Is it Pay to Win? Raid: Shadow Legends

Raid: Shadow Legends Sacred Shard

Welcome to ‘Is it Pay to Win’ – a column where we examine a game and decide if that game is has aspects of pay to win and to what extent. Check out Is it Pay to Win?: Defined to see how we break down the components of pay to win (p2w), such as pay for advantage, pay for convenience, and pay for cosmetics.

Raid: Shadow Legends describes itself as a “mythical RPG with hundreds of champions and 14 factions”. While it’s originally a mobile game, it is also available on PC. It features champion collection (with level and gearing of those champions), dungeon bosses, a campaign (with a story, sort of) clans, tournaments, events and more. It has a cash shop that allows you to buy most things you could acquire in game.

Scoring:

  • Pay for Power: 4/5
  • Pay for Advantage: 4/5
  • Pay for Convenience: 4/5
  • Pay for Cosmetics: 3/5
  • Pay to Win: 3.86

See below for a brief game play description and a detailed breakdown of how we come up with those scores.

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Lost Ark Closed Beta: Prologue + Character Creation Videos

Lost Ark Image

Lost Ark is an upcoming (Western release, at least) MMORPG featuring isometric action combat (think Diablo). Check out a couple of videos from the Lost Ark closed beta, including their character creator and the full prologue / introduction of the game. Find both videos after the break.

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How (Not) To Incentivize World PVP in a MMO

With the release of Amazon’s New World, the debate about how to get more players to flag up for world player versus player has again been raging. The New World sub reddit and official forums have been consistently abuzz with players asking, pleading for, and demanding buffs to bonuses for opting in to PVP. A common justification is that better bonuses would inspire more players to opt in… including those who prefer PVE and don’t want to PVP. Is this better? In this video, we break down how not to incentivize players to flag up for world PVP.

Elyon Goes Free to Play + Delay

Kakao announced today that Elyon was going to go free to play as well having a near month delay. While the game going free to play isn’t shocking, what is unexpected is the timing, as many assumed it would be out for a few months before that transition might occur. In this video, we discussed their announcement, the reason for the change as well as the implications of what “free to play” means to their cash shop.

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How to Complete Fusion Events

Fusion events are functionally similar to the fragment events that we did a guide on before. Essentially, there is a specific legendary champion that can be summoned if you collect enough rewards from most all of the events and tournaments for a couple of weeks. Unlike the fragment events, fusion events have you collecting rare champions from the events instead of fragments.

In this guide, we’ll break down the differences between the two types, give you a path to guaranteed success in fusing your legendary champion, and show you how to see if you’re ready to attempt the resource intensive event. As with the previous guide, this is mostly for players who aren’t already experienced in completing these types of events or who just want a more efficient way of looking at them. Tl;dr at the very end.

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Gamer Art: August 2021

Check out August’s Featured Gamer Art, a monthly column of art that I’ve found found in the past few weeks. Art can include paintings, drawings, digital art, physical crafts, cosplay and more.

Woh, so there was an abundance of art around this month. I had several that I didn’t include just because it seems like only so many makes sense. This month’s Gamer Art features art and cosplay from Apex Legends, WoW, Nier, Cyberpunk 2077, League of Legends, Raid Shadow Legends, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and a God of War/Mario crossover. Continue on for the art!

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