No, because it’s not a pedantic litany, it’s not P2W and complaining about it just hides any real P2W issues.
I’m quite anti P2W, but lets actually focus on real P2W stuff, not Pay for convenience which is what stuff like the character bazaar, Plex, & start packs are.
When CCP introduce stuff like ‘Pay for Abyss module rerolls’ that’s when it’s going into real P2W territory.
Preaching at the altar of “wait until it’s too late to do anything about it” is not the way to fix things. The people who care about the game are fighting it now. Before it reaches the point you are pushing. The place the game has almost reached while you sing la la la with your fingers in your ears.
Mr Epeen
But there is no problem now with the parts you are trying to fight. They are just convenience that in no way gives someone an advantage over what can be obtained via regular gameplay. It’s literally no different than WoW selling a ‘max character level token’.
Which makes the fight pointless noise that then disguises any real issues.
Imo, plex is a convenience. Before plex, all you had were rmter’s to dump any cash in the game. CCP was missing out, so plex didn’t bother me. Ptw to me was when the skill injectors came into the game. I liked the idea of the skill accelerators, but the injectors just caused a bot problem it seems.
Nevyn is the frog in the boiling water.
Mr Epeen
Unfortunately, were all in the same pot. It’s just some of us realize the temp is rising!
So how buying SP for real money is not P2W? You getting clear advantage over other player who want to play the game without spending extra money on it. SP in EVE are like levels in other mmorpg’s, they increase scope of what character’s can do in a game and also make your character more powerful .
For me so called “paying for convenience” is just another term of the same issue. Paying for convenience means usually that you will do something quicker in a game skipping normal process and that is clear advantage over other player who will have to spend more time to get there.
I wouldn’t have a problem with PLEX if PLEX would be only obtainable for ISK in game and there would be no way to buy it for real money because that opens a way to P2W.
Also, SP should be obtainable only through time spent in a game. Of course today game developers will do everything to increase company’s profits and that’s precisely why these features were designed in the way they are today without thinking too much that players actually like it or not.
PS. It’s just my personal view I do realize that many people nowadays got used to so much to modern gaming that they simply don’t remember how gaming looked and what gaming was about 20 years ago…
I was gaming 20 years ago. None of what you listed is P2W. Pay for convenience is quite different and mixing the two up is ignorance at best.
That’s only your opinion.
No.
For something to be P2W it must be cash paid for an advantage that can’t be gained by reasonable in game play. If it can be gained via reasonable in game play then it is only pay for convenience.
That’s not opinion, you trying to call it that is like saying it’s only an opinion the sky is blue or the earth is round.
The many friends i met and flew with over the years in different corps and alliances who no longer play
The WUB WUB WUB sound of a warp disruptor
The cruiser command ship hulls
The jukebox
Were all just going through the motions now.
Too many things to count. But to answer the question, people mostly.
Not getting blapped in hi sec by Trig crap or overpowered FOB spawns that seem to have been added to force hi sec players to do whatever CCP wants.
Dear CCP
We aren’t all interested in Trigs - that ■■■■ should be optional
FOBS are broken - too powerful for newbros to go up against, no decent reward for vets to take them on…why are they in hi sec? - why are Concord not doing their job? the whole thing is ridiculous.
Well I will say again “It is only your opinion” cause you just said exactly how you understand Pay to win. You inventing definition.
Problem with “pay to win” is that for everyone it means something slightly different and definition is changing over time. Google “pay to win” and you will find 20 different definitions…
In old days of Chinese games with P2W mechanics it meant that you could buy items for real money which were not obtainable by gameplay at all… That was hard core P2W.
But today companies implement “modified” form of it just to not piss of players entirely.
There is some common consensus among players about what P2W is(I advise you to do some research), which can be summarized by: Pay to win is anytime when you use real cash for buying advantage over other player.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes to grind it in a game because you get your advantage in a flash, when someone else must grind it…And you can’t use time of grinding as a requirement for something to be P2W because "long time to grind"or “short time to grind” means something completely different for everyone. Many people at this point will say “In EvE SP doesn’t guarantee win” and that is entirely true.
So let’s assume you have the same level of play skill/experience as another player and you both meet for 1 vs 1 pvp. In normal situation chance of winning for you or other player would be around 50% . But you just bought 20 mil of SP which gave you access to new skills/ships/modules/etc and someone else must grind it and get it in a future - you created unbalance and You have clear advantage at that very point of time - it’s obvious - your chance of winning will increase a lot. What’s more, assuming that you both keep playing the game, another player will always be below your SP level unless he will buy that 20 mil SP to come back to initial balanced 50/50 state…
Of course people who play the game are rarely willing to admit that game uses pay to win mechanics, and people who doesn’t play the game are always more likely to have unbiased opinion.
Different companies implement these shady microtransaction in a different ways. Bethesda’s Fallout76 is great example of so called pay for convenience put to ridiculous level. Bethesda implemented features in a game which for a purpose are annoying and make game hard to enjoy for a players and then started selling short cuts and solutions to this… For most of people this is actually worse mechanics that pay to win.
Example of real “pay for convenience” could be extra bag slots but only if bag slots available for a players are big enough by default to enjoy the game and you can pay to make them only slightly bigger.
If game developers would design bag slots being far too small and expect people to buy bigger for real money and bigger bag slots would give you clear advantage over other players cause you could spend significantly more time grinding/fighting/questing/gathering/etc, how would you call that? For me, It is pay for convenience forced on players and also smells pay to win.
I did my research and many people start treating pay for convenience as a new pay to win(very often even worse) only with a twist, different name and companies hope that players wont notice…
Today games are mainly about making money by a companies, you have no idea what systems and features are implemented in games to make you use these microtransactions. For example very famous recently EA’s “Adaptive difficulty” or Activision’s manipulting with matchmaking in their fps games to influence your decision to go and buy something from their shop…
The gaming older people played and loved 20 years ago died when “players” started using their wallets to buy shortcuts through games and companies sniffed that they could used that as a great idea for a future monetization of basically all games.
Today when profit goals are being created for a new game, sells of actual products are just part of it. Companies actually assume how many people MUST use their microtransactions to make shareholders happy… There are thousands of metrics being done by companies not how you enjoy the game but how often you buy something from their cash shops and what motivates you to do that…
When you support these mechanics in games you support destruction of gaming we loved and you allow gaming industry to transform into microtransactions industry.
End of rant… Do your research and open your eyes…
You can not buy meaningful amounts of SP like your example from CCP with cash. (Yes, I agree there are limited packs which I’m not fond of, but not liking something doesn’t make it P2W)
You can however buy it with in game money, which means that cash does not matter, and it is not an advantage over someone who doesn’t spend cash.
Also there is only a limited amount of SP that will be useful in any engagement.
And it’s also basically unheard of for 2 perfectly even and spent SP in the same place pilots to meet in a 1 on 1.
So no, there is no real advantage here, you are clutching at straws to try and back a clearly wrong argument. It is not P2W in EVE, not when all of the above is true.
Which is A: Not true, there are non harmful ways to do microtransactions that support the community & the game, and B: Assumes people are being ‘forced’ to do said microtransactions.
Of course. But then there all the micro transactions that ruin 15 years of fair gameplay. Starting with the company deciding to join the RMT trade instead of stopping it.
Mr Epeen
Uhhhhhhhh
Yeah…
Ok, would you like to buy some tinfoil to go with that koolaid?
Because you know, CCP is sure not buying your isk in game for real money.
No, they are selling ISK for real money.
Mr Epeen