And now you go juking the definition of free-to-play.
If I want to get ultra-literal WoW is free-to-play. Up to level 20.
It’s free to play, so therefore it’s a free-to-play.
This is the exact argument your side uses when they say buying gear isn’t “winning”.
Yes, the definition of pay-to-win is tailored for free-to-play games, because 99% of pay-to-wins are free-to-play. If you want me to go reasonable instead of ultra-literal, you have to do that too.
WoW is a subscription game that’s pay-to-win, which is unthinkable to most gamers.
Dude, I really couldnt give a crap less. You have your opinion, I have mine, you arent going to convince me to see it your way, just stop… Now you are simply being annoying.
I don’t have an opinion, I have a definition from a semi-valid source in wikipedia, which was the only place i could find an actual singular definition of the phrase which wasn’t someone’s personal opinion, if this conversation frustrates you, perhaps you shouldn’t have called half the people in the thread “fools” thus drawing their fire. as you have said “i couldn’t give a crap” about your “opinion” or anyone else’s, they’re a dime a dozen like drops of water in the ocean.
No, the only record of “winning” is not the achievement.
Check websites like Warcraftlogs and RaiderIO. You will see a very active and healthy competitive community around the game.
Search a fight and whisper some of the people in the top 100.
Ask them if they raid to get an achievement.
not really, as I said that’s wikipedia and the actual dictionary’s definitions respectively, personally i prefer the dictionary over the first one from wikipedia since it’s a fixed definitive source which can’t really be “Edited” by just anyone in the community, I did concede that you were at some level correct in your statement; not necessarily disagreeing.
And that isn’t happening now. People are paying for gold What they use it for is their business, or are you going to say what someone does with his gold is up to you to decide or criticize?
So anytime you get flasks, potions, food from the AH, you’re paying to win since you didn’t make the items yourself and they give you an advantage over those that don’t have them? And you could be spending gold you got from a token?
Of course not, because then their entire argument would fall apart. If you could by any slight advantage over anything, it would be their definition of p2w technically, but buffs and such they will not include because then they have nothing to argue their faulty defense
There is zero encouragement and enticement to purchase carries via WoW tokens. Mythic carries cost millions of gold, and buyers generally purchase multiple runs and are wealthy through game mechanics.
If I was a casual who only runs LFR once a week and does a handful of WQs. How does someone buying a Mythic carry with tokens impact my game play?
I’m a guy that runs heroic with my guild twice a week, and I’m unable to get AOTC until 3 months in. How did someone who bought a carry impact my gameplay?
Hell, give me some examples of people who have their gameplay impacted by someone potentially buying a Mythic carry.
What advantage is a person purchasing from Blizzard?
Also keep in mind this discussion is purely philosophy. There is no official definition of what P2W means. Saying it’s purchasing in game advantages is also opinion.
So the funny thing is, yes you absolutely can ‘pay to win’ if you so choose to. But you’d have to be an absolute whale, willing to spend thousands each expansion. Because yes you could get a top key complete every week with paying a group gold, or a heroic hell even Mythic raid run. But this would add up quite far.
So can it be pay to win if you can afford it? Sure. But this applies only to like 0.001% of the player base and its just whatever.
Now the other point you made of cosmetics and or mounts that are only obtainable by buying I agree is complete horse crap. BFA they removed armor identity and each raid has just cloth, leather, mail and plate. So not only did they become lazy as all hell and get rid of soooo many cosmetics through out the xpac these bastards decided to put in one of the coolest sets ever for pre-purchase of Shadowlands and guess what. You only get it if you pay an extra $20. How about this weapon enchant which by the way is one of the coolest things you can do to your weapon in all of WoW’s history? Yea… that one’s an extra $20.
Between the armor set/mount/weapon enchant you’re looking at an extra $40 mean while paying customers are stuck with the 4-5 uninspired as all hell ARMOR sets they’ve actually designed throughout BFA for your armor type.
