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They’re not crown crates
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Glurin✭✭✭✭✭
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That's just one of many, many rotting carcasses of great franchises EA has left in it's wake. I still cringe every time I see references to the abomination that was Dungeon Keeper Mobile."He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you..."1 -
Cadbury✭✭✭✭✭
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Uhhhg. Dont try and drag me into the actual discussion please.
"If a person is truly desirous of something, perhaps being set on fire does not seem so bad."2 -
Zacuel✭✭✭✭✭
✭
Uhhhg. Dont try and drag me into the actual discussion please.
Okay one awesome from me isn't enough.
Thank you.1 -
MornaBaine✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Ingel_Riday wrote: »They tend to be balanced enough that I don't mind them so much. You buy one patch of 15 crates and you can usually get the emotes you want and have enough gems left over for a costume. Done.
I do feel though for the addicts who spend hundreds trying to get a specific rare mount. I also miss the old days before investor demands and psychological warfare against the consumer kicked in. I took a marketing class recently and this game uses ALL the tactics. Not some. ALL of them. To give a brief list:
1. Daily log-in bonuses to "boost engagement." Every day, you can log-in to claim a small prize and, hey, while you're here... did you see our new crown store offerings? For only 1,000 crowns, you can look like a renegade dragon priest. Oh, and...
2. Use of a micro-transaction currency to obfuscate dollar cost. I could have said $10, but then you might balk. "10 Dollars! I could buy a fairly decent pizza for that, or buy an entire retro-game for my Xbox, or get a six pack of beer! All that, for a costume that looks like a reskin of an older costume with a dragon mask glued on?" Hey now, it doesn't cost $10. It cost... 1,000 crowns. Speaking of which...
3. Sell such said micro-transaction currency in odd increments that don't match item prices. You can't buy 1,000 crowns, but you can buy 750 or 1,500. If you want this costume, you'll spend $14.99 for the 1,500 and have 500 crowns leftover that will tempt you to buy the next thing we advertise on the crown store. I mean, that Sheogorath-costumed guar is only 750 crowns and you already have 500. Might as well get some more crowns and get it. Notice again that I didn't say the critter cost $7.50. $7.50 for a single pet appearance in a full priced game with a subscription fee if you want full functionality. Oh, and you better decide soon, because...
4. Fear of Missing Out. I could leave everything on my storefront, organized by logical categories, for you to buy whenever you want... but where is the sense of urgency? You might just wait until you receive your allotment of crowns from your subscription and then use those to buy only the things you really care about. But what if things "expire" because I only have so much room for inventory in my VIRTUAL STOREFRONT MADE UP OF ZEROES AND ONES. "Gotta make room for new stock!" Oh, you might say that you'll buy the renegade dragon priest costume later... but it's only up for ten days and then it might be gone for years! That sheogorath-guar? 5 day window. The Dark Stag mount? I offer that once a year, on a random day near Halloween, for 24 hours. Costs $42 after tax... I mean *coughs* 5,000 crowns. That leaves you with 500 crowns left. See point 3. Dare you miss out on this sweet transient deal for virtual swag? At least I'm letting you buy it directly. I could always.
5. Use gambling mechanics to increase player expenditures. Instead of letting you just buy The Dark Stag, I could stick it in a loot crate. In exchange for 5,000 crowns, you can have 15 crates. The Dark Stag has a .1% chance of dropping in each crate. Oh, the average person will see this and give up on getting the mount... but not the addict. The addict will buy crate after crate to amass a collection of items they don't want that they can "dismantle" into yet another micro-transaction currency called, in this case, "gems." The Dark Stag will cost 400 gems. Duplicate trash will net you 1 gem each, duplicate regular items will net you 5, rarer items 10, and very rare items 40. If you're very unlucky, it could take you more than 80 crates to get that mount. Since you have to buy them in clusters of 15, that's six batches at $42 *coughs* 5,000 crowns each. But hey, at least you're not in it alone. I also sell new emotes through these. So instead of spending $20 every three months for a pack of three emotes, your fellow players have to spend $42 to get crates, sigh in vexation as an in-game Khajiit thief named Pacrouti openly mocks them each and every time they open one (because nothing can ever be TOO ON THE NOSE), and hope that the emotes randomly drop for them. Don't worry, though. I'll give them just enough gem trash that they can buy all of them, usually. Sometimes I'll need to meet quarterly revenue projections and I'll put one emote at 100 gems with a 1% drop rate to really rub in the salt.
