Crown sales, Geopolitics and Kebabs

Padhraigh

Hello there! I'm Paddy. Just venting a bit here.

TL;DR no/late info on crown sale means no crown purchase.

So, I just missed the crown sale. By 1 day. Reasons being:

1) I'm in Iran since july 30th
b) Didn't know there was a sale starting august 2nd
x) Had to transfer funds between accounts to purchase (Geopolitics, funds came through yesterday, monday, with transfer made late thursday evening)
9.) Had to run around early this morning asking not-so-english-speaking iranians for help with VPN, WI-FI and browser access (due to sanctions/restrictions, found out about blocked account site late last night)

In the interest of full disclosure - I'm a bit... peeved I guess (most likely because I missed out on the previous crown sale aswell)

Was there any notification about this sale? If not - why wasn't there? I saw some twitter post in one of the crown sale threads, but that's it. Don't have twitter. I recieved no mail, saw no in game notification, saw nothing on the forums (except for that thread, which I saw too late).

I could have sorted funds and VPN ahead of time instead of running around in Iran acting a fool early in the morning, only to realise I missed the sale by a couple of hours.

My point is - I would have purchased 3 x 5500 crown packs. Now, I will purchase none.

Well, at least not until the next sale. I would have purchased hairstyles, race changes and character slots. Do you know how hard it is to convince people you are capable when you DPS with a Nord magblade? A nord sorc, or argonian DK? These aren't soft caps times anymore, you know.

And please don't tell me to reroll, I have fully upgraded mounts, plenty skill lines leveled, bunch of achievements, research, plenty skyshards and no time to do it all again on 4-5 characters. I'd just like a couple of mains to become a dunmer magblade, a Khajiit DK and an altmer sorc.

Oh well, probably my own fault. Just venting some frustration. I've eaten Kobideh, Bargh and Jooje kebab twice a day since I arrived and it might be getting to me. Also, so many sour tasting things here. What's the deal with that? Yesterday there was some kind of free-for-all stew with all kinds of crap in it, including eyes and feet. I'm sorry.

Thanks alot, Iran. You gorgeous, vibrant, country, you...

PS. Thank you Shannon on support team for some fine and quick support work. I owe you a kebab and some fine iranian tea.

PPS. At least I have a Khajiit stamplar to enjoy.

newtinmpls

I didn't realize there was a sale.

Oh well.

Better luck next time.

Banana

I like kebabs

Acrolas

Padhraigh wrote: »

Was there any notification about this sale? If not - why wasn't there?

"ZeniMax reserves the right to change the price for any Purchased Virtual Currency or to bundle Purchased Virtual Currency in any amount with other Services or access to other Services at any time and without providing notice to You. You will have no right to a refund as a result of any change in the price or bundling at which Purchase Virtual Currency can be obtained, subject only to the Statutory Obligations (as defined in Section 1)." - TOS

Tessie

There were several forum posts about it but I never saw anything official. I find with this game you have to log in regularly, or at least read the forums. Otherwise you may miss out on crown store limited time offers and specials.

Sorry that you missed the opportunity. I've read others say that they occasionally have sales following certain DLC releases. And last year they had a Black Friday sale for 50% off.

Synfaer

Nope, no official announcement....sort of a stealth sale?
I stumbled across it accidentally due to inaccurate clicking

Very weird having a sale and not advertising it IMO.

Leandor

While I feel your pain, OP, I think back to the times when ZOS tried to have announcements in game and the immediate shipstorm it provoked in the forums. Many forumites, maybe the majority, complained about "being goaded to spend money", combined with much worse namecalling.

Zenimax reacted, by changing this to the one-time popup if new stuff is in the crown store. Even this minimal amount of ingame advertisement has been met with a lot of disdain by the players.

Nowadays, I guess most just close the window and be done with it. Instead, Zenimax uses twitter and the official website to promote things like the crown sales.

Again, we have to thank ourselves for the situation. Maybe some time in the far distant future, players will realize that having the cake and eat it, is wishful thinking.

That said, I'd suggest that if you have to stay longer in Iran, you prepare beforehand (like now) with setting up an abroad account with a bit of money or with paysafe cards or some such form of pre-payment, to have the funds ready for the next sale. The crown sale this time was exceedingly long-term, I am used to those being in place for three days at most. This is most probably never sufficient to move the funds on demand.

Curragraigue

Story needs more kebabs with hummus

Daemons_Bane

Am I the only one with a crown sale banner in my launcher then.? Been there for a few days

tryia3b14a_ESO

I agree. I found out about the crown sale from the forums and it was actually really hard to tell if they were on sale or not because the crown bundles only displayed the current cost and not the original cost. A landing page when you first log in that is like "Up to 40% off crowns until August 7th!" Or whenever would have been nice.

I know some people don't like announcements, but they could always just put it in the news feed on the launcher instead. People love sales, why not spread the word?

Epona222

I didn't get an email about this sale (I think I did for the last sale), I only found out about it because there was a thread here. I did get 2 emails about the latest dlc, within minutes of each other. Nothing about the crown pack sale.

estera

Just FYI - crown sale was advertised in game launcher, slide number four.

Padhraigh

Acrolas wrote: »

Padhraigh wrote: »

Was there any notification about this sale? If not - why wasn't there?

"ZeniMax reserves the right to change the price for any Purchased Virtual Currency or to bundle Purchased Virtual Currency in any amount with other Services or access to other Services at any time and without providing notice to You. You will have no right to a refund as a result of any change in the price or bundling at which Purchase Virtual Currency can be obtained, subject only to the Statutory Obligations (as defined in Section 1)." - TOS

Thank you. That paragraph is mainly to counter arguments of customers asking for refunds when lowering prices on items/crowns. If you think about it, it makes no sense wanting to prevent sales by not notifying customers, wouldn't you agree? That was pretty much the only point in my post (if any).

Leandor wrote: »

That said, I'd suggest that if you have to stay longer in Iran, you prepare beforehand (like now) with setting up an abroad account with a bit of money or with paysafe cards or some such form of pre-payment, to have the funds ready for the next sale. The crown sale this time was exceedingly long-term, I am used to those being in place for three days at most. This is most probably never sufficient to move the funds on demand.

Cheers, lesson learned. I remember all the rage about crown store messages in game (even that first day when it was delivered as a System Message across the screen), and I think the change was reasonable. I just find it odd that I got tje "buy one month - get one free" mail when cancelling sub, but nothing on crown sales.

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

Am I the only one with a crown sale banner in my launcher then.? Been there for a few days

estera wrote: »

Just FYI - crown sale was advertised in game launcher, slide number four.

That's what I meant with it probably being my fault. Never use launcher unless patch is out (which is not entirely uncommon), so I wouldn't have seen the banners... woe is me. [insert sad, unchanged, smiley face]

Mojmir

I just don't get this company.,do they actually know how to make money?
Don't advertise a sale
Overprice crown store items
Very few perks for subbing
Post on Facebook and never reply to questions asked in the comments section.
Post a thread asking for feedback,then ignore the thread unless it's easy answers.
Host an eso live episode and only answer the easy questions.
make it really difficult to talk to an actual person in regards to customer support.

"Scratches head and is not a khajit with fleas"

MornaBaine

As often as I'm on the forums, it's easy to just click on the Store link above and check, which I probably do a couple times a week. I'm not sure what the "purpose" of never announcing a crown sale is. Since having a sale is generally done to promote a quick cash infusion as well as generate good will among customers most businesses DO advertise them. But then it seems that the entirety of ZOS sales philosophy utterly eludes me.