Credit Lottery: 15,000 Credits!

Jesse

The Iron Realms credit lottery has rolled over again with no winner, increasing the jackpot to 15,000 free credits! This is an unprecedented giveaway, and I'm ridiculously excited to see who's going to win all of those credits.

It should be somebody from Imperian, since Imperian is clearly the best game. So get some tickets and make it happen!

Check out the details in Imperian's Announce news #2383.

Enryk

Out of curiousity, is there a way to see the results of the past draws?

Jesse

Not really, other than the fact that it rolled over. There's a 50% chance that it won't choose a winner and will just roll over. For the past two weeks, the result has just been "No Winner".

Enryk

@Jesse I meant more in terms of how many tickets were in play for each week. 

I'm not sure whether there is a coin flipped to see if the lottery is happening that week before a ticket is drawn, or 'the game' gets a no-winner ticket every time a player does. It would just be interesting to see what the odds of winning were each time, given that draw is over.

Jesse

No, there's no way to see how many tickets have been or are currently in play, other than the number of tickets that you personally have in play for the current jackpot.

As for deciding if there's a winner, it's basically just a coin flip. If it's "heads", then there's no winner and the jackpot is increased and all of the current tickets stay in play. If it's "tails", then all of the tickets are tallied and a winner is chosen. So far, the coin has never come up "tails", which is what makes it so exciting because the pot just keeps growing and growing.

Enryk

Thanks @Jesse.

If I can make a suggestion for future promotions, I would very much like to see that kind of information made available. 

I'm not the biggest fan of online gambling (lockboxes, for example) as a means of driving game purchases to appear more valuable than they actually are, but if it has to be done, it could at least be done as transparently as possible. It's fine for adults to choose to gamble if they're making an informed decision about it, but having no way of guessing the value of a ticket doesn't seem to lead to very informed decisions at all.

Perhaps ticket numbers could be visible to players who have purchased them (like in every other in-game lottery), so that you can see how many tickets were sold prior to yours? Also, perhaps the "no-winner" coin flip could be replaced by virtual tickets so that a winning ticket is still drawn and announced every week, even if it doesn't correspond to a winning player? That would seem to me a lot less opaque than what is happening now, especially given the high stakes of the prize which is over US$1000 in equivalent cash shop purchases.

Gurn

Enryk said:

Thanks @Jesse.

If I can make a suggestion for future promotions, I would very much like to see that kind of information made available. 

I'm not the biggest fan of online gambling (lockboxes, for example) as a means of driving game purchases to appear more valuable than they actually are, but if it has to be done, it could at least be done as transparently as possible. It's fine for adults to choose to gamble if they're making an informed decision about it, but having no way of guessing the value of a ticket doesn't seem to lead to very informed decisions at all.

Perhaps ticket numbers could be visible to players who have purchased them (like in every other in-game lottery), so that you can see how many tickets were sold prior to yours? Also, perhaps the "no-winner" coin flip could be replaced by virtual tickets so that a winning ticket is still drawn and announced every week, even if it doesn't correspond to a winning player? That would seem to me a lot less opaque than what is happening now, especially given the high stakes of the prize which is over US$1000 in equivalent cash shop purchases.

Speak for yourself. I love them, and really, really wish they would bring phylacteries back.

Enryk

Gurn said:

Speak for yourself. 

I thought it was obvious that's what I was doing?

Ahkan

Phylacteries are awesome.

Though, honestly. Aetolia's gift bags > our phylacteries >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> our giftbags. Our giftbags are a kick in the giblets.
Bought some credits? Here. Have an empty normal vial. Lol.

Edit: Late addition: @Enryk. I'm not sure if you've actually played this game...but it's the only form of gambling where you're guaranteed to come out ahead. The only gamble is how awesome it's going to be. As far as phylacteries go, they're pretty damn awesome.

