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Out of control crown exchange gouging destroying economy for new players.
-
NylAR✭✭✭✭WhyMustItBe wrote: »If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)
Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.
We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.
Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?
Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.
The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.
What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.
In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.
ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.
You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.
In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.
Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?
The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.
There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.WhyMustItBe wrote: »...
Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.
That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.
As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.
Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?
These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.
You know... The whole thing with Argentina was that lots and I mean LOTS of players found a way to abuse the system on steam where they could buy crowns for only like 20% of their USD price.
And lots and I mean lots of black market businesses (gold sellers, illegal mat sellers etc.) Based their business around this fact, and that they could reap giant profits for minimal work.
I can't go into the real numbers here as I don't know exactly what the prices were ( don't have access to them anymore) but i know for a fact that (Example) an illegal gold seller could buy a certain amount of gold with Argentina-bought crowns for $3 and sell that amount online for $6. Selling rare crafting materials was even a better business cause they could buy (again example) certain amount of rare mats for Argentina-bought crowns (converted to gold) for $6 and then sell them for $15.
I used to have an entire spreadsheet covering these prices cause my friend and I found one while we were bored at work one day and messing around while waiting for our ESO to install. Reading some ESO forum articles about carry sellers we wondered how good of an ingame business it could be. So we literally went and googled stuff to know prices of these carries and somehow found loads of sketchy stuff regarding illegal sales. Like 30 minutes into searching on google we found this spreadsheet which contained prices and rates of one of these illegal sellers. Prices of products ingame vs prices in crowns vs what they called "black market prices". And we found it publicly accessible on Google drive.
I *** you not it was loads and loads of in-game stuff ( crafting mats, crown store items, gold, rare drops etc.) where they were making huge profits off of buying argentina priced crowns and ingame gold alone. Whoever left this spreadsheet publicly accessible was stupid enough to leave their budgets, expenses & profits in there too and trust me you'd be shocked...or maybe not if you're not naive.
I'm talking thousands of dollars in profits off of unsuspecting people that had no idea they could buy crowns super cheap from steam using Argentina region, but were looking for a cheaper and illegal alternative to Zenimax official prices. It was also shocking to learn how many people actually use illegal gold selling services and websites like [snip].
It's sometimes funny what kind of stuff you can dig up just by googling long enough. Sometimes less funny.
Can you imagine what sort of BS this must have been for Zenimax? Not surprised they were forced to increase those prices in Argentina. It wasn't done to limit players but to take back control of profits as well as limiting black markets that abused this loophole.
This is why you're seeing insane increases in Crafting Gold Mats now along with crown:gold ratio going up from 1:400 to 1:1000-1:1500.
Edit: grammar punctuation and details
[Edit to remove link.]Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on August 11, 2021 2:37AM13 -
EllieBlue✭✭✭✭Dear OP,
please open your (own) wallet, pull out your own credit/debit card and pay for your own Crown straight from Zenimax's store. This way you will never ever get scammed by those evil crown sellers.
Cheers!
Not A Crown Seller. Merely an ESO+ sub.Nirn Traders GM (est 2015)
PC EU
Semi-retired. Playing games for fun. Super casual.19 -
radiostar✭✭✭✭✭
✭Dear OP,
please open your (own) wallet, pull out your own credit/debit card and pay for your own Crown straight from Zenimax's store. This way you will never ever get scammed by those evil crown sellers.
Cheers!
Not A Crown Seller. Merely an ESO+ sub.
I would 2nd or 3rd this. No dubious $/ingame gold values if you buy from Z directly."Billions upon Billions of Stars"6 -
NylAR✭✭✭✭Dear OP,
please open your (own) wallet, pull out your own credit/debit card and pay for your own Crown straight from Zenimax's store. This way you will never ever get scammed by those evil crown sellers.
Cheers!
Not A Crown Seller. Merely an ESO+ sub.
There is no scam if you're careful though.0 -
Tranquilizer✭✭✭✭WhyMustItBe wrote: »If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)
Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.
We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.
Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?
Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.
The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.
What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.
In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.
ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.
You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.
In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.
Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?
The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.
There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.WhyMustItBe wrote: »...
Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.
That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.
As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.
Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?
These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.
You know... The whole thing with Argentina was that lots and I mean LOTS of players found a way to abuse the system on steam where they could buy crowns for only like 20% of their USD price.
And lots and I mean lots of black market businesses (gold sellers, illegal mat sellers etc.) Based their business around this fact, and that they could reap giant profits for minimal work.
I can't go into the real numbers here as I don't know exactly what the prices were ( don't have access to them anymore) but i know for a fact that (Example) an illegal gold seller could buy a certain amount of gold with Argentina-bought crowns for $3 and sell that amount online for $6. Selling rare crafting materials was even a better business cause they could buy (again example) certain amount of rare mats for Argentina-bought crowns (converted to gold) for $6 and then sell them for $15.
I used to have an entire spreadsheet covering these prices cause my friend and I
found one while we were bored at work one day and messing around while waiting for our ESO to install. Reading some ESO forum articles about carry sellers we wondered how good of an ingame business it could be. So we literally went and googled stuff to know prices etc. and somehow found loads of sketchy stuff regarding illegal sales. Like 30 minutes into searching on google we found this spreadsheet which contained prices and rates of one of these illegal sellers. Prices of products ingame vs prices in crowns etc. And we found it publicly accessible on Google drive.
I *** you not it was loads and loads of in-game stuff ( crafting mats, crown store items, gold, rare drops etc.) where they were making huge profits off of buying Argentina priced crowns alone. Whoever left this spreadsheet publicly accessible was stupid enough to leave theirs budgets, expenses & profits in there too and trust me you'd be shocked...or maybe not if you're not naive.
I'm talking thousands of dollars in profits off of unsuspecting people that had no idea they could buy crowns super cheap in Argentina but were looking for a cheaper and illegal alternative. It was also shocking to learn how many people actually use illegal gold selling services and websites like [snip].
It's sometimes funny what kind of stuff you can dig up just by googling long enough. Sometimes less funny.
Can you imagine what sort of BS this must have been for Zenimax? Not surprised they were forced to increase those prices in Argentina anymore.
This is why you're seeing insane increases in Crafting Gold Mats now along with crown:gold ratio going up from 1:400 to 1:1000-1:1500.
[Edit to remove link.]
Didn't know this, thanks a lot for this insightful post.Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on August 11, 2021 2:38AM0 -
Rossmann✭✭✭Okay guys, you win, let prices go rocket up.
Let it be 1:10k or even 1:50k, because gold is useless and inflating anyway.
Supply and demand rules all the time so let's sell unlimited stuff like they are unique piece of items.
Let's donate some real money to Crown Exchange servers so they can up their profit more.4 -
zvavi✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Okay guys, you win, let prices go rocket up.
Let it be 1:10k or even 1:50k, because gold is useless and inflating anyway.
Supply and demand rules all the time so let's sell unlimited stuff like they are unique piece of items.
Let's donate some real money to Crown Exchange servers so they can up their profit more.
Just that nobody will buy crowns at those prices, so you will end up without buyers. And prices will naturally go down.5 -
tmbrinks✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Okay guys, you win, let prices go rocket up.
Let it be 1:10k or even 1:50k, because gold is useless and inflating anyway.
Supply and demand rules all the time so let's sell unlimited stuff like they are unique piece of items.
Let's donate some real money to Crown Exchange servers so they can up their profit more.
Just that nobody will buy crowns at those prices, so you will end up without buyers. And prices will naturally go down.
I think they were being massively sarcastic (which tends to happen once an argument is lost, such as after the great post and explanation just above their post). They had no real rebuttal.The Unshattered - Tenacious Dreamer - Hurricane Herald - Xalvakka's Scourge - Godslayer - Dawnbringer - Gryphon Heart - Tick Tock Tormenter - Immortal Redeemer - Dro-m'Athra DestroyerThe Unchained - The Brilliant - Moth Trusted - The Just - Oathsworn - Bedlam's Disciple - Temporal Tempest - Curator's Champion - Fist of Tava - Invader's Bane - Land, Air, and Sea Supremacy - Zero Regrets - Battlespire's Best - Bastion Breaker - Ardent Bibliophile - Subterranean Smasher - Bane of Thorns - True Genius - In Defiance of Death - No Rest for the Wicked - Nature's Wrath - Undying Endurance - Relentless Raider - Depths Defier - Apex Predator - Pure Lunacy - Mountain God - Leave No Bone Unbroken - CoS/RoM/BF/FH Challenger71,345 achievement points6 -
NylAR✭✭✭✭Tranquilizer wrote: »WhyMustItBe wrote: »If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)
Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.
We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.
Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?
Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.
The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.
What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.
In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.
ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.
You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.
In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.
Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?
The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.
There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.WhyMustItBe wrote: »...
Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.
That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.
As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.
Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?
These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.
You know... The whole thing with Argentina was that lots and I mean LOTS of players found a way to abuse the system on steam where they could buy crowns for only like 20% of their USD price.
And lots and I mean lots of black market businesses (gold sellers, illegal mat sellers etc.) Based their business around this fact, and that they could reap giant profits for minimal work.
I can't go into the real numbers here as I don't know exactly what the prices were ( don't have access to them anymore) but i know for a fact that (Example) an illegal gold seller could buy a certain amount of gold with Argentina-bought crowns for $3 and sell that amount online for $6. Selling rare crafting materials was even a better business cause they could buy (again example) certain amount of rare mats for Argentina-bought crowns (converted to gold) for $6 and then sell them for $15.
I used to have an entire spreadsheet covering these prices cause my friend and I
found one while we were bored at work one day and messing around while waiting for our ESO to install. Reading some ESO forum articles about carry sellers we wondered how good of an ingame business it could be. So we literally went and googled stuff to know prices etc. and somehow found loads of sketchy stuff regarding illegal sales. Like 30 minutes into searching on google we found this spreadsheet which contained prices and rates of one of these illegal sellers. Prices of products ingame vs prices in crowns etc. And we found it publicly accessible on Google drive.
