I will lose everything (solved, i will not lose anything, yay!)

Cucumber · January 2022

(update: if you bought the game from steam and your steam account gets deleted, you will not lose eso characters, apologies for bumping the post, it was to inform those who were curious)

Bought ESO on Steam in 2017, have 894 hrs, many characters, put hundreds of euros into crown store, have friends there, have furnished house i put month of work into

Now, my old Steam account is getting deleted, so i login to ESO account and unlink my old Steam account, but when i try to link my new account there is error
So i bought ESO again on my new Steam account thinking that is the problem, but when i tried to link again, there is error

So i go to support and see this
So i make ticket to Zenimax telling them about my situation, but there is radio silence

So i go to Steam Support and they tell me this

So i make ticket to Zenimax again, telling them about my situation, but there is radio silence

I didn't want to come and make post here, but what do i do now, what happens to my characters and progress, my crowns, when my old Steam ID gets permanently deleted?
Who holds the keys to making exception to move my data to new steam ID and why is it deemed "impossible"

Thanks for reading my whiny post. If nothing truly can't be done, goodbye ESO

Valenor · January 2022

Don't go through Steam. Install the retail version. Use you @ and your password and you should be good to go.

Cucumber · January 2022

Valenor wrote: »

Don't go through Steam. Install the retail version. Use you @ and your password and you should be good to go.

the Download Game option does not show for me on the right side of account page?

It says that i own THE ELDER SCROLLS® ONLINE: STEAM EDITION (assuming i can only download it through Steam)
If i buy the game from the website again, will i be able to login with my Steam characters?

appreciate the reply

whitecrow · January 2022

I imagine you can use the same ESO login. Not sure the platform matters.

tonyblack · January 2022

Might be not the best solution, but you can log in your eso account on website and buy game copy there (just base game). I did it when steam had log in problems so i could launch it through steam or through exe without steam, still works as of now.

Cryptical · January 2022

Steam is a middleman.

You do not have steam characters.... Steam is a bridge between you and the eso servers and your eso characters.

Search google and the forums for the threads from people who reconfigured the eso launcher to function without any interaction with the steam servers.

tonyblack · January 2022

Valenor wrote: »

Don't go through Steam. Install the retail version. Use you @ and your password and you should be good to go.

With steam only version you won’t be able to login without steam.

Cucumber · January 2022

Okay so if i understood now, once my old Steam ID gets deleted, the STEAM EDITION simply disappears from my ESO account page, but Zenimax holds my character data, and when i purchase the standard retail version again, i will be able to access my characters and DLC's again?

May i please get staff here to clarify this

Rex-Umbra · January 2022

I would file a ticket on the ESO Support website they should hopefully be able to sort you out. I play on Console so don't know the situation first hand but seems like if the data is on there server they should be able to.

Tandor · January 2022

Why is your Steam account being permanently deleted?

Lysette · January 2022

May I ask why steam is going to delete your account - this is a scary thought, given the amount of games I have on my steam account, that something like that could happen.

tonyblack · January 2022

Cucumber wrote: »

Okay so if i understood now, once my old Steam ID gets deleted, the STEAM EDITION simply disappears from my ESO account page, but Zenimax holds my character data, and when i purchase the standard retail version again, i will be able to access my characters and DLC's again?

May i please get staff here to clarify this

All your stuff tied to account, so yes, it should be safe. I bought just base game, but all my chapters bought from steam was still there. You might want to wait for reply from zos though if you want to safe you money to not buy same game twice.

Elsonso · January 2022

Cucumber wrote: »

Okay so if i understood now, once my old Steam ID gets deleted, the STEAM EDITION simply disappears from my ESO account page, but Zenimax holds my character data, and when i purchase the standard retail version again, i will be able to access my characters and DLC's again?

May i please get staff here to clarify this

There is this:
https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/41973/~/can-i-launch-the-elder-scrolls-online-without-steam-if-i-own-the-steam-version?

"If you own The Elder Scrolls Online through Steam it is not possible to launch the game without Steam.

You can visit The Elder Scrolls Online Store to purchase the full game version, even if you already own the base game from Steam.

Note: When buying a game from The Elder Scrolls Online Store you have to play it via the ESO launcher, not Steam, but as long as you sign into the game account you can continue from where you left off."

Sounds like you can just buy the new non-steam version, install it, and use that to log into your ESO account with your account name and password. From that point on, Steam is out of the picture. (edit... due to the fact that your linked steam account is deactivated)

Necrotech_Master · January 2022

i think i would also be in the pool of "wondering why your steam account was being deleted"

if i lost my steam account, that is 1700 games that i would no longer have lol

Destai · January 2022

@ZOS_Kevin Is there any help you can provide here?

