Do not buy Crown Crates!!!

Prof_Bawbag · December 2016

Nyx2 wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

There you go again attempting to dictate what is what. Your endless drivel is boring and you yourself have nothing much to add other than go around telling people what they should or shouldn't be discussing.

"There you go again using arguments to reply to my personal attacks. Saying I don't contribute anything is not contributing anything either even if I'm the one involving you in this pointless talk!"

Really, this is the kind of discussion you were trying to have? I guess I will just let people continue to "argue" against me and not respond because it offends them.

You've offended no one, like the rest of us you're free to discuss what you want. However, I think you give yourself too much credit and not enough to those who are engaging on topic with yourself. At every turn you have refuted everything people have come at you with, with petty attempts at making yourself look vastly superior when it's simply not been merited at all. Continuously patting yourself on the back. Seriously, let others do it for you because it's never a good look.

We get that you are aggrieved and believe it or not, whilst I'm more on the other side of the fence on this particular argument, some of the points you have put forward have shifted my own opinion. I'm not too proud to admit that, but like i said, moderation of these topics are usually better left to those whose job it is to do the moderation.

Edit: Yes, I see the irony in my own post.

VampiricByNature · December 2016

@Rohamad_Ali. This is my first mmo so I have no eperience with game designers opting to pay attention to cosmetics vs game content. I'm sad if crown crates are an indication of this.
I'm just confused- everyone in this thread keeps saying it takes the devs 10 seconds to make a skin. Then in the same post they are saying these are going to change the course of dev attention etc. Smh
If the developers are done with the game- at least they let me dump my crowns before they went. Always locking specialty mounts behind a gambling barrier means that I have to pay about 20k crowns every 2 release cycles to get the majority of things out of these crates I want. I'll have to be a lot happier with the game state to pay that. So I guess I can see it killing the game community. (For example- if they put in a mount for more than my theorized cost-analysis- I'll be very frustrated I didn't get what I wanted. The worse the RNG the more likely I just... won't. If I can't get what I like in a game, I won't stay. )

I survived round 1 of crown crates. Time will tell.

Hymzir · December 2016

Generally speaking I advice against buying these scam boxes. They are a rip off and pure whaling at heart. They are purposefully designed to gouge as much money out of people who suffer from the gotta get them all syndrome and are utterly unethical in practice.

If, however, you have a bunch of crowns that you have no real use for that you got from subbing. And let's face it, crafting bag is a mighty big incentive to sub, then I suppose it's as good a dumb for your crowns as anything else in the store. AS long as you understand that you are extremely unlikely to get what you want from them, without throwing stupendous amount of crowns at them. Especially if you are aiming for a specific apex reward.

On that ground I did buy a bunch of them. Had over 10k of them sitting on my account and there was this one item in the boxes I wanted. But knowing my luck I was certain I would not get it no matter how many crates I bought. And it's an epic tier reward item, so not as it should be that hard to get. But luck, random *** and all that crap taken in account - end result not gonna get it ever.

So I bought a lot of four boxes first - and got trash, trash, trash and more trash. Only one item that was not consumable. Just pure frigging trash. Then bought a lot of 15 crates and got even more trash. Got two argonian specific *** pieces I have absolutely no use for, several horrible costumes I will never under any circumstances whatsoever wear. A bad hair style that makes me vomit, a hat so ugly I want to punch it's maker in the face, and tons and tons of utter pure *** that I did not even stop to look at before converting it all to bloody gems.

So out of 19 boxes bought, I did not get a single legendary or apex tier reward, nor did I get any mounts at all and only three pets (all three of which I dislike immensely and would never have paid a single crown for.) So my haul was 1 decent hat and one okay costume and that's it, for 6500 crowns spent. And for the record, that one epic tier thing I actually wanted and would have purchased from the store immediately, ... Did not get it, just as I predicted. So had to buy it with gems. Of which I managed to accumulate all of 100 of which I had to spent 16 for that one epic tier thing I wanted so can't even buy a single legendary level reward with the gems I'm left with.

This is a travesty, and all the people responsible behind the design and implementation of this *** should be punished in ways, that if I were to describe them, I would most likely get banned indefinitely.

So yeah, take that as feedback from an utterly disgruntled customer. With *** like this, I am having really hard time justifying why I should waste anymore time or money on a game this bad. My subs due to end few days after New Year, and when that happens will most likely take a 6 month break from this ***, and experiences like this are not making me feel all that keen about ever returning to this turd of a game.

