Family Accounts

AishavariStarling · April 2017

I know it's far fetched because ZOS wants as much $ as they can possibly get, however when they come out with so much content so often and you've got a whole family that plays together, you're racking in some serious numbers on crowns for each account. My proposition is to at least be able to link 2 accounts together in order to share these pricey collections.

idk · April 2017

How many major MMOs do this? Not talking about the games most of us have not heard of or some sort of Steam/console game.

andreasranasen · April 2017

Don't wanna be rude, but... It is not ZOS problem how many kids you and your wife wanna have O_O

ZOS would lose a crazy amount of money if they ever thought of adding something like that.

Emothic · April 2017

Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there. Or don't spend money on collections that don't improve your characters combat effectiveness or overall gameplay when it comes to combat.

You already said it before: "Zos wants as much money as they can possibly get".

AishavariStarling · April 2017

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

Emothic · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

As I said before. Don't spend money on collectables that do not improve your accounts/characcters overall preformance.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

The fun of games for some people is to be part of new worlds, instead of perhaps your idea of just trying to outperform others.

idk · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

I did not provide flack, but offered a question. If major MMOs have done this it would increase the likelihood of it occurring, though I think it would only occur with bundling subscriptions, not with anything purchased by one action in the crown shop or for sharing homes.

The same idea could lead to players not related just doing it for the bargain, and probably more likely if crown purchases or homes were shared by the joined accounts. Really not a simple issue.

CaiWenji · April 2017

Does seem like a great idea! Including me, my only same 2 parents(because people always ask that), had 12 of us. And although only me and one of my younger bros play Elder Scrolls Online right now. This idea would be so awesome! I have a nephew now that is 8 and another that is 3 and I am pretty sure both of them they would love this game when they get older! So that would already be 4 members that could share crowns. And its not like its a bad idea for real life cash. This game already has the ability to share most currencies in game. My bro and I and our tiny guild all share a bank for the items and coins in there. So why should crowns not also have this option? Our guild bank coins are used too for all of us. Mostly at first was stocking up on extra writ mats and furnishing mats for our members that craft. Now we just recently gave 71k to one of our newer, active and helpful members to buy her first house. And 10k to another new friendly member get her first horse. So sharing is fun and you can be able to set permissions too in like guild to deposit crowns so it will be easier because it is already established partly in game at guild banks. That way too we can share crowns with not just us and our families but to the poor people in the community that are also genuinely nice people and want to help out in the ways that they can.
So I 1000% agree with this OP.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

I've never been part of any other MMORPG, so I couldn't say if this is an absolutely new idea or not. How many random strangers are just going to group up and buy accounts on one credit card? You'd just set yourself up for getting scammed for money or personal information.

SydneyGrey · April 2017

I think it would be fun to be able to play as a family. I'm the only one in my house who's interested in ESO. LOL.
Crowns are on sale right now, so better grab them quick. I don't know when the sale ends, but it will be soon.

CaiWenji · April 2017

Emothic wrote: »

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

As I said before. Don't spend money on collectables that do not improve your accounts/characcters overall preformance.

I disagree collectibles and cosmetics are great! You can stand out in the sea of gray bland armor sets or even the overly done black and red rubedite gear. Not to mention many younger people in most games love to dress up. This game is so great because the dyes for instance, the ones for armor, are available to all, unlocked by achieves. In a few games I played(Perfect World International and Vindictus, 2 quick examples) they are highly over priced and to look cool and unique you have to spend lots of $$. This game as very very cheap cash dyes if you want to dye your costume and costumes themselves are super cheap.

My sister, in those game loves dying her gear and picking out non-combat pets. She always loves pigs so on my ps4 copy of the game I got the psijiic pig trying to convince her to give it a try. Cosmetics are great in games and you @Emothic should try it too. Combat is great in all but what happens when your gear is cp160 and you have all the sets you want? here's some suggestions try out dye combos on that gear and then when that gets boring buy a costume and dye it or use that dye to dye a free costume like i did to my Saint Patrick's day colored Mannimarco disguise and jack-o-lantern head.

Sakiri · April 2017

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

How many major MMOs do this? Not talking about the games most of us have not heard of or some sort of Steam/console game.

Blizzard lets you have multiple WoW accounts on each battle.net account, and you're allowed to share each account with one minor child(legal reasons kids can't have their own).

Everything is shared at battle.net level.

Emothic · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

The fun of games for some people is to be part of new worlds, instead of perhaps your idea of just trying to outperform others.

I didn't know it took in game purchases to experiance new game worlds. I though the standard $60 would be enough. Point is, if you don't want to spend the money on a whole bunch of cosmentics for multiple accounts, then don't.

