ANSWERED:Raffle Rethink?

[KageSora]

Personally, I favor between 0.5% and 1% for prizes awarded PER USER WHO ENTERS THE RAFFLE. Not per entry because you may be allowed more than one entry like this year. I prefer 1%, but I'd rather see more initial ones than less--true, we hit the wall faster, BUT there is also a greater chance of lower-gens being more spread out so the ones in circulation are more desirable to those who favor lineages (since, if you don't care about lineages, it won't matter one way or another what it looks like).

[drabrugon]

I think we should start with a poll saying if we should hide the number of prizes or not. It's a yes or no question so that make things a bit easier and it's the easist for TJ to do.

 

Perhaps this:

-Yes, you should absolutely keep it hidden.

-Yes, we should keep it hidden.

-Yes, we should probably keep it hidden.

-Maybe, leaning towards keeping it hidden.

-Maybe, I can't decide.

-Maybe, leaning towards keeping it public.

-No, we should probably keep it public.

-No, we should keep it public.

-No, we should absolutely keep it public.

-I have no idea.

-I don't understand.

-No raffle at all.

Feel free to revise and edit to your needs or you could trash it.

I am not sure, but I have the feeling that we do not need a poll about hiding the number of prizes given out anymore. Somehow the post in which TJ announces the raffle looks like he has already thought about that.

 

 

Honestly I couldn't vote in case that the next poll is about how many prizes should be given out. I haven't got a clue how the ratios work and that is why I can not decide what number of prizes would be too much. Does anyone know if Tinsels are meant to be "rare" and this is why they already stopped breeding? If this is the case would it be a good thing to make the new prizes "uncommon" when giving out more? Will the period in which they can breed be longer then? Sorry, I really have no idea how the ratios work, I guess I am asking nonsence.

 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

I think we should start with a poll saying if we should hide the number of prizes or not. It's a yes or no question so that make things a bit easier and it's the easist for TJ to do.

 

Perhaps this:

-Yes, you should absolutely keep it hidden.

-Yes, we should keep it hidden.

-Yes, we should probably keep it hidden.

-Maybe, leaning towards keeping it hidden.

-Maybe, I can't decide.

-Maybe, leaning towards keeping it public.

-No, we should probably keep it public.

-No, we should keep it public.

-No, we should absolutely keep it public.

-I have no idea.

-I don't understand.

-No raffle at all.

Feel free to revise and edit to your needs or you could trash it.

WAY too many options there !

 

Should the number of prizes awarded be made public ?

 

Yes

Maybe

No

Other (please explain)

 

(not that they will)

 

And you cannot have two topics in one poll.

 

If people want one about restrictions, how is

 

Should there be restrictions on who can enter DC raffles ?

 

Yes - bronze trophy holders only

Yes - only players with 10+ adults

Yes - only players who have been playing over 6 months

No - everyone who completes the required task should have a chance

 

I favour a 1% prize/entries ratio. Don't forget - those who completed have about 20 entries each.... ! Also it will make more available, to allow for those who choose not to breed - for whatever reason.

 

[TheGrox]

Firstly, I don't think we should get confused here, some of us are talking about percentages of entries winning, whilst others are talking about percentages of people who enter winning. I just wanted to make that distinction clear. =)

 

fuzzbucket, assuming 20 entries per active user, and around 50000 active users, that means 1 million entries. 1% of 1 million entries is 10000. Are you sure you want 10000 winning entries, fuzz? Seems way too many to me. =/

[Draikinator]

Honestly, maybe the prizes shouldn't be rares at all. Maybe making them massively rare and exclusive like the tinsels is just too much for something decided entirely by chance. Maybe a few thousand should be given out, maybe they should just be uncommons.

[TheGrox]

As far as I know, Tinsels were meant to be rare. They were only so common for a time because the ratios had to sort of catch up. I would prefer prizes not to be this rare, to be honest. I would have preferred a steady decline in their breeding until they were maybe as uncommon as trios, but not much more. The current situation is just frustrating .

 

I still don't think we should give out loads of prizes. Maybe 2 or 3 times more than last year, but no more. Because if we give out thousands, they'll breed well for a couple of weeks, then go like Tinsels are now. Unless they are meant to be commons, and then they'll breed really well for ages, until they flood the AP and overwhelm trades - then only 2nd gens would have any value at all.

