About adding the event tickets to the crown store

Tandor · January 2019

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Zahktar wrote: »

I'm a little torn..

On the one hand, putting the tickets in the crown store feels like it cheapens the work people have done to earn tickets. I, for one, played almost every single day of all the events, so I would be able to get some extra feathers for more Indrik evolutions. I maybe wouldn't have sat there for ages hoping for dungeon finder to work if I'd realized I could just buy the tickets later.

On the other hand, I can appreciate how this gives people who missed events because of holidays a chance to catch up. I'm a big softie, so I feel bad for the people who weren't able to get their tickets/feathers.

All in all, though, it cheapens the whole point of the events and the Indrik mount, which was to bring everyone together. These events had their rough points.. but they also had the community really coming together. And now what people have put in hard work and time to earn, anyone can buy with a big enough pocketbook.

I'm severely let down by this. And it kind of makes me think twice about getting involved in events in the future. After all, if I really want the reward, seems like I'll probably be able to buy it eventually.

This puts my views on this pretty well.

I'm also deterred from doing future events because there are simply too many of them. Events are supposed to be special, but if we are going to continue runing straight on from one event to another then they just become a distraction from playing the game.

That's the point though. Unless you're a new player, there's very little to do besides event grinds.

Not really. It's not only new players who aren't sitting at "endgame" with nothing to do.

True, there is rp and PvP. Gets stale sometimes though. Like to see some heavier content updates.

There's also the whole game. There are plenty (myself included) who after playing for nearly 5 years still have plenty of content to do for the first time.

I feel you're being purposefully deceitful to prove a point. 5 years with plenty of content left to do would mean you play a few hours a month at most. I consider myself super casual and could start new and have all the content done in a year at best. Standing still never playing any content for 5 years doesn't mean there's a great deal of content.

Edit: Eso despite its recent turns for the worst is still my favorite mmo of all time. But it is severely lacking in content compared to its peers.

No, I play a couple of hours a day pretty much every day, sometimes more but without any particular drive to achieve any sort of target beyond furthering the quests I'm on - sometimes I'll just wander around picking up mats or fishing etc. I play on PC but don't use addons to guide me everywhere, and rarely bother with mounts as there's too much hassle constantly mounting and dismounting for mats etc. I do have a lot of characters across two accounts, but the main thing is that I deliberately take the game at a leisurely pace, playing for the journey rather than the destination. That's my approach to every game, as a result of which I have never burnt out or run out of content in any game. There are plenty of others who adopt the same approach.

Megatto · January 2019

If Zos want money that bad they should just make the game subscription based again

Sylvermynx · January 2019

@Tandor - me too. I spend a lot of time "picking flowers and smelling the roses". I got my first girl to 50 today (6 months plus a few days since I started) due entirely to New Life and Charity Writs - the first one of 18 girls on two accounts.

I'm an altoholic; I ALWAYS think of a new girl, new name, new backstory - and then I have to make her and play her.

I won't ever "finish" this game. I'm fine with that!

Callous2208 · January 2019

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Zahktar wrote: »

I'm a little torn..

On the one hand, putting the tickets in the crown store feels like it cheapens the work people have done to earn tickets. I, for one, played almost every single day of all the events, so I would be able to get some extra feathers for more Indrik evolutions. I maybe wouldn't have sat there for ages hoping for dungeon finder to work if I'd realized I could just buy the tickets later.

On the other hand, I can appreciate how this gives people who missed events because of holidays a chance to catch up. I'm a big softie, so I feel bad for the people who weren't able to get their tickets/feathers.

All in all, though, it cheapens the whole point of the events and the Indrik mount, which was to bring everyone together. These events had their rough points.. but they also had the community really coming together. And now what people have put in hard work and time to earn, anyone can buy with a big enough pocketbook.

I'm severely let down by this. And it kind of makes me think twice about getting involved in events in the future. After all, if I really want the reward, seems like I'll probably be able to buy it eventually.

This puts my views on this pretty well.

I'm also deterred from doing future events because there are simply too many of them. Events are supposed to be special, but if we are going to continue runing straight on from one event to another then they just become a distraction from playing the game.

That's the point though. Unless you're a new player, there's very little to do besides event grinds.

Not really. It's not only new players who aren't sitting at "endgame" with nothing to do.