- Edit- Oh and almost forgot: I wanna strangle the person who came with the idea of having Pacrooti goad the player along like a two bit drug pusher to buy more crates, 'cause you know, you never know maybe the next hit will do the trick?

driosketch · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

Even after thousands of posts on the subject, trying to navigate through the numerous moves off topic and the various scraps and fights, I still cant understand why these are so bad other than the point that some players in the community think that more and more items will be locked behind crates.

Is that the main issue?

Is there any of the current CC items that people WOULD 100% buy directly if the option was given?

@Suter1972

To start off, yes. Wizard Hat is mine. I have the brilliance robes from before, and met a player who really wanted them, but they had been removed from the store at this point. The red wolf mount seems like a popular item.

Short list of the main area of complaints:

1, they provide less value per crown spent. (I have a post on this and the other thread showing the combined unit price of the consumables barely reaches 300 crowns total, if that, even though the article states the value should be greater.)

2, things you want are locked behind RNG. Say you budget 2500 crowns for a wolf mount. (Reasonable given past pricing for recolor, non special effect mounts.) You buy a 4 pack for 1500, and don't get it. So you buy another pack, and have similar bad luck. Do you accept the sunk cost that you wasted those crowns and walk away, or decide to overspend until you get it?

3, pay to win. This one is largely speculative and full of hyperbole. Although, flap up over the grand XP crown scoll got them to add a new item to the game. Speaking of....

4, consumable power creep. This one already happened, they added mythic xp potions. Although they added them in the grindiest way since they tore glass motif pages into scraps. Odd since the equivalent scroll isn't available for direct gem purchase.

5, it's a forecast of doom. Okay, a little dramatic, but anecdotally, a lot of players see this as a bad sign based on past experience from other games. The fear is development will decline in favor of the crates, and since Orsinium, the size of DLC has been shrinking already. The stuff they have been working on for over a year is just enough to cover 2017. After that, who knows.

Edit: 6, almost forgot. The system is exploitive, making money in part off those with gambling addictions. This point is best illustrated in the South Park episode, Freemium isn't Free.

MadLarkin · December 2016

VampiricByNature wrote: »

@Rohamad_Ali. This is my first mmo so I have no eperience with game designers opting to pay attention to cosmetics vs game content. I'm sad if crown crates are an indication of this.
I'm just confused- everyone in this thread keeps saying it takes the devs 10 seconds to make a skin. Then in the same post they are saying these are going to change the course of dev attention etc. Smh
If the developers are done with the game- at least they let me dump my crowns before they went. Always locking specialty mounts behind a gambling barrier means that I have to pay about 20k crowns every 2 release cycles to get the majority of things out of these crates I want. I'll have to be a lot happier with the game state to pay that. So I guess I can see it killing the game community. (For example- if they put in a mount for more than my theorized cost-analysis- I'll be very frustrated I didn't get what I wanted. The worse the RNG the more likely I just... won't. If I can't get what I like in a game, I won't stay. )

I survived round 1 of crown crates. Time will tell.

So crates shift the attention of the devs (despite the relatively fast turnover on cosmetics) because the publisher will often lay off a portion of the content development team and only keep enough people to keep shoving items into crates. For a brief period, it creates a tidy profit margin for the higher-ups and makes shareholders happy. But every MMO that does this either withers away or sort of just exists without growing in any meaningful way.

tist · December 2016

I do not see the point of crown crates when you already have a crown store. They offer the same type of merchandise as the crown store but is completely random.. Really confused as to who would spend money on this.

fr33r4ng3r · December 2016

So, yeah I opened 30 crates and got 1 Legendary (which I already had). That's it. Spent 10K crowns and got a couple of hats. Given the cost, the odds are so bad it's almost theft, but then again the RNG in this game has always been conspiracy theory bad for me, so I don't know what I expected would happen.

That's not even what worries me. I'm seeing a new behaviour from ZOS here in the forums. Threads are being locked faster than ever. It feels like damage control and I feel like we're being shut down as a community. The "we listen to the feedback of our players" mantra seems to have fallen by the wayside. When last did we get an incremental patch with bug fixes? We know housing is next, when? When last did we have an ESO live? It's sad.

