Modern EQ

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by quakedragon, Jun 28, 2021.

  1. Atomos Augur

    No, they are exactly the same thing, the only difference is who the money is going to. It is still players paying real money to gain advancements or benefits.

    The P2W isn't minimal at all. It's pretty easy to see who is running which EXP pot. A ton of people also say they buy the bags on TLP. You can purchase Kronos, sell those Kronos for plat, and use that plat to fully deck out your character. They can also spend that plat on power levels. I mean aside from a max level max AA character in full BIS gear, it can't really get more P2W than that. Heroic Characters do exist also.
  2. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    You are conflating based upon the end result and ignoring factors that distinguish them as separate.

    Players control RMT
    Game company controls P2W

    Distinctly different, you're just plain wrong.
    Vumad and jiri_ like this.
  3. Atomos Augur

    All these companies do is shift the RMT from players to the company. It's the same damn thing.
  4. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    Nevermind, haha.
    Skuz likes this.
  5. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    No.
  6. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    What exactly does DPG sell for DBC or $ that allows you to "win?" Bag's are convenient, they don't make you rich, they just save you time. Exp potions speed things up, they don't allow you to do something that can't be done without them, albeit slower.

    The original P2W example was World of Tanks, a game where you literally could not get the best tanks just by playing the game. You had to spend real life money, and if you did you could beat F2P players consistently because you spent that money. EQ is nowhere near that definition of F2P, and certainly cosmetics are not P2W, some people don't care about them at all.

    The Heroic Boost could be considered a form of P2W if they offered it when 85 was the level cap, but they didn't, so it's a catch up mechanic. Again, it saves time. All of this stuff saves time. Mounts can be acquired in game, so the buffs from those are the same.

    If you never spent a single DBC or $ in this game there is nothing you couldn't do that buying something from the shop would otherwise allow you to do. This game is not P2W, it's just monetized beyond subscriptions now.
  7. jiri_ Augur

    Right, this is correct. I guess you could make an argument for experience potions on TLPs; being in the first wave to hit the endgame on a TLP lets you cash in on the krono-trading wave. But that's just allowing you to RMT, it's not making you any stronger in the game.

    Otherwise, it's kind of tough to call EQ pay to win when it's hard to say what, exactly, the win condition is. CCGs are pretty clear examples of pay-to-win. You put in money, you get better cards, you beat people with worse cards. Sports games, too; you buy loot boxes, they have better players, you beat the people with the worse players.

    Otherwise, what's the thing that requires cash that makes you qualitatively stronger if you have it?
    Skuz likes this.
  8. Atomos Augur

    And here we go, I knew the main trolls would dig in.

    One of the main points of an RPG is progression. If you are advancing in any way with real money, it is P2W. That includes inventory space, something you start with basically none of. Progression is exp/levels, equipment, and even the appearance of your character (cosmetics). Sometimes you can literally buy straight progression from the cash shop. Sometimes you can just purchase cash shop items, sell the item to a player for in-game currency, and then trade that currency for whatever you want. Equipment, power levels, loot rights, literally anything.

    MMORPGs are also the most time consuming genre. It takes time and effort to progress. If you bypass that time and effort by using real money to buy Heroic Characters or EXP pots or any other type of skip or reduction to the amount of time and effort is normally required, it is P2W.

    P2W does not simply mean that you can do or acquire things that others cannot.

    The amount of people who have some weird issue with admitting they utilize or enjoy P2W is astounding.
  9. code-zero Augur

    I have multiple 115's on non-tlp servers and I don't believe that I've used any XP pots within my memory. In fact I was recently going through bank slots and found some that were in a /claim that I had banked and never used.

    My point is that if you're playing the levels and progression come naturally. I know that TLP's are different because of the faster unlocks and perhaps some might buy those sorts of things to catch up if they're lagging but they are hardly pay to win.

    Now if the best weapons, armor and spells were all sold strictly in the marketplace that'd be another matter altogether
    Gyurika Godofwar, Skuz and Ssdar like this.
  10. Tucoh Augur

    You win EQ when you log off for the last time and get your life back. This costs nothing. Ergo EQ is not p2w. Checkmate athiests.
    Vumad and Ssdar like this.
  11. Atomos Augur

    All you did here was admit you don't utilize P2W. That's you. You're 1 player or however many accounts you play out of the 82,000. Just because you specifically do not use P2W, does not mean that the game is not P2W.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    I'll give this a serious reply now that I've got a joke out of the way. I'd argue that your usage of the word "any" is too permissive to be meaningful. I've played my share of p2w games where the elite players either had clever ways of earning wealth, devoted their lives to the game for long periods of time or more commonly, spent thousands of USD on the game (Archeage, black Desert). Right now I'm playing Guild Wars 2 where dumping $$$ is the best way to progress on the "endgame" of Legendary farming. So I have no problem playing P2W games and EQ is not P2W.

