All in game items are now available for purchase with real life money and it's legal.
Game over.
No, not to that extent.
Fine, any in game item available for gold purchase, is now available by spending real money.
That's precisely the keyword. There would be a problem if you could buy awesome items just with gold, but it's not the case, you'll buy the awesomeness with karma.
It's exactly the same for non MT MMOs, like WoW : if WoW offered the best stuff only for gold, it would be full power to the heavy farmers (instead of rich people for MT). It would be the same issue, but we've seen how it's not, as devs are conscious about that.
The problem doesn't reside in how you can buy things, but what you can buy with which currency.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
"Here’s our philosophy on microtransactions: We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who don’t."
what exactly is a time saving convenience item??? i can't say i've been looking foward to this game because to be honest there was way too much hype following it and high expectations can kill a game.
"Heres our philosophy on microtransactions: We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But its never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and its never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who dont."
what exactly is a time saving convenience item??? i can't say i've been looking foward to this game because to be honest there was way too much hype following it and high expectations can kill a game.
They make you a road with holes in it and then sell you the gravel so you can have a smooth ride. That's a time saving convenience, its because they design the game like that. They are not charging a sub so they need to make money I prefer P2P rather than the alternatives.
"Here’s our philosophy on microtransactions: We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who don’t."
what exactly is a time saving convenience item??? i can't say i've been looking foward to this game because to be honest there was way too much hype following it and high expectations can kill a game.
They make you a road with holes in it and then sell you the gravel so you can have a smooth ride. That's a time saving convenience, its because they design the game like that. They are not charging a sub so they need to make money I prefer P2P rather than the alternatives.
Approximately 90 minutes or so per level is a hole that requires gravel? If anyone thinks that is a huge struggle and time sync you are welcome as far as I am concerned to buy all the gravel you want. It's your wallet.
I also like the way he qualified by saying they won't offer "UNFAIR" advantages.
So they are going to sell advantages...but they will be ones that ArenaNet feels are fair. Interesting.
What exactly is a FAIR advantage in a game like this? Anything that's non-permanent? Even if it's an advantage for hundreds of hours of game play?
You're pretty close to the core of the matter. The only "advantage" you can buy in this system is time. More precisely, you can shorten the time required to reach several caps (e.g. level/gear/influence).
Whether this is a competitive (fair/unfair) advantage over other players is the big question. Levels and gear are both normalized, and non-discriminating by design, whereas inlfuence is actually capped by the rate you can spend it.
So you can spend money to reach the cap faster, and then you can enjoy sitting on it while people who don't spent money inevitably catch up to you.
I also like the way he qualified by saying they won't offer "UNFAIR" advantages.
So they are going to sell advantages...but they will be ones that ArenaNet feels are fair. Interesting.
What exactly is a FAIR advantage in a game like this? Anything that's non-permanent? Even if it's an advantage for hundreds of hours of game play?
You're pretty close to the core of the matter. The only "advantage" you can buy in this system is time. More precisely, you can shorten the time required to reach several caps (e.g. level/gear/influence).
Whether this is a competitive (fair/unfair) advantage over other players is the big question. Levels and gear are both normalized, and non-discriminating by design, whereas inlfuence is actually capped by the rate you can spend it.
So you can spend money to reach the cap faster, and then you can enjoy sitting on it while people who don't spent money inevitably catch up to you.
Exactly this.
Some people either just dont get it, or just dont want to get it, but time IS the only advantage you can BUY.
I dont see an issue. Especially since you dont need to reach cap to enjoy GW2.
community will be smart enough to look at people selling gems for gold and shake their heads
i hope
as long as wow players dont get here XD
Even if they DO get here timeraider, they and others are going to be surprised to learn that nothing you can buy with cash or in game gold is going to magically turn you into a skilled player. Maybe that will bring it's own set of rage threads, we'll see.
I also like the way he qualified by saying they won't offer "UNFAIR" advantages.
So they are going to sell advantages...but they will be ones that ArenaNet feels are fair. Interesting.
What exactly is a FAIR advantage in a game like this? Anything that's non-permanent? Even if it's an advantage for hundreds of hours of game play?
