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Some forced paid expansions are prime examples of pay to win mechanics
Baalzharon
Member RarePosts: 514
Part two of my pay to win topic. Lets ignore the other thread and leave the discussion there whether pay to play MMOs are pay to win or not. Now "some" is in the thread title, because mostly MMOs do expansions a lot better than they used to. The best examples of forced expansions that go into pay to win territory is LOTRO, WoW and FFXIV. But I'm mostly gonna talk about WoW since most experience with that.
An even better example is expansions compared to a flat subscription rate. Many in my previous thread brought up everyone pays 15 dollars and is equal. Except...when paid expansions are released. In GW2, the elite specs (okay this may be out of date, but when I played it was how it was) were/are vastly better than the vanilla specs. Though...mostly everyone is equal so not the best example here. ESO goes along the same way of GW2 except better because the subscription adds most of the DLC content where as GW2 there is no sub to get "free" stuff.
EVE Online and Black Desert Online are the two best expansion adding MMOs. Expansions are free...nothing else needs to be said about this one, great business model and the best subscription (for EVE) model that exists of any MMO with a sub. And BDO of course has no forced sub, but there is also no expansions one must buy.
So you can see, actually most expansions these days are done really well and not much to complain about. This thread isn't about them though. We are going to look at WoW as a prime example. FFXIV/LOTRO are the same, but I don't play them so won't comment much on it.
If you think a subscription wasn't pay to win, that can be easy to argue...what can't be is when WoW (or FFXIV/LOTRO but I have more experience with WOW) releases an expansion and even if you pay 15 dollars a month, you are NOT equal to those who paid for the expansion.
In fact, you can't progress in WoW without the latest expansion and in PvP you will be slaughtered by those with the expansion. In the other thread people said everyone pays equal amount so its fair...up till you are forced to pay 40 dollars (or more for a collector's edition) for an expansion and the person who has the expansion will literally win...the ultimate definition of pay to win. They paid an expansion and now win against those without the expansion. You have no choice but to buy that expansion.
I'll bring up wiki as a source, but yeah I know people are gonna go "lol wiki lol" but it is an example of what most people find to be the most common definition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play
And key quote from there...
" In general a game is considered pay-to-win when a player can gain any gameplay advantage over his non-paying peers."
So even if you pay 15 dollars like EVERYONE else who plays WoW, if someone pays an additional 40 dollars minimum for an expansion will have a severe gameplay advantage over the non-paying expansion players even if they are paying for a sub they'll lose in PvP without even standing a tiny percent of a chance.
Its good many MMOs are doing expansions vastly better these days. EVE has always been the best for subscription MMOs. And many MMOs are making players who don't have an expansion still mostly equal (but missing content) compared to those who paid for an expansion.
And like I ended my other topic...these MMOs with forced highly advantage expansions compared to those who don't have that expansion, they are dying out to those MMOs who treat everyone mostly equal. The MMO industry is moving in a great direction in regards to expansions (many even just being free expansions).
It is in fact a tiny sliver of MMOs left with outdated expansion models but its important to bring it up because they are still popular.
An even better example is expansions compared to a flat subscription rate. Many in my previous thread brought up everyone pays 15 dollars and is equal. Except...when paid expansions are released. In GW2, the elite specs (okay this may be out of date, but when I played it was how it was) were/are vastly better than the vanilla specs. Though...mostly everyone is equal so not the best example here. ESO goes along the same way of GW2 except better because the subscription adds most of the DLC content where as GW2 there is no sub to get "free" stuff.
EVE Online and Black Desert Online are the two best expansion adding MMOs. Expansions are free...nothing else needs to be said about this one, great business model and the best subscription (for EVE) model that exists of any MMO with a sub. And BDO of course has no forced sub, but there is also no expansions one must buy.
So you can see, actually most expansions these days are done really well and not much to complain about. This thread isn't about them though. We are going to look at WoW as a prime example. FFXIV/LOTRO are the same, but I don't play them so won't comment much on it.
If you think a subscription wasn't pay to win, that can be easy to argue...what can't be is when WoW (or FFXIV/LOTRO but I have more experience with WOW) releases an expansion and even if you pay 15 dollars a month, you are NOT equal to those who paid for the expansion.
In fact, you can't progress in WoW without the latest expansion and in PvP you will be slaughtered by those with the expansion. In the other thread people said everyone pays equal amount so its fair...up till you are forced to pay 40 dollars (or more for a collector's edition) for an expansion and the person who has the expansion will literally win...the ultimate definition of pay to win. They paid an expansion and now win against those without the expansion. You have no choice but to buy that expansion.
I'll bring up wiki as a source, but yeah I know people are gonna go "lol wiki lol" but it is an example of what most people find to be the most common definition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play
And key quote from there...
" In general a game is considered pay-to-win when a player can gain any gameplay advantage over his non-paying peers."
So even if you pay 15 dollars like EVERYONE else who plays WoW, if someone pays an additional 40 dollars minimum for an expansion will have a severe gameplay advantage over the non-paying expansion players even if they are paying for a sub they'll lose in PvP without even standing a tiny percent of a chance.
Its good many MMOs are doing expansions vastly better these days. EVE has always been the best for subscription MMOs. And many MMOs are making players who don't have an expansion still mostly equal (but missing content) compared to those who paid for an expansion.
And like I ended my other topic...these MMOs with forced highly advantage expansions compared to those who don't have that expansion, they are dying out to those MMOs who treat everyone mostly equal. The MMO industry is moving in a great direction in regards to expansions (many even just being free expansions).
It is in fact a tiny sliver of MMOs left with outdated expansion models but its important to bring it up because they are still popular.
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I mean, people that own a game have a much better chance of winning it than you if you don't own it....................................... right?
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Such as:
Games have expansions
The best items are in the expansions
Expansions cost money
> Games with expansions are pay to win
B.S.
Just as with the last post on this topic, to accept that logic you have to buy into the idea that any game you have to pay for at all is P2W.
But that's not what P2W means, and everyone knows it. The definition of P2W was expressed previously and doesn't need repeating.
Same post, same silly notion.
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You showed that in a previous post and you are confirming it with this one.
P2W is about who spend the most money.
Expansions, like Subscriptions, give a level field to every player.
Sure you have to buy the expansion in order to play the content, but after that everyone is the same.
It’s like two people buying the same Ford Focus, but one of them switch the engine with a Ferrari.
That guy is paying to win.
Buying the car is not pay to win, until you start making expansive modification to it.
I hope you understand the metaphor.
Of course, the OP's probably trolling anyways. The actual P2W model of F2P games being true P2W that hurts the games is something the business companies already know about and thus their shills should be aware of too (ask any insider or just check out R2games' public investor presentation on the subject) so anyone who says otherwise is purposefully being obtuse.
In GW2 someone with vanilla competes head to head in the same PvP and PvE events as the people who have HoT and PoF. You do half their damage, have inferior support and healing, and are much less survivable but everyone is level 80 so you don't even get a bolster in WvW to make up for your massive disadvantage.
Most people dont' have problem with paying money. People have problem with paying too much money.
The argument is never about the payment model, it is the detail of payment model. Would you rather pay 60$ for an expansion which last 2 years or pay 15$ a month for 2 years.
It also varies person to person. There are people who simply refuse to pay any money at all, so he'll like games which are complete free(maybe the OP is that kind of person).
I know some games where the person could have literally purchased several airplanes for the amount of money they spent on the game. That one $20,000 per month whale was worth 200 $100 per month customers.