No more crown crates

Excabor

Why do people always make things complicated? If you like it... buy some. If you don't ... nobody forces you. The Dev do not work for free...neither do most of us.

klowdy1

Excabor wrote: »

Why do people always make things complicated? If you like it... buy some. If you don't ... nobody forces you. The Dev do not work for free...neither do most of us.

Exactly. Do people that do crowd funding, and gofundme expect anything but a better game? Crown crates are nothing but the listed, with a chance for some cool in-game stuff. This, in all reality, is only a B2P game with an option for subs. Buying crown crates is a way to keep the game we all love well funded, making it better in the long run. The purchase market doesn't get nearly enough attention, but that shouldn't take anything away from the gambling market

No one makes you buy the crates, but if you want to look pretty in a different way, you have to gamble in this game.

That said, I would love to see some different cosmetics, like knew mounts and costumes pop up to purchase out right in the crown store. Gambles should always have a chance for Better cosmetics, imo.

davey1107

Why do people always make things complicated? If you like it... buy some. If you don't ... nobody forces you. The Dev do not work for free...neither do most of us.

The complaint is not that the developers shouldn't make a decent living or that ZOS should not be profitable. I work on game development, so I definitely want them profitable, lol. The argument is that they should offer desirable items for sale at an established price. This will engender better player good will over the long run, leaving fewer feeling burned by their purchases. It's also a fairer way to do business.

Inastira

I can understand why some don't like the 'surprise' aspect of crown crates and see it as a money sink. You can just ignore the crown crates altogether and only buy items you want directly instead, or you can plan to buy enough crown crates to extract the gems needed for whatever particular item you want in the crates in case you don't get it before then.

The game overall is pretty well aimed at adults. It's going to be a parent's responsibility to monitor their kid's use of their card or bank account and sort out any abuse if needed. It's not really the responsibility of any game developer.

Balibe

Inastira wrote: »

The game overall is pretty well aimed at adults. It's going to be a parent's responsibility to monitor their kid's use of their card or bank account and sort out any abuse if needed. It's not really the responsibility of any game developer.

I can't believe any parent would give a kid an open credit card to purchase what ever they want from online game. As a parent, I would never give my kids an open credit card to buy items in a game or anything online. If they want something, they talk to me. If I feel it necessary and they have earned it, I make the purchase, not them .....

Mercutio

Balibe wrote: »

I can't believe any parent would give a kid an open credit card to purchase what ever they want from online game. As a parent, I would never give my kids an open credit card to buy items in a game or anything online. If they want something, they talk to me. If I feel it necessary and they have earned it, I make the purchase, not them .....

Yep. I'll put some money on my kid's Steam accounts for birthdays, if they've done special chores to earn it, etc. No way in hell am I letting them have a credit card or access to mine.

Mercutio

As for the Crown Crates themselves, I am very torn. Some very good points in this thread.

In principal, I dislike not being able to directly purchase what I want. I am not a gambler. I'll buy a lottery ticket maybe once a year. I don't go to gambling houses (boats in my area). I don't enjoy playing poker for cash with my buddies.

I think gambling itself can be a societal problem. We've all read the stories about the guy who spends his family's rent and food money gambling. Crime tends to go up when gambling is legalized, and at least anecdotally I see more Pawn/Title shops spring up in their wake.

But does that justify governmental intrusion into the free will of adults?

I can see pros and cons to both sides of that question.

Ultimately, I have to side with free will. Living in a free society means that people must also be free to do stupid things, as long as it only hurts themselves. By that same reasoning I think all drugs should be legalized. It's true that children can be hurt by the addictions of their parents in both scenarios, but there are laws and mechanisms that deal with child welfare. They're not perfect, but no system designed by man is.

Could an addiction to Crown Crates hypothetically lead to familial suffering? I am sure they could. I knew a guy who lost his family and health because he got addicted to Everquest (which didn't have gambling boxes, at least when I played). So anything is possible.

In defense of Crown Crates on that particular front:

1) They only come out quarterly.

2) The prizes are finite, and therefore the amount of money that can be spent on them is also finite. I think worst case scenario is someone spends $1000 a "season" on them. I can't imagine not getting everything for $1000, and probably less.

Is there someone who has spent a grand and not gotten everything? Probably. With odds being what they are though, they would certainly be the exception.