I *** you not it was loads and loads of in-game stuff ( crafting mats, crown store items, gold, rare drops etc.) where they were making huge profits off of buying Argentina priced crowns alone. Whoever left this spreadsheet publicly accessible was stupid enough to leave theirs budgets, expenses & profits in there too and trust me you'd be shocked...or maybe not if you're not naive.
I'm talking thousands of dollars in profits off of unsuspecting people that had no idea they could buy crowns super cheap in Argentina but were looking for a cheaper and illegal alternative. It was also shocking to learn how many people actually use illegal gold selling services and websites like [snip].
It's sometimes funny what kind of stuff you can dig up just by googling long enough. Sometimes less funny.
Can you imagine what sort of BS this must have been for Zenimax? Not surprised they were forced to increase those prices in Argentina anymore.
This is why you're seeing insane increases in Crafting Gold Mats now along with crown:gold ratio going up from 1:400 to 1:1000-1:1500.
[Edit to remove link.]
Didn't know this, thanks a lot for this insightful post.
I'm actually surprised nobody's mentioned this earlier. I thought people knew or at least expected it.Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on August 11, 2021 2:41AM2 -
Kalik_Gold✭✭✭✭✭
✭There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.
It's the opposite, Gold gives you an advantage. You can improve quality of gear faster, or pay for runs if you are that guy, or buy the expensive potions and crafted boosts.
So you sell crown items to players that buy crowns. You are essentially BUYING gold. Pay to win.
Main Character:PS5/NA - Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar - Daggerfall Covenant
Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar, the Vestige
PvP Pure-class:
Goliath of Hammerfell a Redguard Dragonknight
Jux Blackheart a Redguard Nightblade
Aurik Siet'ka a Redguard Necromancer
Cacique the Sage of Ius a Redguard Warden
Kaotik Von Dae'mon a Redguard* Sorcerer
PvP: Subclassed or Specialty
Movárth Piquine a Nord Vampiric Necromancer (Tank)
Voa a Priest of Sep a Redguard* Necromancer (Healer)
Tsar af-Bomba a Redguard Vampiric Nightblade (Bomber)
Two-Big-Horns an Argonian Arcanist /Sorcerer
Uri Ice-Heart the Twin a Nord Vampiric Warden (Ice-Theme)
PvE:
Cinan Tharn an Imperial Dragonknight (Tank)
Herzog Zwei the Genesis an Akavari* Templar (Healer)
Bates Vesuius of Dawnstar an Redguard** Dragonknight (Raid Damage) --- Name change needed
PvE: Specialty
Tyrus Septim an Imperial Sorcerer (Dungeon Damage)
Tav'i at-Shinji a Redguard** Warden (Arenas)
Lucky Hunch the Gambler - a Redguard Nightblade (Thief)
Leveling...
Styx of Akatosh a Goblin*** Arcanist --- Race change needed
Zenovia at-Tura a Redguard** Lycan Sorcerer
Yesi af-Kalik a Redguard Templar
======
Passives of another race used:
*Breton
**Imperial
***Argonian
__________________________Backstories:_________________________
Ras Kalik the Vestige, a renown Redguard warrior; He has been blessed to save Tamriel from Molag Bal’s destructive Planemeld while reuniting the Five Companions. His further accomplishments after defeating Molag Bal, has been to stop the destruction of Morrowind, the Clockwork City, return order to the isle of Summerset and create a new king in Wrothgar and a queen in Elsywer. These events have made him a living legend and continue to lead him into new adventures throughout Tamriel, as well as into the hearts of many ladies including the Elf Queen, Aryenn. Over many years of adventurous travels, Ras Kalik had become a loner, until he re-visited his homeland of Alik'r.
Alik'r and it's cities were overrun by the undead Ra-Netu and therefore he made an allegiance with Alik'r's own Ash'abah tribe. These Ash'abah with his help, cleansed the city of Sentinel in Alik'r desert and it's surrounding areas of the undead brought to life by the Withered Hand. After rescuing Sentinel from the undead zombies, King Fahara’jad’s personal bodyguard the Goliath of Hammerfell, who was given this name by Imperials in the region; was asked to assist the tribe after learning of the defeat of the Withered Hand to the Ash'abah. Kalik promised Goliath he would task him with fighting living enemies on the battlefield if he so desired. Goliath being a Yokudan warrior wields a massive sword in respect to the Ansei, a gift given by the Imperial, Cinan Tharn. Not many soldiers are able to wield double two handed weapons, but Goliath loves to get up and personal in a fight, so he also carries a giant maul, both weapons laced with magical flames.
Jux Blackheart is a master thief that masquerades as a Bard at the Sisters of the Sands inn, with his younger sidekick Lucky Hunch for pilfering and gambling during this time. Jux was known to infiltrate any towns bank vault he came across and even delved into Ayelid ruins without detection. Kalik can vividly recall the night he met the famed thief. Jux found himself rummaging thru a slightly inebriated Kalik’s pocket for too long, on a full-mooned night and because of his greed and the glimmer of his golden armor in the moonlight. He lost his left pinky fingertip as a lesson! But in return, he gained a new friend, as it was his first time since a child being caught red-handed...
Upon arrival back in the Alik'r after many moons of adventuring, Ras Kalik ventures to Bergama. Visiting The Winking Jackal, he runs into Jux Blackheart, who introduces him to the coin game Crowns vs Forebearers (Heads vs Tails) and Golden Dwemer (RBG).... Jux constantly takes gold from the unfortunate thru theft or gambling, his biggest gambling victim is actually his partner in crime known as Lucky Hunch the Gambler. Lucky doesn't mind losing any gold coins to Jux... as Jux saved him from Altmer slavers in Summerset, by stealing a key and sending him on a boat to the mainland years prior. Lucky spent years in slavery with Khajiits in Summerset and picked up the art of subterfuge, using illusion magic disguises and stealing there.
Kaotik Von’Daemon an outcast, and a half-caste between a Breton mother and a Redguard father. Kaotik become a pariah due to his conjuration of Daedra pets. He was taught healing magic during his childhood years by his Breton mother. His father due to Redguard customs exiled him from the desert, sending him by wagon caravan to be a soldier in the war in Cyrodiil. He happened to meet Kalik while traveling from Alik'r, during this long caravan ride the caravan he was in was ambushed in Bangkorai by a group of bandits. Kalik by chance was also traveling thru this area on his Auridon Warhorse (which was bestowed to him by his friend, Darien Gautier). During this ambush, Kalik was able to rescue five hostages from the bandits. Kaotik was the first rescued, and Ras Kalik also recruited him to be in the Ash'abah tribe. These core Ash'abah tribesmen may never be seen together in travel as they partake in their own adventures but they always know what each other is doing; as they frequent a hideout in northern Bankorai. Their hideout an old Orc castle ruin, is kept watch by Nuzhimeh and she passes messages written between them, and frequently they also enjoy her company and her bed.
The other men rescued were a Dunmer banker, an Imperial mercenary and two other soldiers, an Imperial and a Breton Knight, stating proudly he was an Akavir descendent. One of the Imperials, Cinan, claimed to be related to Abnur Tharn the Battlemage of the Imperial Elder Council (One of Ras Kalik's mentors in the Five Companions). Cinan Tharn was really Abnur's drunkard treasure hunting illegitimate son. He was caught smuggling artifacts out of the Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil and the elder of the two Imperials was Tyrus Septim a retired Imperial navy battle-mage (now a Lycan mercenary living in the city of Rimmen) and guard to the Tharn family. As much as Abnur Tharn hated his half-sister Euraxia, he dislikes his bas†ard son Cinan more. Tyrus now a ruffian and privateer had been paid by Abnur Tharn to watch over Cinan as much as possible. Cinan Tharn a drunkard, loves to drink at least a quarter barrel of Nord mead before he raids various delves and dungeons for relics to sell on the black market. Cinan also plans to one day, run an illegal gambling ring... which he thinks will net him more gold for his wares.
The Dunmer captive shackled to the Imperials looked familiar to Kalik from his time in Morrowind.... and he recognized him as Tythis Andromo a House Telvanni slave-owner and banker from Vvardenfell. During a rough interrogation to Tythis, Ras Kalik learnt why the bandits accosted him. The racist Dunmer was providing slaves as soldiers for the Three Banner War. The bandits were trying to negotiate a lucrative ransom for Andromo and the Imperials.... Kalik did not need any of this gold and he could never set Tythis free as he did with the two Imperial soldiers. His past involvement with slavery and war crimes, made Kalik's blood boil. He chose not to execute Tythis, as he figured the worse punishment for this former rich and opulent slave owner, is to now be an imprisoned servant for Ras Kalik and the tribe.
Herzog Zwei the Genesis a reknown Imperial/Akavirri battle-mage. His roots going back to Akavir through his mother’s bloodline. (His mother is descended from the Akaviri, through Versidue-Shae, and his Imperial father met her in Hakoshae, while traveling) Herzog earned the nickname "the Genesis" from his father as a child, as he was his mother's first born child, and last, as she tragically died in child-birth.
Herzog was seeking to purchase an artifact from Cinan Tharn, before their capture and was meeting Tyrus while in Rimmen, who introduced him to Cinan. This artifact being the Ayelid artifact; the sword Sinweaver. After their rescue and the exchange of gold to Cinan for the sword he decided to slip away before Ras Kalik could question who he was, and why the Akavir descendant really wanted that sword. Herzog was headed to Nagastani — An Ayleid ruin in eastern Cyrodiil. He had read in scrolls that the Sword would give him magical powers to meet his mothers spirit, if he performed an Ayleid ritual at an old shrine hidden there. Equipped with the artifact sword, he was off to start his own adventure but Ras Kalik, did indeed notice the sword however and instead sent a letter to Jux Blackheart (whom also was interested in Ayleid treasures), to attempt to find Herzog and acquire the sword. (*Azani Blackheart in Elder Scroll's Oblivion is Jux's descendant some 747 years later)
And so the Redguard, Imperial and Akaviri men parted ways ... While Ras Kalik went off to Elsweyr to encounter the latest threat to Tamriel, with Abnur Tharn and Sai Sahan - - DRAGONS!! Little did Ras Kalik know a few people were awaiting him in Senchal besides Sai. A necromancer survived his attack on the Withered Hand, while in Alik'r. The necromancer known as Auriek Siet'ka is also following him to the land of the Khajiits and Cacique the Sage of Ius a Shaman mystic who has become attuned spiritually with Tu'whacca (a Redguard God) and Ius (the Animal God), after being burned severely by the escaped dragons in Elsywer, is awaiting his arrival also. Aurik is a soldier of the Daggerfall Covenant that was introduced to necromancy while in the military, even though this magicka art is not spoken of openly by most of the Military leaders. He came to Alik'r and worked with the Withered Hand before Ras Kalik intervened on their plans. After the defeat of the Withered Hand, he aligned with the Worm Cult, and is constantly adapting and perfecting his necromantic arts.
