MMOs that are not Pay To Win

[rusty_shackleford]

What is Pay To Win:

• Being able to spend IRL money for an advantage.

This can manifest itself in many ways, from being able to directly buy power, being able to buy some form of in-game currency that can be sold for another in-game currency to acquire in-game items, etc.,

What is NOT Pay To Win:

• Buying the game and/or content

That is Pay To Play.

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What MMOs are absolutely not Pay To Win?

• Project 1999 is a recreation of the original Everquest and its first two expansions. It does not allow purchasing any form of in-game power. It is officially endorsed by the owners of the Everquest IP.
• 2009Scape, Runescape as it was in 2009.
• HighSpell, an MMORPG heavily inspired by classic Runescape.

[rusty_shackleford]

Private servers run by people that behave professionally and do not allow any Pay To Win are definitely welcome, by the way. Off the top of my head, I believe Project 1999(Everquest) qualifies for this.

[Jordy]

Runescape back in the day prior to Runescape 3. Would need to look into which category OSRS fits in.

[rusty_shackleford]

Josh Strife Hayes, an MMO content creator, made an excellent video on what "Pay to win" is:


If you can spend money and receive an advantage, it is pay to win.

[rusty_shackleford]

Runescape back in the day prior to Runescape 3. Would need to look into which category OSRS fits in.

Pay to win, you can buy bonds to sell.

[Jordy]

Runescape back in the day prior to Runescape 3. Would need to look into which category OSRS fits in.

Pay to win, you can buy bonds to sell.

Yeah I thought I vaguely recalled bonds. Oh well.

[rusty_shackleford]

If there are actually any cosmetic-only shop games left, I'll put them in the OP on a separate list. These tend to always lead to further pay2win I think, tho.

[TKVNC]

If there are actually any cosmetic-only shop games left, I'll put them in the OP on a separate list. These tend to always lead to further pay2win I think, tho.

For now, Project Epoch / Ascension WoW (I should clarify, specifically, just Ascension-Epoch - not their other servers) is cosmetic only.

[Xenich]

Josh Strife Hayes, an MMO content creator, made an excellent video on what "Pay to win" is:


If you can spend money and receive an advantage, it is pay to win.

I dislike "PTW" as a term because it doesn't properly encompass all aspects of game circumvention.

Cosmetics are a big one often used to defend game stores, but the reality is that selling the cosmetic either removes the concept of achieving it via game play or if the item is in game, provides a means for someone to cheat in obtaining it.

"Pay to Cheat" I think a better term because it encompasses the topics that aren't specific "game play" elements that fit into that perception of "winning".

[Kalarion]

Nasomi, FFXI private server, but at this point Nasomi has so extensively modified the way the game works it's basically a custom server.

Horizons, FFXI private server. Also has modifications but not as extensive.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones I played on.

[Oyster Sauce]

Is a game P2W if there isn't sufficient policing of third party gold buying? I think so.

[Decline]

Here is my list of MMOs that are not pay to win:

[Val the Moofia Boss]

NOT P2W

Retail WoW and FF14 are barely P2W. You get gear to do beat the latest raid on normal difficulty just by playing through the game. The optional hard difficulties nobody really cares about except for the few elites, and the weekly lockouts make it difficult to game the system there to get a leg up so paying doesn't help you there. In FF14 if you pay for gil with USD then you're probably doing it to try to buy a house.



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MILDLY P2W

GW2 has some P2W, mainly only if you are a WvWers since you can pay USD to buy gems to convert into gold and then buy multiple different sets of exotic gear off of the auction house so you have good stats for different builds. A berserker set for glass cannon physical damage built, a marauder set for a slightly less damage but more tanky physical damage build, a Carrion set for condi (DoT) builds, and a celestial all rounder set. You would also need to buy additional equipment set slots. And then you are pretty much set for life on that character. Unless you roll another character, in which case you need to buy 5 more sets and 5 more set slots again. There is no gear treadmill in GW2.

Retail FF11: you can buy gil to buy equipment off of the AH that will let you complete most of the game's content.

EVE Online: you can buy ISK with USD to buy more and bigger stuff. However, because your ship gets blown up and you lose almost everything on the ship, you do not want to play EVE like a traditional RPG where you are trying to go up to the better and biggest equipment. Instead you want to stockpile a bunch of cheap earlygame ships like frigates, destroyers, and maybe cruisers with cheap T1 modules, that way if you get blown up you can just hop into another ship and get right back into the fight rather than having lost your entire net worth on your super ship. So you can technically pay but you don't actually want to.


