World of Warcraft: Current Year

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
You can pay to win if you want. And you always have been able to, like xzi said. That doesn't make these communities "pay to win" communities.

Shit a lot of items in Everquest were tradeable and could be sold on eBay. Guess EQ was pay to win too.
 

a_skeleton_05

<Banned>
13,843
34,510
Blizzard introducing the token:$ conversion was the "button to buy power" in a different form. And shit not dropping for you when you pay them to run you through doesn't mean you can't just try try again.

It's this sort of weak reasoning that makes the mobile gaming industry so profitable.
 
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Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
When I think of p2w I think of cash shops selling stuff that increase power or are mandatory to success for real money, or even worse, boosts and other things that affect gameplay that you can only get from said cash shop. That's the kind of thing that ruins game economies and sucks all of the distinction in effort and skill out of a game.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,311
13,959
Blizzard introducing the token:$ conversion was the "button to buy power" in a different form. And shit not dropping for you when you pay them to run you through doesn't mean you can't just try try again.

It's this sort of weak reasoning that makes the mobile gaming industry so profitable.

People are going to do this whether there is a WoW token or not.
 

a_skeleton_05

<Banned>
13,843
34,510
People are going to do this whether there is a WoW token or not.

Correct, but surely you see that there being an official function to allow this to exist is the crucial difference, no? No game company can ever change there being 3rd party currency/cash interactions without severe game limitations on trading. When Blizzard put the conversion in: They changed the actual game to officially permit this, whether that was their intent or not.

I didn't play Everquest, but I'm going to assume that SOE didn't have systems in place to list your items on Ebay, or convert your paypal balance into platinum or w/e the game currency was.

Maybe I'm using some pretty strict logic to differentiate between pre tokens and post tokens to say post tokens if P2W whereas pre-tokens weren't, and using Blizzard's part in it as the qualifier, but I tend to put far more weight onto official features than I do emergent social ones when considering what a game actually is.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
The inclusion of the WoW token is something I think that has been very positively received by most players, myself included. So while it adds the possibility that players can use real money to buy a token, sell the token on the AH, and then use the proceeds to buy in game services it also allows players to use in game currency to buy real world merchandise.

So really, in any sense of it, I don't qualify it as a pay to win mechanism because while that CAN be a side effect, it isn't its sole purpose or intent. Whereas a cash shop would be. And even using it to try to pay to win really only ends up in you gambling to win.
 
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Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,311
13,959
Yea, you can do that no matter what. You can do that with in game gold you earned playing the game without ever buying a WoW token. You can do that by being friends with and buying beer for people in a raiding guild.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
And titles and achievements... is that really pay to "win"? It may cheapen the title a bit but WoW has long since lost that kind of illustrious conqueror aspect of itself. I guess that's really why none of this bothers me in the least. That title doesn't really mean anything and all the gear you could buy if you felt like spending hundreds of dollars (these Mythic boost, achievement and especially mount runs are not cheap) is just going to get reset in 4 months anyway. And your fellow players are benefitting from it as well, in the form of in game currency, so it's not like the money just goes to Big Blizz and they give you your new shiny instantly.

EDIT: Christ I just looked at the prices for these boosts.

1.8M for a full HEROIC Nyalotha clear with personal loot
2.2M if you want to be able to /roll on tradeable gear

Gotta pay an extra 400k if you want them to trade you any gear

For Heroic! You can get the same ilvl in M+! Actually can't you get like 5 ilvls higher in M+ now?

WoW tokens are like 147k on the AH atm. Goddamn. I don't think most people would bother spending that much money on WoW tokens for that. I think that is distinctly more for people who just have a glut of gold from the WoD and Legion gold faucets or who play the AH.
 
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Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
Once they introduce a new Medallion of the Legion you can!
 
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Merrith

Golden Baronet of the Realm
18,379
7,093
The only reason any "pay to win" holds any water right now is because of the way corruption gear works. Normal BoE's weren't such ridiculous boosts in power to actual BiS (at least until whatever corruption effect gets/got nerfed) prior to this patch. They were helpful, obviously, but nothing like getting that Infinite Stars or whatever other OP corruption effects were at the time that Limit and Method were buying them up.
 

BoozeCube

The Wokest
<Prior Amod>
51,085
299,137
Well speaking of guilds having to fund $30k... It looks like Blizzard decided to help them recoup those dollars in record time. So given the fact that people will literally pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars for these mounts. I'd say they will be just fine.

Dungeons and Raids
  • Battle of Dazar’alor
    • Lady Jaina Proudmoore now drops 2 Glacial Tidestorm mounts (was 1) when defeated on Mythic difficulty.
  • Ny’alotha, the Waking City
    • N’Zoth the Corruptor now drops 2 Ny'alotha Allseer mounts (was 1) when defeated on Mythic difficulty.
      • With these mounts becoming quite rare once Shadowlands comes out, taking 20 weeks or more for a full Mythic raid group to get the mounts felt excessive.
 
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xzi

Mouthbreather
7,526
6,763
Nope, no mount from Azshara. I guess there wasn't a mount from Tomb either

that is a really good change though honestly, 20-25 weeks to get your raiders their mounts for something they're all participating is a serious pain in the ass
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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13,959
Especially since they removed the skips that made it much less painful in WoD/Legion. Another shitty change that doesn't make any sense.