Originally posted by travamars

Yeah... It's not like they have a previous game using the exact same revenue model and a cash shop with no competative advantage... Oh wait they DO!

Really? And what game might that be? And dont bother to say GW1 because that is not an mmo.

GW1 was not an FPS so it could not have competative PvP.

[mod edit]

GW1 while not a traditional MMO, did have servers and operational costs similar to a traditional MMO. It was proven to be a sustainable revenue model which they have transitioned to GW2. They have financial people which almost certainly are more qualified than you to determin if this revenue model will work...

[mod edit]

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Now imagine I want to make a personal guild to store goods - since I'll have 0 guildies, it would take some time to get the upgrades and storage I want. So, if I'm impatiante I can just buy influence via gold. If I don't have enough gold I can buy gems and get the gold to get what I want. And someone else will get their 6th or 7th character slot for free,

Summary	Description	Cost	Level	Time
Research Architecture Level 1	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 1	500	-	16 hours
Guild Workshop	The workshop allows an additional upgrade to be building simultaneously.	500		2 days
Research Architecture Level 2	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 2	1000		1 day
Guild Stash	Grants access to a 50 slot Guild Vault and gold storage	1000		2 days
Research Architecture Level 3	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 3	5000		3 days
Research Architecture Level 4	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 4	?		? days
Guild Treasure Trove	Grants access to a 100 slot Guild Vault	5000		1 week
Research Architecture Level 5	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 5	?		? days
Deep Cave	The Deep Cave will expand your treasure trove by another 100 slots	5000		1 wee

Money will give advantages, but not statistical advantages. The WvW "advantages" are limited by other factors like supply, research slots, time, require people in the first place and all can be acquired easily by playing normaly.

Your first 4 words sum it up nicely. Thanks for proving everybodys point.

Originally posted by travamars

Your first 4 words sum it up nicely. Thanks for proving everybodys point.

You are truly adorable, people. Like a little cute puppies. You make a pool in the corner and think you've "won the debate". Yeah, you are totally "Winning!" this.

Originally posted by travamars

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Now imagine I want to make a personal guild to store goods - since I'll have 0 guildies, it would take some time to get the upgrades and storage I want. So, if I'm impatiante I can just buy influence via gold. If I don't have enough gold I can buy gems and get the gold to get what I want. And someone else will get their 6th or 7th character slot for free,

Summary	Description	Cost	Level	Time
Research Architecture Level 1	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 1	500	-	16 hours
Guild Workshop	The workshop allows an additional upgrade to be building simultaneously.	500		2 days
Research Architecture Level 2	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 2	1000		1 day
Guild Stash	Grants access to a 50 slot Guild Vault and gold storage	1000		2 days
Research Architecture Level 3	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 3	5000		3 days
Research Architecture Level 4	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 4	?		? days
Guild Treasure Trove	Grants access to a 100 slot Guild Vault	5000		1 week
Research Architecture Level 5	Increase your guild's skill in Architecture to Level 5	?		? days
Deep Cave	The Deep Cave will expand your treasure trove by another 100 slots	5000		1 wee

Money will give advantages, but not statistical advantages. The WvW "advantages" are limited by other factors like supply, research slots, time, require people in the first place and all can be acquired easily by playing normaly.

Your first 4 words sum it up nicely. Thanks for proving everybodys point.

Not in a competing situation with other players though. Or to be more clear not in a combat situation.

As long as you reckon that we are in agreement.

If I have enough money I don't need to work and I can stay all day playing GW2, money gave me advantages.

Can we get moderators to lock/delete threads like this? I think it's pretty evident that you cannot use real life currency to buy any sort of items or boosts in the game that the result of doing so is "I bought this so I automatically win or have a such significant advantage over you that it would be a one in a million shot for you to beat me."

Those simply do not exist, getting XP boosts to level to 80 faster doesnt matter, as all the PvP auto-scales you to level 80 anyway. Getting Karma boosts matters so little because the only thing you can do with it is buy gear from vendors, and gear matters about as much to a PvP battle as losing a $100 bill matters to Bill Gates. And if your guild has a decent size (10-20) of even remotely active players (~10-15 hours a week each), your research will be bottlenecked by the fact they take days to research and that you can only queue up so many at a time.

I'm not vastly knowledgable in the area of economics and the like, but a couple friends are Business/Accounting majors and know what pay-to-win means (they game every now and then, just not on MMOs). But when even they say there is not a snowball's chance in hell that the cash shop in its current form is pay-to-win, I'm going to have to agree with them (even though they merely confirmed my earlier opinion).

Is it just me who thinks this thread should of been locked a long time ago?

Originally posted by steeler989

Is it just me who thinks this thread should of been locked a long time ago?

Nope.

where we can enter in contact to moderators to lock this topic?

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

Originally posted by Skyy_High

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

Originally posted by Skyy_High
 

2) Look at the influence boosts you can get in WvW. They are absolutely tiny. If *that* is the extent to which P2W exists in GW2, I can't imagine getting upset about it. Population disparities will affect WvW waaaaaay more than influence spending will. 

