Starlock wrote: »

When I saw this on my login screen, I thought it was a joke. A typing error. A mistake. Surely they meant to be talking about pre-ordering the Elsweyr chapter, right?

But no. These are really a thing. Unbelievable. As if virtual gamble crates aren't bad enough, apparently companies manage to sucker people into buying gamble crates with physical stuff in them. It boggles the mind.

dude.

1. those things have been around for a long time. its a goodie subscription thing and you generally get a set value of goodies, many of which are unique to the crates, to the point where you can quite literally resell parts of your crate on e-bay and completely recoup your cost, while STILL keeping some of the stuff for yourself.
2. becasue of above, its NOT gambling. its grab bag. with legit sources, worst case scenario - monetary value of items you get inside, is equal to the cost of the crate.
3. there are subscription boxes for EVERYTHING, from food and snacks, to various household supplies, to make up, to art supplies, to toys etc etc etc. some have customization. some don't. depending on your preferences, as long as company is legit - they tend to be worth it. lootcrate is legit.

yes, i have ordered ES crate ages ago (back when it first went up for preorder), because I have bought individual crate for a different fandom from lootcrate prior and I very much enjoyed my experience, and I also have several friends who also at different points - purchased lootcrates. been using backpack and hoodie for years and they are still going strong.

so no, don't compare them with virtual goods that are only usable inside a game that may or may not be active few years down the road.

Starlock wrote: »

When I saw this on my login screen, I thought it was a joke. A typing error. A mistake. Surely they meant to be talking about pre-ordering the Elsweyr chapter, right?

But no. These are really a thing. Unbelievable. As if virtual gamble crates aren't bad enough, apparently companies manage to sucker people into buying gamble crates with physical stuff in them. It boggles the mind.

My thoughts exactly. My word, people enjoy being milked.

Starlock wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

When I saw this on my login screen, I thought it was a joke. A typing error. A mistake. Surely they meant to be talking about pre-ordering the Elsweyr chapter, right?

But no. These are really a thing. Unbelievable. As if virtual gamble crates aren't bad enough, apparently companies manage to sucker people into buying gamble crates with physical stuff in them. It boggles the mind.

not the same as digital. You at least get to keep the items and eventually sell them to other people.
Plus its for nerds that already collect weird collectables of their favorite IPs.

Personally, if I wanted to collect weird collectables I would want to know exactly what it is that I am buying. When I finally looked at what this was yesterday, I noticed that the sellers don't even provide you a list of what items could be inside. It looks like a scam, to be perfectly blunt about it. I can't believe they manage to sell these things or that people buy them. It must be people making six figure salaries who have a lot of money to waste on unknowns.

its not. a. scam. its a pretty standard practice for boxes like that, and as i have mentioned above - they exist not just for gaming. or even not just for nerdy stuff in general. in any case, you don't have to buy them. you COULD always go to ebay and pay for individual collectibles out of those crates should they interest you.

The way it is marketed looks like a scam, though. That just blows my mind. I mean, Zenimax provides buyers of their gamble crates with an accurate list of possible contents (albeit without publishing the odds as they should). This company doesn't even do that. That's just nuts, especially with the price point of these things. It's a neat idea, but the implementation is gods awful. If the company won't give a list of what items they actually put in these things - and worse state "each crate will have approximately 4-6 items" - forget it. They 100% lost me as a potential customer with their marketing that makes their product look like a scam (whether or not it actually is).

/shrug. to each their own. they show the kind of items will be in these crates. typically its some sort of figurine or a statue, an article of clothing like t-shirt or a hoodie, and random paraphernalia like drinking glasses, decalls, keychains, etc. its pretty much how lootcrate has been working for over a decade. whether they advertised it clearly enough... i don't know. maybe becasue i'm used to subscription boxes like that where you get a general aproximation of value, how many items and very rough idea of a type of items they are going to be, but not exact items - it works fine for me. with ES crates we are told that their monterary values is going to be at least $80. given the prices of apparel (of which you typically get at least one thing of) it alone going to cover half the price of the crate.. or more. i mean gaming t-shirts sell for $25 and hoodies sell for more..

see with crown crates, you don't have a set value of a crate. you know you are getting 4-5 items you know that at least one of those items is going to be some sort of item of fluff. but the COST of that fluff item is variable and THAT is what makes it a gamble. you could get 100 crowns worth of stuff. or you could get 2000 crowns worth of stuff. you never know. with physical subscription boxes especially loot crate, everyone gets the same thing.

but anyways, the point I'm getting at, is that LOOTCRATE, as the company - has been running their subscription boxes as well as individual boxes on a sort of surprise box setup for as long as they have been around. and they have been around while ESO was barely in development, let alone got the crown shop. heck if anything - digital loot boxes got their idea from physical surprise boxes, not the other way around.

