How times change

My recollection is that in 2006 we would say, "wow, they must know 39 other people who are also unemployed to earn that armor"

My friends wow clan was called "the dole army".
- Lmao that's great. I remember a clan called Vapaaherrat (freiherren) because you're free from work and just live on gibs

I hate in-game purchases, they ruined gaming for everyone.

I hate more how people are okay with it.
IMO, it's fine as long as it's not PTW... Let them have their $50 virtual clothes... They finance the devs, so I have to spend less on that....
- Microtransactions have gone wildly past financing devs
  The entirety of the Starcraft wings of liberty campaign made less money than a single mount cosmetic in WoW. That money definitely didn't to to the developers
- Something can be not Pay to Win and still use tactics to trick people into spending money
imho, cosmetics are fine, as are sizeable expansion packs on games that were worth the money without them.
But generally, yes. In-game purchases usually suck.
- The problem is what follows from microtransactions. When the managers see line go up because they released a paid element to the game, all the incentives push toward more paid elements. This means any dev hours that can be redirected away from work on the core game to the paid elements will be redirected.
- I think cosmetics can be fine, but they aren't always. I remember spending a lot of time and effort unlocking all the armor in Halo 3, and it made it feel rewarding. Now, skins can be interesting customization, but they're never rewarding.
  I like MTX to an extent, because it let's other people pay for continued development of games I like. However, even cosmetics only absolutely still has an opportunity cost to the feel of the game that's being payed. I think we should all be aware of this. I know at this point most people probably don't remember when cosmetics were opportunities to make the game feel more fun, not just products to sell, but that is how it used to be.

My dude, people were buying Stones of Jordan on eBay at silly prices so they could trade for set items over 2 decades ago

True, but that was kind of black market and gauche , not advertised every time you log into the game
- Agree it was black market and gauche, but it was always advertised to you indirectly as soon as you signed on to battle.net
  Every 3rd message in the public chat was either an eBay SoJ seller or people buying/selling based on SoJs.
  Perhaps I'm wrong, but the prevalence of all of that had me believing at the time that anyone with a complete decent 5 piece set had just paid for it.
Yeah but that was insane and those people sucked ass

I am a FFXIV raider. Gear has been earned. But there is now a lack of culture. The game has lost it's way. It might not be the game though. It might be all MMOs.

So true it hurts

We are in the worst timeline.