An Open Letter On Promos

edited March 2017 in Common Grounds
Dear Lusternia,

I love you. When MKO threw me out into the street, cold, naked and hungry, you took me in. I had good times with her, but you treat me better than she did. You make me smile every day. We argue sometimes, but what we've got is real. And its because of that that I feel confident that I can tell you about something you do that hurts me. I know that our relationship can survive this genuine criticism.

This shizzle with the promos has got to stop. Here is my experience of this month's promo:

1) See the words Czigany, Crates, and Coins, in a single sentence and run around the house like I just won the lotto,
2) Calm down and note the price of 100cr per crate,
3) Go to see Jeremiah, and find that he's sold out,
4) Get mad and hit up forums,
5) Find out from various players that a few individuals (the sad thing is that I don't even have to name them here; see my later point) keep camping Jeremiah and buying him out,
6) Figure that the ONLY way I'm going to get crates before my withdrawal kicks in is to be standing at Jeremiah at the turn of the Weave with the bound credits ready and my Enter finger limbered up to spam,
7) Trade in a load of stuff so I can get all my crates in one batch,
8) Find that I misunderstood his respawn time - it's beginning of Month, not Weave
9) Hit forums again,
10) Finally catch him with crates, only to find that the price has now doubled with no clear announcement,
11) Find that, given the current cost of crates I seriously would have reconsidered some of these tradeins,
12) Hit forums again and write this post.

Now, here's a much shorter version of the above experience (and here's the kicker), which seems to be one that can fit the experience for a good many, on a good many months of the year:

1) See a promo,
2) Invest in it,
3) Find that, after you've invested, the promo has changed.

I love you, Lusty, but this isn't good enough. And its happening with enough regularity that it's affecting my affection for you. And it appears to be happening because a few people are abusing (I don't even use this word negatively; they're doing what anybody sitting on a billion bound credits would do) the systems in place, in entirely predictable ways. I mean, honestly, if you have a limited and coveted resource, then what's going to happen to it? Fair and equal distribution? And it seems that in most situations - I explicitly include the current promotion - the 'losers' of the nerf that comes along are not the people who abused it in the first place.

I love you, Lusty, and I want to be constructive. Consider the current promo: How difficult would it have been to make it so that each individual has a personal allocation of... what, 100 crates? (genuine question - I'm not a coder). Or to make Jeremiah's wares respawn more frequently, or at a random interval? Or to make a clear announce post when the information in the previous one is no longer accurate (if this was done somewhere I didn't see - quite possible! - then please accept my apology)? To reiterate, I don't grudge you making mistakes. I make one every now and then. But many of these problems seem to be entirely predictable.

One other suggestion (and I appreciate it's not your decision to make, so perhaps you could pass it up to the Big Boss?): Publish the promotion one week before it goes live each month. That gives you a week for the playerbase to tell you what's wrong with it (cf. TheseCrates; Chaos Discs; those utterly crazy crates in the aethersuit promo; goop scarves).

I love you. I want you. I need you.
E> Versalean, of Glomdoring <3

Comments

  • edited March 2017
    There should have been a clear announcement of price change.

    That was a bit bad that that wasn't done. Only a shout but you may not have been online for that.

    Admin were informed that this promo is so abuseable very soon after it came out.

    It's the second time something almost exactly like this has happened in the past half year or so, so it's not a one off.

    People knew it was broken as soon as they read the post it's why the crates were sold out right after. Also you didn't need to spend a penny to double or triple your credits if you had some.

  • RancouraRancoura the Last Nightwreathed Queen Canada
    edited March 2017
    Yea. The ninja-price increase was a pretty nasty cheap shot to those who bought credits/traded in artifacts; especially since there was no news post about it (seriously, why was there no news post?). I will add my disappointment in the way this was handled and how badly some players have been/still are being screwed over by this.