Edited January 5, 2013 by TheGrox

[Fuzzbucket]

Firstly, I don't think we should get confused here, some of us are talking about percentages of entries winning, whilst others are talking about percentages of people who enter winning. I just wanted to make that distinction clear. =)

 

fuzzbucket, assuming 20 entries per active user, and around 50000 active users, that means 1 million entries. 1% of 1 million entries is 10000. Are you sure you want 10000 winning entries, fuzz? Seems way too many to me. =/

Well - if people could only win one prize...

 

But I suppose that is rather a lot.... each entry has a chance of being drawn.... (Hang on....it is a max of 40 entries per person - one per red starred recipe, no ?)

 

Um... OK - whatever releases 1000 prizes ? 500 ?? I do think 100 is WAY too few. And I do think it needs to be proportional somehow; just think if there were 500 prizes and in the event only 503 people entered...

 

I think TJ can work out the proportion to make the chance rather better/sensible. I do know that the UK lottery thing where you have, as I recall, about a 1 in 14million chance of the biggie is TOTALLY silly.

[Draikinator]

I realize tinsels were meant to be rare, what I'm saying is, prizes like this just... shouldn't be meant to be. Getting something there is only thirty of and is super rare is, well, again, a license to print money. That's completely unfair and unbalancing- if it was for something like an art contest or like the spriter alts for holidays it would make sense. But for a raffle? It's random. 30 people just happened to get pulled and now can get anything they want ever. That's not fair at all.

I think prizes should be uncommon or just over, several thousand given out. And the ratios shouldn't treat them like rares, treat them like uncommons so they aren't an end all collectable thing like tinsels- sure, rares are great, but if you have a CB tinsel you can STILL trade second gen TinselFAILS for almost anything. That's completely outrageous for a completely chance determined raffle.

[skauble]

Honestly I couldn't vote in case that the next poll is about how many prizes should be given out. I haven't got a clue how the ratios work and that is why I can not decide what number of prizes would be too much. Does anyone know if Tinsels are meant to be "rare" and this is why they already stopped breeding? If this is the case would it be a good thing to make the new prizes "uncommon" when giving out more? Will the period in which they can breed be longer then? Sorry, I really have no idea how the ratios work, I guess I am asking nonsence.

That's the thing about the debates once they get into actual numbers - we're all just shooting in the dark. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, because it can give an idea of what we might like, just that a lot of it is kind of meaningless, for practical purposes, because we have little to no knowledge of the site's states, entry stats, ratio stats, etc.

 

So there's no actual consensus we can really come to other than - more, same, or less. And that's especially true because, as people pointed out above, this raffle was a little more effort intensive than last year's and forum goers probably did better at it. So for all we know, the amount of entries/entrants may be quite different than what we're assuming based on previous years.

 

I will say this, in case it helps us worry a bit less. I remember, a few years back, when the Vamps started biting and someone said that they were concerned that at the given percentages at which they seemed to be successful, not successful, and repulsing that they'd soon become not as rare as they were intended to be. And TJ said something to the effect of that he'd already taken those things into account in regard to the rarity they were intended to have. So I think that there's a broader picture that he can see about release numbers, and breeding potential and population growth that will allow him to figure out the right balance (whether it stays the same or changes) without us actually having to break out too much math.

 

So whether we get it or not, I think that simply rounding up the more vote, the less vote, the none vote, and the status quo votes would probably be the useful info we could give on this.

[TheGrox]

@Fuzz: But loads of people still enter the lottery, don't they?

 

Okay, let's carry on assuming 50000 active users enter. And maybe each gets an average of 30 out of the possible 40 recipe entries (it is probably more, but...). To give 100 winning entries, it would need to be about 0.007% of entries. 500 winners would be about 0.03%. 1000 about 0.06%. My point here: percentages can sound incredibly small, but when you apply them to a large amount of active players, it still means a lot of prizes.

 

Anyway, I don't think we should get too hung up on the exact percentages (although I do like showing off my maths skills ). Maybe we should stick to how many people should win, and forget about how many entries should win? Because percentages of entries can be worked out later, if a number of players is decided. And only TJ knows the exact amount of entries anyway, I'm just estimating.