DreamyLu · January 2022

What I don't understand from the first is why the old steam account is getting deleted? Because OP wants to leave Steam? Or is there another reason?
Could you please explain that specific point? Because it can raise quite a worry to Steam users reading that thread.

phaneub17_ESO · January 2022

PC, Steam, and Stadia are all the same accounts just different platforms to access them. You may have to buy a copy of the base game for PC to download the standalone client then manually login from there on your Steam account. You could also buy the base game on non-pro Stadia then when it asks you which account to connect you link your Steam account and can play fom there.

My Steam and Stadia accounts are linked this way so I have alternative ways to login, either from my PC or attach a razer kishi controller on my phone and play it on the go.

tuxon · January 2022

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip].

[Edited for bashing]

jaws343 · January 2022

tuxon wrote: »

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip].

IDK, seems pretty reasonable. If I wanted to switch from Xbox to PC or PS, not only would I need buy the game again, I would also have to start my account over. Steam is no different as a platform than Xbox or PS, but, since it ties into the PC account system, you don't have to start over just pick up a new copy.

[Edited quote]

Tandor · January 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

tuxon wrote: »

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip].

IDK, seems pretty reasonable. If I wanted to switch from Xbox to PC or PS, not only would I need buy the game again, I would also have to start my account over. Steam is no different as a platform than Xbox or PS, but, since it ties into the PC account system, you don't have to start over just pick up a new copy.

Agreed. Otherwise it would be making an account transfer from one provider to another and such poaching of accounts is doubtless not allowed under the contracts between ZOS and the other providers.

[Edited quote]

Jeffrey530 · January 2022

tuxon wrote: »

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip].

Someone? Many of us LOL. And it is pretty acceptable as explained by others.

[Edited quote]

Troodon80 · January 2022

tuxon wrote: »

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip]

This is what I did back in... 2017 when Steam was down for a few days, or rather there were issues with logging in via Steam. Couldn't log in or anything. Like other MMOs, I was originally advised to buy direct rather than through Steam. I ignored the advice and, as it turns out, putting all your eggs in one basket isn't such a good idea. And for reference, as of 2017 when I switched over to the ZOS version:

My estimate is somewhere in the region of 25k hours by the end of 2021, but I don't really have a way to track this now. If I had been told that the account is just lost with Steam, I would have never touched the game again.

After investigating, I bought the base game on sale (cost around £5). All the content you owned on Steam belongs to the account and the account exists outside of Steam. It might not seem fair that you have to buy it again in order to play separate of Steam, and I was annoyed by being told to get it again, but you can blame Steam for that rather than ZOS. ZOS isn't shutting down the account.

[Edited quote]

lurkin777 · January 2022

I used to have steam for one of my accounts and disconnected it from steam because of the problems I had with steam.
Steam is a third party the resells ESO.

The problem is that they try and lock you into using them and not being able to login directly. I was able to get my account separated after a lot of hassle. I now login directly without steam. I did have problems with the account eso plus but got that fixed eventually. I had to go into my account and file multiple tickets before I got the account working 100%.

Steam has basically no support for ESO so using them gives you nothing! I would never use them again!

Using the forums got me no where also!!!

Lysette · January 2022

There are reasons to use steam though - for games from providers, you have no experience with for example. I can buy a game on steam and test it - and if I don't like it or it doesn't run well enough and as long as I have played for less than 2 hours and within a 14 days window after I bought the game, I can just request a refund - no questions asked, I get my money back.

You are right about the support otherwise, they will always just send you a generic reply to use the support of the game provider.

Necrotech_Master · January 2022

Troodon80 wrote: »

tuxon wrote: »

What a mess...I was just told OFICCIALLY to buy the game again after 6 years in order to be able to play again without Steam. How they treat their customers and players is just unacceptable. [Snip]

This is what I did back in... 2017 when Steam was down for a few days, or rather there were issues with logging in via Steam. Couldn't log in or anything. Like other MMOs, I was originally advised to buy direct rather than through Steam. I ignored the advice and, as it turns out, putting all your eggs in one basket isn't such a good idea. And for reference, as of 2017 when I switched over to the ZOS version:

My estimate is somewhere in the region of 25k hours by the end of 2021, but I don't really have a way to track this now. If I had been told that the account is just lost with Steam, I would have never touched the game again.

