Crown Crates no longer giftable?

Dragonclaw1337

Why would [snip] not immediately prioritize a fix for this major Crown Crate bug? Crown Crates literally make them $$$$.

[Edited for Bashing]

Berdusk

Lavennin wrote: »

Berdusk wrote: »

I don't understand some of these posts.

Do you seriously think the devs are all in on some big plot to bug the game so you'll spend more money on crates? Is that something that YOU would do for YOUR employer? Unless they're also significant shareholders in ZOS, I doubt they care that much. It's just a job. A fun job, yes, but still something where they work for a set salary.

Y'all are throwing some serious shade as if the people who make the game are out to rip you off, when the reality is that most of them probably don't care enough to even think to do it... and, even if they did, ZOS would pocket 99% of the difference, so what's the incentive? Never mind the small matter of ethics and self-respect.

As for the matter of updates, we got an update on the 6th, offering a *rough* timeline of two weeks. That time still hasn't passed, and honestly, I'm a bit surprised they've given even that timeline, seeing as troubleshooting code and finding solutions tends to be a bit of a trial-and-error guessing game with bugs like this.

It'll be fixed as soon as they can get to it, and seeing as this is probably hitting the bottom line pretty hard, I'd imagine there's no shortage of pressure being applied from the top down already. Hate from the community doesn't help. I want gifting back as much as the next guy - I have my eye on the new Welwa mount - but that doesn't mean I need to think of the devs as anything other than the people they are, working a job, and making the occasional mistake along the way. Real people with real feelings. Just something to keep in mind.

I know I sound like a fanboy right now, but everything I've said is true. Try to put yourself in someone else's shoes before assuming they're out to rip you off. Paranoid. No one's out to get you, least of all people who just want to make games for a living, tell stories, and spend time with their families, etc. in their off-time - just like everyone else.

We're all on the same page here, players and devs alike; love of this game/world. There's no need for one to turn on the other because of impatience. Just sayin'. My rusty $.02.

It’s a job for the devs. If they got an order to do it, they would have. They aren’t the people that run the company and don’t always get a say in what they put in the cash shop.

I feel like your view is on the idealistic side. ESO isn’t known for devs going out their ways to make players happy. That’s another MMO you are thinking about.

Disregarding the absurdity of this, there are practical reasons why ZOS would not want to do this, either:

Not having gifting for crates costs them revenue.

When people buy crates with gold from another player, that player spends real money to buy the crates they are gifting.
The person buying with gold is often either unwilling or unable to buy those crates with real money themselves.

This is why not being able to gift crates costs revenue.

Never mind my "idealistic" thoughts on the situation; sometimes - often, even - the moral thing and the practical thing are aligned, as happens to be in this case.

Oh, and as this thread has proven, such action would cost ZOS a great deal of the good will of their customer base - not that gamer communities exude a great deal of that to begin with - as well as that of their employees asked to cross such a line.

There are more reasons for them NOT to do this deliberately than there are for them to do so.

The_one_i_seek

Berdusk wrote: »

Lavennin wrote: »

Berdusk wrote: »

I don't understand some of these posts.

Do you seriously think the devs are all in on some big plot to bug the game so you'll spend more money on crates? Is that something that YOU would do for YOUR employer? Unless they're also significant shareholders in ZOS, I doubt they care that much. It's just a job. A fun job, yes, but still something where they work for a set salary.

Y'all are throwing some serious shade as if the people who make the game are out to rip you off, when the reality is that most of them probably don't care enough to even think to do it... and, even if they did, ZOS would pocket 99% of the difference, so what's the incentive? Never mind the small matter of ethics and self-respect.

As for the matter of updates, we got an update on the 6th, offering a *rough* timeline of two weeks. That time still hasn't passed, and honestly, I'm a bit surprised they've given even that timeline, seeing as troubleshooting code and finding solutions tends to be a bit of a trial-and-error guessing game with bugs like this.

