Players that invest the time to grind and actually play the game have every right to any advantage the game may provide them within the rules.
Whipping out the credit card undermines the entire genre.
Let's play a game. We shall call it "The Being a Grownup Game". Companies are not doing this out of charity. They need to make money in order to play for their expenses. Now, we have too many players bitching and moaning about every little issue. One of the issues is cost.
Some feel entitled to having a game for free. Some companies have responded to that but part of the response it adding a shop to purchase items for the game. It is a reality. Grownups know this. Children, even adult children, will complain and say stuff like it "undermines the entire game".
Let's play chess. I pay the tournament organizer $200 because they need help paying the rent. If I didn't there would be no tournament. In consideration for my donation I get an extra queen.
Nah... the game has not been undermined at all.
The game of chess is explicitly designed around having a level playing field for purposes of competitive PVP. Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field. In most games, you should figure that out at most a few minutes into the game, when you reach level 2 and are suddenly stronger than you were at level 1. Giving everyone time to level up tends to exacerbate that problem, not fix it, as there are few MMORPGs where more than a tiny handful of players will eventually be at the level cap and decked out in the best gear available in the game.
A terrible game with a level playing field is still a terrible game. I want games that are fun to play. If a game is awful, tacking on several additional reasons why it is awful does no harm, and may actually help the situation if it's more obvious that I should avoid it.
If a game is terrible, then don't play it.. The end.. Adding pay-to-win doesn't make it any less awful, it just sticks a band-aid on a gushing wound and says "that'll do for now".. Bad is bad and nothing will help a game if it is..
And yes, fun is the number one reason to play a game.. Which only further illustrates the point of avoiding a bad game and pay-to-win.. Its a grindfest thats fun? Cool.. play it.. Its a grindfest that sucks? Uninstall and post on MMORPG.com about how it blows..
If a game is terrible, then of course adding pay to win doesn't make the game itself better. It only makes it more obvious that it's terrible, and figuring out which games are good and which aren't is a non-trivial thing to do with so many games out there.
every game should have a server where anybody can log on, max their toon out and put on all the best gear. then we could all stand around the main city hub talking about how great we are at the game. and how actually playing the game is for noobs and tryhards.
The sad thing is you could probably charge $10,000 a head and make money on that idea.
Maybe games should sell cosmetic gear that looks identical to top end gear, and from the perspective of other players in towns, is indistinguishable from top end gear, but just doesn't have the functionality of gear that is actually useful once you get into combat.
I don't think grinding for large quantities of time is healthy and perhaps that is part of why it felt satisfying. It like many stupid things people do to compete with each other in order to show the best (sports). They end up doing something that will hurt them in the long run (steroids)(over excercise). People in games like EQ had to suffer to get to the top. I realize this is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's what made it so that not everyone could get there and that in turn is what made it feel good.
If you pay money for an item it is a pretty hollow feeling. You did nothing in the game to acquire said item. It makes the game feel quite pointless IMO.
For me, the term "Grind" kind of equates with the word "Weed" Where a weed = an unwanted plant, a grind = an unwanted repetition.
Pretty hard to think of a way to give a game any kind of longevity with out some kind of a grind. Some grind is required to give a feeling of accomplishment and some no doubt is used to generate cash flow whether it be sub fees or cash shop items.
We can debate about payment models and progression models until the cows come home. I don't support business models or companies that I find distasteful as I'm sure most others don't as well.
I'm just glad there are a couple MMORPG's on the market that I can still enjoy.
Spending a lot of game repeatedly doing something stupid that is neither productive nor interesting is an awfully weak notion of accomplishment.
For me, the term "Grind" kind of equates with the word "Weed" Where a weed = an unwanted plant, a grind = an unwanted repetition.
Pretty hard to think of a way to give a game any kind of longevity with out some kind of a grind. Some grind is required to give a feeling of accomplishment and some no doubt is used to generate cash flow whether it be sub fees or cash shop items.
We can debate about payment models and progression models until the cows come home. I don't support business models or companies that I find distasteful as I'm sure most others don't as well.
I'm just glad there are a couple MMORPG's on the market that I can still enjoy.
Spending a lot of game repeatedly doing something stupid that is neither productive nor interesting is an awfully weak notion of accomplishment.
