Alfiq Banker and Merchant

Freddycruz89

Does anyone know if the storage cap remains 480? Or do the kitties bring their own separate storage from the original Banker, raising the combined available banking space to 960?

Now that would make me cough up 5k crowns again. Also, looks like the new kitties wont be able to access guild bank or repair armor still 😢

Tan9oSuccka

5K each. No upgrade discount huh?

I’ll have to pass, unfortunately.

Acrolas

Freddycruz89 wrote: »

Does anyone know if the storage cap remains 480?

Banker assistants do not provide additional storage slots.

Jaraal

Uryel wrote: »

So, alfiqs will be a welcome change, as the lore clearly states that alfiqs are very smart but cannot talk at all.

*plays Elsweyr a bit*

Oh well, so much for that. One more lore point that was gutted by the Rule of Cool.

Dammit.

You misspelled "Rule of Profit." 😉

Hopefully they'll send us regular in-game updates on the Lore of the Month, so we can keep track. Hard to remember all the changes.

Goregrinder

Glurin wrote: »

kathandira wrote: »

ArvenAldmeri wrote: »

who needs 2 merchants or 2 bankers who do the same thing?

Who needs two mounts which do the same thing? The function remains, but the appearance is different. This can be said for many things in this game.

Mounts generally don't cost $50 worth of crowns.

Porting to a town and heading to the bank also doesn't cost $50 worth of crowns.

cheifsoap

Its really bad form not giving those who have already gotten them, an upgrade path. I mostly get everything ZOS and crew do in regards to this game, but this is disappointing.

Aznarb

cheifsoap wrote: »

Its really bad form not giving those who have already gotten them, an upgrade path. I mostly get everything ZOS and crew do in regards to this game, but this is disappointing.

I know how you feel, but have you play other mmorpg ? It's the same.
If you buy a thing who do X and later they release a better looking/more efficient, you're f.
But that how most mmorpg make money, releasing more and more appealing content.

The good solution would be to release skin for banker/merchant instead of new one. But dunno if it's possible with the different hitbox size, I'm not competent enough to know that..

so for TD:LR : it's frustrating, but nothing shock me.

MasterSpatula

Well, they've made the despicable and foolish decision.

I guess, given the choice between "showing the customer some loyalty" and "turning down money," they made the decision they found less burdensome.

Since this is a decision I cannot give an iota of respect, I certainly wish it were more surprising. But it's not.

vivisectvib16_ESO

richo262 wrote: »

I'd be fine with the first banker / merch is 5000 crowns (1500 for skin 3500 for function) and every skin after that was 1500.

That is still the price of a DLC dungeon pack .

Seriously, this is how it should've been, with an upgrade path...

That a banker and merchant assistant EACH cost over 3x as much as a DLC dungeon pack is just beyond insane.

ChimeraDeux

Well, I'm disappointed. After 3 years, I finally broke down and bought the banker on Saturday evening. Now ZOS released an Alfiq banker. Oh well, caveat emptor.

Acrolas

Jaraal wrote: »

Hopefully they'll send us regular in-game updates on the Lore of the Month, so we can keep track. Hard to remember all the changes.

The Alfiq "not made to speak your language" originated outside any Elder Scrolls product.
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/interviews-3-booksellers
So it's an official source but not a binding source. Fantasy is full of retroactive continuity. Something said nearly 20 years ago in an expanded context might not be the direction a developer ultimately wants to take.

If in 5 or 10 years, somebody at Bethesda or another licensed company wants approval to completely disregard or retcon anything written by Lawrence or Leamon in an ESO web article, they can go that route. I'm sure there was a lengthy internal discussion about whether to keep the original Booksellers interpretation or to give Alfiq game dialogue.

It does seem the direction to change led to a more interesting result.

Stonegrave

So I guess I will be rooting for ZOS to continue releasing new assistants -- including some as radiant apex crate rewards -- so that they end up with everybody mad at them.

• Goblins for sure, for people who want to get the evil slavemaster vibe going in their homes.
• Clockwork fabricants.
• Daedra (female Seducer as one of them)
• Undead (like the skeleton merchant from the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary; a ghost would be cool too)
• Imperials (purchase restricted to Former Emperors and Grand Overlords)

Osteos

I have the original merchant and just bought the kitty banker. Now I have both assistants and finally a banker.for my house.

