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Pay 2 win becoming legitimate? Have we really lost our way this much?
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Diablo has always had PvP through Battle.net since early Diablo I so yea...
Ah, ok, then I digress, for the PvP'ers out there, the pay to win auction house should be disabled or items purchased there for real cash should be exempt from the pvp matches.
No bitchers.
They are using a matching system like they use in Warcraft, and say its... Well in their words.
"Our system is focused on encouraging furious combat and multiplayer progression, not stringent competitive rankings, so you'll earn points after every match and Battle.net matchmaking will pit you against similarly skilled opponents."
http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/pvp.xml
They do say all the gear and ranks you've "unlocked" are available to you when entering one of these arenas. I don't think the hardcore pvp crowd i saw in DII will like this very much.
"I swear -- by my life and my love for it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
- John Galt
The "Hardcore" PvP crowd is a joke in the Diablo games. When the devs of a game say "Yeah, so?" to people calling a skill overpowered in PvP..."hardcore" PvP isn't really a thing that can exist in the Diablo universe.
"The people who base their characters around the most overpowered PvP skills" on the other hand, will likely be a bit unhappy with the RMAH. But they will still just right click, then left click 80 times to win duels...no biggy.
No i didnt miss the subtext, I said you are muddying the waters further because you are going offtopic. Thats why I didnt tackle that beyond saying it was cheating pure & simple and its why I ignored your example.
Cheating & exploiting (including those sad sacks who pay a monthly fee for cheat access) are a seperate issue to ingame built in pay 2 win issues. Any game where cheating/exploiting is not addressed should earn all gamers ire on those issues alone and again has nothing to do with microtransactions & pay to win issues.
Cheating is cheating.
Pay 2 win is Pay 2 win.
Lets keep them seperate because they are different issues and should be treated as such. Its not like people who arent paying for items wouldnt be using exploits also, of course they do !
Long story short Cheating/Exploiting is its own problem and since anyone can cheat or exploit it makes it unrelated to Pay 2 Win, lets move on and get back to the point of this thread.
Again you are confusing skipping grind with gaining an unfair advantage, as I said in my very first post a big problem is this confusion about what is and is not pay 2 win is why the anti pay 2 win community is losing the battle. Any reasonable person can see the clear difference.
Put it this way Pay 2 Win is mostly a problem in PvP right ? and any game worth its saly makes sure PvP is level controlled to some point. Which means people who cash their way to level cap still have to fight people who are at the level cap through normal grind right ? so how is that exactly pay 2 win ? its pay 2 skip to endgame if anything. Again Pay 2 win is more like if you and I are both level 40 paladins and in a PvP match. You are using the best longsword you can get as loot from grinding 100 hours in a dungeon. But me I am using the cash shop longsword which is 3 times more powerfull than what you can ever obtain unless you pay real money for it. That is pay 2 win and the issues you seem to take up over people who level faster (exploiters you should take up with the games developers) simply pale in comparrison.... If you cannot see this then your problem is not pay to win, your problem is you feel slighted or feel it is unfair that people played less time but spent money on the game so they could reach the same or higher levels than you.
But guess what ? if people like that didn't pay so they could play more casually then people like you and I would not get to play these games for free.
I love how the conversation shifted to a debate over whether the Diablo 3 system can be labelled "Pay 2 Win."
Let me close the debate. It can, because I already did it. If you want to use a different definition for "Pay 2 Win," feel free. It doesn't matter at all to the discussion about the concepts involved.
It's the silly definition of "Pay to Skip Grind," however, that is making me post again.
Some people play MMO games because they like the gameplay. They like adventure, they like open worlds with lots of chances of meeting other players in interesting scenarios, they like worlds of magic and mystery, they like melee combat mixed in with their ranged tactics, and they like interesting stories. These are the people that initially promoted the development of early MMOs like Gemstone, Ultima Online, EverQuest, and eventually World of Warcraft. There may not be any "grind" in the game for these people - they may, in fact, be satisfied with both the game experience and the end result of their playtime.
This means that "Paying to Skip Grind" does not mean that to these people. It means "We, the developers, have decided that you like doing such lame and boring things that we will offer a chance for other players to bypass doing things that lame as long as they give us a little money." Or, it means "We, the developers, are so clueless about what we should develop as content that we incorporated extremely lame and repetitive gameplay requirements that no one likes at all. Give us some more money and we'll continue to offer you repetitive gameplay that you don't like, but we'll allow you to bypass playing it."