It'll be fixed as soon as they can get to it, and seeing as this is probably hitting the bottom line pretty hard, I'd imagine there's no shortage of pressure being applied from the top down already. Hate from the community doesn't help. I want gifting back as much as the next guy - I have my eye on the new Welwa mount - but that doesn't mean I need to think of the devs as anything other than the people they are, working a job, and making the occasional mistake along the way. Real people with real feelings. Just something to keep in mind.

I know I sound like a fanboy right now, but everything I've said is true. Try to put yourself in someone else's shoes before assuming they're out to rip you off. Paranoid. No one's out to get you, least of all people who just want to make games for a living, tell stories, and spend time with their families, etc. in their off-time - just like everyone else.

We're all on the same page here, players and devs alike; love of this game/world. There's no need for one to turn on the other because of impatience. Just sayin'. My rusty $.02.

It’s a job for the devs. If they got an order to do it, they would have. They aren’t the people that run the company and don’t always get a say in what they put in the cash shop.

I feel like your view is on the idealistic side. ESO isn’t known for devs going out their ways to make players happy. That’s another MMO you are thinking about.

Disregarding the absurdity of this, there are practical reasons why ZOS would not want to do this, either:

Not having gifting for crates costs them revenue.

When people buy crates with gold from another player, that player spends real money to buy the crates they are gifting.
The person buying with gold is often either unwilling or unable to buy those crates with real money themselves.

This is why not being able to gift crates costs revenue.

Never mind my "idealistic" thoughts on the situation; sometimes - often, even - the moral thing and the practical thing are aligned, as happens to be in this case.

Oh, and as this thread has proven, such action would cost ZOS a great deal of the good will of their customer base - not that gamer communities exude a great deal of that to begin with - as well as that of their employees asked to cross such a line.

There are more reasons for them NOT to do this deliberately than there are for them to do so.

not completely true, there is another side of the medal

many people who buying crates for gold not because they do not have money to buy them, but because it is MUCH MORE cheaper to buy crowns for gold, if you look at gold price at various black markets.

so actually this move with gifting disabled can benefit ZOS, people who tend to buy crates for gold will start to spend real money for them, more than before

rottenlittlecreature

Berdusk wrote: »

This is why not being able to gift crates costs revenue.

Just cause this statement keeps popping up and I'm super curious: are you sure about that? Do you have access to their detailed revenue history? Is it posted somewhere? Particularly for the last couple months. I'd be very interested to see how this issue(and lots of other things like events and sales) has affected it myself. I'm a nerd for data like that. Sure it might seem logical that this would be the case but given how so many folks don't seem to care about the unfortunate stuff that ZoS does and keep giving them plenty of money anyway(a common thing in literally every industry ever) I'd guess that they're not actually losing as much as folks might think on this. Or we'd have seen a much faster fix for it. Forgive me for feeding the conspiracy and typing walls of text about it again, but transparency in business is one of my biggest soapbox topics. Its far too rare.

I don't blame the folks just doing their jobs and listening to what they're told in this economy at all though. The devs, the forum mods, what have you. Being able to put food on the table and pay rent has made folks do far worse than pissing off some players in a video game by testing out new ways to make money. [snip]

That said I'm not giving them a whole free pass and saying everyone there is struggling to survive. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

kaioruschellub17_ESO

Every year I buy the expansions on pre-order, I always subscribe to my ESO Plus annually, and even so ZOS treats us this way, with this disregard, me as a consumer I feel disrespected, the Ayleid box will leave the store and I won't be able to buy it, thank you ZOS, for treating us like this

ZOS_Lunar

Hello!

We've removed some posts from this thread as they violated our rules on bashing and conspiracy theories. We understand that everyone has their own opinions they want to express, but we also want the forums to be a constructive platform for ESO and its community.

Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.

EmperorRemanIV

@ZOS_Kevin any news? We need feedback

Sythen88411

Kinda wish I saved my endeavors for the skin now.

valenwood_vegan

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We wanted to provide an update on the issue where Crown Crates are not currently giftable in-game on PC. We have identified the issue and are working on a fix that we hope to roll out in the next couple weeks. We appreciate everyone's patience. Once we have a date for the fix, or if it will take longer than a couple weeks, we will let you know.

