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So many crowns ONLY purchasable homes. Why?

Tinkerballa15
Tinkerballa15
Soul Shriven
Is anyone else bothered by never being able to buy these new houses with gold? This makes the seventh or eighth consecutive home that is CROWNS ONLY. The average amount of crowns to purchase these homes runs the same cost as an expansion or a new game. Some of us like to farm and work for gold to buy things but it's actually seeming very, very greedy of them to force people to buy crowns. Give the option for both! Those who need crowns can buy them, but those who want to buy with gold should be able to with at least half of them. This is getting insane. Let's hope Potentate's Retreat is gold as well as crowns and Jode's Embrace is gold purchasable but somehow I expect they'll be trying to get $80 more dollars out of people per home. Such a great game but getting very greedy.
  • StabbityDoom
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    Yes. What more can I say? Yes. Jode's and Potato's will almost certainly be crown.
    PC/NA
    EHT zealot
    streamer: http://twitch.tv/stabbitydoom
  • Katahdin
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    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money
    Beta tester November 2013
  • Araneae6537
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    I agree. I totally get why they would have some houses Crown only, but some of the new homes should be purchaseable for gold, I agree. I have bought two homes with Crowns that had a gold option because I wanted the furnished versions (and because I’m a poor newb, lol). I’m sure I’m not the only one who pays with Crowns when it’s optional. Making ALL the new houses Crown-only seems poor PR, although not nearly so bad as Gem-only.
  • Kittytravel
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    ErinM31 wrote: »
    I agree. I totally get why they would have some houses Crown only, but some of the new homes should be purchaseable for gold, I agree. I have bought two homes with Crowns that had a gold option because I wanted the furnished versions (and because I’m a poor newb, lol). I’m sure I’m not the only one who pays with Crowns when it’s optional. Making ALL the new houses Crown-only seems poor PR, although not nearly so bad as Gem-only.

    Alternatively restricting them for one year before making them gold purchasable would be fine too imo. For those players that would not/could not spend crowns they wouldn't have anyway it makes the house accessible. And for those who would buy it for crowns well they already did. The exception to this can of course be the estates which I understand should likely remain crown exclusives (or cost more than the usual 3 million gold, maybe 9 million for things like Linchal, Erstwhile, etc. just to make it more lucrative crown-wise to purchase it with crowns VS gold.)

    But yeah if in a year people haven't bought Alinor Crest Townhouse, they probably aren't going to. So just let them buy it for gold. Locking so many houses behind crown only just means less people will ever own them in the lifetime of the game.
  • CaffeinatedMayhem
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    As other's mentioned, there are several ways to monetize housing without restricting all new homes to being crowns only. I would probably still buy some homes with crowns too, but would be a better use of my limited finances.'

    I still questions ZOS' decision to finance end-game through housing, then completly ignore any feedback from the people they want to extract money from. While housing is "cosemtic", it is literally the only reason I play end-game.
  • idk
    idk
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    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    This and it seems enough people are buying the crown exclusive homes to keep it going like this..
  • Tinkerballa15
    Tinkerballa15
    Soul Shriven
    To be clear I am not even opposed to crown-only homes just opposed to making ten consecutive crown-only homes. It's blatant money-grabbing. I love the idea of making them gold purchasable after a few months. So crowns gives you that exclusive headstart. They really need to fix this though, it's getting aggravating. :/
  • Araneae6537
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    While I agree that some new homes should be available for gold, I don’t think it would be a good idea for houses to release as Crown-only and then become available for gold at a future date. I would expect that some who would buy a home for Crowns wouldn’t if they knew it would eventually be available for gold, especially if the gold-price were not known. I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but I know I would be slower to buy if I thought I didn’t know all my options. Or it might have no effect if I really want the furnishings or am quite happy with the current price.
  • Emathides
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    But yeah if in a year people haven't bought Alinor Crest Townhouse, they probably aren't going to. So just let them buy it for gold. Locking so many houses behind crown only just means less people will ever own them in the lifetime of the game.

    Just in case you didn't know, Alinor Crest Townhouse is available for gold, as long as one has the Summerset Grand Adventurer achievement. I think that was the last home added that had the option of purchasing with gold.

    I really don't understand why Lucky Cat isn't available for gold, but the fact that is it crown only and only 400 item slots makes it less desirable.

    Edited by Emathides on October 22, 2019 10:17AM
  • Raideen
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    idk wrote: »
    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    This and it seems enough people are buying the crown exclusive homes to keep it going like this..

    Because if they want a house there is another option?

    Its BLATANT greed and a REALLY good way to *** off your customers.
  • Raideen
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    As other's mentioned, there are several ways to monetize housing without restricting all new homes to being crowns only. I would probably still buy some homes with crowns too, but would be a better use of my limited finances.'

    I still questions ZOS' decision to finance end-game through housing, then completly ignore any feedback from the people they want to extract money from. While housing is "cosemtic", it is literally the only reason I play end-game.

    Housing is the only reason I came back to ESO and after 2 months I am already sick of their business practices again (primary reason I left a year ago).

