Glass Motif in the Crown Store - Discussion - Counter Argument - Solutions

Palidon

All motifs should be for sale in the Crown Store. Players should have an option to either farm for them or just buy them from the store. I for one do not want to waste my time doing countless crafting writs to get the Glass Motif pages to finally make the book. Heck I am waiting for the Xivkyn motif to hit the crown store.

Xendyn

Tonnopesceb16_ESO wrote: »

Xendyn wrote: »

Tonnopesceb16_ESO wrote: »

Xendyn wrote: »

"Work hard for it"?
I'm sorry, no. This isnt' about earning or working for anything.
This is about ZOS artificially creating grinds to force people to the Crown Store because they have made it ridiculously hard and dependant on double RNG to get it ingame.

But I see ZOS' Cattle Prod skill line is fully leveled and WAI.

It's just the first steps and I hope you all look forward to many, many more.

No offence but you are a little blind my friend, they still need money to run the game.

Of course they do. I've never said they didn't. I don't care if they put the darn thing on the store.
What they don't need to do is create artificial inconveniences ingame to make their "convenience" items more attractive.

I don't think I'm the one that's blind.

For the aesthetics items they can add as much grind as they want imho.

I personally find a lot more frustrating trying to get an arcane willpower ring or another super rare bound on pick up set inside the dungeons.

As long as they don’t sell GEAR or EQUIPMENT i'm fine, the glass motif don’t make you stronger

Oh don't worry, that'll come soon enough. Step by step, bit by bit, marketing at it's finest. This is just the first slide down that slippery slope.
We're already seeing the progression from food and drink to common motifs, more rare motifs, xp pots and now one of the most sought after motifs along with...the style mats for them.

Nice little step there.
I'm looking forward to the full crafting mats line and hmmm maybe some jewelry since they have also artificially limited those choices as well.

We'll see soon enough.

Minnesinger

cacophony wrote: »

It's a difficult one for me, in my opinion.

One one side, I don't want to have to grind the IC for the pieces required for a chance to unlock one page of the motif, or to randomly get a piece of the Glass motif from crafting (which, in my opinion, should be limited regionally. Malachite in-lore was most common on Vvardenfell and somewhat in Skyrim).

On the other, it drives the economy forward by being rare, and if I'm lucky to get a piece (to-date, since IC was released I've managed to get 2 pieces of the Xiv motif, and 2 bits of Malachite (refined)) it'll keep my funds up for a short while.

The Crown store is a strange one. When the LotRO Market came around, it was primarily used for Cosmetic purposes. I can't recall there being anything game-breaking or pay-to-win at all. It still allowed crafters to compete in markets and make a living. ESO's store has cheap potions that scale-up, has rare Motifs that drove the price into the ground (remember when you could sell a Dunmer motif for 4k?) and is peddling weird looking cosmetics that, personally, have no place in the world of Tamriel.

Unlike LotRO Crown store is still pretty much cosmetics with no P2W items. I really hope ESO doesn´t take any ideas from LotRO. I don´t mind they are adding items that sell well. At the same time, I wish some of that money goes into developing of the game. Still see much to improve.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Elloa wrote: »

I really want Zenimax to make a lot of money! I want the game to succeed and their company to flourish and be successful.
But I will never agree with greedy, scamming method to push players to consume. Its unfair, ugly and unethical.

There is a moment where the ligne can not be crossed, and when Zenimax cross the line, we need to make heard our voice .

In the interest of everyone. Both Zenimax and their customers.

@Elloa :

While I appreciate the respectful and calm tone with which you explained your arguments and counterarguments in a very sensible way, the question is : "where is that line ?"... and the answers will probably vary a lot from one category of players to the next.

Your position looks at lot to me like a "not-in-my-backyard" syndrom.

I am also a dedicated crafter and make a point of having all crafts, all styles, all traits researched. A large portion of my ingame time is spent farming, crafting, trading. I could also claim that it's disturbing "my backyard", but frankly, it's not.

