Originally posted by soulfly205

Lets break down pay 2 win in the simplest of terms: People are more concerned with others than themselves.

Welcome to humanity.

Originally posted by killion81

Originally posted by thinktank001

 

Imagine there was a cap to character advancement.  Even a cap that wasn't difficult for the "average" player to obtain.  Would it still be P2W if convenience items allowed someone to hit this cap more quickly?  Even if it cuts the time in half, the player that gets to that cap more quickly is at the same spot as the player that gets there slower once they are both at the cap.

If the game was a type of game like Darkfall for instance (with less grind), then I could consider it to be P2W since the player who got ahead by paying could seriously impact the lowlevel player in a bad way. In a mostly cooperative/themepark game, then it wouldnt be P2W (to me).

If the cash shop is needed in a game to make it bearable or to remove a frustrating inconvenience (like massive grind or very punishing gameplay) then I consider it to be P2W.

1. You want to try the game for free before you will like to spend your real money.
2. You would like to find out how much levels you can achieve with just the skill as a gamer.
3. You believe that if you have time you can achieve enough levels to play the end game of any mmo.
4. This F2P game is new and it looks and feels better than outdated P2P games.
5. F2P games have a lot of players and hence I choose them to play.
6. I am a mmo addict and that does not mean I will pay to enjoy a mmo.

I agree with the most common definition here. Pay2Win is only something that is require to progress or advance above someone who isnt willing or able to pay for it.

That means getting into locked areas, obtaining otherwise locked or special items, or gaining a stat boost either to the character directly or through an item that cant be otherwise obtained.

It most certainly IS NOT Xp boosts that allow a character to advance faster but not beyond the limits of someone who isnt paying. Everyone already levels or progresses at different speeds. I am a hardcore gamer, im also unemployed. This allows me to play 16-20 hours a day. I level extremely fast in a gamers sense, and i dont need an xp pot to do it. Someone who works or has school and can only play 4-6 hours a day will level extremely slow compared to me. So if they use a cash-shop xp boost, they will still level slower than i am. Does that mean they have an advanage over me because they bought a cash shop item? Even though im a higher level? Is my character P2W because i progress faster than you, even though i never spend a dime in a cash shop? See how your definition is flawed.

Get off your high horses people. Cash shops are not P2W. They can provide P2W bonuses, but having a shop does not automatically make the game P2W. And convenience items are not, nor have they ever been Pay to Win, and anyone who thinks so is only sore that they cant afford them. They in no way impact your gameplay, or allow you to progress to an otherwise unreachable state. Time is not Pay to Win people.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Any RMT at all is Pay-To-Win. Whatever it is, if it has enough value to players that they are willing to pay cash for it, then it has value in the game and those who buy it are ahead of those who don't. They have bought something that other players either can't have, or have to spend time that they didn't (by virtue of the cash purchase) to get.

No matter how you look at it, cash buys something (items, advantages, or time rquirements to get). And that is Pay-To-Win.

LOL

Elaborate to me on say, how you are "winning" by leveling a little quicker cause you bought an XP boost? I get it ifweapons, stats, that you can't obtain through the world or content locked. But, people are here defintion of P2W is just way off.

Originally posted by Ceridith

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Ceridith

 

Yes.

A short-term advantage is still an advantage.

Sure. But it is different than a long term one. 

An over-arching definition of p2w is pretty much pointless.

You have to look at the specifics of a game.

If a game let you buy a short term (say 5 sec) SMALL advantage (say 1% xp boost), that is very diffcult than a game that sell you a permament (say an item) HUGE advantage (say let you increase dmg by 50%).

Sure you can define both as p2w .. but that won't address the difference between the two games.

The magnitude may differ, but that doesn't change the fact that they both still boil down to P2W.

Some people just take a firm stance against any and all magnitudes of P2W, for varying reasons. Some out of principle, others because they're concerned that allowing a company to get away with minor P2W is giving them an invitation to keep pushing with more invasive P2W -- which has happened in many games.

Like it or not, that already happen because cash shops are pretty much accepted and growing. Even WOW is doing it.

Trying to make a overly broad and not very useful definition would have no impact anyway.

Do you know that MOST MMO players are playing F2P games? And many sub games have a cash shop anyway.

Trying to ignore the magnitude does not seem to work in stopping the stampede, does it?

