So? If you want to get ultra literal, paying players have the advantage, and that’s what your side (but not necessarily you) has been doing since post 1.
I don’t think letting you try WoW up to level 20 for free meets the criteria of pay-to-win at all. But it does technically meet the definition.
I think buying gear for cash absolutely meets the definition, but that requires a basic understanding that “paying player” means someone who paid with cash for that advantage and “those who did not” means someone who didn’t do that.
In general a game is considered pay-to-win when a player can gain any gameplay advantage over his non-paying peers, which is shown in games such as FIFA. Such games are called “pay-to-win” by critics.
WoW easily meets that definition whether you want to get super-literal or not.
No, it snot an actual definition. Searched it and couldnt find YOUR definition anywhere. But, here is the urban dictionary definition, which, is written by another person, so, its still just an opinion:
" Games that let you buy better [gear] 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."
also from urban dictionary P2W: " Short for [pay to win], in the sense that in order to ‘win’ a free to play game, such as [Maplestory], you need to pay for various advantages to ‘win’." note here it also says “free to play game” something WoW is not. even the definition you quoted has: “Dude, you’ve spent like 400 bucks on this game so you can beat everyone who hasn’t spent [any money]. [Pay-to-win] noob!” as the example given under the definition. I don’t usually use wikipedia as a valid source, but in this case at least it’s the only info site i could find with a solid singular definition for the term.
You are splitting hairs to try and make your argument look better, when, it doesn’t do anything of the sort. Anyone foolish enough to believe that simply because a game has a subscription fee it CANT be pay to win, is just that, a fool.
Wow isnt pay to win. Pay to win is basically every mobile game, especially gachas, where you literally spend money to buy items, characters, or abilities to to rise in an arbitrary leaderboard.
The fact that you can trade in game currency to buy keys or carries is NOT pay to win just because blizzard lets you buy gold for money. Firstly, you will never be stronger than the people selling you the carries by only buying carries, and second things like full mythic raid carries would cost you HUNDREDS of dollars at wow token prices. Third, its completely optional to succeed in wow, unlike the aforementioned mobile games.
also from urban dictionary: [pay-2-win]: “Games where someone who pays with real money has such a huge [advantage], that its literally [impossible] for a free2player to [keep up].”
how am i splitting hairs? i’m literally using the same source you are, gasp surely you’re not saying your source is invalid are you? also calling someone a “fool” verbatim does not make your point any more valid, simply shows that you have nothing to debate further and have to rely on verbatim attacks on another’s character or intelligence. also allow me to define “fool” for you, fool: “a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person.”. i have not acted unwisely, all of my points have been entirely rational and reasonable, therefore i am not a fool.
Didn’t say it made my point more valid. I am saying that NO source is valid. Someone could say something is p2w another can disagree. You clearly feel that because the game has a sub fee, even though it allows the purchase and liquidation of tokens directly into gold, the ingame currency, in which you CAN purchase higher item level gear with doing absolutely NO work for it, does not make the game pay to win. That is your opinion. You can try to back it up with whatever urban dictionary, or otherwise written statement you’d like. Doesn’t make it valid, but I think you will likely find that a majority of folks, especially those whom have come from the beginning of the game, when there wasn’t an option to do any of these that didnt risk an outright permanent ban, will disagree with you. Anyhow, things to do mobs to kill, have a lovely day.
Because the only record of “winning” is the achievement, and by your words:
So, I’m saying they could restructure the achievement requirements to make it so you can’t get them by being carried. I don’t really care one way or the other, but it seems like the game literally is “pay to win” if you can pay a high end guild to carry you and get the achievement. From anyone else’s perspective you’ve done it. You have the achievement. You have the title. Even though you perhaps don’t actually play at a level where that would have been possible without paying someone to do it for you.
Was the game P2W before tokens since you could buy gold from gold sellers?
Also, our opinions are going to differ on what an in game advantage is.
I’ve played a lot of P2W F2P games, and when I think of an in game advantage purchased with cash, we’re talking things that cannot be obtained anywhere else except through the cash shop. An example would be buying an item for a gear slot that increases your character power, but the cash shop is the only place to get these items (this is very common for predatory F2P games in the East.)
Someone buying a Mythic run doesn’t impact my game play and has no advantage over me.
Will fight definition cheese with definition cheese if I have to.
I would rather just have an honest discussion, though.
Yes but, you see, the people buying gear in those predatory F2Ps don’t impact my gameplay at all, so they must not impact anyone else’s, therefore those games aren’t pay-to-win either.
the definition given is buying an advantage over free players with real money, this is the accepted concrete definition from a vast majority of non forum sites, including wikipedia and urban dictionary (though urban dictionary clearly is not a good source). the players don’t buy gear directly with real world cash and do not gain an advantage over anyone by doing so, as given WoW’s pay-to-play model any paying customer can do the same or run content, even people who do not pay can rake in gold at a sufficient rate to buy good gear at an affordable price.
These games tend to have an emphasis on PvP, and the users tend to have an expectation of people purchasing these items from the cash shop if you want to do high-end group content.
You have a narrow perspective because you’ve never played a true P2W game.
Buying gold from gold sellers was a bannable offense in wow players who broke that rule of spending cash on gold were removed from the equation. Now it’s reversed players are encouraged and enticed to spend cash on legitimate gold for the carry.
the thing is, the definition for “free-to-play” doesn’t just say that any game with general content available as “free” fits the definition, it has to have a “considerable” amount of it free with paid content coming in the form of microtransaction to quote wikipedia: “Free-to-play ( F2P or FtP) are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying. Free-to-play can be contrasted with [pay to play], in which payment is required before using a service for the first time.”
now i was surprised to find that this gaming term actually had an actual definition in the dictionary whereas pay to win did not though the dictionary entry is far more broad: “relating to or denoting an arrangement in which basic access to a game is granted without charge while more advanced features must be paid for.” by the actual dictionary i suppose what you’ve said can to a degree be considered as factual WoW does technically limbo the line between true “pay-to-play” and “free-to-play”. i can also agree to a decent civilized debate, as that would be most fitting and agreeable.
as opposed to believing nothing? there are a hundred “opinions” of what pay-to-win means, i simply used the only semi-reliable source with a singular definition that did not come from a forumite’s editing.