The MMORPG Genre Is P2W, but it's even worse than that 

The reason I don't like p2w in the game is that it fundamentally poisons the game. It encourages the devs to intentionally sabotage their own gameplay to water-drip torture you into open your wallet. Willpower is an exhaustible resource. The devs find an accidental problem or inconvenience with the game... do they fix it? No! It's an opportunity to nickel and dime people! It makes the game objectively worse. [edit: Kira got to this 10s after my frantically typing this up]

"Pay for convenience" is just hostile design. It's that Spotify ad saying something like "Wouldn't it be cool if this ad wasn't here? Then pay!". Only designed to be camouflaged into the grind of the game. It really is the most insidious form of p2w but I don't think most people understand that. Most people are annoyed at others buying power while they think that pay for convenience is a "lesser evil".

The kind of p2w that will stop me from playing an MMO is when they design the problem and sell the solution to you or when game progression hits a hard wall that requires p2w to get over.

There's a massive difference between box price, sub model, early 2000's where you could do back alley ebay "Pay 2 Win" deals but the games would still ban you for stuff like that. As opposed to now where the games sell you everything from gold, xp pots, mounts, loot boxes and it's "Pay 2 Everything" where the company is now designing the game with problems to sell you the solution. Your point about this crap in a single player game hits the nail on the head. I think people tolerate it a lot more in MMORPGs. I know if I saw a single player game with loot boxes, cash shop, mounts, cosmetics, xp pots, etc, I would walk away in disgust. I also think there is a massive opening for a small team to make something with box and sub, plus no cash shop, and do what BG3 did only with an MMORPG.

I exclusively play single-player games these days for two HUGE reasons. Number one is I just don't like being forced to play the game with other people because otherwise I can't accomplish very much on my own, number two is pay-to-win being a rampant disease that's killing gaming in general for me.

My problem with P2W is that because it's gaining popularity, corporations will gradually design worse games, and they will have the player's support.

I've never been of the idea to letting a company paywall me content still using space inside my hard drive

Totally agree with Kira. I loved to trade stuff in MMOs, and we all knew some people did RMT, but them doing it didn't really impact others experiences, so we just didn't care, the games themselves were fair and square for everyone. Nowadays this trend of just cutting edges everywhere to inconvenience players and force them to buy shit just to be able to play normally absolutely sucks, I no longer play MMOs in fact. Having a blast with Baldur's Gate 3 btw, it's a fantastic old school feeling game made with som much love and respect for their customers.

I prefer box price with no subscription. I played WoW for a long time, and the subscription made me feel pressured to get my money's worth by playing as much as possible, even when I didn't really feel like it. Now I play Guild Wars 2, which is a free base game, paid expansions, and no subscription, albeit with a major cash shop. But it's easier to avoid the cash shop than to avoid the pressure of a monthly subscription.

The most fun I ever had in an MMO was when I played a private WoW server. You could go from lvl 1 to 60 (or whatever it was) in like an hour, drop rates were through the roof and getting hundreds of even thousands of gold was a breeze lol. It allowed me to try a bunch of things that I could never do playing normally. It was, for me anyway, super fun. Only stopped b/c the site got shut down.

I was in a top 100 guild in WoW. The amount of real money we made from our guild selling raid runs was crazy. I agree, always been that way.

It's beyond Pay 2 Win, it's Pay 2 Everything.

I was actually wondering about that like last month: How could the players of a free to play game, help the game keep up and running and having its employees paid, without making it pay to win? Well, the thought itself leads to subscription service, which not only will not exactly make the game accessible by everyone, but also, by experience, that doesn't automatically mean the game will not be pay to win, not even means the game will not have any other way of trying to get more money from players..

Happy saturyay everyone!

The distinctive factor that makes people care about p2w when they didn't care about RMT is because RMT isn't something that the company making the game can directly profit from. Sure there are knock on benefits like more players or botting driving up MAUs. However, that doesn't substantially threaten the mechanics of the game itself like most have alluded to. When the game itself facilitates p2w via shop functions then the studio has an active, profit driven, interest in ensuring that the practice of P2W continues. Up to and including encouraging the practice by kneecapping the game itself in various ways.

I can't think of any time that any MMO wasn't p2w, you could always buy in-game currency and accounts with real money. It just used to be against TOS to buy advantages, now it is officially/unofficially endorsed for profit. But it has gotten significantly worse, and much more toxic to the in-game economies and overall game design, over the years, due to the publishers consciously choosing short-term financial incentives over enforcing action against bad actors to keep the game healthy long-term.

