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p2w doesn't exist in AAA mmo's, please stop pretending it does.
trancefate
Member UncommonPosts: 146
As the title states, I am simply pointing out that this P2W that every penniless chump whines about when confronted with a f2p game does not exist in almost all cases. The problem is definition of win, by rule there can only be one definition so taking your subjectivity out of it is important.
I have become an endgame progression raider or player in almost every MMO I have played that offers such opportunities. What can I tell you from this experience? buying an exp potion, or fluffy angel wings, or a mid level mediocre sword, from the cash shop, will NOT help you progress through a raid any faster.
So then the only way that you could feasibly claim a game is p2w without them selling ENDGAME TOP TIER options, is to change the definition of "winning" to "buying fluffy angel wings, using an exp potion to get through low levels faster, or having decent gear when it doesn't matter". This simply isn't the case.
In my opinion, for a game to be considered PAY TO WIN, the MAXIMUM potential of your character must be allowed to be raised in a way that is NOT obtainable through in-game means. This is almost never the case (I'm sure someone is gonna come in with some one-off convoluted instance we don't remember, or an indie game 600 people play).
Here are some games i've heard called P2W that just aren't.
1) The Secret World
2) EQ1
3) EQ2
4) League of Legends (yeah, people are IDIOTS right?)
5) Planetside 2
6) DDO (this one is the closest to borderline of ANY triple A MMO, however even with every dollar spent, your characters maximum potential never raises over the maximum potential of someone who never uses the item store)
Comments
"The problem is definition of win, by rule there can only be one definition so taking your subjectivity out of it is important."
I think that's the biggest hurdle in these discussions. Many of the people who call those games "pay to win" have some personal area where they are competing with the other players or I agree that removing that subjectivity would help make discussion far more constructive, but i don't see it happening.
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
Pay to win is a personal definition
to me, experience potions are not p2w but to others, they are
EQ2 fan sites
If you removed subjectivity, the internet would be about 3 pages long.
If you want to see a P2W game, check out WoW.
Take two players, have one buy the game, and monthly sub. Have the other play for free... and compare the results. There will be a drastic difference in the player experience based on the money paid. This is P2W.
The Secret World? Pay to Win?
What, there are special clothes combos that let you "win"?
TSW doesn't have a regular progression model. There is really no way to Pay to Win anything.... Seriously, there is nothing in the item shop that makes this game easier. Some potions you can get in the game that really don't qualify as P2W items and a WHOLE BUNCH of cosmetic items and clothes.
The fact that some people call TSW P2W must be the fact the are bad at the game and think people are buying items to get further..... Sorry, no such items exist....
Remember that time we barely cleared Ulduar because the raidleader bought all that stuff off the cash shop? Never happened. Is wow even fully f2p now?
Because IF you are comparing free trial/not fully f2p gamers in games with subscribers... you missed the argument, this isn't the one you were looking for.
AP injections/exp pots are what they are referring to. I agree with you almost entirely
This is the argument that you are going up against OP.
Some really want to pay for free, and donate if they choose. I guess..
depend on the game xp potions can and can not be a p2w, if a game require you to grind over 5 hours to lvl a certain lvl but with a xp potion or premium you just need 1 hour or less then its pay to win
pay to win is mostly things will make your char be stronger or forces you hard to spend if not the game can't be enjoyed, the ones I know and I remember right now are DDO(sorry op buying tomes who gives +5 on stats is pay to win, also limiting part of the game is annoying) SWtor, most if not all chinese games (yes paying for higher chance to lvl gear is pay to win).
but the worse problem is the players, they know the game is pay to win but as long he can pay and keep on top echelon of his server he don't care till he find someone more stupid to spend even more then him then he start to cry and quit the game saying its pay to win, would be so easy for the whole genre if plyers just stoped playing or at least paying for this kind of game or at least limit his paying to 15 a month, doing so would show the devs they can't milk players with garbage and would force then to up they games.
That is not the argument I am going against here, mark 2 people who only gathered a broad comprehension of the OP. The argument you speak of is them complaining that the company should offer more free content/access. The argument I am speaking of is when gamers claim that superfluous (extra) money is needed past the gateway cost of a game (be it subscription, cost of the product itself whatever) to achieve potential.
If that's the case than anything and everything is pay to win. Sort of makes it hard to pick out the good bad versions of it when you don't want it to have a real meaning.
The part of the post you quoted is what I'd like to see if it ever got put on a wiki. People who want it to mean, I wish that was free can think of something else to call it.
So, what you are saying is that P2W is only about the 'extra' money past the gateway cost.
Well then, what if the gateway cost is 0 ? Then all money spent is 'extra'. If a game can be played for 0 (and you can even do this with WoW), then who decides the 'gateway' cost?
The general definition of P2W is that spending real money gives players in game advantages. This is true for all games that are monetized, but can vary based on the game. Lets use EVE as an example (AAA, right?). In EVE you can spend unlimited real money to obtain unlimited in game money... and in doing so you can gain major advantages over other players. This is pretty much the definition of P2W... but it is not percieved as such. Perhaps you should be asking why this is the case.
