I'm starting to get really worried by the CM

LOL really? Please don't come here with your googled Latin phrases trying to sound smart because you realise you are wrong. I have no interest in your post history.

1. Your posts in this thread say quite the opposite.
2. Funnily enough you aren't on my radar, so I have no clue what you have said in the past, nor do I care.
3. Again evidence in this thread says otherwise.
4. That bears no relevance to this discussion, we're discussing if it's pay2win not if it's worth spending your money on.

Ah yes the classic "you're a child defense" well done.

... Please don't come here with your googled Latin phrases trying to sound smart ...

If the cartel market isn't bad and not pay to win, then there shouldn't have been a problem with keeping the Credit Boom reward in the datacube, because it doesn't help you win.

andryah, surely you're not suggesting i have an agenda? i stated my assumptions clearly. my position was and is that conflicting views can coexist. what you think is not p2w could be considered p2w by other people. that doesn't make you or them wrong.

you're assessment was to make up an unclear definition of p2w, and then state that everyone agrees with your definition. your definition was almost exclusive to pvp, so a pve focused game like this one could never be considered p2w anyway. the only thing to gain from you post is the satisfaction of telling other people you're right and they're wrong. you still seem unable to read other people's opinions and try to understand them** if they conflict with your preconceived pro-bioware stance.

I echoed the generally accepted definition of what P2W means to the world MMO community. It is you that are making up unclear definitions that are convenient to your point of view.

** Ironic IMO.

i do not think there is an international MMO consortium to define terms like 'p2w.'

There is however a common understanding of the term, generally accepted by a majority of the community.

Is it unanimous? No.

Does it need to be? No.

Is it natural, appropriate, and relevant in an informally gathered world community on the internet and inside the games? Yes.

Are their people in the community that will freely distort a common understanding in the community for the sake of pressing foundation for their views? Yes.

The key fact often overlooked by the tangentally inclined (a general comment, so don't take it personally please) in all of this is that Bioware essentially short circuited the nutty nonsense about P2W early on by doing 2 things:

1) Not putting end game gear for sale in the CM, period. (which is where P2W is focused in the world community, except for total nubs that insist level 15 gear with mods is somehow a strawman P2W).

2) Making everything in the CM available to be freely traded between players in game.

who is this community that agrees on a definition or a standard? do i get to be a part of it? if i didn't play WoW, would you still let me be a part of it? if i can enter this community just by being active in MMOs, then that implies you have a constantly shifting member base. if a definition is acceptable when agreed upon by a majority of a constantly shifting member base, then doesn't that mean that definition, by it's very nature, has to constantly change? since you know what the majority thinks, is that because there was a vote? were the results made public? who formed the question people were voting on, and was the question biased toward a certain response?

what i decided is the group of mmo players that get to commonly agree to this definition changed when i entered the group. with the change of the group, the definition changed, but you were unable to change. catch up to the rest of us.

1) cartel crystals are BiS for end game pvp and end game raiding aren't they? also, i would consider leveling part of the game. an instant level cap for rl money would, in my opinion, be p2w and hurt the game. it is also my opinion that the definition of p2w is flexible enough to allow you to disagree with that if you choose to.

2) stuff in the cartel market is magically introduced into a player economy only when players spend rl money outside of in-game mechanics or subscriptions. here is an article about eve that i read. in the "Generating items out of thin air" subsection, it suggests the problem isn't money, it's having money screw up the player economy by using a non-game system to introduce content. what bioware did is what eve's players rejected. aren't eve's players part of the MMO consortium that gets to decide what is generally accepted?

there is no generally agreed to definition of p2w. there can't be without giving someone or some organization authority to define the standard. if that organization becomes EA, i'm not going to accept their definitions or standards as realistic.