These Crates will contain a randomized selection of useful consumables, and offer a chance to obtain rare and unique cosmetic items or mounts, including some previously-retired mounts, costumes, pets, and limited-time offers that are no longer available in the Crown Store. Crates will have different themes throughout the year, giving you the chance to obtain new, extremely rare items.
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Lootboxes are a must in MMOs that are not WoW if they want to make money.

The mount ones saved Guild Wars 2 from their all-time-low earnings last year.

IMO they are fairly balanced and not P2W which is great. The Apex success rate was really poor when i bought some when they first came out so stopped buying them.
I get enough gems from Twitch drops though so allows me to buy things I want from the crapt I get which is nice.
Obviously a personal choice not to play the game but for something that’s in your control as to whether it affects you and is such common practise in gaming it seems like a weird choice to deprive you of something you enjoy.

Parrot1986 wrote: »

IMO they are fairly balanced and not P2W which is great. The Apex success rate was really poor when i bought some when they first came out so stopped buying them.
I get enough gems from Twitch drops though so allows me to buy things I want from the crapt I get which is nice.
Obviously a personal choice not to play the game but for something that’s in your control as to whether it affects you and is such common practise in gaming it seems like a weird choice to deprive you of something you enjoy.

Like what you describe, I have benefited a lot from crown crates without spending a cent. I got the Dark Brotherhood motif in a drop that I used on an alt. I used crown gems from free crates (including like 60+ twitch crates) to get all the pages for the Pyandonean motif that didn't already drop for me from crates. Currently I am sitting on 300+ crown gems. I have a lot of XP scrolls that I can use on sub-level 50 alts or decon (no point in using on CP characters when already past cap). My 2 year old also enjoys the many pets and mounts I acquired for free in-game.

I do understand why someone would stop playing the game though if it is because they want a developer to see that players won't stand for that practice. It is also possible that some can't deal with the sense of loss of seeing people with cosmetics they want but that can be only acquired through crates. Still, I feel like people are causing themselves too much stress focusing on what they don't like instead of enjoying what they do like and this is far from the moral issue people make it out to be.

Lake wrote: »

Lootboxes are a must in MMOs that are not WoW if they want to make money.

The mount ones saved Guild Wars 2 from their all-time-low earnings last year.

HUH? You can't have mounts unless you buy the expansion. I don't think mounts are in GW2 loot crates.

lordrichter wrote: »

I respect that they are not interested in ESO because of the loot boxes. Cosmetic or not.

I tolerate Crown Crates, but don't participate in them. I don't buy them. I am not opening them. I pretty much ignored them for a while, until I noticed I was amassing quite a pile of free ones. Now, I count them. I may eventually open them, but I have no plans.

I tolerate them here only because I have history with the game from before they existed. If I was new to ESO, I would just move on as soon as I heard they had loot crates. Even cosmetic ones. I consider them to be an industry disease. I have passed over other games simply for the reason that I heard they have loot boxes. I really don't care if they are cosmetic, or the most player friendly loot boxes in the industry.

This is so true. Only reason why I am still with ESO is because I started before the crown crates. I tried other games, but haven't really kept playing them because of them. Like Star Trek Online, Black Desert Online and even Guild Wars. While the game is free, it just turns me off trying to continue because of lack of storage and gambling in the game.

I would guess this would be an issue for individuals that have addictive personalities...and they would stay away from the game rather than risk the temptation to “gamble” on crates