 

If we have 50000 active players, 2% of them is 1000 winners, 1% is 500 winners, 0.2% is 100 winners. Or you can just think of it as 1% is one out of every 100 active players winning a prize.

Edited January 5, 2013 by TheGrox

[MedievalMystic]

I've learned a thing or two in my oh so ancient age. LIFE isn't fair. The sooner that people get used to the idea, and accept it, the better, imho. And I think TJ is making this raffle as fair as it can be. Get rid of raffles like this... why? Because not everyone on the site wins? To me, that's just not good enough. I like things the way the are and I personally hope TJ does events...and prizes...like this every single year from now until armegeddon gets here and I hope those dragons are as rare as the Holly. lol

 

 

Everyone on this site is always talking about 'spreading the love'. Yes, well, why not spread some of that 'love' to the winners of prizes around here? I'm thrilled with these events and their prizes, even if I don't get one. Why? Because next year it could be ME that wins. ha ha

[Hailwidis]

My concern is that we're overthinking and bickering about this and in the meantime the raffle results just aren't coming.

 

I don't know if there is a link between the disagreement and opinions in this thread and the delay in raffle results but I can't help but wonder.

 

Either way no agreement is being reached here and ultimately we don't even know what TJ thinks of the whole discussion. Why don't we just wait and see how things go this year, with a raffle system (since it has already been announced and organised) and then assess this year's results and take them into account for possible changes in the coming years? I can tell you, some people are getting tired of waiting and would be glad to see this whole raffle come to a conclusion.

 

If we confirm that the amount of prizes is too low or criteria need to be added in order to enter the raffle, then that's great. But this raffle was announced a couple of weeks ago and TJ probably already had a system in mind, so it's a bit late to try and alter that now, no? I'm sure he had already thought things out carefully in the first place. I say the discussion should be ongoing and determine next year's event, but please, please, just leave it at that for this year and let's have those results!

Edited January 5, 2013 by Hailwidis

[DarkEternity]

Spam removed. Edited January 10, 2013 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Anna Selka]

My concern is that we're overthinking and bickering about this and in the meantime the raffle results just aren't coming.

 

I don't know if there is a link between the disagreement and opinions in this thread and the delay in raffle results but I can't help but wonder.

 

Either way no agreement is being reached here and ultimately we don't even know what TJ thinks of the whole discussion. Why don't we just wait and see how things go this year, with a raffle system (since it has already been announced and organised) and then assess this year's results and take them into account for possible changes in the coming years? I can tell you, some people are getting tired of waiting and would be glad to see this whole raffle come to a conclusion.

 

If we confirm that the amount of prizes is too low or criteria need to be added in order to enter the raffle, then that's great. But this raffle was announced a couple of weeks ago and TJ probably already had a system in mind, so it's a bit late to try and alter that now, no? I'm sure he had already thought things out carefully in the first place. I say the discussion should be ongoing and determine next year's event, but please, please, just leave it at that for this year and let's have those results!

Quoted for absolute truth. We're not sisters for nothing

[TheGrox]

Spam removed. Edited January 10, 2013 by SockPuppet Strangler

[skauble]

My concern is that we're overthinking and bickering about this and in the meantime the raffle results just aren't coming.

 

I don't know if there is a link between the disagreement and opinions in this thread and the delay in raffle results but I can't help but wonder.

 

Either way no agreement is being reached here and ultimately we don't even know what TJ thinks of the whole discussion. Why don't we just wait and see how things go this year, with a raffle system (since it has already been announced and organised) and then assess this year's results and take them into account for possible changes in the coming years? I can tell you, some people are getting tired of waiting and would be glad to see this whole raffle come to a conclusion.

 

If we confirm that the amount of prizes is too low or criteria need to be added in order to enter the raffle, then that's great. But this raffle was announced a couple of weeks ago and TJ probably already had a system in mind, so it's a bit late to try and alter that now, no? I'm sure he had already thought things out carefully in the first place. I say the discussion should be ongoing and determine next year's event, but please, please, just leave it at that for this year and let's have those results!

Personally, I don't think that there's a link between this thread and the release of the results. As far as holiday discussions go this one is very mild and confined to one appropriately placed thread. And given that we've proven we can discuss the same subjects for years, I doubt TJ's going to hold off until we make up our minds.