In other words, it's either insulting or insane to a particular playstyle. You know, that playstyle that prompted MMO development in the first place. The really sad part is that even those of us that never "grind" actually understand and even sympathize a little with the pitiful players that would pay to avoid playing a game.
I am really getting sick and tired of people whining about Blizzard's choice of using a RMT AH with Diablo. What it says to me is that they are not informed nor unbiased enough to tell the difference between what Blizzard is doing, and the traditional free to play business model used by both mass produced asian mmorpgs and casual cell phone games.
THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
In diablo, which is MAINLY a single player game with an online side to it, every player has the same damn opportunities and chances. If someone chooses to purchase an item someone found for real money, it is no different than asking a friend to trade you an epic piece of gear they dont want. Find it, trade for it, buy it, whatever, everyone has the same opportunity to buy and to sell, to find and trade.
This same model has been used for many succesfful collectable card games including Magic the Gathering. You can go out and purchase seperate cards for your deck, or just keep trying to find them in booster packs. At the end of the day, diablo 3 is a collectable item game, it is gear based and full of random drops. It is part of the appeal.
These are not compariable to f2p mmorpgs. Let us stop with the nonesense.
Yeah...good luck with that. Stopping the nonsense I mean.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Holy denial Batman!
The DENIAL is reaching dangerous levels!! What will we do!?
You failed to close the debate. Not only that, you are calling people that don't like to grind through content pitiful. Well, I think people that use words like adventure, magic and mystery to define their grind and therefor love it are pitiful.
If you are willing to relegate Diablo 3 (and perhaps the multiplayer game industry) to collectible card game status, you've already lost me and probably most of the people arguing in this thread.
If Magic the Gathering was a really interesting card game with a deck of fixed layout, and someone came along and decided to offer "booster packs" for purchase with real money, I could see having this same conversation on the MtG website.
I think people that use the word pitiful are pitiful.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
*sigh* I will just give you an example. My 3 friends and I started playing a neat F2P game when it first came out we all work and have families so we arranged to jump on 3 nights a week together to keep our level ranges close. After a month in (still fairly early levels) I had to go overseas for work and the country they sent me to was in a different timezone so I didnt play for a month. When I came back I was significantly behind my friends to the point I was a liability to the group.
So I purchased a double XP potion & luckily they had a double XP weekend that I spend smashig my way back up to the same level as my friends. I didn't skip grind unless you mean I skipped finding the best risk vs reward XP mobs and grinding them for XP but instead did most of the quest lines and areas my freinds had done although I did bypass the group instances. Within a week I was caught back up to them.
3 months into the game one of my friends convinced his girlfriend & another friend to start playing, they used XP potions to catch up to our group also.
This is really what a lot of these items are for, for the casual player or someone like me who wanted to catch up to their friends and so the game can make some money.
Some people still call these types of purchases pay 2 win when it is clearly not.
Denial at what? You might need to make a valid counter argument otherwise you are not making any sense what so ever.
"play 2 win" connotes a pre set bias. There are many factors that can prove this bias silly. If the choice to allow a RTM AH, then the design choice is playercentric. Do you know what this means?
Denial is taking place when those who are biased and clearly have no knowledge of the diablo franchise, its design choices and gameplay approach, as well as its history and previous stories involving the selling of item for real money. Blizzard knows whats going to happen, they are created the most player centric environment for that aspect of Diablo, rather than let the problems repeat themselves as they did during Diablo 2's time.
No not the rest of the multiplayer game industry. Did you even read my post? Comprehend it? Its in big bold letters...Diablo and its design are not the same. You cannot logically lump diablo's online play and single player play with the rest of the "f2p mmo's".
Have you even played Diablo 2? do you know what the game is about? The character is exactly like a deck of cards and you try your hand at getting better loot. Its a loot centric game based around chance. You can play a diablo game for hundreds of hours and not see the drop you want. The same goes for finding a rare card in MTG.
Its a single player game with a multiplayer option. Items are traded, sold, given regularly. A player starts off with their stock gear (just like a starter deck) and from that point on everyone has the same options as the next person to get what they want. Its not unfair. If you play diablo 3 with an online account and lets say you got very lucky, a very very very very rare item drops. Supply and demand dictates that it has a high value and is highly sought after. Lets say you really dont want to use it though, so Blizzard gives you the same option collectable card game buyers and player had, the chance to sell it to someone who wants it for their character. You gain, blizzard gains, buyer gains. You can be either the buyer or the seller, or you dont even have to buy or sell. You have the same damn chances of finding th gear just by playing the game. Its a farming game, loot based, collectable by nature.