I don't think it's any different than feeling accomplishment for running a marathon. It really isn't good for you. It's fairly easy and you repeat the same thing over and over again. None the less people feel accomplishment for making it through the marathon. Likely running for hours and pounding your knees into oblivion over and over again isn't really fun. That's probably why it's an accomplishment to some people. Because they suffered through it and made it to the end. I don't know that I would do it anymore, but when I was younger I was all about making it through those suffering times and having the nice feeling at the end weather it was games or sports. It was mostly about having that determination to make it through that others do not have. That was the drive.
I see an issue with the "some people don't have time" argument. Star Citizen devs were often saying many people don't have time, so they can buy ships to be on par with those who do.
What about those who have both time AND money? I think P2W does not really fix the imbalance, it simply adds another layer. To be competitive in P2W, you not only have to spend a lot of time, you also need to spend a lot of money.
A game that lets you spend money, with little required time investment, would have terrible retention imo. People who throw 3000$/month into FarmVille don't do so to be a hero for 5 minutes on a Sunday evening.
Players that invest the time to grind and actually play the game have every right to any advantage the game may provide them within the rules.
Whipping out the credit card undermines the entire genre.
Let's play a game. We shall call it "The Being a Grownup Game". Companies are not doing this out of charity. They need to make money in order to play for their expenses. Now, we have too many players bitching and moaning about every little issue. One of the issues is cost.
Some feel entitled to having a game for free. Some companies have responded to that but part of the response it adding a shop to purchase items for the game. It is a reality. Grownups know this. Children, even adult children, will complain and say stuff like it "undermines the entire game".
Let's play chess. I pay the tournament organizer $200 because they need help paying the rent. If I didn't there would be no tournament. In consideration for my donation I get an extra queen.
Nah... the game has not been undermined at all.
The game of chess is explicitly designed around having a level playing field for purposes of competitive PVP. Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field. In most games, you should figure that out at most a few minutes into the game, when you reach level 2 and are suddenly stronger than you were at level 1. Giving everyone time to level up tends to exacerbate that problem, not fix it, as there are few MMORPGs where more than a tiny handful of players will eventually be at the level cap and decked out in the best gear available in the game.
Maybe being "at the level cap and decked out in the best gear available in the game" is not the point for this type of game? It is for MOBAs or old-fashioned FPS games that are not meant to have a long, some would say "grindy" continuous progression. Maybe that's where the genre identity confusion come from.
The race to the level cap and BiS gear is our own perversion that the companies started catering to when we showed them that it was a big deal for a segment of the player base.
WOW and others are all over this now with instant level 100s as promotional selling points. Personally I think it's pretty sad that it has come to this and that the whole journey there is thought of as a bother by a portion of the mmorpg gaming public.
This isn't growing the mmorpg gaming landscape, it's throwing up their hands and giving in to those who prefer different genres in hopes of bringing them in/back. They're basically just catering to those who dislike mmorpgs and love the quicker fixes.
But that wasn't my point with the chess example. It was simply that these things are done at the expense of the game play... there is a quality of gaming cost attached to them.
And I beg to differ with the "Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field." If that's the case they sure waste a lot of time pretending that they are interested in doing just that with all the nerf/buff cycles they do with classes to make them more competitive against each other... be they damage output in PVE or ability to win in PVP.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
laxie said: What about those who have both time AND money?
What about them...?
It is irrelevant.
1) The game only has time requirement.
There will always be someone who has more time than you.
2) The game only has money requirement.
There will always be someone who has more money than you.
etc.
There will always be someone ahead of you in some way or another, unless you are at the top of the pyramid. There is no such thing as level playing field, there are only fields you prefer to play at. Your bias.
GeezerGamer said:
This is just not true....... Since there is such a thing as making money AND playing the game.
Of course it is true, one cannot be at their job and playing the game at the same time, besides some outliers cases like people who play games for living.
Do you know why you are losing all "P2W" arguments, just like the one about EVE and then retort to diatribe and claiming yourself a "winner"?
Whole "P2W" has no basis in rationale, it is purely a matter of personal bias. You believe no-lifers should have upper hand but there is no way to back that up rationally. The concept is based on idea of "level playing field" that does not exist and does not work in a world we live in.
Want proof/example?