I haven't played MMORPGs for years for exactly these reason. I'm an old Spectrum/Amiga gamer where games seemed so much more tailored to an enjoyable experience despite low hardware specs of those days. These days I get more fun out of indie games than most AAA games. BG3 is a refreshing exception.

I clearly remember in the beta patch notes they mentioned xp boosts in the New World cash shop and everyone freaked out.

Final Fantasy a shining example of how to treat players. The game was a mess initially, so here’s a complete reboot that works and we’ll support it for years on end.

I think that what people mean by saying "Pay to win" is regarding games that are designed with ways to pay to the developers (Or rather the publishers) of the game to skip designed grind to encourage you to pay to skip the grind designed by the developers themselves

When mainstream MMOs came out I hated them because they sucked all of the oxygen out of single player games. I see p2w, micro-transations, battle passes, non-ownership, forced online, ftp, auto save, no pausing...all coming from the original sin of WoW. MMO gamer are all responsible for creating the modern games industry and I enjoy content that highlights how much they have to suffer for it.

Never saw another video on this topic that I agree with as much as this, like I agree 1000% with everything you said, and you said it better than I ever could have, at least without putting considerable effort into voicing my thoughts. I've never cared for RMT like boosting in WoW, because the game used to be good (still kinda is tbh) and I always just thought "what's the point of getting a boost, you basically skip playing the game just to get the best gear". I would compare it a bit to cheating in competitive games to get to the highest rank, I guess you get some fake bragging rights, but honestly there was no point. Problem is, ever since the game developers themselves got their hands in this shit, the games get designed around this kind of thing, and you really feel it. My aversion to modern mmos goes further than P2W though, I also hate all the fomo shit that's plagueing gaming nowadays. And I'm not talking about a new raid releasing and you only getting to really experience it during a certain time, obviously that has always existed, I'm talking about stuff like "oh, you gotta buy this armor now, or it will only reenter the store in 2 years if you're lucky". Unfortunately I'm really susceptible to it. I also hate the word "cosmetics", as in "it's just cosmetics bro", like isn't looking cool part of MMOs, or RPGs in general for that matter, anymore? Obviously it is, or people wouldn't buy an overpriced D4 armor for 20$ or whatever it is, but they like to gaslight themselves into thinking "I'm just supporting the developers". Yeah I'm sure that multi billion dollar company cares about you. I really long for a world where we have at least some new MMOs that offer a subscription without bullshit and have them be successful. Like, people that actually enjoy playing abusive F2P games as F2P or that want to whale can still have their games, I just wish there would be some for me too. Unfortunately, it will never happen, since the current model just makes infinitely more money. Games like BG3, Elden Ring and even Cyberpunk are honestly a breath of fresh air, without these games I would've probably given up on modern gaming - excluding indie games. Because this cancer has spread from multiplayer games to (mostly) singleplayer games as well. Only 10 years ago people would complaing about a game coming out too early with DLC and nowadays you have to applaud them if they don't come out with a paid progression system fueled by fomo. I'm not expecting anyone to ever read this boomer rambling, but on the offchance someone actually got here, I'm sorry for the rant

Fully agree on Hostile Design being a if not the principal problem with P2W: games planned around enticing, frustrating and goading players into purchases are just going to be shit. No way around it. Even if you pay, the design is still there, the ads are still there, the play isn't as satisfying as it could be - if it's satisfying at all. That's the real problem, IMO. Not what other players do, but what the developers do.

friendos

had you full screen and thought i had a windows update.. haha, love your videos bro

I agree with all points, but still wanted to add one core detail: While Elder Scrolls Online certainly embraced the convenience aspect of the crafting bag to entice people to subscribe, the game wasn't originally designed with the crafting bag in mind (nor with the double inventory space for active subscribers). I've been a sub for it's whole Pay to Play life with a mandatory subscription and during that time we never had the unlimited crafting bag nor the extra space for items. It was often annoying and crammed, but it certainly never felt planned to sell anything (and limited inventory space is more of a series staple after all). If you'd want to criticize a Pay to Win aspect in those regards, the banker/vendor NPCs would be a far better example (although harder to explain to others who've never played I guess).

MMORPGs for me aren't about the grind. They're about the people I play them with. I played WoW for 10 years and didn't even like the game, but I loved the people I played with. I still talk with most of them to this day. And they still try to PULL ME BACK IN!

PayToWin adds an alternate source of progression in the game. This removes and corrupts the goal of a game since any achievement which should be attainable only through skill or time invested is tainted by the alternate method of progress, which has no skill, no time invested, only money. It also removes immersion. So basically it's worthless to invest in a game which does not reward only through skill or time.

