brylars wrote: »

This is from a consumer's point of view. "How is it going to help me."

A corporation is only going to focus on maximizing their profits. If a few buy a product then resell it, a corporation is going to call it stealing and do what it can to cut out the "middle man" and try to incentivize those other customers to buy from them directly. The theory is that if people really want it, they will do what they need to do to get it.

what does any of that have to do with this thread? i think you're point is reasonable to the point of why zos took away gifting. Even though i still think they're extremely greedy, because the number of people abusing it must have been very small in the grand scheme of things. Regardless thats a reasonable point, just a different conversation.

jsjem wrote: »

People will buy gold from farming bots to trade crowns. ZOS loses cause what they need is real money. I lose cause not only farming bots but also chest farmers and other acts of looting public resources will affect my game experience including making my daily endeavor tasks harder to complete. If there are some tradeable crowns, it depends on how many newbies would like to sell crowns and not buy gold from the seller with real money which is definitely cheaper. And it would be quickly traded by those millionaires if you are careless or would not like to pay more.
I don't play GW2, so if they have better solutions, the idea of the tradeable crown is still acceptable.

You lose? Its very strange the outlandish hypotheticals people will come up with to keep the ability to sell crowns to other players. Heres the reality. People already can and will do what you are saying. Anyone could already buy gold from gold sellers, that already bot, which is also already a problem, and then take that gold and buy crowns off players.

And again, with an exchange people can, and will, buy crowns to then exchange the crowns for gold. If you look at the image in my OP, from guild wars 2, you can see thats how it works there.

You are reaching sooo sooo sooo hard by saying "farming bots and chest farmers and other acts of looting public resources will affect my game experience". Like come on lmao. As i said, these things already exist, and the vast majority of players do not use them. Most players either farm their own gold, spend money on crowns to use on the crown store, or spend money on crowns to then sell for gold.

To put it simply, again, an exchange changes nothing. It literally only cuts out players interacting. Instead of you buying crowns to sell to me to get yourself gold, you just buy crowns and exchange them for gold. And instead of me buying your crowns, i just use my gold to by crowns.

If there are tokens purchaseable with real money, better be very careful with planning how they work. In my previous game there was token called C.R.E.D.D., using one gave of one month subscription. Token could be purchased by real money or traded for ingame currency via C.R.E.D.D exchange. That had a problem of not being unique, so people could hoard and profiteer with tokens and plenty more tokens were purchsed early on than used.
After the gaem went f2p the price settled to ~100 platinum which was small enough a raiding player could have (then optional) sub all the time and the sub gave enough store currency to never need use a cent of real world money. Dunno if that had any effect to game profitability - there was plenty of lingering problems from game released years before ready and devs having to fix it instead of making new content which was rather bad for a new sub game - but down it went eventually.

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

darvaria wrote: »

rauyran wrote: »

I think you are missing the point that crowns are income for ZOS. No-one can get crowns without paying ZOS. Making them purchasable with gold means ZOS loses income.

Then crowns should cost the same in every country. I am completely outraged they are selling them for less. WHY??????? If they can't afford the US price, then they can't afford them. Now, selling gold in the crown store would be a win for ZOS. Screw those gold sellers and sell it yourself. Problem would be solved. It's those players (if you even call them players) and we all KNOW exactly where they from causing this problem.

You can't be serious... its almost unbelievable. Let me get this straight- people should have to pay the equivalent of a car payment for what someone in the us might spend on takeout because they were born in a country with a different exchange rate?? Is that a joke? And no that wont solve any problem. Exactly the same thing would happen with gold. Some illegitimate site would find a way to sell it at a better deal.

you're 100% right but like i kind of see it from the other side as well. Crown store items are over priced. And the cost of living, minimum wage, and the amount of money people make vary depending on where you live, in america for example, yet im pretty sure the crown prices stay the same. Maybe zos should just lower the insane prices over all. Obviously people in certain countries would still get them very low, but it might make a bit more sense for the person in Detroit who pays the same as the person in Beverly hills.

finehair wrote: »

darvaria wrote: »

rauyran wrote: »

I think you are missing the point that crowns are income for ZOS. No-one can get crowns without paying ZOS. Making them purchasable with gold means ZOS loses income.

