No one is defending anything, there isn’t anything in wow that is p2w.
Pay to win is when there is gear or power ups that are only available by opening the wallet.
Gold can be earned in game. Levels can be gained in game. All of this can be done just by paying your monthly sub fee.
Everything else in the Blizzard store are cosmetic/vanity only items. None of which affect the players power in anyway.
Oh my goddess! Once I hit 120 I couldn’t do any content because everything was stuck behind microtransactions! Darn Blizzard for having transmogs and services behind transactions!
You might want to post this on an MMO forum that is actually p2w. But first I would recommend you learn what the term “Pay to Win” means in a video game.
None of this is pay-to-win. The whole concept of a “win” is also hard to define in such a game like this.
Buying BoE’s don’t magically help you kill the boss or give you a rank 1 parse.
Why does this matter? There is no competitive pet battling anyway.
thats why i posted the term earlier. what it means in a video game.
define advantage. everyone can potentially get a 425 item from any piece of content.
define what it means for someone to have a higher piece of gear (even if they bought it from an in-game store for example), does that make them a better player? No. If it did, then you and OP might just have a point.
Because Boe’s are not usually the best gear in the game
and you cant get a full set of BOE.
yes you can buy gold, then buy a boe…
but there is only like 1 or 2 boes for your class in each raid…
so if you think someone having full 360, except for a 425 bracer and boots… is “winning” then idk what to tell you man.
And nah, 2 small items does not “put you ahead of others”
They sell battle pets… yeah? There is hundreds if not thousands of pets… if you dont have a store pet, you can get a pet ingame.
also as someone who works for someone who makes a living off pet battles (youtuber) alot of the store pets/blizzcon pets are horrid.
you want me to define advantage? i thought it already had its definition. but if you are asking me to give an opinion, i wont do that. and what do you mean -better player-? just by this, you are saying -people who buy carries, is pay to win and only then would anyone have a point-. and thats not how pay to win works. pay to win is a business model. not player interaction. as far as buying gear out right as part of the business model, thats part of boosting. isnt it? i think arguing over semantics with severity, is just trying to label it something different than it really is, in the hopes that the p2w stigma isnt attached to wow as an mmo. while its perfectly fine to apply that stigma to -non wow killers-.
In my book pay to win would be like a trinket in the shop as follows.
Trinket of
Death to ALL
Increases Int\Str\Agi 32,000
Increases all other stats by 900%
Every 25 seconds emits an electrical charge for 1 million damage to all enemies within 30 yards.
Use (1 minute cool down). Instantly reduces any enemy target’s health to zero. Usable on ANY enemy target (yes, including other players, dungeon and raid bosses on any difficulty).
I don’t really follow what you’re trying to convey. I’m asking how you and others that share this opinion even reach this point where you consider buying BoEs as pay-to-win.
Please, someone, buy some BoEs and every other thing you think is p2w and go get a rank 1 parse, a world first M+ timed key, or become a rank 1 pvp player. I’m really curious to see this “advantage”
im just wondering, since it crossed my mind. would you consider people paying real money to transfer to the alliance for 400 ilvl gear that is only available to them, -pay to win-?
No, because you have emissaries that give you 400 ilvl gear now. Anybody willing to spend real money on a server transfer just to get mediocre gear that you can get from spamming M+10s is an idiot
I absolutely hate P2W and microtransactions in games. But I think you’re stretching too far on this one. BoE items have been in the game since pretty much forever (including like the original Tier 1 belts that were random BoE drops).
The gold/money ratio for Tokens are their own demon; I wasn’t happy to see Blizz getting into the gold selling business, but it also defeats some of the account hacking/theft that was going on with gold farmer bots. Low level PvP twinking is not enough of a consideration, imo, to justify the complaint.
And battle pets? Seriously? I’m more ticked off they screwed over collectors by abruptly changing the tokens in the first place to add more grinding.
thats kind of dodging the question. i understand that there is other ways to get gear but i am asking about aoo existence and having to pay for a transfer, if you are horde anyway. you dont consider that pay to win?
Again, I really have no idea what you’re trying to say.
If you define getting 400 ilvl gear as a “win”, then… sure?
im using the general definition that i copied earlier. paying to get something that others cant pay to get. and in this situation, horde cant get aoo at all. because blizzard didnt even create a version for them. the balance could be huge and there still wont be a aoo to pop. thats…pretty p2w.
If people wanted to buy gold they would do it anyway. The token provides a legitimate and safe way to do so. It also allows those with less income irl but more time to spend in game the ability to continue playing WoW and also purchase other blizzard games.
The token is less pay to win and more just protecting your consumers.
Another day, another person who doesn’t understand what “pay to win” actually means… Nothing new around here.
What is ‘winning’ in this game anyways?
I don’t defend P2W aspects, not at all. Pay to win is the gameshop offering items directly for sale that are anywhere from OP’d to nukes from orbit, and may be offered in game, but with a 300 week grind. The Blizzstore doesn’t sell gear (yet, with the way they have been going, I’d not be at all surprised if they did) so as such, it isn’t P2W in a traditional sense.
Gold has always been available for cash, from 3rd party sites. Some people have always bought gear. Those people were usually bad(They certainly weren’t winning. Now gold is available directly from Blizz. Officially sanctioned account safe gold. It wasn’t pay to win back then, and it isn’t now.
You can buy gold, get gear, and go PvP. You might whack some fresh 120’s, or what not in World PvP/BG’s. Meet anybody that knows what they are doing and you are going to get whacked/greasespotted. Same goes for PvE. You can buy the runs, but you didn’t earn it and it shows. Not winning. More like clowning. So it isn’t even close to P2W, more like Pay to Clown.
I can go and grind moosebungholes for 200 hours and sell them for gold, which I can convert into +9000 mythic runs. I can get Ilevel 5000000 gear, and have a raider IO of 999999. I still don’t have the skills for that run, nor do I have the skillz in PvP to be leet. Same critter, different method of obtaining it.
edit:The cash shop just offers a easier method for people to convert cash to gold, and bypass the moosebunghole grinding aspects of the game. When they offer the Stick of Noobwhacking, on hit effect of killing anything you hit instantly, that is P2W. Until then, no.
PS One Stick of Noobwhacking for sale, only $29.99 plus shipping and handling and tax. ![:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:")