In defense of Crown Crates, I like the cosmetics in them. Here is the question: would Zenimax create those high quality cosmetics if not for the vast amounts of money the Crown Crates generate?

If the answer to that is "no", then I begrudgingly accept the existence of Crown Crates.

But whatever my, or anyone's, personal feelings are, it is moot. The gambling boxes are an industry-wide sales tactic. And truly nothing in them are needed to play the game. I have no edge over the player who has never bought a single Crown Crate. I may find my avatar aesthetics more pleasing, but that is obviously subjective.

Further, if Crown Crates make the company more successful, then that will filter down into more aspects of the game than just Crown Crates. If players lose interest in a game it won't matter how bedazzling the cosmetics are.

So yes, I would prefer al a carte. But I can live with Crown Crates if that is what is best for the game overall.

davey1107

@Mercutio

Living in a free society means that people must also be free to do stupid things, as long as it only hurts themselves

Ah, a modern paraphrase of the core thesis of English philosopher John Stuart Mill. He even used gambling as an example. He was what we might call the first libertarian. Oddly, he also opposed gambling earlier in his life, citing cases where people commit murder or violence as a result of gambling debts. I think he probably changed his mind as he got older, and considered that just because gambling was at the root of those crimes, it was not the cause.

Mills believed in almost unlimited liberty, although he opened the door for governmental paternalism if there was scientific basis for it. He died before the time of heroine, but he might have opposed legalization of something like that owing to addiction taking away a person's ability to accurately judge whether their own actions were harmful to themselves or others. But the bigger point is that it was Mills who originated the moral and ethical questions about balancing rights and regulations in a modern liberal democracy, and we still ask the same questions he did.

Regardless, when I originated the post I wasn't saying I was morally opposed to gambling. I'm opposed to the crown crates because they lock things I might like to buy behind an uncertain price, and I believe they'll create more customer service problems in the long run than they'll enhance the game. It's also like ZOS could also make money by having players display *** and Reebok logos over their heads, but...barf.

However, in the area of morality and ethics, I do have a problem with crown crates not displaying odds for the prizes. ZOS can weasel out of calling it gambling because the prizes are technically not worth anything, but they know the system is enough like gaming that they should provide their customers the same information every state requires a legal gaming establishment to. Is a senche mount a 1 in 50 shot, or a 1 in 50,000?

Lol...of course, this is a Bethesda / Zenimax game. The odds would have to be printed as something like "we think it's 1 in 47, but it's never worked that way on the PtS and can be 1 in 3 or 1 in 30,000 depending on if it's Tuesday or Thursday, plus if more than three players access the crate system at once the whole thing lags out and everyone gets a wax pumpkin for their homestead, which is odd since we didn't program these into the crown crates at all."

That might be why they're disinclined to print legalese. But it'd be fun to read.

Aelthwyn

Just for fun, some maths.
There are 58 items under superior/epic/legendary/apex rewards. If you had the worst luck and bought 57crates and got a different item every time but not the one you wanted (and cashed in the 3 fine/common rewards each time and got no 5th item), then got a duplicate on the 58th crate and continued getting duplicates of the cheapest returns (5 gems) thereafter here is what you would eventually pay in order to buy an apex mount with gems:

57 crates - 3gems per crate = 171 gems - 229 more needed for an apex mount (400 gems)
29 crates - 8gems per crate = 232 gems --totaling 403 gems
86 crates total needed (at most) to purchase a mount with gems
15 - 30 - 45 - 60 - 75 —79 - 83 - 87
5,000 x 6 --- 1,500 x 3
30,000 + 4,500 = 34,500 crowns
6 5,500 crown packs = 33,000 + 1 1,500 crown pack = 34,500 crowns = $254.93 at most to buy an apex mount with gems rather than getting it in a crate.

As for the other items:
for a legendary reward (100 gems)
34 crates - 3 gems per crate = 102 gems
15 - 30 — 34
5,000 x 2 — 1,500 x 1
11,500 crowns
2 5,500 crown packs (39.99) + 1 750 crown pack (7.99) = 11,750 crowns for $87.97 with 250 extra crowns for an adornment or something

for an epic reward (40 gems)
14 crates - 3 gems per crate = 42 gems
5,000 pack of 15 crates
1 5,500 crown pack for $39.99 with 500 extra crowns for a pet or something

for a superior reward (16 gems)
6 crates - 3 gems per crate = 18 gems
1 1,500 crown pack of 4 + 2 400 crown single crates = 2,300 crowns
3,000 crown pack for $24.99 with 700 extra crowns for a pet or costume etc.