You're pretty close to the core of the matter. The only "advantage" you can buy in this system is time. More precisely, you can shorten the time required to reach several caps (e.g. level/gear/influence).
Whether this is a competitive (fair/unfair) advantage over other players is the big question. Levels and gear are both normalized, and non-discriminating by design, whereas inlfuence is actually capped by the rate you can spend it.
So you can spend money to reach the cap faster, and then you can enjoy sitting on it while people who don't spent money inevitably catch up to you.
There is also this other tidbit that will make those who paid to level faster evwen more foolish. Their levels will be sidekicked down in all but a handful of areas. Look at the map, the only areas being max level are less than 6 zones. The rest will sidekick you down when you enter them.
So yeah, if you want to be able to say, I was here first(level 80 zone) and pay cash to say it, more power to you.
And all of a sudden the forums exploded. I don't really like it, it is way too similar to Diablo 3's Auction House.
Edit to the poster above me: But doesn't a system like this allow players to gain power by spending Real Money? Is this a problem in EvE?
As Kuppa just said, you can only buy vanity items in the cash shop. In D3, you can buy gear that gives you a statitical advantage over other players. That is a HUGE difference, so they really arn't the same. All this does is allow playares who devote more time to playing GW2 to use ingame currency for cash shop vanity items rather than using real money.
But what if someone would buy hundreds of Gems for example and offer to sell them to others for gold, couldn't that potentially give him an enormous advantage over others in terms of in-game wealth?
In my experience, the wealth itself isn't where the problem lies. It's in the ability to get the gear that others deem necessary for you to be part of their little clique/club. This is why I hope when they say there will be no game-affecting items in their cash shop, that ANet isn't just playing semantics or dancing around the facts; basically what other developers do.
===============================
On a side note, to give an example: NCSoft with the cash shop in L2 for an example. They insisted, up one side and down the other, that there would be nothing sold in the cash shop that would be game affecting. What do they do? F2P is barely even live and they already had weapons and items with significantly game-affecting stat enhancements on them. How do they get around it? They use the ridiculously disingenuous line of, "Oh well, those items are optional. You don't have to get them. The game is perfectly playable without them".
The thing is, that is 180 degrees opposite of what they know and what their intentions are. They know, especially after seeing for years how huge an influence RMT and adena buying had on that game, with people buying the adena to get the most powerful gear as quickly as they could. They're dangling candy in front of a child, saying "Oh, well he doesn't have to eat it. It's optional. We're just dangling it there, right in his face, in case he decides he'd like to".
And on top of that, NC puts out some of the nicer items as "limited-supply" items. That's the biggest joke right there. Limited supply for something that's nothing more than 0's and 1's, and can be duplicated nonstop, forever if they wanted to? Talk about blatant BS. It's an artificially limited supply, arbitrarily decided by NCSoft. Why do they limit it? Well, ever notice how often that whole "limited time only!" line comes up in TV and newspaper ads? Yeah, they're playing on people's impulses and the concern that if they don't buy whatever it is now, they'll forever miss out on the opportunity. The company barely has to try beyond putting that ad out there. The buyers do pretty much all the work of convincing themselves that it's a worthwhile purchase.
Saddest thing is, it works. Like a charm. Within the first few weeks of L2 going "Truly Free", some people had already spent in the thousands of dollars on cash-shop items, just to get the best and most over-enchanted weapons. Unless others wanted to, or had the means or will to spend a comparable amount of money, they would never be able to match that. Pay to Win indeed.
That is just one of many examples of why developers like the Cash Shop setup so much. Because it places an unlimited ceiling on earning potential, and they know there are people out there who place an inordinate amount of value in a video game character and will spare no expense to have or be the best money can buy. It's nothing new, people were doing that already with illegal RMT for years, buying their way to power.
Ironically enough, while people love to say "it diminishes the need for RMT!", it doesn't. There is no precedent to show that it does. Quite the opposite actually. Look at any Cash Shop MMO out there. RMT is alive and well. The developers aren't doing anything to stop it. So long as the developers are getting their cut of the action, they don't care.