    Tonight amidst the mountaintops
    And endless starless night
    Singing how the wind was lost
    Before an earthly flight

  • Is every promo worth buying?
  • Xenthos said:
    Jarrul said:
    Is every promo worth buying?
    25,000 credits.
    Damn. I should have kept spinning instead of cashing out after my first few crates!
  • Not a 'hurry up' because it's the weekend and people are busy. Just tagging @Estarra in case this thread is overlooked because I think it really would be appreciated by a fair few people if Team Godmin could respond to this.
  • Admitting it was a mistake at the very least would go a long way with a lot of people. Acknowledge errors and seek to avoid them in future. Right now people feel very ignored over the way this is being handled. Not great feeling PR wise.
  • edited March 2017
    @estarra @ianir As someone who spun the wheel thousands of times, I thought I throw my two cents in this. Let's get this out of the way first, yes I came out ahead because of this promotion. However, the changes made because of this promo are absolutely insane. Goop has been completely devalued, increasing the bonuses which are already hard to reach without the promo doesn't make sense since they were not a driving factor in returns, not to mention wheel has been hurt for all future promotions because of this. There are several better solutions that I suggest gets looked into over this current fix. Limiting the number of crates that can be purchased a day would work or just increase the cost of crates. No one is spinning anymore because these changes have made the wheel worthless to spin. I know this will likely be ignored, even so please, consider the implications of the changes.

    Edit: I forgot this also hurts, poteens, genies, maps, and urtraps as well.
  • I'm glad something been done about this promo. I just wish that that something had been to read my letter and come to this thread for solutions. I thought it was pretty clear from what I wrote that the problem was the crates NOT the wheel of chance. As has been pointed out by others, this is a foot to the e-peen for a few other promo items, and the second FINISH HIM that ur'Traps have suffered in 12 months. And we still can't trade in ur'Traps. I got no words.
  • As someone who works in QA, often times I see bugs and issues resolved in unexpected ways. Sometimes coding and design restrictions create unique resolution demands. Admin are clearly trying to fix things. We are seeing constant adjustments.  I think things are being fixed. I will be patient :)
  • The actual promotion part - the kitten and puppy curios - are great. They're a nice mix of balanced effects and fun. It's just a shame that the crates overshadowed them. 

    I'd guess that the point of selling coin crates was grease the Wheel to open up kitten curio trading and to let people with credits get in on the fun. Trying to be nice, really. Instead, the wheel exploded and the used puppy market boomed. I just bought cheap completed curios and spent lots of credits on tailoring curios. Which are also great.
  • SelenitySelenity My first MC to stay in Serenwilde
    Dys said:
    The actual promotion part - the kitten and puppy curios - are great. They're a nice mix of balanced effects and fun. It's just a shame that the crates overshadowed them. 

    I'd guess that the point of selling coin crates was grease the Wheel to open up kitten curio trading and to let people with credits get in on the fun. Trying to be nice, really. Instead, the wheel exploded and the used puppy market boomed. I just bought cheap completed curios and spent lots of credits on tailoring curios. Which are also great.
    The way you phrased this makes it sound like the Wheel was a puppy mill.
  • Versalean said:
    I'm glad something been done about this promo. I just wish that that something had been to read my letter and come to this thread for solutions. I thought it was pretty clear from what I wrote that the problem was the crates NOT the wheel of chance. As has been pointed out by others, this is a foot to the e-peen for a few other promo items, and the second FINISH HIM that ur'Traps have suffered in 12 months. And we still can't trade in ur'Traps. I got no words.
    Ur'traps actually got buffed randomly with the change to goop months ago. I would argue that genies/maps/traps/poteens were too good. There is a reason why I have built two full sets of genies and why there are people spam reading over one hundred maps. The change doesn't kill any of these. It just makes them slightly less lucrative.
  • I understand that there's probably nothing that can be done now, and maybe it wasn't even something that the admin had much control over at the time, but I really wish the whole promotion had been handled differently after it was clear there was a problem.