I will not buy the glass motif for crowns because I decided a long time ago that I would not and never buy anything else there but the DLCs, so I'm not giving it any second thought. I started the glass motif grind and it will take what it takes, but frankly I don't care if other players can get it quicker for RL money. They can get it quicker for ingame gold too anyway. The pleasure of the achievement when I finally have all parts of the glass motif will be all mine. I don't care about others. It's for me, not for showing off or being someone "special" ingame.

And when I look at other players ingame wearing glass armors, all I think of is "does it look nice ?". I don't even think one second about "waow... that's someone who can craft glass !" or "that's a big fat rich guy who bought it in the crown store" or "that's a 24/7 nolifer who sits on millions of gold and bought all pages".

You accept the fact that ZOS needs money to run the game ? Then by all means, accept the fact that incentives to buy are part of the financial model, and that sometimes, ZOS will sell some items that will disturb you a little in your own backyard.

Cadbury

Minnesinger wrote: »

Unlike LotRO Crown store is still pretty much cosmetics with no P2W items. I really hope ESO doesn´t take any ideas from LotRO. I don´t mind they are adding items that sell well. At the same time, I wish some of that money goes into developing of the game. Still see much to improve.

^This.so much

I wouldn't wish LOTRO's type of cash shop on any MMO. XD
In all the years of playing MMO's I think that was the one of the worse, just behind Perfect World's and Nexon's

Saltypretzels

Minnesinger wrote: »

cacophony wrote: »

It's a difficult one for me, in my opinion.

One one side, I don't want to have to grind the IC for the pieces required for a chance to unlock one page of the motif, or to randomly get a piece of the Glass motif from crafting (which, in my opinion, should be limited regionally. Malachite in-lore was most common on Vvardenfell and somewhat in Skyrim).

On the other, it drives the economy forward by being rare, and if I'm lucky to get a piece (to-date, since IC was released I've managed to get 2 pieces of the Xiv motif, and 2 bits of Malachite (refined)) it'll keep my funds up for a short while.

The Crown store is a strange one. When the LotRO Market came around, it was primarily used for Cosmetic purposes. I can't recall there being anything game-breaking or pay-to-win at all. It still allowed crafters to compete in markets and make a living. ESO's store has cheap potions that scale-up, has rare Motifs that drove the price into the ground (remember when you could sell a Dunmer motif for 4k?) and is peddling weird looking cosmetics that, personally, have no place in the world of Tamriel.

Unlike LotRO Crown store is still pretty much cosmetics with no P2W items. I really hope ESO doesn´t take any ideas from LotRO. I don´t mind they are adding items that sell well. At the same time, I wish some of that money goes into developing of the game. Still see much to improve.

This is where the whole slippery slope idea comes from. All other MMOs I've played (only a handful really), started out with innocent stores that got more and more obtrusive over time, with the designers putting more and more inconveniences into the game into order to drive people to the store in the name of "convenience". This happened in Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars The Old Republic. Neverwinter was like this from launch (at least they never attempted to pretend otherwise).

"Convenience". The perfect excuse to do anything. Honestly, anything they put in the store can be defined as "convenient", which makes it such a poor standard.

Tommy1979AtWar

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

2 bad the glass armor is butt-ugly

I think so too, from what I've seen there are only certain colours which seem to apply to it correctly and the overall design is nothing special, it's certainly not as good looking as I remember it to be and worth nowhere near 5000 crowns, but stick a hefty price tag on a turd and some moron somewhere will think it's a special turd... nope, it's still just a turd.

Cherryblossom

Saltypretzels wrote: »

This is where the whole slippery slope idea comes from. All other MMOs I've played (only a handful really), started out with innocent stores that got more and more obtrusive over time, with the designers putting more and more inconveniences into the game into order to drive people to the store in the name of "convenience". This happened in Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars The Old Republic. Neverwinter was like this from launch (at least they never attempted to pretend otherwise).