 

I do agree that this year's raffle is probably all set and seeing how that plays out (since I believe that TJ didn't specify prize numbers) is a prudent course of action, and most thoughts should be aimed at next year.

[drabrugon]

I am afraid I will completely disgrace myself now, but I have to ask:

 

If I understood you right, Tinsels are meant to be rare. Does that mean if TJ would decide to make them uncommon they are going to breed again?

 

To me it seems to be a precondition to make Prizes uncommon if there should be given out more to make sure that they won't stop breeding after the first few month. But I doubt that most people would like to see them uncommon because they wouldn't be worth much in trades then.

 

On the other hand, for those who want to use Prizes for lineages it would be best if they would be a little more common. As a person who is still here after years I have to confess that lineages are THE aspect of the game that always make sure that I am around. It was way easier for me to stop smoking than it is to stop collecting eggs for lineage projects . For me a dragon can not be common enough, because that make lineages a lot easier to do and getting the right egg from commons is challenge enough for me.

 

But I do not see that there can be a solution for both sides - the players who enjoy lineages and those who focus on value based trades. Maybe people have to decide what is more important for them, but I am afraid it is 50 - 50. All discussion goes round in circles.

 

Maybe we need some kind of "anti-prize" because nothing we can find in the cave has the same value as 2nd gen prizes. I know I am dreaming but a platinum or diamond dragon would be cool. I know - there are to many people who have problems of getting a CB Gold at all.... it was just a thought.

Edited January 5, 2013 by drabrugon

[skauble]

But I do not see that there can be a solution for both sides - the players who enjoy lineages and those who focus on value based trades. Maybe people have to decide what is more important for them, but I am afraid it is 50 - 50. All discussion goes round in circles.

 

I think that, other than a small increase in prize dragons, the answer that would probably be best is a slow build up to an uncommon status. That means that the dragons would be rare at first - good for trades, but end up much easier to get over time - good for lineages. The thing is, that if the Tinsel drought was just a brief adjustment (which it seems it was since they look to be coming back), then that could very well be how they end up.

 

If it works like that, even 2nd gen Tinsels will probably level off in value as there won't be a lot of new pairings to be bred. Yes, the value will go up with each new breed release that can be paired with the CB Tin, but a lot of people who long for a Tinsel/X pairing will be happy to get a 3rd gen, so the prices won't be as steep.

 

Also, if the prize dragons change up every two years, that will help because it means that the new owners get the same window of rarity before settling into a levelled off rate.

 

Maybe we need some kind of "anti-prize" because nothing we can find in the cave has the same value as 2nd gen prizes. I know I am dreaming but a platinum or diamond dragon would be cool. I know -  there are to many people who have problems of getting a CB Gold at all.... it was just a thought.

 

I do have to admit, though, that I would like to see another rare added to the main cave.

[WraithZephyr]

Firstly, I don't think we should get confused here, some of us are talking about percentages of entries winning, whilst others are talking about percentages of people who enter winning. I just wanted to make that distinction clear. =)

 

fuzzbucket, assuming 20 entries per active user, and around 50000 active users, that means 1 million entries. 1% of 1 million entries is 10000. Are you sure you want 10000 winning entries, fuzz? Seems way too many to me. =/

"Active user" is the wrong word to use here. There are tons of active users who didn't bother to enter the raffle. The words implied you want those people to have a chance to win for doing absolutely nothing and drastically reduce the chances for winning for those who worked hard to make all those recipes for their raffle entries.

 

Over a 3 day period about 200,000 CB Christmas dragons dropped in the cave. It's more than that, but 200,000 is a relatively safe number to play with here. Each person is permitted 2 dragons so for this discussion we assume 100,000 "active users" . How many of those active users choose to actually participate in the raffle is anyone's guess (unless TJ tells us).

 

So here we are looking at deciding on whether to select winners from a percentage of the individual raffle entries or from a percentage of individual raffle participants, but it really becomes a discussion that leads to only one answer... choosing winners based on a percentage of individual participants - not individual entries.

 

We have our theoretical 100,000 active user base. Let's assume that 50% of them chose to participate in the raffle which gives us 50,000 raffle participants.

