Crown Crates no longer giftable?

FantasticFreddie

I thought we were due an update this week? Did I miss it?

WuffyCerulei

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

I thought we were due an update this week? Did I miss it?

No, you didn't. There's been no update thus far. I'm pretty disappointed in ZOS with their obvious lack of communication and addressing on the bug. They can turn it back on like they did briefly for that one day, but apparently some other issue is going on. Why not just turn it on and keep addressing whatever other issue is there. The Ragebound Crates are going to be gone in 6 days. 3 returning crate seasons came and went during this bug. Over 3 months, and the best we got is "Yeah we're working on it, but we're not gonna tell yall much more than that." I get that the new Chapter released, but this bug has been going on for much longer than that, before the Chapter was even on the PTS.

Aka_

You know, ZoS, I was joking when I said, "watch them not fix it until Ragebound Crates are gone."

Katheriah

@ZOS_Kevin Just saying that 'the week of the 12th of June' is basically ending in a bit, unless you work weekends.

dragonlord500

Kevin doesn't answer on the forums during the weekends.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi all, we know many of you have been asking for an explanation regarding the Crown Crate gifting issue. This has been and continues to be a delicate process as there is sensitive information involved. With that, we’ve been working on a high-level overview of the current issue, which is that we’ve discovered some fraudulent behavior related to Crown Crate gifting, primarily on the PC platform.

We have been working diligently to find a resolution to this and put a stop to the fraudulent behavior. We want players who are not violating our Terms of Service by engaging in fraudulent behavior to be able to continue to use gifting in ESO. We also cannot allow this fraudulent behavior to continue. As you know, we noted that our original fix resolved part of the problem, however, we discovered another related issue in the process. We are continuing to work on a long-term resolution for that issue and, unfortunately, this means PC Crown Crate gifting in-game will remain unavailable until we do..

In the meantime, we are working on a more immediate temporary solution with our Customer Support team to aid in facilitating Crown Crate gifting transactions. We’ll have more to share on that soon. We hope this gives some insight into why PC Crown Crate gifting continues to be unavailable. As always, thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

Sythen88411

Best info we got yet. Ty

mrsninetales

Thanks for the update @ZOS_Kevin. Sucks that a few have to ruin it for the many. Appreciate the team continuing to work through this and find the right solution.

Sythen88411

How are pplz frauding crates and not other crown items though?

Aislinna

Sythen88411 wrote: »

How are pplz frauding crates and not other crown items though?

Developers don't share how exploits or fraud is commited, so as to not have more people trying it.

ARKANOBOT

Dear ZOS,

A sincere thank you from my end for not fixing this bug for this long, I once thought that Crown crates were a big part of ESO for me and I was addicted to it, for the first 1 and half month I visited here daily to check the status, eventually I got angry like many others and thought of leaving ESO cuz I still thought that was a big part of ESO for me. Eventually I came to terms that Maybe they (You/ZOS) might not fix this bug and I was disappointed/sad. later I found myself playing the game and spending more time outside the crown store. Now... you have finally rid me of my addiction ! and now I find myself having a lot more time not caring about crown store and rather just playing the game and when I'm bored, I go out and have fun in other games or with my family and friends in real life. And since I'm not grinding so much for gold, I even have time for other things in life ! all in all, it has been a positive and welcome change in my life even though It initially felt bad.

I really wanted to take this reflective moment to thank you for your part in this! Kudos
Thanks to all the Mods for keeping us updated, all the Devs working on the issue, and all the involved parties.

I just want to be clear, this is a sincere thank you note, and not a hateful comment or a criticism at anyone. Just a reflective moment for me and I wanted to share my feelings with you !

Warm Regards,

wolfcrisp

I am glad they are telling us what's going on instead of just saying "we are working on it"

It was overdue, tbh

I'm going to say congratulations, genuinely, it should be the bare minimum, but im glad that we finally get more transparency on the issue

JavaRen

Sythen88411 wrote: »

How are pplz frauding crates and not other crown items though?

I have been guessing that it involves a way of bypassing gambling bans in some countries.

Aka_

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we know many of you have been asking for an explanation regarding the Crown Crate gifting issue. This has been and continues to be a delicate process as there is sensitive information involved. With that, we’ve been working on a high-level overview of the current issue, which is that we’ve discovered some fraudulent behavior related to Crown Crate gifting, primarily on the PC platform.

We have been working diligently to find a resolution to this and put a stop to the fraudulent behavior. We want players who are not violating our Terms of Service by engaging in fraudulent behavior to be able to continue to use gifting in ESO. We also cannot allow this fraudulent behavior to continue. As you know, we noted that our original fix resolved part of the problem, however, we discovered another related issue in the process. We are continuing to work on a long-term resolution for that issue and, unfortunately, this means PC Crown Crate gifting in-game will remain unavailable until we do..