So, yeah. This game is kind of textbook AAA with the Crown Store. Ironically, I detested the efforts to get the government involved with game regulation in the early digits and now I'm all for it to curtail the kind of psychological tomfoolery detailed above. This industry is not going to regulate itself, and it's just going to get worse from here. Look at Call of Duty and NBA 2K20. The Crown Store is tame compared to them, which doesn't bode well when investors realize that and start ramping things up still further. Pacrouti next to a roulette wheel comes to mind. "This one always bets on black."
THIS is what makes me hate ZO$. I mean ALL advertisement since the advent of advertisement has relied on psych games to reel the customer/victim in. But that certainly doesn't make it right. Or ethical.PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!5 -
Raideen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭IndianaJames7 wrote: »IndianaJames7 wrote: »I personally don't have an issue with the concept of crown crates. All of the rare items in them are purely cosmetic and offer no in game advantage to having (not pay2win). This allows zos to price discriminate players who are more willing to spend money on the game, meaning that they are able to offer a lower price entry point into the game and for monthly subs (in theory at least; I have no idea what their actual profit margins are).
The only issue I have is that they should be more up front about the drop rate of some of their rarest mounts. Many people likely buy crates thinking that the odds of getting a radiant apex are MUCH higher than they actually are.
So you believe that it's ok for one portion of the population (role players/collectors/achievement hunters etc) to be expected to fork out LITERALLY THOUSANDS of dollars on top of the purchase of the game, and expansions, and subscriptions in order to have as much fun as the other portion of the population who likes to just kill things?
People play MMORPG's for different reasons. How come the role players/collectors/achievement hunters have to spend thousands of more dollars to have as much fun as the kill kill kill crowd?
You aren't forced to do that in any way. These are cosmetic items that have no affect in game other than 'look at me, I have this rare item that other people don't'. I am one of those collectors/achievement hunters you have mentioned who is not willing to spend thousands of dollars for a radiant apex mount. So I spend like $100 for each crown season to get the apex camel mount (plus whatever else the crates may drop) and then I call a day. If I have enough crown gems left over to get the new camel I don't buy any crowns for that season etc...
If all crown items were cheap, there would be no such thing as rare mounts. As an adult (as mandated by TOS) it is your own responsibility to determine how much you are willing to spend on in-game pixels and make your own decisions from there.
And yes, I do think it is acceptable for one portion of the population to make their own decision to spend significantly more money than other populations in the game on cosmetics. No one is forcing you to do this. However, there are many people in game who because of IRL situations are unable to spend much money in game.
If lowering the price floor on content (DLC's and QOL from ESO+) is an outcome of these crown crates (I don't know for certain that this is what is happening, and if it isn't then my view on the issue would possibly be different) allows more people to enjoy the game then I think this is a good thing. I have been in enough nCR groups where some members were unable to port in because they don't own Summerset to know that many people who play this game do not have all of the DLCs because they can't afford it. Some of these people are members of guilds that I am in, and add to the overall health of the game through their activity.
We might have to agree to disagree on this, but I believe that price discrimination on cosmetics is healthy for MMOs if it allows them to charge less for other content.
You are missing the entire point. These mounts and cosmetics should be offered in game for gold or achievments etc. As it stands, if you are a collector, role player or someone who is here to consume the game in its entirety, you have to fork out hundreds if not thousands of dollars MORE (on top of purchase and sub) to consume this content.
Again I ask. Why do you expect collectors to pay more than people who just kill kill kill in dungeons.
I have an idea, we start charging 1000 crowns per dungeon run. 2000 for Trial runs. Every time you enter Cyrodiil it should cost 500 crowns. Its right in line with the way they monetize the rest of the game.2 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I have an idea, we start charging 1000 crowns per dungeon run. 2000 for Trial runs. Every time you enter Cyrodiil it should cost 500 crowns. Its right in line with the way they monetize the rest of the game.