True, there is rp and PvP. Gets stale sometimes though. Like to see some heavier content updates.

There's also the whole game. There are plenty (myself included) who after playing for nearly 5 years still have plenty of content to do for the first time.

I feel you're being purposefully deceitful to prove a point. 5 years with plenty of content left to do would mean you play a few hours a month at most. I consider myself super casual and could start new and have all the content done in a year at best. Standing still never playing any content for 5 years doesn't mean there's a great deal of content.

Edit: Eso despite its recent turns for the worst is still my favorite mmo of all time. But it is severely lacking in content compared to its peers.

No, I play a couple of hours a day pretty much every day, sometimes more but without any particular drive to achieve any sort of target beyond furthering the quests I'm on - sometimes I'll just wander around picking up mats or fishing etc. I play on PC but don't use addons to guide me everywhere, and rarely bother with mounts as there's too much hassle constantly mounting and dismounting for mats etc. I do have a lot of characters across two accounts, but the main thing is that I deliberately take the game at a leisurely pace, playing for the journey rather than the destination. That's my approach to every game, as a result of which I have never burnt out or run out of content in any game. There are plenty of others who adopt the same approach.

I understand this process, as an avid rpr I take the same approach for the most part. I just don't see it. Not in 5 years time. That's not a leisurely approach. You've just made a concious decision not to complete the content. Which is fine, but doesn't really make for a good measurement of how much content there is here after 5 years.

hiyde · January 2019

Some random thoughts/suggestions:

Dear ZoS: being clear up front would go a long way towards people not feeling like they've been lied to.

Stating, up front, at the start of this Indrik Event that Crown Store would be an option for tickets would have been a great way to respect your customers, letting them decide if they preferred Grind or Cash. Just put it all out there at the start! How it will work. If the Crown Store will be a short cut. How much that short cut will cost. Instead, MONTHS into this event, the other shoe drops.

Why does a catch-up mechanism have to be crown store based?
This was promoted as an in-game reward, why not keep it that way?
Why does any of this have to be limited time? Why can't people start playing the game at any point in the future and still have an in-game path for this reward?

Perhaps it works something like Enlightenment, or maybe some extra catch-up opportunities outside of an event (i.e. beat 10 dolmens, run cyrodiil dailies, etc).

I am a regular customer in the Crown Store, I understand why it exists but I don't understand this decision.

Same thing with the free pet for gifting crowns. Educate people up front. "Gift x crowns worth of stuff and you can have this mount free" -OR- you can straight-up buy it in January for xxxx Crowns.

I hate the Indrik mount (though I did particpate and get one, because it was fun) and I also dislike the free pet (lol) and I still gifted things regardless. It's the behavior here that concerns me...

Feel free to disagree, I only speak for myself.

BlazingDynamo · January 2019

It's super sad they're doing this lol but really, are any of us actually surprised?

People will complain but people will buy the tickets and Zos will continue to put pay-to-get-sh*t-quick in the crown store

Callous2208 · January 2019

hiyde wrote: »

Some random thoughts/suggestions:

Dear ZoS: being clear up front would go a long way towards people not feeling like they've been lied to.

Stating, up front, at the start of this Indrik Event that Crown Store would be an option for tickets would have been a great way to respect your customers, letting them decide if they preferred Grind or Cash. Just put it all out there at the start! How it will work. If the Crown Store will be a short cut. How much that short cut will cost. Instead, MONTHS into this event, the other shoe drops.

Why does a catch-up mechanism have to be crown store based?
This was promoted as an in-game reward, why not keep it that way?
Why does any of this have to be limited time? Why can't people start playing the game at any point in the future and still have an in-game path for this reward?

Perhaps it works something like Enlightenment, or maybe some extra catch-up opportunities outside of an event (i.e. beat 10 dolmens, run cyrodiil dailies, etc).

I am a regular customer in the Crown Store, I understand why it exists but I don't understand this decision.

Same thing with the free pet for gifting crowns. Educate people up front. "Gift x crowns worth of stuff and you can have this mount free" -OR- you can straight-up buy it in January for xxxx Crowns.

I hate the Indrik mount (though I did particpate and get one, because it was fun) and I also dislike the free pet (lol) and I still gifted things regardless. It's the behavior here that concerns me...

