The Tale of 1000 Crates and the Missing Plague Husk Horse

Ulfgarde

vamp_emily wrote: »

That is just crazy, buying 1000 crates to get a mount. I really wish some kind of origination would look into this kind of trashy scram that gaming companies are doing.

If i had that kind of money to throw away I would have just bought stock in amazon or google and let it ride.

I personally didn't even care about the free crates during the last event. I ended up getting 2 because I killed 2 trial bosses other than that I just played PvP.

Aw man. I can't believe how corporations are scamming people splurging out on Internet horses. What evil.

What?

Leogon

1130ish crates?!

FearlessOne_2014

I swear LMAO you can't make this stuff up. Lol, and I thought I spent quite a bit on the crown crates. But nahhhh.... You had too just take it to the absolute extreme. Then had the nerve to explain your discontent from this ordeal on these forums. And then expected people not to laugh and troll you.

I mean what!? Over 1000 crown crates.. Please help me, I just can't stop laughing! I really do hope you are just lying and trolling us. Because if you really actually did this. I highly recommend you seek professional help. Because even for billionaires these things are just not normal, or healthy.

SlayerSyrena

If I bought over 1000 crates I would -at least- hope to get this very rare mount to show others how much I support his game.



I would ride it everywhere and give zero care to what others would think.

ForMalacath

Well, at least in the next crown crate season you'll more than likely have enough gems to buy everything ('cept the crate exclusives obviously)

Alexandrious

Peekachu99 wrote: »

1130ish, actually, give or take a few. The dollar cost can be reasonably extracted from that data, though I had 30K crowns left over from the sale.

Before the usual guffaws and ridicule, a couple of things to note: I had a surplus of disposable income from my tax returns, I am generally in a healthy financial position, I regularly contribute to charities and lend my time at a soup kitchen on Christmas (though in all honesty missed last year), and I am aware of the perils and payouts of gambling (which these crates are and should therefor be subject to the same laws as are found in China now).

Anyway, I had the money and my life-commitments were all taken care of (home, family, food and shelter), so I decided to go full Moby *** and grab that elusive "rare" apex mount: the Plague Husk Horse. Needless to say, I acquired every single item on the list but that mount. Do I find it strange that a number of low CP players with gibberish names were running around the capital cities with their glowing ghastly mount on the free crate day? Indeed, the cynic in me wonders what tactics are in play behind the scenes, and if/ how accounts are treated differently based on spending (spend less, here's a cool mount to incentivize you to spend more). The truth is, we really know nothing about how these crates work, and the crate-logger, while a great addon, doesn't factor in the unseen variables that can be adjusted upon a whim without our knowing.

Am I defeated? Not really, though I will never whale in this game or spend a cent on crates again, I can tell you that. Apparently my catastrophic unluckiness (and a missing crate, which just opened, hung the screen and gave me nothing) was worthy of further escalation and investigation by whatever team handles these things, though that email exchange was days ago and I haven't heard a peep from support since (nor do I expect to). The moral of the story, and what everyone should learn is that your chances of obtaining the super rare mounts are a.) entirely minuscule and random b.) influenced by factors outside your control.

You're better off taking your three free crates each season and being happy with what you're given. Crowns are certainly better spent on items you are guaranteed to receive. I guess the one positive is that I now have enough gems to purchase anything and everything I could ever want from the crates for the next two years or longer (no-chance-in-Hell mounts and glowing sweetrolls notwithstanding.)

And, importantly, I have a cautionary tale to share with the community.



P.S. I think that in moving forward, ZoS and the community should look toward the mechanisms present in most decent gatcha games: cost triggers whereby something rare is simply given; hugely expensive costs for the "rare" apex mounts, something. As it is the relationship between these crates and the consumer is hostile to toxic, and the general attitude toward them worsens each season, which in turn makes ZoS up the ante, perpetuating a cycle of repulsion. Warframe, GranBlue Fantasy, Overwatch...There are many examples of better cosmetic cash shop boxes to follow.

Zenimax: Thank-you for your contribution's towards Fallout Online!

/Golfclap

Rohamad_Ali

What I find odd is you claim to make a lot of money , give regularly to charity but recieved a healthy tax return . My donations just barely keep me from paying the middle tax bracket . You must have one hell of a CPA .

ThePrinceOfBargains

Peekachu99 wrote: »

TheMaster wrote: »

Here we go again; it’s always someone. Are you at least aware of how absurd it is for you to spend that much money gambling on microtransactions? Or are you delusional and think this is perfectly reasonable? I mean did you not see the topic from that other idiot that did this exact same thing for the Adamant Horse and didn’t get it? Those mounts are designed for you to not get them. At the very least, you managed to fill their quota of getting at least one person to do this every season.

How is this any more absurd than gambling at a casino? I’ve done that a couple of times and I go in with a set amount and no expectations of winning anything. Keep your value judgements and calling of people “idiots” to yourself. I’m not asking for pity, merely sharing my experience with the community.