Follow up to that: Informed decision? Wow. What the deuce? I'm pretty sure if you're buying credits you're a consenting adult or you have a consenting adult standing behind you telling you it's ok (Aleutia is always down to scream, "Don't do it!" at Kanthari and I) It's called a lottery, which implies gambling. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that lotteries aren't exactly stacked with winners. The big winner here is Imperian. Aka: The guys you want to write epic story lines, but don't want to pay. (Old Anathema may have stayed around if she got paid...just saying. Hi Eusto!) People have to eat. Garryn and Jesse need food (Apparently Eusto doesn't?), and rent resorts and fly to Hawaii. That stuff isn't cheap, dude (I hear Jesse eats babies). I'm not sure how to do this, but can I politely ask you to mm...how to say this....Shut up. We get to buy credits and get a chance to gamble. You turn those credits into laser swords, hentai tree people or glitter. On top of that, the credit I already bought is my lottery ticket! If I'm really committed to winning this shindig, I can turn my credits into MORE tickets. I don't really see the issue here. It's really a personal choice to do whatever the hell you want with your real life money/credits and it's really no business of yours. It's especially not your job to try and stir up a bad-logic lynch mob against two of the more interesting credit promotions.

Ending on a high note:

Gurn

Enryk said: I thought it was obvious that's what I was doing?




I mean no offence, but, I don't see you actually playing the game too much. You have a great imagination and like writing things-- But the trouble is, your perspective of what the game is seems to be a little... Idealized and romanticized in a way that no one else seems to understand.

Get more involved with everything, log on more, participate in the council/guild/cults/sects/what have you. Talk to people. Fight in some battles. Level up some. I don't mean that you don't do anything at all, but that you don't seem to be doing enough to truly understand the current state of the game, which would help you push that imagination of yours in a direction which doesn't come out of left field for the rest of us.

Enryk

@Gurn and @Ahkan: It's completely okay if you disagree with a suggestion.

If you believe showing ticket numbers would be detrimental or unnecessary, I'm sure you have good reasons to feel that way that don't revolve around me, my purchase history or my characters. Wouldn't it be more constructive to start with that?

I'm not saying the promotion should end, merely that a more transparent lottery would be my preference, for the reasons I've given above.

If nothing changes, that's perfectly okay, it's not an ultimatum. :P

Juran

I admit that I was interested in the lottery at first. I thought it was a pretty exciting thing, and bought some credits to try my luck.

After two 'haha, nevermind!' results I no longer have any interest in the lottery. I don't even care who wins at this point.

Selthis

Enryk said:

@Gurn and @Ahkan: It's completely okay if you disagree with a suggestion. If you believe showing ticket numbers would be detrimental or unnecessary, I'm sure you have good reasons to feel that way that don't revolve around me, my purchase history or my characters. Wouldn't it be more constructive to start with that? I'm not saying the promotion should end, merely that a more transparent lottery would be my preference, for the reasons I've given above. If nothing changes, that's perfectly okay, it's not an ultimatum. :P

It can't be more transparent really.  Its pulling numbers from every IRE game, so tracking that  in a way that makes sense would be an entirely different animal than tracking a lottery on one system. 

That said aside from my own  break from IRE, the chances of winning are so infinitesimally small that  its sort of like "meh."  Honestly, I'd rather see  it per game with  the same rules and a smaller pool (1k every week rather than 5k every week for example).

But either way, whoever wins is gonna be super happy, and in the end  it builds hype and spurs purchasing.  Which is  beneficial to IRE.

Eusto

I'm not going to lie, it made me want to start playing another game. And then @Ahkan reminded me how hungry I was.

Enryk

Selthis said:

It can't be more transparent really.  Its pulling numbers from every IRE game, so tracking that  in a way that makes sense would be an entirely different animal than tracking a lottery on one system. 

Absolutely, but I don't think it's impossible just because it would be technologically more challenging. Presumably the tickets are collated together from all games at some point, and even showing these results afterwards would be an improvement on "No draw this week", and require very little additional networking.

Ah well. Just a suggestion. I'll be happy for whoever wins the big jackpot, good luck to everyone who will be buying tickets in the next draw!

