Sju wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised they haven't been forced to shut this down yet, it is pretty identical to selling gold for real money. ... But if you're going to ban gold for cash transactions, then ban this too.

The reason gold selling has always been frowned upon by game companies is that the gold sellers:
1) tend to screw up games with bots / exploits / etc
2) frequently were involved with hacking accounts (always saw posts about that back in WoW - accounts got hacked, all the stuff they had sold for gold, the gold transferred to the hackers to be sold, etc)
3) game companies don't like third party companies making money off their games. (see: third party Team Fortress/CS skin selling/etc). That's not an issue when it's all being done in-game, between players.

I'm just going to quote myself from an already closed topic:

NylAR wrote:

Sometimes it's not about epeen or looking cool or not being able to do the runs cause you suck, you know?

Quite often it's people like me who have money irl but spend all their time at work, people who have no time or even schedule to do organized raiding, people who have disabilities and are physically limited to perform with high numbers ingame, people like me who have OCD and need to collect everything just to feel accomplished, we may never even use the things we buy, but we want the achievement because without it the game just feels unfinished.

Also, I think it's good to say that I have no interest in endgame PvE whatsoever (mostly because it's an extremely toxic environment and only gives me anxiety and depression). BUT since I really love collecting stuff, exploring, quests, housing, crafting, roleplaying etc. I still enjoy the game enough to wanna get the PvE rewards that I can't normally get. So that's already at least 3 different major reasons why I'd buy a carry run.

There's loads of other reasons that imho come above flexing for something you haven't done.

I for one am extremely happy that people sell runs and that there's enough competition for it to not be so expensive. Just block and forget.:)

Oh also, it's not pay to win. Not even by a longshot. I can't even do 40k+ DPS with my vet trial gear. I just don't have the skills.

DDiggler wrote: »

1 You can buy crowns with real money. It is a major part of the account system.

2 You can exchange crowns with gold via gifting system. Zos will provide support for any complications arise such as scams, accidents etc.

3 You can buy achievements, skins, titles, gear runs or whatever that can be accomplished with a group with gold. Zos did not state that this transaction is a violation of any rules whatsoever.


You can follow the steps above to buy lets say "Perfected Sul Xan's Dagger" or "Gryphon Heart" or "Sunspire Champion Senche-Lion" with real life money, without any effort whatsoever. And all steps to achieve this pay to win cycle are openly permitted if not encouraged by the game company.

Things like housing, pets, styles or even mounts are cosmetic and does not bother most people to be pay to acquire but best in slot gear and most prestigious achievements(and rewards that come with them) being pay to win is outrageous.

Now preventing runsellers must be exceptionally hard since you cant moderate it beyond banning it from zone chats.

Preventing this chain of shame is only realistically possible by removing gifting crowns beacuse other options would cost a lot of money to the company.

-PLEASE STOP PAY TO WIN PLEASE-

If someone wants to buy a run let them pay it with their hard grinded gold at least

I could buy a few thousand crowns for irl money. I could then sell the crowns for tons of in-game gold. I could pay for carries multiple times until I get every piece of the current BIS/FOTM gear, AND the stat boosting food and whatevers that go along with it. So, what do I win?

Still won't be emperor because pvp. Still won't make the leaderboards for battlegrounds because pvp. Still won't make the leaderboards for trials and pledges because even if I have teh bestest evah gear completely golded out, the skills I need to actually play on that level of competence are NOT there. Doesn't matter how many players are willing to carry my character through "end-game" content I, me, myself personally, is still going to suck at actually *doing* that content.

And dearheart, I hate to break the news to you, but people have been doing carries for gold since Craglorn and vet content appeared, pre-crownstore even. Also check your information; ZOS is NOT always willing to fix issues where people gifting crowns for gold have been scammed.

Also, as long as you can pick flowers, and mine/refine ore for tempers, you will not be short of gold. Casual selling through my *social* guilds have my bank balance darn close to 10 million. If I actually put effort into farming enough mats to fill all my selling slots because social guilds can and do get traders, my balance would be higher.

People could chat and exchange PayPal details too.

Better ban chatting!

