you know, ive heard so many opinions on this from various streamers, other players, news aggregates, etc that i’ve not taken the time to form my own opinion on the matter. but thats really the issue, right? opinions?
if i had to put pen to paper and make a decision, id argue that the ability to buy in-game currency that is freely tradable between the players, directly from the company providing the game itself, is indeed p2w. but its tough to quantify that when there is a subscription fee, because we are all paying to win, no?
i’ve bought a few tokens over the years, and it certainly didnt get me ahead of another player, but that’s largely based on how i used the gold. i bought mounts and cosmetics from the AH, profession mats to level up, things like that. so that wouldn’t be p2w.
i guess it really depends on the context in which the gold is used. is it used to buy a carry through a mythic raid for the gear? that could be p2w. boosting in arenas? that could be p2w too, but in both scenarios, YOU arent doing the winning, someone else is doing it for you.
now, to play devil’s advocate, if the token keeps players from going to a third party service with RMTs for carries or gold, that benefits both parties. the player’s account is safer for it, and blizzard gets to control the product and make a profit.
it’s such a tough subject that i dont think we can ever reach an agreement as a community one way or the other.
Doesnt matter if they have the skills or not. You cannot see those when you inspect them. What matters is they have better gears than you and therefore they win vs everyone with lower ilvl gears than them
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do you mean in pvp? youre from illidan, so i think we both know that a 20 ilvl difference in gear doesn’t equate to skill, especially if youre playing against a hard counter to your class.
I see. So race to world first players arent high end players at all. Since they care about gears so much that they spend millions of gold to buy split runs from different guilds.
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Oh, it most certainly does. 
We can, though.
Very infrequently, although I guess it depends.
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A mouse caught in the maze and not even knowing there was one.
Cutting edge players spend gold on gearing because the slightest advantage gives an edge up over their opponents. They need the gear because they’re skilled and so are their opponents.
Garden variety boosters buy their gear because they won’t be getting it otherwise.
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i argue this is a win for the “tokens are p2w” crowd, because when you look at the amount of gear these guys have, normal funding just aint cuttin it, right?
am i overlooking something for this particular scenario? i feel like im overlooking something.
right now at this very moment i can give money and get anything i want in this game
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I think you’ll find that most CE players don’t buy gear.
The RWF people do, but they’re an extreme (and, frankly, pretty wacko) case.
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Ahh yeah good call out, I’m not involved enough in that scene to know to use the right terms. By “cutting edge” I indeed meant RWF.
Only if you quote the entire post above you.
I’m not sure what the confusion is about. You pay money for gold, and then use the gold to pay for endgame gear by run throughs. P2W. P2W games always try to hide the money trail to make it appear less P2W, but it’s meaningless.
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How did you “win” by paying the people who beat you to do something that many others have already done?
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It’s because the definition changes depending on who you ask.
To me, personally, my own opinion here, yes, WoW is 100% pay to win. Why? Well, you can bypass playing the game itself with gold.
You can buy carries, PvP or PvE, at the highest possible level, for real life money turned into gold through WoW token.
To me, if the game has any way to obtain gear, cosmetics, or power, through money rather than gameplay, or as an option to bypass the gameplay, then yes.
It’s quite simple.
You “won” by obtaining X, only with the help of real life money or gold.
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If you put the words “Reddit” and “think” together you have the makings of an oxymoron.
This is true for any sufficiently populous online gathering space. WoW GD isn’t exactly amazing in that regard either.
P2W is a concept where you pay money to gain advantage in any shared online experience. Trying to get around this by suggesting P2W can only occur in direct 1v1 competitions is nonsense.
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You can download a saved game file from somebody else and “win” any game without playing it, if you look at it that way.
You’d have to be pretty pathetic to do so, though.
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If only the whales common to many MMOs and pseudo-MMOs realized this.