Feel free to disagree, I only speak for myself.

Being clear on these things could have possibly cost them money with people withholding their crowns. The catch up mechanic you spoke of is noble, but again, would allow people a non monetary option to obtain things they missed. In the current state of ESO, crown store revenue is worth far more than reputation or player satisfaction with communication.

Remag_Div · January 2019

Selling event tickets in the crown store is so absolutely lame that I'm almost turned off enough to cancel my ESO+ and stop playing this game altogether.

Stop putting every damn thing on the crown store which minimizes the effort of people who take part in your game and do these things legit.

It's sickening and beyond greedy. I hate the crown store with a passion.

hiyde · January 2019

Callous2208 wrote: »

Being clear on these things could have possibly cost them money with people withholding their crowns.

Are you sure about that? If it had been said up front that tickets in the Crown Store would be an option in Q1 2019, that could only result in less people pursuing it in-game (no idea how many but the result would be more crown sales not less).

Iluvrien · January 2019

This strategy was an amazing piece of marketing strategy. It isn't nice, or good, or respectful, but it is very effective. If you consider it from beginning to now, and what it implies for the future, it is extraordinary.

Let's be clear here. I can appreciate it in purely strategy terms. However, if I had been the one to come up with it, I don't think I would have been sleeping well at night for a while.

If I had to estimate a start for this process it would be the Summerfall Event. Summerfall ran from 20th September to the 28th of September, with the rewards being delivered by October 10th. Community engagement and good feeling goes up during this time.

On that same day (October 10th) we get the Indrik news post. It mentions (Event) Tickets and how they are given out once per day, per account, only during the event, and that there is a cap of 12. It mentions evolution but no mention of berries or the crown store.

Now, let's look at this for a moment. ZOS have introduced an artificial scarcity here with tickets. They have limited the number you can get per day, the number of days they are available, and the number you can stockpile against future events. To be blunt, there is no natural scarcity of tickets. ZOS introduced this intentionally using three different methods.

ZOS's omission of information relating to the berries and crown store were not by accident. People believed that this was an in-game reward for in-game activity. I was even taken in myself, less cynical than I should have been, mostly based on the Summerfall give away. Some people became invested in the process and tried to earn their Indrik and get extra feathers for later ones. Doubtless some people were turned away by the grind.

All four events pass. New Life ended on January 3rd, and on the same day (again) ZOS posts about the mechanics for berries.

You'll notice that this information was given out after the end of the final event, i.e. too late for anyone to change their behaviour patterns based on the crown store catch up system.

Again, ZOS is adding yet another layer of artificial scarcity. The berries for each quarter will be available only during that quarter.

I would also put good money on the likelihood that the berries from the previous quarter will become crown store items.

ZOS has monetized this very effectively indeed.

Those who did the events originally got invested in the process due to sunk time, and so will probably continue to get the berries as they are rolled out in spite of the information about the crown store that ZOS is only now making officially available.
People who were originally turned off the grind may buy tickets for real money to “catch up”. The need to catch up is purely due to the artificial scarcity mechanics that ZOS themselves implemented.
Some people are saying it is good of ZOS to have given another route. ZOS caused this problem and people are thanking them for letting them pay their way out of it.
I strongly suspect that the berries for previous quarters will go into the crown store allowing them to monetize multiple quarters simultaneously.

They must have been planning this for quite a while, it is an extraordinary edifice of strategic greed.

I honestly hope that I am wrong about number 4. I really do. I really can’t think of a way that any of these steps could have been constructed or modified to produce more money. It is a work of evil genius.

Want to prove me wrong, ZOS?

Allow us to get tickets from more than one event a day, OR
Remove the cap, OR
Make all berries available in later quarters from the Impresario.

Or all three, I’m not holding my breath though…

Thalidar · January 2019

Sorry guys but I'm amazed at those criticizing ZOS over this. I have 7 feathers and I'm glad others who haven't had my ability to farm them also have a way to catch up.

Let's not forget that it's free to everyone if you want it. No one is forcing anyone to buy them but hay if you want to invest in the game through the crown store then go for it. By doing so you're enabling me to get other free stuff.

ZOS could have easily have simply put them up for sale only in the store, but opted to give everyone an opportunity to get the indriks. Tbh I'm glad as I didn't feel like spending money on a mount.