    I'd define "winning" in live EQ as clearing the most recent expansion. For now, that means getting this achievement: https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=2801001 or this one if you'd prefer: https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=2801002

    Someone else might say that you haven't really won until you've gotten these:
    https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=2801009
    https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=2801007
    https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=2801008

    and that's OK, it's up to the player but I'd say most people would agree you can't say you've beaten live EQ until you've at least gotten The Frozen One.

    If we've established how won "wins" EQ, I'd argue that there's nothing in the cash shop that would make someone all that successful at beating EQ. Certainly buying a heroic character would bring someone from 0 toward the finish line, but not reallllly that far. Buying bags, XP boosters or whatever stuff is a trivial boost. The most effective way would be to pay someone krono to carry your gimpy butt through, but nothing can stop pure cash for service transfers so if that makes EQ p2w, any social game is p2w.
    Gyurika Godofwar, Vumad, Skuz and 3 others like this.
  13. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor


    Well stated point, I think the genre as whole is largely Pay for Convenience versus Pay to Win. It's hard to define winning on a Live server, but it is much easier to define on a TLP. Something simple as a bigger bag with 100% WR can ultimately shift the speed to get to a higher end camp first
    Gyurika Godofwar and Skuz like this.
  14. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    P2w is pretty simple: If the real money you spend, affect your ingame character it is p2w. It doesn't really matter if it is daybreak or someone else who gets the money.

    buy an xp potion for real cash = p2w
    buy an xp potion for dbc, you got for free with the 500 dbc per month deal = not p2w
    buy a krono for real cash and use it to buy items ingame = p2w
    buy a krono for plat you farmed ingame and use it to buy items ingame = not p2w
    buy a 85 char on ebay = p2w(and also against the eula)
    buy a heroic char from marketplace with dbc you bought with real cash = p2w
    buy a heroic char from marketplace with dbc got for free with the 500 dbc per month deal = not p2w
    recieve a heroic char for free, because darkpaw is generous = not p2w

    If anything you receive ingame can be traced back to you spending extra money, it is p2w...Yes, EQ1 allows that currently...:(

    The reason why I don't like p2w, is because I think there should be an even playing field between players, that isn't affected by how rich a given player is in real life.

    Because EQ1 is traditionally a subscription based game, I am of the opinion that having a subscription is not p2w. But that is just my opinion(yes I know my definition above contradicts it, but being f2p is not fun).
    Besides, there is an even playing field between players with subscriptions.
  15. jiri_ Augur

    Sure - if people want to say the bundles with bags and xp potions are P2W on TLPs, fine. Some of the potions skirt that line, especially clarity potions before you can just jump into PoK and get an MGB VoQ.

    But what you cannot do, and have never been able to do in EQ's history (except a brief, slightly messed-up period on Phinny in Kunark, when you could buy mounts with working buffs pre-Luclin) is buy a piece of BIS gear from Verant/SOE/DBG/DPG. You can get clarity potions that make soloing on your mage faster, you can buy experience potions that get you to the level cap faster. But you still have to actually do the stuff to get to the level cap, to camp and quest for the gear you need.

    Every year Take2's NBA2K franchise has a two-week window where people who've pre-ordered the most expensive version of the game get to play before everyone else. Every single year there's an infinite reputation glitch, an infinite VC glitch or both. Those glitches aren't fixed until after the exclusivity window closes. If you use them, and everyone in the know does, you get to spend the next year jumping the queue for spots in multiplayer games and picking and choosing your teammates so it's nearly impossible to lose. What's the Everquest equivalent of that?
  16. jiri_ Augur

    Huh? Kronos do not exist without being purchased from the developer. Why is one Good and the other Bad?

    If it's specifically against the ToS, it's probably not a good example, no? You might as well say Counterstrike is pay-to-win because you can buy cheats.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Vumad like this.
  17. Atomos Augur


    Yet every day I logged in to Live I saw general chat spam about selling those very things. You can buy a Krono and trade or sell it to get into those runs. I also saw daily spam regarding loot rights, something else that is obtainable by utilizing Krono.
  18. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    you are correct that someone in the transaction chain committed p2w, but it is not against the TOS, and Im still playing on the same server as them. I don't boycott others just because they don't play my way, I just choose to not make it worse. (besides, I have newer had enough plat for a krono anyway...:p )


    Correct, it is not a good example, but it is an example people will use in this thread to justify p2w. Btw, I don't blame Darkpaw for what people do against the TOS.
  19. jiri_ Augur

    Ha. Fair enough. I don't see kronos as a particular evil here in P2W. A krono trade is just a way of distributing resources around the server. If you buy a krono, you're either eating it for a subscription or turning it into dropped gear that someone has made drop. You're not adding stuff to the server, you're just making it sloosh around a little bit.

    Have I missed someone doing this?
  20. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    The standard justification seems to be that RMT was happening on ebay anyway, and that it was smart of Daybreak to get their share by adding kronos and the marketplace.
    It was probably good for profits, but the aggressive krono farming seems to be bad for the player-spirit on some servers. :oops:

    I suspect that the threads about cheating on TLPs, is because some people ignore fairplay when loot is worth a lot of kronos.