CaiWenji wrote: »

Emothic wrote: »

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

As I said before. Don't spend money on collectables that do not improve your accounts/characcters overall preformance.

I disagree collectibles and cosmetics are great! You can stand out in the sea of gray bland armor sets or even the overly done black and red rubedite gear. Not to mention many younger people in most games love to dress up. This game is so great because the dyes for instance, the ones for armor, are available to all, unlocked by achieves. In a few games I played(Perfect World International and Vindictus, 2 quick examples) they are highly over priced and to look cool and unique you have to spend lots of $$. This game as very very cheap cash dyes if you want to dye your costume and costumes themselves are super cheap.

My sister, in those game loves dying her gear and picking out non-combat pets. She always loves pigs so on my ps4 copy of the game I got the psijiic pig trying to convince her to give it a try. Cosmetics are great in games and you @Emothic should try it too. Combat is great in all but what happens when your gear is cp160 and you have all the sets you want? here's some suggestions try out dye combos on that gear and then when that gets boring buy a costume and dye it or use that dye to dye a free costume like i did to my Saint Patrick's day colored Mannimarco disguise and jack-o-lantern head.

The poiint is that they don't want to spend money for cosmetics on multple accounts. I'm saying don't do it and use the money for something more effective. If you don't want to do that then either don't spend the money or spend it on the pointless cosmetics.

Doesn't matter because ZoS will not implement this idea at all because they will lose profits from it.

MiliStarling · April 2017

I would be content with just being able to share costumes, personalities, mounts, and pets, etc. between grouped characters.
Unlocks available for all in the group, except for special things like Dwemer Sphere pet, Tiger mount, etc.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

Sharing crowns as a currency is a huge no-no, mostly for legal reasons. This would encourage poorer country people to inflate the in-game market by farming in-game gold. This gold would also be used as a trade for real-world cash, and then bam you've created a new world currency. I'm only talking about things you're buying with your own money to go to all of the accounts you bought with your own money.

lordhakai · April 2017

I dont see this happening but you should be able to have shared ownership of a house.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

There's no real point to that, you can appoint people to decorate your home, they can travel to it whenever they want. Only thing they can't do is remove the objects from your home. Personally I agree with Mili about group sharing, added to the idea that the people in the group have to be online to access their collection.

MiliStarling · April 2017

CaiWenji wrote: »

That way too we can share crowns with not just us and our families but to the poor people in the community that are also genuinely nice people and want to help out in the ways that they can.

It's a sweet idea, but to help out others in this way, we would realistically have to send them real-world money from outside the game.
As Aishavari says, gold farming would absolutely devastate in-game economy, and there are some legal problems surrounding the trade of real-world currencies for virtual currencies. Laws prevent ZOS from allowing anything that costs real money to be trade-able.
(Rothschilds are very stingy about their monopoly on fake money lol)

Jemcrystal · April 2017

Family benefits would be nice. Steam sharing would also be nice.

Only way to share collectables would be account swapping. If you have a pretty mount and your daughter, wife, w/e wants you could play together in an account swap. Not saying OP has daughter just using as example: Let's say you have the lion mount and won it and it is no longer up for sale time expired event over etc. But your daughter sees and really wants that mount cause it is pretty and just her thing. You can make a character on your daughter's account while she makes a character on your account. Then swap accounts and still play together. She gets some time to ride the lion mount only you own. And you are still gaming together.

If you use different addons you might want to keep your account grounded to the same PC. In other words you would have to swap PC's as well. If you addons and her addons were exactly the same you might still want to move the SavedVariables folder if you do a PC swap. I take my SavedVariables with me where ever I log in as I move around from one PC to another. And I always keep the same addons where ever I go.

Nice idea OP for collectable family n friend sharing.

Cpt_Teemo · April 2017

Yeah I've wondered this myself too but i'm solo and no family playing with me but yeah I could see big families playing together, they should really allow you to have a bundle pack for subbing per account then imo

like 3 accounts at a time = 12$ a month instead of 15$ or something.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

Subscription is only 15 a month and that does not even start to cover getting a new mount or set of costumes etc

Majeure · April 2017

Probably not going to happen, I'd also be opposed to it.

I don't think one should be able to unlock the rewards of another, that just doesn't make sense both from my personal perspective, and what I'd imagine to be ZOS' point of view. They wouldn't make nearly as much money, and what's to stop people from abusing this and family linking their friends to give everyone OP exclusive unlocks?