Iselin said: What's amusing is watching you guys totally miss the point that good games create their own universes with their own rules, logic and morality and that injecting your preferred RL shortcuts into them are alien to the game's internal consistency and integrity.
One has create an imaginary universe where such concept could exist. Completely out of touch with reality - the poster and concept itself.
But w/e, I still think you are just a bunch of poor cheapskates that want drag down everyone onto their level...
What a poor bloke, not enough time to play a game because of a job. Instead of playing a game and being entertained earning a game item, you must work a job to earn that same item.
So let's say it's not okay to buy gold from either source. Now what? Saying that it's wrong doesn't solve any of the problems.
Grind was originally there to keep players subbing longer.
People who have more time to spend will have a much greater advantage. There isn't much in the way of design that curbs the amount of affect spending great amounts of time has in the game.
People complain about pay to win, but the amount of influence that time has in a game, except maybe for a few pvp centric games, vastly outweighs the influence spending mass money has.
Grind was not there to keep people subbing, The early MMOs were made by a handful of people and there is just a limit to how much content a handful of people can make.
Grind have always been about the fact that making grind content takes far less resources then constantly adding new content.
I'm not buying that. You're basically saying that because it was early on in the genre they couldn't make very much content. Then because of that they had to make it really grindy so people would continue playing.
Why did they need to make people continue playing? Why not just make content and then when people were done acknowledge that they would go play something else for a while, like they did with offline RPGs? I think they saw a way to keep people paying without having to spend the money and effort on new content.
In any event it's not a very good excuse to make poor content or very little for it and still keep charging monthly for it.
Early MMOs generally utilized a lot of developer events and GM-run activities. Those things took time to setup and had a lot of involvement form the designers to run. "Grinding" was a stop-gap between events.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
For me, the term "Grind" kind of equates with the word "Weed" Where a weed = an unwanted plant, a grind = an unwanted repetition.
Pretty hard to think of a way to give a game any kind of longevity with out some kind of a grind. Some grind is required to give a feeling of accomplishment and some no doubt is used to generate cash flow whether it be sub fees or cash shop items.
We can debate about payment models and progression models until the cows come home. I don't support business models or companies that I find distasteful as I'm sure most others don't as well.
I'm just glad there are a couple MMORPG's on the market that I can still enjoy.
Spending a lot of game repeatedly doing something stupid that is neither productive nor interesting is an awfully weak notion of accomplishment.
I absolutely agree, that's why I personally play these games for entertainment. Finishing something that is/was tedious does give one a euphoric feeling of finishing it.
Players that invest the time to grind and actually play the game have every right to any advantage the game may provide them within the rules.
Whipping out the credit card undermines the entire genre.
Let's play a game. We shall call it "The Being a Grownup Game". Companies are not doing this out of charity. They need to make money in order to play for their expenses. Now, we have too many players bitching and moaning about every little issue. One of the issues is cost.
Some feel entitled to having a game for free. Some companies have responded to that but part of the response it adding a shop to purchase items for the game. It is a reality. Grownups know this. Children, even adult children, will complain and say stuff like it "undermines the entire game".
Let's play chess. I pay the tournament organizer $200 because they need help paying the rent. If I didn't there would be no tournament. In consideration for my donation I get an extra queen.
Nah... the game has not been undermined at all.
Using that same argument with time and mmos you could say that the person willing to play chess for 20 hours should get a lot of extra moves than their opponent who only plays for 2.
Nah... chess is chess and it has its own internal rules and consistency. Getting extra moves would also be a cheat.
OTOH, playing a type of game that is supposed to be long lasting, calling that a grind and buying things that get rid of the grind, that's just plain crazy.
Hey, mmorpgs are not for everyone - they never were. If someone is sick of the genre, the sane thing to do is move along, not undermine it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Players that invest the time to grind and actually play the game have every right to any advantage the game may provide them within the rules.
Whipping out the credit card undermines the entire genre.
Let's play a game. We shall call it "The Being a Grownup Game". Companies are not doing this out of charity. They need to make money in order to play for their expenses. Now, we have too many players bitching and moaning about every little issue. One of the issues is cost.
Some feel entitled to having a game for free. Some companies have responded to that but part of the response it adding a shop to purchase items for the game. It is a reality. Grownups know this. Children, even adult children, will complain and say stuff like it "undermines the entire game".