As annoying as it is that the mmorpg genre is 99.5% p2w/p4p, I feel players have to kind of look back and understand that it's their own fault. Selling UO and Everquest accounts and items on ebay was the beginning of the end for the genre. There was no logical world where companies would look at this and not get their cut.

Subscriptions aren't the answer, game devs will exploit consumers with any payment model. Making a good game with a good vision is what we are lacking.

MMO companies are business, not charity. So it's unrealistic to expect them to avoid some monetization strategy if it makes them a bigger profit than another strat. But I agree that this is not an excuse to add scummy practices, such as sabotaging the game and selling the solution. However, as long as people fall for scummy strats, you'll have plenty of people falling for it. So in parts, that's on the playerbase for approving such practices with their wallets. But another aspect I'd highlight is that companies can get away with it because of the lack of competition. MMOs take a lot of money, time and skill to develop. We've seen many well intentioned indie devs failing hard to make their MMO, this story isn't new. As such, the few companies that can consistently make viable MMOs will be able to get away with bad practices simply because the players can play that or simply not play anything new.

10:38 I think I disagree with this point. I used to use cheat loads in games because I was a kid who wasn’t skilled (now I’m just not skilled), I’d still play games for loads of hours. Like I probably played over 100 hours of Morrowind with god mode and cheated money and weapons,

Totally agree with your point regarding pay4convenience things. My main issue with BDO for example isn't how someone can just swipe until they hit full PEN whatevers, I honestly couldn't care less about how far behind I am in gear. But the countless "convenience" things exclusive to the pearl shop. Those just sour me in no time.

U are right about elder scrolls online, it's so obvios that the craftbag is a predatory solution to a self imposed issue, but the fanboys will defend that shit so hard

So this might be controversial, but when we talk about some sort of P2W (WoW tokens, Runescape bonds, GW2 premium currency etc ) I feel it's acceptable. The genre is old and the playerbase is getting old as well. It's normal that RuneScape players nowadays have a family, full time job and other hobbies. Then new boss comes out that drops this new interesting weapon that seems fun, but the drop rate is 1/750. That's potentially hundreds of hours just killing a single boss. So buying a couple of bonds to then get the weapon early sounds much more reasonable. And let's not act like this wasn't a thing back in the day. When I started paying wow in TBC, there were bots spamming gold selling websites all the time. Raid carying services were available for both IRL money and Gold. You just risked a potential ban.

Whether or not P2W bothers me is different from game to game. I play Star Trek Online, I don't care for P2W features such as more powerful ships ($60 USD and more) because there's practically no PvP. The money from the P2W and loot boxes goes back into hiring actors from the TV shows to reprise their characters and continuing with the storyline of the game. I hate P2W and loot boxes as a concept, but Star Trek Online would've shut down long ago without the money to pay for celebrities appearance during the era without any new shows on TV. For something like Black Desert, I play it as a chill exploration game. I qualify for PvP, but I don't deal with it and hasn't been in a fight. The only issue I have with the game is inventory space, but that's my own doing because I hoard stuff and plays only on occasions, so when I play, I don't want to deal with getting rid of old event items or other useless stuff, I just want to go see the world and fight some monsters, so things just builds up in my inventory.

I remember back in the day there being a LOT of people hating on MMOs and wanting the subscriptions gone. They claimed the subscription was just them being greedy wanting more money for nothing. This was a VERY popular opinion. I'd be interested to know what percentage of those people still hold that belief or if they changed their opinion with the current state of MMOs but unfortunately that's just something we can't find out.

I remember when a hacker buddy gave me and my sister cheat codes for Diablo 1: endless bag space, no dying, one shot kill Diablo himself. We played that game nonstop in multi player mode for over a year and the day we got those cheat codes, a week later we quit. There was nothing left to chase. I bet play to win feels the same, and that’s why you get people putting in hundreds of thousands of dollars. They’re chasing that feeling of joy in a game that they will never fully experience.

I don't recall UO being P2W back in the day, but idk if real world money was being spent somehow in it or not. Maybe after it'd been out a while. Asheron's Call is another one I don't recall any real P2W going on. Those games had sub fees, but no cash shops anyway.