In the meantime, we are working on a more immediate temporary solution with our Customer Support team to aid in facilitating Crown Crate gifting transactions. We’ll have more to share on that soon. We hope this gives some insight into why PC Crown Crate gifting continues to be unavailable. As always, thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

I appreciate the actual explanation here. This is the bare minimum understanding we could have used months ago. What is interesting now is that we can assume this has to do with either the gambling aspect of crown crates, or the currency conversion rates some people get away with. I would imagine if it was an issue with currency exchange manipulation, then all gifting would be disabled. So, from what I am gathering, given I cannot imagine you would be allowed legally to even call it gambling, is that the gambling aspect of crown crates is what is making it difficult to regulate who and who is not allowed geographically speaking. If certain countries are putting pressure on ZoS to not allow crown crates, then you have to disable what they have identified and work from there on a geotagging solution maybe. Whatever the case, it is still sad we had to wait this long to hear about it and sad that we will not see a proper solution for a long while if it is a legal thing.

Kiyakotari

I appreciate the explanation, though it's frustrating for those of us that rely on in-game gold and crate gifting to purchase crates that this fraud issue means that we're going to miss out on the entire Ragebound season. Once this issue is resolved, is it possible to have the Ragebound crates brought back for a limited run of a week or so, when gifting is enabled, so that we can get some? As a disabled individual who lives on an extremely restricted and fixed income, this kind of situation is very disheartening.

Nyxenwhite

This went from “we assure you its only a bug and nothing else” to “we are actually trying to stop fraudulent crown gifting”.

Lags

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we know many of you have been asking for an explanation regarding the Crown Crate gifting issue. This has been and continues to be a delicate process as there is sensitive information involved. With that, we’ve been working on a high-level overview of the current issue, which is that we’ve discovered some fraudulent behavior related to Crown Crate gifting, primarily on the PC platform.

We have been working diligently to find a resolution to this and put a stop to the fraudulent behavior. We want players who are not violating our Terms of Service by engaging in fraudulent behavior to be able to continue to use gifting in ESO. We also cannot allow this fraudulent behavior to continue. As you know, we noted that our original fix resolved part of the problem, however, we discovered another related issue in the process. We are continuing to work on a long-term resolution for that issue and, unfortunately, this means PC Crown Crate gifting in-game will remain unavailable until we do..

In the meantime, we are working on a more immediate temporary solution with our Customer Support team to aid in facilitating Crown Crate gifting transactions. We’ll have more to share on that soon. We hope this gives some insight into why PC Crown Crate gifting continues to be unavailable. As always, thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

Ya that was the likely guess, thanks for the answer finally as to what the issue is. I still wish you would try to get some confirmation on if you guys will bring the crates back when the issue is fixed. I dont know why zos trickles out information and responses instead of just answering questions and commenting on issues in a reasonable time frame.

But when you wont say the crates are coming back, most people will figure that ya they arent coming back. Which would be unreal. And i dont mean you i mean zos. Either way, it would be nice to know if they intend to bring them back. And if not i guess we can assume the worst.

Im still confused about why this isnt happening on console though. The more i think about it the more it doesnt make sense. Like, at all. Its all the same system. But who knows i guess.

hiyde

It's clear they want to resume crate gifting or they wouldn't be giving these updates and implementing a temporary band-aid solution of manual gifting via customer support (which sounds messy if there's high demand). If their intent/desire was to permanently remove crate gifting they'd just say it, no?

As for what this is about, the only thing that makes sense to me is that people in locations where loot crates are banned are somehow getting their hands on 'em. Like others have said, if it were about stealing crates, wouldn't that theoretically apply to all merchandise in the store?

Without more clarity from ZOS, it'll remain a mystery. They must feel there's good reason to not be more exact.

When it comes to these lootboxes, I'm kinda indifferent. They don't appeal to me personally, I never buy them for myself and if this whole situation was the catalyst to straight-up selling items instead of games of chance, I'd be thrilled. They'd definitely get more $$ from me...

Best of luck to ZOS on resolving this, getting the revenue back, and players being able to resume gifting shinies.

meekmiko

hiyde wrote: »

wouldn't that theoretically apply to all merchandise in the store?

🤔 That is a good point.

Arictheana

Nyxenwhite wrote: »

This went from “we assure you its only a bug and nothing else” to “we are actually trying to stop fraudulent crown gifting”.

Exactly. They aren't being trustworthy at all, so what's the point in believing anything they say anymore. If fraudulent crown gifting was the actual problem of why they started this, then how hard was it to say that when it began? They didn't even need to go into details (not like the would have). All they had to say when this started was something like this:

We apologize to all the PC users in regards to currently not being able to gift Crown Crates. We have discovered fraudulent activity involving gifting Crown Crates on the PC platform. We have disabled the ability to gift Crown Crates on PC for the foreseeable future and will try to keep players up on the issue. As we cannot go into full details on the matter, we ask for your patience and understanding while we work to correct things.

