WHY PAY INSTEAD OF PLAY??

Shadowshire

By now, I suppose that the majority of The Elder Scrolls Online players have had this marketing announcement demand their time and attention:

Purchase Skyshards Achievements

In my experience, if a course of play in The Elder Scrolls Online is so boring that it does not bear repeating at least two or three times, then it was not all that much fun the first time. So, why would I want to throw good money after bad? IMHO, on the face of it, ZOS should not be rewarded for producing a boring game, especially by exchanging Crowns for Skill Points.

_______________ CAVEAT EMPTOR _______________

ZOS/Bethesda do not guarantee that any Achievement which is recorded for a character, regardless of why it was recorded, will continue to be recorded -- thus continue to provide benefits (such as Titles and/or purchasing from an Achievement Furnishings NPC vendor) to the player's character -- indefinitely.

After a character's record(s) become corrupted, ZOS Support will neither do anything to rectify the situation and/or any consequences resulting from it, nor compensate the player in any way for the damage.

_____________________________________________

Which is to say that it remains to be seen whether:

1. After an Achievement awarded during the course of play is recorded for a character, and the player purchases the same Achievement for another character, then
2. Perchance the record for the character which was awarded the Achievement during the course of play subsequently becomes corrupt, then
   • Will that corruption invalidate the Achievement for any other character(s) for which that Achievement was purchased?
   • Can the player still purchase the Achievement to restore the corrupted record for the character with which it was earned during the course of play? If so, then will that be effected free of cost to the player?

Frankly, in my experience, especially since the hurried and botched revision of the game design and its software for "One Tamriel":

• ZOS developers often do not change the gameware source code -- or introduce a new feature (whether flawed in design) -- without also breaking some other feature or function of it which was previously working as designed.
• Nor can they produce a new DLC or Chapter that does not contain any significant design flaw(s) and/or implementation "bugs" in the software algorithims. Whether they will eventually correct any flaws or errors is at their discretion.

We must realize that there is neither any assurance as to the quality of any of the game software, nor of the performance of the megaserver system and hardware on which the game software executes. Apparently, quality assurance and having satisfied customers are not Zenimax/Bethesda concerns and certainly not priorities.

In conclusion, before we pay instead of play, we should ask ourselves whether it is justifiable to throw good money after bad. Are we playing The Elder Scrolls Online because spending real currency to purchase Chapters and to buy Crowns to spend in the Crown Store is -- in and of itself -- a major thrill? Only a marketing company would believe that, or so it seems to me.

Elwendryll

Nani?

Coatmagic

This thought crossed my mind as well...

only do achievs on one character; really wouldn't matter to me whether or not the alts achievs got corrupted in some way (wouldn't buy unlocks for alts anyhow, they can get their own damn skill points!)...

but, if I were to say.. level a new char in pvp specifically to get all the cyro shards so that I could then buy them for my main (who is only missing a few but that's beside the point) and her achiev got corrupted...

then, ya, I'd be furious... and, won't be bothering because I don't trust the code either xD

Rawkan

Because some people just want to be outraged. Outrage addiction is a real thing.

Androconium

Rawkan wrote: »

Because some people just want need to be outraged. Outrage addiction is a real thing.

the difference is a subtle one

Noctus

im on my 15th character pls dont let me do this again i never played any game 15 times through. after the first 3 characters u rly dont wanna see it all again and choose just to do the fun parts and quests u liked.

sevomd69

Actually... you're paying to play the parts of the game you want to and not wasting your time... grinding for sky shards that you had to have done previously to be able to pay for the sky shards...

JKorr

Buy anything. Item breaks. Even with a warranty, there is no absolute guarantee that the company will repair or replace it. I'm not noticing that much of a difference. There isn't exactly a guarantee they'll fix the achievements on a character that actually ran around to find them "in person" if something glitches. :shrug:

Androconium

Shadowshire wrote: »

By now, I suppose that the majority of The Elder Scrolls Online players have had this marketing announcement demand their time and attention:

Purchase Skyshards Achievements

In my experience, if a course of play in The Elder Scrolls Online is so boring that it does not bear repeating at least two or three times, then it was not all that much fun the first time. So, why would I want to throw good money after bad? IMHO, on the face of it, ZOS should not be rewarded for producing a boring game, especially by exchanging Crowns for Skill Points.

_______________ CAVEAT EMPTOR _______________

ZOS/Bethesda do not guarantee that any Achievement which is recorded for a character, regardless of why it was recorded, will continue to be recorded -- thus continue to provide benefits (such as Titles and/or purchasing from an Achievement Furnishings NPC vendor) to the player's character -- indefinitely.

