Disabling crown gifting is a bad idea

boi_anachronism_

Amottica wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kah wrote: »

I know the response to this is always going to be, "But they can make more money this way!!", but considering a bunch of players pay for ESO+ on top of a new expansion each year, it would be better if they just made everything in the crown store achievable by playing the game.

That would be an incorrect response. Zenimax makes more money due to the ability to gift. People who are not willing or not really able to buy crowns could buy crown items from other players who in turn are buying more crowns to facilitate this trade and get more gold for themselves.

Granted, we are not likely talking about a large percentage of players. Unlike GW2 where the best gear costs a large sum of in-game gold or an extremely long wait to obtain the matts directly, ESO has nothing that drives the need for gold anywhere to the same degree.

The problem is inflation and the ability to sell Crowns helped us get around this so even if you didn't really 'need' large amounts of gold, if you have several characters that you want to do different things with, I'm not gonna lie, its expensive.

That's why I say to anyone who is like me and has something, but is not filthy rich, you need to hold on to your gold, hold on to your gold mats and such. Now is the time to sell. I also would not make large purchases because if you run out of money you can't sell Crowns now and break even.

The filthy rich are going to stay rich, the haters have finally got their way, and if some of you don't lock down the bank now you'll be broke and on your own with no way out of the ditch. I'm sure the trade Guilds will show us kindness and help those in need. Can't wait.

The filthy rich pretty much got their by being active in the game which includes selling stuff to increase revenue and not buying everything on impulse. They will remain filthy rich because they do not spend willie nillie. If people hate them for that, well, they can choose to keep their gold closer and watch limit what they spend. \

Case in point, I take no issue with the prices of matts, even gold jewelry upgrades, because I do the work to farm my own. It is a choice to spend tons on gold jewelry upgrades but that is not a reason to hate those that farmed it to make it available to sell.

It all comes down to a choice. Oh, and most of my gold came from just playing the game and watching what I spent. Wow, much like real life.

Amottica wrote: »

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kah wrote: »

I know the response to this is always going to be, "But they can make more money this way!!", but considering a bunch of players pay for ESO+ on top of a new expansion each year, it would be better if they just made everything in the crown store achievable by playing the game.

That would be an incorrect response. Zenimax makes more money due to the ability to gift. People who are not willing or not really able to buy crowns could buy crown items from other players who in turn are buying more crowns to facilitate this trade and get more gold for themselves.

Granted, we are not likely talking about a large percentage of players. Unlike GW2 where the best gear costs a large sum of in-game gold or an extremely long wait to obtain the matts directly, ESO has nothing that drives the need for gold anywhere to the same degree.

Mm dont know about that last part. Im in some of the largest trading guilds. Chat is swamped dawn to dusk with "wtb x crowns". Heck it pops in my trial guilds plenty frequently too. Guilds base raffles off them as do trial guilds. There is a lot more to this. When i got online yesterday and hopped into psn with my trial guild its all anyone was talking about.

That does not indicate a majority or even a significantly large portion of the active end-game player base. idk, I do not sit there and watch guild chat and take count of how many times something is mentioned. Short of that it is nothing more than anecdotal.

Maybe. Look id rather be wrong but when its a topic of conversation in serious end game raiding guilds i can only hazard a guess as to what housing guilds look like. Since the announcement was made i have barely seen anything in chat from my trading guilds, not just about crowns.. just anything at all.. which is pretty erie on the weekends.. No word about our weekly auction, raffle, any of it. We are talking big guilds, like permanent spots in mournhold and graht. Its crickets.

As i said- id like to be wrong but honestly..

zaria

Amottica wrote: »

kah wrote: »

I know the response to this is always going to be, "But they can make more money this way!!", but considering a bunch of players pay for ESO+ on top of a new expansion each year, it would be better if they just made everything in the crown store achievable by playing the game.

That would be an incorrect response. Zenimax makes more money due to the ability to gift. People who are not willing or not really able to buy crowns could buy crown items from other players who in turn are buying more crowns to facilitate this trade and get more gold for themselves.

Granted, we are not likely talking about a large percentage of players. Unlike GW2 where the best gear costs a large sum of in-game gold or an extremely long wait to obtain the matts directly, ESO has nothing that drives the need for gold anywhere to the same degree.