The Sims analogy isn't quite the same as pay to win because Sims doesn't really have linear direction like leveling up. You can truly just ignore every skill progression in the Sims and still have a rewarding long gameplay. A money hack won't change that because people play the Sims to create stories for their playable sim households. So if I want to make a wealthy sim from the start who makes a series of poor choices with their money, I'm going to give them money through the hack and go on a binge of poor choices where they fall on hard times or get into zany situations like getting involved with shady characters. You could even argue that "hacking" in the Sims is the highlight of the game, because they give you the tools to do so. But in MMOs you don't really have that true sandbox feel of "do what you want" but not really cause you have to level up to get to the next zones and a player getting advantages not through the game end up breeding resentment in players who don't have those advantages. 😅

I don’t understand why more developers haven’t copied the Old School RuneScape model. A no-cash shop subscription based membership system with a subsection of the game world/content made playable for free seems like a win-win, and it’s worked for RuneScape for over a decade!

Gamers need to treat games like any other commodity. If your favorite fruit roll-up changed its strawberry flavor to ass flavor, a lot of people (but not all, clearly) would stop buying it. But when games do this, people would rather complain on reddit or forums instead of stopping. If it's not fun, don't play. But you do run the risk of finding out (like Kira implied) that you're in the small minority, and most people in that game don't mind a little ass flavor. No matter the case, find something else you prefer and you don't need to stress yourself out. This sounds rational and logical, but this isn't how it seems to work with games.

Didn't Ubisoft do it with a game. Give you a bad amount of XP, but you could by boosters in the shop. But people could make content for others. So one, or some, had made one that was fast to do, and gave a lot of XP. Then Ubisoft removed that specific map, or what I was

There is a key difference between losing to someone who is more skilled than you and losing to someone who is more willing to throw money at the screen. If I lose to someone who is more skilled, then I can say "Well danm I guess I should work on my gameplan." But if I lose to someone who has less respect for their money than me, well, guess what the only solution to that is? I remember when I uninstalled BDO. I was grinding, this archer came up to my spot and just started shooting. I used the mobs as a meat shield and killed him. Ok cool. But he got up with full health on the spot. Ok, I managed to get him again. Poof, he is up with full health and my sustain skill is on cd. He kills me. I hovered over that instant rez button and said. "Fuck you PA, you wont have my 50 cents." and uninstalled.

One of the main reasons I love Warframe because I can grind for what I want or buy the gear etc but with their MR system you gotta use different frames, weapons and companions to level up

Unfortunately from a business standpoint no model will work well for everyone. If its a monthly sub and no cash shop at all it's fine but when content dries up after 3-6 months then the revenue stream stops. Plus the monthly sub is pressure in itself to play or cancel it. If its f2p with a cashshop you can have cosmetics but thats a slippery slope too. The cosmetics have to be cooler than the in game cosmetics otherwise whats the point. Thus needing some convenience items to balance that. If you make a game with a box price and no sub fee and no cash shop then you'll have initial excitement but naturally the game hype dies out and you arent making enough to keep pushing bigger and better content, or fast enough. * and to add, gamers expect more and new and different. You cant just make a game like EverQuest 1 and expect people to play that very long.

I've sort of come around to the "subscriptions-was-the-way" angle and am becoming a completely unreasonable extremist to think that accepting the whole free to play model might have been a mistake in the first place.

Love that you mentioned FM Scout. Used it once and hated that i no longer needed a scout team. 6200 Hours of FM15 and 5000 hours of scouring players is the best part!

I do remember when MMOs weren't pay-to-win. They originally weren't. I grew up on a few free ones. One was totally free, and that one just came back online a few months ago. It's still free. I'm not gonna name drop, but free MMOs were out there for a very long time.

The second type of P2W that you described is in Shadows of War. That is a single player game with that bullcrap that made me stop playing and sell the game because of its inclusion. I got rid of the game before the "fix", but the horrible Type 2 P2W isn't an MMO exclusive affliction.

Wait, are you saying that wow’s auctions is p2w mechanics? I don’t remember it that way. It felt more like an extension of the social interactions you had with the community, and a way to add value to crafting & grinding.

The Genshin commuunity spend soo much money it actually makes me feel sick, it's a pve game but some people spend thousands to max out units that could take a f2p player months to build and even then won't touch a whale stats etc I have seen content creators lie about being f2p to try and be relatable but the entire account is not even close to being relatable, they have spent soo much money they don't know what f2p looks like and as you say they end up quitting or shitting on the game because their whale account kills content too quickly

Agree 100%. I don't play competitive games and I don't duel or PVP at all. So I don't care about PTW all that much, as long as the publisher isn't making the game terrible for non-payers. It's a straight value proposition for me: Is it fun? Then I'll play it. That someone else gets to max level without the same effort I put in doesn't matter, as long as I had fun getting there. If it's not fun, I just won't play it. If a game is FTP and I like it and play it a lot, I'll buy something - cosmetics usually - to support the game. That said, I know that there are people out there who see it differently, and who can't avoid paying for perks and convenience even though it compromises their experience of the game. I don't judge those people or consider myself superior. My last point: The shitty type of monetization won't go away until people stop paying for it. So don't play games that do this.