You could always pay for leveling services and gold if you were willing to risk losing the account. More things are soulbound now meaning you can’t buy as much with gold anyways, so I’d argue that it’s not really pay-to-win. Also what even is “winning” in WoW? It’s an endless grind for completion.
That does not matter, “pay-to-win” is a made up term and has no official definition. Therefore, like it or not, it is open to interpretation.
Are you implying people selling runs are Blizzard employees who generated their own gear to sell tokens? That seems like a huge waste of time. I think you might be running out of tinfoil.
Listen, regardless of what you call it, it does not make a difference. Do you have any Idea how long it can take to get the gear you need in a raid. Someone buying a run for 100-200k might get 1-2 pieces, maybe more if lucky. It does not matter, it’s really inconsequential, that will barely give him an edge over players that are not even trying to compete. Not only that, but these gear will only be good for a few months anyway.
I guess you could also argue that people buying BOE on the AH are paying to win. They are buying upgrades with gold that can be bought with tokens that can be bought with cash.
Call it pay-to-win if you want, it does not change the fact that it’s ridiculous and not an issue at all.
It’s almost like you’re predictable and using circular reasoning because you don’t actually have a way to address the argument presented. No one is saying get rid of wow tokens or don’t let them buy potions food and flask with the gold, i think it was even suggested that carries only impact the community when the highest level of obtainable gear becomes up for sale in USD but you won’t address any of the arguments presented to you in this forum honestly or with integrity so you’ll keep parroting into that feedback loop you’ve created for yourself where everyone else is the dummy because they dare to disagree with your views of the current game environment created by being able to purchase the highest tier content indirectly for cash.
You don’t have any way to prove that they are purchased through gold generated by in game in come and as Anvil shock suggested that would be the key in removing this argument.
Secondly, if you read back, all my arguments have addressed the superiority of using a term in a way that describes things (for example, game environments) rather than adding arbitrary criteria to the definition (like, the money has to go directly to Blizz) so that the term becomes less descriptive and more a lawyerfest of technicalities about what “counts as” what.
If you have a superior definition I’ll adopt it.
And if you have any suggestions about what term you would rather use to describe being able to purchase in-game advantage for cash, I’m open to adopting your term instead.
But here’s what would happen if that term became widely used:
Let’s say we discard pay-to-win as a term to describe being able to purchase in-game advantage for cash and use pay-to-blup instead.
You win the argument and WoW is not pay-to-win; it’s pay-to-blup.
But as soon as the term pay-to-blup starts becoming used to describe the negative game environment purchasing advantage for cash creates, you will insist upon adding arbitrary criteria to the term pay-to-blup and that WoW doesn’t count as pay-to-blup because it does not meet those criteria.
So a lot of language’s ability to describe things has been lost just so you can win an argument.
I’m implying nothing. I’m saying that if your criterion is that the money has to go directly to Blizz to be pay-to-win, you would then have to prove Blizz is not behind the carries to state that WoW is not pay-to-win.
It creates the same environment (that death spiral of everyone putting in more and more cash just to stay equal) whether Blizz is behind the carries or not, so all I see is that adding that criterion to the definition does nothing but harm the descriptiveness of a term.
And as I said earlier, by that criterion, WoW and STO could just run each other’s cash shops and then neither would be pay-to-win, when STO has been held up as an example of something that is pay-to-win by your side. So it proves that criterion should not be in the definition.
Some carriers will pass loot to you and guarantee a set number of pieces much higher than two.
I know why people raid. While I don’t do it any more, I used to be in a pretty decent raid guild.
So, given that we don’t raid for achievements, it sounds like you wouldn’t have any issue with modifying the achievements, as I described previously, such that they can’t be attained while being carried.
I would legitimately pay for gear if I could. I have the money to spare, it’s a hobby of mine so I don’t feel pressured to buy to remain competitive. I just don’t have the time to devote to grinding with a fulltime job, fulltime student, raising my 18month old daughter, among balancing my social life… ultimately the stuff you can “pay” for in WoW provides zero competitive advantage to make it pay to win. You can’t win WoW anyway.
outside tournaments obviously