1) buying exp pots cannot be considered buying POWER, the maximum potential is never increased. What is decreased is the amount of time to obtain this, however if the TIME required to obtain said power is not fun, there lies a problem within the mentality of the gamer or the game itself. You should ENJOY playing the game.
2) As far as DDO goes, I haven't played in about 6-12 months, however the whole time I did play (from beta until recent) the tomes available on the store were NEVER more powerful, and almost always less powerful by at least 1 tier than the lootable items. So given that, a player who spends $0 extra could still be the maximum potential power achievable in game. When it comes to "limiting part of the game" that is them charging for content not power. Thousands of man hours went into those zones, it is perfectly acceptable for them to require payment.
3) "Most if not all Chinese games" Be more specific please, but If you are talking about asian imports with gear upgrade systems like TERA or Age of Wushu, then these (definitely not AoW) are not p2w. You can farm everything required, as a matter of fact I had so much currency on my account from legit crafting that I was accidentally banned in AoW so you can't tell me that its p2w because I was the #1 ranked poisonmaker on my server...
4) You talk about paying to keep on the top echelon of a server. Please give a specific endgame instance of pvp or pve content in a game where paying can win top echelon content? It always comes down to planning, player skill, and group coordination skill in "top echelon"
Oh, I know about those. But is AP boost in the game that important? You can have all the AP in the world and if your build is not right, you will get stomped by Blue difficulty enemies.....
I find that their impact is minimal at best. So I guess I could see how some people could see it as P2W but if they know the game well, they would know that is incorrect.
WoW is not free to play game, it's a game with monthly subscription fee. You are comparing a free trial to a full game. Boggles my mind why you would even attempt to compare those two.
If the game requires you to pay to unlock their content, you cannot count buying content as p2w. You simply haven't sprung the cash to truly buy the game or all of it yet. So you would have to compare yourself to other people who only purchased X portion.
Because in eve it's not a real advantage, it's only a percieved one. All that money wont help you in a fight, unless it can buy you something the other player can't get.
It's the same situation as an xp boost. Both can get to the same lvl cap and once there the field is leveled.
Judging by some of the above comments not many of you have played a pay to win game and to the guy with the wow comment wow still has a subscription well at least for America and Eu so what the hell are you talking about.
Best example of pay to win I have ever come across was when I played APB at the time it was possible to buy weapons and body armours and well cars that were far superior to anything you could earn in the game. To the point me and my brother had the same weapon mine earned in games his bought from store my weapon would take half a clip at point blank range in his chest to kill his was one bullet and I was dead there was more extreme cases. But simple fact was if you could throw a load of cash at the store you will be far superior to any that has not.
Um... as one who would call themselves a hardcore raider and I'll say that... yes... yes it in fact does. Whenever you are PAYING for ANY type of advantage, its 'Paying to Win" Sure, you can 'earn' something through tedious grind in many cases (which btw, they DO purposely make it so) but in the end, the person who didn't do the tedious grind and bought what they need would have completed the same deal in a much shorter amount of time. How 'acceptable' that stuff might be to you depends, but it is clearly pay to win.
Think of your 'time' as a commodity. If your needing to consume more time in order to do something someone else does instantly (or near instantly) then they are paying for an advantage and you lose time that you would of otherwise had. Time is something we are all limited on and the fact you can pay to bypass that issue is pretty much giving a huge advantage, one often purposely made worst to attempt to push for people to pay.
Its not a matter of "is it p2w" as much of it being "just how much of a 'advantage' (or win) does this provide you with, and how much to you is acceptable"? Would you really shout "P2W!" for an item exclusive only to the cash shop that gives lets say +1 strength, worth maybe ~.20 dps, compared to your game offering that hard earned gear you grinded months for to someone else, bypassing your time sink and being on par and ready to raid with you for the newest content without having to do any work?
Just because P2P is MORE P2W than F2P, doesnt make it exempt.. in fact it only re-enforces the fact the the OP was wrong, becuase they missed the obvious.
You cant throw out a MMO (A.K.A. EVE) that doesn't fit your side of an argument and call for people to use subjectivity in the same thread.
EVE's Plex system is a pretty much cut-and-dried P2W system.
Buying X amount of plex+selling X amount of Plex for ISK+ using Said ISK to fund your wardec=P2W.
This is a legitimate strategy for smaller Alliances to fight bigger, richer ones.
So, with this one game your statement of "No P2W in AAA MMO's" has been rebuffed.
( your best move now is to argue that EvE is not a AAA MMO )
That's a whole lot of writing for a long since debunked talking point, unless you've got some data we haven't seen about a bunch of new items these games are now offering that are better than what you can get in game. Or are you saying the games now sell the raid drops in the item store?
As for your argument about time, you've basically said that boosters actually level the playing field, diminishing the time advantage some have over others. However, these games are level capped and predominantly PvE, so the time thing seems more a personal issue than an actual game issue.
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
In EVE, the MMO created on a comparatively low budget and not backed by a publisher, you can defeat a bigger alliance just by wardeccing them? You have to teach me that one sometime.
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
THANK YOU!
Agree 100%...let me say 99% I got to re check the OP to make sure ha ha.
I was beginning to wonder if I needed to make a thread stating this or if someone else would state this.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.