Suter1972 · December 2016

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

MadLarkin · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

What's funny about that is the fact that many people (mainly subs) who had extra crowns lying around kept telling ZOS they needed to put more stuff in the store to buy. Come to find out, they had been holding mounts/pets/etc. back in order to shove them in the crates.

Balamoor · December 2016

Lots of crying in this thread.

Buyers remorse, immature financial decisions etc etc.

You can say OMG don't buy people still will and use their own mature reasoning on weather it's a good deal or not.

Sometimes simple logical solutions works best.

tonemd · December 2016

I never thought I would bother with those crates. But ZOS wisely had 2 crown sales right before they released it (sneaky SOB's)

So after having blown all that money on these gamble boxes, with the best thing to show for it being an ice mount that I paid for with cashed in gems, I have gotten it out of my system and can move on. Don't need anything in the crates. If it's not for sale outright, won't bother. Everyone will hit their wall and walk away (from the crates). If your limit is $500, so be it. That's your decision.

With all these money making schemes in effect ZOSs next 3 DLCs better be THEE ABSOLUTE SHIEEET!

Cpt_Teemo · December 2016

I bet it still has better odds than Swtor CM packs

Prof_Bawbag · December 2016

MadLarkin wrote: »

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

What's funny about that is the fact that many people (mainly subs) who had extra crowns lying around kept telling ZOS they needed to put more stuff in the store to buy. Come to find out, they had been holding mounts/pets/etc. back in order to shove them in the crates.

The lack of interesting or unique items that have appeared in the CS in recent months has been galling. I only got back into the game around 3 months ago after a year off and the crown store looked a shadow of its former self. Other than the flame mount, all decent mounts replaced with the usual bland mounts that were always a staple of the crown store. I get people have different tastes but the camel looks terrible and the Guar mounts have always been an acquired taste. Add to that, there's only 2 normal horse (white main and piebald) mounts. Oh wait, we got a horse with a duvet over its body that we can't do anything with it.

Seems any half decent new item that appears on the CS now gets whipped off within a week or 2 or in some cases 4 days. 4 days is a slap in the face to those who have spent years playing this game but find themselves away for a long weekend or even a holiday. Seems all the effort now goes into the cosmetics such as the hair styles, dyes and trinkets. I'm actually surprised the flame mount has remained because that must be popular with it being one of the best looking mounts.

Kodrac · December 2016

Sharee wrote: »

Nope. To deceive someone, you actually have to mislead them. Simply not telling isn't enough.

LOL OK

driosketch · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

I get the sense that a large number of the anti-crown crate crowd are people who like cosmetics, and as such are already the kind who spend extra money in the crown store. One of the counter arguments I see is, "meh, it's just cosmetic stuff so who cares." These people don't seem the kind to buy extra crowns to get costumes and pets out of crates.

So that leaves the active crown store customer base who are split on crates. Keep in mind, those players spending excess crowns from their sub aren't spendimg new money. Crates are therefore squeezing extra money from a smaller fraction of customers.

This doesn't exactly provide steady and stable cash flow like a sub does anyways. And each crate buyer they lose now has a bigger impact on their revenue. To reiterate, this shaky system doesn't inspire confidence in the long term future of the game. It's like the fable of the farmer who kills the goose to get all the golden eggs at once.

Publius_Scipio · December 2016

Balamoor wrote: »

Lots of crying in this thread.

Buyers remorse, immature financial decisions etc etc.

You can say OMG don't buy people still will and use their own mature reasoning on weather it's a good deal or not.

Sometimes simple logical solutions works best.

This is true. They need ZOS to "protect the helpless" from their crown crates. They need ZOS to get rid of crown crates and feature the items for direct sale because they would really love the items. They need, they want. That's what I've pulled from all of this. And all the while ZOS gets insults sent its way all over the forums.

[Edit to remove bait]

Kendaric · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

Even after thousands of posts on the subject, trying to navigate through the numerous moves off topic and the various scraps and fights, I still cant understand why these are so bad other than the point that some players in the community think that more and more items will be locked behind crates.

Is that the main issue?

Is there any of the current CC items that people WOULD 100% buy directly if the option was given?

Sure, there are plenty of items many of us would buy if they were up for direct purchase.
Speaking for myself, I'd certainly buy the feathered bycoket (Robin Hood cap) and the blackmane lion. Yes, I'm aware there is a similiar hat in the store, but the on from the store removes my character's hair unlike the one from the crates. I know a lot of people wanted the purple Daggerback when it was datamined, the same goes for the tattoos and facial adorments.