*Checks DCUO and TOR*
Yeah, seems that doesn't actually work out that well.0 -
Radiance✭✭✭✭✭
✭I bought them maybe 2 or 3 times in the first few seasons but I stopped bc it is definitely gambling and addictive and there are those with compulsion control problems who are more susceptible and being exploited and I think that makes it unethical. She mentioned a toy store's surprise factor but these are just pixels some people are spending thousands of dollars on, which is fine if you want to do that but these things have no real-world value. In like 3-5 years from now MAX when the game gets shut down you'll essentially have paid for nothing more than an experience with nothing to show for it.7 -
GDOFWR420✭✭✭✭If you want more content then zos needs revenue, its that simple. Its a way you can support the game and zos can keep paying the bills.2 -
MornaBaine✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭If you want more content then zos needs revenue, its that simple. Its a way you can support the game and zos can keep paying the bills.
It's "a way" yes. But it is not an ethical way. Offering paying customers a quality product for a straight price is the ethical thing to do. It's what customers used to actually expect businesses to do. Think of all the things that have been datamined, the vast majority of them finished products ready to go. Yet ZOS sits on them for years in many cases. When instead all those things should be available in the cash shop. There is literally no end to the "new" content they could offer simply by utilizing things already in game. Buildings for houses, costumes worn by NPCs as old as Wrothgar that have never been released, trees, plants, furniture, decorative items, pets and other creatures that can easily be converted into target dummies. Just using what they already have available, it would be many more years before they would need to hire an artist to create a single new thing. They would make more than enough money to keep the lights on and new content coming. They could even still do "sales" and "limited time" items (that return on a yearly basis) and encourage impulse buys that way. But instead gaming companies have chosen to rely heavily on preying on their customers psychologically with complete disregard for basic ethics.PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!3 -
I'm hopeful that these predatory practices will be regulated into the Oblivion in near future.StamDK DD Nord
PC/EU2 -
Reistr_the_Unbroken✭✭✭✭✭
✭I hope someday ZoS lets us buy some items from the crates, the only items I can think of that did this during my time here was the River ice wolf and matching wolf pup from the flame Atronach Crates.
Edit: but I’m not holding my breath on itEdited by Reistr_the_Unbroken on September 30, 2019 11:58AM1 -
TelvanniWizard✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭If you want more content then zos needs revenue, its that simple. Its a way you can support the game and zos can keep paying the bills.
The money for developing the game is a flat fee, i.e. wages and all that. The huge revenue from the store goes mainly to investor and shareholder wallets. So more crown sales does not mean more/better content.3 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Reistr_the_Unbroken wrote: »I hope someday ZoS lets us buy some items from the crates, the only items I can think of that did this during my time here was the River ice wolf and matching wolf pup from the flame Atronach Crates.
Edit: but I’m not holding my breath on it
There've been a lot of items from the crates that were available in the store at one time or another.
Off hand, from the current crates, the Wraith of Crows and Factotum were both in the store. Many of the 16 gem costumes were originally in the store, usually in bundles of 3 for 700, though a few, like the Pirate outfits were 900? I think. A lot of the 40s and some of the 100s used to be in the crown store, or were limited time. I'd need to go through the crates to itemize everything, but it's not a short list.
Some of those have even come back to the store. So, it's not like it went into the crate and was gone forever. Off hand, the three "Cinimatic Hero" costumes came back out of the crates. I think Raz's has come back since it went into the crate.
Of course, everything except Radiant Apex can be purchased for Gems when the crates are available. (Unfortunately the Scarlet Regret Senche is considered an RA.) Though, if you despise the crate system, you'd only have those from watching Twitch.1 -
heaven13✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Deathlord92 wrote: »I laugh so hard when I watched this I think they believe there own bs lol 😂
Did you watch her face? She absolutely didn't and was praying she was convincing enough to make other people think she believed it. lolPC/NAMountain God | Leave No Bone Unbroken | Apex Predator | Pure Lunacy | Depths Defier | No Rest for the Wicked | In Defiance of DeathMeet my characters :
Defanged the Devourer | Nature's Wrath | Relentless Raider | True Genius | Bane of Thorns | Subterranean Smasher | Ardent Bibliophile
vAA HM | vHRC HM | vSO HM | vDSA | vMoL HM | vHoF HM | vAS+2 | vCR+2 | vBRP | vSS HM | vKA | vRGIT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THE SAME NOW, THANKS ZOS1 -
heaven13✭✭✭✭✭
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*bolded what I am replying to*IndianaJames7 wrote: »IndianaJames7 wrote: »I personally don't have an issue with the concept of crown crates. All of the rare items in them are purely cosmetic and offer no in game advantage to having (not pay2win). This allows zos to price discriminate players who are more willing to spend money on the game, meaning that they are able to offer a lower price entry point into the game and for monthly subs (in theory at least; I have no idea what their actual profit margins are).
