Can we stop pretending that Path of Exile is free to play?

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ajo wrote:

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

Because the whole concept of the free to play model is to require no introductory fee to generate interest and allow the consumer to spend at his or her discretion.

Same goes for a demo.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

With PoE, you can play the entire game start to finish, fight every boss - nothing is restricted behind a paywall.

Quality of life and convenience is restricted behind a paywall. Common practice in demos.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

A lot of F2p games restrict content, allowing you to play PART of the game then halting progress or even restricting your ability to gain loot.

Irrelevant for the argument what other greedy devs do. That's like saying that cars doesn't need catalytic converters because there are coal plants doing much more harm.

So what was your point again?

This must be trolling. Do you want people to explain you how a demonstration differs from a monetization model?

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ajo wrote:

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

Because the whole concept of the free to play model is to require no introductory fee to generate interest and allow the consumer to spend at his or her discretion.

Same goes for a demo.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

With PoE, you can play the entire game start to finish, fight every boss - nothing is restricted behind a paywall.

Quality of life and convenience is restricted behind a paywall. Common practice in demos.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

A lot of F2p games restrict content, allowing you to play PART of the game then halting progress or even restricting your ability to gain loot.

Irrelevant for the argument what other greedy devs do. That's like saying that cars doesn't need catalytic converters because there are coal plants doing much more harm.

So what was your point again?

That you already know the truth you just aren't willing to accept it. The whole fragile egos things and all that jazz.

To be fair, stash tabs directly speed up trading. This is important because of 2 things:

1. At the beginning of the league, everything is cheaper. HH, mirrors, you name it. If you need to buy top tier items, this is the time to do it.
2. The prices of top tier items rise quickly once the league starts.

The speed that premium/quad stash tabs are giving you is opening a way to consistently obtain these top tier items. If you don't pay for stash tabs, then you best hope these things drop on their own (aka, good luck with that).

A standard mf setup is to have a couple quad tabs, and dump a bunch of 1c-10c items into and keep mapping. If someone whispers you, you ignore them unless they want to buy in bulk. This is how 500+ chaos/hr farming is done. It's simply mass hoarding then mass selling. You can't do this with just 4 basic stash tabs.

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ajo wrote:

Then please explain the difference and why it would be technically wrong to call the free version just that. Isn't a demo just that? A limited free version of the full paid version?

Are you stupid, or are you just acting obtuse to be difficult? But OK, I'll find the teaspoon:

A demo is a part of a game, never the whole game. It is limited in content or time. A F2P game is a business model, letting you get access to the whole game for free. I really do not think it was needed to spell this out for you. And I hope, I beg, that you do know the difference, and are just being difficult here, in a desperate attempt to make some sort of point.

And the bottom line? In PoE you DO get access to the whole game for free. Every boss. Every item. Every zone. Everything.

Free. To. Play.

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ajo wrote:

Not stash tabs

What are these things I'm storing all my loot in? I always thought they were stash tabs.

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ajo wrote:

Not stash tabs, and the stash is a central part of the game nowdays with all the item bloat.

And I agree. But that's totally beside the point.

"PoE is a demo". Ok. Why the hell didn't I just stop there. You don't get the point, you'll never get the point - and you don't want to get the point. No matter how you turn, twist and spin it, Path of Exile is free to play. You can't just "make up" definitions of "free to play" to fit your narrative. It looks ridiculous, like the premise this thread is built on.

I'll gladly debate the monetization model.
I'll gladly debate whether or not PoE is "P2W"
I'll gladly debate if players should get access to more stash tabs without paying.

But here we are debating whether or not PoE is "free to play". And it is. Hell, even Clash of Clans is "free to play", even though it's bloated with "pay to win" elements.

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ajo wrote:

I don't understand you. You are still debating from a legal point of view when that's not even the point. All this was explained on page one

It was explained on page one, but "people" are still calling it a "glorified demo", or "not free to play" or whatever, as if they haven't read page one. So read page one, stop saying it's a demo "or not free to play", and go on without me bashing.

No one cares if you "feel" it's not free to play. No one cares if I "feel" that the color black is really red. No one cares if Shags "feels" like Mount Everest isn't the highest mountain in the world.

So, deal, stop saying it's everything but free to play, and I'll stop reacting to it. Or else, I will make a thread called "Can we stop pretending that Path of Exile is a game". I'm sure people will tell me on page one that it IS a game, yet - I will go on for 35 pages convincing people it's not.

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ajo wrote:

But none except you are arguing from a legal point of view. Again, If I say this game shit, I'm not accusing it for being solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested in the small intestine.

So we're ignoring facts and set definitions. I'll remember that when someone are trying to convince me that "pay to win" means "pay for advantages".

It's not a "legal" term. It's a fact. So how you, personally and subjectively are defining it, is irrelevant. You keep making your own definitions to fit your narrative. It's stupid. If it's "legally" and factually "free to play", why are you advocating for something else?

When 100% of the game's content is playable without ever paying a single cent, I think that's a pretty reasonable example of "free to play".

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ajo wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

So we're ignoring facts and set definitions.

Beyond terminology. Still page one I think. And again, if discussion is still going to a full stop based on terminology, I'm fine with using the word demo, pay-for-advantages or pay-for-faster-progression if you prefer that over pay-to-win.

Your only objective is to change the term to win, not to use dialectics.

It's called bad-faith acting or moving the goal post, something multiple people have already claimed your doing.

It's perfectly easy to make an argument that people with less stash tabs progress faster, the evidence for this is not hard to locate because that's exactly what all racers demonstrate.

Low stash time, low town time and push to lvl 85-90 with a single stash tab on rotation before even organizing their stuff.

You conflating "hoarding" with "efficiency" is a logical fallacy and demonstrably false.
Only somebody cluelles about efficiency would make such a claim or call it an advantage to progression.

Peace,

-Boem-