But either way you pay through invested time or money into the game.

Zos wins either way.

notimetocare · January 2019

Other people can buy pointless pixels I earned... oh well? Hope they enjoy it too

D0PAMINE · January 2019

How unfortunate. People will be compelled to pay for an item to not feel left behind. Im not surprised, but dissapointed.

Iluvrien · January 2019

Thalidar wrote: »

Sorry guys but I'm amazed at those criticizing ZOS over this. I have 7 feathers and I'm glad others who haven't had my ability to farm them also have a way to catch up.

Let's not forget that it's free to everyone if you want it. No one is forcing anyone to buy them but hay if you want to invest in the game through the crown store then go for it. By doing so you're enabling me to get other free stuff.

ZOS could have easily have simply put them up for sale only in the store, but opted to give everyone an opportunity to get the indriks. Tbh I'm glad as I didn't feel like spending money on a mount.

But either way you pay through invested time or money into the game.

Zos wins either way.

ZOS could have given an in-game catch up mechanic. They didn’t.

ZOS could have made it so an in-game or out-of-game catch up mechanic wasn’t required. They didn’t.

I’m amazed too... that you think no aspect of this was worth criticism of ZOS.

The time-limited berries mean than not everyone will have a way to earn these indriks during in-game events.

Garrick · January 2019

I feel like the whole thing is like drug dealing.

So Indriks and Event Tickets are introduced innocently enough. It's possible for a casual to earn enough tickets to get a plain Indrik mount. This is like a dealer passing out free samples to get people addicted.

Now the need for Event Tickets increases, with the need to get multiple mounts and the need to get berries. The berries are only available at certain times, so you either get enough Event Tickets or you miss out. This is the addiction.

Event Tickets in Crown store - selling the drug full price.

Casuals are lured in early on. Then the grind becomes such that they cannot keep up. Luckily they can purchase Tickets with Crowns.

Maybe it won't be as bad as it sounds, but it sound like one of the cheapest and most underhand monetization schemes ever. Of course, the mounts are purely cosmetic, so people like me who only take cosmetics up to a point can give the whole thing a pass, but that doesn't prevent the whole scheme from leaving a very sour taste in my mouth.

The last year and a bit have seen an every increasing backlash against underhand monetization schemes in games. The publishers have raked in short term gains but it's becoming a risky practice that has seen more than a few games fail. ZOS have always walked the fine line, with loot boxes in the form of Crown Crates, but they've always finely balanced things (e.g. Crown Crate Gems) so that it stops just short of going too far. I remain hopeful that this Event Ticket scheme will not be the straw that breaks the camel's back - but we will see.

As that EA exec so infamously said - "If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it".
How true.

Jaraal · January 2019

It's not so much that so many seemingly exclusive in game items become available in the crown store, but rather the way they maximize the greed and manipulate the player base that's so distasteful. Luring the players into event grinds so they can be exposed to the giant crown store ads at log in the maximum number of times, and then dropping the "eh, you didn't really have to do that because we're going to let you buy it outright anyway" bomb is a very shady play. Or pulling the fast one on players who were tricked into thinking the only way they could get the fledgeling pet was to gift crown items, and then after the fact revealing that they didn't need to do that after all.

It just reeks so much of the classic bait and switch hard sell tactic that's better suited for the used car lot than a video game that's become a major part of many people's lives, that they may have grown emotionally attached to over the years. Hard to watch the Elder Scrolls world being pimped out to the street corner for fast profit.

Tandor · January 2019

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Zahktar wrote: »

I'm a little torn..

On the one hand, putting the tickets in the crown store feels like it cheapens the work people have done to earn tickets. I, for one, played almost every single day of all the events, so I would be able to get some extra feathers for more Indrik evolutions. I maybe wouldn't have sat there for ages hoping for dungeon finder to work if I'd realized I could just buy the tickets later.

On the other hand, I can appreciate how this gives people who missed events because of holidays a chance to catch up. I'm a big softie, so I feel bad for the people who weren't able to get their tickets/feathers.

All in all, though, it cheapens the whole point of the events and the Indrik mount, which was to bring everyone together. These events had their rough points.. but they also had the community really coming together. And now what people have put in hard work and time to earn, anyone can buy with a big enough pocketbook.