After his journey to Rimmen, Kalik heads south to Senchal, in the southern regions of Elyswer. This new adventure will also put him on a path to meet a strange Redguard man. The stranger which was infected with an untreated Peyrite disease and also was the exiled from the Order of the New Moon cult, due to his sickness. He originally joined the cult to worship Laatvulon, the green dragon, mistakenly thinking it was the Daedric prince Peyrite. This confused and suffering cultist is known as Tsar al-Bomba and he is on a path to spread the disease. He was originally infected in Orccrest while recruiting members there. Can Ras Kalik and the shaman Cacique cure this poor soul, only time will tell. Little does Tsar al-Bomba know, that his infection is tied to Vampirism, and eventually the desire for blood will take over his mind. Senchal also offers Kalik his latest love interest... Aeliah. Whom he fondly led thru battles with the Dragonguard.
After the trek thru the heat, tropical and desert climate of Northern and Southern Elyswer, Ras Kalik heads north to the cold mountain range of Skyrim. His companion friend Lyris beckons for him with a letter sent by crow...
Movárth Piquine - a former vampire hunter (now infected), within the Fighter's Guild (and a secretive necromancer) was in Skyrim working with the Morthaal Guard. On a patrol mission he was caught in Frewien's ice curse outside of Morthaal with the frozen undead. Movárth's vampiric infection kept him from becoming an undead minion to the curse. He was able to use necromantic ice-magic to encase himself safely until he was freed with Freiwen, when the Vestige Ras Kalik broke the curse.
Uri Ice-Heart - brother of Urfon Ice-Heart. The twin sons of Atli and Oljourn Ice-Heart. The Ice-Heart family are originally from Markarth but now reside on the Jerall Mountain range near Cyrodiil, with their younger sister Araki. The twins had joined the Winterborn Reachmen while living in Markarth. Urfon pushed west to Orsinium with the Winterborn Clan, leaving his family behind. Uri stayed behind with his parents and sister to live in the family cabin for safety, avoiding the Vampire plague infiltrating the Reach. After news reaches him and he hears of Urfon's death... Uri leaves and heads home and is seeking vengeance. Meanwhile, his sister has also moved on to Windhelm to join the Fighter's guild. He will visit his sister, once before going to seek vengeance and she will craft him armor mixed with ice, called Stalhrim armor. Uri fearing death, after his brother's passing, falls victim to the convincing talk of Movárth at a Nordic tavern, and will also becomes a vampire.
{time moves forward through the hour-glass}2 -
I got a better one ban every one involved, delete all gold involved, and o yeah if you have a friend or some one you know personally that cheats, with the dirty gold sellers, let them know how much of a scum bag they are, don't stop either. Every day you tell them hey remember that time you were a piece of dumpster trash buying stuff from gold farmers and bots.
[snip]
[edited for bashing]Edited by ZOS_Icy on August 9, 2021 6:23PM1 -
Disturbed_One✭✭✭✭Tranquilizer wrote: »WhyMustItBe wrote: »If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)
Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.
We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.
Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?
Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.
The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.
What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.
In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.
ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.
You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.
In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.
Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?
The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.
There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.WhyMustItBe wrote: »...
Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.
That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.
As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.
Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?
These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.
You know... The whole thing with Argentina was that lots and I mean LOTS of players found a way to abuse the system on steam where they could buy crowns for only like 20% of their USD price.
And lots and I mean lots of black market businesses (gold sellers, illegal mat sellers etc.) Based their business around this fact, and that they could reap giant profits for minimal work.
I can't go into the real numbers here as I don't know exactly what the prices were ( don't have access to them anymore) but i know for a fact that (Example) an illegal gold seller could buy a certain amount of gold with Argentina-bought crowns for $3 and sell that amount online for $6. Selling rare crafting materials was even a better business cause they could buy (again example) certain amount of rare mats for Argentina-bought crowns (converted to gold) for $6 and then sell them for $15.
I used to have an entire spreadsheet covering these prices cause my friend and I
found one while we were bored at work one day and messing around while waiting for our ESO to install. Reading some ESO forum articles about carry sellers we wondered how good of an ingame business it could be. So we literally went and googled stuff to know prices etc. and somehow found loads of sketchy stuff regarding illegal sales. Like 30 minutes into searching on google we found this spreadsheet which contained prices and rates of one of these illegal sellers. Prices of products ingame vs prices in crowns etc. And we found it publicly accessible on Google drive.
I *** you not it was loads and loads of in-game stuff ( crafting mats, crown store items, gold, rare drops etc.) where they were making huge profits off of buying Argentina priced crowns alone. Whoever left this spreadsheet publicly accessible was stupid enough to leave theirs budgets, expenses & profits in there too and trust me you'd be shocked...or maybe not if you're not naive.
I'm talking thousands of dollars in profits off of unsuspecting people that had no idea they could buy crowns super cheap in Argentina but were looking for a cheaper and illegal alternative. It was also shocking to learn how many people actually use illegal gold selling services and websites like [snip].
It's sometimes funny what kind of stuff you can dig up just by googling long enough. Sometimes less funny.
Can you imagine what sort of BS this must have been for Zenimax? Not surprised they were forced to increase those prices in Argentina anymore.
This is why you're seeing insane increases in Crafting Gold Mats now along with crown:gold ratio going up from 1:400 to 1:1000-1:1500.
[Edit to remove link.]
Didn't know this, thanks a lot for this insightful post.
I'm actually surprised nobody's mentioned this earlier. I thought people knew or at least expected it.Disturbed_One wrote: »Let me see if I have this straight...
People got used to cheap crowns when people were committing a crime (fraud) to buy cheap crowns using a VPN and saying they were from another country to take advantage of exchange rates in a collapsing economy.
They were then selling those crowns for in-game gold.
They then sold the gold in an RMT transaction to people making a profit (not a crime, but definitely against ToS)
Those sources got shut off. Either through closing the loophole, banning those players, etc...
ZoS increases the price of crowns in many countries.
The fewer sellers of crowns, using their disposable income, in the middle of a global pandemic (when I hope many people are saving money due to uncertainty) are asking for a higher rate.
... and those still selling are greedy?
*edit for spelling
edit 2: forgot to add. Due to people's changing work habits (WFH, laid off) there were probably significantly more "hours played" in ESO per account in the last year (only ZoS would know for sure, but I think it's a very safe bet). Every quest, every mob killed drops gold. That adds more currency to the game. Without adequate gold sinks (something that's been a problem for years now) this leads to inflation. So the gold is worth less now than it was a year ago.
Awkwardly quoting myself...
I felt like I said it... not nearly as well as @NylAR did, but plenty of us are aware of what was happening. Admittingly, it's easy to miss something on page 6 of a 10 page thread, as I know most read the first page and last page of most threads
Sadly, I know of two people (who I reported as doing this in game) who are still playing and had no observable repercussions of participating in this illegal scam.Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on August 11, 2021 2:42AM2 -
NylAR✭✭✭✭Disturbed_One wrote: »Tranquilizer wrote: »WhyMustItBe wrote: »If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)
Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.
We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.
Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?
Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.
The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.
What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.
In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.
ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.
You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.
In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.
Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?
The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.
There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.WhyMustItBe wrote: »...
Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.
That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.
As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.
Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?
These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.
You know... The whole thing with Argentina was that lots and I mean LOTS of players found a way to abuse the system on steam where they could buy crowns for only like 20% of their USD price.
And lots and I mean lots of black market businesses (gold sellers, illegal mat sellers etc.) Based their business around this fact, and that they could reap giant profits for minimal work.
I can't go into the real numbers here as I don't know exactly what the prices were ( don't have access to them anymore) but i know for a fact that (Example) an illegal gold seller could buy a certain amount of gold with Argentina-bought crowns for $3 and sell that amount online for $6. Selling rare crafting materials was even a better business cause they could buy (again example) certain amount of rare mats for Argentina-bought crowns (converted to gold) for $6 and then sell them for $15.
I used to have an entire spreadsheet covering these prices cause my friend and I
found one while we were bored at work one day and messing around while waiting for our ESO to install. Reading some ESO forum articles about carry sellers we wondered how good of an ingame business it could be. So we literally went and googled stuff to know prices etc. and somehow found loads of sketchy stuff regarding illegal sales. Like 30 minutes into searching on google we found this spreadsheet which contained prices and rates of one of these illegal sellers. Prices of products ingame vs prices in crowns etc. And we found it publicly accessible on Google drive.
I *** you not it was loads and loads of in-game stuff ( crafting mats, crown store items, gold, rare drops etc.) where they were making huge profits off of buying Argentina priced crowns alone. Whoever left this spreadsheet publicly accessible was stupid enough to leave theirs budgets, expenses & profits in there too and trust me you'd be shocked...or maybe not if you're not naive.
I'm talking thousands of dollars in profits off of unsuspecting people that had no idea they could buy crowns super cheap in Argentina but were looking for a cheaper and illegal alternative. It was also shocking to learn how many people actually use illegal gold selling services and websites like [snip].
It's sometimes funny what kind of stuff you can dig up just by googling long enough. Sometimes less funny.
Can you imagine what sort of BS this must have been for Zenimax? Not surprised they were forced to increase those prices in Argentina anymore.