Whether you like trading items or not, its going to happen as it did in Diablo 2. Blizzard's playercentric approach keeps it safe and for the record it is NOT pay to win. The best players will have the best gear, you have the same opportunities to get the best gear just as everyone else, money or no money.
Thats the difference.
1) I realize that the Diablo franchise has been mostly focused on single-player PvE in the past. The thing is, is that is THE PAST. Games that are purely single-player are off many avid gamer's radar, including mine. This is a multiplayer gaming website. When we talk about Diablo 3, we are talking about the multiplayer aspect of it, and no, we don't necessarily equate it to a F2P MMO. Diablo is very different than an MMO, it's why I don't like calling Dungeons & Dragons Online an MMO, because it closely resembles a Diablo clone.
2) I did not play Diablo as a loot-centric game, and I played it through every difficulty and then online both solo and in groups. I specifically spent a lot of time playing in Hardcore mode, but I don't think I ever got anyone past level 24 or so without dying. You are making an assumption that the most widespread playstyle by far is the one with which you are knowledgeable and familiar. This thread was started by and has participants that are members of alternative playstyles. I never even considered buying gear or even trying to grind it in Diablo 1 or 2. It only took me a month or so to win the game on every difficulty, so what would the gear be for? PvP? If so, anyone see a problem with RMT there?
3) I think most of us understand that RMT exists in every game whether it is developer-supported or not. However, developer support is the biggie. It turns a playstyle that was 50% prevalent into one that is 95% prevalent, and that makes all the difference in the world to me. As soon as I only have a 1 in 20 chance of playing with someone that uses tactics and teamwork to overcome obstacles instead of grinding, glitches, and gear, I'm done with the game, at least in multiplayer mode.
I will probably buy and play Diablo 3 as a single player game, simply because I'd be interested in the story (and I was a huge fan of the storylines presented in 1 and 2). It's probably the only single player game I'd consider. It's a shame, however, that I'll most likely ignore the online aspect entirely. It's also a shame that the entire massively multiplayer online industry is becoming so fixated on economics, money grabbing, and everything else that has little to do with gaming.
If the thread had a few pages to it, maybe. Only seven people responded so it's hard to really give it much weight, no?
"Pay to win" is a negative term created by players who do not like F2P. To make it in any way valid, those who want to use the term have painted it with the broadest strokes possible in order to have even a shred of truth to it.
The fact is, by the defintion needed in order for it to even remotely apply to any significant number of F2P games, it would also paint the same negative light on almost any given real life competition or sport in existence today. The real kicker is that the definition, as relayed by numerous people here, is based on competition and spending in a business model when the majority of players are neither competiing nor spending.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I never said it did, do you guys that love this idea just automatically add this reasoning to anyone that says anything different than your line of thought? I am asking because this is not the first time I have been accused of saying this and I have never said it. Now here is what I said, I know it is hard because it is basic math but I am sure we can work through this.
OK here is the math:
I said I farmed the item for 6 hours a day 7 days a week, so that would be 42 hours put into getting that item with a .0001% drop chance.
Then I said the farmer farmed the item for 16 hours a day 7 days a week, so it would be 112 hours put into getting that item with a .0001% drop chance.
Now using basic math which person has more of a chance to get the item with the amount of time they are putting in: A. Me or B. The farmer?
If you said me you were wrong and need to go study basic probability again.
Nowhere in there did I say the drop chance increased for the farmer, I just said that the farmer has better odds because they put in more time. That is a huge difference that apparently 90% of the people on this board cannot understand!
Anyway I think we should let this discussion die, neither side is going to see each other’s point of view. Let’s just agree to disagree and let it end!
Thus allowing the Pay 2 Win Advocates and pedlars to win.
When the $ collapses this won't be an issue anymore.
(lol)
[quote]
Originally posted by TheCrow2k
I have nothing against cash shops offering experience multipliers (provided they're sane of course... stacking 2x and 12x and potentially others in addition is hard to justify as "sane"). I believe I said about as much.
I have a problem with emphasizing them as must-have items by the game publisher, and making big deals (repeatedly) about how well they stack. I have a problem with being able to be running at > 10x experience on a constant basis. I have a problem with making these items dirt cheap. I have a problem with putting them on discount while simultaneously telling people not to exploit a well-known glitch (which has remained unpatched for quite some time, allowing conspiracy theorists to believe that the publisher WANTS people to level to end-game to milk them of all their money as quickly as possible so they can move onto the next sucker). I have a problem with a game giving out easily obtainable non-tradeable high-multiple experience boosts for free.
