and make the gold cap for the exchange up to a maximum of 500 gold

vsrs_au wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

and make the gold cap for the exchange up to a maximum of 500 gold

Given that the minimum exchange rate for crowns:gold tends to be at least 1:1000, that would make selling even 1 crown impossible.

ive actually seen the exchange vary wildly depending on the server

console is typically in the 200-250 gold per crown from what ive heard
PC NA is in the 1000-1500 gold per crown range
PC EU ive heard can be as high as 2500 gold per crown

vsrs_au wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

and make the gold cap for the exchange up to a maximum of 500 gold

Given that the minimum exchange rate for crowns:gold tends to be at least 1:1000, that would make selling even 1 crown impossible.

ive actually seen the exchange vary wildly depending on the server

console is typically in the 200-250 gold per crown from what ive heard
PC NA is in the 1000-1500 gold per crown range
PC EU ive heard can be as high as 2500 gold per crown

Agreed, I've read of these variations on this forum also, my comment was mainly on the 500 gold cap suggestion.

My main concern with such a proposed currency exchange is that crowns are purchased with real currency, so allowing direct crowns/gold trade would basically be (indirectly) linking in-game gold with real currency, which I think is a bad idea.

it can be for sure, though i have seen other games do similar things

the one im aware of was lost ark, where there was even a direct interface to do the premium currency to in game gold (in that game gold was a rare in game earnable currency)

their system did not have direct trades, but it was more of a blind bidding system, you requested X amount of gold for Y premium currency and set up a buy order (or vice versa since you could go both ways on the currency), then other players could choose to fill the order if they felt the conversion rate was appropriate (they wouldnt know whose order they were filling, just at that rate)

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

and make the gold cap for the exchange up to a maximum of 500 gold

Given that the minimum exchange rate for crowns:gold tends to be at least 1:1000, that would make selling even 1 crown impossible.

ive actually seen the exchange vary wildly depending on the server

console is typically in the 200-250 gold per crown from what ive heard
PC NA is in the 1000-1500 gold per crown range
PC EU ive heard can be as high as 2500 gold per crown

Na. Ps/na is between 100g and 200g on the reeeeaaly high end. Generally its about 150g.

If they make Crowns tradeable/sellable in-game it can really help cut down on the illegal gold-selling (selling in-game gold for real money, RMT as it can be called, often through websites, which can be really damaging to a game). ZOS would then be helping curb the illegal real-money for gold scams by allowing players to buy, sell, trade Crowns in-game with an approved system thus cutting into the illegal market. The current system of basically mutual gifting (I gift you Crowns, you gift me gold) is okay but despite that many players think it's not allowed. It does seem to give ZOS a way of monitoring suspicious activity. A few years ago I sold several thousands of Crowns to a player with multiple accounts and characters. Even I was wary of the amount they were buying. I found out a few months after that player had been temporarily banned while ZOS looked into it. He contacted me after the fact to find out if I had been affected, which I wasn't.

I wouldn't recommend capping how much a Crown could be sold for, let the player markets on the various servers determine that. There could be actual laws in various countries that could make this difficult, but with the examples given of WoW and GW2, I'll include EVE Online. You can buy PLEX (similar idea to Crowns) from the game store(s) and authorized re-sellers and in-game you can sell them, contract them, trade them. You can even scam them away (in-game only) or loot them from a player wreck (if they were foolish enough to transport them in a ship's cargo hold). PLEX can buy a variety of things in their New Eden Store (ie Crown Store), including 30-day blocks of subscription (or Omega) game time. It has really cut down on the illegal ISK (Interstellar Kredits, or "gold") selling. CCP, the dev company there, seems to have a very robust security system to detect illegal ISK selling/buying. Someone who buys illegal ISK will have their in-game ISK wallet deducted twice the amount that was purchased, often placing the wallet into a negative balance which can severely hamper a player's ability to interact in almost any form of in-game economy. They'd be left with having to grind pve content to get back to zero, or beg, etc. One reason I don't provide beggars in any game with gold, credits, ISK, no matter the reason, is that you never know who you're feeding, and if it's illegal gold sellers you're just helping the problem to exist and possible harm fellow gamers.

In summary, I think ZOS should make Crowns tradeable and sellable in-game. Any cons are outweighed by the pros.

Even if they implemented something like this, they wouldn't make it a fixed rate as that would cost them a lot of revenue in people who would have otherwise bought crowns but instead bought crowns for gold at a low rate.

The only way to make this work for ZOS would be to do it like the WoW Token works in World of Warcraft, which coincidentally the playerbase seems to despise. The WoW Token is tied to market pressures, so it almost immediately soared in price and very quickly became too expensive for the average player to purchase. So only the high-end traders had the gold to afford the Token, while the average players and below were left with nothing.

That's how a market-tied Crown exchange system would work too. Even if it started off as something reasonable like 300–500 gold per crown, it would almost immediately begin to soar in price due to the ultra-rich guild traders. It would have the same effect, and Crowns would leap to something like 5000 gold per Crown in due time, which is already where we're headed right now in the unofficial Crown-gold market.

The only way of implementing this in a way that does not cost ZOS in revenue means screwing over the average player.

Anumaril wrote: »

That's how a market-tied Crown exchange system would work too. Even if it started off as something reasonable like 300–500 gold per crown, it would almost immediately begin to soar in price due to the ultra-rich guild traders. It would have the same effect, and Crowns would leap to something like 5000 gold per Crown in due time, which is already where we're headed right now in the unofficial Crown-gold market.

The only way of implementing this in a way that does not cost ZOS in revenue means screwing over the average player.

Just to expand on this, making crown trading easier, safer, and more convenient would likely cause the exchange rate to skyrocket far more rapidly and persistently than it even currently is... because it would lead to a rapid increase in demand for crowns (as a lot of people want crown items, but either aren't comfortable using the current system or don't even know you can do crowns for gold trading).

I'm not trying to take an overall stance on whether a more official trading system is "good" or "bad", mind you... I personally believe it would be a good thing in the sense that it would provide a safe interface for these trades to prevent scamming, for example... but just pointing out that a lot of us might not like the end result.

And if the price is capped, there will absolutely be a shortage of crowns and/or sellers will continue to sell outside the official system, setting their own price as they currently do.

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Mithgil wrote: »

If they make Crowns tradeable/sellable in-game it can really help cut down on the illegal gold-selling

Actually the reverse would happen, often gold sellers buy crowns with stolen credit cards, chargebacks, or illicit payment methods; however, they aren't able to move it quick enough. If you could directly trade or sell crowns on Traders, those gold sellers could move their crowns much faster than waiting for a single buyer to gift an item. By the time they chargeback, NSF, or false payments are detected the crowns have already moved to unsuspected buyers. They just need to undersell it to draw buyers into picking it up quickly.

What happens to the unsuspected buyers? At best, they lose those crowns from their account and don't get back the gold they spent to buy it. At worst they get their account flagged, suspended, banned for holding/spending those crowns. The system cannot tell if someone is a legitimate buyer or someone moving the product along, they just know you possess the crowns with that specified ID.

This can be solved by cooldowns.

1. Is this your first purchase?
2. Are you low level?
3. Are your account new?
4. Etc.

Then you are on 30 days delay before you can trade. Look at the Steam marketplace now, they are cooldown-ing everything. One day someone bought my foiled card that wasn't even $2 and Steam hold it for two days because of this "suspicious" malarkey before they give me the dollar.