Danikat wrote: »

I have no idea why it works this way but that's how it's been since they added the crown store.

Anything purchased outside the game is applied to both servers. For example if you pre-ordered the Imperial edition you'll have the Imperial race and horse and the Any Race, Any Alliance upgrade on both servers. Likewise if you have a subscription you'll get the sub bonuses on both servers.

But anything purchased in the crown store is specific to the server it's brought on. If you buy the Imperial upgrade inside the game you won't have it on the other server.

Even worse crowns are shared. If you spend crowns on the EU server they'll be removed from your crown balance on the NA server too.

So yes, if you want the DLC on both servers you'll have to buy it twice.

That is even worse. Doesn't make sense at all. Itens are not shared but crowns are. ZoS should do something about this. Either make an exact clone on both servers for crowns or merge both Crown Servers.

My guess of the reason is how you're logged in. When you're buying from the Crown Store, you're logged into the server, so purchases are tied to that server. When you're buying Crowns or ESO Plus, you're logged into the Account System, so purchases are tied to your account. In order for ZOS to allow in-game purchases to apply to the whole account, they would need to add a way to link the purchase up to the account system, rather than the server.

Danikat wrote: »

I have no idea why it works this way but that's how it's been since they added the crown store.

I understand why it works that way. It's all database-related.

Basically, ZOS will have multiple databases:

Customer Account DB (there may or may not be one of these per platform): this is where all of the data related to a customer and that customer's account will be stored. This is where they'll keep data on your real name, billing info, email address, password, etc. When you purchase crowns a transaction is posted to this database to update your crowns balance.

Server DB (this would be per platform/server): this is where all of the data related to your characters etc. on a server will be stored. When you purchase an item from the crown store a transaction is posted to this database to update your server account with whatever you just bought.

There are a couple of different ways that the interaction between the Customer Account DB and the Server DBs could possibly take place:

1. Your crown balance is stored on the Customer Account DB. When you're in-game on either the EU or NA server and your crown balance is displayed, a message is sent to the Customer Account DB to retrieve that balance for display. When you're in-game on either the EU or the NA server and make a crown store purchase, a message is sent to the Customer Account DB to subtract the appropriate amount of crowns from your balance, and the Server DB for the server that you're on is updated to give you whatever you just bought.

2. Your crown balance is stored on the Customer Account DB and on the Server DBs. When you buy crowns and a transaction is posted to update the Customer Account DB, and a message is then sent to the 2 Server DBs to over-write your crown balance on them with the new value from the Customer Account DB. When you're in-game on either the EU or the NA server and make a crown store purchase, a message is sent to the Customer Account DB to subtract the appropriate amount of crowns from your balance, a message is then sent to each Server DB to over-write your crown balance with the new value from the Customer Account DB, and the Server DB for the server that you're on is updated to give you whatever you just bought.

Of those 2 options, #1 is more likely, because with #2 you're at a risk of ending up with a desynchronization between the DBs where one or another may not always have the most up to date crown balance.

Having said that, it's technically very possible to have items purchased on the crown store available on both servers. What you would need is messaging from one server to the other at the time you purchase an item in the crown store, so that both server DBs show the appropriate unlocks. With crown store purchases of items that show up in the inventory of the character you're logged on with it becomes a little more complicated, because there would have to be a rule in place regarding which character's inventory to put it into for the server that you're not currently logged in on. It's still quite possible to set it up that way, though. Most likely ZOS decided that based on their metrics for how many players actively play on both servers, it wasn't worth the development effort of a system to send the appropriate messages from one to the other.

Ciovala wrote: »

I wish the purchases worked across regions. I'm moving continents and I have to rebuy everything. Hell, in my case, just selling a server move (I mean they ostensibly did this for the PC -> PS4 copy anyway) would be a godsend.

At least you do have an option to keep playing on the same server you've been playing on. It may be more/less crowded at certain times, but we have friends from EU who play the NA server as they joined the game to run with us -- not like you'll automatically be shunted over to another server where your purchases don't exist.

This does not mean I don't think a server transfer of purchases should be avoided or remain unavailable, just means you won't actually lose items you did purchase unless you choose to change servers.