"Convenience". The perfect excuse to do anything. Honestly, anything they put in the store can be defined as "convenient", which makes it such a poor standard.[/quote]

There is a difference between Convenience and P2W. They don't equate to each other.

I have no issue with Convenience or a company trying to generate revenue based on Convenience. Many of us live in a hectic world where we have to balance our time, most play these games for fun, so for some of us at least this type of convenience is worth the 2 pints of beer we will pay for it.

Sotha_Sil

Cherryblossom wrote: »

so for some of us at least this type of convenience is worth the 2 pints of beer we will pay for it.

2 pints ? 5000 crowns is like more than half of the game. And the motif is so meh for light armor... xivkyn is awesome but glass. My god.

Tonnopesce

Cherryblossom wrote: »

Saltypretzels wrote: »

This is where the whole slippery slope idea comes from. All other MMOs I've played (only a handful really), started out with innocent stores that got more and more obtrusive over time, with the designers putting more and more inconveniences into the game into order to drive people to the store in the name of "convenience". This happened in Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars The Old Republic. Neverwinter was like this from launch (at least they never attempted to pretend otherwise).

"Convenience". The perfect excuse to do anything. Honestly, anything they put in the store can be defined as "convenient", which makes it such a poor standard.

There is a difference between Convenience and P2W. They don't equate to each other.

I have no issue with Convenience or a company trying to generate revenue based on Convenience. Many of us live in a hectic world where we have to balance our time, most play these games for fun, so for some of us at least this type of convenience is worth the 2 pints of beer we will pay for it.

LOL at least i'm not the only one who count the crowns on how much beers worth...

IC dlc? 4large beers
Glass motif? 7 large beers

And i will not be drunk with only 11... So the whole pack has costed me less than a saturday evening out with friends...

EQBallzz

To Elloa:

Remember when you were sticking up for ZOS prior to the crown store release? Many of us were complaining about it and saying this sort of thing would happen and you and others were saying we should trust ZOS. Well, this is exactly what we were saying would happen and it will only get worse.

I agree with your post 100% but this is really not that surprising. When you remove the sub from a game the creativity that goes towards improving the game switches over to creativity of itemizing "products". That usually entails creating difficult to get items "in game" and then offering them in the store for inflated prices (or it could get worse and they only offer items in the store with no option in game). It's only going to get worse as they try to sustain a flow of cash to replace the sub revenue they have lost (and more).

DRXHarbinger

Why does it cost you all like 100k to craft a set? Need to improve your mat farming.

Pallmor

It's like my grandpa used to say "A fool who likes ugly armor and his crowns are soon parted."

FireCowCommando

As a crafter i refuse to ever learn this motif because of how soon it appeared in the store. I was excited by the challenge of obtaining it, but now to me it embodies everything wrong with the game.

Pallmor

It's just step 4 of the natural evolution of a cash shop:

1) Cosmetic items only
2) Cosmetic and convenience items only, but nothing offering an advantage in gameplay
3) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game.
4) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game (though some items' drop rates are so low that's they're almost impossible to actually earn)
5) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game
6) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (provided only for convenience)
7) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (though some of these weapons and armors have a very low drop rate)
8) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game, and also some weapons and armors that you can't earn in game.
9) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop.
10) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale.
11) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale. Also full top-level characters for sale.
12) Going out of business sale

Maphusail

Pallmor wrote: »

It's just step 4 of the natural evolution of a cash shop:

1) Cosmetic items only
...
12) Going out of business sale

13) Auctions to become an Emperor (limited time offer), Dragonstar Arena Champion, Master Angler etc. etc.

