Is Wow going the Pay to Win Route?

Wow is a great game but there are other mmorpgs out there that are free to play. Some might have micro-transactions for cosmetic items or mounts or pets. But So does Wow. Stop and think of it! But we Wow players still get hit with a recurring Monthly Fee.
Does that make any sense to you?

Then some of these games are fully Pay to Win. Once you reach a certain level you cannot progress further until you start paying real world cash to obtain the things you need to level-up. Without spending an inordinate amount of time grinding.

But so does Wow. to an extent. Lets face it buying Wow Tokens for real world Cash does help a player progress. Right?

How about Character Boosts for $60.00 real world cash per boost per character. Which allows a player’s character to bypass 60 levels of gameplay and grinding.

You can buy Wow Tokens for real world cash. You can sell tokens for in-game gold. Buy carries with gold. Get end game gear without doing anything else by using cash purchases.

So is Wow going the Pay to Win Route? And if it is, shouldn’t it drop the recurring monthly fee?

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Plenty of folks like myself never buy any of those things, and enjoy playing without buying any of those optional shortcuts. It is currently a long way from being pay to win, since it’s optional to do those things. I hope it never changes, since I would rather play my way and not participate in buying shortcuts.

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Mute and move on people. Don’t give Trolly McTrollerson the attention he craves.

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Nope. We don’t have to buy anything to ‘win’. You can get your pvp achieves, raiding, and m+ achieves done without paying. You can get boosted if you want if you don’t have the time or skills to work at the achieves, but it’s not pay to win at all.

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I would say win what.

I have not won anything in this game since 2017.

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But you can’t buy skill. Having amazing gear means nothing if you’re a trash player. So, no, it isn’t pay to win.

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True that. Remember the guy who got the legendary bow from the Sunwell (and what a stink that caused!) who later sold his account? The difference in skill level between seller and buyer was night and day.

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Yes but you can also do all those things without spending a cent beyond your monthly sub.

IMO WoW is “soft” P2W.

The difference in my eyes is how required paying is. Take actual P2W games Lost Ark or Diablo Immortal, it’s so insanely difficult and grindy to get to BiS end game gear without paying money it basically doesn’t exist for 99.99% of the playerbase, ya gotta drop the cash. Whereas in WoW it’s very viable, and I’d argue more fun, to get the rewards just by playing the game.

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Gotta post in a Tigersan thread.

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As long as players throw money at the screen, a company will only fight so hard against accepting it.

I think that if they actually wanted a true pay-to-win game, they’d would be much more aggressive about it. But at the same time, if subscriptions are no longer the dominant source of income, people aren’t spending that money without expecting to get something for it.

(Then it’s just quibbling over the definition of “win”)

Yep it does

Not really pay to maybe gear faster

And?

what if winning WoW is just enjoying whatever you do in the game as entertainment ?

it’s in the name you know


Reported for trolling.

What are you talking about? Who has been p2w since the WoW token insertion (arguably since before with RMT, but it wasn’t as common)

A game with a sub fee should NOT have microtransactions by any means. WoW should be B2P by now since they are so adamant about the microtransactions and the p2w in the game. But unless we, the player base, hurt their wallets that’s never going to happen. Activision/Blizzard is just another greedy company. Blizzard used to be a synonym of quality, now it’s just synonym of drama and corruption (looking at you Bobby).

I guess the thinking is that


People have been buying carries, boosts, and “winning” since Vanilla. So Blizzard gives these people a legitimate method to do this within the game using game mechanics and a way to boost economies. The biggest winner are Blizzard and those top World First guilds that sell these services to earn the gold needed to buy resources for their world first races.

The individuals buying the boosts aren’t really winning. Those who play and earn their gear will out tank, DPS, and heal them in raw numbers. Those who play will have better ratings, more achievements, and more collectibles than those who boost. Boosting for a complete tier set or 1% drop mount is going to be very expensive. Very few will do that. Let alone do it season after season.

Though, I guess it depends on how you define winning in WOW. If getting KSM or AOTC is winning, then I guess they probably are.

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That’s because almost all free mmo’s are trash. You pay the monthly fee so that the game has better content and no real pay to win elements. Even gold only takes you so far.

Buying M+ runs only really gets you 1 piece, and buying a raid is honestly dumb. You’re literally killing the whole game only for yourself. Most mmo’s have a power level option you can buy.

Swtor, ffxiv, wow etc all have lvl boosts.

I dont mind the recurring monthly fee as long as the content keeps coming and is free and not a DLC pack I need to purchase.

You can get along just fine without a wow token though. Gold making is pretty easy these days. So is the majority of the content.

It takes maybe 10 hours of played time to reach level 60. If you don’t have that time and want to spend $60 - that’s on you, but then you get a free boost with the game anyway, and the hero classes skip quite a few levels.

Doubtful. I mean I guess it depends on what you mean by Pay to Win. If you mean will Blizzard let players buy carries and stuff with gold? They already do. If you mean will blizzard make it so you can’t progress past a certain point without a huge timesink or paying real cash for ingame items, highly doubt it.

I mean, a 60 boost, even a 70 boost isn’t “Pay to win” it’s more like “pay to start the journey”

“Winning” is more like killing mythic bosses, getting 2500+ in mythic plus, that kind of thing

All the stuff I flaunt is extremely rare, but also extremely old, and 100% earned.

The stuff people want, and the idea of gold-sink items are a a relatively new concept.

The ZG tiger, for example, goes for gold cap whenever it’s seen on BMAH. Today, I would consider it a gold sink item, like brutosaur or that spider mount.

I got my tiger back in like Wrath, just for farming ZG ever week, and it was a 1% drop so I enjoyed getting it naturally.

Same deal with my tabard, my brewfest ram.

Never bought any wow token or gold, and never, ever will.

It’s a practice I hate and will never support, and even if it takes over gaming, I’ll forever be the old grandpa fighting for things to be in the game as natural rewards for gameplay rather than side-additions that are unlocked when a card is swiped.

As soon as it’s purchasable, the coolness factor is instantly gone for me, because that’s how it’s obtained.

Even rare drop grinds are more respectable because the effort to obtain them is higher than store stuff.

All those things are optional , you dont need gold to progress, nor do you need a lvl 60 boost since you can lvl in like one day to 60
 carries you can do the content your self