Posted January 12, 2014 Here is my opinion. First off. Things like this have made me leave games before. By this, I mean something impossible to get. It bothers me that in a game where, for me, creating lineages is the -best- part, I can't create a lineage I want. The numbers. OK. They doubled. Now, I've heard estimates from 50k users to 70k that entered the raffle. 150 out of that is literally not even a drop in the bucket. We need a much higher number. In a game where the majority of us are hoarders (myself among them), the low numbers just... aren't enough. It's not good for the community, it breeds resentment. Everyone wants a 2G, and while yes, I'm sure some have been gifted, for the majority of us 2Gs are completely beyond our reach. I know some people want the trade value to stay up there in the outer edges of the universe. I think it needs to come down. It is never good to have something so insanely priced, it really isn't. I don't understand why TJ left the numbers so low. (If you'd explain, I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to know your reasoning.) I can kind of understand 'exclusive' dragons, etc. To me, exclusives are CB Solstices now. But we all could get one if we had room and were there. With the prizes... It just reminds me of other games where you see people with this leet stuff that you'll never have. (Even if everyone who wins this year gifted every single shimmer/tinsel offspring, that wouldn't come close to even a decent fraction of us getting 2Gs.) A lot of us play games to get away from life's realities, not to be reminded of them. Okay, I know, I know, I shouldn't rant. I just really don't think this is fair or really good for DC. And don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the winners! I just think there should have been more. I'm not going to provide actual numbers (I'm not even going to speak in relation to the actual numbers; I don't know them off the top of my head though I have looked at them before), but basing your rage off of unconfirmed "estimates" that have almost no real-world basis seems like a bad idea. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) I don't think anyone can speak for all players. Plenty of people have fun congratulating the winners, enjoying the excitement, trading for offspring, seeing what dragon types, codes, and names the winners pick and if any cool trends crop up (like the Eric Clapton/Layla lineage), and don't get bent out of shape that they didn't win. If you'd like more winners, that's all well and good. But there's nothing "unfair" about the raffle. We all get one entry, the winners are chosen, there's 150 winners (not 1, not 3, not 10... 150!). I don't have any problem with some people *wishing* for more winners to be chosen, but it's silly to call the game "unfair" just because you *want* more prizes to be handed out. Of course not, but it doesn't mean there aren't a lot of disappointed people posting in the news thread and that alone makes me not like this raffle at all. It's not fun for me if it makes other people feel miserable/sad/tired/frustrated honestly It is unfair in a way that, in a community of 30,000+ players, less than 100 players have control over the cave born versions of a breed - which means they have control over the lineages we can make. The process of choosing a winner is fair, but not what it transmits. Also, I don't remember bringing up the fairness of the raffle (if it was directed at me) in my two comments, so I don't understand why you are calling my "argument" (it was just a comment about the way I feel) silly...? And it's obviously not only me who wants more winners, else this thread wouldn't even exist. @TJ09: You can't really blame people for shooting random numbers (good idea or not) based on online users/forum members if you don't provide the actual numbers at all ^^' It's silly to create a whole argument on that basis of invisible numbers, I agree with you there, but we do realize how big the community is and how low the chance of winning is and it's stressing for some people knowing that they will be playing for years and never win anything Edited January 12, 2014 by LaHaine Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) I guess it seems that some players believe they can not be happy without a CB Prize Dragon on their scroll. I don't know why that's the deal-breaker for having fun in the game or not. Why is it "unfair" that there is *one* dragon you may not ever have a CB of on your scroll? You can collect three hundred of the sprites, they just won't be CB. DC is primary a collecting game, or at least it is for me. So, the more things there are that I can never collect, the less fun the game becomes for me, because it reminds me more of the real world that I play games to escape. There are other things I'll never be able to get, of course, but by and large I can dismiss them. I'm not reminded on a daily basis that I don't have a CB Holly, or a white-winged Snow Angel. But CB Prizes? I am reminded of those nearly every time I visit a trading thread, and every year I get my hopes up only to have them fall again. Such a feeling of hopelessness in a game isn't fun. DC used to divide all the rarest things into "these will be hard to get, but you can do it" and "no, you can never get this, but you'll only be reminded of it during Holidays--and maybe you can hunt down a free 2g." But CB Prizes are "no matter how hard you try, you'll likely never get it, and