Crown selling.

Shadowasrial

So iv been hearing a lot of mixed information about crown selling. Hearing about people getting banned for buying/selling and yet we can gift items from the crownstore. Iv got a lot of guildies who are now panicking that if they buy something from the crownstore for someone they will get banned. So I would like to get some clarification from someone in Zos.

Can we buy/sell crowns in game for in game gold or not?
Are the people getting banned for selling crowns getting banned for selling them for real world currency?
Many people sell crown crates to guildies for in game gold because they can’t buy crowns themselves and I would really like some clarification from someone at zos to put the rumors and misinformation to rest.

tmbrinks

ZoS has clarified it here multiple times. Trading in-game items for in-game items is perfectly allowed.

And: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5208334#Comment_5208334

Gina saying that crown store items are in-game items.

Veinblood1965

It's only trading crowns for real world items or cash that get's ya banned. For example if I give you 5000 crowns and you give me your 2014 Lamborghini then we are banned!

Rittings

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Bill @ZOS_Kevin

Can we get an official response here? Because your customer service agents are telling a different story... see here a response.



This is not a response for me personally, but someone I directly know and trust is official. It would be nice to know the official stance before people start to get themselves banned.

RaikaNA

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

It's only trading crowns for real world items or cash that get's ya banned. For example if I give you 5000 crowns and you give me your 2014 Lamborghini then we are banned!

that's a very bad deal... bad deal indeed :O

FabresFour

Well, if Zenimax decides to stop this practice, I think they will lose a lot of money in the process.

I imagine that the purchase of crown for gold moves their store a lot normally. They will basically make it impossible for people who are unable to access items from the crown store because of irl money.

This is without considering that exchanging crowns for gold is one of ESO's biggest selling points. When someone asks, "Hey, do I have to buy all the expansions to have fun?" and you answer "No, but anyway, you can get almost all DLC's with in-game gold, buying from other players!" This really encourages new players to get on board with the game, honestly, banning this practice is going to be like shooting yourself in the foot, I'm extremely worried.

GooGa592

tmbrinks wrote: »

ZoS has clarified it here multiple times. Trading in-game items for in-game items is perfectly allowed.

And: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5208334#Comment_5208334

Gina saying that crown store items are in-game items.

But customer service is saying something contrary to this in their automated message.

DragonRacer

FabresFour wrote: »

Well, if Zenimax decides to stop this practice, I think they will lose a lot of money in the process.

I imagine that the purchase of crown for gold moves their store a lot normally. They will basically make it impossible for people who are unable to access items from the crown store because of irl money.

This is without considering that exchanging crowns for gold is one of ESO's biggest selling points. When someone asks, "Hey, do I have to buy all the expansions to have fun?" and you answer "No, but anyway, you can get almost all DLC's with in-game gold, buying from other players!" This really encourages new players to get on board with the game, honestly, banning this practice is going to be like shooting yourself in the foot, I'm extremely worried.

If they're truly going the way of eliminating any Crown Store item buying/selling for in-game gold - which is most certainly what their CS reps' responses are making people think - they are gonna lose a TON of money whenever they do release that ship house. I know so many people who cannot physically afford Crowns in real life who have been saving gold to find Crown sellers to buy it. I imagine it's going to be a pretty penny. And I know a lot of Crown sellers who are flush with cash in real life who don't have a ton of gaming time, so they were a great source to buy mounts/houses, etc from. It was a symbiotic relationship where they could turn their Crowns (which they could afford) into in-game gold for them to shop and play how they wanted and, in exchange, people with lots of grinding time to play and make in-game gold but who could not afford real life money to purchase Crowns could still get what they wanted from the store via these sellers.

You take that away and you lose a lot of whales who only bought Crowns in order to sell them. If they can't do that anymore, guess what? They won't be buying anymore Crowns.

This is such a case of shooting their own foot if this is what ZOS ultimately intends to do, but simply started with the bandaid of shutting off the Crown crate sales and letting people find out the bad news via CS rep ticket responses. And if that isn't their intention and this is all a case of customer support not being properly told/managed, then they have allowed an absolute flurry of miscommunication and damage sweep through the community completely unbridled.

markulrich1966

Giina has clarified in the past, but rules can change.

In general, the valid rule I follow is the latest written update, and that is currently the info from support, that trading gold is a violation of the ToS.
Although I play less and also another game meanwhile, I do not want to risk my account.
How quick this can happen we have seen when people lost their accounts after checking out an exploit, trying to verify it and reporting it.
We also have seen that accounts were closed quite a while after the issue that lead to it, in a cumulated ban-wave.

So I will take no risk and buy no crown store items at all for now, until we get an official new update (I only bought for gold meanwhile, after wasting maybe 1000 Euro in ESO before the massive nerf-hamers).

petanko

Basically, they tolerate crown/gold trading. But if you're scammed, you're on your own, support will not do anything.
I guess it's unpossible (for ZOS) to implement an in-game store currency/gold exchange like in GW2.

wilykcat

I'm all for GW2 like systems.

Mithgil

Rittings wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Bill @ZOS_Kevin

Can we get an official response here? Because your customer service agents are telling a different story... see here a response.



This is not a response for me personally, but someone I directly know and trust is official. It would be nice to know the official stance before people start to get themselves banned.

You'll note that the notice is specifying Crown Crates. There's been an ongoing issue with fraudulent activity and the gifting of Crown Crates so ZOS had to suspend the gifting of Crown Crates in the game (and all platforms).. ZOS recently put into place an interim Customer Service work around to be able to gift Crown Crates in-game (many are not happy about this).