Then crowns should cost the same in every country. I am completely outraged they are selling them for less. WHY??????? If they can't afford the US price, then they can't afford them. Now, selling gold in the crown store would be a win for ZOS. Screw those gold sellers and sell it yourself. Problem would be solved. It's those players (if you even call them players) and we all KNOW exactly where they from causing this problem.

crowns are imaginary currency that costs nothing to produce.
So let's say you sell 20k crowns in germany for 100 euros. 100 euro is not cheap, however stil affordable for average income german citizen.
If you do the same price in let's say Turkey, where economy is poop, 100 euros is nearly 1/3 of average income in Turkey. So average citizen can not afford that.
But if they sell 20k crowns for 10 euro in Turkey, it won't be cheap again. However more people in Turkey can buy it. Means more customers.
That's the point why there are different prices for games in Steam in different countries. After you finish the game, it doesn't cost anything to sell it through steam. You can either have more customers or fewer. If you try to sell it for 100 euro in Germany & Venezuela, no one in Venezuela will buy. If you sell it for 1 euro in Venezuela, a lot of people will buy. You will create customers.

Downside is, some genius in germany can change their location to venezuela and buy through their currency. Which ends up what we have nowadays, steam increasing prices in bad economy countries and games starting being not affordable for the average Joe in those countries.

you guys are deff right, of course, the price needs to make sense based on what country you live in. But i also wonder why none of these companies, when speaking about the usa, never think of like the person living in Detroit vs the person living in Beverly hills. The cost of living varies, minium wage varies, and the average median income varies drastically depedning on where you live in the usa. And prices reflect that, rent, food, anything really. But stuff like this does not.

Its almost like zos sets up these insane prices for people living in the richest part of the country. So no, i dont feel bad that some people found a way to get around their system. What they should do is make the crowns reasonable for the states with lower income. Sure the people with money in California would be able to buy more, if they wanted to, but the people who dont make much money would be able to as well. If they change it for other countries they should change it for states.

But i know thats more complicated, and hell for all i know they do but ive never heard of it.

Danikat wrote: »

Lags wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

I agree that would be the best solution.

But I think they could also get away with something simpler, like a tradable item you can buy on the crown store that can be used to get the same amount of crowns it cost.

Player A buys a 500 crown token - costing 500 crowns
Player A sells it to player B for gold
Player B uses the token and gets 500 crowns

They could have tokens in different values so players can trade the amount of crowns they want.

It's not as efficient as GW2's system, but it achieves the same purpose.

rauyran wrote: »

I think you are missing the point that crowns are income for ZOS. No-one can get crowns without paying ZOS. Making them purchasable with gold means ZOS loses income.

No one can get gems in GW2 without someone paying the company either. The exchange is just the game acting as a middle man to facilitate the trade, you're still buying gems from another player who bought them with real money.

In that sense it's the same as the crown gifting system, the difference is you just use the menu to buy the amount of gold or gems you want instead of having to find another player willing to spend exactly what you want to buy. The gems you get could be part of what 1 player exchanged, or pooled from several, but they've all been paid for at some point.

The exchange rate is dynamic - it changes based on the volume of trade in each direction, so when more people are buying gems it gets more expensive to do that and when more people are converting their gems into gold you start getting less gold for your gems, so it discourages too much trade in one direction (which helps ensure the exchange doesn't run out of either currency).

Thats also a good idea. Personally i think an exchange would be better than something like that, but if they went that route instead that would be alright. I just like the idea of an exchange more because it feels more free. Buy however much of either crowns or gold whenever you want, but that would deff solve the problems as well.

I'd prefer an exchange as well, I just wanted to make the point that there's other ways to do it if ZOS don't want to build a whole new interface. An exchange would be better, but crown tokens would be easier to implement.

brylars wrote: »

This is from a consumer's point of view. "How is it going to help me."

A corporation is only going to focus on maximizing their profits. If a few buy a product then resell it, a corporation is going to call it stealing and do what it can to cut out the "middle man" and try to incentivize those other customers to buy from them directly. The theory is that if people really want it, they will do what they need to do to get it.

Aside from some transactions with legal requirements companies don't care who pays them as long as they get the money. They're especially ok with one person paying for another person's purchases if the recipient wouldn't otherwise buy them, which is often the case with crown gifting, because the alternative is no one buys it and they don't get the money.

No one's suggesting players would be able to resell crowns for a profit, or sell them for real money at all. A system like this just allows players to trade crowns they've purchased with real money (either directly or as part of ESO+) for gold. The crowns still have to be paid for and the only ones making a profit from it are ZOS.

ya for sure. Regardless of if its a currency exchange like gw2, or a token or something to sell on traders, they should do something and do it soon. Things like this are just another reason why a game like gw2 feels so much more rewarding than eso, along with many other reward related reasons. But you can earn gold and then take that gold and buy things you want off the cash shop.