And yes, that is indeed what we fear. Take the upcoming housing, for example, a lot of people fear that desirable furniture/deco items may end up in crates like they did in SWTOR. Also, take a look at the hats... the crown store has four hats and the crates have six hats.

Bouldercleave · December 2016

EZgoin76 wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

EZgoin76 wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

I only bought 4 crates at 400 crowns each. Each crate's contents value on the crown store far exceeded the 400 crowns so I can not call it a rip off or a scam as long as you don't count on getting that one thing you have your heart set on every time. I was lucky and got the mount I wanted in the 4th crate, but was not disappointed in the useful poisons, pets, tattoos, hats and mimic stones I received in the other crates. In other words I more than got my monies worth.

So as long as you don't actually want anything and just feel the need to spend crowns on who-cares-what, they're a great deal, but if you actually want something they're a total scam, got it.

That is the complete and total BS way of understanding what they are. It can't be a scam because YOU ALL KNOW EXACTLY what they are. And ZOS explained how they work. They aren't forced upon anyone. You make the decision if you are going to give it a shot. There is no scam.

The scam is putting this stuff in crates to begin with instead of just selling things outright in the store.

We know what they are but not what we're getting. Huge difference there. Get it?

Yes I get it. It's called paying for a chance to win a mystery prize. Which from the tidal wave of outrage (at least on this thread from about 5-6 of you) seems to tell me you all knew that when you decided to move your mouse around the screen and click whatever it was that you had to click to pay for a shot at a mystery prize.

And from my opinion if this case were to lets say go in front of the Honorable Judge Judy, you guys wouldn't have a case (the case being that you claim ZOS is doing people dirty) and it would be dismissed. And she would tell you to protest all you want.

Lol No apparently you don't get it. You completely disregard the first part to post some nonsense.

ZOS should have never made crown crates and offered everything in store, straight up so people know exactly what they are getting.

Gambling for a chance at something is a scam. I can't make it any clearer than that.

Edit: I have never and will never buy a crown crate. I sub and buy cosmetics when I know what I'm getting.

You can't make it clearer, but you are wrong.

tonemd · December 2016

Kendaric wrote: »

Suter1972 wrote: »

Even after thousands of posts on the subject, trying to navigate through the numerous moves off topic and the various scraps and fights, I still cant understand why these are so bad other than the point that some players in the community think that more and more items will be locked behind crates.

Is that the main issue?

Is there any of the current CC items that people WOULD 100% buy directly if the option was given?

Sure, there are plenty of items many of us would buy if they were up for direct purchase.
Speaking for myself, I'd certainly buy the feathered bycoket (Robin Hood cap) and the blackmane lion. Yes, I'm aware there is a similiar hat in the store, but the on from the store removes my character's hair unlike the one from the crates. I know a lot of people wanted the purple Daggerback when it was datamined, the same goes for the tattoos and facial adorments.

And yes, that is indeed what we fear. Take the upcoming housing, for example, a lot of people fear that desirable furniture/deco items may end up in crates like they did in SWTOR. Also, take a look at the hats... the crown store has four hats and the crates have six hats.

Eww. Now that IS disgusting. If zos hides better items that they learned how to code correctly behind crates, and STILL sell the crappy broken version without updating it, THAT is super lame.

It's even worse if they made the original crappy on purpose. That's a "We have nothing but contempt for our customers." move.

SantieClaws · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

To answer your question Khajiit has bought many clothes in the crown store and would like to buy the wizard hat and the eye makeup if they are in the store in the future. She would have done so were they in the store now.

Mounts and pets - yes Khajiit has some but not so many. Too much cleaning up of the hair and the poop and the chewing of the things that should not be chewed yes.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Tandor · December 2016

fr33r4ng3r wrote: »

So, yeah I opened 30 crates and got 1 Legendary (which I already had). That's it. Spent 10K crowns and got a couple of hats. Given the cost, the odds are so bad it's almost theft, but then again the RNG in this game has always been conspiracy theory bad for me, so I don't know what I expected would happen.

