Crowns for Gold, Illegal?

Billdor

Before I go buy 21k Crowns, is gifting someone then charging X amount per Y crown illegal? (yes I am fully aware of the premise as I am a big WoW TCG dealer).

VaranisArano

According to here, it is allowed to trade Crown Gifts for gold: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/417563/major-update-zos-official-response-on-whether-trading-gold-for-crowns-crown-store-items-is-allowed/p1

However, the gifting system is well designed for gifts, and not well designed for trading or preventing scams. So if you get scammed, you'll have to discuss it with Support so make sure you are meticulous about screenshots of the agreement and so on.

I.E. ZOS' response is:
"However, keep in mind that the player market in The Elder Scrolls Online is a "buyer beware" market, and not every trader is trustworthy!

When engaging in a trade with a player, it is best to ensure that the agreement occurs within an in-game channel such as text chat. If the agreement occurs outside of the game, Customer Support is unable to properly investigate – and if we can’t investigate, we may not be able to help!

If you find yourself a victim of a trade scam and have taken the necessary precautions to protect yourself, Customer Support may be able to intervene and investigate a scam trade. Click on this article (https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6172 ) for further details."

DuskMarine

Billdor wrote: »

Before I go buy 21k Crowns, is gifting someone then charging X amount per Y crown illegal? (yes I am fully aware of the premise as I am a big WoW TCG dealer).

you can charge gold for crown store items according to gina.

Darkmage1337

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/417563/major-update-zos-official-response-on-whether-trading-gold-for-crowns-crown-store-items-is-allowed/p5 (At the bottom of Page 5 has @ZOS_GinaBruno's official response.)

EDIT: @VaranisArano beat me to the link by a minute!

Billdor

VaranisArano wrote: »

According to here, it is allowed to trade Crown Gifts for gold: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/417563/major-update-zos-official-response-on-whether-trading-gold-for-crowns-crown-store-items-is-allowed/p1

However, the gifting system is well designed for gifts, and not well designed for trading or preventing scams. So if you get scammed, you'll have to discuss it with Support so make sure you are meticulous about screenshots of the agreement and so on.

I.E. ZOS' response is:
"However, keep in mind that the player market in The Elder Scrolls Online is a "buyer beware" market, and not every trader is trustworthy!

When engaging in a trade with a player, it is best to ensure that the agreement occurs within an in-game channel such as text chat. If the agreement occurs outside of the game, Customer Support is unable to properly investigate – and if we can’t investigate, we may not be able to help!

If you find yourself a victim of a trade scam and have taken the necessary precautions to protect yourself, Customer Support may be able to intervene and investigate a scam trade. Click on this article (https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6172 ) for further details."

Cheers for the reply. I know about scamming, like I said I deal with TCG items in WoW (£200-£2,000) and its a trust game.

ecru

I think a lot of people don't immediately realize that part of the reason gifting is added into games like these is to curtail third party gold sales. Players who have real money can now give that money to ZOS for a different currency (crowns), which they can then use to sell items to players for gold.

I'd like to see ZOS take this one step further and add in a tradeable crown voucher. It would be a voucher for a set amount of crowns (500 or 1000 or whatever) that you would trade to another player for gold. This would prevent people from getting scammed when trading gold for crown items on either end of the transaction. You wouldn't have to find someone to gift you items anymore, you'd just buy the crown voucher with gold, consume it for the crowns, and then spend the crowns in the store.

Cpt_Teemo

ecru wrote: »

I think a lot of people don't immediately realize that part of the reason gifting is added into games like these is to curtail third party gold sales. Players who have real money can now give that money to ZOS for a different currency (crowns), which they can then use to sell items to players for gold.

I'd like to see ZOS take this one step further and add in a tradeable crown voucher. It would be a voucher for a set amount of crowns (500 or 1000 or whatever) that you would trade to another player for gold. This would prevent people from getting scammed when trading gold for crown items on either end of the transaction. You wouldn't have to find someone to gift you items anymore, you'd just buy the crown voucher with gold, consume it for the crowns, and then spend the crowns in the store.

If they wanted to get rid of the bots and gold spammers they would just allow everything on the crown store to be sellable in game by now since they added "Gifting" would cut back on all those scam tickets they could be working on more you know game content and fixes instead.

