i better go buy an experience booster pack because that means im winning, yay.

Originally posted by AzurePrower

Where do people draw the line at? I mean, I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as the next person. How ever this same thing was present with Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Some thing I didn't like then and especially now since I saw the direction it was heading.

Where are people going to put their foot down for Guild Wars 2 or will they keep making excuses whilst they keep taking advantage of milking players for every dollar they can get?

TL;DR: 

Buy to play -> Cosmetic item cash shop -> gems -> Time-saving items -> (What next?)

Fans of the game are not going to put their foot down, since they like the game so much - if they were going to, they would have done it at the point where we could buy gold for RL cash. I was also very excited about GW2 until the cash shop info arrived - and I do wish I was able to rationalize it away and buy the game (since the game itself isn't bad), but I just can't. 

As it stands, most of the fans seem to be redefining P2W every time something unsavoury is added to the cash shop - which is sad, because other companies will see that it's apparently okay and we'll be getting more cash shops like this in the future. 

There is nothing that's pay to win in the gem shop, deal with it.

Originally posted by minttunator

Originally posted by AzurePrower

Where do people draw the line at? I mean, I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as the next person. How ever this same thing was present with Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Some thing I didn't like then and especially now since I saw the direction it was heading.

Where are people going to put their foot down for Guild Wars 2 or will they keep making excuses whilst they keep taking advantage of milking players for every dollar they can get?

TL;DR: 

Buy to play -> Cosmetic item cash shop -> gems -> Time-saving items -> (What next?)

Fans of the game are not going to put their foot down, since they like the game so much - if they were going to, they would have done it at the point where we could buy gold for RL cash. I was also very excited about GW2 until the cash shop info arrived - and I do wish I was able to rationalize it away and buy the game (since the game itself isn't bad), but I just can't. 

As it stands, most of the fans seem to be redefining P2W every time something unsavoury is added to the cash shop - which is sad, because other companies will see that it's apparently okay and we'll be getting more cash shops like this in the future. 

you obviously have not played many of the f2p asian games out there if you feel GW2 cash shop is pay to win. PVP in some of those and you will understand what pay to win is all about and how vastly differn't those are compared to whats offered in GW2 shop.

Originally posted by minttunator

Fans of the game are not going to put their foot down, since they like the game so much - if they were going to, they would have done it at the point where we could buy gold for RL cash.

Do not assume that only because one is a fan, he/she becomes instantly an idiot with no critical mind. People have shown in abundance why the Cash Shop as it is is innocuous, and nothing 'crazy' has been put there.

If they add direct combat buffs, statted gear and such, I'll be the first to complain. But complaining that people can sell Gems to get Gold as this would somehow make you 'win' anything shows that people saying this haven't played the game, and are complaining for an evil that has not shown up yet.

I made another post on the other silly "Cash Shop" thread. Can anyone explain to me why the Cash Shop is in any way giving an unfair advantage because everyone is just saying that it does without any kind of explanation

Originally posted by seridan

I made another post on the other silly "Cash Shop" thread. Can anyone explain to me why the Cash Shop is in any way giving an unfair advantage because everyone is just saying that it does without any kind of explanation

The closest thing to a valid argument is that the person can use cash shop items to have way more gold than anyone else. They can then use this to A) dominate the market; B) buy hundreds of seige plans.

The former is somewhat controlled; one player's rise or fall in a player driven economy is as strong as the other buys and sellers.

The latter is controlled by supply. Plans are cheap; by 80 I could afford quite a few. but if your side doesn't ahve enough supply to fuel it all, you wasted them.

Originally posted by AzurePrower

At first it was all Guild Wars 2 is only buy to play! People buying copies will be able to cover the costs of a persistent server instead of instanced game play.

 

Then the inevitable cash shop arrived. People are defending it saying 'it's just cosmetic items' and 'helps pay the costs of running a persistent server'.

 

Then the whole gems debacle. 'It still doesn't effect game play all that much and costs too much to get ahead of any one.'