Winning money vs winning microtransactions. You have a 100% chance of losing money with con crates, with an added high probably of not getting what you want. Gambling at a casino naturally isn’t “good,” but this is worse. And I wasn’t calling you an idiot, even though that may have been mistakenly implied. I call that other guy an idiot because he was blaming ZOS for “tricking” him into thinking he’d win. However, this decision? Incredibly dumb. Like I said, these crate exclusive mounts are designed for you to not get one. It’s an exploitative, disgusting system and I just don’t get why people continuously give ZOS more incentive to continue this atrocious business model.

Prof_Bawbag

Your cash and your time and effort that went into earning that cash, so you shouldn't really need to explain to me or anyone else what you do or don't do with both your time and cash. However, the way I look at ploughing ridiculous amounts into this game or any game, once the servers go down, the already worthless reskins will become even more worthless and anyone ploughing that cash in will have zero to show for it.

At least with other hobbies [Toy collecting, restoring cars, stamp collecting etc], you have something to show for it. Only you can decide to sell those items. Gaming, well, all this digital [snip] could be gone tomorrow if ZoS decided to pull the plug.

Someone will undoubtedly chip in with the usual pizzanomics analogies, or how much it costs to eat out in a restaurant or to socialize in general, but what they tend to omit from the cost of socialising is that socialising is usually required to sustain relationships with family or friends. I mean, I doff my cap to anyone in a very long term relationship that is solely based around staring at the same 4 walls for the next 20 or so years. A lot of the socialising can also help create memories.

[Edit to remove censor bypass.]

Peekachu99

@Rohamad_Ali

Two working professionals, no mortgage (denied ourselves every pleasure for 5 years to double up on payments), a carry over from tax sharing (in Canada, dead circa 2014). It’s not magic or a mystery.

But anyway, there are so many memes and value judgments in this thread that I’m going to leave it to the wolves now. We all get enjoyment from different things in life and it’s really no one else’s place to say what those things are so long as why’re not illegal or unethical (that could be debatable here). Peace and see y’all in Tamriel (not on a plague husk horse )

Runschei

I hope you are able to buy your beloved horse for crown gems?

Dragath

Peekachu99 wrote: »

1130ish, actually, give or take a few. The dollar cost can be reasonably extracted from that data, though I had 30K crowns left over from the sale.

Before the usual guffaws and ridicule, a couple of things to note: I had a surplus of disposable income from my tax returns, I am generally in a healthy financial position, I regularly contribute to charities and lend my time at a soup kitchen on Christmas (though in all honesty missed last year), and I am aware of the perils and payouts of gambling (which these crates are and should therefor be subject to the same laws as are found in China now).

Anyway, I had the money and my life-commitments were all taken care of (home, family, food and shelter), so I decided to go full Moby *** and grab that elusive "rare" apex mount: the Plague Husk Horse. Needless to say, I acquired every single item on the list but that mount. Do I find it strange that a number of low CP players with gibberish names were running around the capital cities with their glowing ghastly mount on the free crate day? Indeed, the cynic in me wonders what tactics are in play behind the scenes, and if/ how accounts are treated differently based on spending (spend less, here's a cool mount to incentivize you to spend more). The truth is, we really know nothing about how these crates work, and the crate-logger, while a great addon, doesn't factor in the unseen variables that can be adjusted upon a whim without our knowing.

Am I defeated? Not really, though I will never whale in this game or spend a cent on crates again, I can tell you that. Apparently my catastrophic unluckiness (and a missing crate, which just opened, hung the screen and gave me nothing) was worthy of further escalation and investigation by whatever team handles these things, though that email exchange was days ago and I haven't heard a peep from support since (nor do I expect to). The moral of the story, and what everyone should learn is that your chances of obtaining the super rare mounts are a.) entirely minuscule and random b.) influenced by factors outside your control.

You're better off taking your three free crates each season and being happy with what you're given. Crowns are certainly better spent on items you are guaranteed to receive. I guess the one positive is that I now have enough gems to purchase anything and everything I could ever want from the crates for the next two years or longer (no-chance-in-Hell mounts and glowing sweetrolls notwithstanding.)

And, importantly, I have a cautionary tale to share with the community.



P.S. I think that in moving forward, ZoS and the community should look toward the mechanisms present in most decent gatcha games: cost triggers whereby something rare is simply given; hugely expensive costs for the "rare" apex mounts, something. As it is the relationship between these crates and the consumer is hostile to toxic, and the general attitude toward them worsens each season, which in turn makes ZoS up the ante, perpetuating a cycle of repulsion. Warframe, GranBlue Fantasy, Overwatch...There are many examples of better cosmetic cash shop boxes to follow.

how many gems do you have now?
how many crates did it take, till you had basically everything except that mount?

EvilAutoTech

Why not an even 1500?

Phatmattfu

Working as intended.

Greasy !

Sibenice

I used to support the crates before they started the super rare mounts. Now I don't. You shouldn't be able to buy that many crates and still not have everything. It's absurd.

Plus there were actually more mounts in the crates in the lower gem sections before as well as more original costumes.

