Suggestion: Trade ingame gold for crowns in the crown store

Snowfaerie · August 2018

I was thinking about the way the gifting feature was implemented, and it kinda strikes me as a) very vulnerable to people looking to scam other players out of their gold and b) kinda close to being able to use your irl wallet to get ahead in ESO. So instead I'd like to ask if it was possible for the team at Zos to implement a crown store tab where you can trade your ingame gold for crowns? That would have a few advantages:

1) less opportunities for scammers
2) instead of making ESO more pay-to-win, you'd make it more accessible to players who don't have a lot of irl cash to burn (thereby getting less angry players)
3) you could then use the crown store as a gold sink to control the ingame economy

Now, I know it would also give people less incentive to buy crowns with irl money, but I think the effect of that could be migitated by finding the right price level for the crowns (maybe by letting the price float, so if more people are buying crowns with gold, the price would go up?). Besides, I personally find that I am more likely to spend some irl money on a game if I feel like the game is not trying to force me to do so (although maybe I'm just a contrary person).

Thoughts, anyone?

Gilvoth · August 2018

i know i love Gold, and give me Gold is what i prefer.
so, if there is a way for me to get Gold, i will do what i can. and if that means buying crowns for Gold ?
i will do it.

right now i do sell crowns for Gold at normally 250 Gold for 1 crown which is the normal asking price, please do not take that away from us.
because that's what looks like this thread is suggesting!

i want to keep being allowed to sell crowns for Gold, please don't take take that away from us.

Snowfaerie · August 2018

I suppose, if you don't want the 2nd point, but would rather limit gold sellers, you could also add a feature that lets it go both ways (although at different rates, so you would lose money by swapping back and forth). That way you could still spend crowns to get gold, but at a more controlled rate, and without mixing it with the gifting system.

ATomiX96 · August 2018

wouldnt giving an option to convert your gold to Crowns motivate gold sellers even further to sell gold at a rate where the ratio beats buying crowns from Zos in a game where you can make millions in a day :thinking: *peeks at guild wars 2 economy*

Jim_Pipp · August 2018

This won't happen. People who sell crowns for gold give real money to zos, and this suggestion takes that money away from zos.

Of course a basic auction house idea... Where people select items from the crown store and offer an amount of gold... Then people with crowns browse the offers and choose which they want to gift. Sort of like the C.O.D system we already have, but run through the crown store.

Zos have legitimised crown to gold sales, so they would do well to do something to prevent scamming.

Snowfaerie · August 2018

Possible, I suppose. Although if you made buying gold from third party sources more risky (more supervision on it, harsher punishments if you're caught buying etc.)... not sure.

qbit · August 2018

Well that would deeply cut into crown sales profits. So that's a no-go. It would also make money laundering even easier using ESO. Making it a no-go. Unless you want to send a copy of your drivers license and other ID to ZOS for approval to convert gold to crowns... Lol.

TheThird · August 2018

For a safe place to buy crown store items for gold, or sell crown gifts for gold, check out the Tamriel Crown Exchange .. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/430760/discord-tamriel-crown-exchange-crown-store-items-for-gold-over-1-mil-crowns-traded#latest

We're closing in on half a billion gold' worth of transactions, and have a great team for brokering trades to ensure noone gets scammed. There is a large discord for EU, and one for NA. Both have 1k-2k members.

redspecter23 · August 2018

ZOS gets no money this way however, many other games have a setup that accomplishes a similar goal. Players can buy crowns (or the equivalent in that game) and then exchange them with other players for another in game currency through an automated exchange interface. It can track price fluctuations and adjust based on supply and demand so if there is a crown sale, the buying power of crowns goes down slightly during that time. If a hugely popular item hits the crown store, perhaps there is larger demand for crowns and the buying power of gold goes down during this event. With an exchange like this, ZOS gets the sale and the players exchange the currencies in a safe environment that can be monitored by ZOS.

Of course it might be a good idea to make gift trading a bit safer if they don't want to go all in with an idea like a direct exchange of crowns for gold. Allowing a gift cod or being able to gift through the trade interface might be a good start.

SilverWF · August 2018

GW2 has this feature

Notarikon777 · August 2018

Snowfaerie wrote: »

I was thinking about the way the gifting feature was implemented, and it kinda strikes me as a) very vulnerable to people looking to scam other players out of their gold and b) kinda close to being able to use your irl wallet to get ahead in ESO. So instead I'd like to ask if it was possible for the team at Zos to implement a crown store tab where you can trade your ingame gold for crowns? That would have a few advantages:

1) less opportunities for scammers
2) instead of making ESO more pay-to-win, you'd make it more accessible to players who don't have a lot of irl cash to burn (thereby getting less angry players)
3) you could then use the crown store as a gold sink to control the ingame economy

Now, I know it would also give people less incentive to buy crowns with irl money, but I think the effect of that could be migitated by finding the right price level for the crowns (maybe by letting the price float, so if more people are buying crowns with gold, the price would go up?). Besides, I personally find that I am more likely to spend some irl money on a game if I feel like the game is not trying to force me to do so (although maybe I'm just a contrary person).

Thoughts, anyone?

1)Zos doesnt responsible for scammers.
2) Which items in the crown store makes the game pay-to-win ?
3)So you want to pay by an ingame currency in a cash shop... ?

Like a kid with basic manipulation skills, who try to convince his/her parents to give the christmas present 2 weeks earlier

Your post is a complete bull #&@t !

Snowfaerie · August 2018

Notarikon777 wrote: »

1)Zos doesnt responsible for scammers.
2) Which items in the crown store makes the game pay-to-win ?
3)So you want to pay by an ingame currency in a cash shop... ?

Like a kid with basic manipulation skills, who try to convince his/her parents to give the christmas present 2 weeks earlier
Your post is a complete bull #&@t !

Of course Zos isn't responsible for scammers, but they can implement features that give scammers less opportunities for scamming, which makes the game a more pleasant experience for players.

And there aren't really pay-to-win items in the crown store, but by giving the players the ability to trade crowns for gold via gifts they have made it so that you can, with a few steps, use real money to get ingame gold to buy pretty much any tradeable ingame item. That does feel like pay-to-win to me.

And yeah, paying with ingame currency is a feature that has been implemented in other games (notably GW2) and does seem to work there, with the price of gems (the equivalent of crowns) being high enough in gold that it still incentivises people to spend real money on gem store items.

Delpi · August 2018

Zos could sell in the crown store tokens of crowns for real money, and those tokens could be sell in guildstores for gold.

Win/win.

You don't have to thank me. Lol.

The_Protagonist · August 2018

Delpi wrote: »

Zos could sell in the crown store tokens of crowns for real money, and those tokens could be sell in guildstores for gold.

Win/win.

You don't have to thank me. Lol.

That is somewhat similar to WoW

Aeslief · August 2018

Delpi wrote: »

Zos could sell in the crown store tokens of crowns for real money, and those tokens could be sell in guildstores for gold.

Win/win.

You don't have to thank me. Lol.

The_Protagonist wrote: »

That is somewhat similar to WoW

Also Rift, where it was used to justify all kinds of heinous things in the cash shop like gear slots, equipment and skills. “Nothing is pay-to-win because REx tokens exist!”