Let's play chess. I pay the tournament organizer $200 because they need help paying the rent. If I didn't there would be no tournament. In consideration for my donation I get an extra queen.
Nah... the game has not been undermined at all.
The game of chess is explicitly designed around having a level playing field for purposes of competitive PVP. Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field. In most games, you should figure that out at most a few minutes into the game, when you reach level 2 and are suddenly stronger than you were at level 1. Giving everyone time to level up tends to exacerbate that problem, not fix it, as there are few MMORPGs where more than a tiny handful of players will eventually be at the level cap and decked out in the best gear available in the game.
Maybe being "at the level cap and decked out in the best gear available in the game" is not the point for this type of game? It is for MOBAs or old-fashioned FPS games that are not meant to have a long, some would say "grindy" continuous progression. Maybe that's where the genre identity confusion come from.
The race to the level cap and BiS gear is our own perversion that the companies started catering to when we showed them that it was a big deal for a segment of the player base.
WOW and others are all over this now with instant level 100s as promotional selling points. Personally I think it's pretty sad that it has come to this and that the whole journey there is thought of as a bother by a portion of the mmorpg gaming public.
This isn't growing the mmorpg gaming landscape, it's throwing up their hands and giving in to those who prefer different genres in hopes of bringing them in/back. They're basically just catering to those who dislike mmorpgs and love the quicker fixes.
But that wasn't my point with the chess example. It was simply that these things are done at the expense of the game play... there is a quality of gaming cost attached to them.
And I beg to differ with the "Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field." If that's the case they sure waste a lot of time pretending that they are interested in doing just that with all the nerf/buff cycles they do with classes to make them more competitive against each other... be they damage output in PVE or ability to win in PVP.
My point is that your chess analogy is irrelevant for reasons having nothing to do with pay to win.
Most MMORPGs are designed around being unbalanced in some ways and not others. You do generally want players to have some real choices without gimping themselves.
Iselin said: Hey, mmorpgs are not for everyone - they never were. If someone is sick of the genre, the sane thing to do is move along, not undermine it.
I disagree with the OP, they're both terrible concepts but P2W is worse. It cheapens and ruins the challenge and overall experience. It's a low brow and unethical practice meant to line pockets of developers and publishers looking for a quick flip. Grind to win is a time gate, and while annoying time is something that is accessible to everyone. As long as there is a ceiling in sight it can't be as bad as P2W.
Being late is better than not being wealthy enough to be invited.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
In the early days of MMORPGs, it was common that whoever spends the most time grinding something stupid gets the best gear, the highest levels, or whatever. More recently, it has become common that whoever spends the most money gets the best gear. I'm not a fan of the latter, but the former is even worse. Publishers often prefer pay to win over grind to win because it makes them more money.
I'm sure you've heard it said that time is money. But if that is so, then why do billionaires get old and die? They had plenty of money, but ran out of time because it's not the same thing as money. Rather, time can be converted to money (get a job), but not the other way around. Time, not money, is the precious resource in life.
Pay to win tries to lay claim on your money. It's reasonable to dislike that. But grind to win tries to claim your time, which is even worse. Ultimately, either of them is a pretty good reason to quit a game and find another. But grind to win is more insidious and harder to spot, as it's much easier to keep track of exactly how much money something costs than how much time.
All of this goes out the window if the activity is fun in itself, of course. If you're having fun, it's not grinding. Not just hoping that it will be fun to eventually have what you're grinding for, but doing an activity for fun that you might still do even if it gave no experience or loot. Doing what you like to do and getting in-game rewards as a bonus is the ideal situation, of course, but it's hard to design that into a game very consistently.
Grind to win is making you play the game as intended, whereas pay to win is not making you play the game and get significant advantage over players that grind to win. P2W games die whether you like it or not community wise, look at archeage or lineage 2, the only players that are left are the whales and those whom have spent too much time that would feel like a waste if they left. I know several players in WoW that just don't want to stop playing, they played it too much already to just stop playing.
Look at Black desert online for example, it's a huge grind but slowly turning p2w and many players being turned off by it. It's more factual that opinionated to be honest, p2w will always target big whales and inexperienced casual crowd. It's just how it is.
A game where the intended way to play is to do something stupid a zillion times to advance is a bad game.