Can totally confirm after playing for years a p2w called DarkOrbit, when coming back, what pisses me off the most is not that a whale might get the better gear spending $10k, but that you have to pay $6 a month to get 30 keybinded action keys instead of the basic 10. It kills your gameplay flow

>it's 2010s >every business tries to migrate to "as a service" nonsense regardless of viability >gaming industry decides MMOS (despite literally being a service in addition to product) have to go the other way >new MMOs shift from sub to alternative funding (P2W) >everybody hates it (but keeps playing) >... >it's late 2010s/eaely2020s >ok guys it's time to return to tried and true subscription model >everybody happy >P2W remains >now you pay for game+expansions+sub+P2W+cosmetics (separately from P2W or not)

The Sims has a ton of "builders" who just build and upload buildings made with tons of cheats (unlimited money is just the start.) Whether that's playing or modding or whatever is an interesting question...

Never cared about gold sellers until companies began to use it as an excuse to devalue game currency and prevent me from trading money/gear with friends.

10 39 You can see the codes in The Sims as development tools to build your worlds. If you use mods you can ruin the game for yourself if you want too, but you can also enhance it. Plus there is more to do than just grinding for Simelons in the game.

GDKP's and gold buyers ruined original wow & now classic wow for me. IMO it is also a consequence of pay to win, I know you've said it's always existed but it still sucks and it's even more prevalent in current day. The camaraderie of raiding endgame replaced by the convenience of just buying whatever you want tempted so many people away from my guild. The phrase "sorry my main is locked this reset" gives me PTSD as someone who helped organize signups before we eventually through in the towel.

This is so weird to me cause the on MMO I'm on, I play because I enjoy the story, world build, helping out other players and shitposting in zone chat. Most the real world money things are cosmetics, housing, mount aesthetics, etc. You could get Xp boosts, but as everything scales (and the game gives out xp boosts for free like candy on halloween anyway) so there's not much a point. And from what I see around game and hear people talking about, the cosmetics and housing rake in plenty cash..!

If the mmo is good with out me taking part in the pay to win aspect I'm playing it. If it's not required for me to pay to win I'm in.

Here's the problems I have with P2W, - whales manage to ruin these games by swiping. In best case scenario, sure, they waste money and quit, but usually, they put money into it, because they PLAY the game too. Had games, where I was doing my thing and grinded decent gear to do current content with, but due to whales and their minmax mindset, I had hard time finding groups that were willing to let me join and do the content, even though I had gear for it, everyone wants to do raids and dungeons asap and skip mechs. And the standards for gear are usually higher in my experience, even if you have recommended gear, because as illogical as it is, people dont wanna "waste time" in an MMORPG, even thought MMORPGs have no end. But you are completely right about the fact that people dont really care about P2W, because if they did, MMORPGs wouldnt be profitable and under all that P2W, there is usually a decent game in itself.

On "the two P2W's": Was talking about this exact thing the other day. How I put it: There was a "black market" for things--and the companies made it a "white market". In the end, I say the "white market" serves players better IN THAT: I used to play WoW Vanilla & BC--levelling up was a PAIN--not in GENERAL, but b/c the farming was SUPER competitive. The "in game P2W" reduces that competition for resources, by eliminating most of the black market resource farmers & consumers--and allows casual "non P2W" players more access to in game resources. Just my opinion. No more "3 players stalking the same copper node". Probably drives AH prices down as well--but that's a whole OTHER topic on economies in general. What we can ALL hope for is that game companies make BETTER games, flush with all that formerly black market cash. Will they? Not w/o incentives. I can say, honestly, I'm now a parent that considers themself an ex-gamer--but BG3 might get me involved. Monetizing EVERYTHING is a bore, imo. Gimme a damn story.

I reckon in games stores/microtransactions is now industry standard. I wouldn't be surprised if companies would find it near impossible to get funding from investors should they not have microtransactions/ROI for the investors in that regard. Sad really. It has gone from "what world can we create for our players" to "how much money can we extract for our investors"

The last I checked, Path of Exile fans insist that it's not Pay 2 Win, but you can buy expansions to your item chest that let you store currency more efficiently and give you more space for rare loot. That means that players who don't pay will be wasting chest space on currency, and run out of space before being able to collect item sets that you need for acquiring the main currency.