Agree, this hurt their bottomline as its people who have lots of gold and see something in the crown store they want but don't want to pay for can get it for gold. And players who need gold can get it by paying for it.
So both players and ZoS benefited.

I believe the idea that people used free Epic subscriptions to set up dummy accounts they could then buy crowns on, sell the crowns and then reject the transaction on their credit card, then sell the gold on real money trading sites.

ZoS should look into how other companies who had games there you can buy premium currency for gold for years now.

Susan_Sto

What this whole saga has exposed is 2 major flaws that ESO suffers from.

1. There are very few rewards for playing the game. Besides motifs, there are very few collectables or cosmetics available just through gameplay. Events offer more, which is why player engagement goes up during those periods. Gold is the only real reward for playing the game.
2. Crown store items are overpriced. Everything is overpriced, cosmetics, mounts, crates, services tokens, skill boosts, etc. (I really wanted Antiquities to be included in the crown store but I knew it would be 3k and I just can't/ won't pay to get that for just 1 of my alts let alone all of them. Even when discounted it will still be 2.5k, which is still overpriced.)

Allowing players to use in-game gold to trade for crowns has simply masked this for years.

For ZOS to ban ALL crown trades means that they have a very serious and actionable reason to do so. More than just a few players using VPNs getting cheaper crowns from other countries, or just general scammers.

Since crate trading was banned suddenly we started to get messages in chat for 3rd party sites selling discount crowns for real world money. I saw the last message late last week just before the expanded ban.

This is a problem of ZOS making, if the gold/ crown exchange wasn't a fundamental part of the game now and crown items being so expensive (in real world money) they wouldn't have made the whole process so appealing to criminals.

We are probably never going to go back to the old system. A long term solution need to include crown item pricing, in game rewards, and a trading system that has proper oversight.

DinoZavr

in 2007 CCP Games, the owner of EVE Online MMO, has hired Ph.D. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, real-world economist to help with EVE's virtual ecomomy (which is indeed very complex)
worth reading: https://web.uri.edu/quadangles/the-virtual-economist/
a good quote: “There will always be some people with more time than money, and the reverse,” he reflects. “If there is demand, there’s no stopping it; you just fight to keep it to a minimum.”

in 2012 Valve has hired another professor of economy (and Minister of Finance of Greece) Yanis Varoufakis because of theirs Dota 2 & Team Fortress 2 economies
article: https://www.businessinsider.com/yanis-varoufakis-valve-game-economy-greek-finance-2015-2

Dear @ZOS_MattFiror, have you considered this kind of solution?

Elsonso

thehilanderb14a_ESO wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

AmandaLubyk wrote: »

I call to your attention that corporations, including credit card companies and banks, deal with major fraud on a daily basis. Despite this, they do not disable nor limit functionality to their customers - it would be bad for business to do so.

Actually, yes they do. On both sides... the merchant side and the card holder side.

Not on a scale like this. When corporations “turn off functionality” for fraud issues it is highly individualized to specific customers or specific vendors. Walmart doesn’t stop taking all returns nationwide because there were some fraudulent returns in Alabama over the last few months. Or Visa doesn’t block all PS5 purchases for six months because of some fraud on Amazon.

So, looking around the real world... What actually happens is that retail companies can tighten down on exchanges and returns, sometimes nationwide, and even at stores that do not have a problem. They can counter theft by removing items from shelves and forcing customers to ask for the items, or locking the shelves so that an employee has to unlock the shelf before the customer can buy things. If things get too bad, they will close the entire store, removing the ability for all customers to buy anything at that store. Ultimately, each of these things has a negative impact on some customers that are honest and not committing any theft or fraud.

Specific to credit card companies, it is my understand that a merchant who has excessive fraud could result in penalties, which could include 'blacklisting' or flagging the account, and even cancellation of their merchant account. In the case of blacklisting, my limited investigation shows that the credit card companies will decline the transaction, which looks like the card was denied, until the card holder confirms. In the case where the merchant is the single source for what is being purchased, like with ESO, that is a significant restriction that costs the merchant money, and inconveniences the customer.