Also if they really wanted to drive the gold sellers away more make ESO tokens like WoW, 20$ puchase from someone buying the token then they sell in game for a min-max price which is set by the game and not the market just incase of people trying to scam. Allow the tokens to be used as 1.5k crowns or a 1 month sub without the 1.5k crowns.

Goddess_Althena

What's the crown to gold exchange rate going to be?

DanteYoda

Yes its fine.

Ankael07

How hard is it to go out there and ban gold farmer bots? Its not like the game is free to play. Worst case scenario they'll have to re-buy an account.

Sheezabeast

Goddess_Althena wrote: »

What's the crown to gold exchange rate going to be?

My trading guild, in their auction, sold a 4 pack of crown crates for a top bid of 600k, if that helps.

Goddess_Althena

Sheezabeast wrote: »

Goddess_Althena wrote: »

What's the crown to gold exchange rate going to be?

My trading guild, in their auction, sold a 4 pack of crown crates for a top bid of 600k, if that helps.

Hmm, it's an auction so prices are driven up that way but that still seems very high. If 5500 crowns is $40 that's just under $11 value for 1500 crowns. Comparing that to the value of 1,000,000 gold the equivalent value would come out to be in the neighborhood 150-210k.

Left4Daud

I saw someone in Craglorn offering crown gifts for gold. Apparently they sold a banker assistant (5k crowns) for 6mil gold, and a 3500 crown mount for 5mil gold.

Seemed like a rip off to me.

Peekachu99

200g/c and climbing. Based on demand. It’ll level out somewhere around 300-400g/c. You’ll see people saying they got stuff from a “guy” for 100g/c but then they hit you up a day later asking if you’ve got crowns (bsers).

Goddess_Althena

Saw purchases of the Tsaesci Crown motif (2200 crowns) for 250k and 300k today. Seems a reasonable assessment of value to me. I think in the neighborhood of 1000 crowns to 100-150k makes sense.

Peekachu99

Goddess_Althena wrote: »

Saw purchases of the Tsaesci Crown motif (2200 crowns) for 250k and 300k today. Seems a reasonable assessment of value to me. I think in the neighborhood of 1000 crowns to 100-150k makes sense.

No one is selling for 100-150. That’s absurd. Actual goldsellers don’t even do that.

Runs

Sounds like people are giving away their gold pretty cheap, when compared to notable house gold vs crown cost (~316 gold per crown)or to online gold sellers costs(50-65$ for 1m gold). I haven't checked the crown to gold cost from crown store exclusive motif style materials in a while so not sure what the going transfer rate there is.

Personally, I wouldn't mind buying some Mundus stones. I don't think I would buy crowns for any more than 250 gold per crown though. At least not till I see how much the market prices get inflated as what was hoarded gold starts being spent.

Dragonnord

Goddess_Althena wrote: »

Saw purchases of the Tsaesci Crown motif (2200 crowns) for 250k and 300k today. Seems a reasonable assessment of value to me. I think in the neighborhood of 1000 crowns to 100-150k makes sense.

1000 crowns for 100-150k? Now way! Too low imho.
 

Goddess_Althena

I can understand and/or respect that some people may not feel that 100-150k per 1000 crowns is a high enough value for their crowns, but the actual dollar value comparison is based on the gold value market price. Seems it makes sense to compare the actual dollar value of gold to the actual dollar value of crowns in order to get an idea of the gold:crown ratio. Anyone can just pick a number they like out of nowhere but that number will be based on nothing but personal opinion. It's a free market of course so everyone is at their leisure to offer something up for 800k, just don't be too surprised when the guy offering the same thing for 250k makes the trade.
Early days now anyhow, the market will settle on a more stable value as time passes.

Tandor

Bear in mind that if you sell crowns or crown store items for gold, and that gold has been bought illicitly then there is a risk that the gold trail may be followed by ZOS and the gold removed from the game.

griffkhalifa

Tandor wrote: »

Bear in mind that if you sell crowns or crown store items for gold, and that gold has been bought illicitly then there is a risk that the gold trail may be followed by ZOS and the gold removed from the game.

I highly doubt ZOS would take the gold away from innocent party rather than taking away whatever the person who illegally acquired the gold with purchased with it.

That's like saying if someone illegally buys gold from a 3rd party and uses that gold to purchase something from me I can have the gold taken away. How the hell am I supposed to know if they got the gold from questing or from purchasing it illegally.

Furthermore, why the hell would someone use real money to purchase gold, then use the gold to purchase crown store items (which cost real money). It seems it would be easier to just buy the crowns directly and not lose money in the exchange rate.

