I’m fully aware of what you mean.
But surely you’re more intelligent to, and are able to give a more precise definition than what you gave.
If you understand my point I don’t need too. You’re grasping at straws here.
Sure, your definition stands then and my statement stand equally with it too.
All games are therefor P2W.
You really thought you had yourself a “gotcha” moment
It’s not a “gotcha”.
It’s just objectively true even if it is pedantic.
You don’t want to amend it, fine.
We’ll leave it at that going our separate ways knowing that both statement are true.
Because simplistic definitions beget simplistic examples.
I acknowledge your definition and respect it, but it comes with strings attached.
It’s the exact thing that happens with laws and why they are overly complicated and heavily worded sometimes.
It’s to prevent someone to get off on a technicality because of a poor choice of words that leaves a blind spot that is not specifically addressed.
The law doesn’t care if the defense lawyer is being overly pedantic, the only thing that matters is if what he’s defending technically true.
If you don’t want me to get off on a technicality, you can amend it.
Otherwise, good luck demonstrating that what I said doesn’t apply to your definition.
Considering that the OPs note has over 100 replies and the thread is almost at 2000 I guess we have the answer to the question. “Is there any debate that WOW is P2W”.
And the answer is “Yes”: There is debate as to whether or not WOW is P2W.
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And not a particularly useful/enlightening one at that.
It just goes in circles over personal definition of what is winning and what is not.
What constitute an advantage and not.
There’s no real study out there that effectively goes out to define what is P2W for different type of games. Only one out there seem to be a dissertation by a researcher of Tampere University in Finland that seeks to explore the specific ecosystem of free to play games for which he does make an attempt at defining what P2W looks like in those type of games.
But he never mentions what it would look like in paying games.
Maybe he wants us to pay him for the answer. 
ya 100% p2w or pay to buy gear and achievements all the same
Blizzard gives players a choice. You can do it the old fashioned way (grind and develop skills) or you can buy your way to a bit of success.
I suppose if you buy into the delusion that other players assume you are awesome if you sport certain gear or a certain mount, it might be a bummer knowing someone can get what you have by paying real money for it. But that status thing is utterly delusional. Nobody gives a rip what you have. Nobody thinks you are awesome for being decent at an ancient MMO, lol. If you are not world-first level good at this game? Nobody is impressed by you.
The way to play WoW is to set your own goals and impress YOURSELF and maybe a few guildies. Stop thinking virtual loot will buy you validation in this game. That stopped being a thing after Cataclysm. The rare camel mount was really the last time I can remember being impressed with any mount (that thing was hard to get). And gear? There is SO much gear and so many transmogs . . .I don’t even notice what some rando is wearing in-game.
If you want to impress people in game, help them out. I have been playing this game since BC dropped and I remember exactly ONE stranger’s appearance impressing me. But I have stories from every expac about players who were kind to me, who helped me out, who even carried me (a random dungeon group in Cata carried one of my alts after I apologized for sucking and got that toon better gear. Just out of kindness.)
You want to seem awesome to strangers? Be an awesome human being. Nobody is impressed by your gear.
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It’s not though. Yes players can buy a token to sell on the auction house for gold. That gold comes from other players, and not blizzard. What you do with the gold after that is on you. Pay to win is when you buy the guaranteed “item” directly from the company. No one is buying gear or achievements directly from Blizzard. And even when they do buy a boost it’s not always going to be a successful run. There’s far too much risk involved with asking other players to carry you. Which is perfectly alright and it is perfectly fine for those players to charge you gold to do so. Again there’s a certain level of risk of failure and with true pay to win there isn’t.
The token only came into play to keep players from buying gold through third parties who would then often hack other players to steal and sell their stuff. Plus they were raking in the money and as a capitalist company, they obviously wanted to make that money. Some players were always going to look for easy ways to get gold. Better Blizzard being the middleman than some 3rd party.
The only time a carry can maybe be considered pay to win is in PVP. Which again is not a guarantee making it now pay to win.
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so literally every game in existence. what a useful definition!
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Except those “best players” use their status and gear to gear up others but at the cost of gold.
So in theory its the players that made the game P2W. Not the game itself I guess.
So then the solution becomes constructing a new definition that halts the semantics.
Which among us is impossible due to having personal stakes in the game itself.
Except you can get 304 without paying also yes you are accelerating the chances of that happening but this could still potentially happen without real money involved (Of course not including sub fee…)
But ok lets say all bought carries are succesfully banned but I have friend carry me through mythic (Cause im not good enough or just don’t have the usual time to do this on my own.) I encounter a 180 player in wpvp is the game still p2w?
This hypothetical battle could go either way depending on the skill of the higher geared player yes it would be highly stacked against the lower geared higher skilled player.
the market while blizz now offers the ability to convert RM to gold… people did this before they offered such services. The game isn’t pay to win the community is.
I am not advocating for this game to be p2w or carries to be bought. but there will always be people in a game that will try to use their wallet to get ahead.