Starlock wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

/shrug. to each their own. they show the kind of items will be in these crates. typically its some sort of figurine or a statue, an article of clothing like t-shirt or a hoodie, and random paraphernalia like drinking glasses, decalls, keychains, etc. its pretty much how lootcrate has been working for over a decade. whether they advertised it clearly enough... i don't know. maybe becasue i'm used to subscription boxes like that where you get a general aproximation of value, how many items and very rough idea of a type of items they are going to be, but not exact items - it works fine for me.

The only experience I have with such boxes was something a friend got me that was international food items. The company was transparent about exactly what you would get each month and also provided a service to order more of the food items you sampled and liked. That was a good model. It was too expensive for me to continue after the gift sub ran out, but was pretty neat. This collectible box thing would be neat too if it got rid of the gamble/unknown elements and lack of transparency. Oh well.

Interesting to know these have been a thing for a while. I'm a terrible consumer who avoids advertisements like the bubonic plague and very deliberately eschews most non-functional purchases from my life, so I'm often the last to find out about these things.

I've actualy had one of those and even with those boxes, at least the one i tried, you didn't know exactly what you'd get. a general idea of what you'd get and some of the boxes let you do minor customization like.. i'm allergic to these ingredients so nothing with those things, please, or.. I prefer salty snacks to sweet ones - but aside from that, the whole point of those boxes is that they are curated FOR you, rather then BY you. which is what loot crate basically is - they curate items FOR you.

you know that its going to be themed around your choice of a fandom (this is why they have 4 different gaming boxes, and different types of comic book boxes for example) you know there is going to be some some of item of apparel (that's why they ask for your size when signing up) some sort of homegoods item (most commonly a table light or nightlight or drinking glasses or a mug, I do believe travel coffee mugs showed up a few times in various boxes), and various chotchkes. basically - go to any one of those print shops that sell paraphenalia - t--shirts, mugs, posters, and that's the sort of stuff you can expect from lootcrate + collectible like a exclusive funko pop figurine, or some sort of other kind of figurine or whatnot.

honestly, if you tend not to buy nonfunctional items - even if they gave you a full exact list of every box, somehow i doubt you'd be interested in buying it. because even things you wear like t-shirts or hoodies, are still more of a collectible thing. I wear them cause i enjoy to, but its not everyone's cup of tea. sounds like it may not be yours. (edited - oops, apparently if you skip a letter in a t-shirt, it censors you :P )

I find some of those boxes fun. been actualy thinking of signing up for a craft box, just trying to decide which one I would get most use out of. maybe. i already have a ton of projects in progress, so its the main reason I haven't gone for it just yet. but i digress.

lootcrate is legit. they license stuff, but they are not part of ZoS. they have been around for good god... 17 years now... didn't realize it was THAT long :P if you like surprises - and are invested into collectibles for one of the fandoms they cover? they tend to be worth it.

I love when people act like loot crates and blind boxes haven't been around forever because they want to act outraged about mUh DiGiTaL gAmBlInG

idk wrote: »

Is this Zos' replacement for the physical collectors chapter edition? From the site below it seems pretty lame. I do not know if I found the legit site.

https://www.lootcrate.com/crates/elder-scrolls

LOL I just saw that there is a MSRP of $80 (usd?) for each $50 crate.

read above please.

but now, that's not their replacement for CE. its Elder scrolls crate, not elder scrolls online crate. as in.. all of elder scrolls

https://gear.bethesda.net/products/wrathstone-tablet is their replacement for physical CE.

And, you know, this has existed for a lot longer than even that.


They're called "grab bags". Remember them? Been around for decades, as a way for stores & mail order catalogs to clear out overstock.


I can remember back in the 80's & 90's, buying "bag of 2 dozen assorted dice" or "3 lbs of random Warhammer 40K miniatures."


So yeah. What comes around, goes around.
(just like many things happening in f2p mobile games, some of us remember from the video arcades of the 80's, as well. Put your money in the change machine to get "tokens" to play the game with - get bonus tokens if you do $10 or $20 at a time!)

Are ZOS employees paid in loot crates? It seems like the next logical step in the degeneration of the industry.

Starlock wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

When I saw this on my login screen, I thought it was a joke. A typing error. A mistake. Surely they meant to be talking about pre-ordering the Elsweyr chapter, right?

But no. These are really a thing. Unbelievable. As if virtual gamble crates aren't bad enough, apparently companies manage to sucker people into buying gamble crates with physical stuff in them. It boggles the mind.

not the same as digital. You at least get to keep the items and eventually sell them to other people.
Plus its for nerds that already collect weird collectables of their favorite IPs.

Personally, if I wanted to collect weird collectables I would want to know exactly what it is that I am buying. When I finally looked at what this was yesterday, I noticed that the sellers don't even provide you a list of what items could be inside. It looks like a scam, to be perfectly blunt about it. I can't believe they manage to sell these things or that people buy them. It blew my mind yesterday.

That is fine. Some people like surprises lol. Why are we talking about this? We still have lag in cyro lol.