Could Free to Play Turn into Pay To Win?

I expect they will add P2W by the middle of next year. It's EA after all. And as someone else said, and with the thread on the subject, they are already adding statted gear. Albeit it's only for leveling up, but if that sells in the cash shop, EA's eyes will turn into dollar signs. $_$ Cha-ching! And P2W items will be added. Sadly, the only people that will be left by then will be the blind ones, to which Bioware can do no wrong in their eyes. But some are waking up it seems.

Yes it could be P2W. It depends on how it's handled. If the only thing in the shop is stuff like armor skins, weapon skins, costumes, pets, and other stuff like that then no it will not be P2W. If they throw in max level armor with final tier stats then yes it will be P2W.

Since there is about as many opnions as what makes an item pay to win as there are players, yes, that fluffy no stat bunny vanity hat will be pay to win to somebody I am sure, the pay to win question can never truly be answered, as long as no one agrees on what pay to win is, besided, to win at anything means you had to compete to do it, since you did not take part in the games you have have not won anything buying something.. pay to win is just a play on words.. /shrug

QFT!

In STO they said exactly the same thing, then promptly proceeded to do the exact opposite, making it PTW in a matter of months, not to mention the loot drops YOU HAVE TO BUY THE KEYS TO UNLOCK......

Sadly the way this goes is dependent on profit margins etc BUT I see it comin sooner rather than later

As others people say, it's very easy for F2P to become Pay 2 Win. Yet, that's whenever a studio/publisher takes the easy *and* wrong way to implement F2P.

The goals of the cash shop for SWTOR should be:
- Gives F2P accounts the ability to access specific content they are otherwise locked out of
-- And certainly do not force subscribers to pay extra for new content that is otherwise free for subscription MMO's. They're paying monthly for the full MMO package.
- Allow for a lot of purely aesthetic customizations that F2P players have to pay for in full, yet subscribers get at a discounted rate due to the monthly acquisition of Cartel Coins.
-- These can include: unique items (that don't add any advantage in gameplay), character and Legacy name changes, barber shop (with unique character features not available in the default character creator), etc.
- Unrestricted server transfers can easily be a cash shop feature.
- General quality of life packages, such as short time XP or credit boosts, shorter quick travel and fleet pass cooldown, etc.

Anything such as selling Battlemaster gear is leaning heavily on Pay 2 Win.

yep
look the EΑ's need for speed world, its p2w

True.

And the sun could go nova in our lifetime as well.

Neither is likely to happen IMO.

The game will however remain solidly PAY-2-PLAY as non-subs only get the core leveling content for free and must purchase everything else OR go subscription.

I agree. And frankly, I really do not unserstand all the fatalistic speculations by so many forum members about them "allegedly" taking the came down a P2W path, especially when Jeff Hickman made it pretty clear there was a plan to sell non-cap/non-epic gear as an option in the coin shop AND NOT SELL anything that creates artificial imbalance in the game.

But as someone else noted.... P2W means different things to different people, so it's a topic that is custom made for hyperbole in discussions in the forum. Somebody, somehere is going to claim that pink fluffy bunny slippers is P2W because you have to buy them with coins, and wearing them "wins" vs people not wearing them in game.

How can selling gear not effect instance PvP from L1-49 and OPvP on a PvP server?

That IS P2W, it is just not the worst possible form of it.

As we discussed back and forth yesterday in the other thread (for which this one is kind of redunant)....... blue gear at sub-level is in no way likely to make you more powerful then your counterparts in PvP (open world or otherwise). Because in point of fact, green gear is vendor for credits, and blue is barely wearable in the context of all the higher quality gear available to anyone but a player who brand new started the game.

Besides, PvPers are notorious min/maxers, who will twink their sub-cap characters with flashpoint and crafted gear with high end mods, even if they are brand new to the game. It's a habit they carry with them from game to game. So really, why would a PvPer purchase non-BiS non-BiL gear? They wouldn't. A new person to the game is much more likely to purchase credits for RLC and shop the GTN, rather than purchase coins and buy blue gear from the coin shop.

Oh come on lol, that's a horrible simile. One has NEVER EVER happened during the lifetime of our galaxy (our sun going nova), one happens daily (company gets greedy).

In fact, you can see it happening already as they've already recanted their statement that Makeb would be free. Now, it's suddenly become 'so large' that they may sell it. That's GREED!!! PURE and simple GREED! Milking their only loyal customers...from the start even...pathetic!