I loved fallout 76 (game play was decent even with the bugs. Concept was PERFECT for what I personally wanted out of FO) And then they added fallout 1st and now if you pay them you just ignore your scrap stash weight. It’s the first survival FO. The major survival aspect is managing your scrap weight and recourses. Now you just buy fallout 1st and have INFINITE scrap space. No need to go scavenging when you run low on a particular resource. Just grab all the resources on the server, Hoard them and never go hunting for scrap. Literally took away 90% of the survival aspect for a monthly sub. It’s so alienating for fans of that grind imo. I feel like an idiot scavenging while everyone else is doing quests so I just don’t play it anymore. Constantly: “hey, rando we’re doing a raid. Want in?” “Nah, I can’t, sorry. I need more aluminum to fix my gear before I get into another fight” “Why don’t you already have some?” As if the game wasn’t designed around scavenging resources and being unable to hoard them, necessitating constant/consistent scavenging.

Stealing your time then selling it back to you as "convenience" is the design pattern of most modern MMOs. "So you've been at this grind for 2 hours, but you've got 998 more hours to go...or you could pay us 10$. You pick."

Aside from RMT, back in the day another form of P2W that people overlook is multi-boxing and paying for, and running, multiple accounts. Sometimes that wasn't strictly allowed in a lot of games but it happened anyway, and it was certainly frowned upon by many players...and other games there was no issue at all in terms of being able to buy multiple accounts. I used to pay for three Star Wars Galaxies accounts and did so for years.

I feel like I'm the only person who isn't fond of FF doing the level skips. I also feel weird that people are okay with the window shifting so much on p2w. I get there's no squashing it completely, and I agree with some of your points, but the culture and mindset around it matters.

If I were a MMO developer, I would make the core game free to download, and monetize with a reformed subscription model. What is a reformed subscription? Charge $15 and grant the player 30 days of access. Days are only consumed if you play the game. If I only play 15 days out of the available 30, then even after 30 days will have passed since I subscribed, I'd still have 15 days remaining available. And I would make it my mission to produce as many new elements for the game as possible to give players real gameplay incentive to log in. None of this mindless grind mitigated by convenience microtransactions. If I do my job right, the content will be seen as the thing that is valuable, rather than the accumulation of shiny objects. At some point, ever MMO that launches is going to close down. When inevitability comes, players will not be able to take away a single piece of loot they grinded for or spent money on. But they will remember the experiences they have. Making a game that is all about delivering a lasting experience will leave its players with strong and positive memories. The subscription would be paying for access. But if the experience isn't valued, people will just stop accessing. So many MMOs now push a narrative that the player is the chosen one. The story puts the player as the central protagonist. This means that even though a game launches with multiple class or factional storylines, it's only a matter of time before story content just ends up being the same for everyone. I would want to return to the approach of clearly defining the player as one of many whose deeds contribute to an unfolding world story. Where the protagonists and antagonists are NPCs: Kings and/or generals players can choose to accept assignments from. Participating (or refusing to participate) in assignment-related activities would generate game-wide metadata, which in turn would drive variables that result in the triggering (or prevention of triggering) of subsequent outcomes. Some storylines could even be created that never launch because the conditions needed to make them occur never happen. Yes, actual gameplay loops tied to events may be repetitive. But engaging in them or not will lead to subsequent elements that go beyond one's own personal gameplay motivations such as earning reputation points or unlocking skills or getting loot rewards. If enough people defeat hostiles encroaching outside a settlement, then they would stop encroaching, at least for a while. If the threat is ignored for too long, or not enough of them are defeated, the settlement itself could be attacked, and if the attackers are not repelled, the settlement becomes overrun, triggering another set of activities that can be done to retake it. My idea is to make the game world itself feel alive and responsive to what players do or don't do. An interesting side-effect to this would be that if the player base dwindles, and activities are not done, the game world could slip into a tangible state of anarchy. There would always be activities that could turn things around, but someone would actually have to engage in them. Adding new environments is not always a sensible thing to do. I mean it is needed, but in too many MMOs, over time earlier locations become ghost towns. No reason to ever revisit them. The meta-driven event system is a way to keep older areas relevant while adding new areas as well. Many MMOs start players off hunting vermin in the early settlements. It's a good way to teach combat mechanics against threats that are essentially narrative in nature. Kill ten or 20 rats and complete that questline nd receive the wristbands of rat slaying. Yay. But what if the threat of a rat infestation were always a possibility. the kill rats and get wristbands quest can still exist for newcomers, but the infestation could be the consequence of not enough people visiting the settlement in question. There would always be places where diseased rats would spawn under normal circumstances, but during an infestation, they'd be all over the town.