I'm severely let down by this. And it kind of makes me think twice about getting involved in events in the future. After all, if I really want the reward, seems like I'll probably be able to buy it eventually.

This puts my views on this pretty well.

I'm also deterred from doing future events because there are simply too many of them. Events are supposed to be special, but if we are going to continue runing straight on from one event to another then they just become a distraction from playing the game.

That's the point though. Unless you're a new player, there's very little to do besides event grinds.

Not really. It's not only new players who aren't sitting at "endgame" with nothing to do.

True, there is rp and PvP. Gets stale sometimes though. Like to see some heavier content updates.

There's also the whole game. There are plenty (myself included) who after playing for nearly 5 years still have plenty of content to do for the first time.

I feel you're being purposefully deceitful to prove a point. 5 years with plenty of content left to do would mean you play a few hours a month at most. I consider myself super casual and could start new and have all the content done in a year at best. Standing still never playing any content for 5 years doesn't mean there's a great deal of content.

Edit: Eso despite its recent turns for the worst is still my favorite mmo of all time. But it is severely lacking in content compared to its peers.

No, I play a couple of hours a day pretty much every day, sometimes more but without any particular drive to achieve any sort of target beyond furthering the quests I'm on - sometimes I'll just wander around picking up mats or fishing etc. I play on PC but don't use addons to guide me everywhere, and rarely bother with mounts as there's too much hassle constantly mounting and dismounting for mats etc. I do have a lot of characters across two accounts, but the main thing is that I deliberately take the game at a leisurely pace, playing for the journey rather than the destination. That's my approach to every game, as a result of which I have never burnt out or run out of content in any game. There are plenty of others who adopt the same approach.

I understand this process, as an avid rpr I take the same approach for the most part. I just don't see it. Not in 5 years time. That's not a leisurely approach. You've just made a concious decision not to complete the content. Which is fine, but doesn't really make for a good measurement of how much content there is here after 5 years.

I haven't made that decision, I have simply decided I don't need to complete the content now! There's a big difference.

If you want a game with massive content that will outlast more "normal" rates of progression, as you would see it, then you need a game that's been out a lot longer than 5 years - I would say that EQ2 and LoTRO would be perfect examples of that. Of course, a lot also depends on whether you only want to play the content once with a single character, stick purely to a particular form of content and avoid things like PvP, crafting, fishing, dungeons and so on. The less you embrace the content that is provided the quicker you will clamor for more content to be added!

No developer these days can keep up with the rate at which some players consume content, even those who aren't strictly hardcore. I do think, however, that where adding content is concerned ZOS do as good a job as any and a better one than most. Even after only 5 years worth of additional development you can still easily reach level 50 having only seen a small fraction of the overall content, and that's without any grinding. My senior warden is a case in point, created in Vvardenfell when Morrowind launched, and has completed that zone, her native alliance tutorial zone (Khenarthi's Roost) plus skyshards and rare fish in the other alliance tutorial zones, a smidgen of Auridon, a couple of pre-DLC quests and a few stages of the main story, plus a fair chunk of Clockwork City. Add in some only of the events and she hit level 50 last weekend. No PvP or group dungeons. That leaves a huge part of the base game plus all the other DLCs as well as Summerset and Murkmire. Plenty of scope there for earning champion points!

O_LYKOS · January 2019

Nothing is special in the game anymore. They bring stuff out which is limited time exclusive. Like “wow this mounts is so cool you rarely see anybody on it”. Then they toss everything in the crown crates.

People bought morrowind for a new exclusive zone. Class. Look what happened to that.

CrisXD · January 2019

This is always something to be expected with ZOS but still! I cant find appropriate words to express how angry this makes me and many others I can imagine. It seems that taking part in the events and earning the tickets have been a total waste of time. What a joke!

Tandor · January 2019

O_LYKOS wrote: »

Nothing is special in the game anymore. They bring stuff out which is limited time exclusive. Like “wow this mounts is so cool you rarely see anybody on it”. Then they toss everything in the crown crates.

People bought morrowind for a new exclusive zone. Class. Look what happened to that.

I seriously doubt that anyone with any gaming experience seriously thought that the new zone and class (or battlegrounds) would remain exclusive forever, it simply isn't how MMOs operate. If it was, people would flood to the forums complaining that they were new players and had to pay a fortune to buy all the content. What you gain by paying for new content at its release is immediate access to it.

