First obligatory my opinion in general:

I will not buy any single gift for friends, guild mates, or anyone else, if we're indeed now getting crafting/outfit motifs exclusive to the randomness of the Crown Crate system. Add all the costumes, emotes, mounts, etc. you want, but adding single motif chapters is asking too much (and also diluting the system even more). Just felt like this is important to add, since for me this greatly diminishes the attractiveness of the new gifting system. I couldn't resist any Crown Store exclusive styles so far, but that's asking for too much now.

As for the actual system:

• I like the idea. It's certainly nice, especially for those like me that might want to sub to ESO Plus but don't want to buy most stuff from the Crown Store.
• I opened the Gifting window through the notification I got ("you're now able to gift stuff!"). After that I only found the Crown Store tab again by accident. It's not as visible as you might think (at least for me who's used to see the Crown Store interface).
• The "?" button on the "you're now able to gift stuff!" notification did nothing for me, which was confusing.
• I don't like the current implementation for "returned gifts". Why can't we claim them ourselves, if we don't own the contents already? If you don't want people to reclaim the Crowns due to whatever reason, at least allow them to activate them for their own account. I could imagine people "stuck" with gifts someone didn't want or need could be tempted to try doing RMT or similar things by offering them in exchange for gold, items, or even real money.
• Haven't tried it yet, but will there be some way to know what someone is missing or not? And how about a "Wishlist" system so we can mark what we'd love to get gifted? Not sure buying random stuff for others as a surprise is such a good idea right now. Especially with the "no returns" policy in place.

There are a lot of good points on here, but there are even more things that could go wrong or badly with the system. Let's say someone is short of crowns to buy that limited time only item they want. They happen to mention it in guild/zone chat and then 20 kind hearted people send that person the item. Well, 19 of those people will have spent real money on something they can't use and the person they intended it for can't use either. You can't have 20 of the same limited time only mount or pet.

People will feel scammed, ripped off and ticked off and will likely never buy crowns again.

Another point that needs emphasis.....it's rude to ask for gifts, but people do it. I foresee many arguments and much salt when this goes live if that isn't reinforced.

I think having a wish list is a great idea though. It shows you what someone wants without anyone ever having to say a word about it.

Worst mechanic ever.

If you look at games that do have this mechanic of gifting items to other players (like, for instance, black desert online) it is used to scam people on a massive scale. Without the ability to use it with cod it will be used to scam, with the ability to use it with cod it will be used to exchange gold for crowns. If exchanging gold for crowns (or legitimately gifting crowns) is the goal, why not introduce a tradable crowns runebox, which can be purchased in the crown store and gives crowns to the person who opens it. The current implementation will just result in chat spamming from people wanting to scam others for their gold or their crowns (depending on who transfers first).

I agree with all of the gold trading comments, they make a lot of sense. I think the system itself is kind of unnecessary, and I didn't think that it was really very in-demand or anything.

I also really, really dislike the returns system. If someone can't or doesn't want to claim the gift, it should be given back to the gifter in either usable form or in crown form. Losing crowns because a good-hearted purchase wasn't appreciated or whatever would just feel really awful.

While I like this idea, since I'm often buying Crowns for my sister so she can get random doodads, I expect this will be badly, badly abused by scammers, gold farmers, and such.

That said, I'll likely only ever use it with my sister, so, less worry of me being affected by the nefarious types.

Gifting Bug: When purchasing an additional character slot, you have the option to send as a gift. But once you've maxed out your own (7/7 purchased), the option is grayed out and you no longer have the ability to buy additional slots to gift to another player. Unlike other items, there is not Gift overlay when right clicking either.

TL;DR: As a system for giving crown items with some safeguards against giving already owned items, it seems to be working as intended. It does not in any way seem to be a system for safely selling or exchanging crown items.

Tested this for about an hour today with three family accounts logged on simultaneously. Some of what I found contradicts what was written above. Perhaps it has been updated, maybe I'm missing something. In any event, here are some observations:

Gifting appears to be instantaneous, unlike mail. All three accounts were alt-tabbed on the same computer, so this may have had some impact.

Accounts were able to gift mounts, pets, DLC, and research scrolls regardless of whether that account already owned the item or not.

Accounts were unable to give an item that was already owned by the recipient account. The gifting process was stopped before crowns were spent. Interestingly, an account could not give the Guts & Glory DLC pack to another account that already owned the Dark Bro. (only) DLC, but could give Orsinium to that account.

Accounts that attempted to purchase an item that was already sitting unclaimed in that account's received gift area were unable to do so. Instead a message box directed the purchasing account to the gift inventory.

I was able to gift two identical Guar mounts to an account that did not own that mount. After opening the first gift, the receiving account was forced to return the second gift.

I was unable to give houses, whether owned or not.

I was unable to re-gift an item to a third account. Without the ability to COD crown items for gold, and lacking the ability to allow a trusted 3rd party to act as an intermediary in the exchange, anyone using this system to trade crowns for gold will be open to scamming.

Will we be able to trade crown items for gold