Shadow Era

[Mánagarmr]

There are definitely examples of real pay to win games by my definition, although mostly (yet) confined to mobile and Facebook style casual games. I can't think of a PC game that is blatant pay 2 win. Though I haven't played them all either.

[Hearteater]

Calling something Pay-2-Win is insulting.  If you don't intend to be derogatory toward a game, don't call it that.  That isn't to say there aren't some games out there that deserve that moniker.

[chemical_art]

I'll be unique in saying:

Time is money.

If for 5 dollars I can achieve something that takes 10 hours, I'll buy, for I don't work for .50 dollars an hour.

Even if the game is fun, if something like this happens, I'll buy.

[Cyborg]

Well, pay to win is only derogatory to the people paying to win. 

For the rest of us, we enjoy pwning the noob who thinks he can bypass the in-game mechanisms- right at launch mind you!- to zoom past everyone else. It may be legalized cheating, but no doubt the sole purpose is to gain an advantage over someone else by putting money down. That is pay to win. There is no other reason to spend the money, right? You are paying for an advantage to win games because it's the easy way out rather than actually getting skill or putting the time in. It may be infuriating to hear this, but I'm not your buddy, I'm just commenting on an industry trend.

If you paid to win, own it! It's not a commentary on who you are, it's just saying that's what happened. Maybe you don't have time to play the game, and the only way you can join the main part of the game is to spend some money. Okay. By the way, that's what the developers are hoping for. :-) They want to coerce you into zooming past other people by paying money.

As far as league, you can only choose one champion and one page. If you are going into a draft mode, you are taking it upon yourself to play hardcore. If you are playing normal random, you can't see the other team choices anyways, so it's not like variety is going to help you. You only get one choice, and it's blind. So that's a moot point. I'm certainly not going to defend league as some bastion of sanity in a microtransaction world, but they have bent over backwards to level the playing field, and you can't zoom past other people with weapons or monster cards. Progression pages are locked by level. That's a big difference. I've never been on the field and felt outgunned, and I have never paid a cent. Most of the folks that I roll with only put in money for skins- for the lulz basically.

If I felt that I had to pay money to play a "f2p game," I wouldn't play it. I don't have time to get caught in some rat race of who owns what, keeping up with cards, and whatever else. I don't like Facebook games for a lot of reasons, and a lot of people make fun of them for this very reason. I'm not the first person to make fun of pay to win experiences. f2p is p2w, most of the time as far as I can tell. I'm sure there are exceptions.

By all means, carry on with these games, and don't take it as a personal thing if someone else says it's silly to get caught up in paying money for something that's advertised as free. That's just my opinion,  and my opinion doesn't have to be yours or affect you in the slightest. Carry on!

[Wingflier]

As far as league, you can only choose one champion and one page. If you are going into a draft mode, you are taking it upon yourself to play hardcore.

When talking about balance issues and paying for advantages, of course I'm only talking about the competitive mode.  Blind pick is a completely casual mode, I don't think it really matters how well that's balanced or not.

In the competitive draft mode, the ability to pick a variety of heroes and/or rune pages to fit the changing situation can mean the difference between victory and defeat for your team.  Therefore people with a larger variety of things to choose from (those who have paid or played more) have a distinct advantage.  Compare this to DotA 2 where all heroes are unlocked for everybody.

So yeah, if you're just playing LoL casually (non draft mode) I don't see that the current model makes much of a difference.

[Cyborg]

As far as league, you can only choose one champion and one page. If you are going into a draft mode, you are taking it upon yourself to play hardcore.

When talking about balance issues and paying for advantages, of course I'm only talking about the competitive mode.  Blind pick is a completely casual mode, I don't think it really matters how well that's balanced or not.

In the competitive draft mode, the ability to pick a variety of heroes and/or rune pages to fit the changing situation can mean the difference between victory and defeat for your team.  Therefore people with a larger variety of things to choose from (those who have paid or played more) have a distinct advantage.  Compare this to DotA 2 where all heroes are unlocked for everybody.

So yeah, if you're just playing LoL casually (non draft mode) I don't see that the current model makes much of a difference.

All valid points. No argument here. If you want to play competitively, earning your way takes longer. Just play normal mode, and you won't even notice.

[Wingflier]

Well and most the people who play LoL in tournaments (or for a living) probably already have everything unlocked.  LoL is a wonderful game for casual players, I got my sister hooked on it at one point in an attempt to get her to play some DotA with me eventually lol.  I know she never would have made it if she started with DotA or HoN.

[Mánagarmr]

If I felt that I had to pay money to play a "f2p game," I wouldn't play it.

Same. I only pay for a game when I feel the devs have deserved it and there's actually something I can get that I want (such as skins for instance).

By all means, carry on with these games, and don't take it as a personal thing if someone else says it's silly to get caught up in paying money for something that's advertised as free.

Eeh, they ARE free? No one is forcing you to pay a nickle for it. Heck, KingIsaacLinksr has never paid a penny for Tribes and he's still enjoying it. Same with Shadow Era. What is really your issue? It feels like you have a pet hatred for any game that allows for in-app purchases of any form.

Would you have felt better if it was a form of "donate and get stuff" instead? It's the same thing. And if you fully expect free to play games to be free to last...well, good luck. They have to have an income to support the games. Would you have preferred a subscription?

[Aklyon]

Subscriptions have ze problems because theres only so many you can be actually subbed to, and if you've invested money in something, you kinda want to keep going with that.

F2P has problems of the more argument-based variety, as seen here.

[Wingflier]

Would you have felt better if it was a form of "donate and get stuff" instead? It's the same thing. And if you fully expect free to play games to be free to last...well, good luck. They have to have an income to support the games. Would you have preferred a subscription?

To be fair, I'm sure Riot would still be raking in cash hand over foot even if they just sold skins and everything else was either unlocked from the start or only "sold" for IP (play time).

I have no doubt that Valve's model of selling only cosmetic stuff will be a huge success, and HoN has just unlocked all of their content as well.  In my opinion, anything above that is just the company being greedy.

[Cyborg]

Same. I only pay for a game when I feel the devs have deserved it and there's actually something I can get that I want (such as skins for instance).

Or the tribes startup pack, right? I mean, what is a few weapons and perks between online competitors? 

Nobody is talking about donations. This is it- pay attention very closely. A pay to win game is a game where you pay money to be ahead of somebody else. How bad it is depends on the game, but that's the definition. You don't get to change it because you yourself participate, because you think the game is worth it, because you think the developers need money, because you just feel like it.

That's the definition.

[zebramatt]

It's an intentionally inflammatory and factually inaccurate definition; but from what I can ascertain from some high level semantic research, it is indeed the intended definition of the vast majority who use it to describe certain Free-to-Play games.

In fact, I've determined this entire discussion quite silly indeed.

[Aklyon]

Indeed it is. I pushed it back over to the topic and it falls back over to the F2P argument side of the tracks anyway. Perhaps this should be the Shadow Era/F2P debate thread instead.

[keith.lamothe]

It's an intentionally inflammatory and factually inaccurate definition

Whether it's accurate depends on what is being offered in return for payment (an advantage, not outright victory) and what is motivating the purchase (often, victory).

There's a difference between a referee telling a coach "you pay me, you win", and the coach dropping loads of cash on players/better-gear/etc and saying "I'm paying to win".

But yes, quite inflammatory, not entirely unlike saying "bribe to win" in professional sports.

[Mánagarmr]

I simply disagree then Pay to win is to gain an advantage non-paying customers have no chance of getting. Everything else is free to play where you can buy "time" in game.