That's not even what worries me. I'm seeing a new behaviour from ZOS here in the forums. Threads are being locked faster than ever. It feels like damage control and I feel like we're being shut down as a community. The "we listen to the feedback of our players" mantra seems to have fallen by the wayside. When last did we get an incremental patch with bug fixes? We know housing is next, when? When last did we have an ESO live? It's sad.

I'm not seeing that at all. I think it's perfectly sensible to concentrate feedback into a single topic, and where the feedback is focused on a different aspect of that subject we're seeing that topic kept open too. This is nothing new, it's been the practice here for ages, if not forever. It enables them to keep a better eye on the feedback and it also prevents other - equally important to those who contribute to them - topics being pushed off the front page by a mass of topics all saying the same thing.

JKorr · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

I haven't purchased, and don't intend to ever purchase any clown crates.

Let's see....Tiger senche loyalty mount, clouded leopard, jaguar, panther, lioness, lion, one oddball guar that I probably had a good reason for buying at the time, the black tiger senche pet, the white tiger senche pet, lion cub [yes, I caved on that one], alliance horse, alliance dog, wolf mount, nedic costumes, the cat mask, a few other assorted costumes, many mimic gems, the holiday motif....hmmmm. I think I notice a trend in my mount choices... Bought the 4 extra character slots. Still subbed at this point and bought all the dlc for my subbed account, bought crowns to buy the dlc on my not subbed account.

Have I bought crown store stuff? Yes. Will I buy more crown store stuff? Depends. Notice that everything I bought was for outright sale. I didn't have to pay crowns for the chance of getting "something". If I want a specific mount like the black mane or black lion or red pit wolf, [not the themed mounts] I don't want to end up with rooster tail frills, 25 poisons, a riding lesson I don't need, and a hat. I would be okay with finding out that the NOT themed items would eventually be offered for sale. I don't think they should lock normal items behind the clown crates. Keep exclusive themed items for the crates. Let the normal stuff out for regular sale after a period of time. Want to gamble on getting a deal on the price? Buy the clown crates and take a chance. Want to buy a specific item and pay full price? Wait until the items are on regular sale.

Recremen · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

@driosketch @SantieClaws

Thanks for the sensible and great breakdown. First decent posts ive read in a long time and it makes for a much better debate than the mud slinging on other posts.

I get the impression that if everything is just available in say a crown store archive then the problem would go away?

But would the against crowd actually buy from the crown store?

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

The against crowd are in general the very people who buy the most from the Crown Store. I have loads of costumes, mounts, pets, etc. Not everything, but it's not my job to buy everything. One of the chief reasons we're ticked is that the gambling boxes make us unable to buy things we otherwise would have in a heartbeat. The Red Pit Wolf, the Mananaut hat, probably 4/6 of the Atronach mounts... but nope, sorry, no Crowns from me because apparently actually buying things that are appealing is out of the question. I saved up on loads of Crowns when one particular string of data mining revealed the Wild Hunt mounts, anticipating that they would be expensive (plus there were a ton of costumes and other mounts in the mix that I knew I'd want). Now it turns out half that content is gambling-exclusive. It's more than disappointing, it's completely disheartening.

I really have no idea why you think it's clear that the game isn't self-funding anymore. We've never seen a single financial statement indicating that, and in fact every bit of info we have gotten has indicated long-term solvency. There is no reason to give in to gambling because we're worried that ZOS might not be making enough money.

Ajaxduo · December 2016

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

I bet it still has better odds than Swtor CM packs

Funny you say this as I'm pretty sure it was shown somewhere that the crown store lead designer came from swtor. Even if they are not they are emulating swtor' cartel market perfectly, timed exclusives (until they return again), rng gamble packs, ridiculous prices, etc. Mind you swtor has effectively killed their own game with 5.0 the fallout is everywhere. But back OT, I dislike things being gated behind random packs as it is done intentionally to lure people into buying them in larger amounts than if you could straight up buy it from the store. I lost respect for ZoS over this as I'm not a fool easily parted from his money, I just look at vMSA and it affirms my belief that RNGesus does not favor me. ESO desperately needs an actual expansion as the content has become stale, I've been playing gw2 lately and couldn't help but notice how much more successful their in game store is. You can even convert in game currency to store currency. Sure they have their own version of rng packs but you can earn them in game and they have nothing gated behind them. Truth of it all is its such a shame to see big franchises being abused as cash grabs, rather receiving the love they deserve. I'll poke around when an expansion hits but it's no longer easy to choose a MMO to call 'home' nowadays.