Just no, get your unlocks legitimately or don't get them. You don't need these cosmetics in the first place, it's all vanity. Vanity, that you should unlock yourself, whether it's through a crown purchase or an in-game reward.

NewBlacksmurf · April 2017

Honestly you should play on Xbox or PS4. Those systems are designed more for what you desire but even there, some parts are always seperate.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

Xbox and PS4 are even more expensive and don't do anything near the 2 ideas that hold legitimate value here. Seeing as you also need to pay to use their console services.

Even more to the point about the issue of group buying for accounts, this would be one of the strangest and rare occurrence s among the ZOS audience. It is not a popular game for those playing with a lot of real world friends. And as stated before, strangers is a large risk for scams.

faerigirl · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Obviously I already knew this would get a lot of flack, as I stated it was far fetched.
"Play on one account but have multiple characters. That fixes your problem right there."
I stated we play /together/ as a family.
Perhaps this could be simplified as accounts perchased with the same credit card.

Oh! Like Disney World!

Pay for yourself on credit card at the gate and your wife and kids get in free!

I can see that happening, no really! I can!

On topic: TESO is a business.

parkham · April 2017

We've spent $90.00 US (3 of us) on the game and expect to spend another $40.00 to try out the expansion. Couple that with two of us using ESO + and what you have is the cheapest entertainment you'll likely ever get for an online game.

AishavariStarling · April 2017

Personally it seems my main idea would promote families to buy everything they want instead of limiting it to what they want most.

Mili's idea of group sharing within the game seems like a great way to provide an interactive preview of the item, making people more apt to buy it for themselves when it becomes available.

There's not just a chance to lose, there's also a chance for gains.

faerigirl · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Personally it seems my main idea would promote families to buy everything they want instead of limiting it to what they want most.

Mili's idea of group sharing within the game seems like a great way to provide an interactive preview of the item, making people more opt to buy it for themselves when it becomes available.

There's not just a chance to lose, there's also a chance for gains.

OK, let's talk about game sharing.

Let's talk about it like it's YOUR company.

How would that work? IP Addresses? Because you list them as 'family'? What about when your kid takes the laptop to his pal's house and wants to play over there?

How would we keep TESO safe from scammers? We can't even stop the bots.

How much real money would TESO have to spend to implement something like a family plan? Then spend for a department to oversee the 'family' plan?

For the record, it's a nice idea.

NewBlacksmurf · April 2017

AishavariStarling wrote: »

Xbox and PS4 are even more expensive and don't do anything near the 2 ideas that hold legitimate value here. Seeing as you also need to pay to use their console services.

Even more to the point about the issue of group buying for accounts, this would be one of the strangest and rare occurrence s among the ZOS audience. It is not a popular game for those playing with a lot of real world friends. And as stated before, strangers is a large risk for scams.

@AishavariStarling

Respectfully if your family is on PC and plays together, this means each already has their own machine. The cost of almost all gaming PCs exceed the cost of the consoles.

Consoles both Xbox and PS4 do allow family sharing of purchased games. So this actually works today where I purchased the game once. Me and my son share my purchase so he plays and I play at the same time on different machines from one purchase whereas on PC that requires 2 purchased (it's already cheaper by hardware and software). He also doesn't need to purchase Xbox live gold as he can use my shared Xbox live gold.

In terms of DLC the current crown store limits a lot regardless of platform but I can't agree that people should be able to bypass paying for dlc seperately just as content, cosmetics, etc.

Now PS4 has a shareplay option so the other family member can share playing your owned dlc on your account via their machine as to try it out as you mention.

While something may not exist exactly as you describe or desire, there are opportunities in part that exist on console where it doesn't exist on PC.

My comment was made in thought of the discussion overall.

MiliStarling · April 2017

Majeure wrote: »

[...]what's to stop people from abusing this and family linking their friends to give everyone OP exclusive unlocks?

[...]You don't need these cosmetics in the first place, it's all vanity.

Overpowered vanity items?? lol huh?

Anyway, vanity might be what it is for some players.
For others, it's more variety of experience and immersion.

I wouldn't personally want to create a complicated system for linking accounts, but would prefer to allow players to borrow each other's Crown Store unlocks while in group.
As I said, special unlocks earned from in-game quests or achievements, veteran rewards, or other promotional offers (monkey, pig, white Steam dog, etc.) should definitely not be share-able.

Very few players stay grouped all the time, and if temporarily sharing visual unlocks encouraged more grouping, it would probably be healthy for players, and good for the overall ESO atmosphere.
I think Aishavari is right that it would just be a slight expansion of the Crown Store 'preview' feature, encouraging purchases.