Now paying for 'time-saving' items. People are still clinging to 'it's not pay to win. This is okay!'

 

Where do people draw the line at? I mean, I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as the next person. How ever this same thing was present with Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Some thing I didn't like then and especially now since I saw the direction it was heading.

 

Where are people going to put their foot down for Guild Wars 2 or will they keep making excuses whilst they keep taking advantage of milking players for every dollar they can get?

 

TL;DR:

Buy to play -> Cosmetic item cash shop -> gems -> Time-saving items -> (What next?)

The first problem is that your premise is wrong. ArenaNet announced right from the beginning that there would be a cash shop ~similar~ to the cash shop in Guild Wars 1. It's not news that there would be a cash shop. They didn't just take it on at the end and surprise people with a cash shop. If you actually followed the game, then you would have known that a cash shop was going to be included right from the beginning. 

The second problem is what's considered pay-2-win? ArenaNet defines it as any item that could give someone a statistical advantage over their opponent in gameplay. Meaning offering Uber sword of faeries that deals 5000 damage per hit, and only available through the cash shop. 

So the question is, do time-saving rewards count as pay-2-win under than definition? It can go either way, but since you can obtain the same things, albeit with only a little bit more time (the advantages in the cash shop mostly only provide a 10% increase), is it really pay-2-win? Does it really matter that player x gets to level 80 first using exp boosts, while player y gets to level 80 a little bit after without using boosts? Especially in a game that's focused on the journey and not the end result. 

Secondly, considering these boosts are obtainable in game, is it really that bad? They may be rare, but they are obtainable.

Thirdly, since you can buy gems using gold (and yes, there will always be people who do sell gems for gold), does it really matter?

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by seridan

I made another post on the other silly "Cash Shop" thread. Can anyone explain to me why the Cash Shop is in any way giving an unfair advantage because everyone is just saying that it does without any kind of explanation

The closest thing to a valid argument is that the person can use cash shop items to have way more gold than anyone else. They can then use this to A) dominate the market; B) buy hundreds of seige plans.

 

The former is somewhat controlled; one player's rise or fall in a player driven economy is as strong as the other buys and sellers.

 

The latter is controlled by supply. Plans are cheap; by 80 I could afford quite a few. but if your side doesn't ahve enough supply to fuel it all, you wasted them.

You said it yourself, plans are cheap. Right now they are difficult to buy simply because nobody is at higher level content where more money is available. Right now 16 silver seems like a lot, but by 80 that will probably seem like pocket change. 

And since supply is the biggest limiting factor in siege weapons, and the cash shop includes nothing to help you get supply, it doesn't really matter if you can afford 100 blueprints but the other person can only afford 80. The fact is, these things require supply, and if you put it up without enough supply around it just sits there in a half built state, like a large red flag asking for the enemy to destroy it. 

Originally posted by bookworm438

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by seridan

I made another post on the other silly "Cash Shop" thread. Can anyone explain to me why the Cash Shop is in any way giving an unfair advantage because everyone is just saying that it does without any kind of explanation

The closest thing to a valid argument is that the person can use cash shop items to have way more gold than anyone else. They can then use this to A) dominate the market; B) buy hundreds of seige plans.

 

The former is somewhat controlled; one player's rise or fall in a player driven economy is as strong as the other buys and sellers.

 

The latter is controlled by supply. Plans are cheap; by 80 I could afford quite a few. but if your side doesn't ahve enough supply to fuel it all, you wasted them.

You said it yourself, plans are cheap. Right now they are difficult to buy simply because nobody is at higher level content where more money is available. Right now 16 silver seems like a lot, but by 80 that will probably seem like pocket change. 

And since supply is the biggest limiting factor in siege weapons, and the cash shop includes nothing to help you get supply, it doesn't really matter if you can afford 100 blueprints but the other person can only afford 80. The fact is, these things require supply, and if you put it up without enough supply around it just sits there in a half built state, like a large red flag asking for the enemy to destroy it. 

