Sacred Hourglass of Alkosh: why is this a thing?

TheGreatBlackBear · August 2022

So for those of you way be unaware the Sacred Hourglass of Alkosh is the Q4 event reward which (allegedly) allows you to freeze and set time in your house. Now on the surface it seems like a good thing. You can finally have it always be night so your crystal arrangements glow brightly or you can have a permeant romantic sunset. But stop and ask yourself, why is just not a toggle in a menu? Why is this not a slider in the woefully inadequate screenshot mode? This is a missed opportunity to give a face lift to possibly the most meagre photo mode that I have ever seen in a video game.

TaSheen · August 2022

I'm just glad it's something I actually want besides the morph-pets for the last two years.

fizl101 · August 2022

Conversely I think why not!

i don't have a problem with the Q4 reward being something pretty unique and special for housing enthusiasts. These rewards are a way of getting people to engage across different types of play in the game, and its nice to get something different from it

PDarkBHood · August 2022

I would have preferred a free house as in previous years, but this is nice too.

SpacemanSpiff1 · August 2022

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

So for those of you way be unaware the Sacred Hourglass of Alkosh is the Q4 event reward which (allegedly) allows you to freeze and set time in your house. Now on the surface it seems like a good thing. You can finally have it always be night so your crystal arrangements glow brightly or you can have a permeant romantic sunset. But stop and ask yourself, why is just not a toggle in a menu? Why is this not a slider in the woefully inadequate screenshot mode? This is a missed opportunity to give a face lift to possibly the most meagre photo mode that I have ever seen in a video game.

agreed. it should be a toggle, along with a weather setting. instead we have to use event tickets and a furnishing slot.

RBAP28 · August 2022

TheGreatBlackBear, I understand your reasoning as to why it's not a game feature, it should be. Maybe they want to boost the number of people playing the event. I'm just happy it will finally be a function for housing in the game.

everseeing_njpreub18_ESO · August 2022

Well because your answer is a game mechanic in the game menu...

There answer is an in-game, lore related magical item of great power...

For me at least, the more in world lore fun things the better, over an esc>menu>graphics setting.

Nomadic_Atmoran · August 2022

Honestly I prefer it over the same old flavored rewards every year. At this point Im a bit burnt out on mounts, skins and houses. My account is overloaded with things I'll never use but are probably slowing the game down for me because its having to track all of it.

SaffronCitrusflower · August 2022

How is this item beneficial to a player who doesn't care about housing?

MaraxusTheOrc · August 2022

What you are asking for seems to apply to the entire game world at large, right? Not just a housing instance?

I’m not really aware of any of the big MMOs having a photo mode fleshed out with all of those intricate dials and toggles.
Quick search suggests Blue Protocol, which isn’t out.

I don’t know the first thing about the logistics about developing a true photo mode, but seems like it *doesn’t exist at all* so you’re essentially asking for an entire feature to be built from the ground up.

I suspect after the vocal minority’s dissatisfaction with many recent features, a photo mode would be received even more negatively.

FluffyBird · August 2022

On one hand, having an actual in-game, in-lore item is much nicer than a menu toggle.
On the other, a micromechanic instead of a house or a mount is...meh. Especially given how bad the Q3 costume is.

Of all the houses I own I actively use three, one - as a furnishing storage (guess which, lol). So I don't need more houses. But I don't appreciate rewards getting "smaller". And I'm sure as heck the chapter event (the one with that totally-not-fake community participation meter) won't make up for that.

opalcity · August 2022

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

How is this item beneficial to a player who doesn't care about housing?

How is a new mount skin beneficial to a player who doesn't want to ride anything but horses?

How is a new armour design beneficial to a player who only uses one outfit style?

How is a new non-combat pet beneficial to anyone?

Not everything is for everyone.

Ratzkifal · August 2022

Agreed. It's weird they made this an event exclusive. Although considering they now have this Indrik merchant, it's likely this item will become permanently available as well... just with event tokens... which is still weird.

To me it looks like ZOS is just dead set on selling quality of life to us now rather than improving their game. The armory system should tell you as much. The deconstruction assistant could have been an achievement reward for becoming a master crafter for example, but they wanted to sell it to us. Or take what are basically just skins for your already existing banker and merchant assistant. Could have made those cheaper so people who own the services already would still consider buying them, but nope! Full price or nothing! Games are not meant to be fun, they are meant to make money after all.