Xendyn

Pallmor wrote: »

It's just step 4 of the natural evolution of a cash shop:

1) Cosmetic items only
2) Cosmetic and convenience items only, but nothing offering an advantage in gameplay
3) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game.
4) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game (though some items' drop rates are so low that's they're almost impossible to actually earn)
5) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game
6) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (provided only for convenience)
7) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (though some of these weapons and armors have a very low drop rate)
8) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game, and also some weapons and armors that you can't earn in game.
9) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop.
10) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale.
11) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale. Also full top-level characters for sale.
12) Going out of business sale

This (put in spoiler to save space)
This is why we're upset and what some posters here just don't seem to get.

I came here from LOTRO for several reasons, one of the major ones was the constant progression of the P2W store, which went pretty much how @Pallmor described.

It's just xp potions so I don't care.
It's just cosmetic so I don't care.
It's just mats so I don't care.
It's just jewelry so I don't care.
and so on...
Pretty soon you'll not care yourselves right into Legendary gear and max levels.

Maybe it doesn't look like P2W now but it's heading that way and as long as we let them herd us around like cash cows it'll just keep right on going.

Sheezabeast

To be completely objective here, there are no p2w items in the crown shop, and in a MMO there really is no way to win. The XP drinks are cheap, all food and pots are better when crafted than the ones sold, and even the respect items are not expensive in the cost of gold it takes.

Armor sets with higher stats than any craftable or sets that can drop or obtained at a guild merchant would be considered p2w, but still there is no winning. No set of items guarantees you Emperorship or leaderboard scores.

sovreign

Hmm. what a conundrum.
I have subscribed to ESO since release, not sure why i havn't cancelled sub yet... just cant bring myself to do it. haha
so Naturally the Crowns have been building up.. Most of the stuff in the Crown store is junk (imo) it just doesn't appeal to me. the costumes are bland, and the mounts.. well, i have senche tiger, so dont really need another mount. Therefore, i have been spending very few crowns at all- had 12k last i checked.
When i saw the glass motif for sale, i figured "got all these crowns here, not spending them on anything, may as well buy the motif" ... but after having seen your vid, and realized how soon it was brought out, i kind of want the crowns back. I dont want to support this sort of blatant money grab.
The biggest issue I see in this, is the fact that it will change the Economy of the game. It is in effect, Punishing some of the most loyal customers- the ones who put countless hours into the game, to be able to craft a very rare armor, to sell for a decent profit. Now that anyone can have the Motif, prices Will be driven down... and i imagine all those who got the motif legit, will be quite angry.

Why is it ok to *** off the most loyal customers?
We will never have an answer. Zenimax dont reply to controversial topics such as this. Because there is no answer. Its simply a money grab.

Can only hope someone at zeni's studios has the balls to change things, so it doesn't happen again in future.

ContraTempo

The discussion here is interesting and insightful but one thing to keep in mind is that ZoS is not an entity with a single mind the way we tend to speak of them. The guys who create content, the artists, the programmers and many others probably had no hand in this decision. Unfortunately it is probably some sales & marketing guys who make this sort of decision and they are they ones who understand us the least and who's interests are most likely to oppose ours.

Cadbury

Pallmor wrote: »

It's just step 4 of the natural evolution of a cash shop:

1) Cosmetic items only
2) Cosmetic and convenience items only, but nothing offering an advantage in gameplay
3) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game.
4) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay--but nothing you can't earn in game (though some items' drop rates are so low that's they're almost impossible to actually earn)
5) Cosmetic and convenience items, and some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game
6) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (provided only for convenience)
7) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, and also some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game (though some of these weapons and armors have a very low drop rate)
8) Cosmetic and convenience items, some potions and items which will help with gameplay which can't be earned in game, some weapons and armors which are equal to existing sets that you can earn in game, and also some weapons and armors that you can't earn in game.
9) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop.
10) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale.
11) Everything you can earn in game, and many top-tier items that you can't, for sale in the cash shop. XP and CP also for sale. Also full top-level characters for sale.
12) Going out of business sale

Signs of the Apocalypse, as written by our Lord and Savior, Gabe Newell

"May Half-Life 3 Guide Us To The Promised Land"

Saltypretzels

Cherryblossom wrote: »

There is a difference between Convenience and P2W. They don't equate to each other..