WeerW3ir

huntgod_ESO

ChimeraDeux wrote: »

Well, I'm disappointed. After 3 years, I finally broke down and bought the banker on Saturday evening. Now ZOS released an Alfiq banker. Oh well, caveat emptor.

If you really did do this, I would suggest putting in a CS ticket and seeing if they will swap them for you, it's worth a shot.

Uryel

Aznarb wrote: »

I know how you feel, but have you play other mmorpg ? It's the same.
If you buy a thing who do X and later they release a better looking/more efficient, you're f.
But that how most mmorpg make money, releasing more and more appealing content.

While this is true, it doesn't mean that everything has to be a rip off.

I won't complain about the cats. Sure, I posted a somewhat humourous "they f*cked up tyhe lore again" thing earlier, but I have a perfectly fine banker and a perfectly fine merchant, and won't complain one bit thhat if I want them tyo be cats I need to pay full price. I simply don't care enough. I do understaznd that others may care about it enough to find that infuriating. I have my pet peeve, and I'll talk about it below.

Generally speaking, prices in the crown store are crazy. Everything is marketed for US income, even though the game has a worldwide audience. You can't expect to price things for the richest country in the world and expect everyone to buy at that price without blinking. And I'm not talking "dirt poor" countries here. Take the european union, you can easily have countries with average income that rivals that of the USa, and countries with 1/3 of that.

But poverty isn't how much you don't earn, it's how much important things you can't afford. In most developped but not that rich countries, prices are generally aligned to average income. Heck, the same freaking yoghurt is 5 times cheaper in Czech Republic than in France. If you eran three times less, but average prices are three times lower, you're not poor. Until you want to buy something online that is marketed for the USA.

And that's where most MMO are clever. Many will have a very wide range of prices for their ingame products, or simply will have target prices that are quite low. Rich countris will afford them by the crate, not so rich will afford some. In the end everyone wins, since the volume of sales increases and makes the company happy too, and digital products have no replication costs. The only thing lost in the process is the feeling that you own some luxury item.

Once again I'll mention my pet peeve, the outfit slots. 1500 crowns at full price for one slot, character only, is armed robbery. I could afford that. I could afford that several times. But I won't, because the perception I have of the upgrade value doesn't match the price. As a comparison, I'll use Champions Online. It's a super hero MMO, so there, looks are utterly important. A super hero has to be highly recognizable, highly customisable, and as the players are fickle, highly easy-to-change-into-a-new-cotume-without-losing-the-other-one-able. In Champions Online, outfit slots are solt per character too. But you buy TWO of them for the equivalent of 150 crowns. That effectively makes the cost TWENTY times lower than in ESO. No need to say that, there, I spent money on outfit slots. Probably more than the equivalent of 3000 crowns, actually.

ZOS has no sense of percieved value. The lose some potential income by sheer greed. When a product has no manufacturing cost (or rather, it has a manufacturingg cost for the first one, as in work hours for the artists and / or programmers are not free, but no replication cost once it is designed), there really is no reason to sell it high. The cost can easily be covered by the amount of sales alone. Heck, that would even be MORE profitable, as people who could afford it but won't because they feel it's not worth it would acually buy. Unless they intentionaly want to make us feel like we own something special, which shouldn't work on anyone remotely clever, that pricing strategy makes no sense.

And it's the same with the assistants. If they had been, say, 2000 crowns each from the start, everyone and their cousin would have bought them. I only bought mines when they were on sale, and even then I felt dirty to spend that much on so little a thing.

Uryel

Acrolas wrote: »

The Alfiq "not made to speak your language" originated outside any Elder Scrolls product.
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/interviews-3-booksellers
So it's an official source but not a binding source. Fantasy is full of retroactive continuity. Something said nearly 20 years ago in an expanded context might not be the direction a developer ultimately wants to take.