I should not need to mention that a blacklist/flag or cancellation of a merchant account used for online purchases will impact everyone who tries to purchase something from that merchant. Anyone who purchases Crowns or ESO Plus directly from ZOS/Bethesda will want them to resolve this favorably, as failure to do so can directly impact a lot of customers. Even if the merchant account is not blacklisted or cancelled, they may incur additional expenses related to fraud that result in price increases for everyone.

My take is that this fraud may have real world implications that go well beyond disapproval because players cannot exchange a virtual currency for a virtual item. It is an obvious assumption that this is serious enough that they are willing to turn off an in-game feature that is facilitating a real world fraud, and suffer the backlash here in the gallery, while it is being resolved.

IMHO... They should have turned it off months ago!

DinoZavr

Not exactly.

If economy is sick - she has to visit a doctor.
There are different doctors, though.
Some are dumb and having no clue what actually happens the offer tons of antibiotics, to kill the disease and cripple the patient.
Some are smart and can select an efficient cure.

Sledgehammer is a much worse cure, then a scalpel.
Zenimax needs a professor of economy plus cybersecurity fraud expert, imho

muscle_witch

Elsonso wrote: »

IMHO... They should have turned it off months ago!

I couldn't disagree more. I don't have to do research because secure payments, regulatory compliance, and third party facilitated transactions are dinner table conversation in my household and let me tell you: IF that is the problem ZOS is facing (which we have no way of knowing - I'm not actively disputing their claims of fraudulent activity, but I also have no way of knowing how true they are and ZOS' track record with transparency on this issue is...so much less than stellar it's basically a black hole), they had many, many options to implement additional security features related to in-game transactions.

Heck, if this is actually the issue, they could have left everything enabled for steam users because they get to piggyback on all of steam's security features for in-game transactions. Credit card fraud and chargebacks aren't some new issue in the industry that requires months to years of investigation to solve. It's not an issue unique to ESO that no one in the industry can figure out how to deal with. This is something that digital commerce has been fighting for decades, will continue to fight, and has already created a pretty comprehensive set of tools to combat at point of sale. If any given company decides the best course of action is to turn off game functionality while they have a little freakout, that's not a security issue or a fraud issue, that's a management issue.

Dragonlord573

Crown selling legitimately was the only way for a lot of players to have access to items in the crown store. Character, inventory, outfit slots, weapon packs, mounts, merchant/banker, crown crates, you name it. It was the primary way for lots of people to get cosmetics and QoL items. Frankly this entire situation was made by ZOS by locking 95% of cosmetics and every useful QoL feature minus the free Armory bench behind a paywall.

Sure, fraud is an awful thing, but if the Crown Store didn't contain literally all the good cosmetics that people farmed for (and frankly I think everyone would like the option to farm for them instead of paying for them) then this wouldn't be such an awful thing. Either ZOS needs to inject crown store items into content so people can earn them or make Endeavors capable of buying everything in the store, not just crown crate items.

So now a large portion of the playerbase has lost their source of gameplay. ZOS can not continue giving the playerbase crummy titles that the overwhelming majority of players don't know the meaning or significance of. We need worthwhile content again like how Dragonbones and Woldhunter did it.

Amottica

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kah wrote: »

I know the response to this is always going to be, "But they can make more money this way!!", but considering a bunch of players pay for ESO+ on top of a new expansion each year, it would be better if they just made everything in the crown store achievable by playing the game.

That would be an incorrect response. Zenimax makes more money due to the ability to gift. People who are not willing or not really able to buy crowns could buy crown items from other players who in turn are buying more crowns to facilitate this trade and get more gold for themselves.

Granted, we are not likely talking about a large percentage of players. Unlike GW2 where the best gear costs a large sum of in-game gold or an extremely long wait to obtain the matts directly, ESO has nothing that drives the need for gold anywhere to the same degree.

The problem is inflation and the ability to sell Crowns helped us get around this so even if you didn't really 'need' large amounts of gold, if you have several characters that you want to do different things with, I'm not gonna lie, its expensive.

That's why I say to anyone who is like me and has something, but is not filthy rich, you need to hold on to your gold, hold on to your gold mats and such. Now is the time to sell. I also would not make large purchases because if you run out of money you can't sell Crowns now and break even.

The filthy rich are going to stay rich, the haters have finally got their way, and if some of you don't lock down the bank now you'll be broke and on your own with no way out of the ditch. I'm sure the trade Guilds will show us kindness and help those in need. Can't wait.