Says who? Convenience is whatever the devs want it to be.

For people who just want a max level character wearing legendary equipment, wouldn't it be quite convenient just to buy it rather than to spend months playing the game?

This is the problem with using convenience as a standard. By definition a "standard" is something that has an agreed upon definition... No one here seems to agree on what convenience really means.

Elloa

EQBallzz wrote: »

To Elloa:

Remember when you were sticking up for ZOS prior to the crown store release? Many of us were complaining about it and saying this sort of thing would happen and you and others were saying we should trust ZOS. Well, this is exactly what we were saying would happen and it will only get worse.

I agree with your post 100% but this is really not that surprising. When you remove the sub from a game the creativity that goes towards improving the game switches over to creativity of itemizing "products". That usually entails creating difficult to get items "in game" and then offering them in the store for inflated prices (or it could get worse and they only offer items in the store with no option in game). It's only going to get worse as they try to sustain a flow of cash to replace the sub revenue they have lost (and more).

I've been fangirling Zenimax a lot and taking their defense regularly. But not regarding the B2P model as I was in favour of subscription, and everytime Zenimax is crossing the line regarding what they do with the Crown Store, I'm making sure to be heard.

As example, this is a post I initiated when the rumour of F2P were startingNo to F2P
And a Episode of TimeOutFrom Tamriel where I argue with Deltia regarding the superbe in game announce for the new dog pets.

I do not support a company that is unethical. If Zenimax cross the line, I want to be there to remind them where the line stands.

For a company two things matter: Money and Reputation.

Let's be sure that the risk to have a bad reputation outweight the money made by selling those motifs.

OmniDevil

Elloa wrote: »

I do not support a company that is unethical. If Zenimax cross the line, I want to be there to remind them where the line stands.

For a company two things matter: Money and Reputation.

Let's be sure that the risk to have a bad reputation outweight the money made by selling those motifs.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but what have they done, in your opinion, that would be considered unethical or anything that would tarnish their reputation?

I can understand that you don't agree with their Crown Store model, but I can't think of anything they've placed in there that has made my copy of the game 1) unplayable, 2) steals my money or 3) was required to purchase. Everything in there is optional and more of a convenience, at best. I do agree that the Glass Motif should have been placed on the store at least a month after IC was released, at the very least! It was definitely too soon, but I don't see how this prevents you from still farming for the fragments.

Is it a concern that you won't be able to offer your "craftsmanship" to other players looking for Glass Style Crafted Gear? It's a cosmetic item. You can't have the new end-game PvE/PvP gear in that style, unless it drops that way, so it gets replaced.

Is it a "hey, I obtained at the fragments, got all the chapters. I want to feel special" situation?

There are plenty of other companies our their that have a similar model. It's optional, it's there as a convenience. Don't want to use it, don't have to. You can grind for it. Their reputations aren't hurt and they're definitely far from unethical. They're not thieves and they're definitely not, metaphorically speaking, stealing from you.

Again, I'm not trying to be rude. I just want to understand the thought process behind the grief this is causing you and a lot of other players. So far, no one has been able to give me a solid piece of reason to help me understand why this is a bad model, besides their own personal, extremely biased opinion.

angelyn

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Why does it cost you all like 100k to craft a set? Need to improve your mat farming.

My understanding is the following:

-To combine 10 motif fragments into 1 motif page you need a merethic restorative resin. These cost 10k each.
-You will need 7 motif pages to craft an armour set and eg another 2 for 2 weapons.
-You will need to combine 90 fragments with the restorative resin, in order to obtain 9 motif pages.
9 motif pages:9 merethic resins at 10k each= 90 000gold

Atleast ZOS dropped the price down from 25k each.
9 motif pages:9 merethic resins at 25k each= 225 000 gold

OmniDevil wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

I do not support a company that is unethical. If Zenimax cross the line, I want to be there to remind them where the line stands.

