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I mean, I've wasted no time here. I've tried properly discussing the topic and gave my best effort to explain the other side's pov (multiple times at this point). I've also laughed at some jokes here and at some dumbassery, so that contributed to the value of the time spent discussing here.
But even after my attempts, the only counter argument has been "I think they're p2w and I want the game to be more expensive and have other p2w features instead". I wish this mmo could support itself just off of subs alone, but that will not be the case as long as they don't sell themselves to some publisher.
And yes, as this (and countless others) thread have shown - even the vocal minority, that is present on a forum of a game that's years out, doesn't care about potential p2wness of cosmetic shops. Partially because some of them don't care about cosmetics. Partially because they have enough logical acuity to understand that any store cosmetic will be worthless in the eyes of anyone who has played the game for more than a week. And partially because, as Steven likes to say, they've been beaten down by every single other mmo so they try to cling to the smallest sliver of hope that Ashes will somehow be different.
P.S. most of cosmetics we've seen so far have been alleged to represent NPCs in Verra (afaik). We have also been told that there'll be social orgs that we can become a part and be a representor of. But I'm not sure if there's been any indication of whether any of the NPCs represented by the sold cosmetics will be a part of any of the social orgs we'll have available. So, in other words, we don't know if we'll be able to "RP" as those NPCs.
Yes, those people who have bought the cosmetics can pretend they're a part of the NPC group, but that would be a self-generated gameplay rather than a system-based one. And considering that Intrepid have said that they don't plan on having RP servers, I'd assume that RP is not a directly intended gameplay style.
Now it could be argued that Intrepid's intentions don't matter and that RP goes beyond any system restrictions, but in that case why would the cosmetics matter? You could find any random set of gear, say that you're an off-shoot of some NPC organization and just RP as that, no? If RP is meant to operate outside of the preprogrammed systems, then why should the developers bother caring about the RPers' desires?
Like, we'll have several programmed systems that are meant directly for the RPers (as shown
here
). But none of those seem to indicate that RPing as NPCs is an intended way to play.
You could also blame Intrepid for even selling those NPC costumes, because it muddies the waters of "who do they really care about". Jeff said that they care about RPers, but then they go and sell NPCs' liking before the game is even out. And I would even see this as a fully valid argument against the current monetization scheme. But it seems to me that this is not Iridianny's issue. And instead, the issue seems to be the potential subjectively perceived p2wness of a cosmetic store, the contents of which we got no idea about.
And when I asked whether it was an issue of each given item being the problem, she said that it wasn't. Then it's gotta be a systematic issue. But we don't even know if the gear in the release version of the store will fit any RP storyline. So the issue is the ephemerous future potential of seeming p2wness of the shop.
TL;DR the whole thing is a huge damn mess