=====================================
So, while ANet is doing a lot of talking and putting on a wonderful song and dance about how their cash shop is going to be all flowers and rainbows and ice cream cones with cherries on top, I'll wait and see until the game has been live for a little while, they're past the "proving phase" and start to feel comfortable about sneaking in items that are otherwise very difficult to obtain in-game, or perhaps aren't obtainable at all, and that provide some kind of benefit to the player that goes beyond being "mere fluff".
If ANet keeps to their word and somehow manages to do what every other Cash Shop MMO has failed to do by keeping their cash shops 100% fluff or account service type items that don't affect gameplay, I will be incredibly surprised. They will be the first.
As of now, I remain highly skeptical.
Regardless, they've already proven their earlier anti-subscription statement of them "not needing anything beyond box fees for the game to thrive and continue" (to paraphrase) to be BS. I stated back then that the remark was a crock, that box sales alone could not be enough to sustain the game in perpetuity, and that's why they had a cash shop. Of course, I was pounced on immediately by the blindly devoted fans who would believe ANet if they said the sky was chartreuse green with purple polka dots. Well, now an ANet rep has come out and stated, flat out, that cash shop sales would fund the ongoing development of the game. Well imagine that.
Part of the fun of Guildwars was acquiring the unique looking items
If now everyone can just purchase those unique looking items without ever having to lift a finger then it removes the apeal of even posessing those items.
You see someone with unique armor and all you see is someone who has paid for it, you dont see someone who has played the game hard for it.
Part of the fun of Guildwars was acquiring the unique looking items
If now everyone can just purchase those unique looking items without ever having to lift a finger then it removes the apeal of even posessing those items.
You see someone with unique armor and all you see is someone who has paid for it, you dont see someone who has played the game hard for it.
That's true but I'm kind of hoping at least some of it is faction linked.
On the other hand, won't it make sense to have a League of Legends kind of shop? That's my understnding anyway, so I expect cosmetic gear to be sold in the shop.
In WvWvW a level 1 gets a bolster but does not have all her skills, correct? Also gear stats do affect players, so in WvWvW (unlike in the small battlegrounds) gear does matter, at least while players are leveling and until they have the best possible level 80 gear (regardless of how easy or difficult that gear is to obtain once a player does reach cap). Correct?
If both of these are correct then the amount of advantage a level 70-80 in the best gear possible has over a level 1 in standard gear determines how much advantage xp pots and gold for BiS gear matters in WvWvW. PvP is exactly where gold purchased with diamonds bought for real money must NOT matter. If it matters, even a little, there is a problem.
In PVE, maxing your levels quickly is probably a good way to obtain a surplus of gold quickly and before anyone else, assuming that higher level drops vendor for more than lower level drops.
So now three minigames have been created:
1. The buy as much ingame influence as possible using real currency converted to diamonds and then converted to gold, gear, or services.
2. The farm as much gold as possible to buy all future DLC with other people's money.
3. To figure out a way to both buy ingame influence with ingame currency and/or diamonds and get other players to buy all future DLC for you.
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.
Originally posted by sadeyx Part of the fun of Guildwars was acquiring the unique looking items
If now everyone can just purchase those unique looking items without ever having to lift a finger then it removes the apeal of even posessing those items.
You see someone with unique armor and all you see is someone who has paid for it, you dont see someone who has played the game hard for it.
It's quite true that any items which are trade-able do pretty much become worthless skins...since all can be purchased with real life money.
The saving grace in this regard is that there are going to be skins, drops, achievements, titles, etc. which are not trade-able, and therefor insulated from the economy. THOSE things will be the ones that mean something, and have value worth playing for.
Well tangent, your skepticism is a wise thing, because I for one never trust a bean counter when he sees an opportunity to make free money. After all, corporations are nothing more than a created sociopathic entity, bent on making as much money by providing the least amount of effort.
That said, the reason why this system seems almost brilliant in nature, is that they have made two seperate tiers of currency and one tangible currency, and have allowed for no derivitive creation currency. (ie casino chips)
You have a lesser currency, gold. Then you have the tangible currencies (gems & cash shop items) , and then you have the premium currencies, Kharma, Glory, Tokens.
In essence, you have hard cash, IOU's, and commodities. It is a well designed system if you ask me.