 

We can safely say that each raffle participant has made a minimum of 1 recipe (otherwise they would not have been able to get into the raffle in the first place). However, each participant does have the ability to earn a maximum of 40 entries. So the total number of individual raffle entries could be anywhere between 50,000 and 2 million. If the winning percentage of individual raffle entries is 1%, we could have between 500 & 20,000 winners.

 

But, we have to keep in mind that there is the possibility that some participant's names could be drawn two or more times due to the multiple entries each person could earn. If winners are selected based solely on entries drawn, then we MUST allow those lucky few to win multiple prizes because the drawing is based on individual entries - not individual participants. Of course, the unlucky losers would be in a complete uproar/riot over that and screaming all kinds of foul words if that were allowed to happen. So to keep it all "fair" and stop a person from winning 2+ prizes, blah blah blah, that would mean having to throw out all duplicate entries to prevent this from ever happening. But, that means we've come full circle as the winners are now simply being drawn based on the number of individual participants rather than on individual entries.

 

1% of Participants = 500 winners

 

 

 

I am afraid I will completely disgrace myself now, but I have to ask:

 

If I understood you right, Tinsels are meant to be rare. Does that mean if TJ would decide to make them uncommon they are going to breed again?

 

yes.. When tinsels first came out they bred like rabbits, but eventually they stopped producing freely because they finally reached their "rare" ratio for their breed. If TJ were to switch Tinsels from rare to uncommon then Tinsels would once again start popping out eggs like crazy until the new ratio is reached and then would slow down/stop again. This is what happened a few years ago during the great "rare" glitch.. golds and silvers somehow ended up getting switched from rare to uncommon and suddenly breedings were regularly producing 1-4 gold/silver eggs (multi-clutching for all dragons was still possible back then) and the cave was also spitting out as many as 4+golds/silvers per hourly drop (I know I managed to catch 5 in one hours time). The value of the dragons plummeted. People were finding it hard to get anything for a CB silver for example... and if it had a lineage (especially a messy or inbred), it was essentially worthless. After the glitch was fixed it took close to 2 years before the ratios were back in balance for golds/silvers.

Edited January 5, 2013 by WraithZephyr

[purplehaze]

But, we have to keep in mind that there is the possibility that some participant's names could be drawn two or more times due to the multiple entries each person could earn. If winners are selected based solely on entries drawn, then we MUST allow those lucky few to win multiple prizes because the drawing is based on individual entries - not individual participants.  Of course, the unlucky losers would be in a complete uproar/riot over that and screaming all kinds of foul words if that were allowed to happen.  So to keep it all "fair" and stop a person from winning 2+ prizes, blah blah blah, that would mean having to throw out all duplicate entries to prevent this from ever happening.  But, that means we've come full circle as the winners are now simply being drawn based on the number of individual participants rather than on individual entries. 

 

1% of Participants = 500 winners

I think that the chance of one person being drawn more than once is fairly slim. Yes, it could happen, but I don't think your solution is the only possible way to prevent it. How about if once a person has won a prize, all further entries by that person are invalidated. Still gives everyone a chance of winning one prize based on the number of entries they had, which I think is all most of us reasonably want, but keeps anyone from winning more than one.

Edited January 5, 2013 by purplehaze

[CNR4806]

I think that the chance of one person being drawn more than once is fairly slim. Yes, it could happen, but I don't think your solution is the only possible way to prevent it. How about if once a person has won a prize, all further entries by that person are invalidated. Still gives everyone a chance of winning one prize based on the number of entries they had, which I think is all most of us reasonably want, but keeps anyone from winning more than one.

This IS the normal and logical solution instead of nuking the extras.

[TheGrox]

"Active user" is the wrong word to use here. There are tons of active users who didn't bother to enter the raffle. The words implied you want those people to have a chance to win for doing absolutely nothing and drastically reduce the chances for winning for those who worked hard to make all those recipes for their raffle entries.

 

Over a 3 day period about 200,000 CB Christmas dragons dropped in the cave. It's more than that, but 200,000 is a relatively safe number to play with here. Each person is permitted 2 dragons so for this discussion we assume 100,000 "active users" . How many of those active users choose to actually participate in the raffle is anyone's guess (unless TJ tells us).