Now of course you're probably not going to have that bad of luck, but these are the amounts you might need to plan for. And looking at them it's clear that they are more than you'd pay for similar items in the crown store. The Dromathra mount was not close to a hundred dollars and the crate mounts are similar in fancy-ness to that. Pets and costumes can normally be bought with an 8 or 15 dollar crown pack, not 25-90 bucks worth of crowns. If you saw those prices in the regular crown store would you buy it? I know I'd be aghast.

Some people's arguments for these prices is that they're happy to support the game, which strikes me as though they view purchases as a donation to some charity with the perk of a little door prize, rather than viewing it as a business transaction expecting their money's worth.

Mercutio

davey1107 wrote: »

@Mercutio

Living in a free society means that people must also be free to do stupid things, as long as it only hurts themselves

Ah, a modern paraphrase of the core thesis of English philosopher John Stuart Mill. He even used gambling as an example. He was what we might call the first libertarian. Oddly, he also opposed gambling earlier in his life, citing cases where people commit murder or violence as a result of gambling debts. I think he probably changed his mind as he got older, and considered that just because gambling was at the root of those crimes, it was not the cause.

Very interesting post, thanks for the knowledge.

Mercutio

Aelthwyn wrote: »

Just for fun, some maths.
There are 58 items under superior/epic/legenday/apex rewards. If you had the worst luck and bought 57crates and got a different item every time but not the one you wanted (and cashed in the 3 fine/common rewards each time and got no 5th item), then got a duplicate on the 58th crate and continued getting duplicates of the cheapest returns (5 gems) thereafter here is what you would eventually pay in order to buy an apex mount with gems:

57 crates - 3gems per crate = 171 gems - 229 more needed for an apex mount (400 gems)
29 crates - 8gems per crate = 232 gems --totaling 403 gems
86 crates total needed (at most) to purchase a mount with gems
15 - 30 - 45 - 60 - 75 —79 - 83 - 87
5,000 x 6 --- 1,500 x 3
30,000 + 4,500 = 34,500 crowns
6 5,500 crown packs = 33,000 + 1 1,500 crown pack = 34,500 crowns = $254.93 at most to buy an apex mount with gems rather than getting it in a crate.

As for the other items:
for a legendary reward (100 gems)
34 crates - 3 gems per crate = 102 gems
15 - 30 — 34
5,000 x 2 — 1,500 x 1
11,500 crowns
2 5,500 crown packs (39.99) + 1 750 crown pack (7.99) = 11,750 crowns for $87.97 with 250 extra crowns for an adornment or something

for an epic reward (40 gems)
14 crates - 3 gems per crate = 42 gems
5,000 pack of 15 crates
1 5,500 crown pack for $39.99 with 500 extra crowns for a pet or something

for a superior reward (16 gems)
6 crates - 3 gems per crate = 18 gems
1 1,500 crown pack of 4 + 2 400 crown single crates = 2,300 crowns
3,000 crown pack for $24.99 with 700 extra crowns for a pet or costume etc.

Now of course you're probably not going to have that bad of luck but, these are the amounts you might need to plan for. And looking at them it's clear that they are more than you'd pay for similar items in the crown store. The Dromathra mount was not close to a hundred dollars and the crate mounts are similar in fanciness to that. Pets and costumes can normally be bought with an 8 or 15 dollar crown pack, not 40-90 bucks worth of crowns. If you saw those prices in the regular crown store would you buy it? I know I'd be aghast.

Some people's arguments for these prices is that they're happy to support the game, which strikes me as though they view purchases as a donation to some charity with the perk of a little door prize, rather than viewing it as a business transaction expecting their money's worth.

Great post man.

Deedleqwerty

I bought a crown crate. Very disappointing. I couldn't figure out how to trade the stuff I didn't want - mimic stone and crown poisons - for the gem stones. So I'm stuck with stuff I'll never use.

I'll never buy another crate.

Stopnaggin

Deedleqwerty wrote: »

I bought a crown crate. Very disappointing. I couldn't figure out how to trade the stuff I didn't want - mimic stone and crown poisons - for the gem stones. So I'm stuck with stuff I'll never use.

I'll never buy another crate.

Gem extraction , y on xbox from the crate screen. As long as you haven't stowed the items you can extract them.