This is why you're seeing insane increases in Crafting Gold Mats now along with crown:gold ratio going up from 1:400 to 1:1000-1:1500.
[Edit to remove link].
Didn't know this, thanks a lot for this insightful post.
I'm actually surprised nobody's mentioned this earlier. I thought people knew or at least expected it.Disturbed_One wrote: »Let me see if I have this straight...
People got used to cheap crowns when people were committing a crime (fraud) to buy cheap crowns using a VPN and saying they were from another country to take advantage of exchange rates in a collapsing economy.
They were then selling those crowns for in-game gold.
They then sold the gold in an RMT transaction to people making a profit (not a crime, but definitely against ToS)
Those sources got shut off. Either through closing the loophole, banning those players, etc...
ZoS increases the price of crowns in many countries.
The fewer sellers of crowns, using their disposable income, in the middle of a global pandemic (when I hope many people are saving money due to uncertainty) are asking for a higher rate.
... and those still selling are greedy?
*edit for spelling
edit 2: forgot to add. Due to people's changing work habits (WFH, laid off) there were probably significantly more "hours played" in ESO per account in the last year (only ZoS would know for sure, but I think it's a very safe bet). Every quest, every mob killed drops gold. That adds more currency to the game. Without adequate gold sinks (something that's been a problem for years now) this leads to inflation. So the gold is worth less now than it was a year ago.
Awkwardly quoting myself...
I felt like I said it... not nearly as well as @NylAR did, but plenty of us are aware of what was happening. Admittingly, it's easy to miss something on page 6 of a 10 page thread, as I know most read the first page and last page of most threads
Sadly, I know of two people (who I reported as doing this in game) who are still playing and had no observable repercussions of participating in this illegal scam.
OH nice, i actually read through most stuff on all these pages and happened to miss that one. Thanks a ton!!Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on August 11, 2021 2:48AM0 -
JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Kalik_Gold wrote: »There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.
It's the opposite, Gold gives you an advantage. You can improve quality of gear faster, or pay for runs if you are that guy, or buy the expensive potions and crafted boosts.
So you sell crown items to players that buy crowns. You are essentially BUYING gold. Pay to win.
Until there is some proven connection between millions in gold improving PLAYER SKILLS, there is no advantage to having craptons of gold.
Improving the quality of gear faster; there is a negligible difference between purple and gold levels of damage and/or protection. There are a lot of people who pvp in purple armor with only weapons in gold.
Paying for runs...to level? Get skins? So what? You "win" bragging rights, except that anyone who does play at the uber elite level will know in a few seconds of grouping with you that you bought that skin/title. Paying for carries will not bestow uber elite skills on you.
Expensive crafted potions and boosts, yeah, total waste because you don't have the skills needed to actually use them to the best advantage. What on Nirn would the purpose be of having expensive boosts when you'll be spending most of your time dead and respawning because, again, not uber elite skills.10 -
Kalik_Gold✭✭✭✭✭
✭Kalik_Gold wrote: »There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.
It's the opposite, Gold gives you an advantage. You can improve quality of gear faster, or pay for runs if you are that guy, or buy the expensive potions and crafted boosts.
So you sell crown items to players that buy crowns. You are essentially BUYING gold. Pay to win.
Until there is some proven connection between millions in gold improving PLAYER SKILLS, there is no advantage to having craptons of gold.
Improving the quality of gear faster; there is a negligible difference between purple and gold levels of damage and/or protection. There are a lot of people who pvp in purple armor with only weapons in gold.
Paying for runs...to level? Get skins? So what? You "win" bragging rights, except that anyone who does play at the uber elite level will know in a few seconds of grouping with you that you bought that skin/title. Paying for carries will not bestow uber elite skills on you.
Expensive crafted potions and boosts, yeah, total waste because you don't have the skills needed to actually use them to the best advantage. What on Nirn would the purpose be of having expensive boosts when you'll be spending most of your time dead and respawning because, again, not uber elite skills.
I buy crowns for gold. The people I typically buy my crowns from (I do not sub and I like cosmetics), are PvPer - nothing else. They can gold out multiple sets and has an advantage. Expensive crafted potions for XP to gain skills and CP faster, and expensive Gold food in PvP ... skins are ugly anyway.
Minor advantage - yes, Still an advantage yes. Advantage = paying to win. Using Gold to get the best trader spots = paying to win.
Some people have skills already and just need the Gold to catch up... never said anything about some magical uber elite skills. Two friends start at the same time, Johnny is home on unemployment and can play all day. Ted works. Ted sells crown for gold to get equipment to keep up with Johnny. They could both be eqally skilled.
It is what it is, and if you don't see it. That's because somewhere along the line you accepted it. I buy crowns and I know what I am funding with my gold usage.Main Character:PS5/NA - Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar - Daggerfall Covenant
Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar, the Vestige
PvP Pure-class:
Goliath of Hammerfell a Redguard Dragonknight
Jux Blackheart a Redguard Nightblade
Aurik Siet'ka a Redguard Necromancer
Cacique the Sage of Ius a Redguard Warden
Kaotik Von Dae'mon a Redguard* Sorcerer
PvP: Subclassed or Specialty
Movárth Piquine a Nord Vampiric Necromancer (Tank)
Voa a Priest of Sep a Redguard* Necromancer (Healer)
Tsar af-Bomba a Redguard Vampiric Nightblade (Bomber)
Two-Big-Horns an Argonian Arcanist /Sorcerer
Uri Ice-Heart the Twin a Nord Vampiric Warden (Ice-Theme)
PvE:
Cinan Tharn an Imperial Dragonknight (Tank)
Herzog Zwei the Genesis an Akavari* Templar (Healer)
Bates Vesuius of Dawnstar an Redguard** Dragonknight (Raid Damage) --- Name change needed
PvE: Specialty
Tyrus Septim an Imperial Sorcerer (Dungeon Damage)
Tav'i at-Shinji a Redguard** Warden (Arenas)
Lucky Hunch the Gambler - a Redguard Nightblade (Thief)
Leveling...
Styx of Akatosh a Goblin*** Arcanist --- Race change needed
Zenovia at-Tura a Redguard** Lycan Sorcerer
Yesi af-Kalik a Redguard Templar
======
Passives of another race used:
*Breton
**Imperial
***Argonian
__________________________Backstories:_________________________
Ras Kalik the Vestige, a renown Redguard warrior; He has been blessed to save Tamriel from Molag Bal’s destructive Planemeld while reuniting the Five Companions. His further accomplishments after defeating Molag Bal, has been to stop the destruction of Morrowind, the Clockwork City, return order to the isle of Summerset and create a new king in Wrothgar and a queen in Elsywer. These events have made him a living legend and continue to lead him into new adventures throughout Tamriel, as well as into the hearts of many ladies including the Elf Queen, Aryenn. Over many years of adventurous travels, Ras Kalik had become a loner, until he re-visited his homeland of Alik'r.
Alik'r and it's cities were overrun by the undead Ra-Netu and therefore he made an allegiance with Alik'r's own Ash'abah tribe. These Ash'abah with his help, cleansed the city of Sentinel in Alik'r desert and it's surrounding areas of the undead brought to life by the Withered Hand. After rescuing Sentinel from the undead zombies, King Fahara’jad’s personal bodyguard the Goliath of Hammerfell, who was given this name by Imperials in the region; was asked to assist the tribe after learning of the defeat of the Withered Hand to the Ash'abah. Kalik promised Goliath he would task him with fighting living enemies on the battlefield if he so desired. Goliath being a Yokudan warrior wields a massive sword in respect to the Ansei, a gift given by the Imperial, Cinan Tharn. Not many soldiers are able to wield double two handed weapons, but Goliath loves to get up and personal in a fight, so he also carries a giant maul, both weapons laced with magical flames.
Jux Blackheart is a master thief that masquerades as a Bard at the Sisters of the Sands inn, with his younger sidekick Lucky Hunch for pilfering and gambling during this time. Jux was known to infiltrate any towns bank vault he came across and even delved into Ayelid ruins without detection. Kalik can vividly recall the night he met the famed thief. Jux found himself rummaging thru a slightly inebriated Kalik’s pocket for too long, on a full-mooned night and because of his greed and the glimmer of his golden armor in the moonlight. He lost his left pinky fingertip as a lesson! But in return, he gained a new friend, as it was his first time since a child being caught red-handed...
Upon arrival back in the Alik'r after many moons of adventuring, Ras Kalik ventures to Bergama. Visiting The Winking Jackal, he runs into Jux Blackheart, who introduces him to the coin game Crowns vs Forebearers (Heads vs Tails) and Golden Dwemer (RBG).... Jux constantly takes gold from the unfortunate thru theft or gambling, his biggest gambling victim is actually his partner in crime known as Lucky Hunch the Gambler. Lucky doesn't mind losing any gold coins to Jux... as Jux saved him from Altmer slavers in Summerset, by stealing a key and sending him on a boat to the mainland years prior. Lucky spent years in slavery with Khajiits in Summerset and picked up the art of subterfuge, using illusion magic disguises and stealing there.
Kaotik Von’Daemon an outcast, and a half-caste between a Breton mother and a Redguard father. Kaotik become a pariah due to his conjuration of Daedra pets. He was taught healing magic during his childhood years by his Breton mother. His father due to Redguard customs exiled him from the desert, sending him by wagon caravan to be a soldier in the war in Cyrodiil. He happened to meet Kalik while traveling from Alik'r, during this long caravan ride the caravan he was in was ambushed in Bangkorai by a group of bandits. Kalik by chance was also traveling thru this area on his Auridon Warhorse (which was bestowed to him by his friend, Darien Gautier). During this ambush, Kalik was able to rescue five hostages from the bandits. Kaotik was the first rescued, and Ras Kalik also recruited him to be in the Ash'abah tribe. These core Ash'abah tribesmen may never be seen together in travel as they partake in their own adventures but they always know what each other is doing; as they frequent a hideout in northern Bankorai. Their hideout an old Orc castle ruin, is kept watch by Nuzhimeh and she passes messages written between them, and frequently they also enjoy her company and her bed.