I just hope zos does something. Eso is so full of conflict and complaints. You dont see this from companies like gw2/arenanet. You dont see the same disdain for the developer and the choices they make. And it honestly feels like they have more passion. You do, however, see it from wow, but wow still pulls massive numbers because it has a good foundation that originated in passion for many years. These last few years it really feels like zos has lost their passion and really only care about stuff selling on the crown store for money. I personally think eso still has massive potential if zos will just start caring more about what matters to players.

Janni wrote: »

Long-story short: There are very dangerous things that can happen with this kind of thing and given the rise of automated systems this could turn into a huge problem legally as it could fall into currency exchange territory...

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a0243a6e-75e2-4dd3-9bb0-72a720837f85

says i have to login or register to read, but regardless i dont care. Considering other games do it, and have for just as long, if not longer, than eso has existed, i am going to go ahead and disagree with you.

Ill say it again for the 50th time, there is no difference between this and what we had before, except that the player interaction has been removed. In fact, it I think you are misunderstanding it completely. This is no different to what we have now when it comes to buying crowns. You would still go on the crown store and pick the amount of crowns you want to buy and buy them. Like if you want 5000 crowns now, you would buy them for $39.99 usd.

The difference comes with what you do with the crowns once you've bought them. Either using the 5000 for stuff on the crown store, or exchanging the 5000 crowns for, lets say, 6 million gold, which people already do with other players. Or someone would use their, lets say, 3 million gold to exchange for 2500 crowns.

A system like this is just way more convenient for people who want to use their gold for crown store stuff, or crowns for gold. I've played guild wars 2 for many years and i cannot stress enough how amazing this system is. Gw2 has a similar business model to eso, except gw2 is way more rewarding with actual in game rewards AND the fact that you can simply turn your gold into crowns or gems as their called there.

Albion online is another game with a currency exchange, but it is not similar to gw2 and eso at all. I use Gw2 because the business model is a bit similar to eso. Mount reskins, outfits, qol stuff, house items, rng boxes, on the cash shop. Another thing is their rng boxes are nowhere near as predatory, but thats another story.

darvaria wrote: »

Then crowns should cost the same in every country. I am completely outraged they are selling them for less. WHY??????? If they can't afford the US price, then they can't afford them.

Just wow, and I say this living in a first world country.

Danikat wrote: »

I think the reason some people suggest a tradable token instead of an exchange is because it would be easier for ZOS to create a tradable object to sell in the crown store than to create an exchange.

They'd only need to make the object itself, which is something they do all the time. The only difference to existing crown store tokens is making it tradable and I suspect that's a single flag in the items data. Whereas creating an exchange would need a whole new menu with the code behind it to make all the options function, and new code to adjust the exchange rate automatically based on demand, and to track how many crowns and how much gold is currently available. It's all possible to do but it would take more time and need more testing.

A lot of good ideas don't make it into games because they'd take too much time and effort for the developers to create (and therefore money, because they need to be paid for their time) so offering a quicker and easier version makes it more likely we might get something rather than the idea being scrapped entirely (and discussing the shortcomings of the easier option mean they might end up pushing for the better one).

I've had work projects where we proposed the quicker and easier solution because that got a meeting to happen where a better solution would be shot down at the first step for taking too long, then let the people who would sign it off discover and discuss the short-comings of the easier solution and come to the conclusion themselves that we really needed the better one.

Janni wrote: »

Long-story short: There are very dangerous things that can happen with this kind of thing and given the rise of automated systems this could turn into a huge problem legally as it could fall into currency exchange territory...

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a0243a6e-75e2-4dd3-9bb0-72a720837f85

The important difference is they're talking about a system where you can 'cash out' - convert the virtual currency back into real money. That's where the problems come in. (Although that has also been done - Second Life is probably the best known long-running example.)

No one in this thread is suggesting there should be a way to convert crowns back into money, only to exchange crowns for gold and gold for crowns - everything stays within the game so there's no regulatory issue.

I understand your point but again, its just not a good reason. We have no idea what so ever if adding something like this would be harder than adding a token, or vice versa. We have no idea how easy, or hard, it is for them to add another tab to the crown store. And even still, lets say for arguments sake it is harder, just because something might be a little harder does not mean its the wrong way. Especially with the down sides to a token, as i said in earlier posts.

