Room101 Posts

I didn't say you were, I'm explaining my reasons.

My interpretation of Pay-to-Win is not immensely flawed. The word itself doesn't imply in exclusivity, my definition still remains inside the possible definition (proof of concept) of the word, it is just out of the community's common sense, but that isn't saying it is wrong in itself. The whole point of pay to win is paying to acquire an advantage and this advantage makes winning easier (why else do you think buying equipment is called pay to win? Because you are buying advantage, this is the principle). This advantage came not from the players personal abilities inside the game rules but a real world resource unrelated to the abilities exercised in the game and that's why it is liable of criticism. What the community seems to perceive as pay to win is not the exactly the elements but the scale, not if a player is acquiring advantage but how much is it gaining, if its enough to “guarantee” a win with little effort. I perceive the word by the elements, acquiring an substantial advantage through real word resource.

Also, the community seems to think advantage can only happen in power comparison, increased speed or reduced effort are not perceived as advantage, which frankly is retarded. If speed or reduced effort are not an advantage then NCSoft could pretty much sell insta end-game (whatever the hell that will be) through the store as it is “only making things faster, the power balance remains the same”. I'm sure most people would be against such idea, the “loss of mid level lore experience” is too subjective and not enough to function as a trade-off, which brings to the point again that people perceive such advantages as scale not elements.

A game fine-tune is the set of rules to create a difficulty level inside the game. This difficulty level contributes to the overall quality of the game as a game that is too easy or too hard will prove itself boring overtime and it is the difficulty level distributed equally that will create the sense of skill level between the players. If everyone starts on the same grounds and work their through the top under the set of rules it will be their skills inside the game that will differentiate them, mostly. If you reduce the effort or increase speed you will change the difficulty level for that particular player inside the game, and since we're talking about paying for such prospects, it is the same as paying the game to change it to easy mode, a resource not related to the skills exercised when playing the game. The fact that a player can achieve the same status as other with reduced effort because he invested more money on the game creates an underlying sense of alienation as it devalues other player's efforts with no reasonable grounds (as real world money is not an skill). It's like comparing the time required to achieve point B from A of a player who played a game on easy to a player who played it on hard, the difference of difficulty level between the two instances obviously separates them from such comparison, no one with sound mind would do it. In GW2 however there is no such separation, all players co-exist as if the grounds of their game proficiency were equal, when they are in fact not. It ignores the rules and difficulty aspect (the effort necessary to overcome the obstacles imposed by the rules) out of a resource not related to the skills exercised in the game, it just sounds completely dull to game design. Seriously, I did no say this on my previous posts because it seems completely obvious, its retarded to not notice how the rules will shape a game.

What kind of agenda I would have criticizing a video game? The soccer analogy is what it is, an analogy. Soccer is a game where the rules will dictate a set of skills necessary to play and “win” the game, these skills in soccer are mainly physical skills and so, as money doesn't have anything to do with the skills necessary to play soccer, to give advantage to a player based on its money invested doesn't make any sense at all. Video Games are also games where the rules dictate a set of skills necessary to play and “win” the game, these skills in video games are mostly cognitive and reflexive skills and so, as money to doesn't really have any direct connection with these skills, to give advantage to a player based on its money invested also doesn't make any sense at all. Is that so hard to understand? Even if the “game modules” are different they are still the same thing, games, and exist on the same principles, the social aspects regarding games is no excuse to invert their essences. And as I said this mechanic in particular does little to really solve the casual issue.

Also, I'm not complaining about the items sold directly through the store, I don't really know what exactly these items will be, I'm complaining about the fact that a player can easily acquire in-game currency by selling his Cash currency to other players officially, and thus just making an longer and prettier path for gold buying, all that supported by the company. And the way this function helps them to not compete head to head to WoW is that players who didn't have time to commit for both games can do now by means of gems (as it is explained that there are “time-saving items on the store” and you can acquire in-game currency with the gems, saving a lot of farming) and so they don't need to compete to earn the player base, a player can competitively play both of them (if he has enough money to spend on GW2 that is).