    If the whole point of promotions is to entice players to spend money on the game, then I think there's at least some obligation to think carefully about how to walk back an offer that turns out to be too good to be true. As a customer, I don't like feeling cheated about a product that otherwise deserves every ounce of support it can get, regardless of how small my purchases might be relative to some of the others.

    While I did receive the credits I purchased on the first day of the promotion as promised, along with the side benefit of the curios, I was buying specifically to be able to take advantage of the advertised coins for sale. By the time that was mechanically allowed, the exchange rate in game currencies had been halved, and the wheel rewards had been lowered twice, despite apparently huge volumes of rewards being generated somehow. Even now, it's very unclear to me exactly how much worse the wheel is compared to what it was before, and communication generally about how the promotion has changed over that time was fairly sketchy.

    Some things I would recommend for any future cases like this:
    • If you have to significantly change the value of a promotion that players have already participated in, consider offering exchanges or refunds. It's painful and messy, I get that, but it's just a hazard of being in business and making a mistake about a product you sell. It happens, it's not the end of the world.
    • If the promotion is so lucrative that it threatens either the in-game economy or the potential future revenue of the game if it continues, seriously think about rolling back the whole thing. Offer consolation prizes, give affected players extra bonuses when the revised promotion restarts, do whatever it takes to mollify the few who almost got the chance to print their own money, but don't promote the idea that it's in your interest to exploit a poorly thought out design because you'll just miss out if you don't.
    • As soon as it's obvious there's a problem that needs fixing, communicate it. A simple login message that said "we know there is a problem with coin crates at the moment, please bear with us as we work out a solution so that everyone can get their chance at this great offer" would have gone a long, long way. The moment terms of an offer changes, be up front with players about it. If there's an announce post saying you can buy 25 coins for 100 credits this month, the moment that is no longer true, put up a new announce post that indicates the new state of play, along with an apology/reason for why that is the case, and any recourse that's available if you attempted to take advantage of the previous offer but couldn't.

    Anyway, my sense is that the whole coin thing was probably just a random afterthought for this month, and was intended in all sincerity to be a generous extra gift/bonus to players that the marketing team was under no obligation to provide. I can only imagine how discouraging the negative feedback has been, if that was the case, and I'm sorry to have added to the frustration felt on both sides.

    Let's just hope we can improve the process for next time!
  • edited March 2017
    Elryn said:

    • As soon as it's obvious there's a problem that needs fixing, communicate it. A simple login message that said "we know there is a problem with coin crates at the moment, please bear with us as we work out a solution so that everyone can get their chance at this great offer" would have gone a long, long way. The moment terms of an offer changes, be up front with players about it. If there's an announce post saying you can buy 25 coins for 100 credits this month, the moment that is no longer true, put up a new announce post that indicates the new state of play, along with an apology/reason for why that is the case, and any recourse that's available if you attempted to take advantage of the previous offer but couldn't.

    Thats a big thing, I know a few people got screwed over because there was no announce post or changelog informing that the price had been increased or that the wheel had been nerfed at certain points. 
  • @Czixi just linking you into here with your response on the other thread about the offers. An admin response on this one would be cool as well.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Veyils said:
    @Czixi just linking you into here with your response on the other thread about the offers. An admin response on this one would be cool as well.
    ... please don't ping random volunteers who have nothing to do with promotions and are just trying to maintain some forum civility.
    image
  • Xenthos said:
    Veyils said:
    XXXX just linking you into here with your response on the other thread about the offers. An admin response on this one would be cool as well.
    ... please don't ping random volunteers who have nothing to do with promotions and are just trying to maintain some forum civility.
    "Okay Google: What is forum civility?"
  • Thank you. 

    I think what what most people don't appreciate is that business (and life for that matter) takes time. We can't expect immediate results all the time and if we're willing to hold off a bit and be patient rather than jumping at the chance to make things worse, things will eventually work out. 

    There are a lot of hurt people in this situation, so thank you for responding even if it wasn't the split second people began demanding it.
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