If in 5 or 10 years, somebody at Bethesda or another licensed company wants approval to completely disregard or retcon anything written by Lawrence or Leamon in an ESO web article, they can go that route. I'm sure there was a lengthy internal discussion about whether to keep the original Booksellers interpretation or to give Alfiq game dialogue.

It does seem the direction to change led to a more interesting result.

Yeah, that's also the excuse they have used to forcefully rip stealth out of the Bosmers ; to make Altmers regenerate their lowest ressource pool, generally stamina, with a thing called SPELL recharge ; to give Nightblades a tanking ability as their top assassination skill ; to remove poison resistance from Argonians even though it is stated over and over as integral to their race in dialogues in this very game ; to bring back dragons for no reason but "they're cool" even though in a thousand years from now, in Skyrim, everyone think they are a legend because no one has seen any in well over a thousand years... And soon it might very well be the excuse to introduce flying mounts, have Akatosh as a world boss, make Redguards "famous" necromancers and wizards, or anything, really.

Jaimeh

I was really disppointed at the lack of discount for those who already own assistants. The only silver lining is that they are not time limited items, so eventually I'll save up to get them with gold, even if it will take a while.

Aimora

I am optimistic that eventually they will offer an upgrade option when current owners don’t buy into the double dipping:)

Wildberryjack

5k each, I already have the banker and merchant. Hard pass. Disappointing. I prefer the kitties. Oh well.

Verbal_Earthworm

I bought the kitty banker to replace old baldy.

I dont regret it.

Stonegrave

Aimora wrote: »

I am optimistic that eventually they will offer an upgrade option when current owners don’t buy into the double dipping:)

Problem is, what happens to the people who did buy both styles? ZOS will refund crowns for player or technical error, but refunding crowns because tens of thousands of players feel ripped off seems dubious. I mean, when they go on sale for 3,500 ZOS is not going to refund the people who spent 5,000 crowns apiece on them.

So is it going to be "You should have waited. Better luck next time!" when they release the different assistant appearances as discounted upgrades? I'm on the side that would benefit from that, but if you were on the other side, you'd be right for being mad. At this point, the upgrade solution is not really better... it just shifts the anger to a different set of players. If they were going to "fix" this, it needed to be done before they hit the store.

Aurielle

Verbal_Earthworm wrote: »

I bought the kitty banker to replace old baldy.

I dont regret it.

Ditto. I don’t mind Nuzhimeh, but Tythis was the worst. Also, Ezabi looks just like one of my RL alfiqs.

Shawn_PT

This was fully predictable and just as disappointing. They're made to convince new players who don't have the original ones or those still on the fence to go and buy them. As a 110% cat person I would absolutely want to have these. But are they worth paying the FULL price for what is essentially a reskin of something I already have? No.

If they were offered as a reskin/large discount to those who already have the base ones, I'd drop crowns on them. This way? Pass.

GoodFella146

Furry kitty!!

Mitrenga

5000 crowns apiece? My gf's RL cat costed less and she provides constant meows and further cat feels 7/24.
I'll pass.

SydneyGrey

Aurielle wrote: »

Ditto. I don’t mind Nuzhimeh, but Tythis was the worst. Also, Ezabi looks just like one of my RL alfiqs.

I'm the opposite. I like Tythis and hate Nuz. I might be the only person in the entire game who likes Tythis. LOL.

Gundug

ZOS has another think coming if they expect me to buy these new assistants for my two older accounts to replace the old versions. That’s just stupid. I have two newer accounts that have no assistants yet. JOKE’S ON YOU ZOS!

Sylvermynx

Gundug wrote: »

ZOS has another think coming if they expect me to buy these new assistants for my two older accounts to replace the old versions. That’s just stupid. I have two newer accounts that have no assistants yet. JOKE’S ON YOU ZOS!

Heh. Yep. My situation. Buying an Alfiq banker for each, no real need for a merchant.

max_only

All the new people who signed up for Elsweyr excited for talking cats with funny accents will make up for any revenue you perceive they will loose from people who already had a banker/merchant. I’ve accepted long ago that companies don’t do snip for people they already have, it’s the people they don’t have on the hook yet that they cater to. There was a spike in new sign ups for furry & dragon land, best believe there are a bunch of people ready to buy the cat banker/merchant.