ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Apologies for the delay, guys. We're still trying to straighten out all the details, but we'll definitely share everything with you as soon as we can!

Alright, take your time, but can we expect the news in a forum post or will it be another site new article out of curiosity. Thank you for putting up with us, and I look forward to your reply.

Kahz wrote: »

@The_Antiquarian Hey my friend, have you not had a chance to visit the Official Site? It's on the front page.

@Kahz Hey there, unfortunately, ESO seems to be ambiguous in their wordings again. At least our beloved Dev here promised us that the final clarification will be provided to us soon!

Livvy wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Livvy wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

EDIT: Again, the prepaid card money goes to the retailers that paid ZoS for them in the first place. ZoS already has the money for those cards, so they don't see the profits from a few players rushing out and buying up two or three cards at once.

They will see the profits, because the faster the retailer sells out of game cards the faster they have to re-order more game cards from ZoS...

If they reorder. Remember, most of those cards have been sitting on pegs since last summer. At this point, restocking is not the obvious outcome.

Put another way, if you bought a thing to sell, and you found yourself stuck with it for close to a year, some people poke it with a stick and wander off, but you don't get major bites. And then someone comes and buys it outright... it's not in your best interest to pick up another for sale, because, you (as the retailer) don't know when, or even if, it will sell again. So you're much better off saying, "well, at least I didn't have to cut my losses," and moving on with your day.

So, while you're right, Zenimax could see card sales from people reordering, if these are the same game time cards that were put in circulation last year after launch, most stores aren't really going to feel the need to restock.

And, this is assuming that enough people buy the cards to even sell through. Which is also a big question mark. Because the people in the market are ones who are extremely loyal to the game, follow these forums, and still don't qualify. That's going to be a vanishingly small subset of the game's population, and not enough to provoke places into restocking cards because it's suddenly popular.

To me, it is a simple fact. The more a retailer sells of a company's product, the happier that company is. Every sale matters. No matter how small or large.

Sure, maybe a company won't re-order. But they're far more likely to, the more they sell.

I don't agree with your earlier point that ZoS doesn't see the profits from retailers selling game time cards. They absolutely do, in my opinion. We will just have to agree to disagree.

The problem is, you're not actually looking at the way the accounting works. With a situation like this, when you're the manufacturer, your sale occurs when you move an item to retail. They pay you for it, and you receive the funds. (Obviously, if we're talking about consignment, or situations where the a gift card is actually charged at the register when it's purchased, those are slightly different.)

So, that's your cut of the money. Then the product sits on their shelves until they move it, barring some unusual circumstances. At this point, you've seen the money, and you're not getting anymore from that purchase. So, from Zenimax's perspective, any prepaid time cards in circulation are money they've already received.

While you're technically correct, that any sold card benefits ZoS, it's not a tangible gain. It is not more money in their pocket. They already received that. It might make the retailer more likely to order their products in the future. And if we come at this from a zero state, then there is some superficial truth to what you're saying.

The problem is, we're not approaching this from a zero state. The cards have been on pegs for, what? Seven or eight months now? That's product that stores bought on the idea that they'd be able to sell them, and then got stuck with. Zenimax got their money. But the stores are left holding the bag. And, that's a bad situation to put a retailer in, because when given the choice of stocking, say, WoW timecards or ESO timecards, in the future, the one that didn't sit on their shelves unmoving for six months is the safer bet. So while ZoS can stimulate time card sales, it won't really help them that much, because, again, once those cards are gone from retail, they're not going to end up with orders for replacement cards.

The problem, and where this started, is the claim that the Senche mount is a cash grab. The fundamental problem for that entire thought process is that Zenimax doesn't see the cash from time cards directly. This is compounded with a muddy and difficult to understand message about what circumstances will allow for someone to actually receive the pet, so it's hard for players to know what they can do to get if even if they want to spend more money for it, and no option to give ZoS the funds directly, which makes the entire suggestion kinda... well, it makes the suggestion look really stupid.

If it was a cash grab, you'd see something like ZoS letting you prepay your subscription on the website. Which, isn't an option. You'd also see a very clear, "yeah, buy 300 days of game time right now and you too can ride this pu... um, er... kitty."

Cash grabs in MMOs do happen. If you want to see them Cryptic has some fantastic examples in Star Trek Online. Every year has seen the release of multiple $100+ bundles of miscellaneous in game crap. Those are cash grabs. Especially given that they offer them at an introductory rate and then jack the price up later.

This... not so much.

Apart from 30 Days from buying the game and free game times , i've got 240 days of subscription via 60 Day Pre Paid Game Cards. ( before 22 Jan 2015 )
I've got High Hrotghar Wraith but i dont have Loyal Dwarven Sphere.
I contacted support team about this and sended me link to this ;

"•The three or six months of subscription time must have been both paid for and completed by January 22, 2015 at 11:59PM EST"

So my Pre-Paid Cards doesnt count as subscribing ? If not how did i get High Hrotghar Wraith but not Loyal Dwarven Sphere.
Why they cant just say "If your account is active; 90 Days = HHW , 180 Days = LDS , 300 Days = Tiger & Mask" ?
Why is it so hard and complicated ?

