You all bang on about gameshops and cash cow servers like its new and "this is the end" but its been like this since the beginning.
was lots of early servers that sold items, they perhaps just did it more secretly instead of in the form of a public gameshop.
Somewhere along the road the gameshop became "accepted" by the community altho that didnt stop backdoor deals.
Players say they dont want "pay to win" with "cash cow" gameshops, but even if the server was truely free to play (no, not elite with its VIP package) and no gameshop etc, NEWS FLASH, the game would STILL be PAY TO WIN.
- pay someone to level them
- buy items privately
then what? you complain to the GM to to ban these people? ok well thats 2 people gone from the server, and then many more to follow as a lot of the user base play to earn by selling these things privately.
The only way to truely eliminate P2W is to remove any form of trade and make everything personal loot / soulbound. But then you ruin the heart of what is a MMORPG. Why do you think many games these days have soulbound, personal loot, no trading etc. not because they want to make the game better but because they want you to spend money in THEIR GAMESHOP, not private.
Anyway, players aint the only problem on this forum, its the server owners as well being toxic towards others. Quick to call others names and stuff yet probably 10x worse themselves. Like a certain server owner that attacked me recently and then I read some gigantic thread about them playing the game and being corrupt (oh how I'm not surprised at all.)
I personally thought by now people would be more grown up but i guess the keyboard warrior never truly leaves some of us.