The other men rescued were a Dunmer banker, an Imperial mercenary and two other soldiers, an Imperial and a Breton Knight, stating proudly he was an Akavir descendent. One of the Imperials, Cinan, claimed to be related to Abnur Tharn the Battlemage of the Imperial Elder Council (One of Ras Kalik's mentors in the Five Companions). Cinan Tharn was really Abnur's drunkard treasure hunting illegitimate son. He was caught smuggling artifacts out of the Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil and the elder of the two Imperials was Tyrus Septim a retired Imperial navy battle-mage (now a Lycan mercenary living in the city of Rimmen) and guard to the Tharn family. As much as Abnur Tharn hated his half-sister Euraxia, he dislikes his bas†ard son Cinan more. Tyrus now a ruffian and privateer had been paid by Abnur Tharn to watch over Cinan as much as possible. Cinan Tharn a drunkard, loves to drink at least a quarter barrel of Nord mead before he raids various delves and dungeons for relics to sell on the black market. Cinan also plans to one day, run an illegal gambling ring... which he thinks will net him more gold for his wares.
The Dunmer captive shackled to the Imperials looked familiar to Kalik from his time in Morrowind.... and he recognized him as Tythis Andromo a House Telvanni slave-owner and banker from Vvardenfell. During a rough interrogation to Tythis, Ras Kalik learnt why the bandits accosted him. The racist Dunmer was providing slaves as soldiers for the Three Banner War. The bandits were trying to negotiate a lucrative ransom for Andromo and the Imperials.... Kalik did not need any of this gold and he could never set Tythis free as he did with the two Imperial soldiers. His past involvement with slavery and war crimes, made Kalik's blood boil. He chose not to execute Tythis, as he figured the worse punishment for this former rich and opulent slave owner, is to now be an imprisoned servant for Ras Kalik and the tribe.
Herzog Zwei the Genesis a reknown Imperial/Akavirri battle-mage. His roots going back to Akavir through his mother’s bloodline. (His mother is descended from the Akaviri, through Versidue-Shae, and his Imperial father met her in Hakoshae, while traveling) Herzog earned the nickname "the Genesis" from his father as a child, as he was his mother's first born child, and last, as she tragically died in child-birth.
Herzog was seeking to purchase an artifact from Cinan Tharn, before their capture and was meeting Tyrus while in Rimmen, who introduced him to Cinan. This artifact being the Ayelid artifact; the sword Sinweaver. After their rescue and the exchange of gold to Cinan for the sword he decided to slip away before Ras Kalik could question who he was, and why the Akavir descendant really wanted that sword. Herzog was headed to Nagastani — An Ayleid ruin in eastern Cyrodiil. He had read in scrolls that the Sword would give him magical powers to meet his mothers spirit, if he performed an Ayleid ritual at an old shrine hidden there. Equipped with the artifact sword, he was off to start his own adventure but Ras Kalik, did indeed notice the sword however and instead sent a letter to Jux Blackheart (whom also was interested in Ayleid treasures), to attempt to find Herzog and acquire the sword. (*Azani Blackheart in Elder Scroll's Oblivion is Jux's descendant some 747 years later)
And so the Redguard, Imperial and Akaviri men parted ways ... While Ras Kalik went off to Elsweyr to encounter the latest threat to Tamriel, with Abnur Tharn and Sai Sahan - - DRAGONS!! Little did Ras Kalik know a few people were awaiting him in Senchal besides Sai. A necromancer survived his attack on the Withered Hand, while in Alik'r. The necromancer known as Auriek Siet'ka is also following him to the land of the Khajiits and Cacique the Sage of Ius a Shaman mystic who has become attuned spiritually with Tu'whacca (a Redguard God) and Ius (the Animal God), after being burned severely by the escaped dragons in Elsywer, is awaiting his arrival also. Aurik is a soldier of the Daggerfall Covenant that was introduced to necromancy while in the military, even though this magicka art is not spoken of openly by most of the Military leaders. He came to Alik'r and worked with the Withered Hand before Ras Kalik intervened on their plans. After the defeat of the Withered Hand, he aligned with the Worm Cult, and is constantly adapting and perfecting his necromantic arts.
After his journey to Rimmen, Kalik heads south to Senchal, in the southern regions of Elyswer. This new adventure will also put him on a path to meet a strange Redguard man. The stranger which was infected with an untreated Peyrite disease and also was the exiled from the Order of the New Moon cult, due to his sickness. He originally joined the cult to worship Laatvulon, the green dragon, mistakenly thinking it was the Daedric prince Peyrite. This confused and suffering cultist is known as Tsar al-Bomba and he is on a path to spread the disease. He was originally infected in Orccrest while recruiting members there. Can Ras Kalik and the shaman Cacique cure this poor soul, only time will tell. Little does Tsar al-Bomba know, that his infection is tied to Vampirism, and eventually the desire for blood will take over his mind. Senchal also offers Kalik his latest love interest... Aeliah. Whom he fondly led thru battles with the Dragonguard.
After the trek thru the heat, tropical and desert climate of Northern and Southern Elyswer, Ras Kalik heads north to the cold mountain range of Skyrim. His companion friend Lyris beckons for him with a letter sent by crow...
Movárth Piquine - a former vampire hunter (now infected), within the Fighter's Guild (and a secretive necromancer) was in Skyrim working with the Morthaal Guard. On a patrol mission he was caught in Frewien's ice curse outside of Morthaal with the frozen undead. Movárth's vampiric infection kept him from becoming an undead minion to the curse. He was able to use necromantic ice-magic to encase himself safely until he was freed with Freiwen, when the Vestige Ras Kalik broke the curse.
Uri Ice-Heart - brother of Urfon Ice-Heart. The twin sons of Atli and Oljourn Ice-Heart. The Ice-Heart family are originally from Markarth but now reside on the Jerall Mountain range near Cyrodiil, with their younger sister Araki. The twins had joined the Winterborn Reachmen while living in Markarth. Urfon pushed west to Orsinium with the Winterborn Clan, leaving his family behind. Uri stayed behind with his parents and sister to live in the family cabin for safety, avoiding the Vampire plague infiltrating the Reach. After news reaches him and he hears of Urfon's death... Uri leaves and heads home and is seeking vengeance. Meanwhile, his sister has also moved on to Windhelm to join the Fighter's guild. He will visit his sister, once before going to seek vengeance and she will craft him armor mixed with ice, called Stalhrim armor. Uri fearing death, after his brother's passing, falls victim to the convincing talk of Movárth at a Nordic tavern, and will also becomes a vampire.
{time moves forward through the hour-glass}4 -
TX12001rwb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Potential Gold Sink Solutions- Increase the value of luxury vendor items
- Increase the penalty for committing crimes
- Make Gold harder to obtain
- Reduce the total Gold Cap by two whole figures
Edited by TX12001rwb17_ESO on August 9, 2021 6:04PM2 -
jaws343✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »Potential Gold Sink Solutions- Increase the value of luxury vendor items
- Increase the penalty for committing crimes
- Make Gold harder to obtain
You can't really do that though. Because any changes would extremely negatively impact console players who do not have these excess gold problems.Edited by jaws343 on August 10, 2021 9:52PM8 -
ArchangelIsraphel✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »Potential Gold Sink Solutions- Increase the value of luxury vendor items
- Increase the penalty for committing crimes
- Make Gold harder to obtain
- Reduce the total Gold Cap by two whole figures
The penalty suggested for "committing crimes" far outweighs anything gained by killing NPC's, and is completely disproportionate. You aren't going to create a gold sink by doing this when most skilled thieves/criminals don't get caught, and those that do aren't even going to pay that kind of a bounty. Its simply an inconvenience that can be taken care of using the edicts that can be generated doing certain tasks. (I can tell you, as someone who plays as a thief extensively, I have enough edicts to rid myself of a 10k bounty immediately. It wouldn't trouble me in the least or be a gold sink. The system would only hurt new players.)
Having the system scale by inflating the bounty higher than this to reflect a players wealth is a poor solution to ensuring that bounties are paid while new players are given a break. Anything that renders a character unplayable in any way until the bounty is paid sounds like a ridiculous and broken solution to the gold sink problem that will be evaded at all costs by those who have no desire to loose money.
Instead of creating needless, inconvenient "punishments" as a gold sink, instead create NEW REWARDS for these activities that encourages thieves and assassins to spend their gold with an NPC. More gold is more easily taken out of the system when people WANT to spend it.
Something like a luxury furnishing vendor that sells "Contraband" or something would be a lot of fun. Say, a rotation of furnishings that are usually crown-store only, that can be purchased for gold by a thief/assassin with certain achievements they have worked for, would be an interesting gold sink. Have the rotation change weekly or even daily, and be completely random and unpredictable so people will purposely set gold by to blow at this vendor. Keeping the prices high enough to be a sink, but low enough to ensure that it costs less to purchase from a vendor than it would a crown seller would be ideal. Make the furnishings bound, unlike the lux, so that they can't be used to profit through resale.
You get gold to drain faster through reward than punishment.PC l NA
Legends never die
They're written down in eternity
But you'll never see the price it costs
The scars collected all their lives
When everything's lost, they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat
Before it all starts, they suffer through harm just to touch a dream
Oh, pick yourself up, 'cause
Legends never die1 -
newtinmpls✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭The trouble with sweeping statements is that they ignore individual cases.
I've played PC NA since about a month after it opened up. Only in the last 16 months or so did my gold supplies ever go above a few thousand at a time. Probably because I don't chase it.