So would it also be ok if the cash shop sold a sword that gave you those same "tiny" performance boosts?

Not really the same thing. A +10 sword is always going to be more powerful and useful than the +9 sword. Even if it doesn't make a difference all the time, there will be occasions when it does, just by the virtue of the fact that you're using it over a long period of time. Given that all other gear (no matter the source: drops, loot, dungeons, karma, etc) is normalized to the same stats, one can easily say that gear is supposed to be "balanced", and that the +10 sword would upset that balance. 

On the other hand, WvW isn't balanced, at all. You're never going to be participating in a "balanced" fight. In this context, the pathetic stat bonuses you get from influence (+40 to an attribute that will be over 1000) are literally negligible, because they're just going to vanish in the noise of all of the other WvW unbalancing factors which will have a FAR greater affect on the game. Gold farming is going to matter more than influence spending. Population imbalances are going to trump pretty much anything else. 

Lastly: the influence system is a fundamental part of the guild system. Until release, we really have no idea if the influence costs for these upgrades are going to be high enough to warrant buying gems to buy gold to buy influence. There are only 61 outposts in WvW, and not all of them are really worth spending influence to get these tiny boosts (because the fighting won't consistently happen around them). If it turns out that large WvW-focused guilds are capable of holding keeps and paying for upgrades without resorting to buying gold, then the entire premise of influence allowing for P2W falls apart. There is a maximum cap for how much influence (and, ergo, gold) you can spend on WvW boosts, because each boost takes quite a while to research. Therefore, if the rate of influence acquisition in a large guild is sufficient to pay for these boosts on its own, there is no possibility of "P2W", because buying extra influence won't make a difference in the slightest. 

And those bought and paid for WvWvW boosts won't make a difference all the time, but there will be occasions when they do, just like that +10 sword.  The reality is WvWvW has a pay2win component in Gw2.  At least some of you don't deny it, but most simply ignore this fact and go back to their "But, but, but, how can purple hat affect PVP?"  That is being oblivious to the fact that you can buy WvWvW boosts with real life money.

I don't think you read my entire post. Even if you were to posit the fact that a 4% boost to a single attribute, in a single keep, for whatever brief period of time a single guild owns that keep, is going to have any sort of significant impact on the match in general...there is still the fact that you haven't proven, and I still doubt, that buying gold with gems will allow a guild to buy more influence upgrades than a guild that doesn't do that. Yes, you can buy influence with money, but there is a hard cap on how fast you can spend influence because of the 24 hour (or longer) build time. We don't really know what influence rates are going to look like in a large guild that's focused on WvW, but unless buying gold leads to significantly faster rates of upgrade acquisition than simply farming the gold (or influence), there is literally zero P2W here. An advantage isn't an advantage if everyone has equal access to it, without spending money. 

Mercenary slots and skill unlock packs in GW1 were far more "P2W" than these miniscule boosts, and the boosts aren't going to be exclusive to people who pay money anyway. If this is the worst "P2W" that GW2 has, it really goes to show how well the cash shop was designed. 

too bad its not pay to have your OCD cured some gamers could really use it

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Master10K

I can link to.

So by his definition WvWvW is P2W in GW2.

The person who uses money can buy more defenses and weapons.

This guy again... He lives to disagree.

It's kinda irritating that every time someone brings an unpopular oipinion here they get called trolls and people call out to lock the thread.

I'm new to learning about this game and I'm trying to figure out just what can get bought.  I'm very interested in the game, but I'm disheartened by the fact that you can essentailly buy in game gold with real money.  It might not be a huge advantage, but it makes me much less interested in the game.  I'm not trolling, just saying how I feel.  And seeing you whiteknights jumping all over anyone daring to have another opinion is also a turn off if it's remotely indicative of the kind of community this game will have.

It may not be pay to 'win' but it's certainly pay for advantage.  I'm honestly not sure how people can deny that.  Frankly, it's mindboggling.  Is it a significant advantage?  Doesn't look like it no, and that's good.  But it's advantage and if you deny that you're just wrong.

Originally posted by Regomar

It's kinda irritating that every time someone brings an unpopular oipinion here they get called trolls and people call out to lock the thread.

I'm new to learning about this game and I'm trying to figure out just what can get bought.  I'm very interested in the game, but I'm disheartened by the fact that you can essentailly buy in game gold with real money.  It might not be a huge advantage, but it makes me much less interested in the game.  I'm not trolling, just saying how I feel.  And seeing you whiteknights jumping all over anyone daring to have another opinion is also a turn off if it's remotely indicative of the kind of community this game will have.

It may not be pay to 'win' but it's certainly pay for advantage.  I'm honestly not sure how people can deny that.  Frankly, it's mindboggling.  Is it a significant advantage?  Doesn't look like it no, and that's good.  But it's advantage and if you deny that you're just wrong.