The filthy rich pretty much got their by being active in the game which includes selling stuff to increase revenue and not buying everything on impulse. They will remain filthy rich because they do not spend willie nillie. If people hate them for that, well, they can choose to keep their gold closer and watch limit what they spend. \

Case in point, I take no issue with the prices of matts, even gold jewelry upgrades, because I do the work to farm my own. It is a choice to spend tons on gold jewelry upgrades but that is not a reason to hate those that farmed it to make it available to sell.

It all comes down to a choice. Oh, and most of my gold came from just playing the game and watching what I spent. Wow, much like real life.

Amottica wrote: »

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kah wrote: »

I know the response to this is always going to be, "But they can make more money this way!!", but considering a bunch of players pay for ESO+ on top of a new expansion each year, it would be better if they just made everything in the crown store achievable by playing the game.

That would be an incorrect response. Zenimax makes more money due to the ability to gift. People who are not willing or not really able to buy crowns could buy crown items from other players who in turn are buying more crowns to facilitate this trade and get more gold for themselves.

Granted, we are not likely talking about a large percentage of players. Unlike GW2 where the best gear costs a large sum of in-game gold or an extremely long wait to obtain the matts directly, ESO has nothing that drives the need for gold anywhere to the same degree.

Mm dont know about that last part. Im in some of the largest trading guilds. Chat is swamped dawn to dusk with "wtb x crowns". Heck it pops in my trial guilds plenty frequently too. Guilds base raffles off them as do trial guilds. There is a lot more to this. When i got online yesterday and hopped into psn with my trial guild its all anyone was talking about.

That does not indicate a majority or even a significantly large portion of the active end-game player base. idk, I do not sit there and watch guild chat and take count of how many times something is mentioned. Short of that it is nothing more than anecdotal.

Maybe. Look id rather be wrong but when its a topic of conversation in serious end game raiding guilds i can only hazard a guess as to what housing guilds look like. Since the announcement was made i have barely seen anything in chat from my trading guilds, not just about crowns.. just anything at all.. which is pretty erie on the weekends.. No word about our weekly auction, raffle, any of it. We are talking big guilds, like permanent spots in mournhold and graht. Its crickets.

As i said- id like to be wrong but honestly..

If giving crowns was as big of a deal as some are suggesting it is then ESO would be having a major revenue issue. Just with crates alone, they would have likely brought in extra help yet somehow this has continued for almost half a year. With a complete stoppage on gifting they would call in an army of people to help find the solution and it would be implemented in weeks.

While I expect Zenimax is missing the revenue, It does not appear like Zenimax and ESO are in dire straights. That say more than what guild chat does.

SilverBride

Katheriah wrote: »

I'm just going to say it: it's IMHO toxic positivity to just say we have to trust and it's no big deal.

I never once said it's no big deal. I know it's having a negative impact for many, myself included. There are things I'd like to have that I am having to put on hold, too.

I also never used the word trust. What I've said is that we don't know what the exact fraud is and ZoS may not be able to give us more information. I've also said that bashing ZoS and blaming and accusing is not going to fix this. This is going to affect their crown sales too, so a quick resolution would benefit everyone.

In the meantime we can't do anything but wait and hope for a quick solution.

reazea

Easy fix. Don't buy crowns or anything from the crown store.

Darzaka

Been keeping an eye on this forum. I see a lot going back and forth about why this decision was made and its impact. ZOS's hands may be legally tied. But there are direct things we can do to make sure that things move faster than crown crate gifting this time

• Directly refusing to buy crown store items
• Refusing to renew ESO+
• Refusing to stream/promote if you are a streamer
• Letting others know that this impacts your ability/desire to play the game
• Letting ZOS employees know about your plans to do these things (please remember, public-facing employees probably just want to go home, like most working folks do. So be kind) @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
• Essentially anything that freezes monetary progress/income for ZOS until gifting, ALL gifting, is restored, stabilized, and de-stigmatized.