Looking at the suggestions (my comments in bold)
I had no idea there was a gold cap. But then for peeps with more than one account, this becomes so much less of a problem.TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »Potential Gold Sink Solutions- Increase the value of luxury vendor items
I disagree...I may now be up out the "few thousands" but 10 or 20k is still serious to me. Even more so to a newbie who likely has less. This would make the game less fun- Increase the penalty for committing crimes
while I don't disagree strongly - it's largely based on the fact that 1-I don't care to play evil characters, and 2-I have a LOT of characters, so playing someone else till the bounty degrades is not a biggie to me. But on behalf of others, it does place an unfair burden on some characters.- Make Gold harder to obtain
For the older players who have a lot, no biggie, but this hurts the newer players disproportionately more. You could have it based on "hours in game on this account" but for players like me who never get into the money-making, again, disproportionately harsh.- Reduce the total Gold Cap by two whole figures
What are gold sinks supposed to be or do?
-Guild Trader "rental" gold sinks merely drive up the minimum "donation" and make it harder for newbies.
-Merchant repair gold sinks seem to work okay, as I have trouble selling (or even donating) repair kits
-Buying recipes for provisioning doesn't seem to do much; as 1-some of them are available cheap from Guild Traders, and 2-it's a very "few-shot" thing.
I'll have to think about this more.
Tenesi Faryon of Telvanni - Dunmer Sorceress who deliberately sought sacrifice into Cold Harbor to rescue her beloved.
Hisa Ni Caemaire - Altmer Sorceress, member of the Order Draconis and Adept of the House of Dibella.
Broken Branch Toothmaul - goblin (for my goblin characters, I use either orsimer or bosmer templates) Templar, member of the Order Draconis and persistently unskilled pickpocket
Mol gro Durga - Orsimer Socerer/Battlemage who died the first time when the Nibenay Valley chapterhouse of the Order Draconis was destroyed, then went back to Cold Harbor to rescue his second/partner who was still captive. He overestimated his resistance to the hopelessness of Oblivion, about to give up, and looked up to see the golden glow of atherius surrounding a beautiful young woman who extended her hand to him and said "I can help you". He carried Fianna Kingsley out of Cold Harbor on his shoulder. He carried Alvard Stower under one arm. He also irritated the Prophet who had intended the portal for only Mol and Lyris.***Order Draconis - well c'mon there has to be some explanation for all those dragon tattoos.
House of Dibella - If you have ever seen or read "Memoirs of a Geisha" that's just the beginning...
Nibenay Valley Chapterhouse - Where now stands only desolate ground and a dolmen there once was a thriving community supporting one of the major chapterhouses of the Order Draconis0 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭WhyMustItBe wrote: »Kiralyn2000 wrote: »Yeah, what is there to "address"?
It's entirely player-driven, outside of 1) having a crown sale (so there's more crowns in circulation), or 2) banning trading outright; there's nothing ZoS can really do about this.
There totally is though, and I alluded to it in the OP.
It even has a precedent. World of Warcraft did something similar to what I suggest with their server-side setting of the exchange rate on tokens.
What ZOS could do it create an interface for crown exchange that bases the exchange rate on the current demand, so that anyone trading crowns are only able to do so at the server set rate, through the game's interface.
The current system is a stop-gap that relies on the "honor system" of players not scamming each other, and since ZOS will only restore your scammed gold/crowns ONCE, it creates an incentive to create throw-away accounts to scam people.
It also allows the human tendency to obsess over monopoly and exclusivity as a self valuation and status mechanism to run roughshod over the entire gaming economy in pursuit of that addiction.
A simple in-game interface for exchanging crowns with a server-set exchange rate would eliminate all of the scamming going on and bring the runaway inflation under control so that new players aren't increasingly pushed out of the market.
Much as it is in real life.
I would like to remind you that ZOS implemented and intended this system as a way to gift items to other players. Most likely, it was an action taken to reduce the number of support tickets asking them to gift an item to another player using crowns. It was never intended to enable these massive trading exchanges. They didn't put much effort when asked if we could gift items in exchange for gold other than say it was ok to do, and they haven't dedicated much else since. Given that, I think all that you can expect ZOS to invest in this right now is to just change positions and say that gifting items in exchange for in game currency/goods is outlawed. The best option that i see them doing at all is to make ALL crowns store items purchasable using Seals of Endeavors, but i don't see that happening anytime soon.
As for me, well yes i have sold crowns, and yes i intend to sell more. . i don't participate in any of the major crown exchanges and i sell mostly to guildmates, for refence the GPC on my last handful of sales were under 650 GPC. I stocked up on crowns last crown sale, looking at demand and estimated that i would have enough till the next one. wrong. i recently reloaded, and i was sold out within hours.
I don't really sell to get gold, i sell to help friends access content and items that they normally wouldn't, for me at least the gold exchange gives me a better gameplay experience, helps avert risk, and makes sure that i don't get overwhelmed with requests.
I was told by several friends that run or participate in exchanges that crown sellers are in short supply right now, and people are just not as willing to sell at lower rates rates.
You also have to factor in the in game value of gold. There comes a time where after you accumulate X amount of gold that really you don't need anymore. To some people who have made millions off of these exchanges they probably don't need anymore gold. so what do they spend it on? I mean i know at least 4 people that sold crowns on exchanges that are now buying on said exchanges with the gold they earned by selling crowns. it happens.
Also, just like everything else, you have to factor the real world into everything, and no matter where you are odds are its likely that there is an uncertain outlook. so people are less likely to sink RL funds into something that they can't get a RL ROI on in such uncertainty.
Honestly, i will probably stop selling crowns myself soon. there are a few things i want to buy and when i look at my RL wallet vs my ingame wallet, well there is one that I really need to be more full than the other.
Edited by wolfie1.0. on August 9, 2021 9:19PM2 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »Potential Gold Sink Solutions- Increase the value of luxury vendor items
- Increase the penalty for committing crimes
- Make Gold harder to obtain
- Reduce the total Gold Cap by two whole figures
Increase the value of luxury vendor items - this would be a mixed bag, IF people wanted the items then they would pay if they had the gold. But housing only serves a part of the player base.
Increase the penalty for committing crimes - sure, but this is predicated on IF you get caught and their are ways to circumvent the justice system. the easiest method is to simply run away, the second is to not have any gold on your character when you get caught. the justice system is such that players if they know what they are doing can run around a town with a 1million + bounty and be perfectly fine. this would only penalize the inexperienced and new players.
Make Gold harder to obtain- Overall I agree, though gold dropping from monsters is actually not as efficient as one would think. there are a lot more common and faster ways that ESO generates gold that need to end.
Reduce the total Gold Cap by two whole figures- This option wont work, or if it does it will only work for a very select group of players, and it would hurt Guilds most of all, because the gold cap would apply to them as well (another topic). As for players, they would just have 18 characters at the gold max to circumvent, or multiple accounts, or convert all that gold to something else prior to implementation. For one simple reason that people always overlook when it comes to the economy... the craft bag. You see i can store a LOT of mats in a craft bag, and if you have enough mats in said craft bag you really don't need gold for hardly anything. If ZOS started reducing how much gold i could carry, fine, i will just convert said gold to mats and then sell said mats for gold.
no if you want to introduce gold sinks to the game then you have to be able to make it scalable to the player. things like paying an upkeep taxes on all storage, taxes on housing, Make gear that is reconned using transmute crystals break over time requiring them to be recreated, limit how many items can be stored in craft bags.
If ZOS really wanted to do a massive gold sink they would also allow players to combine completed atunnable crafting stations for a few million gold each, or they would introduce actuall Guild houses that require weekly upkeep but that have good guild benefits that scale with the upkeep maybe even having a trader attached. these are things that may actually work.0 -
JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Kalik_Gold wrote: »Kalik_Gold wrote: »There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.
It's the opposite, Gold gives you an advantage. You can improve quality of gear faster, or pay for runs if you are that guy, or buy the expensive potions and crafted boosts.
So you sell crown items to players that buy crowns. You are essentially BUYING gold. Pay to win.
Until there is some proven connection between millions in gold improving PLAYER SKILLS, there is no advantage to having craptons of gold.
Improving the quality of gear faster; there is a negligible difference between purple and gold levels of damage and/or protection. There are a lot of people who pvp in purple armor with only weapons in gold.
Paying for runs...to level? Get skins? So what? You "win" bragging rights, except that anyone who does play at the uber elite level will know in a few seconds of grouping with you that you bought that skin/title. Paying for carries will not bestow uber elite skills on you.
Expensive crafted potions and boosts, yeah, total waste because you don't have the skills needed to actually use them to the best advantage. What on Nirn would the purpose be of having expensive boosts when you'll be spending most of your time dead and respawning because, again, not uber elite skills.
I buy crowns for gold. The people I typically buy my crowns from (I do not sub and I like cosmetics), are PvPer - nothing else. They can gold out multiple sets and has an advantage. Expensive crafted potions for XP to gain skills and CP faster, and expensive Gold food in PvP ... skins are ugly anyway.
Minor advantage - yes, Still an advantage yes. Advantage = paying to win. Using Gold to get the best trader spots = paying to win.
Some people have skills already and just need the Gold to catch up... never said anything about some magical uber elite skills. Two friends start at the same time, Johnny is home on unemployment and can play all day. Ted works. Ted sells crown for gold to get equipment to keep up with Johnny. They could both be eqally skilled.
It is what it is, and if you don't see it. That's because somewhere along the line you accepted it. I buy crowns and I know what I am funding with my gold usage.
Going back to the same question no one ever answers: If player A gets craptons of gold and golds out all their gear, buys 200 super duper uber everything boost potions, and gets the mount that leaves glowy hoofprints on the ground one day faster than player B, what do they win? What, besides bragging rights and extra epeen tape, does getting gold gear and flashy whatevers get someone? There is an achievement for wearing a full set of gold everything, but it isn't going to take you to the leaderboards or a no-death trial run. Having all gold gear isn't going to make you emperor, either. So yeah, I don't get the point of "super-competitive gotta level instantly with bis gear golded out abd I'll spend millions of gold to get there". :shrug:8 -
stefj68✭✭✭✭✭honestly, i start playing chronium plating were 80k
crown were 200:1
now chronium plating are 200k
and crown are 500:1
same ratio, i sell chromium plating and get about the same amount of crown!
you sell you stuff higher
you buy higher
same things for me
1 -
huntgod_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭I'm sure someone has mentioned this, but prices on crowns trend upward until there is a crown sale, then they plummet down to the 250-300:1 range and then slowly trend upward until the next sale. We are coming up on a new sale, probably next month and you will see crown prices plummet again, then build back up to the 600:1 range again. This happens pretty much every cycle.