I know they “designed the game with the cash shop in mind” but that is not to say they will succeed in creating fair grounds, selling substantial advantage is itself lack of fair ground. I find this ridiculous, even in their PC speech about the store they contradict themselves. In one sentence they say:



And then on the next sentence:



What the hell... if you're selling time-saving items how this would not be an advantage over people who spend time? Because both got to the same point? Pfftt, this notion completely disregards difficulty level (effort necessary) inside a game system, something directly related to the set of arbitrary rules. It will still be alienating.

I will still call it P2W because that's still inside the proof of concept for the word. To pay to acquire advantages (not just power buying, but reduced effort as a whole, that is what the word advantage implies: that something is easier from a certain position) is just bad for gaming system. Even if you call it a different name like don't know, Pay to Sweat Less just to be more specific (although that is exactly the modus operandi of P2W), it is still defying the essence of a game and as liable of criticism. To me, the game would be a hell lot better if these kind of transactions didn't exist.

Tl;dr: to give any kind of advantage through real world money is not cool

That's your definition of Pay-to-Win, and probably is the definition of the majority of people too. Your group believes that the expression Pay-to-Win implies that you can have a chance to win only if you pay, a more restrict and direct definition. However, speaking about semantics, “to” doesn't imply in exclusivity, as a preposition it only implies a direction regardless if that is the only way or not. In this sense, anything that helped the player substantially through his investment of real world currency in comparison to other players can be regarded as Pay-to-Win. That's my definition.

And I use this definition because even if you use your definition of Pay-to-Win, NCSoft's system remains awry to the game. A game is essentially a set of arbitrary rules. These rules exists so that the player achieves the objective dictated by the rules in a specific way, training a set of specific abilities. That's the concept of gaming skills. Being the very essence of a game, if the player denies or bend these rules at will it will be defying the game itself.

From this point, it is kinda obvious a game should not give advantage to its players, be it increased power/speed or reduced effort, based on the player's monetary investment on the game. Money is not a skill, it's a resource. The skills required to earn money in the real world are not analogous to the skills required to be efficient in the game's domain and so money cannot act as conversion tool.

This is something I find truly hypocrite on the gamers part. If a referee gives any sort of advantage to a soccer player because the player paid money to the referee it is considered wrongful and immoral as money has nothing to do with the skills required to play soccer. It's just bribery. The gamers however most of the the time just don't mind at all when a company said it's fine to pay more to have more advantages despite money having nothing to do with the skills required to play the game (as if every game was a betting game like poker or something). It is just completely out of reason to games themselves.

The supposed good purpose of this particular rule (pay more sweat less) is to even the time availability difference between the players. Not only this is a stupid way to even these differences as the casuals who don't have or aren't willing to invest money on the game cannot benefit from this mechanic, as there is no way to tell when a player is investing his money because he doesn't have time to play the game competitively or simply because he wants to exploit this mechanic, there is no way to prevent this rule from defying the game.

If you ask me, the only purpose of this mechanic in GW2 is for the game be able to tackle the WoW Community so they can play both games at the same time and thus relieving Arena.net from competing directly with Blizzard for the player base. It is just a coward move. To me, it sacrifices too much of its game quality for little gain. It is just a bad mechanic. The game would certainly be better without it.

Unfortunately for me this is not the way the community sees this issue, for them gaming is just joyful play and nothing else so anything which can make the game more “joyful” to them is alright regardless if that defies the very own essence of games. In this view the game itself doesn't have an essence, the principle is on the player as if the essence of a book was upon the reader, and so the game should be constructed to only please the gamers wishes regardless of what they are.

As someone who regards games an higher art medium, its just saddening. That's why I regard it as P2W and why I'll abstain from this game as I have done to many others.

tl;dr: GW2 is not the kind of game I'm searching, it is just another senseless fantasy action experience for the sake of being a senseless fantasy action experience. I guess we have too many of these already.