:

muscle_witch

Darzaka wrote: »

Been keeping an eye on this forum. I see a lot going back and forth about why this decision was made and its impact. ZOS's hands may be legally tied. But there are direct things we can do to make sure that things move faster than crown crate gifting this time

• Directly refusing to buy crown store items
• Refusing to renew ESO+
• Refusing to stream/promote if you are a streamer
• Letting others know that this impacts your ability/desire to play the game
• Letting ZOS employees know about your plans to do these things (please remember, public-facing employees probably just want to go home, like most working folks do. So be kind) @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
• Essentially anything that freezes monetary progress/income for ZOS until gifting, ALL gifting, is restored, stabilized, and de-stigmatized.

:

100% Agree, but I'll add one more point:

[*] Play less/take a break from the game - I'm not trying to be glib when I say this. MMOs depend on player communities to keep the game going.

Think about the new player experience for an established MMO where a large number of veteran players are on hiatus: the lack of friendly people answering questions in zone chat; the difficulty finding an active guild that will help out new players; longer waits for dungeon finder as fewer people queue for pledges and randoms; sitting in PVP areas getting killed by the same few people over and over because you don't know what to do and there aren't any groups running to help you out; waiting for hours to find someone to help you with that one worldboss; running around cities that look like ghost towns without clusters of players chatting or RPing; not being able to get gear crafted because no one's got all their traits researched; less popular guild traders standing empty because it's not worth farming the gold to bid on them. If every day starts being like it was right after Diablo 4 got released, that's going to be a problem for ZOS because it's hard to retain new players without the community built by the older ones.

Darzaka

muscle_witch wrote: »

[*] Play less/take a break from the game - I'm not trying to be glib when I say this. MMOs depend on player communities to keep the game going.

You don't come off as one. I pretty much plan on exclusively retreating into solo stuff. Less out of spite and more because gold farming was what gave me access to the other areas of the game I enjoyed.

Edited for context: I PvP/Mask/housing services/misc farm frequently with guilds as it's a good way to let newer players play and dip their toes into a wide array of content, but I have very little incentive to do that rn

SilverBride

Darzaka wrote: »

Been keeping an eye on this forum. I see a lot going back and forth about why this decision was made and its impact. ZOS's hands may be legally tied. But there are direct things we can do to make sure that things move faster than crown crate gifting this time

• Directly refusing to buy crown store items
• Refusing to renew ESO+
• Refusing to stream/promote if you are a streamer
• Letting others know that this impacts your ability/desire to play the game
• Letting ZOS employees know about your plans to do these things (please remember, public-facing employees probably just want to go home, like most working folks do. So be kind) @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
• Essentially anything that freezes monetary progress/income for ZOS until gifting, ALL gifting, is restored, stabilized, and de-stigmatized.

:

How are any of these things going to help find a solution for the fraud that caused this decision in the first place?

Darzaka

SilverBride wrote: »

How are any of these things going to help find a solution for the fraud that caused this decision in the first place?

It's not going to. I'm not on ZOS's team; I literally cannot do or offer a meaningful solution to what you're asking of me. But curtailing finances/PR/player influx for the duration of *their* work incentivizes companies to make the dry spell shorter.

SilverBride

Darzaka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How are any of these things going to help find a solution for the fraud that caused this decision in the first place?

It's not going to. I'm not on ZOS's team; I literally cannot do or offer a meaningful solution to what you're asking of me. But curtailing finances/PR/player influx for the duration of *their* work incentivizes companies to make the dry spell shorter.

No, it doesn't.

ZoS is being negatively impacted by this, too. I'm sure they want this resolved as soon as possible. These suggestions aren't going to make a solution appear any faster.

muscle_witch

SilverBride wrote: »

Darzaka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How are any of these things going to help find a solution for the fraud that caused this decision in the first place?

It's not going to. I'm not on ZOS's team; I literally cannot do or offer a meaningful solution to what you're asking of me. But curtailing finances/PR/player influx for the duration of *their* work incentivizes companies to make the dry spell shorter.

No, it doesn't.

ZoS is being negatively impacted by this, too. I'm sure they want this resolved as soon as possible. These suggestions aren't going to make a solution appear any faster.

You're acting like we, the players, somehow need to help ZOS stop fraud beyond complying with the TOS and reporting people who we see breaking. We don't. In fact, it is actively against our interests to do so.

[snip]

Why would you even try to help stop a problem when you don't even know what it is? This has been going on for over six months and no one in the player community has any idea what, if any, actual fraudulent behavior is taking place. It's all just speculation. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Darzaka

SilverBride wrote: »

ZoS is being negatively impacted by this, too. I'm sure they want this resolved as soon as possible. These suggestions aren't going to make a solution appear any faster.

