Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The most grand looking cosmetics will be from in-game achievment only.[9] – Steven Sharif
This was said to justify a cosmetic store "not being pay to win" because he addresses that the alternative is or he wouldn't have ever said this. Except, as we all know, the "best" in terms of appearance and cosmetics is subjective, so the store would be p2w given there are any cosmetics in it.
The most grand looking cosmetics will be from in-game achievment only.[9] – Steven Sharif
This was said to justify a cosmetic store "not being pay to win" because he addresses that the alternative is or he wouldn't have ever said this. Except, as we all know, the "best" in terms of appearance and cosmetics is subjective, so the store would be p2w given there are any cosmetics in it.
My like to comment ratio is astounding tyvm hahaha
schrodinger's p2w is still p2w....
I still think all this argument does, is go to show intrepid's definition of p2w isnt your definition of p2w.
From my perspective, the logic holds, she's just right.
Now, I don't care at all... and she's used nonstandard definitions and personal perspectives for nearly everything, but they're not that hard of a stretch for me.
Player A and B both want to look good in a specific, RP way. Player A has to gather a group, run a dungeon, do a quest, raise rep with a faction, maybe even get a drop from a raid, because they're broke and can only afford their sub fee and even that is literally begging... idk, their parents or somebody. No chance of getting more.
Player B throws $X at the shop and looks good.
This actually CAN happen, it's not THAT strange.
Assume they both belong to some group that wants to RP with precisely one 'Knight of The Order'.
Player A: "I really want to be the Knight of the Order for the group."
Player B: "Me too, I even have the skin to look the part."
Player B wins.
I don't normally RP at this level, but for what it's worth, this is what I am thinking of when I read Iridianny's argument.
To be fair, I don't have to read it personally, I have scripts to parse things.
Yes. And i agree. Again, i think the cosmetic shop is a necessary evil. Thats why i tried to stress the definition generally accepted by "p2w."
As far as p2w. I dont mind visual progression pay to win. Because how others look DOES NOT impead my ability to play the game. While p2w that effects other player stats and abilities DOES effect my ability to experience the game as i have to compete with them.
But in the end, the topic itself isn't misleading or anything. It's just annoying for some.
"Player A" in this case is a person who might read "Cosmetic Shop is P2W", learn 'Cosmetics offer no ingame advantage' and still conclude 'No this is still P2W, I don't like it'.
I don't think you can even argue 'It's not progression-based P2W' to all RP-ers.
I would hope that many RolePlayers out there understand that when a studio says 'No P2W' they don't mean 'No one can get cosmetic progression faster than you with money', but for those that don't, there's a real distinction between 'Absolutely no P2W' and 'Cosmetics-Only P2W'.
I think the big difference is. Cosmetics do not effect the rate you play the game. No matter how you look, you still progress at the same rate doing quests, and leveling and crafting. So if Intrepid's veiw on p2w is that nothing in the shop will help you progress in game faster. Other than visually. Then they dont view it as pay to win.
Meh - I don't really think it's necessary or evil. It's just the economic strategy that Steven decided on early on. He could just as easily scrapped the cash shop and ran a tiered box cost to recoup revenues faster. I care more about the non-p2w (and taking Iridianny into account - that means the generally accepted definition) commitment than how Intrepid decides to go about generating revenues beyond subs.
Edit:
@Azherae - I disagree, because P2W has a generally accepted definition within the mmo community, and the title relies upon an outlying perspective on that definition as an implied premise. Now if the title was something like 'Is visual progression a form of winning?' in an effort to ask the question to shift toward Iridianny's perspective - that's not misleading at all, and in fact there might be a few folks that have responded in this thread negatively that could be swayed to understand and advocate for that perspective.
This was said to justify a cosmetic store "not being pay to win" because he addresses that the alternative is or he wouldn't have ever said this. Except, as we all know, the "best" in terms of appearance and cosmetics is subjective, so the store would be p2w given there are any cosmetics in it.
I mean... my "perfect world" a game would just be good any you would play it. And a subscription makes sense if its activly worked on and maintained.
Because we dont live in a perfect world, and like 90% of the revenue in the gaming industry comes from micro transactions...... i see it as a necessary evil.
Even a teired subscription system would have to give perks of some kind to make people want the hier teirs of subscription.
@Iridianny
Yes, you've tagged several people with this. Ive read it 4 times now i think. If you truly believe that take them to court or something. I still see their definition, "the competition focused" as the main definition of p2w.
Pay to win directly relates to vertical power gain or horizontal power gain so no it isn't pay to win. People are well aware of what pay to win is and someones dislike for a cash shop does not need to be used to water down the understanding of what pay to win actually is.
Again the closest you could attempt to push this is pay for convenance to get the kind of look you want sooner. Using a argument anything can be a competition so its pay to win in a game disingenuous. So you could do the same thing to twist AoC and say its pay to win because some people can't afford the sub fee every month and start a argument based on that.
