it's p2w when is IMPOSSIBILE for other player to cover the same specialization with a similar hero. the game have horizontal progression, so is about specialization, if a founder hero is the best hero for (example) solokill carnifex in pve, or killing terminator in melee etc etc.... if the other player can't ulock an hero with the exact same specialization and efficency for the same role, the game will be considered pay to win.
If we follow your logic then every expansion will be p2w, because it will introduce new gameplay elements that will impact the game a lot more that a slight different feel that want with the hero classes and you will only have access if you pay for it. I understand what the devs want to do changing a little bit how each hero feels, but again, the game won't be free, buying the game you should get every single playable class for free, I would rather have to "grind" (not korean MMO grind...) to get all those heroes and being able to buy boosts to speed up the process or just sell different heroes at a high price (for example if a skin cost 5$ the hero will cost 10)with exclusive animations and/or executions, battlecries etc.
the difference is about the hero/weapon for the founder are unobtanable after the founder pack, while expansion are always available. But i'm not considering the game p2w: i'm sure that a slight difference in a stat or a skill don't make a game p2w (unless the game have a terrible balancing and/or a skill is bugged). The problem is about the random internet guy that open the founder program site and see that the game have in the founder store: if the random internet guy see "exclusive hero class/weapon/armor for the founder" and read that have unique stat and skill, this random internet guy (that don't know nothing about EC only see the link), will go around the web and social network and tell to the friend (that don't know nothing about EC) that the game is P2W showing the link to the shop. it's really P2W? dosen't matter, if the game is, it's about how the random internet guy see the game. We on the forum are only a small small part of the potential customer, we read we are informed about the game but we are a small fraction of the total. A big part of the future EC founder/player don't know the existance of EC but they will know when the founder program will go live. here a concrete example: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/0...ivers-sneak-peek-of-new-website-and-founders/ comments: basically this internet random guy read a news read "hero" and think "hero so it's a moba". luckly after someone explain what the game is. But it's a site about MMO, not all the internet have the same information level. now imagine what can happen with "exclusive item with different stat in the shop".
You got a link for that? afaik the only thing limited will be the pre-heresy stuff (and maybe a title, but I couldn't care less about that) and it's not gonna be part of the founders pack. BTW we were saying the same thing, I misread that part . I agree that hero classes should be called HQ classes or whatever, but not something that can be related to a moba.
Elites someone said a while back. Or Special Units/Champions. Kind of hard to pigeon hole (gross) a Librarian, Chaplain and a Fallen in the same category The forums on gamer news site trade in troll-bane, i.e. information. The only thing more satisfying than having a bias heard by the people who invest in those threads is being able to call out someone elses bias for what it is when actual facts come to light. That is how a troll dooo. Most of the EC negatives I find myself countering are that it's 'that old 40k mmo that got cancelled' btw. I get what you're saying about the impression created by a store like that in the present state of fact-vacuum but I doubt very much we'll see a store introduced without solid details and expectations prior to any money being put on the table. Bad press in the world of blogs and threads is easily countered with a simple [ url ] [/ url] [quote-y ] [/quote-y] when the time is right. Plus you get to slice a troll !! ... Until it regenerates. Not arguing with your thoughts, just saying it's a little early to raise the red flag. -Edited by Houman-
I think we're getting a bit off-topic by now, but as far as I understand from Michael Chan's comment, then the difference won't really matter much between regular hero classes and exclusive hero classes (or HQs, which I like the sound of =P). I think they say that exclusive heroes may vary a bit in terms of functionality just so that it might better match the fluff, like having an Interrogator Chaplain instead of a regular vanilla Chaplain, which doesn't give him new or better abilities, but might change to a certain degree the functionality of said abilities or even just the animations, just to better fit the character.
an example of pay to win is EMPs in Hawken, where you pay a dollar to trash someone who doesnt pay the dollar. an example of NOT pay to win is buying the ability to wield 2 shields and have better defence, but zero offense. subtle, i know.
But what if a situation requires that setup and non-buyers can't get two shields? Then it's pay2win again. The same thing goes for these heroes when you allow them to fill niches that your faction normally isn't supposed to fill. So what if the hero doesn't turn the tide of battle at all times? Doing it sometimes is still having an advantage. An advantage you paid for. One might even say that you paid to win. Even if it's tiny, nobody is gonna bother rationalizing it and saying that it's fine, they'll just call the game pay to win and leave. This isn't exactly a good way to build community. Just wait for it, Behavior has no idea what kind of pandora's box this issue will open at the game's launch.