You really need to look at historical data and context, not just cherry pick a data point and suggest conspiracy theories, I mean this isn't American politics :-P--- HuntGod ---
Officer of the Unrepentant
www.unrepentantgaming.com2 -
Nowa133✭✭✭The last time we got a 'sale' prices only dropped by '50' and soon started going up again.1
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Kiralyn2000✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭
You can't really do that though. Because any changes would extremely negatively impact console players who do not have these excess gold problems.
Also disproportionately affects people who aren't part of the trading system - the people who only get their gold via drops/quest rewards/etc.
re: "luxury" furnishings. 1. there's a lot of stuff there that isn't really 'luxury' (as the constant "how is this collection of rocks & torture implements Luxury!" complaints shows; he'd be better named the Themed Furniture Vendor), and 2. judging by the weekly posts in the furniture thread, the folks who buy luxury stuff, are already scraping the bottom of their gold whenever something nice / expensive shows up. Again, the people sitting on hundreds of millions won't be bothered by any reasonable changes made, while the people who're just plodding along would be priced out of existence.
(the housing system, and decorating a house, isn't necessarily only the province of whales.)2 -
Ghanima_Atreides✭✭✭✭✭
✭I go for long periods when I don't play the game, so I'm not in a trading guild (or any other sort of guild).
I don't really buy crafting materials so I haven't paid attention to the prices but what I do buy are motifs, and I have noticed that the prices have gone up considerably since I last played some months ago. It's not unusual at all for newer motifs to be in the 100-400K price range for ONE PAGE, and you'll be hard pressed to find even older/less popular pages for less than 20-30K.
I don't have much gold, as I only get it from questing, writs and antiquities, so it's pretty much impossible for me to buy anything. My ambition to get the Grand Master Crafter achievement is permanently on hold.
Edited by Ghanima_Atreides on August 10, 2021 1:23PM[The Beauty of Tamriel] My collection of ESO screenshots
Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.1 -
Kalik_Gold✭✭✭✭✭
✭Kalik_Gold wrote: »Kalik_Gold wrote: »There are exactly 0 things in the crown store that give you any advantage in the game. Gold to crown price is irrelevant to new players.
It's the opposite, Gold gives you an advantage. You can improve quality of gear faster, or pay for runs if you are that guy, or buy the expensive potions and crafted boosts.
So you sell crown items to players that buy crowns. You are essentially BUYING gold. Pay to win.
Until there is some proven connection between millions in gold improving PLAYER SKILLS, there is no advantage to having craptons of gold.
Improving the quality of gear faster; there is a negligible difference between purple and gold levels of damage and/or protection. There are a lot of people who pvp in purple armor with only weapons in gold.
Paying for runs...to level? Get skins? So what? You "win" bragging rights, except that anyone who does play at the uber elite level will know in a few seconds of grouping with you that you bought that skin/title. Paying for carries will not bestow uber elite skills on you.
Expensive crafted potions and boosts, yeah, total waste because you don't have the skills needed to actually use them to the best advantage. What on Nirn would the purpose be of having expensive boosts when you'll be spending most of your time dead and respawning because, again, not uber elite skills.
I buy crowns for gold. The people I typically buy my crowns from (I do not sub and I like cosmetics), are PvPer - nothing else. They can gold out multiple sets and has an advantage. Expensive crafted potions for XP to gain skills and CP faster, and expensive Gold food in PvP ... skins are ugly anyway.
Minor advantage - yes, Still an advantage yes. Advantage = paying to win. Using Gold to get the best trader spots = paying to win.
Some people have skills already and just need the Gold to catch up... never said anything about some magical uber elite skills. Two friends start at the same time, Johnny is home on unemployment and can play all day. Ted works. Ted sells crown for gold to get equipment to keep up with Johnny. They could both be eqally skilled.
It is what it is, and if you don't see it. That's because somewhere along the line you accepted it. I buy crowns and I know what I am funding with my gold usage.
Going back to the same question no one ever answers: If player A gets craptons of gold and golds out all their gear, buys 200 super duper uber everything boost potions, and gets the mount that leaves glowy hoofprints on the ground one day faster than player B, what do they win? What, besides bragging rights and extra epeen tape, does getting gold gear and flashy whatevers get someone? There is an achievement for wearing a full set of gold everything, but it isn't going to take you to the leaderboards or a no-death trial run. Having all gold gear isn't going to make you emperor, either. So yeah, I don't get the point of "super-competitive gotta level instantly with bis gear golded out abd I'll spend millions of gold to get there". :shrug:
Emperor doesn't mean crap to most PvPers in PvP, to me Grand Overlord 5 star does. Having the ability to acquire the best sets, gold them out, max enchants, XP leveling potions, war torte.... and if that set becomes not worthy, switch and do it again. All while not worrying about having to EARN gold in game.
But what is PvP - "bragging rights" Yes, so yes, Gold does help earn it.
Also (all are crown giftable for GOLD)
• Race switching
• Alliance switching
• DLC's needed to acquire Mythics
• DLC'S needed to acquire Arena Weapons
Obviously you don't watch PvP streams, or participate in this because you keep asking the question that most people know about.
Some of the guys I watch and know, sell the Telvar and AP for Gold, which is great other's just have an abundance of Gold all the time.
.
Edited by Kalik_Gold on August 10, 2021 2:19PMMain Character:PS5/NA - Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar - Daggerfall Covenant
Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar, the Vestige
PvP Pure-class:
Goliath of Hammerfell a Redguard Dragonknight
Jux Blackheart a Redguard Nightblade
Aurik Siet'ka a Redguard Necromancer
Cacique the Sage of Ius a Redguard Warden
Kaotik Von Dae'mon a Redguard* Sorcerer
PvP: Subclassed or Specialty
Movárth Piquine a Nord Vampiric Necromancer (Tank)
Voa a Priest of Sep a Redguard* Necromancer (Healer)
Tsar af-Bomba a Redguard Vampiric Nightblade (Bomber)
Two-Big-Horns an Argonian Arcanist /Sorcerer
Uri Ice-Heart the Twin a Nord Vampiric Warden (Ice-Theme)
PvE:
Cinan Tharn an Imperial Dragonknight (Tank)
Herzog Zwei the Genesis an Akavari* Templar (Healer)
Bates Vesuius of Dawnstar an Redguard** Dragonknight (Raid Damage) --- Name change needed
PvE: Specialty
Tyrus Septim an Imperial Sorcerer (Dungeon Damage)
Tav'i at-Shinji a Redguard** Warden (Arenas)
Lucky Hunch the Gambler - a Redguard Nightblade (Thief)
Leveling...
Styx of Akatosh a Goblin*** Arcanist --- Race change needed
Zenovia at-Tura a Redguard** Lycan Sorcerer
Yesi af-Kalik a Redguard Templar
======
Passives of another race used:
*Breton
**Imperial
***Argonian
__________________________Backstories:_________________________
Ras Kalik the Vestige, a renown Redguard warrior; He has been blessed to save Tamriel from Molag Bal’s destructive Planemeld while reuniting the Five Companions. His further accomplishments after defeating Molag Bal, has been to stop the destruction of Morrowind, the Clockwork City, return order to the isle of Summerset and create a new king in Wrothgar and a queen in Elsywer. These events have made him a living legend and continue to lead him into new adventures throughout Tamriel, as well as into the hearts of many ladies including the Elf Queen, Aryenn. Over many years of adventurous travels, Ras Kalik had become a loner, until he re-visited his homeland of Alik'r.
Alik'r and it's cities were overrun by the undead Ra-Netu and therefore he made an allegiance with Alik'r's own Ash'abah tribe. These Ash'abah with his help, cleansed the city of Sentinel in Alik'r desert and it's surrounding areas of the undead brought to life by the Withered Hand. After rescuing Sentinel from the undead zombies, King Fahara’jad’s personal bodyguard the Goliath of Hammerfell, who was given this name by Imperials in the region; was asked to assist the tribe after learning of the defeat of the Withered Hand to the Ash'abah. Kalik promised Goliath he would task him with fighting living enemies on the battlefield if he so desired. Goliath being a Yokudan warrior wields a massive sword in respect to the Ansei, a gift given by the Imperial, Cinan Tharn. Not many soldiers are able to wield double two handed weapons, but Goliath loves to get up and personal in a fight, so he also carries a giant maul, both weapons laced with magical flames.
Jux Blackheart is a master thief that masquerades as a Bard at the Sisters of the Sands inn, with his younger sidekick Lucky Hunch for pilfering and gambling during this time. Jux was known to infiltrate any towns bank vault he came across and even delved into Ayelid ruins without detection. Kalik can vividly recall the night he met the famed thief. Jux found himself rummaging thru a slightly inebriated Kalik’s pocket for too long, on a full-mooned night and because of his greed and the glimmer of his golden armor in the moonlight. He lost his left pinky fingertip as a lesson! But in return, he gained a new friend, as it was his first time since a child being caught red-handed...
Upon arrival back in the Alik'r after many moons of adventuring, Ras Kalik ventures to Bergama. Visiting The Winking Jackal, he runs into Jux Blackheart, who introduces him to the coin game Crowns vs Forebearers (Heads vs Tails) and Golden Dwemer (RBG).... Jux constantly takes gold from the unfortunate thru theft or gambling, his biggest gambling victim is actually his partner in crime known as Lucky Hunch the Gambler. Lucky doesn't mind losing any gold coins to Jux... as Jux saved him from Altmer slavers in Summerset, by stealing a key and sending him on a boat to the mainland years prior. Lucky spent years in slavery with Khajiits in Summerset and picked up the art of subterfuge, using illusion magic disguises and stealing there.
