Aurum items are not 'pay2win' they are 'pay4isk'. You can spend real money on dust and use the items, or sell them to other players to increase your wealth. In concept it's not really any different from PLEX in eve.

However, the items people are taking issue with are the 'reduced fitting cost' items. Every other aurum item has some kind of downside or disadvantage (Some are not shown in attributes window), which makes them sidegrades, not upgrades. Most of the aurum items with 'reduced fitting' do not have these disadvantages, and this is where this entire debate is coming from. This is the only ground 'pay2win' opposers really have to stand on, and I admit that it is something that needs to be tweaked.

Give these variants disadvantages (like reduced damage or overall effect), and these complaints will evaporate pretty quickly except from those would complain just for the sake of doing it.

ACtually SKILLS have a lot to do with it.. there is amjor difference between hitting basic 30 with a rifle to a skilled out person hitting 80+ with the same rifle.

The arum system is really pissing me off. I thought CCP was saying they did not want you to be able to buy anything with arum that will allow you to have an unfair advantage over the non aurum players???

This is differently not the case atm. Take for example the shield extenders for drop suits. The best one (going off memory) is 66 hp and takes 60 something CPU. ThatGÇÖs cool so is there a better one? Yes there is for 4 aurum you can get a 66 hp one that only takes 34 CPU??? How is this not an unfair advantage, so basically if I pay from my suit I can fit two extenders on my suit, however though if I use only isk then I cannot fit two. There is no isk equivalent to the 66 hp 34 CPU shield extender, and on top of this you have to have shield upgrades 5. So to fit my high level scout suit I have to buy aurum to get the fit I want and there is absolutely no way to fit it without aurum. This is bull **** and it is 100% Pay to win. So what happen to at E3 CCP saying this would never happen or be a problem when they are doing it right in front of our faces??

And please please, before you say there are isk equivalents to all in game items make sure you check because there is not. I can only think of the shield extender as one but the shield recharger also is one, and I am sure there are many others.

This is only one example but there are many many more just like it, just because you pay for it should have nothing to do with giving you less cpu and PG, I think something should done before both CCP and dust 514 gets a bad name. Just the other day I read a article that stated that it will cost the average player .24 cents per suit and that you lose the suit ever game, and they are right if you can only fit that suit with arum stuff because the power grid/CPU on the "isk equivalent" is in fact far from being equivalent and impossible to fit it. Now this article is very misleading because it did not state that you can also get suits from isk, but with the way the aurum is setup in game this is not really the true either. This is going to seem like to the average gamer that even though the game is free, it costs money to use equipment in the game?? And even though this is not true and that there are manyGÇ¥ isk equivalentsGÇ¥ which are not in fact equivalents most news sources are not going to care about that. So being able to say that there really is no advantage to using real money is going to be a key selling factor to the average gamer.

Now I understand that CCP has to make money and that is not a problem but stick with the boosters, skill bombs or spikes or whatever they are. I love these and think it s a wonderful idea that should be fully utilized. And I will spend all my aurum on these boosters.

So in conclusion please make it so there really is isk equivalent versions of everything on the market, make it cost like 50k each I do not care but do not **** on the guy that does not want to spend money on equipment because he knows he will just die in the next battle and cost him real money as opposed to time.

Discuss/comment/Fame away.

P.S I hope ccp is also not using the beta a sign of how much people will use aurum to buy weapons equipment. I know that I will get my aurum back so atm I am spending it on everything and I am sure a lot of others have the same/similar mindset. Just hoping that CCP does not use it as a motivation to keep doing what they are doing with the aurum system, and I would like to go to the eve system with it being 100% cosmetic based system but I realize with a free to play game that is a bad idea.

Dude I play dc Universe online probably the biggest pay to win , buggeiest mmorpg on the ps3 I know how to live with bugs

ok for one if aurum gave no advantage what so ever not enough ppl would buy it, and 2 do u reallly see some one who has a cheaper shield extender than u dominating in a match and owning u 1v1? no i think ur beter than that, can u please stop worrying about a small advantage a very small amount of ppl will use

What part of AUR and ISK items are NOT equal don't you get?

It IS a beta, but it is also showing the intention of CCP, else it would NOT be here.

Just to repeat, again. some AUR items have a dramatically lower CPU/PG demands (30-50% lower), and/or somewhat higher stats for DPS/Shield/range etc. (5-10% is not minor btw)

THAT IS NOT EQUAL!

my post just above is a example of unbalanced game play. plus that's the issue they are not balanced because if I spend real money on items in game then I get a clear and distinct advantage over others. that was the point i was making, but since players will be able to sell there aurum items to others I rest my case.

I still believe tho that they could use some balancing.

I am content with this post, I rest my case, this thread can be closed for all I care now :D

"Certain items are only available through ISK transactions, while others are only available through AUR. These are then traded freely on a player-driven secondary marketplace." Atli GÇ£PraetorianGÇ¥ Mar

Pay To Win - A purchase which permits a player to obtain an item/buff/whatever that will permit them to beat a player of greater skill in combat.