But i understand you looking at it from either side, i just dont think most people disagreeing do that. Like i said, i think most people are just making outlandish hypotheticals to try and justify why they think its a bad idea. And ive yet to hear a good argument. You have some good points as to why it might not happen, or why zos may not want to do it this way, but the people saying its just a flat out bad idea dont have me convinced.

Like i said before, im just advocating for what i think is the best way. No scamming, no inflated prices, no inflated demand, something where the price is controlled by zos, something that is fair for both people who want gold and who want crowns. But again most likely we just get the same gifting system when zos fixes it in a year or two, and neither an exchange or token happen. Thats usually how things go around here.

fizzylu wrote: »

Lags wrote: »

I just hope zos does something. Eso is so full of conflict and complaints. You dont see this from companies like gw2/arenanet. You dont see the same disdain for the developer and the choices they make. And it honestly feels like they have more passion. You do, however, see it from wow, but wow still pulls massive numbers because it has a good foundation that originated in passion for many years. These last few years it really feels like zos has lost their passion and really only care about stuff selling on the crown store for money. I personally think eso still has massive potential if zos will just start caring more about what matters to players.

I find this a little funny because I feel like Zenimax has lacked passion for this game since the beginning. The game was never set up to be that rewarding. It never felt like a truly optimized and stable game. Other than the base game, chapters and DLCs were always pretty small in comparison to expansions and etc from other MMOs. Even prior to release when the game was still in testing, content and features were just cut instead of having resources put into them to make them work (yes, I will always be bothered by the lack of capes. Games older than ESO have them, it's ridiculous). To me, the only thing that seems to have changed over the years is that someone at Zenimax realized they can practically do the bare minimum, ignore feedback, and players will still pay.... and the only reason I can play the game with a clear mind at this point is because I've decided to not take ESO seriously and will not be supporting the game monetarily outside of the subscription. Meanwhile, I just witnessed a friend drop at least 200 dollars on the game just this past month.... and for what? Some overpriced crown crates, reskinned assistants, and recolored pets.

And what's even funnier, I'm at the point where I feel like Blizzard is the ugly stepchild of the gaming industry. People love to hate on them when they do bad, and ignore them when they do good. Blizzard has added more QoL updates, some very highly requested player ones (with no extra charge btw), to WoW over the last 10 months than ESO has ever seen in it's lifetime.... and that's hilariously sad.

Honestly, I see no chance of Zenimax adding a gold to crowns exchange system. It'd be nice if they did.... but Zenimax very rarely does "nice", especially when it won't make them money.... and the whales have already proven that they will always willingly pay. Oof, got a little depressing there.

A lot of what you say is true. With the lack of rewards, I think it has become such a big issue in the last couple of years is for a few reasons. First because you cant stay terrible forever and expect people to remain happy. Lack of rewards has always been an issue for players i knew who came from other mmos like wow. Finding out, for example, that you can only get 99% of the mounts and cosmetics in game through the crown store is a pretty big blow to people who have been playing mmos where you get these things all around the game.

And when you have multiple good things, and multiple bad things, in the game, the good may outweigh the bad for many players. I think that has stopped happening. I think the bad is overtaking the good. That combined with the fact that nothing exciting has happened in a long time, dwindling performance, players naturally aging out of some content, pvp being in the shitter for years, and many other things, that have been going on for sooooo long, have probably started to wear people out. And caused them to focus on some of the more glaring issues that, yes, have been here for a while, but, to put it another way, the things that used to hold people are not holding them anymore.

Zos has had years to improve these things and has failed. They always wait so long to do things. And a lot of the time they go backwards, like with certain things they add in once and then never do again. To me, it did seem like they had passion early on. Watching the quake con video, for example, about the justice system and spell crafting, that looked like a dev team with passion. Did it show in game? With some things yes, but more often than not, no. Also, yes the cape thing is very stupid.

As for blizzard, well you're right they do get a lot of ***. But a lot of it is warranted. For bad changes in game, and bad choices IRL. But a lot of these things do over shadow the good they do in game. Like with dragonflight, even though its not perfect and still has some glaring issues they still did good. Of course wow has always outdone eso in many ways, obviously.

But Like i said in an earlier post, this game has/had the potential of a game like wow if zos would just stop worrying only about money and start worrying about things people want. Try to pull more people in from other mmos by adding things in that people value. But they refuse.

Personofsecrets wrote: »

There already is one

o_o

So there is