You may freely gift any other Crown Store items in-game. You can see for yourself the option exists when purchasing in the Crown Store. If someone agrees to gift/send you in-game Gold when you do that, it's fine. Have done it many times myself.

thorwyn

You may freely gift any other Crown Store items in-game. You can see for yourself the option exists when purchasing in the Crown Store. If someone agrees to gift/send you in-game Gold when you do that, it's fine. Have done it many times myself.

Your post does not make sense. Either you CAN gift crown crates, or you can not. As long as you can gift crown crates, they should be treated like any other item from the crown store, unless ZOS clearly made an official announcement, that the gold for CS item policy does NOT apply to crates. That never happened. Banning people out of the blue for something that used to be tolerated before is unacceptable.
Either the customer service made a mistake, or the poster did not tell us the whole story, or ZOS is still trying to figure out what this communication thing really means.

DragonRacer

thorwyn wrote: »

You may freely gift any other Crown Store items in-game. You can see for yourself the option exists when purchasing in the Crown Store. If someone agrees to gift/send you in-game Gold when you do that, it's fine. Have done it many times myself.

Your post does not make sense. Either you CAN gift crown crates, or you can not. As long as you can gift crown crates, they should be treated like any other item from the crown store, unless ZOS clearly made an official announcement, that the gold for CS item policy does NOT apply to crates. That never happened. Banning people out of the blue for something that used to be tolerated before is unacceptable.
Either the customer service made a mistake, or the poster did not tell us the whole story, or ZOS is still trying to figure out what this communication thing really means.

No, what they posted made sense.

Up until recently, yes, you could click a button to gift Crown CRATES. ZOS recently turned that button OFF for Crown CRATES ONLY because there was some sort of fraudulent activity happening with them that they have not expounded upon yet. There is a stickied thread at the top of the forum that explains all this, if you have not read it already. They then followed up with a temporary work-around solution for gifting CRATES ONLY while gifting is turned OFF for them, that involves contacting customer support. A method ZOS literally made and told the community to use. And either something has changed without the community being informed or customer service was given bad/wrong information, because half the people trying to gift CRATES using the customer service solution ZOS themselves said to use are getting emails back from customer service saying it's a violation of the TOS.

"You may freely gift any other Crown Store items in-game." - You can still gift items that are NOT CRATES in the store. That is what they are saying. You can still gift mounts, houses, furnishing packs, DLCs, etc. Just not CRATES. But the crates debacle with customer service DOES have many of us wondering if gifting itself is about to change entirely or if customer support is 100% wildly confused.

virtus753

Mithgil wrote: »

ZOS recently put into place an interim Customer Service work around to be able to gift Crown Crates in-game (many are not happy about this).

Indeed, I don’t think any reasonable person would or should be happy about it if they tried to gift crown crates using this system only to be accused of trying to violate Terms of Service that clearly don’t apply. Since Support is meant to oversee the crate gifting process for the time being, they have all the power they need to ensure that the gift buyer pays the crowns to ZOS and the gift recipient gets only crates, which means crowns are never actually being transferred to the other player and Support is accusing players of trying to do something (i.e. transfer virtual currency) that is impossible through this system.

Twig_Garlicshine

Did anyone really think Zos enabled a manual transaction process through customer service reps to enable discord bros to be back in business as usual?
Think about it for a second.
A temporary pain in the butt process to alleviate some of the forum flack, and bad P.R. from players
or a
back to business as usual for crate sellers and gamblers?

They did state this was only for gifting to friends and guilds, not every player who hits your discord looking to fill their crate opening fix.

virtus753

Fkey wrote: »

Did anyone really think Zos enabled a manual transaction process through customer service reps to enable discord bros to be back in business as usual?
Think about it for a second.
A temporary pain in the butt process to alleviate some of the forum flack, and bad P.R. from players
or a
back to business as usual for crate sellers and gamblers?

They did state this was only for gifting to friends and guilds, not every player who hits your discord looking to fill their crate opening fix.

They have every right to say this system is not for trading gold and they will not facilitate such transactions. All they have to do in response to such requests is say "we will not fulfill a request where we know that gold exchange is involved." Had that been their response, instead of leveling accusations of violating ToS that don't apply, this would be a very different situation.

wolfie1.0.

thorwyn wrote: »

You may freely gift any other Crown Store items in-game. You can see for yourself the option exists when purchasing in the Crown Store. If someone agrees to gift/send you in-game Gold when you do that, it's fine. Have done it many times myself.

Your post does not make sense. Either you CAN gift crown crates, or you can not. As long as you can gift crown crates, they should be treated like any other item from the crown store, unless ZOS clearly made an official announcement, that the gold for CS item policy does NOT apply to crates. That never happened. Banning people out of the blue for something that used to be tolerated before is unacceptable.
Either the customer service made a mistake, or the poster did not tell us the whole story, or ZOS is still trying to figure out what this communication thing really means.

Please see the official post about the workaround.

It states that zos will only allow true gifts for crown crates via customer support at this time.

Otherwise gifting crown crates is not happening.

All other crown items can be gifted as normal and zos doesn't care about what you get in return.

Basically, zos doesn't care if you sell or buy crowns so long as you don't involve them to facilitate any part of the transaction.

Ragnarok0130

petanko wrote: »

Basically, they tolerate crown/gold trading. But if you're scammed, you're on your own, support will not do anything.

Incorrect, in the past Customer Service has refunded gold to players when scammed during Crowns for Gold trading. This practice was not only tolerated but aided by Customer Service when it went sideways in the past.

The community manager and the mods have also verified that it is not a violation so if the rules have changed the onus is on ZoS to inform the player base of the rule change and not just go silent and and claim people are in violation for doing what ZoS has long allowed and aided.