I started playing WoW back in Cataclysm, really liked the feel of it then, and again in MoP as well. I quit for the entirety of WoD as that was a crap expansion, and came back for Legion, which made a lot of good strides forwards, and some backwards. I put a lot of time in Legion and BFA, but didn't play Shadowlands at all...I came back for the latest expansion, and was disturbed to see all the social control stuff they had put in, and so I quit, never to return. I feel like a lot of the culture for these MMOs have gone very snobby in all honesty, very anti-blue collar, and just in general so overly protective of people's feelings that it has become a toxic cesspool of fraud. Real interpersonal interactions are basically impossible, and it strips a lot away from the games. People basically don't talk any more in the games for fear of failing to doublespeak correctly, which would then lead to severe punishments by the bureaucrats behind the scenes. As an example for WoW specifically, they stripped out a lot of the taunts and disrespectful emotes, to what end? Pay to win elements definitely don't help the situation either, but I avoid MMOs at this point primarily for the above, but also stuff like P2W or Limited Time Only content, as the latter ultimately convinces me to not come back to the game later on due to having permanently missed out on something (ironically the opposite of what they want).

Hey boss we found another issue with the leveling system, after level 30 it's exponentially harder to advance, should we lower the curve? -No! Never! Are you insane?! Why fix it? Give players a pop up window informing them about xp boosters and the option to pay 10.000 premium gems to advance one level!

I hate f2p, p2w games but what i find even more mind boggling is buy to play, with subscription, with cash shops with p2w. Im looking at you Blizzard. I just don't play these games. But to my astonishment people play these "games". These are just scams that wear the mask of a game but really are just scams to get all the money they can from their victims, their customers. I hear a lot of people complaining about Fifa games and NBA games, but... then they still go and play those games. Why?! Just... why?!

I do agree 100% that P2W has ALWAYS existed not just in mmorpgs but in many other genres too. Ppl buy skipss, powers etc what ever if they can, but for me this is not the issue when it comes down to P2W. I dont think its necessary that ppl think they would win without P2W or stuff like that. There is 100% ppl who feel like that way, but generally from what I have heard form other ppl its that anything they achieve in the game is pointless because it can be bought with real money. I feel this way too. Also there is always the feeling behind the corner of my brain when playing PvP oriented game is that that player can only beat me because he used real money and this been case some times when Im doing things way better than my opponent in match, but because they've spent thousands on their account I still lost. I have played PvP games for so long so I can somewhat tell if I get outmatched or lose because gear difference. In BDO terms like getting in 1v1 opponent CC'd first and pull full combo on them and they don't lose more than 20% of their HP then they just use get up and use random skill to kill u without CC which has happened. So yeah.

i always get an image of Anton Chigurh when I hear "friendo"

I think the thing that I hate about it now versus back in the day with like EQ is that the pay to win is directly in the hands of the devs and that has lead to those convenience things you talked about. Like yeah you could buy gold and stuff before if you wanted to. Hell I did as a teen in Everquest because I only had so much time in a day between school, sports, and work and I wanted to play with my friends not grind gold with my limited time. Now though you have to pay to make the game functional. Playing ESO without a subscription as someone who enjoys the crafting and gathering aspects of the genre was literally painful. BDO is torture with the energy to do gathering and the weight/inventory suckiness. If they'd just design a game that didn't torture you to play it more people would probably play it and you wouldn't need to milk every penny out of your playerbase and you could just sell cute outfits for us fashion nerds.

This is why when I play MMOs it's private server Dark Age of Camelot and City of Heroes

Monetization aspect of mmos are problematic as most of possible in-game rewards like outfits, costumes and so on can be sold in cash shop directly in the best case or put in loot boxes having a negative impact on game overall. That takes away initiative to do harder or a more time consuming achievements in mmos when the rewards from that content is measly compared to time and effort that it can take to achieve. It just takes away motivation a huge part of motivation to play the game when you have nothing to show to others for your achievements. I am pretty sure that if you see someone in most mmos nowadays looking better then other players then someone must have spent a fortune in cash shop

All make sense, been playing mmo´s since 95´s + and p2w already exist mostly in KR JP

There is a difference in the game supporting P2W and players going against TOS. So your argument of ALL MMMORPGS are or were P2W is so ignorant.