The only issue I have is that they should be more up front about the drop rate of some of their rarest mounts. Many people likely buy crates thinking that the odds of getting a radiant apex are MUCH higher than they actually are.
So you believe that it's ok for one portion of the population (role players/collectors/achievement hunters etc) to be expected to fork out LITERALLY THOUSANDS of dollars on top of the purchase of the game, and expansions, and subscriptions in order to have as much fun as the other portion of the population who likes to just kill things?
People play MMORPG's for different reasons. How come the role players/collectors/achievement hunters have to spend thousands of more dollars to have as much fun as the kill kill kill crowd?
You aren't forced to do that in any way. These are cosmetic items that have no affect in game other than 'look at me, I have this rare item that other people don't'. I am one of those collectors/achievement hunters you have mentioned who is not willing to spend thousands of dollars for a radiant apex mount. So I spend like $100 for each crown season to get the apex camel mount (plus whatever else the crates may drop) and then I call a day. If I have enough crown gems left over to get the new camel I don't buy any crowns for that season etc...
If all crown items were cheap, there would be no such thing as rare mounts. As an adult (as mandated by TOS) it is your own responsibility to determine how much you are willing to spend on in-game pixels and make your own decisions from there.
And yes, I do think it is acceptable for one portion of the population to make their own decision to spend significantly more money than other populations in the game on cosmetics. No one is forcing you to do this. However, there are many people in game who because of IRL situations are unable to spend much money in game.
If lowering the price floor on content (DLC's and QOL from ESO+) is an outcome of these crown crates (I don't know for certain that this is what is happening, and if it isn't then my view on the issue would possibly be different) allows more people to enjoy the game then I think this is a good thing. I have been in enough nCR groups where some members were unable to port in because they don't own Summerset to know that many people who play this game do not have all of the DLCs because they can't afford it. Some of these people are members of guilds that I am in, and add to the overall health of the game through their activity.
We might have to agree to disagree on this, but I believe that price discrimination on cosmetics is healthy for MMOs if it allows them to charge less for other content.
Crown crates are not lowering prices on other content though. Crown items were originally much more reasonable (900 for a horse, 400 for a pet). DLC was DLC. The first crown crate season came in December 2016. Items in the crown store had already started to see price creep but then came housing that was even more prohibitively expensive. We began seeing mounts that went up as high as 4500 crowns and, now, 2500-3500 is "the norm". 1000 crowns for a pet is normal now as well.
Then came chapters which no longer counted as DLC and needed to be purchased separately. Morrowind was released in 2017 with a zone, class, trial, and battlegrounds. It cost $40. Summerset came the next year with a zone, guild line, jewelry crafting, and mini-trial. It cost $30. Then Elsweyr this year, back up to $40 with only a zone, class, and trial. No new system like battlegrounds, no new crafting lines, no new guilds yet it cost the same as Morrowind. Sure, the next year you can get the chapters as part of your ESO+ package but only if you subscribe.
Don't even get me started on outfit slots.
Crown crates have not lowered prices on other crown store offerings. Not in the slightest. ESO+ has had the same rates for as long as I've been subscribing and DLCs cost the same as they always have. Crown crates are just another profit earning tactic that coincides with increasingly raised prices on direct purchase items, FoMO manipulation, and convenience items offered in lieu of playing the game because profit > game satisfaction.
PC/NAMountain God | Leave No Bone Unbroken | Apex Predator | Pure Lunacy | Depths Defier | No Rest for the Wicked | In Defiance of DeathMeet my characters :
Defanged the Devourer | Nature's Wrath | Relentless Raider | True Genius | Bane of Thorns | Subterranean Smasher | Ardent Bibliophile
vAA HM | vHRC HM | vSO HM | vDSA | vMoL HM | vHoF HM | vAS+2 | vCR+2 | vBRP | vSS HM | vKA | vRGIT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THE SAME NOW, THANKS ZOS5
