Crown Crates no longer giftable?

Zyva

It's so crazy this has been going on so long.

Never before has a crown store issue not been resolved asap. It's their money making machine and takes priority.

So common sense says they are making more money by disabling gifting. For all the reasons listed above. And the only reason they will turn the train around is if enough people say no to buying crown items until it's reverted. Even then, I doubt they will ever admit it was purposeful because that would mean they lied to their player base.

I doubt we ever get the truth one way or the other.

caesarvs

sadge, rip to my g2g fellas

Livvy

While there are a lot of people, as I understand it, that strictly purchase crates with gold. And therefore they are losing those sales. I bet there are also a lot of people that buy them with gold just because they have so much gold, so why buy them with crowns. But they are perfectly willing and able to buy crowns and are doing so in this situation for the crates they cannot currently acquire with gold.

So I can see how they are losing in one area, but could be gaining in another. I just wonder which way is more lucrative for them.

The_one_i_seek

Elrender wrote: »

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

@Elrender you dont understand what is gambling addiction
this is why only crates gifting disabled
people will buy them anyway no matter what

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back and forth from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding.

Zyva

Queue everyone going to check and see if their posts were the ones that got deleted lmao

I'm curious if the rules change to no gifting of crates, if it will be for every platform or just PC. Or if it will stay just crates or revert back to zero gifting of crown items.

There is a bustling community built around buying and selling crowns through gifts.

Kirawolfe

EmperorRemanIV wrote: »

Even though it's a game, we are their customers. And If something is wrong with the product we bought, we have all the right in the world to complain about it and demand fixing, specially if it takes too long. If we just keep praising them and not talk about it again then they won't give the matter it's proper importance. Cause for them, people won't be talking about it so everything is ok.

So, I'll continue the thread. Any feedbacks?

The interface is now set up completely with no option for gifting. It's hard to see this as anything but intentional.

They must be losing money on it though. Those folks who could buy crates through people might be buying the crowns themselves, but I could see a large number without the means to and overall crown purchases dropping.

I know our exchange is much less busy.

Aka_

It would be helpful if we could have clear confirmation and a dispelling of rumors regarding the intentionality of this issue.

muscle_witch

Just got my Necrom pre-order refunded! Took less than a day - for anyone who bought it through Steam, refunds are open until release and then for 14 days after.

Morvan

the least they can do by now is to return all the crates missed once it's fixed, anything less than that would be really disappointing, sadly

sparxys

Talln wrote: »

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]

He's wrong tho.

Yes, you do get a discount if you buy crowns from Turkey or Argentina, but you the discount is ~50%. Yes, it's still a huge discount, but it's not as crazy as paying 5 USD for 21k crowns. It's 66/68 EUR instead of 145. A big drop in price, yes, but realistically not enough people are doing that to force the dev's hand this way. You could say "but maybe they're greedy", but at some point it wouldn't make sense anymore.

I get the frustration. I want to be able to gift crates as much as everyone else. I want to buy some crates for gold, and I am very curious if the devs will bring the temporary crates back or they'll extend them or do anything at all about it (@ZOS_Kevin we'd love a response on that ), but we just have to wait and see.

It sucks but it is what it is.

The_one_i_seek

@sparxys re-read my post
i told not about crown packs, but crowns for eso+

its 1499 ARS for 12 months = 19800 crowns

Gracile

ZOS know what the problem is. And those who bought/sold hundreds of thousands abused crowns again and again from ONE account know also. That's why they are all here - buyers and sellers, oh!shi - GIFTERS, watching how all this is going and are very worried ಡ⁠ ͜⁠ ⁠ʖ⁠ ⁠ಡ

right, seek?

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

any news?

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

any news? its bugged long enough

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

any news, foks?

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno hello dear Zenimax representative, any news about the issue?

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

i hope will be fixed with today's patch

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

waiting for news...

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

any news please? @ZOS_Kevin

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin hello, just for the transparency and better communication, can you describe the nature of this bug in short, or why it happened in first place? there was no patches or hotfixes at the time that bug appeared

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

not fixed with this patch either....

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

so this all was to test how much ayleid crates sales skyrocket with gifting disabled?

...

sparxys

Perhaps, ZOS knows the issue, Kevin said so, but the issue is probably a lot more complicated than we think. Saying they're doing it in purpose is a bit daft imho

jsjem

I don't know much about this situation, can they just copy the related code from previous version if there is a bug and they really want to fix it?

sparxys

jsjem wrote: »

I don't know much about this situation, can they just copy the related code from previous version if there is a bug and they really want to fix it?

I'd imagine they can't do that, since the bug probably appeared as a result of the interaction between old and new code. They'd be able to do that only with a patch rollback I think.

The_one_i_seek

sparxys wrote: »

jsjem wrote: »

I don't know much about this situation, can they just copy the related code from previous version if there is a bug and they really want to fix it?

