What do you consider as p2w?

scorpex-x

So I noticed that blade and souls new cash shop sells gold directly (something I don't think any other mmo does?) and also sells dmg boosters in the cash shop.

cash shop food
http://i63.tinypic.com/a4u5n7.png

Do you consider this p2w or just the pitfall of a f2p game?  For the record I have never played an mmo that did either of these things before.

Vrika

It's P2W, but I don't think the question with F2P game is "Can money be used to gain any in-game advantage?". Of course it can, an MMO like this can't run by selling cosmetic items alone.

The question is, how large in-game advantage does spending cash give? Does gathering ingredients and crafting equal buff take 1 minute time, or does it take 15 minutes, or will the player have to spend 1 hour collecting hongmoon coins to get that buff without paying anything.

aliven

If i can buy with real money advantage that i cant get without spending real money then it is p2w. Advantage need to be a numerical fact, objective. There is no other definition of p2w, people can have their opinion but that dont matter. 

Wizardry

two words ...cash shop or three letters RMT.

Iselin

Selling gold directly is actually more straight forward and honest than the typical selling of tradable items for cash that the players then sell for gold. I've always thought of that as just gold sales in disguise.

Damage boosters are nothing new as both in-game consumables and cash shop items.

Even in a game like ESO, which not many would consider P2W, you can buy food in the cash shop that enhances your magicka and/or stamina pools and those enhance your damage. You can also craft those or buy from guilds or NPC vendors which, I believe, you can also do in Blade and Soul... so no, nothing new there either.

Baitness

Selling gold directly is not the worst idea, as it will make gold sellers struggle.

They need to be damn fucking careful that they don't flood the market with currency, though.  I like the way EVE handles this much much much better, as the money comes from one of the natural isk faucets already in the game.  I suspect we will see some serious inflation problems, as America has a lot of players ready and willing to be "whales."

The food is not cool unless you can get those bonuses from crafted/in game food as well.

Vrika

I found a good video about cash shop:


It doesn't look too much P2W considering that free players are able to get some Hongmoon Coins if they want, except for the tiered premium membership. Someone who pays enough money to get tier 10 premium membership will have huge advantage over F2P player, even though with enough grinding F2P player is likely able to match him in combat.

Premium membership tier bonuses are visible here:
http://www.bladeandsoul.com/en/news/premium-membership/

reeereee

Allowing people to easily trade cash shop currency for in game currency was in PWI when the whole F2P concept was relatively new and has been done by many titles including TERA and gw2.

takilung

LOL if you don't even play the game why even comment. game is not P2W at all. i been playing the game for over 2 years from asian servers. yep you can get those potions which last minutes and is expensive as hell but they only provide like 2 % damage buff and trust me open world pvp = more people = wins = unbalanced as shit. 

believe me none of any mmorpgs open world pvp are fair. they are always unbalanced due to amount of zerg/ gear/ level base. a higher level player will always 1 shot a newbie even if he spent 99999$ in the game.

think the game is Pay to win? go ahead spent like shit load of money see if you win lol. you won't in the end, this game really relies on skill once you hit the cap level, its about timing, blocking and attack at the right moment

also players can get free premium currency by just playing the game. 

1 vs 1 and 3vs 3 tag match in this game is perfectly balanced if you havent try that yet. potions and stuff does not work on ranked so no P2W crap.