If you can't handle repetition boy are you in the wrong genre.
Or you know, the genre can evolve due to better concepts and technology. Or it can stay stagnant and die. There's a reason people left EQ in droves.
The reason people left EQ in droves was because of WOW. Which created a different kind of grind that attracted tens of millions. Grind by any other name is still a grind.
WoW eliminated the grind for leveling and other progression related activities (except for reputation grinds). The grind was still optional, but the majority of people didn't do it because questing was faster.
Again, i'm talking about the original meaning. You're trying to twist it's meaning to fit your bias.
In fact, grinding in WoW was slower and inefficient, with the exception of rare drops that did require grinding, but they were so rare that people just avoided it.
In the early days of MMORPGs, it was common that whoever spends the most time grinding something stupid gets the best gear, the highest levels, or whatever. More recently, it has become common that whoever spends the most money gets the best gear. I'm not a fan of the latter, but the former is even worse. Publishers often prefer pay to win over grind to win because it makes them more money.
I'm sure you've heard it said that time is money. But if that is so, then why do billionaires get old and die? They had plenty of money, but ran out of time because it's not the same thing as money. Rather, time can be converted to money (get a job), but not the other way around. Time, not money, is the precious resource in life.
Pay to win tries to lay claim on your money. It's reasonable to dislike that. But grind to win tries to claim your time, which is even worse. Ultimately, either of them is a pretty good reason to quit a game and find another. But grind to win is more insidious and harder to spot, as it's much easier to keep track of exactly how much money something costs than how much time.
All of this goes out the window if the activity is fun in itself, of course. If you're having fun, it's not grinding. Not just hoping that it will be fun to eventually have what you're grinding for, but doing an activity for fun that you might still do even if it gave no experience or loot. Doing what you like to do and getting in-game rewards as a bonus is the ideal situation, of course, but it's hard to design that into a game very consistently.
Sorry man Grinding is very subjective. For example SWG Crafting to me was not grinding at all even though another person called it grinding. I just was good with Macroing where I was able to do a cycle of crafting with a push of a button and do something else. So it was not grinding. I might on another hand call killing the same AT-ST to level up my heavy weapons in SWG Grinding.
P2W is far worse because for the cost of a box and a sub you spent LESS money which is way more valuable than time because if you put a little effort into learning the best ways to accomplish something kills the grind. For example Leveling Solo in SWG was a bitch. Grab a few friends and kill some harder monsters which give you a ton more XP and you leveled faster. P2W is what comes of laziness and its laziness from the fact is players today dont want to do any more work than click a button be thrown randomly in a group in 5 minutes, click the same 3 buttons for 15 minutes and repeat. P2W is WORSE than Grinding because you only Grind because you dont put the effort to learn the way to do it the most efficient way.
GeezerGamer said:
This is just not true....... Since there is such a thing as making money AND playing the game.
Of course it is true, one cannot be at their job and playing the game at the same time, besides some outliers cases like people who play games for living.
Do you know why you are losing all "P2W" arguments, just like the one about EVE and then retort to diatribe and claiming yourself a "winner"?
Whole "P2W" has no basis in rationale, it is purely a matter of personal bias. You believe no-lifers should have upper hand but there is no way to back that up rationally. The concept is based on idea of "level playing field" that does not exist and does not work in a world we live in.
Want proof/example?
Iselin said: What's amusing is watching you guys totally miss the point that good games create their own universes with their own rules, logic and morality and that injecting your preferred RL shortcuts into them are alien to the game's internal consistency and integrity.
One has create an imaginary universe where such concept could exist. Completely out of touch with reality - the poster and concept itself.
But w/e, I still think you are just a bunch of poor cheapskates that want drag down everyone onto their level...
"Retort to diatribe"?
So do you mean my retort to your diatribe......Or is it your retort to my diatribe?
GeezerGamer said:
This is just not true....... Since there is such a thing as making money AND playing the game.
Of course it is true, one cannot be at their job and playing the game at the same time, besides some outliers cases like people who play games for living.
Do you know why you are losing all "P2W" arguments, just like the one about EVE and then retort to diatribe and claiming yourself a "winner" like in post above?
Whole "P2W" has no basis in rationale, it is purely a matter of personal bias. You believe no-lifers should have upper hand but there is no way to back that up rationally. The concept is based on idea of "even playing field" that does not exist and does not work in a world we live in.