It's not that hard ZOS.

Xairvaiss

3+ months and people still think that ZOS can't fix problem and doesn't have a solution.[snip]

[edited for bashing]

jsjem

If you really want to find some 'temporary solution' I suggest:
1. crown discount until this problem is fixed.
2. crates discount at least at the last week.
3. 25 crates bundle giftable.

Susan_Sto

hiyde wrote: »

As for what this is about, the only thing that makes sense to me is that people in locations where loot crates are banned are somehow getting their hands on 'em. Like others have said, if it were about stealing crates, wouldn't that theoretically apply to all merchandise in the store?

This!

TBH if my country had banned lootboxes, getting them via gifting is exactly what I would have been doing as well.

JoHegl

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we know many of you have been asking for an explanation regarding the Crown Crate gifting issue. This has been and continues to be a delicate process as there is sensitive information involved. With that, we’ve been working on a high-level overview of the current issue, which is that we’ve discovered some fraudulent behavior related to Crown Crate gifting, primarily on the PC platform.

We have been working diligently to find a resolution to this and put a stop to the fraudulent behavior. We want players who are not violating our Terms of Service by engaging in fraudulent behavior to be able to continue to use gifting in ESO. We also cannot allow this fraudulent behavior to continue. As you know, we noted that our original fix resolved part of the problem, however, we discovered another related issue in the process. We are continuing to work on a long-term resolution for that issue and, unfortunately, this means PC Crown Crate gifting in-game will remain unavailable until we do..

In the meantime, we are working on a more immediate temporary solution with our Customer Support team to aid in facilitating Crown Crate gifting transactions. We’ll have more to share on that soon. We hope this gives some insight into why PC Crown Crate gifting continues to be unavailable. As always, thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

Thx for sharing that info, I guess. It's very vague sadly and I don't see a reason for being vague here. I would like to understand what is going on. Some examples or something (e.g. why crates and not the other gifting?). That should not hurt the process imo.

I would describe what happened to me trying to gift 4 crate packs of 4 each to friends as I often do at the beginning of a crown crate season, but that might get censored anyway (ban talk and stuff that is not allowed here...).

So yeah... I am super annoyed by not being able to gift crates since that was always a nice thing I could do for friends (no selling, mind you!) plus I don't think this is a priority topic at ZOS seeing how long this issue has been around now (which ofc is legit - you need to prioritize what you do next). I am playing ESO just fine without crate gifting now instead of spending a few hundred EUR on crowns every year now (and no, said friends are not spending the crowns instead, because they need to save their money for RL stuff).

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have removed some insulting back and forth that was disruptive. Please ensure you are treating others with respect on the forums even when they have views that differ from your own.

Elsonso

Nyxenwhite wrote: »

This went from “we assure you its only a bug and nothing else” to “we are actually trying to stop fraudulent crown gifting”.

I think it has been pretty obvious from the start that it was something related to ToS violations. Remember we also had the 3 minute delay switching between NA and EU, also for ToS reasons... or so the rumor goes.

Wow

Will it be giftable after maintenance on June 19

N3CR01

Wow wrote: »

Will it be giftable after maintenance on June 19

Not a hope in Oblivion.

Maitsukas

Wow wrote: »

Will it be giftable after maintenance on June 19

A patch will definitely not fix this, as according to the first post in this thread, it was disabled in the middle of the game version 8.2.10. This is something that can be controlled at the server side, like how an event was cancelled in a few hours (Undaunted Celebration 2019) or when a Chapter Collector's Edition Pack had to be removed from the Crown Store despite owning it already (High Isle Collector's Pack).

TheElderScrollsGod

In the realm where pixels gather, a tale was told,
Of digital treasures, their brilliance bold.
Crown Crates, those chests of the arcane,
Adorned with images, shimmering in the main.

Once they could be given, passed hand to hand,
Gifts of fantasy, in this virtual land.
From cybernetic mountains to digital dales,
Echoed the whispers of countless tales.

Now, no longer, their gifting hath ceased,
The exchange of treasures, abruptly decreased.
A pallor of silence falls on the place,
Of communal gifting, there remains no trace.

No more the joy of a friend's name in sight,
On the lustrous gift in the moonlit night.
The crates' contents, once a chance surprise,
In solitude found, now the gamer's prize.

Yet within each heart, hope forever blooms,
Through the darkness, through desolate glooms.
For in every change, lies the seed of rebirth,
A new dawn emerges, a new tale of worth.

Oh, ye digital dwellers, do not despair,
The realm continues, laden with flair.
Though Crown Crates stand alone, no longer bestowed,
Still, the world thrives in the story's ode.

Farewell to the gifting, it whispers in sorrow,
Yet hinting of new tales to unfurl with the morrow.
So, play on, warriors, and let your heart resonate,
With the un-giftable tales of the Crown Crate.