Cash Shop and Greed

Eiagra

A few things you can do to help alleviate the inventory crunch...

1.) Don't bother with Provisioning items. If you happen to have some on hand, use them in recipes to get your skill up, but early on when inventory space is at a premium you can safely ditch them. It's very easy to get more ingredients than you will ever need (I have four guild banks I maintain ingredients for, each with a stack of 200 of each ingredient, with only a few ingredients standing at less than that amount). (Exception: Save any Purple and Gold provisioning ingredients -- Bervez Juice, Frost Mirriam, and Perfect Roe -- as they are extremely valuable, especially the Roe!)

2.) Either only hold onto the current tier of crafting ingredients for blacksmithing/clothier/woodworking, crafting equips and breaking them down for Inspiration (XP) until you've consumed them, or shove them onto a mule character. Remember, all characters on an account share bank space.

3.) Consider joining a trade guild to help pawn off some of your excess items. Related: learn to recognize what to keep, what to break down, and what to sell or trash. Ask people in Zone chat or on forums if an item you have should be held onto or if it's only worth melting into materials.

4.) If you have 9 friends you can trust (or are willing to buy a number of copies of the game when it goes on sale), create a guild. Once your guild has 10 members, you unlock the Guild Bank, which has 500 slots. My sister and I have done this, so between the two of us we have 1000 item slots. Most of the people we brought into our guilds just kinda stopped playing (they were either too invested in other games, or real life reared its ugly head), so we just have them at a lower rank so as not to worry about anyone suddenly appearing and stripping the bank.

5.) Use mule characters. Far from an elegant solution, but better than nothing.

6.) Don't forget, your Riding Skill has a Capacity increase. You can get another 60 inventory slots this way (over the course of 60 days). It's more gold-efficient than pack upgrades once you hit a certain bag size, but it takes a LOT of time to do, so just remember to go to the stables on a daily basis.

7.) Have patience. Nothing in this game is going to grant instant gratification. My sister and I recognized this early on, and by cooperating with inventory space (we would each hold onto certain things until we had more wiggle room), prioritizing goals and allocating gold towards them (since there wasn't anything else to spend gold on that early in the game), and patiently managing everything, we were able to get into a solid inventory position a number of months in. We rarely, if ever, have any problems now, one year later.

Something to bear in mind is that there are plans for a "Materials Bag" for subscribers of ESO Plus, and I want to say it's due to come out with the next major release (Dark Brotherhood)? Not 100% sure on that. Either way, if none of the above help you, you could always wait for that.

joker0137

"Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free"

Mordeth_Kai

So they are addressing inventory issues with more cash shop items??? Hooray, my faith is restored, this isn't a greedy cash grab at all!

Also, you guys are justifying F2P sales gimicks on a B2P game, a full priced $60 B2P game. So justify them charging $50 for items to make inventory manageable on a $60 game. Explain how that isn't blatant greed. Go on, justify this BS, I need a good laugh.

This whole thread reeks of battered wife syndrome.

WalkingLegacy

Agreed OP,

I spend more time managing my inventory than actually playing the game. It's sad when I have to dedicate 40 minutes just for clearing space. Elder Inventory Online it is.

It's the only game I have played where after 30 minutes of gaming I have to go to town to deconstruct, sell, and bank. Repeat process and this instantly becomes a chore.

Ive had a sub since I've been back and refuse to use crowns on things like inventory space increase (mines almost maxed anyways).

They really need to figure it out, and the crafting bag will definitely help but it's locked behind a monthly sub. It doesn't solve the: There's too much loot in this game and not enough space for it to matter.

kevlarto_ESO

There is nothing in that store you "NEED" to have to advance your character, there may be things you "WANT" but big difference between need and want. Yes there are items that might make it easier, but then again not needed, but the price of convenience even in the real work is always the most expensive.

The store here in ESO is very tame compared to other games, some of them that even offer the sub as an option like TOR, just take a look at that store, but once again more want than need there.

I have bought one item out of the store the leopard mount, did I need it no, I wanted it, it is account wide not a bad deal, Given my choice of being able to buy it or earn it through a long quest line in the game, I would have chose game play over store and would every time.

The store is what it is and is not going anywhere, just one of those things. I don't like it or dislike it I just give the /shrug

Callous2208

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

So they are addressing inventory issues with more cash shop items??? Hooray, my faith is restored, this isn't a greedy cash grab at all!

Also, you guys are justifying F2P sales gimicks on a B2P game, a full priced $60 B2P game. So justify them charging $50 for items to make inventory manageable on a $60 game. Explain how that isn't blatant greed. Go on, justify this BS, I need a good laugh.

This whole thread reeks of battered wife syndrome.