Sorry @ZOS_Kevin I know none of this is your fault nor is any of it under your control. I'm not trying to call you out or anything. In fact I'll be fair here and tag some other folks who I believe should chime in on this issue. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_MattFiror

But this was posted on April 6th. Today is April 20th. Surely by now there must be some information as to whether this is going to be fixed in the original timeframe or whether it's going to take longer.

The frequency with which players are told something is going to be fixed, worked on, etc., and then met with weeks of dead silence is quite disturbing. Silence doesn't make problems go away.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay here. I was going for the ESO celebrations and have been catching up on a lot of messages.

We are still working on getting a roll out plan for this issue. We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix. In the meantime, we have raised the increased concern from all of you about this issue to our team working on this. We'll continue to follow up and check with the team so that we can provide an ETA as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience on this issue as we continue to work toward a solution.

valenwood_vegan

Kevin, I do appreciate you taking the time to update us. Even if it's not what we wanted to hear.

muscle_witch

(Previous rundown removed, I've posted an updated version later in the thread)

evymyu233

EmperorRemanIV wrote: »

Soon we'll enter 2 months of this bug. So far we have missed:

. Stonelore crates
. Akaviri Potentate crates
. Gloomspore crates
. Ayleid crates

I hope they don't try to apologize with a random guar pet that no one cares about

i care a guar!

Sythen88411

Anyone have the original date of when crates were no longer giftable

Berdusk

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

Berdusk wrote: »

Lavennin wrote: »

Berdusk wrote: »

I don't understand some of these posts.

Do you seriously think the devs are all in on some big plot to bug the game so you'll spend more money on crates? Is that something that YOU would do for YOUR employer? Unless they're also significant shareholders in ZOS, I doubt they care that much. It's just a job. A fun job, yes, but still something where they work for a set salary.

Y'all are throwing some serious shade as if the people who make the game are out to rip you off, when the reality is that most of them probably don't care enough to even think to do it... and, even if they did, ZOS would pocket 99% of the difference, so what's the incentive? Never mind the small matter of ethics and self-respect.

As for the matter of updates, we got an update on the 6th, offering a *rough* timeline of two weeks. That time still hasn't passed, and honestly, I'm a bit surprised they've given even that timeline, seeing as troubleshooting code and finding solutions tends to be a bit of a trial-and-error guessing game with bugs like this.

It'll be fixed as soon as they can get to it, and seeing as this is probably hitting the bottom line pretty hard, I'd imagine there's no shortage of pressure being applied from the top down already. Hate from the community doesn't help. I want gifting back as much as the next guy - I have my eye on the new Welwa mount - but that doesn't mean I need to think of the devs as anything other than the people they are, working a job, and making the occasional mistake along the way. Real people with real feelings. Just something to keep in mind.

I know I sound like a fanboy right now, but everything I've said is true. Try to put yourself in someone else's shoes before assuming they're out to rip you off. Paranoid. No one's out to get you, least of all people who just want to make games for a living, tell stories, and spend time with their families, etc. in their off-time - just like everyone else.

We're all on the same page here, players and devs alike; love of this game/world. There's no need for one to turn on the other because of impatience. Just sayin'. My rusty $.02.

It’s a job for the devs. If they got an order to do it, they would have. They aren’t the people that run the company and don’t always get a say in what they put in the cash shop.

I feel like your view is on the idealistic side. ESO isn’t known for devs going out their ways to make players happy. That’s another MMO you are thinking about.

Disregarding the absurdity of this, there are practical reasons why ZOS would not want to do this, either:

Not having gifting for crates costs them revenue.

When people buy crates with gold from another player, that player spends real money to buy the crates they are gifting.
The person buying with gold is often either unwilling or unable to buy those crates with real money themselves.

This is why not being able to gift crates costs revenue.

Never mind my "idealistic" thoughts on the situation; sometimes - often, even - the moral thing and the practical thing are aligned, as happens to be in this case.

