall for it to be pay to win.

What if my winning is getting the lore master achievement. Cant buy a carry for that. So therefore in my definition WoW is not Pay to Win.

I could say that my goal is Cutting Edge and a 2.5kio score. I can get that without buying a carry. So WoW is not pay to win. But I could also just buy carries for all of that, and then WoW is Pay to Win.

In an MMO such as this, the goals individuals set for themselves are their own versions of winning. And all of these goals can be achieved without buying a single carry. But in many cases, you can just buy a carry to achieve them in a much shorter time.

So the real problem is that WoW is both pay to win and it is not. But you are paying to achieve your goals in a much shorter time. You are paying for the convenience. Its the difference between driving across the country, and taking a plane first class. At the end, both can say they traveled across the country. They reached the same result. One did it quicker, in relaxed comfort and skipped all the adventure in between for more money. The other took a longer time and had an adventure.

[Shreds-wyrmrest-accord (Shreds)]

@Orfieus-area-52

You can boost to get Mythic rewards. You can boost to get PvP rewards
You can buy boosts with gold
You can buy gold with money
There is no limit to how much money you can spend on WoW tokens

None of that is winning.

[Snozy-thrall]

@Bigspanky-area-52-1447558

But you would gain a huge advantage over people still progressing normal to heroic or struggling with heroic, and not able to cut it in mythic. You do get a clear advantage, when you are buying loot stacking, to get your BiS gear in far fewer runs than players who are not. You are paying money, to buy gold, to gain an advantage. Strictly in that regard, it is pay to win.

No offense but those peoples progression doesn’t matter. You have to compare the advantages against the people that are at the top of the game.

@Bigspanky-area-52-1447558

Again True. People carry guild members and friends through things constantly. Guilds gear funnel to players to get them geared quick all the time.

I was more going along the lines of people who play the AH and just buy them for gold.

I have multiple friends that are gold capped.

@Bigspanky-area-52-1447558

Unfortunately this is where it goes off track. All of the carry services which, in many cases, can and are done for free by people’s guilds and friends can also be bought through gold. You buy the advantage of loot funneling, skipping progression, the time spent running the raid to incrementally gear up. You can buy gold, to pay other players, to gain an advantage in gearing and completion.

Here is a thought. One real measurable we can define Winning in WoW is Money and Time. Players pay a monthly fee to have access to the game. Doing things in the game takes time. Getting a character equipped with BiS gear takes time. Progressing a raid takes time.

So lets say would take 3 months at 18 hours a week played. to get the gear and achievements, and clear the content which you are setting as your goal. Roughly 216 hours. And three months sub, roughly $39. 39/216 is roughly $0.18/hr to achieve your goals.

Now you want to buy carries. And with enough gold you can get this done in 3 weeks at 8 hours a week. 24 hours time played at $12.99. That equals $0.54/hr to achieve your goal. Not including the cost of the gold to get there.

So your time played is worth more per hour when getting carried. So based on that scale, money/hour has more value when boosted to not. I know its a stretch, but at that measurement your time played has more value when you get things done quicker.

Now if you can buy a bunch of tokens for money and sell them for gold to achieve those same goals in less time, then you essentially you are paying to achieve your goals. Or paying to win.

None of this matters though.

[Lethality-sargeras]

@Snozy-thrall

None of this matters though.

My elitest viewpoint is all that matters!

Bro calm down with all that noise. We get it, you weally weally don’t want wow called p2w. Reguardless of how silly obvious it is.
You actually remind me of the guys on the lost ark reddit, that swore up and down LA wasn’t p2w trash.

[Snozy-thrall]

@Sentenzà-illidan

No it doesn’t.

Yes it actually does.

Considering boosts and pilots are provided by Players and not blizzard it’s not an actual pay to win game.

It sounds like you honestly have never played a real pay to win game.

If the shop offered things like shadowmourne or weapons exclusively only available in the shop then yes that’s a pay to win game.

People buying boosts aren’t gaining an advantage over the people selling them the boosts.

[Snozy-thrall]

@Lethality-sargeras

My elitest viewpoint is all that matters!

I’m not elitist.

I’m sorry you can’t argue facts.

@Lethality-sargeras

Bro calm down with all that noise. We get it, you weally weally don’t want wow called p2w. Reguardless of how silly obvious it is.
You actually remind me of the guys on the lost ark reddit, that swore up and down LA wasn’t p2w trash.