O_LYKOS · January 2019

Tandor wrote: »

O_LYKOS wrote: »

Nothing is special in the game anymore. They bring stuff out which is limited time exclusive. Like “wow this mounts is so cool you rarely see anybody on it”. Then they toss everything in the crown crates.

People bought morrowind for a new exclusive zone. Class. Look what happened to that.

I seriously doubt that anyone with any gaming experience seriously thought that the new zone and class (or battlegrounds) would remain exclusive forever, it simply isn't how MMOs operate. If it was, people would flood to the forums complaining that they were new players and had to pay a fortune to buy all the content. What you gain by paying for new content at its release is immediate access to it.

What makes people think these mounts were gonna stay “exclusive” to those who earned them during the events?
And maybe so regarding morrowind. But my point still stands about limited time items in the crown store.

Tandor · January 2019

O_LYKOS wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

O_LYKOS wrote: »

Nothing is special in the game anymore. They bring stuff out which is limited time exclusive. Like “wow this mounts is so cool you rarely see anybody on it”. Then they toss everything in the crown crates.

People bought morrowind for a new exclusive zone. Class. Look what happened to that.

I seriously doubt that anyone with any gaming experience seriously thought that the new zone and class (or battlegrounds) would remain exclusive forever, it simply isn't how MMOs operate. If it was, people would flood to the forums complaining that they were new players and had to pay a fortune to buy all the content. What you gain by paying for new content at its release is immediate access to it.

What makes people think these mounts were gonna stay “exclusive” to those who earned them during the events?
And maybe so regarding morrowind. But my point still stands about limited time items in the crown store.

I deliberately highlighted the bit about Morrowind because that's all I was responding to. I have zero interest in re-skinned mounts and other such stuff whether in the crown store or crown crates, so I haven't followed the issue of exclusivity on those items. As a general principle, however, I would say that where something is listed as exclusive it shouldn't appear elsewhere, and where something is listed as "limited time" it should be clearly stated whether it is intended to bring it back again later or is truly a one-off availability.

heaven13 · January 2019

Qualanthar wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

For example, the Dawnwood Berries require players to be willing to PVP and to own the TG/DB, and Morrowind DLC. So unless a player can get all the tickets they need from the Jester's event or ZOS does another ESO+ trial like they did for Clockwork City, some players will need to buy event tickets if they don't want to miss out on the Dawnwood Indriik.

In addition to getting the Berries each quarter, there's still needing to acquire 40 feathers for the nascent indriiks to use it on. Depending on how many tickets we can acquire per event, again, that either means waiting awhile or paying to catch up with crown store event tickets.

It's this exactly. Every event you need to obtain 20 tickets - one for the berry and one for a new feather. If you can't do that, you have no choice but to pay for them. Then, if you are not around for the last event in the quarter, you are totally screwed and will never be able to get that mount meaning any berries you bought during the first 3 events become useless.

The bolded part exactly is what makes the Crown store an issue. I'm not worried about the exclusivity of the mount as I appreciate the chance to obtain things that one might have missed due to real life or coming to the game later in its life, etc. Though I am not a fan of the Indrik (I use horses on all my characters), I still participated in the events. Because I wanted to enjoy the ability to earn a mount in game rather than needing to go to the Crown Store. I thought it was a great (though grindy) change.

But now ticket requirements will be doubled per event (but I bet we still have a limit of 12 tickets total to bank) if you want all the berry fragments and a feather to start on the next evolution. With berries being exclusive to their quarter and arriving like feathers (1 per event, 4 events/berries per quarter, berries disappearing at end of quarter), you've got to do some serious event ticket micro-managing to make sure you can get both without being pushed to the crown store.

I truly feel for the people who were told to destroy their extra tickets because they wouldn't be needed. Could have been ahead but CS really screwed the pooch on that one.

If all berries and all feathers would continue to be available in all future events (rather than berries being strictly locked to their quarter), there's no reason people couldn't continue to obtain the mount. It might take longer, but absolutely doable. That's how it works: come to the game later, get stuff later but can still get the stuff. I see nothing wrong with this.

albesca · January 2019

Iluvrien wrote: »

ZOS's omission of information relating to the berries and crown store were not by accident. People believed that this was an in-game reward for in-game activity. I was even taken in myself, less cynical than I should have been, mostly based on the Summerfall give away. Some people became invested in the process and tried to earn their Indrik and get extra feathers for later ones. Doubtless some people were turned away by the grind.