There is no such thing as your or mine definintion of Pay2Win. Pay2Win is buying boosters etc that give you an edge over other players in direct competition.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Ceridith

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Ceridith

 

Yes.

A short-term advantage is still an advantage.

Sure. But it is different than a long term one. 

An over-arching definition of p2w is pretty much pointless.

You have to look at the specifics of a game.

If a game let you buy a short term (say 5 sec) SMALL advantage (say 1% xp boost), that is very diffcult than a game that sell you a permament (say an item) HUGE advantage (say let you increase dmg by 50%).

Sure you can define both as p2w .. but that won't address the difference between the two games.

The magnitude may differ, but that doesn't change the fact that they both still boil down to P2W.

Some people just take a firm stance against any and all magnitudes of P2W, for varying reasons. Some out of principle, others because they're concerned that allowing a company to get away with minor P2W is giving them an invitation to keep pushing with more invasive P2W -- which has happened in many games.

Like it or not, that already happen because cash shops are pretty much accepted and growing. Even WOW is doing it.

Trying to make a overly broad and not very useful definition would have no impact anyway.

Do you know that MOST MMO players are playing F2P games? And many sub games have a cash shop anyway.

Trying to ignore the magnitude does not seem to work in stopping the stampede, does it?

I wouldn't say that cash shops are accepted. A far more appropriate description would be that they're tolerated.

That said, I'm well aware of their growing prevelance, but that doesn't mean I have to give up and accept it. There are still many games without any cash shops, even if it's a shrinking amount. And even if cash shops take over the entire future of MMOs, so be it, but it's a future without my participation.

I'd much rather just pay a set subscription fee for what I feel to be a decent game. I simply don't enjoy games where I have to constantly run cost-benefit analysis in my head as to whether I should spend hours grinding something that I could pay a few bucks for, because at that point it's no longer a game anymore.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Any RMT at all is Pay-To-Win. Whatever it is, if it has enough value to players that they are willing to pay cash for it, then it has value in the game and those who buy it are ahead of those who don't. They have bought something that other players either can't have, or have to spend time that they didn't (by virtue of the cash purchase) to get.

No matter how you look at it, cash buys something (items, advantages, or time rquirements to get). And that is Pay-To-Win.

This is what I meant about a definition being useless. WIth this definition, nearly all (if not all) would be classified as P2W. If you want to nitpick Eve Online, Guild Wars 1, World of Tanks, League of Legends... all of these would be put in the same basket with Runes of Magic, Atlantica Online etc. - games with serious cash shop advantage.

There is a degree how severely the cash shop affects games.

Degree of the cash shop affecting games does not change the fact that you paid for something that was desirable that someone else that also desired it may not be able to obtain. A cash shop of any kind will always be pay to win to some degree.

It depends how you define winning. To some, winning is getting all the classes to max level. To others, looking awesome while in the game world is winning. Others think having an advantage in pvp is winning. Others think instantly having a max level character is winning.

MMOs do not have one set goal that is the same for all players.

Basically anything that you can pay above and beyond the price of entry can be considered pay to win by some people.

The grey area that everyone is tapdancing around  is how much pay to win content is acceptable? A collector's edition that charges 10 bucks more for a pet unobtainable anywhere else is indeed pay to win. But how agregious is this?

XP boosts are iffy. I like them if there is a level cap and will not play games that sell xp boosts if the level is not capped or is not capped at an acceptable place. League of Legends would be an example of a game that sells xp boosts that I am ok with. Maple story would be an example of a game that sells xp boosts that I am not ok with.

But that is just for me and I totally get that other people will have other opinions.

Originally posted by zekeofev

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Any RMT at all is Pay-To-Win. Whatever it is, if it has enough value to players that they are willing to pay cash for it, then it has value in the game and those who buy it are ahead of those who don't. They have bought something that other players either can't have, or have to spend time that they didn't (by virtue of the cash purchase) to get.

No matter how you look at it, cash buys something (items, advantages, or time rquirements to get). And that is Pay-To-Win.

This is what I meant about a definition being useless. WIth this definition, nearly all (if not all) would be classified as P2W. If you want to nitpick Eve Online, Guild Wars 1, World of Tanks, League of Legends... all of these would be put in the same basket with Runes of Magic, Atlantica Online etc. - games with serious cash shop advantage.

There is a degree how severely the cash shop affects games.

Degree of the cash shop affecting games does not change the fact that you paid for something that was desirable that someone else that also desired it may not be able to obtain. A cash shop of any kind will always be pay to win to some degree.

