Lottery Buyers Command

Drayl

Firstly, not wanting to start any "lotteries are rigged" flamewars here, that can go in another thread.

However, I think it'd be nice to have a command where we can see the top 10 ticket buyers for each lottery? I'm not aware of any such thing, but it'd certainly help with...issues, plus one might be more inclined to buy more if they know the odds a bit more.

Just an Idea.

Kagato

Chances are they would want to keep it anonymous, if people see some people buying large amounts of tickets, others will get discouraged and not buy them, rendering the fact that something like this is largely a gold sink a moot point, or people will start pestering them to gift tickets, feeling that if they are rolling in so much gold that they can blow it on thousands of tickets that they should "share the love".

(Random trivia:  Roughly 57 million gold was drained from the economy in the recent lottery.)

Drayl

Kagato said:

Chances are they would want to keep it anonymous, if people see some people buying large amounts of tickets, others will get discouraged and not buy them, rendering the fact that something like this is largely a gold sink a moot point, or people will start pestering them to gift tickets, feeling that if they are rolling in so much gold that they can blow it on thousands of tickets that they should "share the love".

(Random trivia:  Roughly 57 million gold was drained from the economy in the recent lottery.)

Eh, keeping it anonymous wouldn't be a problem, still showing the ticket numbers. Maybe have it as an after-lottery dealie, if there is concern that sheer numbers will dissuade some?

Bryna

I spent way too much gold on this, most of which was Wheel gold with some hunting gold thrown in. I also bought a lot of people tickets, and hopefully some of them were winners.

http://pastebin.com/B9ajgXJg

Kiradawea

Bryna bought all the tickets. ALL OF THEM!

Bryna

I did, but my two major credit wins weren't even that far apart. I wasted a lot of gold really, and just got lucky.

Draylor

Kagato said:

(Random trivia:  Roughly 57 million gold was drained from the economy in the recent lottery.)

Gonna hazard a guess and say it was at least four times that amount.

Further, the idea presented here if not wise, in my opinion. These latest lotteries will ultimately help the economy massively in the long run. I personally feel that not knowing will help compound the realm-wide benefits that we will all soon reap.

Eventru

My only thought is that having it readily perceived might discourage people from buying ("Oh, someone put 10M gold into tickets, I won't waste my money").

Draylor

I was also wary about spending so much, but like Bryna, I guess I just got lucky and it paid off. I doubt I will spend that much next time. So many tickets. Not gonna post them, but let's just say, when I type LOTTERY 1, I lag. Pretty considerably, heh.

Iasmos

 

Draylor

Heh. Funny you say that. It was a few lucky roulette wins that helped me along

Asmodea

Perhaps for these types of lotteries we could cap the amount of tickets that someone can buy, that way it will even out the playing field so everyone who doesn't have millions of gold has a better chance.

Xenthos

Better idea: Make it so that buying tickets gets more expensive the more you have.

Eventru

Asmodea said:

Perhaps for these types of lotteries we could cap the amount of tickets that someone can buy, that way it will even out the playing field so everyone who doesn't have millions of gold has a better chance.

Why? Part of the advantage of lotteries is that it drains large sums of gold from the economy. Why deliberately limit that? In the same vein, if we're simply going to cap the number of tickets someone can buy, why not simply remove buying tickets and instead give everyone 1 and go from there?

I'm not trying to mock or dismiss, but I don't understand why lotteries should be capped. They aren't charity - they're lotteries. They're gambles. There's always the chance the big buyers won't win a lot. Indeed, I've seen lotteries where people own 30% of the tickets and never win anything (and someone who bought 5 won the 'big ultimate prize').

Hm hm. I'm just not convinced lottery ticket sales should be capped per person.

Xenthos

Eventru said:

Asmodea said:

Perhaps for these types of lotteries we could cap the amount of tickets that someone can buy, that way it will even out the playing field so everyone who doesn't have millions of gold has a better chance.

Why? Part of the advantage of lotteries is that it drains large sums of gold from the economy. Why deliberately limit that? In the same vein, if we're simply going to cap the number of tickets someone can buy, why not simply remove buying tickets and instead give everyone 1 and go from there?

I'm not trying to mock or dismiss, but I don't understand why lotteries should be capped. They aren't charity - they're lotteries. They're gambles. There's always the chance the big buyers won't win a lot. Indeed, I've seen lotteries where people own 30% of the tickets and never win anything (and someone who bought 5 won the 'big ultimate prize').

Hm hm. I'm just not convinced lottery ticket sales should be capped per person.

That's why I like my idea more!

Rivius

Your idea actually discourages buying too though and worsens the problem people are complaining about (people with more gold can buy more tickets). There's different types of lotteries, and after a lot of thinking, I think this one probably did a good job of being the gold sink it intended to be. The fact that some people are sitting on that much gold and could purchase that many tickets makes you realize how inflated things are...