For a company two things matter: Money and Reputation.

Let's be sure that the risk to have a bad reputation outweight the money made by selling those motifs.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but what have they done, in your opinion, that would be considered unethical or anything that would tarnish their reputation?

I can understand that you don't agree with their Crown Store model, but I can't think of anything they've placed in there that has made my copy of the game 1) unplayable, 2) steals my money or 3) was required to purchase.

Elloa will give you her own reasons of course, and different people have different ideas of where the line is. Many people have seen this very same thing happen in other games that eventually became P2W, and that is why they are being vocal now-at the start of the downhill slope. I'll try to explain some of my reasoning here:

Game will be designed around maximising crown shop sales to the detriment of player enjoyment- GRIND
ZOS have started to change the game with a view to driving people to the crown store . IE Purposefully engineered in game items to be so rare/hidden behind so much grind and misery -with an aim to make people give up in game and go straight to the crown store.This means, their goal when creating the content was to get as much money from it as possible, even to the detriment of the game.The focus changes from "we want our players to have fun-how can we ensure that?" to "we want our players to spend as much as possible in the crown store- how can we ensure that?" It's this change of focus, that starts to change the game. This is why many people may seem emphatic now, because they've seen this happen before.

If the trend continues you can expect much more grind added to many previously Un-grindy aspects of the game. The game will become designed around grind , in order to maximise profits.Basically , many people think this is unethical and a thinly veiled money grab. Usually , you see these tactics in games like candy crush ( made the levels nigh impossible for 99% of people to do, in order to get them to pay to skip a level).

If people wanted to play a korean grind style MMO, they would've done it already. ESO was not marketed as that type of game but will quickly turn into a grind fest, where the most important thing in ZOS'S mind is how much money they can squeeze out of people, not whether they've made a quality elderscrolls MMO, that has both the fun factor and integrity.
See this thread that @ThatNeonZebraAgain started to highlight the new grinds implemented already:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/202020/lets-talk-about-the-new-extended-grinds/p1

Now that crafting materials are in the Crown shop, where will it stop?
In addition, they have added crafting materials to the store. (Malachite shards). I may be able to get malachite in game, but theres no in game chest that gives me 10 at once.

Now that they have started, what other crafting materials will they put in the store? Sanded Ruby Ash? Voidsteel? Lorkhan's tears? Perfect Roe? Potent Nirn crux? Gold tempers?rare provisioning ingredients? Why stop there when they can just sell you a full V16 armour set for your convenience, so that you don't have to buy individual crafting materials.Oh and of course the monster helm with the traits you want (for your convenience )-isn't it fair since you can get the helm in game after running the same dungeon 10 000 times? And of course it's not P2W because it's for convenience!


TLDR
After doing this(adding crafting mats to crown store), they can add any rare in game item to the crown store and label it as "convenience".

ZOS will implement as much grind as possible, in order to generate as much inconvenience as possible, so that they can maximise profits by selling "convenience " to players.

EDIT: reasoning/link/headings/TLDR

Cadbury

OmniDevil wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

I do not support a company that is unethical. If Zenimax cross the line, I want to be there to remind them where the line stands.

For a company two things matter: Money and Reputation.

Let's be sure that the risk to have a bad reputation outweight the money made by selling those motifs.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but what have they done, in your opinion, that would be considered unethical or anything that would tarnish their reputation?

I can understand that you don't agree with their Crown Store model, but I can't think of anything they've placed in there that has made my copy of the game 1) unplayable, 2) steals my money or 3) was required to purchase. Everything in there is optional and more of a convenience, at best. I do agree that the Glass Motif should have been placed on the store at least a month after IC was released, at the very least! It was definitely too soon, but I don't see how this prevents you from still farming for the fragments.