Dude who cares, you can buy gold from a goldseller in any other game.

I feel like I'm the only one enraged here about how my hard bought gems are going to some person who had the time to play the game and get gold. Why should they be able to get things that cost gems when they didn't put up the money for it? And another thing, why is it that my gems fluxuate in value based on the gold/gem market? These are the real issues here in my book.

:D

Originally posted by p_c_sousa

where we can enter in contact to moderators to lock this topic?

The real question is that since we get once of these threads pretty regularly, how many more threads exactly like this can detractors get in before 8/28/12? And do people think it will actually influence sales or enjoyment?

So many people who haven't played the game are arguing theoretical points about how the store "might in some contexts give an advantage if other conditions are met, ergo it is P2W". Great, keep complaining on these forums or the BWE forums or play and be angry about it or don't play, those are the options.

All I know is that I played the first closed BWE after the press event and each BWE since then and enjoyed myself immensely. The game isn't perfect. I don't like the lock boxes and I said so in the forums but they're going to be in game so I live with it, which is made much easier by the lack of a sub fee. Still, at no point did I feel compelled to purchase anything to compete in WvW or to enjoy the content and it doesn't apply to structured PvP. In fact, I didn't use the cash shop at all except to buy a "box of fun" with the free gems for the last event, and it was actually a box of fun. Shocking.

This last BWE I had more gold than I knew what to do with at level 30, and I figure it will be like that as I level. My skill, my build, and the people with whom I play the game will determine my enjoyment, and I will not be worrying if someone has a particular shade of yellow for their armor or turns into a chair for 15 minutes or gets an crafting xp bonus.

I'm taking the opportunity to block everyone that disagree's with my opinion.  Why bother with acknowledging they exist at all, there is nothing that they can say that would seem valid to me.

Originally posted by Sebber

Originally posted by Regomar

It's kinda irritating that every time someone brings an unpopular oipinion here they get called trolls and people call out to lock the thread.

I'm new to learning about this game and I'm trying to figure out just what can get bought.  I'm very interested in the game, but I'm disheartened by the fact that you can essentailly buy in game gold with real money.  It might not be a huge advantage, but it makes me much less interested in the game.  I'm not trolling, just saying how I feel.  And seeing you whiteknights jumping all over anyone daring to have another opinion is also a turn off if it's remotely indicative of the kind of community this game will have.

It may not be pay to 'win' but it's certainly pay for advantage.  I'm honestly not sure how people can deny that.  Frankly, it's mindboggling.  Is it a significant advantage?  Doesn't look like it no, and that's good.  But it's advantage and if you deny that you're just wrong.

Dude who cares, you can buy gold from a goldseller in any other game.

Originally posted by Regomar

It's kinda irritating that every time someone brings an unpopular oipinion here they get called trolls and people call out to lock the thread.

I'm new to learning about this game and I'm trying to figure out just what can get bought.  I'm very interested in the game, but I'm disheartened by the fact that you can essentailly buy in game gold with real money.  It might not be a huge advantage, but it makes me much less interested in the game.  I'm not trolling, just saying how I feel.  And seeing you whiteknights jumping all over anyone daring to have another opinion is also a turn off if it's remotely indicative of the kind of community this game will have.

It may not be pay to 'win' but it's certainly pay for advantage.  I'm honestly not sure how people can deny that.  Frankly, it's mindboggling.  Is it a significant advantage?  Doesn't look like it no, and that's good.  But it's advantage and if you deny that you're just wrong.

I like how this thread has redefined "pay to win" to mean pay for small advantage. In most p2p games the players with the most time to play have the advantage, often so big that people with full time jobs can't compete at all (without illegally buying maxed characters off ebay or something anyway).

Generally, the more someone can afford gems, the less time they have to play (I am aware there are numerous exceptions, no need to waste time pointing them out). If someone who works 50 hours a week is able to buy items that allow slightly faster leveling and trade some cash for some siege blueprints or crafting mats, that hardly breaks the game. In those same 50 hours the stereotypical basement dweller should easily be able to farm enough gold and materials to buy plenty of blueprints as well.  No one will be selling gold unless they have excess, as it is all generated by (and thus limited by) people actually playing the game. Don't want currency exchange to give an advantage? Simple, don't sell your gold. Someone else selling their gold bothers you? Why? Does it matter which specific player ends up clicking the npc to buy blueprints with it? It's not like there is an unlimited amount of gold for sale generated out of nowhere when someone uses their credit card.

The huge advantage players with unlimited game time have in many games is mitigated here. People with full time jobs and lives can actually compete fairly, awe, so sad...... 

By allowing and regulating RMT in game ANet is getting rid of all the problems associated with 3rd party illegal RMT companies. These are a very real issue in any game without the ability to trade currency legitimately. The price of working full time should be either a stigma as a gold buyer or banned/hacked accounts? I'm not sure I follow the logic there.

Not like it wasnt expected GW1 was pay to win as well