After a character's record(s) become corrupted, ZOS Support will neither do anything to rectify the situation and/or any consequences resulting from it, nor compensate the player in any way for the damage.

_____________________________________________

Which is to say that it remains to be seen whether:

1. After an Achievement awarded during the course of play is recorded for a character, and the player purchases the same Achievement for another character, then
2. Perchance the record for the character which was awarded the Achievement during the course of play subsequently becomes corrupt, then
   • Will that corruption invalidate the Achievement for any other character(s) for which that Achievement was purchased?
   • Can the player still purchase the Achievement to restore the corrupted record for the character with which it was earned during the course of play? If so, then will that be effected free of cost to the player?

Frankly, in my experience, especially since the hurried and botched revision of the game design and its software for "One Tamriel":

• ZOS developers often do not change the gameware source code -- or introduce a new feature (whether flawed in design) -- without also breaking some other feature or function of it which was previously working as designed.
• Nor can they produce a new DLC or Chapter that does not contain any significant design flaw(s) and/or implementation "bugs" in the software algorithims. Whether they will eventually correct any flaws or errors is at their discretion.

We must realize that there is neither any assurance as to the quality of any of the game software, nor of the performance of the megaserver system and hardware on which the game software executes. Apparently, quality assurance and having satisfied customers are not Zenimax/Bethesda concerns and certainly not priorities.

In conclusion, before we pay instead of play, we should ask ourselves whether it is justifiable to throw good money after bad. Are we playing The Elder Scrolls Online because spending real currency to purchase Chapters and to buy Crowns to spend in the Crown Store is -- in and of itself -- a major thrill? Only a marketing company would believe that, or so it seems to me.

Some folks say they wanted it.
They also said that they'd pay for it.

My observation is that they wanted to do this on a new character, after ZOS nerfed the racial passives on their last character.

What remains to be seen is if they'll pay twice, after ZOS does yet another round of 'ethnic cleansing'.

No wonder people are addicted to outrage; it's cheap and freely available.

VaranisArano

Is this "achievement corruption" an actual issue or just speculation?

In any case, purchasing skyshards is mostly for people who want to rush to end-game PVE or PVP without spending more time than they have to doing the old dolmen-runs and finding skyshards. They want to play a specific part of the game, and are willing to pay to get there faster.

I can relate, a bit. At one point, I bought mount speed lessons to raise my new Warden's mount speed to 60 so I could keep up with my PVP raid instead of enduring a month of falling behind, being last, and getting ganked. I paid for the convenience of not waiting to play a part of the game I enjoyed.

I don't intend to buy skyshards, and I'm not really in favor of paying to skip playing the game. But I do understand why some people might pay - to get to the parts of the game they enjoy, faster.

srfrogg23

An over abundance of money and a lack of desire to repeat content turns out to be fairly lucrative for product sellers.

As for the pricing: Zos doesn't want people to skip the process of progression, but if it's going to happen, then they might as well gouge people with a Lazy Tax, am I right? That's what I would do.

Uviryth

If people want to pay a buttload of RealLife-Cash for something you essentially do while leveling, then go ahead.
It doesnt affect me since its not pay to win.
Pay to Cut Corners is exactly the way to go in a Cash Shop.
It would be different if the nerfed the way you can aquire SkyShards ingame somehow. THAT would be P2W then.

AcadianPaladin

I'm not interested or impressed with how a developer thinks I should play their game. I'm even less interested or impressed with how other players think I should play a game. The key is buying skyshards is optional and I think I'm in a better position to make decisions for my characters than some developer or other player, thank you very much.

I have no intent to buy any skyshards since I enjoy farming them and the number of characters I maintain is less than my number of fingers. That said, I don't begrudge others who may want to buy skyshards.

Banana

I dont have the game time anymore. Skill lines next please

Mr_Walker

Why concern yourself with what other people do?

Smasherx74

Let's not forget ZOS actually charges for Vampire and Werewolf bites in the Crownstore. That kind of sale specifically targets new players who don't realize you can easily get a free bite from another player. Adding the ability to buy skyshards just adds to these money grabbing tactics committed by ZOS. I'm not going to complain since I've bought like every costume sold in the game since launch, but I still think they should give us more weapon styles with special effects tbh.

Turelus

Different people have different amounts of free time and disposable income, each person will view and approach the Skyshard unlocks in different ways.

I have the free time to farm all my Skyshards on each character. However I have a friend who works away from home for weeks at a time and only has time to play between work, which means if they were to harvest all the SP they would be wasting time they could be playing fun content.

Androconium

VaranisArano wrote: »

Is this "achievement corruption" an actual issue or just speculation?