Craft bag is for subscribers, banker and merchant are completely unnecessary and a tax on lazy impatient people. Extra bank slots and inventory slots are available for in game gold. Go on, continue to spout more bs and make illogical comparisons. Your whole post reeks of uninformed parrot what some other clueless person spouted syndrome.

alexkdd99

L2Pissue wrote: »

ESO is becoming less and less welcoming for new players mostly.
Old players may understand that a company has to be make some money here and there to persist and continue, which may blind them from the fact that its costing too much overall.

here are some examples about varity of players.
1)a player buys ESO, 50$ - he likes PvE
2) he want to make his character as good as possible
while playing with friends he already made, "Any Race, Any Alliance" 2100 crowns ~ 15$ with the 500 crowns u get with the game
3)some months later. he could use a vMA weapon, Briarheart, Alkosh or Kena set pieces.
he cant get 130K score in AA out of thin air, and again, he isnt perfectly geared and must get whopping 3 DLCs. 5000/7500 crowns. 50/75 $ for him to get on the catch.
basically, a new player who wants to play ESO for endgame PvE will find himself paying 120-150$ on a span of 4-5 months. not very welcoming if you ask me.

---

a player buys ESO, 50$, he likes wide range PvE (questing mainly)
he enjoy every aspect of it for a year+ , by then the price of all DLCs combined will not be found suited for him in compensation to what he recieves. (he quested a year for 50$, now 20$ for 20 hours?) that becomes less attractive and might go find other game or hang to couple DLCs for a short ammount of time before he do so

---

a player buy ESO, 50$ , he likes Role Playing
he buys many costumes, barely do any PvE or PvP so he got nothing to complain about
just having fun with friends (tbh i envy those people, make friends and enjoy, no RNG or BoP to complain about and least stress while drinking Skooma)
he stay and may not find money a barrier in his case
*****************
on all stages above players may find themselves in need of a bank upgrade, mount over variety of characters, xp scrolls and such which they are ridiculously overpriced in crown store
*****************

---

a player buys ESO, 50$ ... he likes PvP
1) he level his character to level 10
2) he collects some skyshards
3) he kill some few mobs to get a level 8-10 set
4) he enter Cyrodiil
5) he quits on a lifespan of 10 hours in-game and go somewhere advertise his account for sale cursing the moment he bought ESO.

Or he could simply buy the game and pay for eso + in order to acquire these item before dropping the sub. Now all those items only cost him an extra 15$ and not the 100+ you claim

Callous2208

alexkdd99 wrote: »

L2Pissue wrote: »

ESO is becoming less and less welcoming for new players mostly.
Old players may understand that a company has to be make some money here and there to persist and continue, which may blind them from the fact that its costing too much overall.

here are some examples about varity of players.
1)a player buys ESO, 50$ - he likes PvE
2) he want to make his character as good as possible
while playing with friends he already made, "Any Race, Any Alliance" 2100 crowns ~ 15$ with the 500 crowns u get with the game
3)some months later. he could use a vMA weapon, Briarheart, Alkosh or Kena set pieces.
he cant get 130K score in AA out of thin air, and again, he isnt perfectly geared and must get whopping 3 DLCs. 5000/7500 crowns. 50/75 $ for him to get on the catch.
basically, a new player who wants to play ESO for endgame PvE will find himself paying 120-150$ on a span of 4-5 months. not very welcoming if you ask me.

---

a player buys ESO, 50$, he likes wide range PvE (questing mainly)
he enjoy every aspect of it for a year+ , by then the price of all DLCs combined will not be found suited for him in compensation to what he recieves. (he quested a year for 50$, now 20$ for 20 hours?) that becomes less attractive and might go find other game or hang to couple DLCs for a short ammount of time before he do so

---

a player buy ESO, 50$ , he likes Role Playing
he buys many costumes, barely do any PvE or PvP so he got nothing to complain about
just having fun with friends (tbh i envy those people, make friends and enjoy, no RNG or BoP to complain about and least stress while drinking Skooma)
he stay and may not find money a barrier in his case
*****************
on all stages above players may find themselves in need of a bank upgrade, mount over variety of characters, xp scrolls and such which they are ridiculously overpriced in crown store
*****************

---

a player buys ESO, 50$ ... he likes PvP
1) he level his character to level 10
2) he collects some skyshards
3) he kill some few mobs to get a level 8-10 set
4) he enter Cyrodiil
5) he quits on a lifespan of 10 hours in-game and go somewhere advertise his account for sale cursing the moment he bought ESO.