Is it a concern that you won't be able to offer your "craftsmanship" to other players looking for Glass Style Crafted Gear? It's a cosmetic item. You can't have the new end-game PvE/PvP gear in that style, unless it drops that way, so it gets replaced.

Is it a "hey, I obtained at the fragments, got all the chapters. I want to feel special" situation?

There are plenty of other companies our their that have a similar model. It's optional, it's there as a convenience. Don't want to use it, don't have to. You can grind for it. Their reputations aren't hurt and they're definitely far from unethical. They're not thieves and they're definitely not, metaphorically speaking, stealing from you.

Again, I'm not trying to be rude. I just want to understand the thought process behind the grief this is causing you and a lot of other players. So far, no one has been able to give me a solid piece of reason to help me understand why this is a bad model, besides their own personal, extremely biased opinion.

That's pretty much all you'll get. "I'm upset because it affects me"

Kuroinu

@OmniDevil & @Cadbury - If you go back and take the time to read my previous 2 posts in this thread, you might get a good idea of why this can effect everyone and why it's not about the business model or money. In short, it's about how things are implemented in-game because of the crown store.

I'll give you a link to one of them actually: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/comment/2296863/#Comment_2296863.

Saltypretzels

OmniDevil wrote: »

So far, no one has been able to give me a solid piece of reason to help me understand why this is a bad model, besides their own personal, extremely biased opinion.

I think Elloa does a good job with it and other people have said it well. I will lay it out as clear as possible for you.

They are intentionally creating very-grindy, inconvenient systems in the game, to give a people a strong motivation to pay real world money to skip over the inconvenience.

Cadbury

When you introduce a cash shop into your game, you accept that some things are gonna be added in order to alleviate/offset certain aspects. There's always going to be a fine line where an item is added that can tip the balance between what is considered convenience versus what some will consider "pay to win", so to speak.

Do I hate the fact the glass motif is in the cash shop? No, not really. Personally, I would have liked them to at least wait until Orsinium to put it there, and at a cheaper cost (maybe 2000 crowns). That being said, I can understand why it was put out and at the price it was. There is always going to be those who can't/won't farm the motif or its pages and will look for the path of least resistance.

Should the shop cater to them? Honesty, I don't know the answer to that. In a perfect world, there would be no such thing as a f2p/b2p MMO and therefore no need for a cash shop. But that's the reality of the situation now and the state that games like ESO are in now.

OmniDevil

Riko_Futatabi wrote: »

If you go back and take the time to read my previous 2 posts in this thread, you might get a good idea of why this can effect everyone and why it's not about the business model or money. In short, it's about how things are implemented in-game because of the crown store.

I'll give you a link to one of them actually: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/comment/2296863/#Comment_2296863.

I've read every one of your comments. A lot of what you had to say made sense, but I still don't see it. I do 100% agree that the implementation needs to be worked on. There does need to be more ways to obtain items and bottle-necking them through extremely long and grindy or paid-for options has never been enjoyable.

However, this isn't motivating people less. People are motivating themselves less. If you really wanted something, no matter how tedious, you're going to get it done. Maybe that motivation is saving up money for crowns or crowns from each sub? Maybe that motivation is doing writs on 8 characters each day, trying to collect the fragments. Maybe that motivation is saving up enough gold to purchase the chapters from Guild Traders. Should they have to resort to "methods" like this? No, but until ZOS does something more (given their track run, probably not any time soon, if at all), it still comes down to personal opinion.

Saltypretzels wrote: »

I think Elloa does a good job with it and other people have said it well. I will lay it out as clear as possible for you.

They are intentionally creating very-grindy, inconvenient systems in the game, to give a people a strong motivation to pay real world money to skip over the inconvenience.

Again, still personal opinion. Intentional? Maybe, but no one will be able to prove their intentions without ZOS personally coming out right and saying it. Giving them strong motivation to spend money? Only for those that would rather do so.

It's easy to generalize the majority when wanting others to agree with what you believe.