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Pay to Crush (P2C)
Kyleran
Member LegendaryPosts: 43,975
With all the talk about Pay to Win over in the ArcheAge forums and whether or not that title is P2W or not. (it isn't IMO btw), I was wondering what MMORPG titles really did have a serious P2W feel to them and why you thought so.
In my case I'll start off with Runes of Magic. I had started playing that title back in beta when it first launched, and within a month or so there was a cadre of players that reportedly spent up to $8K US to beef up their gear with cash shop bonus items and they were nigh unkillable even when attacked by a host (6-10) of same level players. When 5 or 6 of them got together, they could roll over almost anyone and everyone.
I stuck it out regardless, but around level 42 or so my son and I were leveling and we came across a level 40 ganker who proved to be impossible to kill, despite the best efforts of both of us to do so. He just resisted damage too much, and was always able to out heal or outrun us.
Though he really could not kill us either, we eventually got to chatting and found out he had spent round $400.00 US to beef up his armor which is why he was so indestructable.
When I found out our guild leader was looking forward to hitting level 50, so he could then go out and spend around $600.00 US in the cash shop to gear up to a reasonable level I decided it was time for my son and I to play another game.
So how about the rest of you, any good examples of serious P2W that you observed or even participated in over in another MMORPG?
Edit: Oh yes, an in case you think this is the whinings of a worthless F2Per, I spent almost $100.00 US in the cash shop in order to pay for mounts, extras storage space and the like for my son and I within the first 3 months, but I couldn't see spending the amount of money others were talking about (say 600.00 per person) just to continue playing at the next level.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Comments
I love the way TF2 does Pay-2-Look-Awesome. In a much more recent game, Firefall too. I want to buy laserbikes, hats, and shiz. I want to not look like the masses of plebes (I do not mean this in a bad way, i mean it endearingly joking).
In another more serious note, the two games' real-money shops have something similar, they sell items that change gameplay into a more specific playstyle (TF2's weapons and Firefall's advanced classes).
Just to name a few: SWToR, GW2, EQ2, WoW (characters), Rift (as much as I loved it), NWN.
Basically any game made by PW, NC$oft, or GPotato is going to be P2W, doesn't really matter the game. Think it's just the Asian design philosophies.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Or US-centric ideas being enforced on others (I know some of the US denizens believe speed is best and thus limiting their speed = P2W). SWToR and EQ2 btw are NA not Asian so you shot yourself in the foot with that one.
agreed, not a fan so much of pay 2 win titles but pay for skins would be ok for me, same game as I'm playing currently (Firefall). I guess pay for exp potions would be fine but up to that extent only. pay 2 crush games would just stop me on my tracks and look for another game stat.
That's why it's a second thought/paragraph, I'm well aware the first sentence contains games from NA.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
P2W games are just so prevalent, actually an easy, cookie-cutter formula to milk players our of their cash, and eventually, their patience and interest in the game.
There are some games that do uphold a good balance between being the F2P equation for player enjoyment + keeping the company alive. I saw that there's a comment regarding FireFall here and yeah I echo that support for that game as it does present a good, not too demanding presentation of how it asks its players to buy items (teleport devices, battleframes, other consumables and aesthetic items).
Wartune is without a doubt one of the most pay to win games ever made. Strangely enough though, I've managed to have a lot of fun playing it over the last 7 months without spending a dime. I just accept the fact that I'll never be one of the top players. But there are people who literally spend 10's of thousands of dollars on the game. There's a video of the founder of R2 games, one of Wartune's publishers, giving an in-depth explanation of how the pay-to-win games are monetized, and strategies they use to catch the "$100,000 whales" http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An
I agree about RoM being P2W, i spent some money for that game and quit when I realized i'll have to spend hundreds to keep up with the latest dungeons etc..
Another game that's P2W is EVE Online, as "sandbox" as it may be, you can buy a PLEX for $15 and convert it into nearly a billion ISK. This means a lot of players can buy the best ships/modules without investing much game time. Sure there are numerous methods to earn the ISK and buy the expensive PLEX yourself, but you'll be grinding it for hours while the P2W guy ganks you in his pimped out pvp ship.
You already mentioned Runes of Magic. Sadly though, because this game did show potential...
Two (a lot more actually) I would like to nominate for P2W are Lineage II and Perfect World published by NCWest. With Lineage II you can buy packages with chances for 100% chance of enchanting items (how is this not P2W in a hear based MMORPG?). Perfect World (actually all PWI titles) is pretty obvious with gear and enchant booster and such on the cash shop. Sadly, almost ll PWI games are like this as well
I don't understand why people bother arguing about the terminology.
Instead of saying pay 2 win. Should I say.... "well I really want that pretty weapon skin. And the developer purposely make the player doing pointless grind for over 500 hours so you can get the pretty weapons skin or YOU CAN PAY REAL MONEY FOR IT!"
Why does the terminology even matter.
I have a much cooler hat in Firefall than you do, just saying, no......seriously.
Oh btw, just kidding....not really.
Yeah, played Allods back then, too. It was so item shop dependent, it got to the point where you really had to buy to be able to continue / advance. That was a real sucker, and the Shop Battle feature never did follow through, which was a really sad, as it was its...flagship (err, sorry, had to drop that). I've tried out Planetside 2, WildStar, and yes even FireFall. All very entertaining. WildStar being so charming, and FireFall just being downright fun to play. <= I'm staying with this one right now.
Just found out that I can buy advanced frames in Firefall for in-game credits. Way to go for non-P2W in-game economies!
Heros of the three kingdoms.
Had fun playing untill lvl 70 as a tank, then no one want to group with me for some instances (pvp or pve) because my gear wasnt good enouph...
I search how to get better gear and found that i need some stones to improve it, stones selling in AH, random results, could spend 10.000 bucks in stones and get nothing.... (there was a ranking about how much players spend in game and some was more then 20k dollars in 1 month)
Really ruin my experience in game and quit in same moment i realise that.
Servers shut down in west after a few months btw, maybe is still open in China i dont know and i dont care.
Was the only bad experience i had and say good bye to Perfect world, forever.
Agreed, I think the focus on the pay to win aspects being so or not, misses the forest for the trees. The monetization methods you describe are what's really wrong with said business strategy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Is it pay-to-win if it does not harm other players? OTP's example was good example of real p2w-situation. Money surpasses fair play against other players.
My example is from Hellgate Global and I don't concider it really p2w, but someone loosing sense of proportion. One guy used 2000$ to get his weapon to highest possible grade. And this was not even uncommon, or so I was told. It was pure RNG. Still, I don't know if you can call this p2w because in that game you did not play against others.
C9 has same philosophy: trying to upgrade your things past some fixed value means you must use money.
I avoid games like these after my experiences and seeing how ruthless money-milking can be. I avoid games with cash-shop that sells anything else than fluff and some minor game-helpers. I can even understand xp-pots, as they just make you lvl faster, I don't see them harmful. But I can see term p2w useable only in games where heavy pvp is involved, as being able to pay to be more powerful against other players destroys fair play. Ofc there are ppl who don't even understand the word "fair play" and want to win at any cost, and they believe everyone else is like them (no, we are not).
RNG-based money-milking is ofc possible because some ppl seem to be blinded by wanting to be the best. Maybe the term p2w still fits there too. I don't know. I don't think this is actually so black'n'white. I have noticed that instead of p2w I often see ruthless companies milking ppl who are addicted. But then, do we blaim liquor-shops selling booze. Nope.