But if there's 2 similarly looking (but completely different lore-wise) pieces achievable through in-game and through store means and, say, the store one doesn't match the lore the group was trying to RP - would it be still considered p2w?
Cause I have agreed previously that in very specific situations of "I want this very particular item in the store in order to "win"" it could be seen as p2w, but at that point the RPers themselves would've pushed the p2wnnes of the store onto their member, no?
At this point this is such a niche within a niche within a niche case, that it's statistically insignificant. How many RP groups would care about such precise and exact visuals that they'd choose someone purely based on the presence of said visuals rather than the member themselves.
I feel like this is somewhat parallel to the discussion about dps meters and peak lvl pve, where very precise details determine who the raid goes with, rather than the person behind the details. And in both cases we're talking about a % of a % of the playerbase who would be influenced by these kinds of situations. At which point we're going back to the question of "do Intrepid listen to the majority or the minority of people".
In dps meter case, the majority (at least from what I've seen) says that dps meters bring toxicity. Intrepid seemed to agree with that which is why they went against meters. In cosmetic store case, the majority sees them as a non-p2w feature. And Intrepid seem to agree there too. At least so far for both cases.
I dunno why Player A would think there's only going to be one Knight of the Order on the server.
Knight of the Order would be a set that can only obtainable in the game and will also come with awesome stats. And this will indicate that Player A did actually earn the armor set from raid drops.
And Player B will be able to purchase a similar Chaos Knight skin from the cosmetics shop and everyone will know that the skin was purchased rather than earned. That skin will not have any stats.
But, neither Player A nor Player B is a special snowflake. There will be multiple people on the server who have those sets.
I don't know what Player B will have won. Player B wears an armor skin that everyone knows he purchased, rather than earned in a raid. And that skin hs no stats.
So. What is it that Player B won?
People are supposed to care that Player B RPs that their armor is as good as Player A's armor set?
Since it doesnt effect stats pay for convenience, is the more appropriate lable
Oooooo, dyes on gear but not skins is a good idea
Do you have that data available somewhere? I'm curious to read through it if you do.
I'm not gonna judge whether Iridianny 'knows this definition and purposely discards it', or 'genuinely has never used or agreed with it'.
I can only say that anyone who agrees with Iridianny probably doesn't agree with the 'general definition'. If they're a minority, so it is. I'll collect the data if it matters at some future point.
I don't hate P2W, only specific forms of it. Oddly, if it were up to me personally, I'll actually take a specific 'Purchase Keys' type P2W over Cosmetic P2W. Does that change the definition? Nah.
@NiKr - yeah, but as soon as you go to 'Isn't it players pushing the Win Condition?' you're REALLY opening a discussion. Sure, the game has some explicit ones, but Iridianny's point stands, for me.
The term P2W has never applied to anything besides something that helps you overpower the NPC population quicker than other people. NPCs will not grant you extra loot because you have the shiny helmet from June 2019 or whatever. Why are people suddenly claiming that appearance is important to your power levels?
Cosmetics do not help you "win" anything substantial in an MMO, outside of costume contests. Which, btw, you will never win by applying a single paid-for cosmetic that becomes your entire appearance. No player would ever vote for that and I highly doubt Intrepid would code the system to allow a cosmetic shop purchase to win via any systematic means.
Cosmetics help you feel good about how you look. Let you live a specific fantasy appearance. You are not beating the game any faster and it does not give you an advantage of power over anyone else.
I'm just going to paste this into a google doc and bookmark it so I can copy it in every time someone posts this silliness. People need to read the other 4,327 threads about this topic and just add onto the 79th page of each of those.
Bro im not going to link you 600 google articles. Its general knowledge today that micro transactions are more profitable... ill do a single google search and see if anything relevant comes up.
I said "LIKE" 90% to show i was generalizing.
Heres 2 screen shots.
41 billon a year for pc gaming
33.4 billon from micro transactions
Again not real specific and reliable data... but there you go. Its a generalization
I've said on my podcast, which I know he watches, that the cosmetic shop doesn't feel very different to me that P2W or Pay 4 convience.
I'm not winning anything, but I'm still paying for stuff to make playing the way I want to play easier and quicker.
The look of someone with what you like is so subjective rp standards or not, if rp is about I look better than this person you clearly aren't a rper imo. Rp is about the story on your character, gear can be apart of that and be it you wrote a story for it and bought it off the store (people would know you bought it). Or the story where you killed some high level raid and got a rare drop, something people know of and it draws a connection to them and you.
If your view is you are winning rp because you bought a bunch of stuff again I'd question if you are an actual rpers, or simply using that as your weapon to go against a cash shop with the game that supports plenty of in game items to earn as well. Rp is not about winning rp is about the story you make.
I think it's early access keys? Buy i await to be corrected by azherae
NWO implemented a similar Gacha strat with their tiered lockboxes containing buffs and items. You can purchase keys for those boxes (which you accumulate as you're adventuring). It's a crappy system imo.