    And what is sad is that housing here is pointless, it offers no reason to exist in game except as a gold sink.
  • Veinblood1965
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    Hmm let's see.

    Option 1. ZoS makes 2 million selling crown only housing.

    Option 2. They don't make a dime more offering the housing for gold, they in fact make less as some of those paying crowns can now just use gold instead of cash.

    As one poster said, MONEY. Paying programmers does not come cheap, they could raise the monthly subscription fee but then how many would quit the game? Would the increased fees bring in more or less due to lemmings leaving?



  • Hallothiel
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    How many crowns is it?

    (Console pleb 🙂)
  • Jayne_Doe
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    Morrowind gave us 2 homes purchasable with gold; Summerset only gave us one; Elsweyr none, but we did get a free home. All three chapters offered an inn room as well, so we do in fact, get gold purchasable houses with each new chapter, even if just an inn room, which can be obtained free if you've got a character that hasn't yet done the housing quest. Of course, players want more than just a small inn room with 15/30 slots.

    There have only been 6 gold purchasable homes (outside of the three inn rooms) after Homestead's release:
    -Ald Velothi (medium home with Morrowind)
    -Amaya Lake Lodge (large home with Morrowind)
    -Alinor Crest Townhouse (large home with Summerset)
    -Exorcised Coven Cottage (medium home available during Witches Festival)
    -Hakkvild's High Hall (notable home with Horns of the Reach DLC, but requires completing both dungeons on veteran to buy with gold)
    -Coldharbour Surreal Estate (notable plot "home" requiring God of Schemes achievement to purchase with gold)

    We also got Hall of the Lunar Champion free with Elsweyr. Also, those of us who participated in the Summerfall event got the Grand Psijic Villa for free.

    Meanwhile, there have been 18 CS exclusive homes (including the return of the Villa this past year). However, there are 36 homes from Homestead (plus the three inn rooms) that are available to purchase with gold.

    So, there are 42 gold purchasable homes, plus 6 free inn rooms and the Hall of the Lunar Champion (plus the Villa for some). While CS exclusive homes only total 18 at the moment. Granted, these comprise most of the new homes since Homestead, but there are still plenty of gold-purchasable homes.

    That said it is frustrating that most new homes have been CS only, and I do hope that we get gold options in future, but it just doesn't seem likely. I would hope we'd get at least one with each chapter - this year we got a free one. Either free or for gold, there should be at least one, outside of the inn room, each year. I think that may be all we can really expect, if even that.
  • Raideen
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    Hmm let's see.

    Option 1. ZoS makes 2 million selling crown only housing.

    Option 2. They don't make a dime more offering the housing for gold, they in fact make less as some of those paying crowns can now just use gold instead of cash.

    As one poster said, MONEY. Paying programmers does not come cheap, they could raise the monthly subscription fee but then how many would quit the game? Would the increased fees bring in more or less due to lemmings leaving?



    By your logic ZOS should also charge a crown for every time you use an ability. Perhaps we should be charged a crown for every step we take. I think they should also charge crowns for armor and weapons, I mean a lot of programming and art goes into weapons and armor.
  • Araneae6537
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    Hallothiel wrote: »
    How many crowns is it?

    (Console pleb 🙂)

    4.4k unfurnished and 5.5k furnished (making the latter a great deal if you like the house).
  • Goregrinder
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    Because I have money and I want houses. There are a handful of houses you can get without crowns, like the Hall of the Lunar Champion.
  • Dusk_Coven
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    Making them giftable, or making something like Crown Promissory Notes a thing would be a good intermediate solution as long as the appearance of Crowns ALWAYS means real money entered the system somehow. Because if you got it gifted to you in exchange for gold or whatever you agreed to in barter, the person doing the gifting still had to get Crowns to do it.

    What the current system of Crowns-only and non-giftable does is:
    (a) fails to tap the market where people who are willing to sell Crowns for whatever reason and are sitting on Crowns or can't find a client
    (b) stresses the market of people who are interested in Housing but are already stretching their real world dollars too much, causing them to then NOT buy something else, thereby actually lowering Crown store sales due to lost opportunities

    Gold and Crown-selling/item-gifting connects the two WITHOUT zos losing out at all. @ZOS_GinaBruno

    I think part of the reason that they don't make houses straight gold-purchasable is because it would have to be ludicrously expensive to be both a gold sink and yet maintain the exclusivity that allows them to price it in 4-5 digits.
    A house at 14000 crowns is only 2.8 million at the current crown exchange rate of 200:1 on PC(NA) -- so let's suppose this is the ballpark figure if they were to price the house in gold. If you wanted to amass that kind of gold in the laziest way possible on PC, getting Lazy Writ Crafter and doing 18 toons per day will get that banked and ready before a PTS cycle ends -- assuming you actually had to grind it out and didn't already have multiples of that amount already.
    SWTOR has all housing credit purchasable and even though it's priced out of the range of the credit allowance for F2P and Preferred players, the ever-increasing credit cost of housing is really laughable compared to the amount of credits that jumps into your pocket when you play the game, not to mention long-time players sitting on billions.