All this, in combination with people cheating (which I won't address again any more directly than I have in the previous paragraph), sticking other major-pwnage items in the cash shop, and making nearly unobtainable uber-gear easily cash shoppable, fits any reasonable definition of Play2Win that I can think of.
Note that this affects both PvE and PvP for reasons I stated earlier (such as not being able to find clueful squadmates who aren't trying to profit off the P2W'ers in PvE while PvP becomes a 1-shot fest).
I can't see Diablo's RMAH even approaching P2W in "F2P" games. Especially considering that they're supposedly going to be ranking people to pit equal skill/gear against each other, so you won't have Mr. UberGearedPwnage going against Mr. IFarmedItMyselfEvenThoughItSucksABit unless the latter has skill that negates the undergearedness. And I'm all for that, as if undergeared people start regularly beating those who rely on the RMAH, it will make people think twice about buying all their gear and using the RMAH solely to get things that they just aren't able to obtain on their own. In other words, it will work like a normal AH is supposed to, just without the shady aspect of people going outside the system to augment their in-game currency to make up for what they can't quite afford.
In the end, the RMAH may prove to be quite beneficial to overall gameplay, if it plays out as I just described. It will help eliminate the shady backroom style gold seller sites, while still allowing the Average Joe who would occasionally use them (such as being a "3 day per week player", like in your example, and thus can't necessarily keep all his gear at the level he'd like) to safely do what they'd normally do (spend the occasional $5-10 to get something nice). Keeping it all within a safe and controlled environment can potentially help both Blizzard and the players, while setting a positive example for the rest of the industry and improving the industry's image.
There are so many unanswered questions surrounding the Diablo 3 RMT Auction House.
What countries will not immediately be able to take part in the AH? If players from the big gold farming countries aren't allowed to trade legitimately, for example, how will they react? Will they ignore D3 in favor of other games, or will they immediately try to set up a competing black market?
Will this game draw people who enjoy playing the AH in other games because it has an extra facet to it?
Will Blizzard make it too expensive to withdraw enough money to make it worthwhile, after fees, so that everyone will view it like players in EVE view PLEX, as a way to fund main and multiple alt accounts?
Will the extra money generated from the AH go straight to Blizzard's bottom line, or will Blizzard use it to stop illicit RMT, hacking, and account theft?
But for me the most important question is, will this reduce the value of ingame goods through competition so much that the people who make their living farming gold and power leveling players don't even bother with D3?
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I agree OP. here is the funny part. people that want offline mode, wont get it as long as the AH house is part of the game. and just becuase you or a farmer put up a very rare sword to make money off of it, still means pay to win. somone will buy it and many players who have not had it drop (if ever) will be at a disadvatage becuase some guy bought it.
Some poeple live in a little sugar coated world where the game they love can have things that actually ruin the game and as long as they can play they don't care. So D3 is doomed?. maybe if people allow an AH ruin offline mode and allow pay to win rule the game, yes.
If players allow it even one bit, it will be a huge sign to the industry who loves to mimick blizzard will start with pay to win in the form of RMAH in their games. it a downward spire that players can put a stop to if they stop living in candy land for a minute and see the big picture.
Of course we will not see it end.
Corporates run our lives. They run our media, our governments, and even our games. They don't care about, you, or what you want. They don't care about anything other then getting as much cash bled from you as they possibly can in every corner of your life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHd_jXtp4Rs&feature=related
In this area, if sadly in no other, we have a lot of power. It's true that when it comes to essentials like food, healthcare, housing, and energy, we have no power and the corporations rule, and they will do so until and unless we get off our butts and put an end to it.
But when it comes to discretionary spending, such as on games and movies, we have the power, because we can always find another game, or another movie, or turn our noses up at games and movies and go roller skating instead. We don't need to play MMOs at all. And they know it.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Seems to me that the farmer is putting in the time to get the item. I mean if it takes so much time to get an item I myself will probably in the end buy it. I don't PvP though so I might not really end up buying an item if I can make do with something else I am the class of persons that are satisfied with "can also " item and have never been drawn to the uber items. Jeez I was 64 in WoW and never even had a flying mount.
I used to be okay with farming when I played Everquest but now as I have grown older I cannot afford to invest the time any more but actually buying it might be a step I might not take and whether I feel it is fundamentally wrong is getting blurry.