Or he could simply buy the game and pay for eso + in order to acquire these item before dropping the sub. Now all those items only cost him an extra 15$ and not the 100+ you claim

Exactly. I'm not sure what the guy you quoted is even asking for, I doubt he knows. This is a persistent mmo. Over time, new expansions will drop, gear will change, stuff will cost money. You don't just walk in two years late and pay for vanilla eso, expecting to get all the expansions for free.

Mordeth_Kai

Callous2208 wrote: »

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

So they are addressing inventory issues with more cash shop items??? Hooray, my faith is restored, this isn't a greedy cash grab at all!

Also, you guys are justifying F2P sales gimicks on a B2P game, a full priced $60 B2P game. So justify them charging $50 for items to make inventory manageable on a $60 game. Explain how that isn't blatant greed. Go on, justify this BS, I need a good laugh.

This whole thread reeks of battered wife syndrome.

Craft bag is for subscribers, banker and merchant are completely unnecessary and a tax on lazy impatient people. Extra bank slots and inventory slots are available for in game gold. Go on, continue to spout more bs and make illogical comparisons. Your whole post reeks of uninformed parrot what some other clueless person spouted syndrome.

So basically if I don't want to spend more time sorting inventory than I do playing the game I need a sub? Let me explain the biggest reason 90% of subscription systems fail, they all are $15 a month. A simple cost analysis will show the most incompetent halfwit that in 4 months they will have paid $60, basically buying the game twice.

Also, making a game virtually enjoyable unless you participate in the bonus subscription services is called freemium. Freemium is a tactic done by all kinds of free software where participants get a demo version for free with the a large chunk of of the software locked off which sometimes includes essential components. With F2P MMO's it is generally done as a system where players can get maybe a 3rd into the game and slowly discover that if they don't get on board with a subscription service, their progress will either be blocked or their play experience will become so miserable they either pay up or leave, which is exactly what we have with ESO. For a $60 game advertising that no subscription is needed, this is dishonest. It's not flat out lying, but it is intentionally misleading.

But go on, try to defend these greedy tactics. My favorite part so far has been the guy talking about 1st world problems, essentially saying because kids are starving in africa I should just throw money at bad business out of some misplaced sense of guilt.

bedlom

Yeah but inventory management has always been a part of TES games. Skyrim was no different if anything it was worse than Oblivion because you had no spells to ease burden.

Darth_Trumpious

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

So they are addressing inventory issues with more cash shop items??? Hooray, my faith is restored, this isn't a greedy cash grab at all!

Also, you guys are justifying F2P sales gimicks on a B2P game, a full priced $60 B2P game. So justify them charging $50 for items to make inventory manageable on a $60 game. Explain how that isn't blatant greed. Go on, justify this BS, I need a good laugh.

This whole thread reeks of battered wife syndrome.

Craft bag is for subscribers, banker and merchant are completely unnecessary and a tax on lazy impatient people. Extra bank slots and inventory slots are available for in game gold. Go on, continue to spout more bs and make illogical comparisons. Your whole post reeks of uninformed parrot what some other clueless person spouted syndrome.

So basically if I don't want to spend more time sorting inventory than I do playing the game I need a sub? Let me explain the biggest reason 90% of subscription systems fail, they all are $15 a month. A simple cost analysis will show the most incompetent halfwit that in 4 months they will have paid $60, basically buying the game twice.

Also, making a game virtually enjoyable unless you participate in the bonus subscription services is called freemium. Freemium is a tactic done by all kinds of free software where participants get a demo version for free with the a large chunk of of the software locked off which sometimes includes essential components. With F2P MMO's it is generally done as a system where players can get maybe a 3rd into the game and slowly discover that if they don't get on board with a subscription service, their progress will either be blocked or their play experience will become so miserable they either pay up or leave, which is exactly what we have with ESO. For a $60 game advertising that no subscription is needed, this is dishonest. It's not flat out lying, but it is intentionally misleading.

But go on, try to defend these greedy tactics. My favorite part so far has been the guy talking about 1st world problems, essentially saying because kids are starving in africa I should just throw money at bad business out of some misplaced sense of guilt.

If you hate this game so much and think the developer is greedy then why spent so much time complaining? Just move on.

For others some players are enjoying the game and some do love the cash shop, especially the banker. As other people said, you are not forced to buy anything in order to progress the game. If you think this game is too expensive for you or your money can be better spent elsewhere, do it instead of coming back to forum and keep bumping your thread.

For me I don't see the need to defend ZOS's tactics or whatever. I'd rather enjoy the game and keep playing, instead of spend time arguing with other people on internet

Armitas

I have played since beta and I have gotten along just fine with the base game. The stuff in the shop is just a convenience for people with more money then they know what to do with. After giving away 1mill gold I still have 1.5mil. I have no problems repairing my gear, it really isn't that expensive. It's not like share ware where they leave things out of the game that you later have to buy, they are just convenience items.