DarcyMardin

Wow. I can imagine spending the money, yeah, but not without a sure return. No judgment on crate-buyers, though.

Although I do buy useless digital objects with my monthly allotment of crowns — I bought that new pony pet today — I can’t bring myself to gamble on crates. I’m grateful to a lesson learned when I was seven years old and living in Worthing, England for a few months. I had 3 or 4 big round English pennies that I dropped into a rickety slot machine on the old Worthing pier (This was in 1955 and there was a post-WWII feel to the place). I won a few times and soon had 11 pennies. All I needed was to win once more and I’d have 12 pence—which was then a shilling! (In the old system of coinage). This seemed like a fortune...as I said, I was seven.

Of course, rather than winning, I lost every single one of my 11 pennies. My little heart was broken, but my lesson was learned. No gambling over the years and no crates for me.

Keldheir

How many crown gems did you get out of that?

Takes-No-Prisoner

Peekachu99 wrote: »

Two working professionals, no mortgage (denied ourselves every pleasure for 5 years to double up on payments), a carry over from tax sharing (in Canada, dead circa 2014). It’s not magic or a mystery.

Very impressive sir. I hope to accomplish those goals myself sometime in the next 10 years.

Myyth

SydneyGrey

I thought it was suspicious there were a large number of people getting the ultra-rare mounts in their free crates, but yeah ... now that people have to pay for the crates, the rare mounts suddenly seem to be missing. I think they manipulated those odds after the free crates were handed out. It's pretty disgusting, too, because giving people better chances of getting a virtual game file literally costs them nothing.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

by my calculation based on your statement "1130ish crates" you spent over 376k crowns!!!! WTF is wrong with you? that's an ungodly amount of "disposable income" that you disposed of in an insane way. Its your money so you can do whatever you like with it but I believe sheogorath is most certainly in possession of you my friends. Enjoy those gems though lol.

I really hope my math is wrong because that would mean you spent damn near $2700 dollars on crown crates. If that's the case, then that is the stupidest *** thing Ive ever heard or seen.

Wifeaggro13

its what happens when a game goes greed. put a bunch of elusive crap in game you cannot get by actually playing the game. in all honestly this buisness practice should be shut down as many people below 18 are gambling on this garbage. I dont play this game anymore, they ruined a beautiful MMO .

socivL

just curious - could i donate *** instead of money for loot crates - because i will be filthy 'crate' rich then.

olsborg

The morale of the story is, dont buy crown crates to get a specific rare thing.

I once bought 30 crates to get one of those rare drops, ofc I didnt get it. Then lateron in a different season I got a rare drop from the freely given crates.

DeathHouseInc

I spent hundred bucks on crates awhile ago and will never do so again. Seems the crates are intentionally useless and only implemented to target those with serious gambling/psychiatric issues.

beetleklee

I think the exclusive mounts are sleazy, but it looks like it's working as intended unfortunately. I was hoping eventually they'd make them purchasable with gems even if they were expensive, but I doubt it.

I thought I went overboard spending $75 on those con crates, but hey I love Halloween stuff. I got lucky and got most of what I wanted...the BA Motif, all the masks, Skeleton Horse and Frost Draugr Senche. I did want the Plague Horse the most, but I'm not willing to blow my rent money on trying to get it. I have a bit of wiggle room for disposable income but not THAT much.

The crown store stuff and the crates are pretty expensive in this game. Like $4 a pop and you're probably gonna get 3 crown poisons and a blue item that's a duplicate.

rhapsodious

SydneyGrey wrote: »

I thought it was suspicious there were a large number of people getting the ultra-rare mounts in their free crates, but yeah ... now that people have to pay for the crates, the rare mounts suddenly seem to be missing. I think they manipulated those odds after the free crates were handed out. It's pretty disgusting, too, because giving people better chances of getting a virtual game file literally costs them nothing.

To play devil's advocate, those were free crates, so significantly more people had access to them. So if 300k crates were opened and there was something like a .15% chance, that's still an average of about 450 apex mounts.

They could have still manipulated them, sure, but then you'd need to run a study on people's drops from free crates vs. ones bought with Crowns.

I think this is kind of a weak season, honestly, so I'm content not spending anything more.

beetleklee

I doubt the free ones were manipulated. Yeah I had a friend get the Plague Horse with a free one, but I know a LOT more people who got junk.

Motherball

Not even surprised. So glad I can learn from others’ mistakes. Thank you for paying for the continued development of the game.

reiverx wrote: »

Excluding items from being gem purchasable was a sleazy move by ZOS, but I think we're all mostly numb to their antics by now. They have no respect for their customers.

Games companies are exploiting the lack of up to date gambling laws in the industry.

Its almost like people have free will. A fool and his money and all that. Not saying I agree with shady business practices, but its also not like most people aren’t informed on what the likely odds are. If they dont care, why should I?

I do honestly believe the comapany would make more money (now) by offering the crate items for sale. I would buy $50 of stuff I actually want, but im not spending a penny on crates.

usmcjdking

ITT: Baby blogs first losing streak.