After investigating, I bought the base game on sale (cost around £5). All the content you owned on Steam belongs to the account and the account exists outside of Steam. It might not seem fair that you have to buy it again in order to play separate of Steam, and I was annoyed by being told to get it again, but you can blame Steam for that rather than ZOS. ZOS isn't shutting down the account.

the only problem i have with the way steam tracks gametime is it thinks your "playing" it by just having the launcher open (so hundreds of those hours you have on the steam tracker could possibly be just "processing the game patches" or "left the launcher open overnight" or something silly like that)

the most accurate way of checking how much time logged in, you can do /played on each of your characters (sadly this method is only per toon, so for total time actually playing the game you would have to add all of those up which is kind of annoying)

[Edited quote]

Lysette · January 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the most accurate way of checking how much time logged in, you can do /played on each of your characters (sadly this method is only per toon, so for total time actually playing the game you would have to add all of those up which is kind of annoying)

It is not that accurate as you might think it would be - like yesterday I want to log in - message from the server "this account is logged in already" - so the server didn't log me out all day long, even I was offline. This can happen, if you use "quit" whilst the character is still in world - it does not happen, if you are on the character selection screen, because that would log you out due to inactivity anyway.

Troodon80 · January 2022

Lysette wrote: »

There are reasons to use steam though - for games from providers, you have no experience with for example. I can buy a game on steam and test it - and if I don't like it or it doesn't run well enough and as long as I have played for less than 2 hours and within a 14 days window after I bought the game, I can just request a refund - no questions asked, I get my money back.

The discussion isn't really in the validity of using Steam or not. The discussion is where the issue is, and the issue is squarely on Steam. It is a Steam account issue (the account got shut down), not a ZOS account issue (the ESO account is still there).

Lysette · January 2022

Troodon80 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

There are reasons to use steam though - for games from providers, you have no experience with for example. I can buy a game on steam and test it - and if I don't like it or it doesn't run well enough and as long as I have played for less than 2 hours and within a 14 days window after I bought the game, I can just request a refund - no questions asked, I get my money back.

The discussion isn't really in the validity of using Steam or not. The discussion is where the issue is, and the issue is squarely on Steam. It is a Steam account issue (the account got shut down), not a ZOS account issue (the ESO account is still there).

yeah but look at the support replies he linked - Steam said, ask ZOS, ZOS said, ask Steam - I had something very similar with an issue between steam and ubisoft - both said, ask the other. I wanted to say with it Valve support is just good for one thing, to get a refund.

Troodon80 · January 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the only problem i have with the way steam tracks gametime is it thinks your "playing" it by just having the launcher open (so hundreds of those hours you have on the steam tracker could possibly be just "processing the game patches" or "left the launcher open overnight" or something silly like that)

the most accurate way of checking how much time logged in, you can do /played on each of your characters (sadly this method is only per toon, so for total time actually playing the game you would have to add all of those up which is kind of annoying)

Oh, I'm well aware. I have some 800-900 collective days on all characters (500 of which are on just one character, my DK tank). I can't calculate it accurately either because I have several deleted characters in there as well. A lot of that is gathering skyshards and books on all 18 characters (more if including the deleted characters; which I wouldn't have deleted if Alliance Change Tokens came in earlier, but... oh well), doing writs and surveys, and some of it is just being semi-AFK in Vivec City or Craglorn. In terms of actual play time, I would probably put it in the region of 18k~20k. If you're on PC, you can also use an addon such as PlayedAll, but again it won't consider delete characters if used after they were deleted. But none of that is really relevant to the discussion and I see nothing gained in derailing it.

Vulkunne · January 2022

Steam is kind of sketchy sometimes. Because there are good reasons for not using the service and good reasons to justify using it. I know starting over may appear very painful and wasteful at first, but sometimes if you've learned a thing or two along the way it might be better just to start over on a clean setup.

You'd think in this day and age we wouldn't have these stringent compatibility issues but choices have consequences.

zaria · January 2022

DreamyLu wrote: »

What I don't understand from the first is why the old steam account is getting deleted? Because OP wants to leave Steam? Or is there another reason?
Could you please explain that specific point? Because it can raise quite a worry to Steam users reading that thread.

He might be from China as they are stopping steam.In this case support and steam will likely work this out.

Its also an know issue that refusing an credit card transaction because an disagreement will ban you steam account.
Same is true in ESO, you was drunk and bought a lot of crown crates, then refused the credit card bill you will get banned.