IE: If a weapon is placed in a marketplace, and it has stats superior to what can be obtained via all drops/vendors/crafting sources, then it is by definition Pay To Win.

Pay To Win is not -
GÇóA purchase which grants advantage in any non-competitive aspect of the game (such as crafting); if there is no 'Winner' then you cannot by definition Pay To Win.
GÇóA purchase of access to additional content to play, regardless of if superior rewards are available in this content. By definition, paying for content that has to be run is Pay To Play, even if a game does not follow a subscription model.
GÇóA purchase which provides 'quality of living' benefits to a player, making the game more enjoyable without providing statistical upgrades to characters (IE: cash caps, raid resets, disabling of pop-ups, server transfers, rename tokens, etc).
GÇóA purchase which circumvents an otherwise cumbersome aspect of the game, giving the paying customer a result without requiring the hours of gameplay nessesary for a non-paying customer to obtain the same result (xp boosts, starting a character at a level higher than 1, purchase of schematics or equipment that are available in-game but require farming to obtain). This is a trade of Time vs Money, but because it does not provide anything that is not attainable through normal gameplay. If both players end on even footing, then there is no 'Win'; competition is still determined by skill. It would be Money vs Time.
GÇóA purchase which provides only a Vanity advantage unattainable by other players, but no statistical upgrade to a character; special Marketplace Only vanity pets or styles.

Pay To Win breaks down as exactly that. If paying money causes you to defeat other players, then the game is Pay To Win. If paying money simply makes the game more enjoyable, or less cumbersome, but leaves you on equal footing with players who elect to spend time instead of money, then the 'Win' aspect is still determined by skill, meaning the game is not Pay To Win.

@GM Unicorn: I respect the fact that despite having your own feelings on this, you are prepared to listen to and get the feelings of everyone else on the subject. I also respect that these are your feelings and not those of CCP. I also get that from what I understand of your definition, it's not Play To Win because the Aurum kit is not so ridiculously overpowered that an ISK player has practically no chance at all of winning against them.

For my thoughts on whether it's actually Pay 2 Win, I found this on the SW:TOR Forums



So, stripping out what's on offer at the moment...

• The Aurum Dropsuits are NOT Pay To Win as they simply offer something cosmetic (and actually lose some slots in some cases)


• The Aurum XP boosters are NOT Pay To Win as they circumvent a cumbersome aspect of the game, i.e. skill point grinding.


• The early skill Aurum Weapons/Modules are NOT Pay To Win as they circumvent a cumbersome aspect of the game, i.e. skill point grinding.


• The CPU/PG Aurum items ARE Pay To Win as they offer superior statistical advantages.

Personally, and I accept this is my own personal opinion, I feel that the CPU/PG stuff 'is' Pay To Win, but only in that you are paying to receive an edge in the game.

Does this mean that I'm utterly against it? No. I'm going to be playing the game for free. My financial contribution to this game will be zero. If everyone's contribution to this game was zero, there would be no game. Someone else is paying for this game that I'm playing. That person can have a slightly bigger gun and a slightly shinier suit and that's fine by me, because I'm a sneaky player, and I have an infinite supply of Militia Suits to zerg at you >: D Maybe I'll die more often than I win, but if I win, it's because I had more skill, or got lucky and caught you with your pants down. And if I die it costs me nothing. If you die, it cost you money. And you died helping contribute to the continuing existence of this game, as did all those who buy Aurum.

That said... if the Aurum was purely limited so that it either gave people shinier stuff or got access to stuff sooner, so that everyone was on a level statistical playing field given enough time, then perhaps that would be better, and if CCP could make it so, and if it were a viable financial model that helped the continuing existence of this game, then I'd definitely be all for it.

Addendum

If what is said about the Aurum Items becoming available for ISK, then that does remove the final 'Play To Win' definition as the Aurum items will be available for ISK

The players that have all AUR gear should have a shiny purple text spelling "AUR" over their heads on the battlefield. This way, the amount of people going after them would counteract their overpowered gear.

Edit: They should have the ability to be team killed.

Would you prefer monthly subscriptions or one time payments over F2P?

At the end of the day players still have to battle it out using player skill, and no battlefield AUR items are designed to out class the ISK items.

DUST is F2P and when the player market place comes along, those who purchase AUR will be able to sell AUR items to players for ISK. So in essence even F2P players can obtain AUR items if they're good enough to earn the ISK, much like those EVE players who play for free by buying PLEX (Game Time) for ISK from other players.

haha wow, nice one this whole thread is about how aurum items are better then isk items where did you get they are worse haha.

oh and it will happen, alot of people are going to try to find ways to convert real money to isk and this will be one of the ways to do it, so I garentee this will happen.