Originally posted by Madimorga In WvWvW a level 1 gets a bolster but does not have all her skills, correct? Also gear stats do affect players, so in WvWvW (unlike in the small battlegrounds) gear does matter, at least while players are leveling and until they have the best possible level 80 gear (regardless of how easy or difficult that gear is to obtain once a player does reach cap). Correct?
If both of these are correct then the amount of advantage a level 70-80 in the best gear possible has over a level 1 in standard gear determines how much advantage xp pots and gold for BiS gear matters in WvWvW. PvP is exactly where gold purchased with diamonds bought for real money must NOT matter. If it matters, even a little, there is a problem.
The proponents of the system explain this away by saying that the advantages in WvW will be small, or that it's easy to gain the same things by playing. They also claim that because it's only temporary advantage, it's okay.
To me, the 100+ hours from level 1 to cap is a pretty long time...it's a lot of game play to be playing at a disadvantage.
Originally posted by Bunks Well tangent, your skepticism is a wise thing, because I for one never trust a bean counter when he sees an opportunity to make free money. After all, corporations are nothing more than a created sociopathic entity, bent on making as much money by providing the least amount of effort.
That said, the reason why this system seems almost brilliant in nature, is that they have made two seperate tiers of currency and one tangible currency, and have allowed for no derivitive creation currency. (ie casino chips) You have a lesser currency, gold. Then you have the tangible currencies (gems & cash shop items) , and then you have the premium currencies, Kharma, Glory, Tokens.
In essence, you have hard cash, IOU's, and commodities. It is a well designed system if you ask me.
They sell glory in the collector's edition, and it's a "boost" item...so my guess is that they will be selling glory boosts in the cash shop and calling them "convenience" items.
So Glory won't be an insulated currency. Hopefully karma and tokens will. I'm also hoping their will be no-trade crafting mats which allow players to craft no-trade items.
Comments
This is bascially what i understand after reading the blog
- There's another form currency for real money transaction called Gem
-u can trade Gem for gold , and gold to gem . WITH ANOTHER PLAYER. Not sure whether There will be any npc converting-gem.
-Gem can buy pretty stuffs for ur character, nothing else.
Leaves the question open what you can buy with the gold you get by selling gems you bought with RL currency and sold for gold in game.
That's precisely the keyword. There would be a problem if you could buy awesome items just with gold, but it's not the case, you'll buy the awesomeness with karma.
It's exactly the same for non MT MMOs, like WoW : if WoW offered the best stuff only for gold, it would be full power to the heavy farmers (instead of rich people for MT). It would be the same issue, but we've seen how it's not, as devs are conscious about that.
The problem doesn't reside in how you can buy things, but what you can buy with which currency.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
what exactly is a time saving convenience item??? i can't say i've been looking foward to this game because to be honest there was way too much hype following it and high expectations can kill a game.
MOAR PRETTY STUFFS
I figure what we can conclude is the following.
Everything about how the cash shop will run is still up in the air.
and time-saving convenience items can mean just about anything.
The cash shop will be a lot more extensive then GW1 and more in line with traditional non gauging F2P cashshops.
If you are a person who does not like cash shops and think they break games, gw2 might not be for you.
Only thing to stop RMT or limit it is to put up trade restrictions which no one wants to see.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
what exactly is a time saving convenience item??? i can't say i've been looking foward to this game because to be honest there was way too much hype following it and high expectations can kill a game.
They make you a road with holes in it and then sell you the gravel so you can have a smooth ride. That's a time saving convenience, its because they design the game like that. They are not charging a sub so they need to make money I prefer P2P rather than the alternatives.I also like the way he qualified by saying they won't offer "UNFAIR" advantages.
So they are going to sell advantages...but they will be ones that ArenaNet feels are fair. Interesting.
What exactly is a FAIR advantage in a game like this? Anything that's non-permanent? Even if it's an advantage for hundreds of hours of game play?
Approximately 90 minutes or so per level is a hole that requires gravel? If anyone thinks that is a huge struggle and time sync you are welcome as far as I am concerned to buy all the gravel you want. It's your wallet.