Oh, and as this thread has proven, such action would cost ZOS a great deal of the good will of their customer base - not that gamer communities exude a great deal of that to begin with - as well as that of their employees asked to cross such a line.

There are more reasons for them NOT to do this deliberately than there are for them to do so.

not completely true, there is another side of the medal

many people who buying crates for gold not because they do not have money to buy them, but because it is MUCH MORE cheaper to buy crowns for gold, if you look at gold price at various black markets.

so actually this move with gifting disabled can benefit ZOS, people who tend to buy crates for gold will start to spend real money for them, more than before

You're not looking at the fact that, if those who normally buy crates with gold are spending RL money on crates, then the people they are normally buying from are no longer spending that same RL money to gift others. And this would still only be a certain percentage of those who buy with gold that are still able to buy with RL money, ignoring the fact that there are still those who are unable to do so - if not entirely, then at least in part. I, myself, fall into this category.

rottenlittlecreature wrote: »

Berdusk wrote: »

This is why not being able to gift crates costs revenue.

Just cause this statement keeps popping up and I'm super curious: are you sure about that? Do you have access to their detailed revenue history? Is it posted somewhere? Particularly for the last couple months. I'd be very interested to see how this issue(and lots of other things like events and sales) has affected it myself. I'm a nerd for data like that. Sure it might seem logical that this would be the case but given how so many folks don't seem to care about the unfortunate stuff that ZoS does and keep giving them plenty of money anyway(a common thing in literally every industry ever) I'd guess that they're not actually losing as much as folks might think on this. Or we'd have seen a much faster fix for it. Forgive me for feeding the conspiracy and typing walls of text about it again, but transparency in business is one of my biggest soapbox topics. Its far too rare.

I don't blame the folks just doing their jobs and listening to what they're told in this economy at all though. The devs, the forum mods, what have you. Being able to put food on the table and pay rent has made folks do far worse than pissing off some players in a video game by testing out new ways to make money. [snip]

That said I'm not giving them a whole free pass and saying everyone there is struggling to survive. [snip]

Obviously, I don't have that data. But I would point out that the second business quarter of the year began in April, and the gifting bug has been a problem for a month before that. And you know that, if they were looking to use this to gather data, they'd be wanting to do it based on the business quarter. The timing doesn't work for doing that.

I'm also not going to sit here and say there isn't an abundance of shady business out there. Of course there is. But I feel like ZOS has plenty of other options at their disposal to squeeze us for cash without inventing a bug and instructing their employees to lie about it. Take the ridiculous drop rates already built into the crates for example; they'd probably become even more ridiculous before taking the route people are accusing them of. This is also why we have limited edition crates and new crates coming out all of the time; to generate FOMO and create a gambler's high.

ZOS doesn't need to force its employees into unethical practices when it already has plenty of predatory marketing practices at its disposal.

Then there's Occam's Razor, which dictates that the simplest solution is often the correct one. In this case, it's more likely that this really is a bug that's making life difficult for EVERYONE, devs included, that is not yet resolved. You have to remember, too, that while they are working to fix this bug, they are still simultaneously working to finish Necrom and release it by deadline. That includes not just fixing this bug, but developing new code and chasing down the bugs in that code and any it creates in the larger game, as well. In addition to any other bug fixes they are already working on. That's a lot.

As opposed to the other theory that corporate has passed down an order to all of its employees to implement a bug, lie about it, and that not even one employee has spoken up about it or left in protest. This... just wouldn't happen. Even government has squeaky wheels when that kind of thing goes down.

And, lastly, let's not forget that, even if this crate-gifting bug somehow resulted in a short-term gain, it would ultimately result in a long-term loss. Not only because the addictive gambler's high of rolling crates would become unsustainable for many players (something that is not a concern when another party is spending the cash for that high), resulting in their leaving the game, but also because many players who didn't experience this as a financial upset to the game would leave either in protest or simply because they've become unhappy with the game and its developers due to these events.

Again, it comes down to simply this: There are fewer reasons for ZOS to do this than there are for them NOT to do this.