First of all there's a hole in the argument because even if you pay for a gear run, you're not guarranteed a weapon. But let's say you could pay for repeated runs, and got the OP weapon you wanted: this doesn't guarrantee winning either. A good player is effective regardless of a weapon, an inexperienced player will not magically get good by having X item. You could then say, 'but what if a good player paid for the carry and got the weapon and then used it to win?' Well, good players don't need carries. Anyway, this just to show that the argument is not that great, and the people who use the gifting system to get actual crown items that they otherwise might not be able to get, shouldn't lose this system because some small minority also might also use it to pay for their carries, in the off chance they might get a weapon.

Sju wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sju wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised they haven't been forced to shut this down yet, it is pretty identical to selling gold for real money. It's not p2w though, nothing p2w about cosmetics. But if you're going to ban gold for cash transactions, then ban this too.

Why? ZOS is also okay with gold for Crown Gifts.

Gina Bruno has said:

"To clarify, trading an in-game item for other in-game items is allowed; trading in-game items for real-world money or other out-of-game items is strictly prohibited."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5205829/#Comment_5205829

And she's also said:
"A Crown Store item is considered an in-game item."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5208334/#Comment_5208334

At this point, I'm posting quotes that are over two years old, which gives you an idea of how long ZOS has been perfectly fine with both selling carries for gold and trading Crown Gifts for gold.


If you and the OP want to argue that these things should be banned, then you do you. Just know that ZOS disagrees, so your reasoning better be sound.

Exactly the same thing, the number one reason why people buy crowns now is to sell crown shop items for gold, that equates to buying gold. You can't deny it, lol.

Quite different on ther contrary

Crown selling
After the purchase
Buyer have a crownstore item (no legal value)
Seller as gold
Zos get the money

Gold selling
Buyer get gold
Seller get real life money with legal value
Zos get nothing

You get this. I get this.

But I think we are an older breed of gamer that still cared about such things. Just look through this thread. Nowadays people just don't want to be inconvenienced in the slightest, integrity of the game be damned, and putting down cash for whatever they want right now is just an expectation they have and ZOS is more than happy to fulfill.

It's really quite astonishing. These practices have been a creeping normality, expanding the line of acceptable monetization to the point where legalized gold-buying is not considered P2W by most people. Something I would have considered impossible like a decade ago.

Sju wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sju wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised they haven't been forced to shut this down yet, it is pretty identical to selling gold for real money. It's not p2w though, nothing p2w about cosmetics. But if you're going to ban gold for cash transactions, then ban this too.

Why? ZOS is also okay with gold for Crown Gifts.

Gina Bruno has said:

"To clarify, trading an in-game item for other in-game items is allowed; trading in-game items for real-world money or other out-of-game items is strictly prohibited."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5205829/#Comment_5205829

And she's also said:
"A Crown Store item is considered an in-game item."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5208334/#Comment_5208334

At this point, I'm posting quotes that are over two years old, which gives you an idea of how long ZOS has been perfectly fine with both selling carries for gold and trading Crown Gifts for gold.


If you and the OP want to argue that these things should be banned, then you do you. Just know that ZOS disagrees, so your reasoning better be sound.

Exactly the same thing, the number one reason why people buy crowns now is to sell crown shop items for gold, that equates to buying gold. You can't deny it, lol.

No, you are entirely incorrect to say they are identical. Please review what Gina said.

Goldselling for real money is against the TOS.
Goldselling for in-game items, including Crown Store items, is not against the TOS.

ZOS makes that distinction and has for years. Its not hard to see why either. When people trade in-game items from the Crown Store for gold, ZOS makes profit off the Crowns. When people buy gold for real money from 3rd-part goldsellers, ZOS doesn't get a cut of the profit.

You are free to disagree with ZOS, but they make the rules here. And since ZOS makes loads of money from the people buying crowns to trade in-game Crown Store items for gold, I really don't expect ZOS to change things over two years from when they hashed out that, yes, Crown gift trading for gold is allowed.

As an "older breed" of gamer (been playing games since 1979), I disagree.

Faulgor wrote: »

It's really quite astonishing. These practices have been a creeping normality, expanding the line of acceptable monetization to the point where legalized gold-buying is not considered P2W by most people. Something I would have considered impossible like a decade ago.

Gold buying was never considered "pay to win". Because gold never let you "win". This absurd expansion of the definition of "pay to win" is an entirely modern thing, not something from the Olden Days™.