JimT722 · December 2016

Ajaxduo wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

I bet it still has better odds than Swtor CM packs

Funny you say this as I'm pretty sure it was shown somewhere that the crown store lead designer came from swtor. Even if they are not they are emulating swtor' cartel market perfectly, timed exclusives (until they return again), rng gamble packs, ridiculous prices, etc. Mind you swtor has effectively killed their own game with 5.0 the fallout is everywhere. But back OT, I dislike things being gated behind random packs as it is done intentionally to lure people into buying them in larger amounts than if you could straight up buy it from the store. I lost respect for ZoS over this as I'm not a fool easily parted from his money, I just look at vMSA and it affirms my belief that RNGesus does not favor me. ESO desperately needs an actual expansion as the content has become stale, I've been playing gw2 lately and couldn't help but notice how much more successful their in game store is. You can even convert in game currency to store currency. Sure they have their own version of rng packs but you can earn them in game and they have nothing gated behind them. Truth of it all is its such a shame to see big franchises being abused as cash grabs, rather receiving the love they deserve. I'll poke around when an expansion hits but it's no longer easy to choose a MMO to call 'home' nowadays.

You can be sure. The new Marketing Director worked on SWTOR.

Ojustaboo · December 2016

Suter1972 wrote: »

Its clear the game isn't self funding anymore. It needs a money sink to support the funding and the crown store and subs alone clearly isn't doing that anymore.

Possibly.

But more likely the suits upstairs have seen how other games make a quick profit and as thats all they care about, demand ESO go the same route.

Demanding staff are put on a quick money grab rather than the long term stability of the game.

Seen it happen many times before sadly.

JimT722 · December 2016

I seriously doubt this game was hurting financially. From the population of the game, the amount of things it appeared people bought from the store and actions of the company around the time of hiring the new marketing director don't support it. I believe they want to complete financially with f2p games and this is the first step

Aurielle · December 2016

Hymzir wrote: »

- Edit- Oh and almost forgot: I wanna strangle the person who came with the idea of having Pacrooti goad the player along like a two bit drug pusher to buy more crates, 'cause you know, you never know maybe the next hit will do the trick?

Pacrooti's goading is revolting. I read through a list of his dialogue the other day and actually felt sick. Why didn't the devs give him a gaudy neon placard while they were at it? "THIS ONE WANTS YOU TO BUY! BUY! BUY! CONSUME! CONSUME! CONSUME!"

Balamoor · December 2016

Want to make one last point before I walk away from a lot of stupid on this thread.

Devlopers simply use what is the most lucrative tactics when establishing or keeping a MMo afloat. People who say that SWTOR or ESO or any other cash shop game is dead are fooling themselves. SWTOR, ESO, STO, Neverwinter are all quite healthy and have many more years left. There will always be whales, and even avid buyers to make sure these games stay around.

New content gets developed, new items get added/rotated rinse and repeat. I spent many years working with a headhunting firm that specialized in finding talent for game developers, and I can say with some authority the reason this is happening is because it works to make a MMO as profitable as possible. Love it, hate it, it doesn't matter as long as developers keep adding items and halfway decent content none of these games are going anywhere.

Your choice is simple, play or don't play, buy or don't buy. But rasing hell about it is going to do Jack and "Shirt" to change a business model that works much better than everything for one sub fee.

Ajaxduo · December 2016

Balamoor wrote: »

Want to make one last point before I walk away from a lot of stupid on this thread.

Devlopers simply use what is the most lucrative tactics when establishing or keeping a MMo afloat. People who say that SWTOR or ESO or any other cash shop game is dead are fooling themselves. SWTOR, ESO, STO, Neverwinter are all quite healthy and have many more years left. There will always be whales, and even avid buyers to make sure these games stay around.

New content gets developed, new items get added/rotated rinse and repeat. I spent many years working with a headhunting firm that specialized in finding talent for game developers, and I can say with some authority the reason this is happening is because it works to make a MMO as profitable as possible. Love it, hate it, it doesn't matter as long as developers keep adding items and halfway decent content none of these games are going anywhere.

Your choice is simple, play or don't play, buy or don't buy. But rasing hell about it is going to do Jack and "Shirt" to change a business model that works much better than everything for one sub fee.

...And your choice here is simple to, read or don't read, post or don't post. It's a discussion.