Want proof/example?
Iselin said: What's amusing is watching you guys totally miss the point that good games create their own universes with their own rules, logic and morality and that injecting your preferred RL shortcuts into them are alien to the game's internal consistency and integrity.
One has create an imaginary universe where such concept could exist. Completely out of touch with reality - the poster and concept itself.
But w/e, I still think you are just a bunch of poor cheapskates that want drag down everyone onto their level...
You're so fucking brainwashed you don't even see how trivial your core argument is.
Yes Virginia, you can buy an advantage with cash everywhere and for everything. But so what? The interesting questions that those who are not too far gone are discussing are:
Should they allow this in games? What does it do to the games where it's allowed?
So keep on drinking that kool-aid and totally missing the point.
And BTW, the act of allowing it or not allowing creates that "imaginary universe."
GeezerGamer said:
This is just not true....... Since there is such a thing as making money AND playing the game.
Of course it is true, one cannot be at their job and playing the game at the same time, besides some outliers cases like people who play games for living.
Do you know why you are losing all "P2W" arguments, just like the one about EVE and then retort to diatribe and claiming yourself a "winner" like in post above?
Whole "P2W" has no basis in rationale, it is purely a matter of personal bias. You believe no-lifers should have upper hand but there is no way to back that up rationally. The concept is based on idea of "even playing field" that does not exist and does not work in a world we live in.
Want proof/example?
Iselin said: What's amusing is watching you guys totally miss the point that good games create their own universes with their own rules, logic and morality and that injecting your preferred RL shortcuts into them are alien to the game's internal consistency and integrity.
One has create an imaginary universe where such concept could exist. Completely out of touch with reality - the poster and concept itself.
But w/e, I still think you are just a bunch of poor cheapskates that want drag down everyone onto their level...
You're so fucking brainwashed you don't even see how trivial your core argument is.
Yes Virginia, you can buy an advantage with cash everywhere and for everything. But so what? The interesting questions that those who are not too far gone are discussing are:
Should they allow this in games? What does it do to the games where it's allowed?
So keep on drinking that kool-aid and totally missing the point.
And BTW, the act of allowing it or not allowing creates that "imaginary universe."
I think he's doing it intentionally
I dunno I think he's just nuts. Would anyone be surprised if he said he often wears straight jackets and he's not a magician.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
GeezerGamer said:
This is just not true....... Since there is such a thing as making money AND playing the game.
Of course it is true, one cannot be at their job and playing the game at the same time, besides some outliers cases like people who play games for living.
Do you know why you are losing all "P2W" arguments, just like the one about EVE and then retort to diatribe and claiming yourself a "winner" like in post above?
Whole "P2W" has no basis in rationale, it is purely a matter of personal bias. You believe no-lifers should have upper hand but there is no way to back that up rationally. The concept is based on idea of "even playing field" that does not exist and does not work in a world we live in.
Want proof/example?
Iselin said: What's amusing is watching you guys totally miss the point that good games create their own universes with their own rules, logic and morality and that injecting your preferred RL shortcuts into them are alien to the game's internal consistency and integrity.
One has create an imaginary universe where such concept could exist. Completely out of touch with reality - the poster and concept itself.
But w/e, I still think you are just a bunch of poor cheapskates that want drag down everyone onto their level...
You're so fucking brainwashed you don't even see how trivial your core argument is.
Yes Virginia, you can buy an advantage with cash everywhere and for everything. But so what? The interesting questions that those who are not too far gone are discussing are:
Should they allow this in games? What does it do to the games where it's allowed?
So keep on drinking that kool-aid and totally missing the point.
And BTW, the act of allowing it or not allowing creates that "imaginary universe."
I think he's doing it intentionally
I dunno I think he's just nuts. Would anyone be surprised if he said he often wears straight jackets and he's not a magician.
The thought of that being true..............oh wow, I don't even want to go there.
the op is so wrong... not that grind is a good thing, but almost by definition p2w games are the grindiest games out there. They need a heavy grind, or (usually and) restrictions like Archeage's Labor system so that there is an incentive to pay to get past it.
Grinding itself is not bad if it is not overdone, and if the game is fun & has depth you don't notice it nearly so much, but typically nowadays games have so little depth it's embarassing.