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P2W

WoW classic has P2W capability due to GDKP runs and gold selling. You can buy gold with USD and then join a GDKP run and bid on the raid items that drop to raise your ilevel and progress through the raid tiers faster. Not applicable to retail since you get catchup gear just from going to the newest patch zone so only the latest raid tier matters.

Space Cowboy Online/ACE Online/Air Rivals. This was my first ever MMO. At some point during the episode 3 expansion, they added a literal slot machine in the city that you could walk up to and spin with USD and maybe get the best armors in the game (recolors of prestigious endgame armors that dropped from bosses). My interest in the game had already been waning due to the stagnation of the game but this was the final nail in the coffin.

[Oyster Sauce]

NOT P2W

Retail WoW and FF14 are barely P2W.

https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/produc ... cter-boost

[Val the Moofia Boss]

NOT P2W

Retail WoW and FF14 are barely P2W.

https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/produc ... cter-boost

The game experience was fundamentally damaged by TBC when they made it so that you no longer hit 60 and then had to start progressing through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair and so on. You just keep solo questing to the latest level cap. And then the Isle of Quel'danas patch happened which meant that you only had to rush to the latest zone and do the quests there to get catchup gear before heading into the latest raid. Hence why the actual game begins at level cap in the latest patch.

You also get a free level boost every expansion, and every expansion there is a massive EXP event where you can go from level 10 to level cap in an hour just flying around zerging down the bosses.

[Oyster Sauce]

NOT P2W

Retail WoW and FF14 are barely P2W.

https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/produc ... cter-boost

The game experience was fundamentally damaged by TBC when they made it so that you no longer hit 60 and then had to start progressing through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair and so on. You just keep solo questing to the latest level cap. And then the Isle of Quel'danas patch happened which meant that you only had to rush to the latest zone and do the quests there to get catchup gear before heading into the latest raid. Hence why the actual game begins at level cap in the latest patch.

You also get a free level boost every expansion, and every expansion there is a massive EXP event where you can go from level 10 to level cap in an hour just flying around zerging down the bosses.

Cope

[xXusernameXx]

I agree with your definition of pay-to-win and include cosmetics under it.

Because so few actually are free of that stuff, it's worth considering what your goals/playstyle for a game is, and then seeing how they are affected by the game's p2w format. So I agree with Josh Strife's video.

A reason I personally often don't bother starting p2w games is when I can't tell how much I'm going to have to end up paying to have a good time. Though not all "free-to-play" games are going to make me feel nickel and dimed, the label is enough to disinterest me in most cases, especially when I don't have the energy to research it.

A personal favorite monetization model of mine is optional subscription. I'm sure some may consider that "p2w" but it's basically the same format as MMOs from 25 years ago, only with a free option included. I like this model because you know exactly how much you're going to be paying and there won't be others paying more than you, equal playing ground. But cosmetics seem to be the cashcow when it comes to online game profit (proving that cosmetics are indeed p2w much more often than people may think), so it seems like it'd be a bit unorthodox for a game to not go that route if it's trying to profit

[AmericanMonarchist]

Private servers run by people that behave professionally and do not allow any Pay To Win are definitely welcome, by the way. Off the top of my head, I believe Project 1999(Everquest) qualifies for this.

2009scape would fit your criteria as they do not allow people to even donate.

[rusty_shackleford]

Added 2009Scape & HighSpell.

[rusty_shackleford]

NOT P2W

Retail WoW and FF14 are barely P2W. You get gear to do beat the latest raid on normal difficulty just by playing through the game. The optional hard difficulties nobody really cares about except for the few elites, and the weekly lockouts make it difficult to game the system there to get a leg up so paying doesn't help you there. In FF14 if you pay for gil with USD then you're probably doing it to try to buy a house.

World of Warcraft: Absolutely pay-to-win. You can buy tokens with IRL money to sell for gold, which you can use to buy e.g., carries. Additionally, you can pay money for instant max level etc., No wiggle room here.
FF14: I don't know. I actually played this for a while but remember so little. I think it might actually be cosmetic only?

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If you can use IRL money for an advantage, it's going under the pay-to-win category. It does not matter how negligible the advantage is.

[rusty_shackleford]

Nasomi, FFXI private server, but at this point Nasomi has so extensively modified the way the game works it's basically a custom server.

Horizons, FFXI private server. Also has modifications but not as extensive.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones I played on.

Are there any reports of GMs selling gold, etc.,? This sometimes happens on private servers.