I'd imagine they can't do that, since the bug probably appeared as a result of the interaction between old and new code. They'd be able to do that only with a patch rollback I think.

there was no patch at the moment when this "bug" appeared
it more looks like they changed one parameter on the server without any patches, thats even more suspicious

NinjaApacHe

So, not even a solution in this new patch?

sparxys

NinjaApacHe wrote: »

So, not even a solution in this new patch?

They didn't mention anything, so I imagine there's no fix this patch

kaioruschellub17_ESO

One more update and nothing solved this problem, ZOS disregard for its customers is worrying, the funniest thing is that all problems that occur in the crown store are solved in record time, and this problem is being pushed under the rug, honestly this is disheartening, even more so for those who dedicate their time to the game...

Aorys

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

In this case you assume that only players from outside Argentina are buying Crowns with Gold, and only players in Argentina sell Crowns. What you said would only make sense within these conditions.

The_one_i_seek

@Aorys
not only, but majority

if you look at the feedback channels of various discords where people trading crowns, you can see that some top sellers selling 1-2 millions of crowns per month

some of them have over 500 eso accounts with eso+ from argentina

Aorys

The_one_i_seek wrote: »

@Aorys
not only, but majority

if you look at the feedback channels of various discords where people trading crowns, you can see that some top sellers selling 1-2 millions of crowns per month

some of them have over 500 eso accounts with eso+ from argentina

If that were the issue, wouldn't be smarter to raise the + price on those regions? I would rather pay more Gold on the Crowns than losing the ability to buy crates

TropicsDelight

I finally managed to get rid of my second ESO+ account. I had thought about canceling the thing for a while but could never quite bring myself to cut the cord and lose those extra crown crates I gifted to my main account a couple times a year. The extra ESO+ account always felt a little less like straight up buying crowns with cash for more crates, although in practice is was not really much different. This was a much needed change, saved me almost $170 US a year on what was no more than crown crate purchases.

Aka_

Another day, another patch, and another set of posts to ignore by the forum team. I'm willing to join the communications department so that interdepartmental communication could be streamlined and answers could be provided in more detail more consistently to get ahead of this because.. wow. The rumors and conspiracies that community members here are suggesting might as well have merit, given that they have only been deleted rather than addressed directly and firmly as either true or false statements.

But everything is far more complicated than it appears to be, I'm sure. And that's okay. What's not okay is how little we get in the form of more reasonable and relevant dialogues, just appeasement. The start of the year having a statement along the lines of, "we know we've had problems, but we will do better," only to have absolutely no improvements in how you all talk to us is frankly sad. It's an insult to our intelligence. We know you can do better, and it probably isn't the devs' fault. It usually isn't when it comes to MMO's in my experience. But you're shooting yourselves in the foot by not talking to us, nor releasing statements that actually mean something. It's not just this, but I don't want to stray from this topic. Get a hold of the relevant people involved in this and let them talk to us like we are as invested in the process of this as you see we are. It's worth doing at this point. It's confusing and frustrating that this has slipped through the cracks on all fronts with how important it is being made out to be by invested players/community members.

Let's work together, not separately. It's been long enough.

Morvan

I'm very surprised people aren't freaking out over this, it has been nearly 2 months, we deserve a more detailed, specific feedback about the situation, it has escalated for too long now.

tonyblack

I’m going to be selfish here and say that this is one of the best bug zos introduced in a while

The price for gold:crown exchange on pc eu dropped from 2000:1 to 1500-1200:1 and it’s continuing to drop. Ungiftable crates is small price to pay and frankly i’m not even missing them that much.

sparxys

EmperorRemanIV wrote: »

Abadd wrote: »

I'm very surprised people aren't freaking out over this, it has been nearly 2 months, we deserve a more detailed, specific feedback about the situation, it has escalated for too long now.

We ARE freaking out. [snip]

[snip]

What people did say is that, yeah it sucks that their communication department is bad, but going on about some grand conspiracy and being an ass to the developers is not helping the situation.

[snip]
[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Morvan

tonyblack wrote: »

I’m going to be selfish here and say that this is one of the best bug zos introduced in a while

The price for gold:crown exchange on pc eu dropped from 2000:1 to 1500-1200:1 and it’s continuing to drop. Ungiftable crates is small price to pay and frankly i’m not even missing them that much.

It's a good side effect for sure, but then I don't have much to spend my gold on if not for crates, I'm worried people might get too excited when they fix the bug and start buying so many crates that the crown rate will skyrocket. x)

Aorys

tonyblack wrote: »

I’m going to be selfish here and say that this is one of the best bug zos introduced in a while

The price for gold:crown exchange on pc eu dropped from 2000:1 to 1500-1200:1 and it’s continuing to drop. Ungiftable crates is small price to pay and frankly i’m not even missing them that much.

You think this is a good signal? Have you noticed how the guild chats are quiet? This means the game is dying. People are not buying crowns and sellers are trying to stimulate the market by doing lower prices.