If you want to see what a bad cash shop is check out BDO. It is basically a requirement there to spend $30dollars on 3 animals to pick up your loot because there is neither an loot-all-piles, or an auto loot-all-items. It is intentionally left out of the game so they can sell you these animals. In this kind of grind game you will not be looting 10 enemies with 20 button presses each for long. That is what a bad cash shop really looks like.

Callous2208

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Mordeth_Kai wrote: »

So they are addressing inventory issues with more cash shop items??? Hooray, my faith is restored, this isn't a greedy cash grab at all!

Also, you guys are justifying F2P sales gimicks on a B2P game, a full priced $60 B2P game. So justify them charging $50 for items to make inventory manageable on a $60 game. Explain how that isn't blatant greed. Go on, justify this BS, I need a good laugh.

This whole thread reeks of battered wife syndrome.

Craft bag is for subscribers, banker and merchant are completely unnecessary and a tax on lazy impatient people. Extra bank slots and inventory slots are available for in game gold. Go on, continue to spout more bs and make illogical comparisons. Your whole post reeks of uninformed parrot what some other clueless person spouted syndrome.

So basically if I don't want to spend more time sorting inventory than I do playing the game I need a sub? Let me explain the biggest reason 90% of subscription systems fail, they all are $15 a month. A simple cost analysis will show the most incompetent halfwit that in 4 months they will have paid $60, basically buying the game twice.

Also, making a game virtually enjoyable unless you participate in the bonus subscription services is called freemium. Freemium is a tactic done by all kinds of free software where participants get a demo version for free with the a large chunk of of the software locked off which sometimes includes essential components. With F2P MMO's it is generally done as a system where players can get maybe a 3rd into the game and slowly discover that if they don't get on board with a subscription service, their progress will either be blocked or their play experience will become so miserable they either pay up or leave, which is exactly what we have with ESO. For a $60 game advertising that no subscription is needed, this is dishonest. It's not flat out lying, but it is intentionally misleading.

But go on, try to defend these greedy tactics. My favorite part so far has been the guy talking about 1st world problems, essentially saying because kids are starving in africa I should just throw money at bad business out of some misplaced sense of guilt.

All this anger and walls of text yet you still haven't pointed out in any way shape or form, how ESO's cash shop or subscription program, offers any more than negligible quality of life items and services. Your entire rant here is basically championing ESO's system, since you are in no way excluded from the game's core content if you refuse to purchase cash shop items or pay a monthly subscription. If you're not enjoying the game, it's not because you refuse to spend cash or sub. If you're spending more time sorting your inventory than playing the actual game, something less advanced and more age appropriate than an mmo may be more your speed. Your idea of greed is remedial. Sure all corporations are greedy in the long run, but grow up, we all know this. This is America, this is capitalism. If this is your one man crusade to take down Big Gaming, start elsewhere. ESO has one of, if not THE fairest non p2w cash shops, and a product that is in no way based on a "sub to enjoy" model.

AlnilamE

OP, are you on PC? If you are, get the addon called "Bank Manager Extended" and create a profile for each of your characters to auto-deposit and auto-withdraw items.

I have 7 characters and I have developed a fairly complex inventory management system, but one which saves me a lot of time. I have enough crowns that I could buy the banker or the merchant, but since they don't work in Cyrodiil delves, where I would need them most, I have not bought them.

If you have patience (and do you have a horse? those add to your inventory too) you can max out inventory and bank. Yes, it will cost you in game gold, but that's not *that* hard to come by.

nimander99

Wat? It costs money to repair gear? Since when?

...

Rapthorne

I see no greed here. ESO isn't exploiting people in any aspect. It, quite fairly, allows you to optionally pay for convenience items as a large amount of the community has been requesting.

Bank and bag slots are also available in game for a gold fee. Once again the cash shop option is convenience only. Literally all you save from getting a bank/merchant summon from the store (that is PERM and ACCOUNT WIDE, I might add) is a tiny wayshrine fee (if not near a wayshrine) and a 20 second run.

If you really think that that's Zenimax inconveniencing you as much as possible, I strongly advise some time dedicated to personal reflection, because those seem to be flaws with your virtues, not with Zenimax's business model.

Tats

This the last game I'd complain about with the cash shop. I've never once felt like I needed anything from the crown store or eso plus. Have you played other games with similar cash shops? They usually limit the game so much that you're forced to buy things.

nimander99

Tats wrote: »

This the last game I'd complain about with the cash shop. I've never once felt like I needed anything from the crown store or eso plus. Have you played other F2P games?

Agree completely. The Cash Shop and Costume/Mount system almost doesn't get any fairer. Not to mention they haven't once charged us money for a color...