Maintenance for the week of January 5:
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – January 7, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EST (15:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – January 7, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EST (15:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – January 7, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EST (15:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – January 7, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EST (15:00 UTC)
Why I'm Reluctant to Purchase from the Crown Store (Friendly Feedback/Constructive Criticism)
ForfiniteStories
✭✭✭
Over the years I've had a love and hate relationship with this title. No game is perfect, and I am not fond of MMOs. Or at least I never considered myself fond of them. It is also not what I would have come up with if someone put me in charge for the making of an Elder Scrolls MMO.
However, I find myself enjoying them more than I used to and now they are usually my go-to game when I have free time and want to play video games. I tend to see the finer details and the overall flaws the more I play them and eventually situate myself upon comfortable grounds from which I can enjoy them enough without being turned away by whatever bothers me. I've learned to appreciate them for what they are.
I tend to try many and keep playing them until some start to appeal to me more than others, and so I play those and let the others gather dust until I get bored and want to try something different again.
There are a few MMOs that I know will stick with me for a long while and The Elder Scrolls Online is one of them. I've been playing since day one of early access and have only taken a month or so off every now and then, and it has been installed on my computer ever since.
Considering that I spend quite a bit of my free time playing it, I believe it is worthwhile to invest in it, but despite my willingness to do so, I find myself affronted by certain aspects of the business model that prevent me from doing what I want to do, and that is to spend money.
Yes... an MMO with an "unfair" business model. What news is there?
Jokes aside...
You see, I have both the NA and EU clients installed. I am from NA, so I play on that server for myself. However, most of my friends were from the EU, so I had to download that client to experience ESO with them too.
When I made a purchase or two from the website, and was a subscriber, I noticed that my allotment of crowns were shared between servers ...because, you know, it is one account after all. This lead me to assume that whatever I purchased from the crown store would also be shared.
I was wrong.
Disappointed, yes, but also quick to realize that the crowns came from outside the game, much like all my purchases that were indeed shared between servers, and that items bought within the crown store were not because they were purchased in-game ...and everything in-game is separated by servers. This made sense to me, but I was still disappointed.
I learned from that so that I could be more conscious about future purchases. However, upon desiring to purchase any or all of the many DLC released for this game, I noticed that they too were also available only through the crown store.
To pay for them twice would be excessively pricey in my books. Sure, I can buy one at a time and wait to finish one (even with all my alts) before moving on to another, but I would still be paying twice the amount in the end. And I do not want to wait to purchase them all as some of them make slight changes to the original zones that I would like to experience and take advantage of while I am still leveling up, and that I also might find myself hanging out with a group of players who want to do something in a DLC zone ...of which I would then need immediate access to, of course.
DLC is entirely different than a mount or whatnot and I do not feel that they should be server-bound. I believe it'd be best and most fair to us if they could be purchased from the actual website.
Which brings me to another point. When I think about it, the crown store is a silly idea. The in-game one that is. The crown store should, in my opinion, be the website where everything is purchased. This will prevent people from having to purchase the same things twice, something I would only expect Zenimax would do if they had the sinister intent of cashing in on as much as they can, as it would grant the entire account access to said something. It would also prevent people, such as myself for example, from feeling cheated and not bothering to buy anything at all.
To be fair, other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft for example, charge the customer twice for the base game alone if they desire to play with someone overseas. Or rather, the customer has to purchase a separate account. In this sense, Zenimax is generous in comparison. We can play on both the NA and EU servers with just one account. However, that's the thing; both servers are still one account. A single account shouldn't have to pay for something twice.
A little less "greed" is still "greedy." I put this in quotation because I do not want to accuse Zenimax of being greedy. I am simply trying to prove a point. I don't see why they won't just have their store available on the website instead of in-game other than for financial gain.
In very least, make it so that DLC can be purchased from the website. I wouldn't even complain if you raised the price a few. Or give accounts who purchase it twice the promise of a discount.
Another thing you can do, assuming that it isn't useful for me alone, is grant character transfers. I do not know the difficulties this would bring on the technical side, so if it is too much hard work or even impossible, then I'd understand.
If you do not want to give us the liberty of having us pay for something only once, to me that is indeed another solution. If I can transfer all my characters and whatnot to another server, and have them all on one server, then I won't have to pay for items for both servers. I would be willing to sacrifice a little achievement points (and hopefully not much else) for this. It'd also save me some hard drive space.
For anyone who disagrees with me on this and believes that we should be charged twice to access certain items on both servers, I won't say that you are wrong about how you feel. But there is a point I would like to make; it is not individual servers making the purchase, it is a single person. Why should a single person have to buy something twice, especially just for themselves? Why would I have to pay again for something that I already paid for?
On a moral basis, let's just say that the prices were half of what they are now, I would still be paying for the same thing twice. It's not necessarily the costs that I am complaining about, but the idea of having to pay for something twice. A fifty-percent discount would work for me, but for someone who just joined the game and weren't here when the prices were double, they would still see it as having to pay twice.
It is the DLCs in particular that I feel bothered about having to purchase twice.
Cosmetic items, not as much (but still), as they are usually purchased for a specific character.
Maybe I misread somewhere that "you are only paying for access to DLC for a particular server and not the DLC itself."
If that is the case, then maybe I won't feel so bad about it.
All in all, I feel that I'd be cheated, whether not I am actually being cheated, if I opt to buy the same content twice. This is making me reluctant to spend anything on the game and forget about it, and just play the game until I am done Craglorn, as if the DLC content just doesn't exist. Which would suck because I want to play this game for years to come.
If a customer refuses to buy something that he wants to buy, that to me is a problem. Maybe I am stubborn. Maybe I am picky. Or maybe I don't have a great enough income to spend money on this game without question. Perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding something. You be the judge.