Yes. Yes, it will. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence of past reforms to support this. Additional pressure does not hurt a multi-million dollar company, but it does send a message that this is important and needs to be resolved if they wish for this game to remain a stable revenue stream. Just one recent example of what happens when ZOS is left to their own devices is how Crown Crate gifting being disabled hurt them too, but you see how lax they are about meaningfully fixing it.

Furthermore, you make the assumption that we as players have an outlet to make meaningful TOS/fraud reform, Give me a way to do that, and I will. Until that time comes, I am not a ZOS employee; I am unable to do anything about this on the server end, policy end, legal end, or TOS end.

I don't have access to their code or the re-enable gifting button. Other than

1. The Forums
2. In-game

I have no way of solving the root problem, but I can push those who have the tools and the means to do so, not to repeat their recent mistakes.

SilverBride

muscle_witch wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Darzaka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How are any of these things going to help find a solution for the fraud that caused this decision in the first place?

It's not going to. I'm not on ZOS's team; I literally cannot do or offer a meaningful solution to what you're asking of me. But curtailing finances/PR/player influx for the duration of *their* work incentivizes companies to make the dry spell shorter.

No, it doesn't.

ZoS is being negatively impacted by this, too. I'm sure they want this resolved as soon as possible. These suggestions aren't going to make a solution appear any faster.

You're acting like we, the players, somehow need to help ZOS stop fraud beyond complying with the TOS and reporting people who we see breaking. We don't. In fact, it is actively against our interests to do so.

[snip]

Why would you even try to help stop a problem when you don't even know what it is? This has been going on for over six months and no one in the player community has any idea what, if any, actual fraudulent behavior is taking place. It's all just speculation. [snip]

I never once said we should help them find a solution to the fraud that caused this. I said that blaming and accusing and trying to put pressure on them is not going to find a solution any faster. I seriously doubt they are dragging their feet on this.

[edited to remove quote]

Katzenzunge

@muscle_witch Thank you!
You put in words perfectly

SilverBride

muscle_witch wrote: »

[snip]

I've been commenting on this issue since the day it was announced. And I've seen all the complaints over time. Accusing ZoS of just not caring about their players is far from promoting goodwill.

[edited to remove quote]

PrincessOfThieves

I think we are all promoting goodwill by sticking to the game.
If you care about a game, you want it to improve and be supported for longer, so it's understandable that people are upset about the lack of communication, weird decisions etc.

Darzaka

muscle_witch wrote: »

Who were there when crate gifting was first turned off and ZOS told us it was a bug.

This is entirely the issue. It's a matter of using the most efficient methods to fix a problem based on the data we have. I don't mean to be confrontational @SilverBride , I simply want the method that has historically had the highest chance of working in my years of experience over EVERY type of content this game (yea, that too) to be the approach we take. And not putting pressure on ZOS has historically been *very* close to the bottom in its efficacy. And it didn't work for the most recent Crown Store gifting issue, and statistically, it will not work for this.

Nor is jumping to "I QUIT" an effective strategy. It is demoralizing to the player and the employees and fails to convince anyone of the person's seriousness, just their frustration. It is important that ZOS knows why one's time in-game will be rolled back and what they need to do to fix it.

This issue will likely be fixed regardless of the path we take, but every week we fail to light a fire under ZOS's feet, we bleed kind, safe, and fun guilds/players. It's not about solving the problem. It's about dressing the wound before we lose the players we've come to know, love, and rely on.

SerafinaWaterstar

This has been an interesting read, as in all the years of playing, crowns (or items) / gold exchange has never been a part of my game, or most of the people I know & play with.

Is this a big part of pc playing, as it does not seem to be a thing on consoles (happy to learn if not the case).

I use the gold I gain in game to buy housing items, either plans or mats. Even houses. Not much else. Don’t need to.

If something comes in the crown store I don’t have the crowns for, then I don’t buy it. I definitely don’t waste my crowns on gamble crates as I heartily despise them.

So whilst I appreciate it may be annoying to lose the ability to do this, I have to say I don’t understand why people are so despairing angry.

