Is It Pay to Win? Elyon (Ascent: Infinite Realm)

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.

Elyon (formerly Ascent: Infinite Realm) is a korean MMORPG developed by Bluehole and is being published for Western audiences by Kakao. The game has 5 classes with a large variety of skills. It features both PVP and PVE. The game must be purchased (buy to play) and has a cash shop with microtransactions.

Scoring:

  • Pay for Power: 2/5
  • Pay for Advantage: 3/5
  • Pay for Convenience: 5/5
  • Pay for Cosmetics: 5/5
  • Pay to Win: 3.14/5

Here’s a video discussion of the cash shop. Continue reading for a break down of the games system, an explanation for those scores and our final verdict on the game.

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Elyon CBT2: Beta Key Winners & How to Get Access

The winners for the Elyon CBT2 Contest are:

  • @IiIpeepo
  • @devavratk
  • @sheraxia
  • @fortunabiysk
  • @c_oau

Congratulations to the winners. We will be sending a DM on twitter with the code, except one person who is set to private, we will @ you, and hopefully you respond so we can get you the key.

Fortunately, if you didn’t win this contest, there is another way to earn a CBT2 key. Keep reading for that information.

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Elyon CBT2: Beta Key Giveaway + Info

The second Elyon (Ascent: Infinite Realm) closed beta is coming up soon and beta invites went out today. This beta test will be significantly closer to the current Korean version of the game than the last one and will feature their cash shop. Now that New World’s launch has moved to be almost exactly the same day as Elyon, it’s even more important for those testing to see if they are interested to get into this beta as it may be difficult to play both of these upcoming MMOs at their launch – this is definitely a personal struggle here.

Fortunate for you, not only does this post have the CBT2 schedule, but also a way to win one of our five beta keys that Elyon gave us to give to you.

Continue on for the key giveaway and the closed beta schedule at the end.

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Should You Play New World?

New World Update - News | New World

Amazon’s New World is an upcoming MMORPG set loosely in the colonial era with a supernatural (distinctly not high-fantasy) twist. The player shipwrecks on the mysterious island of Aeternum and discovers three (player) factions vying for survival and dominance of an uncharted island full of pirate zombies and choppable trees. The game features action combat, as is common in newer MMOs, instead of the older but still popular tab target of WoW or FF14. The game, while having a variety of types of content such as PVP, PVE and gathering, is very much not for everyone. Those expecting a WoW-clone or wanting the heavy survival or hard-core PVP elements of the early builds might be disappointed. Who then, is this game for?

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Plarium Responds to Clan Quest Debacle

So… I’d like to think my post helped encourage this, but we know it was the Hell Hades-level Raid: Shadow Legends creators and the bulk reddit feedback that got this response. It is… however, interesting that they are actually responding. Less interesting is their tone. Their response, which came from the official discord, definitely has a tone implying the players just don’t understand their intentions from patch 4.50 and NOT that it was just implemented poorly… “Unfortunately, when it came to implementation, they didn’t quite enter the game and your perception exactly the way they were supposed to” they said. Our perception is the problem. Read further for their whole response and my thoughts on it.

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