I see, my use of wording wasn't very good there. I did mean to put 'participating users', rather than just active users. I think most people knew what I meant, though.

 

Just wondering too, how do you know there were 200000 Christmas's dropped? I'm not questioning it, I'm just curious. c:

 

As I stated, my calculations were based on assumptions about numbers of users participating - that's why I took it as an average of 20 entries per participant, and not the full 40.

[Fuzzbucket]

I imagine it was said in IRC - that kind of info does come up there.

 

Wraith's not the type to draw a number out of the hat, no she isn't !

 

As to one person winning more than one prize - I feel QUITE sure that TJ has already thought of that and will have measures in place if he minds.

 

I think 500 sounds about right, and seems to be proportionally right too. I had an "active" player in the house who collected about three ingredients and decided not to bother.

[WraithZephyr]

Just wondering too, how do you know there were 200000 Christmas's dropped? I'm not questioning it, I'm just curious. c:

I based my 200,000 on 500 eggs per hour dropped x 72 hours (3 days) x 6 caves = 216,000 Christmas eggs. I rounded the number down.

 

Back when there was one cave, the average hourly drop had been figured to be around 300 eggs. During holidays because of the increase in traffic and people wanting limited edition eggs, the amount was estimated to be about 500 egg per hour. During holiday releases, the 5 minute drops sometimes are increased to put out more than the normal 3 eggs. And during the first hour or so of a holiday release, there may be extra full drops added in to help appease the initial mad rush that hits at midnight... so that first hour for example could potentially have 2 or 3 full drops worth of eggs instead of 1.

 

Now we have 6 caves instead of 1. The regular drops of ~300 eggs get divided between the 6 caves now. However, the Christmas dragons are in all caves and there is always a huge influx of people showing up for them. We also have far more users than we did back when there was 1 cave and when we originally came about with our drop estimates during a discussion on the forums years ago. So the 500 per hour drop for 1 cave is still a valid estimate I think.

 

Because this is a Christmas release that's 3 days worth of eggs dropping instead of 1 day. By day 3 most anyone who wanted Christmas eggs has them so the drops don't move as fast like day 1 & 2. To help balance the slowdown I chose to round down from the initial 216,000 number. I chose to not figure in potential extra drops during the initial start of the holiday release. I also chose to not figure in the 5 min. drop eggs counts. The 5 min. drops could have potentially tacked on another 15,000-30,000 eggs depending on if the drops were 3 or 6 egg based.

 

 

 

I think that the chance of one person being drawn more than once is fairly slim. Yes, it could happen, but I don't think your solution is the only possible way to prevent it. How about if once a person has won a prize, all further entries by that person are invalidated. Still gives everyone a chance of winning one prize based on the number of entries they had, which I think is all most of us reasonably want, but keeps anyone from winning more than one.

 

That only works if that is very clearly stated before the raffle ever starts that your extra entries are subject to being thrown out if you are drawn as a winner. If the rules of the raffle don't say that it's limited to 1 prize per winner (regardless of number of total entries per person), then it would be flat out wrong to try and change the rules mid-game after the raffle has started and punish someone for having had the good luck to get 2 or more of their entries drawn as a winner and then denying them their legitimately won prizes.

 

If a person goes out and plays bingo.. they can play one card or they can play multiple cards per round. If they are someone who plays multiple cards they have the potential to win more than once during any single round of play. So let's say during a round of play, one person happens to get lucky and call 2 bingo's and another person calls one bingo. The money pot for that round of play is split 3 ways - not 2. There were 3 winning cards even though there are only 2 persons winning.

 

Same goes for money lotteries. Big prize of $40 million turns out to have had 5 winning tickets sold. If one person happened to own 2 of those winning tickets then they are entitled to get 2 of the 5 shares of the winnings. The pot is not divided equally between 4 persons.

Edited January 5, 2013 by WraithZephyr

[siliconrose]

I based my 200,000 on 500 eggs per hour dropped x 72 hours (3 days) x 6 caves = 216,000 Christmas eggs. I rounded the number down.

Quote mostly unrelated, but...

 

TJ's resume stated that there were 40,000 active users on DC. That's probably a better number than trying to estimate off of the number of Christmas dragons dropped over the course of the Christmas release.