In any case, purchasing skyshards is mostly for people who want to rush to end-game PVE or PVP without spending more time than they have to doing the old dolmen-runs and finding skyshards. They want to play a specific part of the game, and are willing to pay to get there faster.

I can relate, a bit. At one point, I bought mount speed lessons to raise my new Warden's mount speed to 60 so I could keep up with my PVP raid instead of enduring a month of falling behind, being last, and getting ganked. I paid for the convenience of not waiting to play a part of the game I enjoyed.

I don't intend to buy skyshards, and I'm not really in favor of paying to skip playing the game. But I do understand why some people might pay - to get to the parts of the game they enjoy, faster.

The issue was raised and debated within the context of the game's fora.
ZOS have responded with their version of the solution.
Players are (still) free to choose their own poison, if that's what they want.

DeadlyRecluse

Some people don't consider beelining from point to point "playing." They might consider it prepwork for playing, at most.

There's really no need for this issue to be controversial. if you don't want the skyshards, don't buy them, but acting like skipping a zone or two of skyshards because you want to get to PvP/Trials/Dungeons/whatever faster isn't "paying instead of playing," it's "paying to play faster."

Different strokes and all that.

I bought craglorn skyshards on 2 new necromancers, because as an adult with a job and lots of time commitments, the convenience of 6 skill points on a fresh toon outweighed the 15 minutes of work it took to "earn" the crowns. I won't buy any more, because I do occasionally enjoy questing and wandering around, so I'll get plenty that way.

sevomd69

Smasherx74 wrote: »

Let's not forget ZOS actually charges for Vampire and Werewolf bites in the Crownstore. That kind of sale specifically targets new players who don't realize you can easily get a free bite from another player. Adding the ability to buy skyshards just adds to these money grabbing tactics committed by ZOS. I'm not going to complain since I've bought like every costume sold in the game since launch, but I still think they should give us more weapon styles with special effects tbh.

How can it be targeting new players when you need to have found the sky shards on another toon to be able to buy them? New players wouldn't be able to buy any of the sky shard packs...so try again...

DaveMoeDee

Pay or "play"?

The word "play" may not be the best word for collecting shards for the 18th time. Or unlocking Psijic skills the 18th time. We use the word "play" because this is a game, but it feel as much like play as washing your basketball clothes by hand so you have something to wear to play again tomorrow. I say this as someone who lived in a developing nation for a decade and had to do this exact thing. Eventually, I paid someone else to hand wash my clothing.

Acrolas

If I don't want to spend a few hours farming shards, having the option to bypass that farm is a convenience that I have to weigh. Might be worth it, might not. Shards cannot be gifted so it's going to be an individual's call whether to spend the crowns.

Smasherx74 wrote: »

Let's not forget ZOS actually charges for Vampire and Werewolf bites in the Crownstore. That kind of sale specifically targets new players who don't realize you can easily get a free bite from another player.

Crown store skill lines target people who want to acquire or remove those skill lines but are currently engaged in certain types of content that prohibit them from conveniently acquiring or removing them. Highly situational but available as a bypass option if the need ever exists for it.

No need to manufacture hypothetical victims.

Billdor

Shadowshire wrote: »

By now, I suppose that the majority of The Elder Scrolls Online players have had this marketing announcement demand their time and attention:

Purchase Skyshards Achievements

In my experience, if a course of play in The Elder Scrolls Online is so boring that it does not bear repeating at least two or three times, then it was not all that much fun the first time. So, why would I want to throw good money after bad? IMHO, on the face of it, ZOS should not be rewarded for producing a boring game, especially by exchanging Crowns for Skill Points.

_______________ CAVEAT EMPTOR _______________

ZOS/Bethesda do not guarantee that any Achievement which is recorded for a character, regardless of why it was recorded, will continue to be recorded -- thus continue to provide benefits (such as Titles and/or purchasing from an Achievement Furnishings NPC vendor) to the player's character -- indefinitely.

After a character's record(s) become corrupted, ZOS Support will neither do anything to rectify the situation and/or any consequences resulting from it, nor compensate the player in any way for the damage.

_____________________________________________

Which is to say that it remains to be seen whether:

1. After an Achievement awarded during the course of play is recorded for a character, and the player purchases the same Achievement for another character, then
2. Perchance the record for the character which was awarded the Achievement during the course of play subsequently becomes corrupt, then
   • Will that corruption invalidate the Achievement for any other character(s) for which that Achievement was purchased?
   • Can the player still purchase the Achievement to restore the corrupted record for the character with which it was earned during the course of play? If so, then will that be effected free of cost to the player?