Turelus wrote: »

If there is any chance that the issues around bonus game time could be looked into as well that would be great.

I have about five days free game time as a reward for various bugs which happened in the game and the issue with the launcher which meant EU players were not able to download the game for a few days.

Due to this I have missed the close date on each of the loyalty rewards by a day or two, meaning every time I either wait for the next wave, or send in a support ticket to get the cleared. As I'm sure you can understand I am more worried about missing the 90day item because of this as I am not sure if there will be future waves.

Buy a Time Card just once and fix the problem once and for all?

Turelus wrote: »

Kragorn wrote: »

Buy a Time Card just once and fix the problem once and for all?

Could you explain how that helps remove the issues of being late in regards to free game time from bugs? I have subs paid for every month since release, just the month needed claim rewards on their first release doesn't bill until two days after the wave of pets.

Does adding a GTC apply the time/payment right away so the check doesn't wait until the end of the month when the next bill should have started? If that made any sense at all.

If you subscribed for 90 days , 180 days it doesnt matter if you were active that month when the rewards being handed. You got more than 180 days of subscription in your account already before Jan 22 2015 ?
If yes , you are eligible. But Zenimax mixed this thing hardcore. So no one is sure what is going to happen.
Apart from free game times i've got 240 days of subscription via pre-paid cards but i did get only 90 day reward which is High Hrotghar Wraith ...

The_Antiquarian wrote: »

Kahz wrote: »

@The_Antiquarian Hey my friend, have you not had a chance to visit the Official Site? It's on the front page.

@Kahz Hey there, unfortunately, ESO seems to be ambiguous in their wordings again. At least our beloved Dev here promised us that the final clarification will be provided to us soon!

It's not ambiguous at all. It's clear and in line with previous loyalty rewards, you just hope the rules are actually different because it would be more fair in the current situation with the entire system being removed. But there's nothing wrong with the wording.

Its simple,

When you've been a paid subscriber for nine months

= When you have been paying for a subscription for nine months regardless of the amount of time that subscription has run for.

Not 'bought 9 months of subscription' 'paid subscriber FOR nine months'

No straitening up needed.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Its simple,

When you've been a paid subscriber for nine months

= When you have been paying for a subscription for nine months regardless of the amount of time that subscription has run for.

Not 'bought 9 months of subscription' 'paid subscriber FOR nine months'

No straitening up needed.

The original Loyalty rewards could be read as so, but the newly phrased comments on the Road Ahead and the recent commentary could be interpreted as if we can just subscribe for 9 months (which includes adding up prepaid gametime) to receive the Loyalty Mask. And with the information about the Loyalty Mask written together ALONG WITH the Senche Mount criteria, it surely brought confusion amongst many players and even compelled many others to purchase additional gametime to get BOTH items.

Putting that matter aside, what is even more heinous is the fact that Zenimax/Betheda is going everything contrary to their original statements:

"You’ll still be able to get the pets and other upcoming rewards once you meet the requirements. Stick with us, and you’ll have quite the collection to show off before long."

Albeit the message was issued months ago, the crux of the it still stands: be subscribed and we will receive our rewards.

When ESO decided to discontinue Loyalty Program, the least they could do was to provide those who wanted to receive those rewards, ample time to remain subscribed/fill in additional subscription. Instead, they provided us with just one single month to sort this out while the final Loyalty Reward will never be available to us in the future.

Once again, the most viable and equitable options would be 1) to make the criteria for the final loyalty reward, the same as Senche Mount, 2) to extend the loyalty reward program deadline, or 3) to allow loyal fans to apply prepaid game subscription/renew additional months of subscription to meet the 9 months criteria prior to the Unlimited launch date and distribute the reward once those prepaid times get elapsed in the future.

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The fairest solution imo would be to NOT cancel the subscriber awards program, leave it running and then we can all receive everything once we've played as a subscriber for required time gates to be fulfilled.

This is how STO works, if you sub you receive an award every 100 days up to 1000 days. They also have another option which is to buy a Life Time Subscription, in this case you receive every reward instantly.

To be fair, that kick over didn't happen until after the Chimera was released. I had that ship for about two weeks before they revised the system and gave it to all the LTSs.

It's already 6 pages with no answer. I know, @ZOS_GinaBruno said to wait. Maybe it's a time to stop speculation?

Nacario wrote: »

All i can say is that itll be pretty darn frustratimg and unfair to us who bought game cards if they go back from their latest post about being able to recieve cat mount as long as 300 days are paid for. Theyve had more than enough time to clear this up.

I doubt they'll go back on the mount. The Sheo's outfit on the other hand... that one we don't know what's going on at all.

Nice! Thanks for the response Gina! As well, thank you for the previous "I don't know" responses.. we really do enjoy those, at least we know you guys were working on it and heard us

Now all the new players and people who dropped their subs for months while the bugs were being worked out can load up on game time cards, get every single "loyalty" reward in the game, AND get a huge bonanza of crowns to spend in the crown store when all of their future purchased months convert to 1500 per future month on March 17.

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? Not ZOS!