I am calm. Just correcting incorrect information. I’m sorry you have a hard time understanding definitions.

WoW isn’t pay to win.

[Scrèwtape-proudmoore]

@Bigspanky-area-52-1447558

You are paying for the convenience.

Overall I really love your response.

But this , to me, is what WoW is. Pay 2 Convenience(?) not Pay to Win. Because as you said - “winning” is subjective.

[Lethality-sargeras]

@Snozy-thrall

It sounds like you honestly have never played a real pay to win game.

You repeat this over and over. Like every 3 posts. Sounds like you dont raid at my level, sounds like you don’t X. Change your name to gatekeeper

Like man … you just aren’t as cool as I am … or you would see things just like me … let me show you the way … lmao

Actually it might be fun to api your entire post history, and then search for every instance of that string. Sec, i’ll get on that.

[Scrèwtape-proudmoore]

@Bigspanky-area-52-1447558

But you would gain a huge advantage over people still progressing normal to heroic or struggling with heroic, and not able to cut it in mythic. You do get a clear advantage, when you are buying loot stacking, to get your BiS gear in far fewer runs than players who are not. You are paying money, to buy gold, to gain an advantage. Strictly in that regard, it is pay to win.

“gain a huge advantage” over other people to win what???

I don’t know if you know this - but the race to world first is over after the first 1-2 weeks of a tier. That’s the only thing that can actually be “won”.

MDI and PvP are competed on a tournament realm. Boosting doesn’t matter.

[Wyldlock-thrall]

Exactly, and they don’t pay for their win. If you could pay and get it faster than the world first people, then it would be pay to win, because it would mean something exists in the pay shop that gives you advantage over other players.

[Nutts-kirin-tor (Nutts)]

For those of you who think the game is pay to win…

If the WoW token never existed, every single thing you have complained about being “pay to win” would still exist in the game. The mere existence of the WoW token does not constitute pay to win. Prices are so high, not because these items give advantages but because players are greedy. Costs for runs are so high because people are greedy. Everything in the game has costs that are determined by the playerbase. Even the WoW token’s price is ultimately determined by the playerbase. You can buy all the tokens you want with real money, and if no one is buying them in game they are worthless. The more people buying them in game, the higher the value goes, the fewer people buying them the lower the value goes. It follows supply and demand.

Why do I bring this up you may ask… simple… let’s look at real P2W games… what happens when you remove their cash shop currency? All the P2W elements go away. What happens when you remove the cash shop currency from WoW? The “pay to win” elements remain… but you can’t pay real money for them anymore, are they still “pay to win”? of course not! They never even were pay to win in the first place.

[Angelicus-faerlina]

Veyloris@VeylorisMar 26

Hey it’s my favorite tweet of the year Costs not totally finalized since our race isn’t over, but… Gear Trades ~245m BoEs ~215m Total spend ~723m Total debt ~535m Never leaving jail. Ever. Total spend is equivalent to ~4.6k tokens which is worth about $93k. Woof.

You were saying?

[Scrèwtape-proudmoore]

@Angelicus-faerlina

Hey it’s my favorite tweet of the year Costs not totally finalized since our race isn’t over, but… Gear Trades ~245m BoEs ~215m Total spend ~723m Total debt ~535m Never leaving jail. Ever. Total spend is equivalent to ~4.6k tokens which is worth about $93k. Woof.

That doesn’t impact the playerbase as a whole - that only matters for like 4 guilds in the WORLD. Those power gains also aren’t purchased through an in-game shop.

A large increase in token purchases for a fraction of a % of the playerbase over the course of a sliver of time during an expansion doesn’t make the game “paytowin” as a whole.

[Angelicus-faerlina]

We get that you have tiny narrow definition of p2w. We don’t agree, or care about your definition. We use ours.

[Sentenzà-illidan]

@Nutts-kirin-tor

The mere existence of the WoW token does not constitute pay to win.

False. The mere existence of the WoW token is exactly what constitutes pay to win. That is literally how it works. Without the WoW token, everything in-game is earned exclusively by in-game activities. There is no way to earn things without playing the game in some form. You cannot pay to win if you cannot pay.

That’s literally how it works. That’s actually literally how it works. That is indeed how it works.