Tandor

griffkhalifa wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Bear in mind that if you sell crowns or crown store items for gold, and that gold has been bought illicitly then there is a risk that the gold trail may be followed by ZOS and the gold removed from the game.

I highly doubt ZOS would take the gold away from innocent party rather than taking away whatever the person who illegally acquired the gold with purchased with it.

That's like saying if someone illegally buys gold from a 3rd party and uses that gold to purchase something from me I can have the gold taken away. How the hell am I supposed to know if they got the gold from questing or from purchasing it illegally.

Furthermore, why the hell would someone use real money to purchase gold, then use the gold to purchase crown store items (which cost real money). It seems it would be easier to just buy the crowns directly and not lose money in the exchange rate.

I agree that it depends entirely on the relative exchange rates as to whether it's worthwhile to buy gold, but the problem of innocent players being caught up in gold trails isn't a new one in MMOs. It may only be a theoretical risk, but it's one that players should be aware of. The likelihood is that there will be a lot of gifting transactions ending in tears (and support tickets), not least because a lot of players don't understand the potential problems including not realising that there's nothing they can do with a gift that has been declined or otherwise returned other than try and gift it again.

Cpt_Teemo

Left4Daud wrote: »

I saw someone in Craglorn offering crown gifts for gold. Apparently they sold a banker assistant (5k crowns) for 6mil gold, and a 3500 crown mount for 5mil gold.

Seemed like a rip off to me.

I sold a 5k motif for 10m too, good prices

Tandor

It's all very well people buying crown items and selling them for millions of gold, but what on earth do they need the gold for, especially if they're already wealthy traders?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

I have seen a few people offering 500k for the 2200 crown motif in my guild trader. Not my thing, but admittedly, it was enough to make me think about it for a second. I might have done it for a cool million. Haha.

POps75p

i'm been doing it for guild members 5000 crowns for 500,000 gold

Soella

Tandor wrote: »

It's all very well people buying crown items and selling them for millions of gold, but what on earth do they need the gold for, especially if they're already wealthy traders?

I believe wealthy traders buy crown items, not sell them. Crown item sellers need gold, for example, to buy motives instead of wasting hours to farm them.

Prof_Bawbag

Runs wrote: »

Sounds like people are giving away their gold pretty cheap, when compared to notable house gold vs crown cost (~316 gold per crown)or to online gold sellers costs(50-65$ for 1m gold). I haven't checked the crown to gold cost from crown store exclusive motif style materials in a while so not sure what the going transfer rate there is.

Personally, I wouldn't mind buying some Mundus stones. I don't think I would buy crowns for any more than 250 gold per crown though. At least not till I see how much the market prices get inflated as what was hoarded gold starts being spent.

Imo, two different things. You're cutting out all middlemen and not using a credit card, using shifty af sites with God knows who at the other end etc etc. No sensitive personal information needs to be exchanged at all.

If i trade crowns with a friend, there is virtually no risk involved whatsoever. Also, housing is available in game for in game currency, the mounts and most other CS items aren't. You could have bought 20m gold, but that was never going to get you that mundas stone before gifting appeared. It's also win win for ZoS as more gold remains in game, out of the gold sellers hands, and they get their crown sales.

Ackwalan

There was a guy in zone chat the other day, that was running a raffle to 'gift' crown items. Not sure how much he was charging per raffle ticket or how much gold he made.

firedrgn

Well crud this explains the no sale on crowns
We will never see a good sale on crowns again.

CaiWenji

Be careful who you buy from. Last Sunday, someone was selling crowns for 250g per crown. I paid this person 125k for a 500 crown costume and never got it. They added me and grouped me for the transaction but deleted me shortly after taking my coins. Luckily I had screenshots showing everything but why I say be careful is because Customer Support can take awhile. I submitted my proof in screenshots about the incident on the Sunday right after it happened and Tuesday got this response saying:

"Greetings,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online customer support team!

Due to the launch of ESO: Summerset and the Bethesda E3 Showcase, we are currently experiencing higher than usual volume of support requests. We will get to your request in the order that it was received.
If your issue has not yet been resolved or addressed, please wait for assistance. If your issue has been resolved, please log into your account on the support page and close your ticket via the “My Support” page.

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Warm Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online"

So while I know they will help, I will now be more cautious on who I deal with. Probably just someone that has been in a friend or guildie for a long while.