(Personally I would like to see more things able to buy in game, or in the crown store for considerably less crowns. Crates should just go.)

And just to add, if the fraudulent activity has anything to do with possible money laundering, then Zos has to take it very seriously as they cannot be seen to be even remotely involved in this.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have removed some insulting baiting in addition to some back and forth that was disruptive.

• Trolling or Baiting: The act of trolling is defined as something that is created for the intent to provoke conflict, shock others, or to elicit a strong negative or emotional reaction. It’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread, and find another discussion to participate in instead. It is also not constructive or helpful to publicly call out others and accuse them of trolling, or call them a troll—please refrain from doing so. If you genuinely believe someone is trolling, please report the post or thread to the ESO Team, and leave it at that.

Please ensure you are treating others with respect on the forums even when they have views that differ from your own.

Thank you for your understanding.

Darzaka

SilverBride wrote: »

[snip]

I understand where you're coming from, and I see the value in promoting honest and good-faith communication. [snip] (Okay, I'll adjust my phrasing ZOS mods, @muscle_witch and I have been following and commenting together on similar posts for a long time and I understand that others can perceive their good intentions as reactionary or overly aggressive)

But don't let the package spoil the message. They are very correct. I respect ZOS employees and hope that others treat them with dignity and respect. They are doing their job and likely would rather be doing something else.

But there is a difference between being disrespectful and setting boundaries. Good-faith communication relies on both parties to be honest. This means speaking up when something *really* bothers you. For example, I firmly believe that lead farming *needs* a pity system. But I understand that if I'm as vocal about that as I am about this, it sends the message that I care about both things equally.



I don't.



I will lose a significant portion of the joy I feel playing this game if it isn't fixed quickly. I will also lose a shared activity with some of my friends. I can always put something on in the background while I do my 50th Bastion Nymic.

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

finehair

Make crown purchased items count as tradeable "seals" which gives the purchased crown store item when opened.
Let's say I purchase wrathstone dlc in crown store. It gives me seal of wrathstone. I can put this seal on guild store, trade with other players etc.
Boom now you have created a whole new economy which prevents crown scamming. Also crown prices will be more competitive in terms of gold, since it is now on guild stores people can go for cheaper option, however since it's still real money it won't go for like 10 golds each crown.
Also now there is a gold sink which prevents infinite amount of gold players are trading between each other. Since you sell items through guild store, the tax gold will be lost to the gods of trading.

muscle_witch

Darzaka wrote: »

I understand where you're coming from, and I see the value in promoting honest and good-faith communication. [snip]

Haha, my raised by lawyers must be showing XD

I should be clear though - I'm aggressive because I care.

I like ESO. I like a lot of the gameplay elements. I love the community of people who bring their enthusiasm to decorating, questing, RPing, dungeoneering, and raiding. I love my apology guar and was actually happy when we were given them because they're adorable and flounce dramatically. I live for when my zone chat/guild chat/npc dialogue syncs up hilariously in my chatbox. I adore the packrat that my friend sent me as a gift when I first started playing and was struggling with inventory management. I named him Mervyn, he is the only pet I use on my first toon, and I would regularly send that friend screenshots of Mervyn doing cute things in Tamriel.

What I do not like is the way ZOS treats its playerbase. I don't play right now except for logging on to run a dungeon with some very good friends a few times a month because I don't want to contribute to a community in service of a company that I feel does not respect or listen to its consumers. I still stay active on this topic in the forums because I want ZOS to do better. To be better. To behave in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm propping up a broken system when I write guides for beginner healers or try to find trade guilds for newbies asking how to make gold in zone chat. For as much labor as goes into the game (and there is a lot) there are a lot of very valid complaints and criticisms that go unaddressed. I want to come back to ESO, but I'm not going to do that until I feel like I can trust that they won't pull the rug out from us whenever it's convenient.

[edited to remove quote]

Braffin

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

This has been an interesting read, as in all the years of playing, crowns (or items) / gold exchange has never been a part of my game, or most of the people I know & play with.

Is this a big part of pc playing, as it does not seem to be a thing on consoles (happy to learn if not the case).

I don't think things differ much between pc and consoles in this regard.

The forums simply aren't representative for the game's community.

Most players never participate in forums discussions, that's something mostly done by more engaged players.