Pay to Win

p2w is whatever you want it to be. if you want to believe swtor is not p2w, then that's fine and valid. if you want to tell me what to believe, back it up with something substantial. just assume i don't care about your opinion any more than you care about my opinion.

i am not trolling. trolling is telling other people what they have to believe without being able to substantiate it. for what it's worth, i really don't care if it's p2w or not. i just think their decision to push everything through the cartel market makes the game far less enjoyable. and i think people claiming they speak for all mmo players is self-righteous bull-**** that should stop.

If there is no solid definition of pay to win, then it really doesn't exist and this whole argument is pointless.

Pay to win *traditionally* means you pay money directly to get the best gear in the game. I.E. if you had to buy Kell Dragon or Warhero gear from the cartel market, that would be Pay to Win. That's classic Pay to Win, you can't say that's NOT pay to win; you might have some other opinions about what could possibly be considered P2W, but they're not very easily defined and easily debatable.

We all care about each others opinions to a degree, otherwise we would not all be posting them in a public forum and responding to them.

Trolling is whatever you want it to be.

Based on playing MMOs for the last 13 years, this is what I understand the commonly accepted definition of P2W means. Of course it is a matter of opinion to some extent; I mean I could question whether you can even have P2W for PVE, since you can't really win PVE. But for the purposes of argument it's generally best to go with the common definition , unless you can definitively prove that the common definition is wrong.

Honestly I think this whole discussion of P2W clouds what could actually be a good discussion to have - whether or not the restrictions on F2P players are too strong or not. That is a topic that I think is worthy of discussion. But because some people insist on framing the discussion as a P2W issue, there isn't going to be as reasonable of a discussion, since that is a much harder position to defend.

^this. I totally agree with this.

Common usage of terminology defines the terminology. In MMO's Pay to Win means one thing; paying real cash above and beyond fees to play the game in order to gain an advantage over those who do not pay the "above and beyond" fee to purchase the same thing.

Before Free to Play came into vogue, Pay to Win most often involved purchases of gear sets that were stronger than those obtained by the highest level of end game content currently available...whether it be PvE or PvP gear.

With Free to Play, the definition can get a little murkier. Since people who pay a monthly subscription have access to benefits that those who do not subscribe have to take extra steps to obtain, it could be argued that subscriptions are Pay to Win. The problem with calling it that is the simple fact that those same benefits are available through purchase on the GTN, regardless if they are initially purchased with real cash (or freebie coins) by others.

Now, the big reason why the CM is not really Pay to Win comes from the simple fact that by playing the game "for free" you are agreeing to the restrictions placed upon you as a "free" player. Whether those restrictions are draconian are moot. The available option if you do not like the restrictions is to pay the monthly subscription fee which completely removes the gates.

Free players are not the baseline for this game, they are a modification of the subscription model which is the true baseline of MMO's.

I agree. That's why it just irks me when people get on the pay to win thing. it's just a phrase that gets people worked up and does little to address the actual concerns most people have with the game that are currently a reality. I actually agree that some of the restrictions are not well designed. I don't like the fact that the only way I can change the color of my characters' hair is by using CC's. But that has nothing to do with Pay to Win, it's just nickle and diming to have a little fun.

I kind of like my current signature, it's borrowed from another person and descibes a grey sith philosophy, which I like, but feel free to borrow that quote for your own signature.

I agree, but some feel that the need to get artifact authorisation for level 50+ makes it pay to win, despite several people saying that f2pers have bought it off GTN, but on the whole the cartel market is just fluff, which is nice.

Yes, there are several restrictions that could be lifted with no impact for subscribers, the cooldown in chat for example, or the ability to mail to alts (restrict it to same faction if there has to be a restriction).

I get that there has to be differences to justify charging for a subscription, but several of them are petty and mean. Personally I sub for the rested exp, crew skills (need three), ability to equip anything, unrestricted acess to warzones and ops, ability to mail to anybody, and ability to post here.

Admittedly this is alot, but there are several that could be revisited, perhaps increase how many times f2pers can do warzones and ops, unrestrict chat, let them learn sprint earlier (so they don't slow down flashpoints, heroics, etc), increase the heroic limit, etc.

The cool down on chat and restrictions on the ability to mail to alts is more about circumventing gold farmer practices. If they were lifted there would be an impact on all players since gold farmer practices affect us all.

They may seem petty, but for subscriptions to be encouraged there has to be limits on free players and this game does a good job of allowing players access to the game free of charge while making subscriptions attractive.

Ultimately, players will have to make a decision. Are they able to fully enjoy the game free or at a reduced rate through Cartel Market purchases, or would a subscription offer more? This game is still a business product and as such is designed to provide income for the product owner. Since the game launched under the subscription-only model, the free-to-play model was designed into the game after the fact which probably makes the restrictions seem more brutal to people who went from sub to f2p versus others who didn't "lose anything" since they came in straight to the f2p model.