But I think at this point, rather than being done addressing this conversation with only one individual, I think I'm going to call it quits on the whole thing. This is my exit point, because there's going to be no end of people determined to believe this is true, because... and this is my theory; it makes them angry (justifiably, if it were true), and being angry is warm and comforting when you're frustrated with something and need someone to blame.

That doesn't make the theory any less ridiculous, but maybe it can lend some context. And before I get flooded with replies from people feeling insulted by that, that doesn't apply to everyone who's convinced of this notion, but I think there are definitely a few to whom it does.

[edited to remove quote]

jsjem

"We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix." I heard that they stop gifting crates to handle the illegal crown issues, those people who wts crowns may not have a legal crown source. May not be the truth, but there must be something happened not a bug.

PDarkBHood

jsjem wrote: »

"We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix." I heard that they stop gifting crates to handle the illegal crown issues, those people who wts crowns may not have a legal crown source. May not be the truth, but there must be something happened not a bug.

I'm not sure what the " illegal crown issues" are and I don't want to know how they did it. I hope that Zos's lawyers will prosecute them if illegal activities were taking place. Theft is theft and it has to be dealt with or we all suffer with higher prices and other outcomes.

SimonThesis

Glad we finally heard some news even if its not what we wanted to hear.

The_one_i_seek

jsjem wrote: »

"We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix." I heard that they stop gifting crates to handle the illegal crown issues, those people who wts crowns may not have a legal crown source. May not be the truth, but there must be something happened not a bug.

why stop gifting only crates then?

muscle_witch

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, we can confirm this style page is currently bugged and not dropping. We're working on getting this fixed for an upcoming incremental patch.

Thank you.

Can you say if that will make it into the patch for the 5th, or has it already missed that deadline? If so, that would put the next incremental after that on the 19th (assuming standard cadence), which doesn't leave much time for the page to drop unless the drop window is extended.

At this point, there isn't enough time to get the fix into next week's patch so it'll go into the next one currently scheduled for the 19th. To your point, given this would only give everyone a couple days to obtain the item, we will be extending the time for the page to drop - along with the currently-available Arms Pack - until January 4.

Given that they were willing to commit to extending the Kjalnar drop and arms pack availability before deploying a fix for the mask page drop bug, I think it's safe to assume at this point that the devs have no intention of extending or bringing back limited edition crates that people weren't able to gift as a result of this bug.

jsjem

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

jsjem wrote: »

"We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix." I heard that they stop gifting crates to handle the illegal crown issues, those people who wts crowns may not have a legal crown source. May not be the truth, but there must be something happened not a bug.

why stop gifting only crates then?

So that they can quickly gift all the illegal crowns, I guess. I'm not very familiar with how it works, just see some comments in other forums, it could be true if this comment not delete by the admin

EmperorRemanIV

Ayleid crates will leave the store in 6 days. Another crate we'll be losing and will have to wait 2-3 years for it's return

Elrender

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay here. I was going for the ESO celebrations and have been catching up on a lot of messages.

We are still working on getting a roll out plan for this issue. We still have a few issues pending on our end before we can issue out a date for a fix. In the meantime, we have raised the increased concern from all of you about this issue to our team working on this. We'll continue to follow up and check with the team so that we can provide an ETA as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience on this issue as we continue to work toward a solution.

what about crown crates that we are missed during this "bug" period? They gone for 2+ years again? or you will re-release em so we can gift em?

muscle_witch

Since people have been asking about that since the first page of this thread and none of the responses have even acknowledged those questions, it's pretty unlikely. I'm not going to be spending any more money on ESO because of this - at this point it's just a question of whether I'm going to keep playing the game once my plus subscription runs out or if I should cut my losses and try to get a refund on my Necrom pre-order while I can.

Lags

surely they will bring back the gloomspore crates or at the very least extend the ayelid ones. They quite literally removed mid year mayhem for us because console and eu didnt have the server update, when they could have just left it on PC NA but they chose not to. So like at the very least, if you're trying to be inclusive to everyone, then these crates should return when this is fixed. Really every crate that has been or will be missed. Thats my biggest concern, i dont mind waiting if im sure zos will do the right thing. And im not sure they will, at all.