Many MMOs seem to offer a few options 1. Enjoy it casually 2. No-life it 3. $$$$ It's far from a dead genre, but my interest in it sure is fading 😢

To me it's not just p2w, but paying to get any advantage at all. I prefer the old days, where everything you have in the game is something you earned in the game. You put the hours in, you grinded, maybe you had luck and got some amazing drop. It was it's own world, separate from everything irl. For example WoW, if you wanted a fast mount you had to grind the gold over a long period of time. And some things are status symbols. I remember seeing people with extremely good gear and being like "wow, I will never get that, but its cool that it exists". When you saw a player like that, you just *knew* the time/effort it took. But now almost every MMO either has p2w, or p2... skip grind? Win faster? I'm not sure what to call it. And it's so annoying. Like GW2, a game I really love, having the option to just straight up buy currency. I remember farming for a few hours, reading up on good strats. It turned out that the best way to earn gold wasn't playing the game, but to just work one hour overtime and buy gold instead. There's no incentive to grind if I can just buy it, and now when I see rich players I will always think of the option to just buy gold. It's just frustrating. I want the game to stand on its own.

I like how some cope that WoW is not pay to win. Hear me out - I came back to WoW last week. I missed the free gold generation that took place between WoD and Legion expansions so I lack in this department as it’s no longer a thing. This “event” split gamers into very rich and very poor with no midland mostly. What did I do? I bought some WoW Tokens, sold them on Auction House for millions of gold, bought myself a taxi through the content, filled myself with more or less best in slot items. How is it not pay 2 win? Not to mention being able to buff myself with flasks, food and best BoE gear there is lmao. All legit, as Blizzard intended :))

To me, you are spot on. I gave up grinding on MMO's for grinding at the gym! MMO's are dead to me!

Grinding has always been bad. It simply exploits our need for repetitive activities and made a ton of idiots think it was fun and a good thing through that. It was not and never was. That's the core problem right there. MMOs really weren't meant to be past the social novelties they brought at their peak. The moment it became less niche, the worse it was always going to become as a game in every way, shape and form.

I've always thought free to play was nonsense how the f is a company going to exist without an income, other than children who would even ask for something like that

The difference between P2W in an mmo and cheating money in Sims, is that in mmo people do it to just be better than other people and smash them in pvp. Perfect example of that was Diablo Immortal.

embracing "free to play", no subscription model MMOs and then waking up 10 years later to find out that everything is a micro-transaction-infested pay2win wasteland is like embracing socialism and then 10 years later waking up to realize that everything's shit and wishing for the good old days of capitalism again.

The games design revolves around the shop and not the game play. Completely ruins them.

I, myself, DID get to that part in the video! Also, it's 11, where's the more news please.

I remember back in the day when being a gold farmer was not encouraged

The thing I hate the most is if the game feels like dogshit and it actively forces me to spend money so it start feel good. That is one of the reasons why I actually enjoyed Genshin for quite a long time, the game felt and played good even with me spending just couple of bucks for the pass and that´s it. Warframe is another great example of game that absolutely have p2w but you can enjoy hundreds and hundreds of hours and simply not pay, or pay very reasonable amount (which i always do if I enjoy the game for longer period of time anyway). Then there are games like Lost Ark which very quickly started to feel and play like vomiting cow.

Waves hand hi, I hated my initial trial of ff11, and never touched an mmo after having to chargeback when square charged me for a second month, when I had cancelled my account within hours of creation.

I prefer buy once because I hate the idea of having to constantly spend money to simply be allowed to keep playing the game

Can't remember the exact game name I think Marvel Super Heroes on Facebook. And it was apparent from my first time playing it was total pay to win. Where players would have the latest characters five minutes after they went live. Just paying their way through everything that had to be done. Loved when they closed it down and these people who paid all this money couldn't play anymore.

You did lost your fucking mind long ago, but I also agree with you. I think the whole bloody scene of mmorps lost their minds 20 years ago.

i was going to defend albion online monetization but its monetization is actually the type where your player experience worsen if you dont get the premium. Yes it is possible to earn premium with in game money but the way albion system works the premium price would keep increasing because silver-gold interaction that im not too clear how. In the end the price of premium can get so tedious that you might as well just buy.

Why not have differant servers for various players, some can be pay to win only players that can beat each other over the head with their "+20 Firecock of Doom for only $25.99" and other Servers can be for players that don't want to flex there wallets. Always keep apart the have's and the havenot's.

that is why I don't waste my time on games that allow any kind of paid advantage, I barely play the ones that only sells skins. I'm so done of it.

THIS is what ive been saying for years now, i never cared at all about p2w because it only effects PVPers and people that care about "keeping up with others" but the problem with pay for conveience is that it effects every single player in the game no matter what you do. We need to stop doing this ridiculous circle of an arguement about P2W and start focusing on pay for conveience elements in games. most people these days are still debating what the definition of p2w even is when who even cares at all to begin with, its these pay for conveience mechanics that really matter and effect everyone