Xenthos

Rivius said:

Your idea actually discourages buying too though and worsens the problem people are complaining about (people with more gold can buy more tickets). There's different types of lotteries, and after a lot of thinking, I think this one probably did a good job of being the gold sink it intended to be. The fact that some people are sitting on that much gold and could purchase that many tickets makes you realize how inflated things are...

Not necessarily, especially depending on how the curve is set up.

It doesn't really need to be a harsh curve (nor does it need to go to a high amount); but let's say the first 10 tickets bought cost 500 gold, the next 90 tickets cost 1000, the next 150 cost 1500, past that 2000; you're not really discouraging mass purchases of tickets, but you are reducing the number that go out in the end (giving everyone else who buys in at the lower rate a slightly better chance).

That's not really to say that I think it's required.  I'm fine with it as-is.  There are, however, options to make it slightly more weighted for people who buy fewer tickets (note that this idea would also have drained me further as I invested in a thousand personally and would have even if it cost a little more for the final bits).

If you have the gold you're willing to invest in it, as long as the price doesn't go absurdly high, you'll keep doing so.  You just get a little bit less of a chance for each gold coin thrown in.

Of course, that all depends on whether there is a feeling that "something should be done".  If not, no changes are needed.  Very easy!

Asmodea

Eventru said:

Asmodea said:

Perhaps for these types of lotteries we could cap the amount of tickets that someone can buy, that way it will even out the playing field so everyone who doesn't have millions of gold has a better chance.

Why? Part of the advantage of lotteries is that it drains large sums of gold from the economy. Why deliberately limit that? In the same vein, if we're simply going to cap the number of tickets someone can buy, why not simply remove buying tickets and instead give everyone 1 and go from there?

I'm not trying to mock or dismiss, but I don't understand why lotteries should be capped. They aren't charity - they're lotteries. They're gambles. There's always the chance the big buyers won't win a lot. Indeed, I've seen lotteries where people own 30% of the tickets and never win anything (and someone who bought 5 won the 'big ultimate prize').

Hm hm. I'm just not convinced lottery ticket sales should be capped per person.

Fair enough, was just a thought but you make a decent point.

Phoebus

Warning, I'm about to ramble/rant about my feelings on the effectiveness of gold sinks. You have been warned.

Kagato said:

(Random trivia:  Roughly 57 million gold was drained from the economy in the recent lottery.)

I sincerely doubt the many millions of gold that were spent to buy tickets actually left the economy. That maybe works if selling credits for gold didn't exist, but the fact that credits can come into the game from outside of its contained economy throws a wrench into the whole thing. Someone with access to credits sees, "if I put my gold into this, I'll get stuff! I better get SO MUCH GOLD so I can get stuff!" and thus sells credits to obtain so much gold to dump into it. But as people are accustomed to having piles of gold, they also sell enough to keep having piles of it after they've bought what they felt is a decent amount of shiny. Way more credits entered the market than were present right before the lotteries opened, all for prices that are just as outrageous as before. They have dropped more since the lottery closed, but lowest are still around 20k, with the majority being sold for 24k+.

Sure, some people don't have that option, and they didn't replace the gold they put in. I didn't, though I also "only" bought 480 tickets and generally "only" have like 200,000 gold at a time on average. But I guarantee you it didn't work that way for everyone who participated, and it doesn't work that way any time a new shiny thing to pour gold into comes up. I do not believe gold sinks are the magical economy bandaid there are hopes they can be. They do remove some gold, but they also encourage the sale of credits (credits which otherwise may have been used to purchase artifacts or for lessons) for gold at the same time. It's a war with human psychology. No one needs that much gold for anything, but to give it up and not replace it is not something that's going to come naturally or easily to most people.

Ssaliss

I think there is a fallacy in there: You say that it does drain gold, but at the same time encourages selling credits for gold. Those are not opposites in any way; gold leaves the system through the goldsink, but gold isn't created by selling credits for gold, only redistributed; someone lost just as much gold as the other person gained.

Phoebus

Ssaliss said:

I think there is a fallacy in there: You say that it does drain gold, but at the same time encourages selling credits for gold. Those are not opposites in any way; gold leaves the system through the goldsink, but gold isn't created by selling credits for gold, only redistributed; someone lost just as much gold as the other person gained.

People are also working harder to generate more gold from hunting/questing/whatever to be able to buy those credits. It wasn't meant to be a "this doesn't work at all", more like "I'm wary of thinking that this works perfectly". (I can see where it came off more as that way though.)

Edit because I'm really bad at being clear the first time I say something:

It's really the problem that people have had tons of gold and don't want to not have tons of gold anymore that's the issue. Most people aren't going to be satisfied with having less than they know they were able to have before, and will want to get back to that point. I'm not saying it's instant, which would definitely be gold that was already there, but that people will aim to get back to the same place they started from. Either by bashing it up themselves or selling credits to the people who did.

Ssaliss

That's why the gold sink would need to be an ongoing thing. Lotteries etc. don't actually solve the problem on a long-term basis, although it does drain a large amount of gold in a short time.

But I think we've kinda gotten sidetracked from the original topic.