An Objective Look at GW2's Cash Shop

Right, so I hear a lot of people complaining about GW2 being Pay2Win or whatever, and I thought I would gather my current knowledge about the game and have a look to see if it is OBJECTIVELY, while comparing it to other MMOs. (WoW, Mainly, but also GW1)
I would like to make it clear, however, I love WoW. I have played it for many years, and enjoyed ...most of my time playing it.

On a personal note, subjectively, I really dislike F2P games in the majority.

I dislike it when content related to Gameplay is withheld without the ability for it to be acquired for either fair effort or reasonable cost.

An example of this would be LoL, to unlock every hero and all of the runes would cost either an extortionate amount of money or an extortionate amount of time. Neither of those options are realistic, and it doesn't offer a fair alternative. (A fair alternative would be a subscription based system, where you subscribe for use of all heroes)

On the other hand, there are good systems. Dota 2 is one example, where everything that costs is cosmetic. Obviously there is a another category here, which is purchase and then have cosmetic items. This is where TF2 was before it went F2P (Mann-conomy-->Uber) and what Guild Wars 2 will ultimately fall into.

And now, to view everything objectively.

With GW2, a lot of people are annoyed with regards to their being boosts. People see these as giving people who pay an unfair advantage over the people who don't. Now, if we were to apply this same system to WoW, we can see how this would be pretty bad. If WoW had an XP booster and a 50% magic find booster, end game progression guilds would require these to get characters leveled up as fast as possible after an expantion, and to get as much gear as possible to progress as fast as possible.
WoW is a traditional MMO in the sense that you level to get to the current maximum, where you then progress through endgame 5mans and raids. Each step serves as a barrier to another, since you require better gear to do things further up the chain. With WoW, most of the endgame is focused on repetition, and gear building. When I started playing WoW again at the end of Cataclysm, (1 week before 4.3) I must have run the Zalandari HCs 20-30 times each in the space of 5 days. I did nothing else, I just did them. All of the other 5 mans were worthless, since it was gear from those that I needed to be able to run Dragon Soul. If I had a 50% magic find boost there, it would be INCREDIBLY convenient, but obviously it would massively impact on the amount of time I actually spent playing the game.

This is the first key point. Blizzard want you to repeat a handful of things as much as possible, as that keeps you playing the game. Obviously, wow is much bigger than just those 2 heroics, but this is an example that, frankly, is true. Daily quests, HCs, and raids. All of the leveling content is effectively useless to me now, and i stick to doing those three things. Obviously there is the odd quest chain, but 95% of the game is redundant. I can't exactly play any of the Vanilla/BC/Wrath raids anymore, they simply aren't a challenge. 4-5 of us can breeze through the entire thing in 5 minutes. The content has been made redundant in favour of newer content.

Now, lets compare this to GW2. Instantly, coming from a Warcraft background, you can make some paralels.
1. There is leveling, with an eventual cap.
2. You have different sets of gear, some that are more powerful than others

Ok, so from a WoW point of view, we need to blitz to max level so we can get on with the endgame content. Oh - and we can use a boost to do that quicker?! thats not fair! I have to pay to keep up with my friends if they're also paying? and if I want to do competitive endgame progression, I HAVE to pay to not fall behind? Ok then, Bring on the dungeons and raids! Yes?

No. From what I have been able to gather, GW2 has very little max-level endgame content. So - hang on, once im done leveling, thats it? The game is literally just leveling? but thats terrible!

And this is where I finally "Got" GW2. It doesn't have any endgame content - _Because none of the content ever actually becomes redundant_ There IS no endgame, because the entire game is endgame!

To understand GW2, you have to not view it in the same light as WoW. Lets use a silly example. One of my favourate instances in wow (Dont ask, long story) is Gnomeregan. This has an advised level of 24-34. After I have outleveled that range, the instnce is no longer fun, and there is frankly no reason to even attempt to run it. I don't get any items, and it's not a challenge in the slightest. Its just a walk while pressing some buttons. I don't need anyone else, and I don't need to employ any tactics. I pretty much can't die, (Paladin) and thusly, there is no point in playing this section of the game anymore.
Now, we go to GW2. If I have outleveled a dungeon - I can still play it! I get scaled down to the right level, and the dungeon is fun and challenging. But then, why does GW2 have leveling in the first place? If we all get scaled down so everything is the right difficulty, why do we need to level?
And again; it's simple. Leveling is there as an artificial barrier to the progression of the story. What's the fun in instantly running to the final boss and killing him?
And this, is my justification of the XP Boost. In WoW, an XP boost would cause you to skip a LOT of leveling content, so you can effectively get to the "good bit" quicker. in GW2, it just lets you get to the later stages of the story faster. Since the entire game can always be played and enjoyed, the only difference in being level 40 and level 60 is that a level 60 has more things to do. Not different things as in WoW, but more. The further you get, the more things you can do, whereas in WoW, it's simply different things.

At max level in WoW, 95% of the game is pointless, and goes unused. At max level in GW2, you can play the whole game.