    Of course, even a Crown Seller might balk at buying 14000 Crowns to sell it for gold and is risking a lot in the current unsecured-transaction climate. Which is why Crown Promissory Notes need to be a thing to further spread out and reach more Crown sellers.

    If you want to put on your tinfoil hat, you could suspect ZOS of knowing the desperation for housing and wanting to force new money into the system with crown-only non-giftable houses.
    Example: When you start your account, you get 500 Crowns. And voila if you look in the Crown Store there's a Starter Pack for 500 Crowns (sometimes the Adept pack is on sale too?) And if I remember it's NOT giftable. So a new player might very well be tempted to buy that and right away ZOS removed 500 free Crowns from the system. My tinfoil hat whispers that it's not a coincidence.
    Jayne_Doe wrote: »
    We also got Hall of the Lunar Champion free with Elsweyr. Also, those of us who participated in the Summerfall event got the Grand Psijic Villa for free.
    Since the Hall is at the moment not accessible as a DLC yet, I'd say it's "free" with quotes. That is, you still paid real money for it. So a couple dollars in there is what you paid (and if you want to separately price it out, then sure Elsweyr is a steal). Same with the Grand Psijic Villa -- at the time Summerset wasn't a DLC yet (?).

    Edited by Dusk_Coven on October 23, 2019 5:11AM
  • Zer0_CooL
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    I don't get it, can't you buy them as gift?
  • Dusk_Coven
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    Zer0_CooL wrote: »
    I don't get it, can't you buy them as gift?

    When you hover your mouse over an item in the Crown Store, if a little gift box icon doesn't appear in the lower right, it's not giftable.
  • Anotherone773
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    Its a disappointment. Housing could of been something great but they constantly fail at it...
    1) No gold housing in forever.
    2) Limits on furnishings is to small because one guy is still playing on an Atari 6400. We will have to wait until everyone upgrades to quantum computers in 2062 before they can increase the furnishing size.
    3) Crown houses, even the most recent, are huge for the amount of items they use. No matter what you do it will look sparsely furnished which makes you want to use only part of the house.
    4) Thought lunar champion housing was going to be a work around and it would be nice to have some noncrown houses. Nope.
    5) Have a cup of salt with your housing. No new furnishings prints, but have this cheaper crown home with slightly less area and little furnishing capacity. Enjoy!

    Its really sad it had so much potential but they try to turn everything into an ATM machine and ruin it.
  • Royaji
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    Because they sell (and actually pretty well). Simple.
  • Goregrinder
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    Royaji wrote: »
    Because they sell (and actually pretty well). Simple.

    Speaking 1st hand, I can confirm they definitely do sell. I feel like I have waaaay too many houses now lol
  • kargen27
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    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    I'm not sure it is all about money. If it were all about money people would be able to gift homes. I think I have close to twelve million gold now all saved up just in case this ever happens.
    The crown only homes I own I purchased with crowns from subbing.
    and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."
  • Katahdin
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    kargen27 wrote: »
    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    I'm not sure it is all about money. If it were all about money people would be able to gift homes. I think I have close to twelve million gold now all saved up just in case this ever happens.
    The crown only homes I own I purchased with crowns from subbing.

    They dont allow gifting because of the potential for scamming. It's just too huge an item/cost. It would make it into a huge headache. People already scam at lower amounts. If they didn't want the money, they would make more homes available for gold.
    Beta tester November 2013
  • kargen27
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    Katahdin wrote: »
    kargen27 wrote: »
    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    I'm not sure it is all about money. If it were all about money people would be able to gift homes. I think I have close to twelve million gold now all saved up just in case this ever happens.
    The crown only homes I own I purchased with crowns from subbing.

    They dont allow gifting because of the potential for scamming. It's just too huge an item/cost. It would make it into a huge headache. People already scam at lower amounts. If they didn't want the money, they would make more homes available for gold.

    They could create a two tier authentication for transactions. Maybe they want to make the homes seem more exclusive?
    and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."
  • Araneae6537
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    Katahdin wrote: »
    kargen27 wrote: »
    Katahdin wrote: »
    Short answer: Money
    Long Answer: More Money

    I'm not sure it is all about money. If it were all about money people would be able to gift homes. I think I have close to twelve million gold now all saved up just in case this ever happens.
    The crown only homes I own I purchased with crowns from subbing.

    They dont allow gifting because of the potential for scamming. It's just too huge an item/cost. It would make it into a huge headache. People already scam at lower amounts. If they didn't want the money, they would make more homes available for gold.

    Has ZOS said as much? That doesn’t make sense to me. I believe some furnishing packs are in the lower end of the Crown-exclusive home price range. If security were the issue, wouldn’t it make the most sense to make Crowns tradeable? I could almost guarantee the reason is to sell more Crowns. Otherwise, people who sub but aren’t interested in cosmetics and such might well gift houses for gold without it bringing ZOS any additional revenue.
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