 

It depends how you define winning. To some, winning is getting all the classes to max level. To others, looking awesome while in the game world is winning. Others think having an advantage in pvp is winning. Others think instantly having a max level character is winning.

 

MMOs do not have one set goal that is the same for all players.

 

Basically anything that you can pay above and beyond the price of entry can be considered pay to win by some people.

 

The grey area that everyone is tapdancing around  is how much pay to win content is acceptable? A collector's edition that charges 10 bucks more for a pet unobtainable anywhere else is indeed pay to win. But how agregious is this?

 

XP boosts are iffy. I like them if there is a level cap and will not play games that sell xp boosts if the level is not capped or is not capped at an acceptable place. League of Legends would be an example of a game that sells xp boosts that I am ok with. Maple story would be an example of a game that sells xp boosts that I am not ok with.

 

But that is just for me and I totally get that other people will have other opinions.

 

 

I can see your point but I disagree about the pet thing.  All you're getting is a pet skin that you can't get anywhere else, but the pet isn't more powerful than other pets.  And it doesn't do anything other pets can't do.  If it had those things, then I would consider it a Pay2Win item.  Or, going by your definition, it's not too egregious.

Originally posted by IPolygon

There is no such thing as your or mine definintion of Pay2Win. Pay2Win is buying boosters etc that give you an edge over other players in direct competition.

I think you hit the nail on the head of the basic problem I have where is the "direct competition" in an MMO. Sure there is PvP so a PvP advantage is somewhat easy to see.  

BMany seem to think they are directly competing in PvE. I knew someone in one MMO that wanted all of the clothing, so was she competing with everyone so that cosmetic items were infact P2W items for her? If that is the case then your play style will dictate whether you think something is P2W or not. This does seem to be the case for all these many pages of argument. 

On this whole pay to win thing...I just think it's hilarious that a game dev could essentially say:

Hey guys, we're making a game where you can become more powerful by:

A.  Adventuring, slaying monsters, completing quests, crafting, delving in dungeons, etc...

or

B.  Paying real money

And then some players actually pick option B.

Originally posted by Creslin321

On this whole pay to win thing...I just think it's hilarious that a game dev could essentially say:

Hey guys, we're making a game where you can become more powerful by:

A.  Adventuring, slaying monsters, completing quests, crafting, delving in dungeons, etc...

or

B.  Paying real money

And then some players actually pick option B.

I think there's a difference between paying real money to become powerful (by itself), and paying real money to reduce the amount of monster slaying you have to do to become more powerful.

There's a grey line somewhere along the path, but there is definitely a difference between the end points.

[EDIT]

I tried to post this in another thread, but it got locked and I wanted to get my idea out. This seems like the closest fit.

There are a lot of people who will gain more fun by buying an expedited path through content, especially if they feel its taking too long to progress to interesting stuff and they don't have enough time available.

For instance, in SW:ToR I hated that I had to do a lot of the quests. They generally felt unheroic, uninteresting, and eventually uninspired (which is understandable with a game with 1532356636125463612345913563957934719496 quests to try to appease content locusts.) Unfortunately, I had to do (most of) them if I wanted to stay up to level compared to my content. If I was given the option to increase my experience and loot gain to allow me to avoid a lot of this mundane crap that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

Originally posted by Sythion

Originally posted by Creslin321

On this whole pay to win thing...I just think it's hilarious that a game dev could essentially say:

Hey guys, we're making a game where you can become more powerful by:

A.  Adventuring, slaying monsters, completing quests, crafting, delving in dungeons, etc...

or

B.  Paying real money

And then some players actually pick option B.

I think there's a difference between paying real money to become powerful (by itself), and paying real money to reduce the amount of monster slaying you have to do to become more powerful.

There's a grey line somewhere along the path, but there is definitely a difference between the end points.

[EDIT]

I tried to post this in another thread, but it got locked and I wanted to get my idea out. This seems like the closest fit.

 

 

There are a lot of people who will gain more fun by buying an expedited path through content, especially if they feel its taking too long to progress to interesting stuff and they don't have enough time available.

