I'd go the other direction. <$15/month is very cheap for the sub. Movie night for me & hubbie costs more than both our subs. Instead, make an ESO Max subscription and add Crown Gems or extra crowns or a housing upgrade or similar.
100% agreement on your second point. Surprise is all well and good, but teasers would be great. Look at the excitement the random patch notes @ZOS_GinaBruno posts generates.
Yeah, five days is pretty standard for a limited time offer. Essentially it runs from the Crown Store update on the Thursday to the PC server maintenance on the Monday.Just looked at the crown showcase for December. Is five days the normal amount of time to purchase limited time items? Because that's how long we'll have to get the Ice Wolf mount or pet.
Giving a monthly free crate (even if to subscribers only) would make it better.
lordrichter wrote: »That was suggested back when they were on PTS.
They cannot do this. They depend upon people thinking that they will win something, and they want those 400 Crowns deducted from player reserves every time the player get cocky and tries to prove that Crown Crates have good stuff in them.
I'm more upset about the cool new elk mount and frost crafting motif that are only available for cash,and will probably end up in crates eventually.
spiffy_jim wrote: »I'm more upset about the cool new elk mount and frost crafting motif that are only available for cash,and will probably end up in crates eventually.
Wait... let me get this straight...
People are first upset that we're getting crates and that stuff isn't in the Crown Store.
When stuff IS in the Crown Store for us to buy, people get upset that it's not available in the game for free.
Sorry - I think the closest emoticon to a combination of *jaw drop* and *crazy* is
spiffy_jim wrote: »I'm more upset about the cool new elk mount and frost crafting motif that are only available for cash,and will probably end up in crates eventually.
Wait... let me get this straight...
People are first upset that we're getting crates and that stuff isn't in the Crown Store.
When stuff IS in the Crown Store for us to buy, people get upset that it's not available in the game for free.
Sorry - I think the closest emoticon to a combination of *jaw drop* and *crazy* is
I can do both just fine. "But everybody does it!" isn't an excuse.TheForseti wrote: »Don't hate the player (ZOS), hate the game (monetary capitalism/profit motive).
rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »Financially speaking this is a very smart move from ZOS. Taking into consideration that about 1% of the players make up for most of the crown purchases (a.k.a ingame pruchase addicts), ZOS will profit a lot from them with those crown crates.
The majority of players (myself included) would not even consider spending ~50$ for a very rate (financially speaking) mount. Yes, we will be pissed off by the way they are exploiting the system. However, this is why there are DLCs and monthly crown deals with semi-decently looking content, so that we can be somewhat distracted of the crown crate system.
It does not matter how much we wine, they wont adjust the drops, crown jems exchange rates, or any other thing that will make them loose profit from that 1% of ingame purchase addicts.
wanna make money zos? put the sharpened maelstrom inferno staff in in those boxes
Toorlokviing wrote: »if i buy any of these crown crates..im going to get so many dupes due to having bought almost all the retired crown store items. i know everyone likes to flame something they dont like but i know i will at least spend 5k crowns on these just to see what i get.
@Toorlokviing in the pts version (which is sounds like will be the same items for the first season) only 33% of items were past items... So even if you owned a ton of crown store stuff your chances weren't exactly stellar. Especially because some of the past items were in the tier just below apex.. so they were pretty rare.
Go for it, just thought I'd let ya know about that. When they were first announced (before pts) I thought the same thing.
phreatophile wrote: »Giving a monthly free crate (even if to subscribers only) would make it better.lordrichter wrote: »That was suggested back when they were on PTS.
They cannot do this. They depend upon people thinking that they will win something, and they want those 400 Crowns deducted from player reserves every time the player get cocky and tries to prove that Crown Crates have good stuff in them.
Frankly, they have to do this. They will find that they have to provide some small thread of cover for people, some slightly plausible way that a player could get one of these electro-pebble mounts without having been provably a sucker.
If the only way to get crates is direct purchase for crowns, then crate exclusives may as well be branded:
It'll be a kick-me sign that indicates disposable income with little wisdom or just little wisdom. Speaking cynically, all they need to do is throw a crate or two in with ESO plus membership each month and that whole dynamic goes away, since it will be possible, not likely, but plausible that the player on the flashy mount got lucky.
I bought discount crowns last week when they were on sale at a cost of 0.436 Cents each (USD). The 15 crate for 5000 crowns bundle is 333.33 cr per crate. At the discount crown rate, the crates are $1.45 (USD) each. That's not actually that bad depending on the drop rates. Even with that low a cost, in a lot of circles, that electro-pebble mount is still a moped: fun to ride until your friends catch you on it.
timidobserver wrote: »phreatophile wrote: »Giving a monthly free crate (even if to subscribers only) would make it better.lordrichter wrote: »That was suggested back when they were on PTS.
They cannot do this. They depend upon people thinking that they will win something, and they want those 400 Crowns deducted from player reserves every time the player get cocky and tries to prove that Crown Crates have good stuff in them.
Frankly, they have to do this. They will find that they have to provide some small thread of cover for people, some slightly plausible way that a player could get one of these electro-pebble mounts without having been provably a sucker.
If the only way to get crates is direct purchase for crowns, then crate exclusives may as well be branded:
It'll be a kick-me sign that indicates disposable income with little wisdom or just little wisdom. Speaking cynically, all they need to do is throw a crate or two in with ESO plus membership each month and that whole dynamic goes away, since it will be possible, not likely, but plausible that the player on the flashy mount got lucky.
I bought discount crowns last week when they were on sale at a cost of 0.436 Cents each (USD). The 15 crate for 5000 crowns bundle is 333.33 cr per crate. At the discount crown rate, the crates are $1.45 (USD) each. That's not actually that bad depending on the drop rates. Even with that low a cost, in a lot of circles, that electro-pebble mount is still a moped: fun to ride until your friends catch you on it.
I agree. If they don't come up with a non-brain dead way to obtain them, the people that purchase them will just be pitied and ridiculed by anyone that sees them riding their crown crate mount around.
timidobserver wrote: »I agree. If they don't come up with a non-brain dead way to obtain them, the people that purchase them will just be pitied and ridiculed by anyone that sees them riding their crown crate mount around.
I disagree...to a point. Maybe some players will think to throw insults, but the player riding a Crown Crate mount will either ignore or report (depending the trouble caused) and move on thinking the troubled player is jealous. Only the player holding on to the anger will suffer as I see it.
CBA to dig up the original interview, think it was from 2014 iirc, but Paul Sage said he'd switch the servers off before making the switch, made a big song and dance about their stance and their ethics.
Here's another interview which was easier to find, he makes similar overtures in this: http://gamingbolt.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-interview-business-model-is-what-the-business-model-is
Esquire1980g_ESO wrote: »wanna make money zos? put the sharpened maelstrom inferno staff in in those boxes
You know there will be a time.
STO (Cryptic) said the exact same things about their lockboxes and now? P2W is touted there as something great while devs come to the PVP forums and state "we could take PVP out of the game and no1 would even notice".