Back a decade ago, people still understood what p2w meant.


(again - game companies objected to gold selling because it let a third party make cash off their game. players objected to gold selling because it encouraged bots and account hacking. It was never about "pay to win".)


edit: for the record, I've never bought or sold Crowns, and I've never bought a run. I just think it's silly to keep throwing around these broad accusations of "pay to win".

Isnt that how all corporations operate? People are willing to deceive themselves into something they are not while simultaneously making the seller rich. In the end its all just capitalism, the best choice of all evils at least we have the power to participate if one chooses to. Like I chose in never giving zos a single dime of crown crates money. I don't support gambling and enriching a company for little effort. That is my greatest satisfaction, not some glowing useless mounts. If zos did a better job I might consider spending 1000 dollars if cyrodiil worked and had no balance problems but that will never happen in a thousand years.

Faulgor wrote: »

You get this. I get this.

But I think we are an older breed of gamer that still cared about such things. Just look through this thread. Nowadays people just don't want to be inconvenienced in the slightest, integrity of the game be damned, and putting down cash for whatever they want right now is just an expectation they have and ZOS is more than happy to fulfill.

It's really quite astonishing. These practices have been a creeping normality, expanding the line of acceptable monetization to the point where legalized gold-buying is not considered P2W by most people. Something I would have considered impossible like a decade ago.

While I agree with you about the creeping normalization of increasing monetization, you make the rest of it sound so condescending.

One thing I've learned from past discussions like this is that everyone has their own definition of "pay to win" and they draw their line in the sand in different places.

I know one guy who considers putting cosmetics like costumes and mounts in the Crown Store to be pay to win.

Some players think any type of paywall is pay to win - they periodically object to having to buy the latest Chapter or DLC in order to get the latest BOP gear or new class. Other players will say it's a pay-to-progress feature of a buy-to-play MMO.

Some players are against any form of pay for convenience or "pay to go faster". Those players were up in arms when ZOS added skill lines and skyshards to the Crown Store.

Some players insist that you have to actually "win" a victory that's inaccessible to players who don't pay. Other players will set the line still farther - if it's not the full money-making tactics of a gacha PVP game or an extreme power grind only bypassed by real money, it's not pay to win.

I don't know where you sit on that spectrum, but I do know that we're only going to have a productive discussion if we can respect that players have a wide variety of perspectives on games and what level of monetization they are willing to accept.


By the way, I sit somewhere in the category of "if you can earn it in game, it's not pay to win" with a side of "Of course you have to buy the latest content to progress!" I farm mats for fun, so I've never had a problem making gold in game, no crowns needed. Then, add in that I play Warframe, where the legalized platinum trade for in-game items that give gameplay-advantages is even more monetized by DE as part of their free-to-play model. Though by the strictest definitions, even Warframe isn't "pay to win" despite having a TON of pay-for convenience features.

So please, let's try to keep in mind that this isn't about "breeds" of gamers or even the "integrity of the game" (if so, do you want the many QOL conveniences since ESO's launch rolled back too? I sure don't!).

It's just about different perspectives on games and what different players want and are willing to accept in terms of monetization. You may draw the line before I do, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss it respectfully.

If I couldn't buy crowns with gold in this game, I'd probably just quit it.

I am not an ESO Sub.

I don't always buy the DLC (but some I do, like Morrowind and Blackwood just recently)

But if you forced me down a PAY $$ TO KEEP PLAYING pathway, I'd probably just quit the game completely.

There's a LOT of gaming goodness on console nowadays and ESO takes up a lot of time to get the most out of it.

If you push people too hard in one direction (especially on console) they won't hesitate to walk away.

Given this current idea, I'd actually go in the other direction and allow players to list crowns on Guild Trading stores directly instead.

This would definitely reduce the need for ZOS to bother managing grievances and complaints in this area and also allow healthy competition on Crown prices to be driven downwards in an open market.

It would also put a cap on crown values as if they got too expensive, players could always resort to buying Crowns with real world currency instead.

I see the current PC market for Crown values as an anomaly that will address itself in time as people see less value in Crown store items.

Selling Crowns for Gold is NOT 'pay to win' at all - indeed, it's the complete opposite.

OP needs to re-examine their conclusions here as they seem to have it backwards atm.