One of life's lil hand grenades
You're pretty close to the core of the matter. The only "advantage" you can buy in this system is time. More precisely, you can shorten the time required to reach several caps (e.g. level/gear/influence).
Whether this is a competitive (fair/unfair) advantage over other players is the big question. Levels and gear are both normalized, and non-discriminating by design, whereas inlfuence is actually capped by the rate you can spend it.
So you can spend money to reach the cap faster, and then you can enjoy sitting on it while people who don't spent money inevitably catch up to you.
Exactly this.
Some people either just dont get it, or just dont want to get it, but time IS the only advantage you can BUY.
I dont see an issue. Especially since you dont need to reach cap to enjoy GW2.
community will be smart enough to look at people selling gems for gold and shake their heads
i hope
as long as wow players dont get here XD
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
Even if they DO get here timeraider, they and others are going to be surprised to learn that nothing you can buy with cash or in game gold is going to magically turn you into a skilled player. Maybe that will bring it's own set of rage threads, we'll see.
One of life's lil hand grenades
It most definitely will. Lots of butthurt over wasted money on the horizon.
It will be glorious
There is also this other tidbit that will make those who paid to level faster evwen more foolish. Their levels will be sidekicked down in all but a handful of areas. Look at the map, the only areas being max level are less than 6 zones. The rest will sidekick you down when you enter them.
So yeah, if you want to be able to say, I was here first(level 80 zone) and pay cash to say it, more power to you.
In my experience, the wealth itself isn't where the problem lies. It's in the ability to get the gear that others deem necessary for you to be part of their little clique/club. This is why I hope when they say there will be no game-affecting items in their cash shop, that ANet isn't just playing semantics or dancing around the facts; basically what other developers do.
===============================
On a side note, to give an example: NCSoft with the cash shop in L2 for an example. They insisted, up one side and down the other, that there would be nothing sold in the cash shop that would be game affecting. What do they do? F2P is barely even live and they already had weapons and items with significantly game-affecting stat enhancements on them. How do they get around it? They use the ridiculously disingenuous line of, "Oh well, those items are optional. You don't have to get them. The game is perfectly playable without them".
The thing is, that is 180 degrees opposite of what they know and what their intentions are. They know, especially after seeing for years how huge an influence RMT and adena buying had on that game, with people buying the adena to get the most powerful gear as quickly as they could. They're dangling candy in front of a child, saying "Oh, well he doesn't have to eat it. It's optional. We're just dangling it there, right in his face, in case he decides he'd like to".
And on top of that, NC puts out some of the nicer items as "limited-supply" items. That's the biggest joke right there. Limited supply for something that's nothing more than 0's and 1's, and can be duplicated nonstop, forever if they wanted to? Talk about blatant BS. It's an artificially limited supply, arbitrarily decided by NCSoft. Why do they limit it? Well, ever notice how often that whole "limited time only!" line comes up in TV and newspaper ads? Yeah, they're playing on people's impulses and the concern that if they don't buy whatever it is now, they'll forever miss out on the opportunity. The company barely has to try beyond putting that ad out there. The buyers do pretty much all the work of convincing themselves that it's a worthwhile purchase.
Saddest thing is, it works. Like a charm. Within the first few weeks of L2 going "Truly Free", some people had already spent in the thousands of dollars on cash-shop items, just to get the best and most over-enchanted weapons. Unless others wanted to, or had the means or will to spend a comparable amount of money, they would never be able to match that. Pay to Win indeed.
That is just one of many examples of why developers like the Cash Shop setup so much. Because it places an unlimited ceiling on earning potential, and they know there are people out there who place an inordinate amount of value in a video game character and will spare no expense to have or be the best money can buy. It's nothing new, people were doing that already with illegal RMT for years, buying their way to power.
Ironically enough, while people love to say "it diminishes the need for RMT!", it doesn't. There is no precedent to show that it does. Quite the opposite actually. Look at any Cash Shop MMO out there. RMT is alive and well. The developers aren't doing anything to stop it. So long as the developers are getting their cut of the action, they don't care.
