Sending Gold for Crowns is now a ToS Violation (According to customer support)

boi_anachronism_

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

Zalathorm wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

But there have been people posting in the sticky thread saying no mention of exchanging gold in their requests. They merely requested to gift crates and they’re still getting TOS violation responses like that.

This entire thing is, quite frankly, a mess and I say that as someone not affected by it currently.

What they are probably doing is looking back on the history of that player and their "gifting" of items. And anything deemed excessive, or likely falling into the sales territory, is being denied.

So if we learn that

2. Gold for crowns is not in fact a violation of ToS

this...is no more legitimate or condoned than a "Gold seller website" would be.

Exactly wrong.

Trading crown items for in-game gold has been condoned for a long time by ZOS. Gina has stated that trading crown items for gold is allowed.
There are multiple very visible and public "Crown Exchange" guilds that broker trades between players, and some of them have been active for years, which would not be the case if ZOS forbade the practice of trading crown items for gold.

The issue that triggered this thread is confusion between that practice and the "Temporary Solution" for gifting crown crates (two similar but separate scenarios), and that confusion is most likely being caused by a lack of [or a mis-] communication between management and Customer Service.

Agree. They wouldnt do this. Financially it would be a terrible decision. Basically folks who buy crowns to swap would no longer buy them cause why and folks who dont buy crowns already will continue to not buy them because many of them dont have irl ability to buy them, Financially or otherwise. so its a lose/lose situation.

spartaxoxo

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

Crowns are "Real money" you purchese them as part of your ESO+ Sub or directly from the platforms store, Gold is Disney dollars that Players have inflated through greed and stupidity.

Crowns are not real money. I cannot pay my rent with crowns. Crowns are an in-game item. They are no more real than gold.

Crowns for gold have been explicitly stated by Zenimax Entertainment to be a permitted practice since it is exchanging one in-game currency for another. Gold for real life money is not because real life money is not an in-game currency in the past.

Wolfkeks

RMW wrote: »

Zalathorm wrote: »

I'm posting this here because many players may not be aware of what is going on in the new gifting crown crate system.

However, this is bigger than the gifting of crates because ZOS customer support is actually making a much larger statement about gold for crown exchanges.

For years, ZOS has stated that sending a player gold in exchange for their crown store gift is allowed. Customer support has even gone as far as reimbursing people who have been scammed in the past.



Gold for a gifted crown store item is one of the biggest markets in the game and I would imagine, a large source of revenue for ZOS from the people who buy the crowns with USD.

Fast forward to the new system of gifting crates. Players have been going through the official process to gift crates by opening customer support tickets as described here. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638375/crown-crate-gifting-temporary-solution-process/p1

Players are receiving some form of response like the following...



Players are in no way asking ZOS to be the handler of the gold part of an exchange. Some players have not mentioned gold at all, even in game DMs. Other players have agreed to send gold after crates arrive via in game DMs.

Regardless, ZOS customer support is specifically saying that gold for crown exchanges are ToS violations after years of saying it isn't

So, I guess the rules are now??

1. Gold for in-game items, services like carry services etc are ✅
2. Gold for crown store items (here crown crates) and I guess things like pet codes that are not ingame are❌
3. And obv ingame items, services, crown store items for real life money are ❌

or just bad communication considering that support is prob flooded with mails atm

Nr. 2 is probably just for the temporay fix considering Kevin's comment on the original post:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

*This program is not to be used for "gold for Crowns" nor "Crowns for gold. As of right now, it is strictly to facilitate a player using crowns to gift crown crates to another player.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638375/crown-crate-gifting-temporary-solution-process/p1

Elsonso

Wolfkeks wrote: »

RMW wrote: »

So, I guess the rules are now??

1. Gold for in-game items, services like carry services etc are ✅
2. Gold for crown store items (here crown crates) [snip]❌
3. And obv ingame items, services, crown store items for real life money are ❌

Nr. 2 is probably just for the temporay fix considering Kevin's comment on the original post:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

*This program is not to be used for "gold for Crowns" nor "Crowns for gold. As of right now, it is strictly to facilitate a player using crowns to gift crown crates to another player.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638375/crown-crate-gifting-temporary-solution-process/p1

I expect that customer support is using boiler plate responses or some other form of pre-determined responses and this whole thread is caused simply by them using the wrong response. My guess is that rather than saying that the temporary process is not to be used for gold for Crowns, they said what they said. Possible that this little detail (the response) was omitted, skipped, or missed during the lengthy negotiations between the different teams to determine what had to be done, what limits were needed, who does what, etc. Could also be an "education" thing and not everyone was fully up to speed.

Still... watching this to see how it turns out. 🍿

cherryskary

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

As a guild leader, I would like to know:
Is it against the ToS to trade gold in exchange for items gifted from the crown store? If I pay someone gold for a pet that they gift me from the crown store, is that allowed?