I generally agree about the strategy behind the information withholding, but getting the event tickets wasn't a grind by any means: with the only exception of the undaunted event you could get the daily ticket (or tickets) within ten minutes of playing time

Iluvrien · January 2019

albesca wrote: »

Iluvrien wrote: »

ZOS's omission of information relating to the berries and crown store were not by accident. People believed that this was an in-game reward for in-game activity. I was even taken in myself, less cynical than I should have been, mostly based on the Summerfall give away. Some people became invested in the process and tried to earn their Indrik and get extra feathers for later ones. Doubtless some people were turned away by the grind.

I generally agree about the strategy behind the information withholding, but getting the event tickets wasn't a grind by any means: with the only exception of the undaunted event you could get the daily ticket (or tickets) within ten minutes of playing time

I try to not make assumptions about what other people might consider a grind or not. As such, I was highlighting a possibility based on posts I remember seeing where people were seeming to decry a grind.

Personally, I don't think it was. But I can only speak directly for myself, anything about anyone else is inference and deduction based on what I have seen.

Zathras · January 2019

kwbridge wrote: »

I get that some may have limited game time but they set it up in such a way that you could still earn enough tickets without having to play a lot. And you know what? You miss it, you miss it. Otherwise it completely discounts the efforts those of use who participated in the event put into it and spent interacting with the game community.

Iluvrien wrote: »

This strategy was an amazing piece of marketing strategy. It isn't nice, or good, or respectful, but it is very effective.
<snip>
They must have been planning this for quite a while, it is an extraordinary edifice of strategic greed.

It is a work of evil genius.

Mostly agree. I don't think patting the head of their monetizing strategist helps. It's like thanking a shark for being a predator. Its nature dictates what it is.

Rather than the blatant grind for a motif, with a simultaneous pairing of the same item for an immediate, no-grind purchase in the Cash Shop, they've offset these methods of availability.

Now, they build community goodwill first. "Yay! Look, ZOS listened to us! See? We can work for in-game mounts!"
..with a few months of delay before putting it in the Cash Shop.

Early participants got their feathers. People who got the game for Christmas, or who started the ticket event late, are the target audience for the Cash Shop alternative.

So, yes, it was planned in advance when they initially rolled out the event. You don't just suddenly pop one of these marketing ideas out on the weekend.

Unfortunately, the goodwill they built (for some) got thrown into the garbage bin by linking this to the Cash Shop. It was "supposed" to be the only mount since the game's release where the community could work towards a long-term goal and get a very graphically unique mount.

It's a matter of cheesing the event, and people getting Cash Shop fatigue.

Deep_01 · January 2019

But it isn't pay2win, so why should people care?

DirkRavenclaw · January 2019

And why not? Every Time a Event starts, half of my Guildies rip theire Hairs out, getting angry because they have only 1 hour or less a Day Time, or have a RL in General, so to give people the (possible) overpriced Chance to buy them from the Clownstore, why not. The same happens with Motifes, take the Alliance Style or even, right nowish, Welkynar and so on, grind it slowly in Game or oay a overpriced price in the Clownstore. I dont see a proble here

MLGProPlayer · January 2019

I like it. It gives you a chance to get the mount if you're busy or travelling during an event.

I'll be away for a business trip plus some travelling for 3 weeks this summer. If that happens to be the quarter when my Indrik is available, I'll probably have to buy some event tickets.

Tandor · January 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

I like it. It gives you a chance to get the mount if you're busy or travelling during an event.

I'll be away for a business trip plus some travelling for 3 weeks this summer. If that happens to be the quarter when my Indrik is available, I'll probably have to buy some event tickets.

That's generally covered by the fact that you don't need all the tickets from all the events to get the feathers. So just as those who don't want to do a PvP or dungeon event, for example, can still get the necessary tickets from the other events, so someone who misses the odd event by being away can also do so. Now, if someone is away so much that they can't participate in most of the events then there's a legitimate question as to why they would expect to be able to receive the rewards for those events, however unfortunate that may be given the circumstances.