For instance, in SW:ToR I hated that I had to do a lot of the quests. They generally felt unheroic, uninteresting, and eventually uninspired (which is understandable with a game with 1532356636125463612345913563957934719496 quests to try to appease content locusts.) Unfortunately, I had to do (most of) them if I wanted to stay up to level compared to my content. If I was given the option to increase my experience and loot gain to allow me to avoid a lot of this mundane crap that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

Sure, but look at the root problem here.  SW:ToR is a game and was designed by people...everything in it was essentially put there intentionally.  So if you feel parts of the game are unheroic, uninteresting and uninspired, then that is really the fault of the game designers and nothing else.  The point is that the game could have been better.

Now you may think that an option to pay in order to skip undesireable content would be nice, but in reality, you are paying your money to avoid their bad game design.  It's almost a con...it really is.  Having a successful cash shop that relies on "pay to skip" items basically relies on there being content in a game that people will want to skip.  In other words, a "pay to skip" cash shop relies on bad game design.

So I really think you have to look at the big picture here.  If you think that pay to skip cash shops are okay...then you are essentially encouraging game design that you feel is bad.

If you pay some money and they send you a certificate that says "Congratulations you won the game!"  then its pay to win.

Sounds dumb but it illustrates the point.  We don't know what winning is in an MMORPG.  To some people advancing as quick as possible is "winning".  Might sound dumb to some people but that is what they think and the game does not really say or guide players towards anything except constant accumulation so it not entirely wrong.

I think a better, although less succinct, term is "pay to get more power than a non-payer can get". 

In this regard XP boost does not qualify since you can still get to max level either way, but armor that is 10% better than any drop does count.

This is also why the issue becomes much clear cut for PvP as well.  Because in the end PvP is all about power and we know what "win" means.  It means you win matches or duels.  And that is basicaly the measure of power.

I am dead set against "pay to get more power than a non-payer can get".  Other things I don't really care so much about.

Pay to Win = Game design/programming choices that FORCE a cash payment requirement either through in-game player manipulation or missing/blocked/lockedcontent availability.

Anything else that can be sold is a persons choice as to whether they play for the item and pay in game gold, or buy in the cash shop. 

Guess it depends on what goals you set for yourself in a MMO. Some players see competition everywhere in a game, PVE, playertrade, PVP. Others only see it where you actually do combat against other players. I only see competition in PVP. Because in that situation every player is aware of the competition. Which is not the case in PVE.

PVP:

- I find P2W the most disruptive if cash shop items affects PVP. It is usually the only situation where I would talk in terms of P2W.

PVE:

- If players can buy their way into the economy. In PVE and playertrade I can get concerned if cash shop items have an influence on player economy. I wouldn't use the abbreviation P2W though. Because there is nothing really to win (I don't see how you 'win' from a different player who didn't even realise he was taking part in a competition:p ).

- If players can buy their way to the end of the game. XP potions or other buffs that speed ups some form of progress. These confuse me the most. It makes me wonder if the devs slowed down progression as much as possible to make those consumables more in demand. Without slowing it down too much so that players get bored and quit right away ofc.

(For GW2 cash shop I only worry about being able to buy your way into player economy and causing faster inflation, I don't see P2W there)

Originally posted by Creslin321

Sure, but look at the root problem here.  SW:ToR is a game and was designed by people...everything in it was essentially put there intentionally.  So if you feel parts of the game are unheroic, uninteresting and uninspired, then that is really the fault of the game designers and nothing else.  The point is that the game could have been better.

Now you may think that an option to pay in order to skip undesireable content would be nice, but in reality, you are paying your money to avoid their bad game design.  It's almost a con...it really is.  Having a successful cash shop that relies on "pay to skip" items basically relies on there being content in a game that people will want to skip.  In other words, a "pay to skip" cash shop relies on bad game design.

So I really think you have to look at the big picture here.  If you think that pay to skip cash shops are okay...then you are essentially encouraging game design that you feel is bad.

Accurate assessment of root problem, however, I'm also not a good baseline by which to set a game's content. I probably like a lot less content than most MMO players would find anywhere near acceptable.

Bottom line is people play games differently, for different reasons, and enjoy different aspects of them. If a cash shop is used to enhance their experiences, then speeding up or slowing down the content is perfectly okay and not considered p2w to me.

Shops that gives an advantage that is unobtainable by spending a reasonable amount of time instead is p2w. The only thing that matters is what is considered "reasonable".

Im done with P2W games and i wont buy D3 either, Blizzard will probarly make 1 billion $ on retail, and the money AH will make the same each year. I dont like this direction of future games.