Azefel

I personally thought it was quite probable from the start that in order to get a reasonable chance to win the 5/10/15/20k credits, you'd probably have to buy that amount of credits in the first place, and knowing your luck (unless you're Alesud), still not win anyway.

Iniar

Ahkan:

Though, honestly. Aetolia's gift bags > our phylacteries >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> our giftbags. Our giftbags are a kick in the giblets.
Bought some credits? Here. Have an empty normal vial. Lol.

I calculated my return on the giftbags. It's better than this (chain/customization token) sale.

Was so happy too. Until I found out about phylacteries. 

:-w

Alesud

I have been tempted to purchase credits for the lottery (I haven't). But at this point, I look at it how I occasionally play Powerball or the big, real life lotteries; because your chance of winning is so infinitesimally small, buying one ticket versus buying five hundred doesn't make much difference. Unless, like Azefel said, you're buying as many as you'll probably win -- then things might be a bit different. But this, again, was why I was curious as to the general credit-purchasing habits across the board. I'd heard rumors of somebody purchasing a very, very large amount of credits in Achaea for the recent credit auctions. My mind was blown. Even if I had that much money to spend on Imperian, I probably wouldn't, even though I don't want Eusto to starve.

Ahkan

@Iniar: Hell yeah. Phylacteries are awesome (Oh no! Gambling! /sadface). It's like, go ahead, take my money. It's worth it too. Phylacteries are totally in the top promotions, right up there with lesson sales. The lottery is just kind of a ho-hum gimmick. It's not bad, but it's not great. It's much better than the stupid chains.

Enryk

Email from Iron Realms said:

15,000 free credits will be awarded to a single player this Saturday.

I wonder if the certainty in that sentence is the result of a typo, given the (apparently random) 50-50 chance that no player will win.

Selthis

Or maybe it is the last weekend of the month so the prize has to be awarded?

Enryk

@Selthis:

Achaea News #3884 said:

The pool starts out at 5000 credits and then has a 50% chance each week to either increase the pool by 5000 credits (with no limit as to how high the pool can go), or go off to one lucky ticket holder! Don't worry though, your tickets will carry over as long as the prize does not go off!

Interestingly though, I didn't realise that tickets were carried over from each week there's no draw. That's a lot better than what I was assuming, which is that "no winners" was the end of the draw and a new one began.

Selthis

Enryk said:

@Selthis:

Achaea News #3884 said:

The pool starts out at 5000 credits and then has a 50% chance each week to either increase the pool by 5000 credits (with no limit as to how high the pool can go), or go off to one lucky ticket holder! Don't worry though, your tickets will carry over as long as the prize does not go off!

Interestingly though, I didn't realise that tickets were carried over from each week there's no draw. That's a lot better than what I was assuming, which is that "no winners" was the end of the draw and a new one began.

Well, it was my understanding the lottery  would be running for the month of June only.  It may extend longer I guess, but I figure there's an definite lifespan on the promotion.

Also the carry over tickets just deincentivizes it for some people.  Like I said, I think it works for a one off but I'd rathert have a per game lotto with similar rules and no transfer of credits to other games.

Also, some good old fashion login X number of days promos would be nice.

Eldreth

Iniar said:
I calculated my return on the giftbags. It's better than this (chain/customization token) sale.

Was so happy too. Until I found out about phylacteries. 

:-w

Phylacteries 1.0 are what might affectionately be called "Selthis in a box". Just ask Dermon.

Eldreth

WTB double post. Let me just point out that Selthis didn't give this thread a second look until pot hit 15k. Dude just doesn't play the $10 tables

Jeremy Saunders

I wrote the newsletter, I was trying to make it more exciting! But yeah, there is a 50% chance it will roll over again.

Menoch

Jeremy said:

I wrote the newsletter, I was trying to make it more exciting! But yeah, there is a 50% chance it will roll over again.

tl;dr - suggestive salesmanship