Pay to win almost always means its grind gone wild if you don't pay, and its the very noticeable boring grind. If you do pay though, for the majority there is always someone who is willing to pay 100x more. If it is a grind and no pay to win, at least the average Joe has a chance to keep up. If the grind is not enjoyable and you want to be able to pay to get past it, then something is wrong with the game, intentionally (for p2w games) or not.
IMO the op has been paid by a korean developer lol...
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If you pay money for an item it is a pretty hollow feeling. You did nothing in the game to acquire said item. It makes the game feel quite pointless IMO.
Star Citizen devs were often saying many people don't have time, so they can buy ships to be on par with those who do.
What about those who have both time AND money? I think P2W does not really fix the imbalance, it simply adds another layer. To be competitive in P2W, you not only have to spend a lot of time, you also need to spend a lot of money.
A game that lets you spend money, with little required time investment, would have terrible retention imo. People who throw 3000$/month into FarmVille don't do so to be a hero for 5 minutes on a Sunday evening.
The race to the level cap and BiS gear is our own perversion that the companies started catering to when we showed them that it was a big deal for a segment of the player base.
WOW and others are all over this now with instant level 100s as promotional selling points. Personally I think it's pretty sad that it has come to this and that the whole journey there is thought of as a bother by a portion of the mmorpg gaming public.
This isn't growing the mmorpg gaming landscape, it's throwing up their hands and giving in to those who prefer different genres in hopes of bringing them in/back. They're basically just catering to those who dislike mmorpgs and love the quicker fixes.
But that wasn't my point with the chess example. It was simply that these things are done at the expense of the game play... there is a quality of gaming cost attached to them.
And I beg to differ with the "Most MMORPGs are explicitly designed around not having a level playing field." If that's the case they sure waste a lot of time pretending that they are interested in doing just that with all the nerf/buff cycles they do with classes to make them more competitive against each other... be they damage output in PVE or ability to win in PVP.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It is irrelevant.
1) The game only has time requirement.
There will always be someone who has more time than you.
2) The game only has money requirement.
There will always be someone who has more money than you.
etc.
There will always be someone ahead of you in some way or another, unless you are at the top of the pyramid. There is no such thing as level playing field, there are only fields you prefer to play at. Your bias.
What a shitty place to be.
No wonder you're so bitter
p.s. the only one dragging you down is yourself.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
OTOH, playing a type of game that is supposed to be long lasting, calling that a grind and buying things that get rid of the grind, that's just plain crazy.
Hey, mmorpgs are not for everyone - they never were. If someone is sick of the genre, the sane thing to do is move along, not undermine it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Most MMORPGs are designed around being unbalanced in some ways and not others. You do generally want players to have some real choices without gimping themselves.
Being late is better than not being wealthy enough to be invited.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Again, i'm talking about the original meaning. You're trying to twist it's meaning to fit your bias.
In fact, grinding in WoW was slower and inefficient, with the exception of rare drops that did require grinding, but they were so rare that people just avoided it.
edit: clarified my post.
P2W is far worse because for the cost of a box and a sub you spent LESS money which is way more valuable than time because if you put a little effort into learning the best ways to accomplish something kills the grind. For example Leveling Solo in SWG was a bitch. Grab a few friends and kill some harder monsters which give you a ton more XP and you leveled faster. P2W is what comes of laziness and its laziness from the fact is players today dont want to do any more work than click a button be thrown randomly in a group in 5 minutes, click the same 3 buttons for 15 minutes and repeat. P2W is WORSE than Grinding because you only Grind because you dont put the effort to learn the way to do it the most efficient way.
So do you mean my retort to your diatribe......Or is it your retort to my diatribe?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Grinding itself is not bad if it is not overdone, and if the game is fun & has depth you don't notice it nearly so much, but typically nowadays games have so little depth it's embarassing.
Pay to win almost always means its grind gone wild if you don't pay, and its the very noticeable boring grind. If you do pay though, for the majority there is always someone who is willing to pay 100x more. If it is a grind and no pay to win, at least the average Joe has a chance to keep up. If the grind is not enjoyable and you want to be able to pay to get past it, then something is wrong with the game, intentionally (for p2w games) or not.
IMO the op has been paid by a korean developer lol...