And this, is why leveling speed and XP boosts flat out don't matter. There isn't a competitive endgame raiding scene, just like there isn't in any good singleplayer RPG. Imagine GW2 as a singleplayer RPG, where you saved before everything. You can go back and do anything you want whenever you want, and it will always be the same difficulty. You play the game for the fun of playing the game, not to get a higher level / better gear. Does anyone actually enjoy being able to outlevel things and to just ROFLStomp their way through content?

Which brings me to the other notorious boost, the Magic find boost.

Now, for this, I'll have to look at GW1.
I played a lot of GW1 in the past few weeks, so I could unlock some HoM rewards. Now, I didn't just read a guide and beeline it, I played the game to see what it had to offer. Now, GW1 is nothing like a Wow-esque MMO. GW1 is essentially 4 different campaigns. 4 storylines. You hit level 20 within 5-6 hours or so (I did factions first) and then you have no need for levels. You can also buy Perfect armour from a merchant for next to nothing, and get a perfect weapon pretty damn easily.

So.. Now we have the best armour and the best weapon and we're max level.. Whats the point in playing the game any more?

My answer to this, is Super Mario Bros. "I've got a fire flower.. why play the game anymore?" Because you want to play the content of the game! You want to complete all of the different campaigns, you want to do the sidequests, and you want to do all of the missions. The game is there - so why not play it!

And this, from what I can gather, (Please someone correct me if I'm wrong,) is pretty much the situation for GW2. Obviously GW2 has a much different gear system to GW1, but it's nothing in comparison to WoW. You don't play GW2 to get yourself all of the gear, you play it to play the game! Gear is effectively irrelevant, because instead of making it better being the entire point and focus of the game at max level, it's only a very, very minor part. Because you aren't limited by any means to what you can do, you can play everything else! In WoW, you have to get gear to get into the raids, because really, the raids are the only worthwhile content at max level. In GW2, the entire game is worthwhile!

I know I'm repeating myself, but it's because I want to be absolutely clear on that one spesific fact. Content in WoW gets made redundant. Content in GW2 can be played for the fun of playing it whenever you like. So tell me - at max level, which game has more content? Imagine if you could do any instance or raid that is below your current level and instantly be scaled down to the right level for it to be challenging and fun! It would instantly make the game 40-50 times bigger. And effectively, that's what GW2 is.

Obviously there is a difference in the delivery, with regards to events vs quests and events vs instances, but its all just how the content is served. It's like playing Skyrim as opposed to the Witcher. They both work in completely different ways. GW2 is very cooperative and pseudo-group based, WoW is very solo leveling / hard-group instance based. Imagine in WoW if you were to go up to ICC, and see a few people there attacking the front. You join them, and eventually the amount of people grows. then, it turns into a massive seige on the Lich King, where people are coming from all over to help. That would be an equivilent if GW2 was to provide that same content. The two have to be looked at differently, WoW rules don't apply to GW2. You can't win, you play it for the fun of playing it. In WoW, you can win. (Effectively.)


So, that's PvE out of the way. After looking at the list of boosts available on the wiki, none of them affect Glory. So nothing affects PvP, since you don't get item drops from it making the Magic Find boost useless. PvP is one area where P2W balance has to be watched out for, because if someone can buy their way to victory, then it's obviously not as fun. In the PvE game, to be honest, I wouldn't mind if you could buy a full set of the best armour and instant level 80. It doesn't give me an advantage over anyone else in reality because there is no competitive PvE Endgame. Obviously that's a bit of an extreme example, but imagine if the same could be done for WoW. ..You'd stop playing because all you could do would be the current highest end raid, everything else would be too easy for it to be relevant or fun. in GW2, it just means you have a larger choice of things to do from the get go. You will be better than other people gear and level wise, but it doesn't matter!

Lets have an abstact example again. Jim buys Solo RPG5 (Now with dragons!) and gives himself all of the best gear. We can view this in two different ways.

1. No scaling. He obliterates everything, and nothing is a challenge. Very quickly he gets bored, and stops playing the game.
2. Scaling. He plays through the game with a good level of difficulty, with bosses being challenging and fun.

In situation 1, giving himself all of the best gear gave him an advantage, but ultimately made the game boring.
In situation 2, the gear didn't matter.

Now, that's all well and good when things aren't competitive. But, what happens if its a competitive game, and he does the same by buying them through the ingame store?

1. He obliterates everything faster than everyone, meaning that for people to keep up they would HAVE to buy the gear. This, is where I personally draw the line. He is getting an unfair advantage over other people because he paid more money.

Now, see where GW2 fits? Since there is no competition in the PvE game, it doesn't really matter. But you can still play the game for the fun of playing it. If it was competitive, it's instantly a whole different kettle of fish. This is why you need to look at the GW2 store model with regards to GW2, and not the store if it was put into WoW.


And heck, if it really bothers you that much, you can still earn everything ingame and have fun doing it. But essentially, the boosts are pointless. If anything, they only shorten the game. And whats the fun in that! How can you Pay to Win when you essentially cannot win?


If I am somehow horrifically wrong with regards to the lvel 80 content, feel free to correct me.

tl;dr, Stop looking at GW2's cash shop as if it was applied to WoW, They are two completely different games.