Kaotik Von’Daemon an outcast, and a half-caste between a Breton mother and a Redguard father. Kaotik become a pariah due to his conjuration of Daedra pets. He was taught healing magic during his childhood years by his Breton mother. His father due to Redguard customs exiled him from the desert, sending him by wagon caravan to be a soldier in the war in Cyrodiil. He happened to meet Kalik while traveling from Alik'r, during this long caravan ride the caravan he was in was ambushed in Bangkorai by a group of bandits. Kalik by chance was also traveling thru this area on his Auridon Warhorse (which was bestowed to him by his friend, Darien Gautier). During this ambush, Kalik was able to rescue five hostages from the bandits. Kaotik was the first rescued, and Ras Kalik also recruited him to be in the Ash'abah tribe. These core Ash'abah tribesmen may never be seen together in travel as they partake in their own adventures but they always know what each other is doing; as they frequent a hideout in northern Bankorai. Their hideout an old Orc castle ruin, is kept watch by Nuzhimeh and she passes messages written between them, and frequently they also enjoy her company and her bed.
The other men rescued were a Dunmer banker, an Imperial mercenary and two other soldiers, an Imperial and a Breton Knight, stating proudly he was an Akavir descendent. One of the Imperials, Cinan, claimed to be related to Abnur Tharn the Battlemage of the Imperial Elder Council (One of Ras Kalik's mentors in the Five Companions). Cinan Tharn was really Abnur's drunkard treasure hunting illegitimate son. He was caught smuggling artifacts out of the Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil and the elder of the two Imperials was Tyrus Septim a retired Imperial navy battle-mage (now a Lycan mercenary living in the city of Rimmen) and guard to the Tharn family. As much as Abnur Tharn hated his half-sister Euraxia, he dislikes his bas†ard son Cinan more. Tyrus now a ruffian and privateer had been paid by Abnur Tharn to watch over Cinan as much as possible. Cinan Tharn a drunkard, loves to drink at least a quarter barrel of Nord mead before he raids various delves and dungeons for relics to sell on the black market. Cinan also plans to one day, run an illegal gambling ring... which he thinks will net him more gold for his wares.
The Dunmer captive shackled to the Imperials looked familiar to Kalik from his time in Morrowind.... and he recognized him as Tythis Andromo a House Telvanni slave-owner and banker from Vvardenfell. During a rough interrogation to Tythis, Ras Kalik learnt why the bandits accosted him. The racist Dunmer was providing slaves as soldiers for the Three Banner War. The bandits were trying to negotiate a lucrative ransom for Andromo and the Imperials.... Kalik did not need any of this gold and he could never set Tythis free as he did with the two Imperial soldiers. His past involvement with slavery and war crimes, made Kalik's blood boil. He chose not to execute Tythis, as he figured the worse punishment for this former rich and opulent slave owner, is to now be an imprisoned servant for Ras Kalik and the tribe.
Herzog Zwei the Genesis a reknown Imperial/Akavirri battle-mage. His roots going back to Akavir through his mother’s bloodline. (His mother is descended from the Akaviri, through Versidue-Shae, and his Imperial father met her in Hakoshae, while traveling) Herzog earned the nickname "the Genesis" from his father as a child, as he was his mother's first born child, and last, as she tragically died in child-birth.
Herzog was seeking to purchase an artifact from Cinan Tharn, before their capture and was meeting Tyrus while in Rimmen, who introduced him to Cinan. This artifact being the Ayelid artifact; the sword Sinweaver. After their rescue and the exchange of gold to Cinan for the sword he decided to slip away before Ras Kalik could question who he was, and why the Akavir descendant really wanted that sword. Herzog was headed to Nagastani — An Ayleid ruin in eastern Cyrodiil. He had read in scrolls that the Sword would give him magical powers to meet his mothers spirit, if he performed an Ayleid ritual at an old shrine hidden there. Equipped with the artifact sword, he was off to start his own adventure but Ras Kalik, did indeed notice the sword however and instead sent a letter to Jux Blackheart (whom also was interested in Ayleid treasures), to attempt to find Herzog and acquire the sword. (*Azani Blackheart in Elder Scroll's Oblivion is Jux's descendant some 747 years later)
And so the Redguard, Imperial and Akaviri men parted ways ... While Ras Kalik went off to Elsweyr to encounter the latest threat to Tamriel, with Abnur Tharn and Sai Sahan - - DRAGONS!! Little did Ras Kalik know a few people were awaiting him in Senchal besides Sai. A necromancer survived his attack on the Withered Hand, while in Alik'r. The necromancer known as Auriek Siet'ka is also following him to the land of the Khajiits and Cacique the Sage of Ius a Shaman mystic who has become attuned spiritually with Tu'whacca (a Redguard God) and Ius (the Animal God), after being burned severely by the escaped dragons in Elsywer, is awaiting his arrival also. Aurik is a soldier of the Daggerfall Covenant that was introduced to necromancy while in the military, even though this magicka art is not spoken of openly by most of the Military leaders. He came to Alik'r and worked with the Withered Hand before Ras Kalik intervened on their plans. After the defeat of the Withered Hand, he aligned with the Worm Cult, and is constantly adapting and perfecting his necromantic arts.
After his journey to Rimmen, Kalik heads south to Senchal, in the southern regions of Elyswer. This new adventure will also put him on a path to meet a strange Redguard man. The stranger which was infected with an untreated Peyrite disease and also was the exiled from the Order of the New Moon cult, due to his sickness. He originally joined the cult to worship Laatvulon, the green dragon, mistakenly thinking it was the Daedric prince Peyrite. This confused and suffering cultist is known as Tsar al-Bomba and he is on a path to spread the disease. He was originally infected in Orccrest while recruiting members there. Can Ras Kalik and the shaman Cacique cure this poor soul, only time will tell. Little does Tsar al-Bomba know, that his infection is tied to Vampirism, and eventually the desire for blood will take over his mind. Senchal also offers Kalik his latest love interest... Aeliah. Whom he fondly led thru battles with the Dragonguard.
After the trek thru the heat, tropical and desert climate of Northern and Southern Elyswer, Ras Kalik heads north to the cold mountain range of Skyrim. His companion friend Lyris beckons for him with a letter sent by crow...
Movárth Piquine - a former vampire hunter (now infected), within the Fighter's Guild (and a secretive necromancer) was in Skyrim working with the Morthaal Guard. On a patrol mission he was caught in Frewien's ice curse outside of Morthaal with the frozen undead. Movárth's vampiric infection kept him from becoming an undead minion to the curse. He was able to use necromantic ice-magic to encase himself safely until he was freed with Freiwen, when the Vestige Ras Kalik broke the curse.
Uri Ice-Heart - brother of Urfon Ice-Heart. The twin sons of Atli and Oljourn Ice-Heart. The Ice-Heart family are originally from Markarth but now reside on the Jerall Mountain range near Cyrodiil, with their younger sister Araki. The twins had joined the Winterborn Reachmen while living in Markarth. Urfon pushed west to Orsinium with the Winterborn Clan, leaving his family behind. Uri stayed behind with his parents and sister to live in the family cabin for safety, avoiding the Vampire plague infiltrating the Reach. After news reaches him and he hears of Urfon's death... Uri leaves and heads home and is seeking vengeance. Meanwhile, his sister has also moved on to Windhelm to join the Fighter's guild. He will visit his sister, once before going to seek vengeance and she will craft him armor mixed with ice, called Stalhrim armor. Uri fearing death, after his brother's passing, falls victim to the convincing talk of Movárth at a Nordic tavern, and will also becomes a vampire.
{time moves forward through the hour-glass}2 -
newtinmpls✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Kalik_Gold wrote: »
Some of the guys I watch and know, sell the Telvar and AP for Gold, which is great other's just have an abundance of Gold all the time.
Wow. If there was a 'safe' way to get Telvar and AP, I might consider it.Tenesi Faryon of Telvanni - Dunmer Sorceress who deliberately sought sacrifice into Cold Harbor to rescue her beloved.
Hisa Ni Caemaire - Altmer Sorceress, member of the Order Draconis and Adept of the House of Dibella.
Broken Branch Toothmaul - goblin (for my goblin characters, I use either orsimer or bosmer templates) Templar, member of the Order Draconis and persistently unskilled pickpocket
Mol gro Durga - Orsimer Socerer/Battlemage who died the first time when the Nibenay Valley chapterhouse of the Order Draconis was destroyed, then went back to Cold Harbor to rescue his second/partner who was still captive. He overestimated his resistance to the hopelessness of Oblivion, about to give up, and looked up to see the golden glow of atherius surrounding a beautiful young woman who extended her hand to him and said "I can help you". He carried Fianna Kingsley out of Cold Harbor on his shoulder. He carried Alvard Stower under one arm. He also irritated the Prophet who had intended the portal for only Mol and Lyris.***Order Draconis - well c'mon there has to be some explanation for all those dragon tattoos.
House of Dibella - If you have ever seen or read "Memoirs of a Geisha" that's just the beginning...
Nibenay Valley Chapterhouse - Where now stands only desolate ground and a dolmen there once was a thriving community supporting one of the major chapterhouses of the Order Draconis0 -
ArchangelIsraphel✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭no if you want to introduce gold sinks to the game then you have to be able to make it scalable to the player. things like paying an upkeep taxes on all storage, taxes on housing, Make gear that is reconned using transmute crystals break over time requiring them to be recreated, limit how many items can be stored in craft bags.
Again, this is an awful solution that applies needless "punishments" for owning things or having things. Gold sinks should be REWARDS people want to chase. You're definitely going to create a gold sink if you implement a solution like this in a game that doesn't have a taxing system- in the form of a mass exodus of players who don't want to pay upkeep on things they never had to pay upkeep on before. Instead, they need to create new rewards people want to spend gold on that drains gold from the system in a rewarding and meaningful way. There is nothing rewarding or meaningful about needing to grind for gold so you can pay fake taxes.PC l NA
Legends never die
They're written down in eternity
But you'll never see the price it costs
The scars collected all their lives
When everything's lost, they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat
Before it all starts, they suffer through harm just to touch a dream
Oh, pick yourself up, 'cause
Legends never die6
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