Anyway, I simply wanted to get this off my chest. Hopefully things will change in my favor. Maybe as a result of posts like these. Who knows? I can't imagine that I will ever find myself paying for something twice (or thinking that I am) or never ever experiencing DLC content. Neither thoughts are pleasant.
However, I find myself enjoying them more than I used to and now they are usually my go-to game when I have free time and want to play video games. I tend to see the finer details and the overall flaws the more I play them and eventually situate myself upon comfortable grounds from which I can enjoy them enough without being turned away by whatever bothers me. I've learned to appreciate them for what they are.
I tend to try many and keep playing them until some start to appeal to me more than others, and so I play those and let the others gather dust until I get bored and want to try something different again.
There are a few MMOs that I know will stick with me for a long while and The Elder Scrolls Online is one of them. I've been playing since day one of early access and have only taken a month or so off every now and then, and it has been installed on my computer ever since.
Considering that I spend quite a bit of my free time playing it, I believe it is worthwhile to invest in it, but despite my willingness to do so, I find myself affronted by certain aspects of the business model that prevent me from doing what I want to do, and that is to spend money.
Yes... an MMO with an "unfair" business model. What news is there?
Jokes aside...
You see, I have both the NA and EU clients installed. I am from NA, so I play on that server for myself. However, most of my friends were from the EU, so I had to download that client to experience ESO with them too.
When I made a purchase or two from the website, and was a subscriber, I noticed that my allotment of crowns were shared between servers ...because, you know, it is one account after all. This lead me to assume that whatever I purchased from the crown store would also be shared.
I was wrong.
Disappointed, yes, but also quick to realize that the crowns came from outside the game, much like all my purchases that were indeed shared between servers, and that items bought within the crown store were not because they were purchased in-game ...and everything in-game is separated by servers. This made sense to me, but I was still disappointed.
I learned from that so that I could be more conscious about future purchases. However, upon desiring to purchase any or all of the many DLC released for this game, I noticed that they too were also available only through the crown store.
To pay for them twice would be excessively pricey in my books. Sure, I can buy one at a time and wait to finish one (even with all my alts) before moving on to another, but I would still be paying twice the amount in the end. And I do not want to wait to purchase them all as some of them make slight changes to the original zones that I would like to experience and take advantage of while I am still leveling up, and that I also might find myself hanging out with a group of players who want to do something in a DLC zone ...of which I would then need immediate access to, of course.
DLC is entirely different than a mount or whatnot and I do not feel that they should be server-bound. I believe it'd be best and most fair to us if they could be purchased from the actual website.
Which brings me to another point. When I think about it, the crown store is a silly idea. The in-game one that is. The crown store should, in my opinion, be the website where everything is purchased. This will prevent people from having to purchase the same things twice, something I would only expect Zenimax would do if they had the sinister intent of cashing in on as much as they can, as it would grant the entire account access to said something. It would also prevent people, such as myself for example, from feeling cheated and not bothering to buy anything at all.
To be fair, other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft for example, charge the customer twice for the base game alone if they desire to play with someone overseas. Or rather, the customer has to purchase a separate account. In this sense, Zenimax is generous in comparison. We can play on both the NA and EU servers with just one account. However, that's the thing; both servers are still one account. A single account shouldn't have to pay for something twice.
A little less "greed" is still "greedy." I put this in quotation because I do not want to accuse Zenimax of being greedy. I am simply trying to prove a point. I don't see why they won't just have their store available on the website instead of in-game other than for financial gain.
In very least, make it so that DLC can be purchased from the website. I wouldn't even complain if you raised the price a few. Or give accounts who purchase it twice the promise of a discount.
Another thing you can do, assuming that it isn't useful for me alone, is grant character transfers. I do not know the difficulties this would bring on the technical side, so if it is too much hard work or even impossible, then I'd understand.
If you do not want to give us the liberty of having us pay for something only once, to me that is indeed another solution. If I can transfer all my characters and whatnot to another server, and have them all on one server, then I won't have to pay for items for both servers. I would be willing to sacrifice a little achievement points (and hopefully not much else) for this. It'd also save me some hard drive space.
For anyone who disagrees with me on this and believes that we should be charged twice to access certain items on both servers, I won't say that you are wrong about how you feel. But there is a point I would like to make; it is not individual servers making the purchase, it is a single person. Why should a single person have to buy something twice, especially just for themselves? Why would I have to pay again for something that I already paid for?
On a moral basis, let's just say that the prices were half of what they are now, I would still be paying for the same thing twice. It's not necessarily the costs that I am complaining about, but the idea of having to pay for something twice. A fifty-percent discount would work for me, but for someone who just joined the game and weren't here when the prices were double, they would still see it as having to pay twice.
It is the DLCs in particular that I feel bothered about having to purchase twice.
Cosmetic items, not as much (but still), as they are usually purchased for a specific character.
Maybe I misread somewhere that "you are only paying for access to DLC for a particular server and not the DLC itself."
If that is the case, then maybe I won't feel so bad about it.
All in all, I feel that I'd be cheated, whether not I am actually being cheated, if I opt to buy the same content twice. This is making me reluctant to spend anything on the game and forget about it, and just play the game until I am done Craglorn, as if the DLC content just doesn't exist. Which would suck because I want to play this game for years to come.
If a customer refuses to buy something that he wants to buy, that to me is a problem. Maybe I am stubborn. Maybe I am picky. Or maybe I don't have a great enough income to spend money on this game without question. Perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding something. You be the judge.
Anyway, I simply wanted to get this off my chest. Hopefully things will change in my favor. Maybe as a result of posts like these. Who knows? I can't imagine that I will ever find myself paying for something twice (or thinking that I am) or never ever experiencing DLC content. Neither thoughts are pleasant.
4