Well I know all these but I want those who support the P2W madness to answer my simple question.

Originally posted by grapevine

Originally posted by MoonBeans

I've seen worse.  TSW comes to mind.    there you have a B2P, then a Month Sub Fee, and a cash shop.

 

TSW's cash shop is completely cosmetic, and most sub based mmo's have some form of cash shop these days. I believe the OP is implying pay to win. * edits due to the annoying iPad auto correction feature.

 Considering one of the biggest draws to TSW is playing Barbie online, the cash shop is huge. Funcom completely gutted the options you can get without the cash store.

Plus TSW has a sub and a box fee, come on....

I have yet to see one item that others could buy that would make me feel like i'm at even a remote disadvantage having not bought that item.  

By all means, go ahead and dump $10, $20, $100 or freaking $10,000 on the cash shop.  It's not going to affect me in the slightest and you'll help fund the game I'm enjoying greatly!

Originally posted by AzurePrower

TL;DR:

Buy to play -> Cosmetic item cash shop -> gems -> Time-saving items -> (What next?)

Buy to play -> Cosmetic item cash shop -> gems -> Time-saving items -> Tinfoil hats for all the crazies become available in cash shop -> Contentment for all

No. GW2 will stand its own ground. Fanbase is huge. Game done with a style and looks like it got a lot to offer. One thing that can damage GW2 is overhyped community.

Devs managed to do a great game.

IMO having things that speed up advancement in anyway is pay to win tier items, I don't care what you try to say. So Anet has already lied about there being no pay to win items in the cash shop because well, they are already there. Not that I can blame them though, pay2win items are really the only way games that rely on cash shops make any profit. That is unless they allow the cash shop items to be fully tradeable in game, alot of people will pay ingame funds for someone to get them a item from the cash shop, i've done it. Then again I will buy some cosmetic items if they are like 1-5 bucks, and not some crazy 10-20 dollars a pop like most f2p titles.

Besides I don't see a point to rushing to 80, if you do your going to be disapointed cuz all mmo's now a days really don't have anything you can call a endgame till after its been out for a few months, its what killed swtor and is killing the secret world, you get to cap too fast even if your casual and then its like "Well what can I do now? there is nothing." My best friend in 3 days got all the skills he needed in tsw to use highest gear in game and all the skills he wanted for his build, now he doesn't even login because there is really nothing to do after you've done all the quests.

I miss when mmo's were about the journey and not rushing to cap for raiding, sadly those days are gone thanks to blizzard and wow. Main issue I find is that mmo's are becoming little more than a single player game with irc chat, till you hit some level cap then you finally need to group for stuff.

I mean I think solo *should* be an option, but it should be at least 4 times slower than grouping imo. Hell most mmo's now a days can't even get a grouping system right, most split the exp based on how many people so with a full group of 6 you have to kill 6 mobs to equil the exp youd get for one solo.

[quote]

No. GW2 will stand its own ground. Fanbase is huge. Game done with a style and looks like it got a lot to offer. One thing that can damage GW2 is overhyped community.

Devs managed to do a great game. [/quote]

when I first read a bit about gw2 i figured it was just the newest wow-clone/themepark then i got into the final weekend beta and i was honestly impressed, its been 6-8 years since a mmo has impressed me. Yes the game is still a bit wow/themeparky, but they did things diffrently enough that I don't get the "I've done this before" feeling soon as the game starts.

Originally posted by negativf4kk

No. GW2 will stand its own ground. Fanbase is huge. Game done with a style and looks like it got a lot to offer. One thing that can damage GW2 is overhyped community.

Devs managed to do a great game.

Sadly they already have an overhyped community.

An XP bonus for an hour is what..like $2. For a +50% XP. *shrug*

Not sure how that is turning into such a big deal.

There is already a thread discussing this topic, you can find it here:  http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/357908/I-finally-understand-the-Pay-to-Win-argument.html

Please keep the discussion there.