EmperorRemanIV

"PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)"

Another patch update and nothing will happen, I bet

Arunei

I'm pretty sure claiming ZOS is purposefully doing this goes against the "no conspiracy theory" rule. It also doesn't make any sense because combined the console platforms are iirc roughly equal to the player base of PC, so why would they only target roughly half their players?

ZOS has a track record of a lack of communication, to the point where it has been publicly addressed by people like Gina several times over the years. I don't see it as purposeful maliciousness, just...them failing to communicate again.

I will say it's odd this matter hasn't been fixed yet. Generally CS matters are fixed within days, so whatever is going on must be pretty wacky. They're definitely losing money on this; people who are unable to afford Crates that normally buy them from others aren't suddenly going to have the money to buy them while the gifting bug is going strong. I mean some people might be able to budget for it but for the most part this is revenue ZOS is losing out on.

The_one_i_seek

well i understand it better now after some calculations and price checks

so players from Argentina can receive crowns for very cheap
if you count crowns for steam eso+, it will be near 9 usd for 21000 crowns (not crown packs, but for eso+ 6 or 12 months options)

AND it is only if you look at the official ARS/USD rate, i have a conversation with Argentina citizens, and official rate is far from real rate, when people exchanging usd not in banks, near 40% difference from official government rate

so effectively, if you living in Argentina you can receive crowns for near 5 usd per 21000 crowns

compare to official price of 140 usd (or 149?) for 21000, you can understand now, why gifting of ANYTHING, not only crates, is not profitable for Zenimax.

But since crates is the most popular item, when you turn off gifting for it you, as a game developer, can receive MUCH MORE PROFIT, ie 28(!) times more money

If you still dont understand why:
- with gifting enabled many buyers of crates using gold to buy crates from players that living in countries with very cheap crowns prices.
- with gifting disabled those players have no choice but buy crowns for official price of their region. Only Zenimax win in this case


@Maitsukas read what i wrote, i think its only affecting PC because only on PC you can receive crowns for so cheap using regional prices
illegal crowns can means crowns obtained by players who using VPN to buy them, so not truly illegal, in this case

Talln

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

well i understand it better now after some calculations and price checks

so players from Argentina can receive crowns for very cheap
if you count crowns for steam eso+, it will be near 9 usd for 21000 crowns (not crown packs, but for eso+ 6 or 12 months options)

AND it is only if you look at the official ARS/USD rate, i have a conversation with Argentina citizens, and official rate is far from real rate, when people exchanging usd not in banks, near 40% difference from official government rate

so effectively, if you living in Argentina you can receive crowns for near 5 usd per 21000 crowns

compare to official price of 140 usd (or 149?) for 21000, you can understand now, why gifting of ANYTHING, not only crates, is not profitable for Zenimax.

But since crates is the most popular item, when you turn off gifting for it you, as a game developer, can receive MUCH MORE PROFIT, ie 28(!) times more money

If you still dont understand why:
- with gifting enabled many buyers of crates using gold to buy crates from players that living in countries with very cheap crowns prices.
- with gifting disabled those players have no choice but buy crowns for official price of their region. Only Zenimax win in this case


@Maitsukas read what i wrote, i think its only affecting PC because only on PC you can receive crowns for so cheap using regional prices
illegal crowns can means crowns obtained by players who using VPN to buy them, so not truly illegal, in this case

Finally, someone actually connects the dots instead of ignoring the obvious. Thank you friend lol, [snip]

[edited for rude/insulting comment]

Elrender

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

If you still dont understand why:
- with gifting enabled many buyers of crates using gold to buy crates from players that living in countries with very cheap crowns prices.
- with gifting disabled those players have no choice but buy crowns for official price of their region. Only Zenimax win in this case

With gifting disabled people who would buy crowns for gold has no other option but not to buy crowns at all and dont buy crown crates.
Who win in that case decide is up to you