=====================================
So, while ANet is doing a lot of talking and putting on a wonderful song and dance about how their cash shop is going to be all flowers and rainbows and ice cream cones with cherries on top, I'll wait and see until the game has been live for a little while, they're past the "proving phase" and start to feel comfortable about sneaking in items that are otherwise very difficult to obtain in-game, or perhaps aren't obtainable at all, and that provide some kind of benefit to the player that goes beyond being "mere fluff".
If ANet keeps to their word and somehow manages to do what every other Cash Shop MMO has failed to do by keeping their cash shops 100% fluff or account service type items that don't affect gameplay, I will be incredibly surprised. They will be the first.
As of now, I remain highly skeptical.
Regardless, they've already proven their earlier anti-subscription statement of them "not needing anything beyond box fees for the game to thrive and continue" (to paraphrase) to be BS. I stated back then that the remark was a crock, that box sales alone could not be enough to sustain the game in perpetuity, and that's why they had a cash shop. Of course, I was pounced on immediately by the blindly devoted fans who would believe ANet if they said the sky was chartreuse green with purple polka dots. Well, now an ANet rep has come out and stated, flat out, that cash shop sales would fund the ongoing development of the game. Well imagine that.
Part of the fun of Guildwars was acquiring the unique looking items
If now everyone can just purchase those unique looking items without ever having to lift a finger then it removes the apeal of even posessing those items.
You see someone with unique armor and all you see is someone who has paid for it, you dont see someone who has played the game hard for it.
That's true but I'm kind of hoping at least some of it is faction linked.
One of life's lil hand grenades
On the other hand, won't it make sense to have a League of Legends kind of shop? That's my understnding anyway, so I expect cosmetic gear to be sold in the shop.
In WvWvW a level 1 gets a bolster but does not have all her skills, correct? Also gear stats do affect players, so in WvWvW (unlike in the small battlegrounds) gear does matter, at least while players are leveling and until they have the best possible level 80 gear (regardless of how easy or difficult that gear is to obtain once a player does reach cap). Correct?
If both of these are correct then the amount of advantage a level 70-80 in the best gear possible has over a level 1 in standard gear determines how much advantage xp pots and gold for BiS gear matters in WvWvW. PvP is exactly where gold purchased with diamonds bought for real money must NOT matter. If it matters, even a little, there is a problem.
In PVE, maxing your levels quickly is probably a good way to obtain a surplus of gold quickly and before anyone else, assuming that higher level drops vendor for more than lower level drops.
So now three minigames have been created:
1. The buy as much ingame influence as possible using real currency converted to diamonds and then converted to gold, gear, or services.
2. The farm as much gold as possible to buy all future DLC with other people's money.
3. To figure out a way to both buy ingame influence with ingame currency and/or diamonds and get other players to buy all future DLC for you.
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
It's quite true that any items which are trade-able do pretty much become worthless skins...since all can be purchased with real life money.
The saving grace in this regard is that there are going to be skins, drops, achievements, titles, etc. which are not trade-able, and therefor insulated from the economy. THOSE things will be the ones that mean something, and have value worth playing for.
Well tangent, your skepticism is a wise thing, because I for one never trust a bean counter when he sees an opportunity to make free money. After all, corporations are nothing more than a created sociopathic entity, bent on making as much money by providing the least amount of effort.
That said, the reason why this system seems almost brilliant in nature, is that they have made two seperate tiers of currency and one tangible currency, and have allowed for no derivitive creation currency. (ie casino chips)
You have a lesser currency, gold. Then you have the tangible currencies (gems & cash shop items) , and then you have the premium currencies, Kharma, Glory, Tokens.
In essence, you have hard cash, IOU's, and commodities. It is a well designed system if you ask me.
The proponents of the system explain this away by saying that the advantages in WvW will be small, or that it's easy to gain the same things by playing. They also claim that because it's only temporary advantage, it's okay.
To me, the 100+ hours from level 1 to cap is a pretty long time...it's a lot of game play to be playing at a disadvantage.
They sell glory in the collector's edition, and it's a "boost" item...so my guess is that they will be selling glory boosts in the cash shop and calling them "convenience" items.
So Glory won't be an insulated currency. Hopefully karma and tokens will. I'm also hoping their will be no-trade crafting mats which allow players to craft no-trade items.