Cosmetic Shop is P2W

Having read through this all I have concluded that Iridianny is disingenuously correct.

The worst kind of correct.

We have not received permission from PenguinPaladin to share the quoted post.

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.

Azherae wrote: »

Having read through this all I have concluded that Iridianny is disingenuously correct.

The worst kind of correct.

I admire your dedication to staying up to date on all the forum happenings.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Having read through this all I have concluded that Iridianny is disingenuously correct.

The worst kind of correct.

I admire your dedication to staying up to date on all the forum happenings.

To be fair, I don't have to read it personally, I have scripts to parse things.

We have not received permission from PenguinPaladin to share the quoted post.

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'.

Azherae wrote: »

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.

Doesn't this assume that the shop will have the exact same-looking gear cosmetics as the ones earned in the game though? Because if you can directly buy a cosmetic that is available through in-game means - then yeah, it's p2w.

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 can only say that I'm not willing to assume 'The MMO community has a general definition of P2W', just because I've met many with the same definition.

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.

Azherae wrote: »

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.

Out of curiosity, what is "purchase keys" p2w? Not sure if I've ever heard that term.