pay to win headstart

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

If "having less people" is p2w for you, then you have way more problems than a few headstart servers.

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

The main difference between those games and Ashes is the node system. The node system determines which mobs/bosses you have. And headstart servers will have it deactivated for those 48 hours. So the only super uber cool boss you'd be able to kill is some lvl10 schmuck, that at best would give you an item or two (maybe a bit more) for your whole guild. All while the masses of people would probably outlvl that gear within another few days after release.

The only "p2w" here is that some people will just have higher lvls at release. But literally after the first 24h there'll be people who outlevel the headstarters. Mainly because nodes will shoot up in lvls and those new players will have better exping spots. But also because quite a lot of people love to go super hardcore on release, so they'll utilize those farming spots.

Now obviously there'll be headstarters that manage to go insane on both the pre- and main releases, but no one would be able to outpace those beasts even if there wasn't a headstart on the server.

In other words, it's always unfair to someone, so we might as well call "living in your moms basement" a p2w mechanic. But by that measure, I'm probably the p2wiest of anyone on this server.

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

I put the "" there because I don't consider that to be p2w. And, as been discussed before, every person that goes to the headstart server will do so knowingly (at least Intrepid should make the difference VERY clear), at which point it'd be the exact same as someone just coming into the game 2 days after release instead of directly on release. Should those late players consider everyone a filthy p2wer, because they had a 2 day headstart?

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

You do have a point there. But that also kinda applies to anything else. The headstarters could just grind lowbie mobs for 48h and then use all that money to buy the houses.

I think this could be kinda prevented by making the T3 node a bit harder to achieve, so that people have more time to gain some money before that. And that money gain would be higher than the headstart one, cause it would come from higher lvl mobs.

Though again, hardcore players would win out either way, so ultimately the headstart wouldn't matter.

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

Except for everyone who couldn't give 2 fucks about some ephemeral "advantage" and who also sees several servers w/o a queue.