Frankly, in my experience, especially since the hurried and botched revision of the game design and its software for "One Tamriel":

• ZOS developers often do not change the gameware source code -- or introduce a new feature (whether flawed in design) -- without also breaking some other feature or function of it which was previously working as designed.
• Nor can they produce a new DLC or Chapter that does not contain any significant design flaw(s) and/or implementation "bugs" in the software algorithims. Whether they will eventually correct any flaws or errors is at their discretion.

We must realize that there is neither any assurance as to the quality of any of the game software, nor of the performance of the megaserver system and hardware on which the game software executes. Apparently, quality assurance and having satisfied customers are not Zenimax/Bethesda concerns and certainly not priorities.

In conclusion, before we pay instead of play, we should ask ourselves whether it is justifiable to throw good money after bad. Are we playing The Elder Scrolls Online because spending real currency to purchase Chapters and to buy Crowns to spend in the Crown Store is -- in and of itself -- a major thrill? Only a marketing company would believe that, or so it seems to me.

What people do is irelevant to you, mind your own business and stop being pedantic.

Shadowshire

Billdor wrote: »

...
What people do is irelevant to you, mind your own business and stop being pedantic.

LOL!

What people do is almost always relevant to me, in some way or another. What I do is almost always relevant to someone else, somewhere, whether either of us knows it. What you fear is that I might not like what you do that is, indeed, relevant to me.

I am not telling you what to do, so don't tell me what to do, either.

Shadowshire

VaranisArano wrote: »

Is this "achievement corruption" an actual issue or just speculation?
....

Corruption of player-character records is definitely an actual issue with regard to the game software, developed and sold by ZOS, and with regard to Bethesda's megaserver hardware and system software which make the game available to play.

There have been recurring posts in the Bug Report Forum, and in the respective Technical Support forums for the platforms, about losing access to Homesteads; bank account Gold Pieces missing; items stored in the Bank disappearing; items in a character's Bags disappearing; crafting motifs fully learned reverting to the character not knowing all of the "chapters"; and Achievements of various kinds suddenly reverting to their original "not done yet" status.

It seems that if any part of a player character's records can become corrupt, then at some time or another, it has happened to at least one player during the past four years. It will continue to happen going forward. Sometimes the ZOS developers do find and correct the cause of some type of record corruption. In my experience, though, corrupted records usually remain corrupted regardless. Fixing a bug might stop it from continuing to affect players in the future, but ZOS is well known to release buggy software -- if only because their development processs is dominated by a financial plan.

The general rule of thumb with regard to software bugs is that for each user who reports a bug, there are nine more who have encountered the bug, but do not know how to report it, or don't want to spend the time and effort to report it. Many friends I have made while playing TESO no longer play it. At least three have told me that corruption of the records for their characters was the reason that they chose to quit. One quit because the records for their game account became corrupted, and ZOS did not rectify the situation to enable them to log-in to play.

So what we discover in the Bug Report Forum and other such forums is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Gnozo

Hm, how does it effect you in your personal game expierience when someone you dont know buys skyshards? I am really curious.

BlueRaven

Smasherx74 wrote: »

Let's not forget ZOS actually charges for Vampire and Werewolf bites in the Crownstore. That kind of sale specifically targets new players who don't realize you can easily get a free bite from another player. Adding the ability to buy skyshards just adds to these money grabbing tactics committed by ZOS. I'm not going to complain since I've bought like every costume sold in the game since launch, but I still think they should give us more weapon styles with special effects tbh.

Except a new player can’t buy skyshards. Maybe they should make it that a new player can’t buy the bites either.

phaneub17_ESO

I hate PvP and will never step foot into Cyrodiil again. I'm glad I got the Skyshards from earlier days and can now share that with my alts, who I have no intentions of going into it. It's 15 skill points without having to run across the entirety of the map repeatedly with each new character for the cost of a month and a half subscription return in crowns. I'm okay with everywhere else, the only Sky Shards I will probably never get are in the Imperial City DLC.

ArchMikem

Youre telling me, that me buying Elsweyr is a bad thing, because im funding, in your opinion, a bad game?

Okay. You can have that opinion. But your opinion doesnt speak for me. At all.

Whatsoever actually.

Tigerseye

I guess you would pay for this if you really wanted a viable alt class, for high end content, but really didn't want to have to do skyshards again, or just didn't have time.

If it's something you really want, but hate doing more than you hate doing your job and doing your job pays much better, why wouldn't you consider paying to skip it?

The problem with all this, however, is where is the incentive to make content enjoyable, even when repeated, if the money lies in making it so unbearable people pay to skip it?

All you can hope is that they won't want to make it so horrible that new players will leave...

sevomd69

Gnozo wrote: »

Hm, how does it effect you in your personal game expierience when someone you dont know buys skyshards? I am really curious.

OP wouldn't even know if the other player had bought sky shards or not...