you'll be reminded of this fact almost daily." Many of the ideas to bring back exclusives, ideas I would love to see implemented, have all but been 100% shut down. Pleas haven't brought back Old Pinks and Frills. Some of the Holiday spriters are against the re-release of past Holidays as CBs. But while those things thus now seem impossible, the raffle still hasn't gotten a firm declaration that things will never change, so it's here that I'll make my push. (Oh, to add in another thing. One other thing I liked about DC originally was that generally, the longer you stuck around, the more top tier you became. You could work your way up, so to speak, even if it took ages. But now the top tier is all but unobtainable, and winners aren't just affluent players, they're practically celebrities. I can list several prize owners offhand... something I can't do for more than one or two of the people who have large numbers of CB Neglecteds and Metals, because to many, those things are now nothing more than trade fodder to use for the other things X___x) Edited January 12, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 @TJ: Pretty sure the 60k number comes from the forum memberlist; even accounting for half of the names on that list not playing and assuming that all players are also forum members, 150 is still less than 1%. People are upset because without any visible numbers it looks like you're running a lottery, not a raffle. @Not-TJ: Low-gen Prizes are scarce to a degree unmatched by any other dragon in the game. I can grab CB Metals. I can theoretically make a Neglected. I can catch 2nd-gen Hollies, with a bit of luck and persistence. I cannot get a low-gen Prize without selling my firstborn, my kidneys, and my firstborn's kidneys. It's not fun or good to have a dragon so incredibly scarce. And yeah, I'm not sure where people get the idea that we thought the process itself was unfair? The process is perfectly fair, it's the effects it has on the rest of the game that isn't. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) Is there anyway we could have more raffles? I feel that the odds are fine (can't make it too easy now when most people have collected all the other cb rares) but I'd like to be able to try again without waiting an entire year. Edited January 12, 2014 by Sarah864 Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 This is what I'm getting at. When you assume, you make an ass of you and me? Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 Is there anyway we could have more raffles? I feel that the odds are fine (can't make it too easy now when most people have collected all the other cb rares) but I'd like to be able to try again without waiting an entire year. That's suggestion #2 Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 This is what I'm getting at. Well, it would be nice if we had some numbers so that we don't have to assume. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) This is what I'm getting at. Most statistics come from assumptions. No one is gonna count all grass blades to know how many there are in a football field, we assume the total count based on how many we know there are in a fixed size. Since the only numbers we have is the forum count and the number of entries in the first year (edit: of the tinsels), we estimate the entries are between those numbers Edited January 12, 2014 by LaHaine Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 I was not under the impression that a percent chance of winning per entrant dictates whether something is a lottery or a raffle. Your scroll is entered into a pool and then TJ draws X number of winners at random - that's a raffle, whether .001% of people win or 99% of people win. Saying that the low chance of winning makes it not a raffle is...sort of...incorrect? Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 That's suggestion #2 I know but is it possible? I keep reading about discussions on odds and whatnot but I'd like to know if there's a possibility of smaller raffles throughout the year, maybe something to do during the long span of nonholiday releases. Or was that one shot out earlier and now we're onto increasing the number of winners? Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 I know but is it possible? I keep reading about discussions on odds and whatnot but I'd like to know if there's a possibility of smaller raffles throughout the year, maybe something to do during the long span of nonholiday releases. Or was that one shot out earlier and now we're onto increasing the number of winners? It wasn't shot out yet, TJ hasn't commented on it I believe Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 Well, in a suggestion of a raffle vs some sort of 'exploration' (a rather more difficult series of tasks where everyone wins a prize) I'd prefer the latter (along the lines of a GPX Plus exploration) but most people prefer the former (i.e. easy to enter, difficult to win) over the latter (i.e. difficult to enter, easy to win) Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 I'm not going to provide actual numbers (I'm not even going to speak in relation to the actual numbers; I don't know them off the top of my head though I have looked at them before), but basing your rage off of unconfirmed "estimates" that have almost no real-world basis seems like a bad idea. Okay, no actual numbers, I can understand that. But can you give us an estimate? Perhaps in relation to the actual (active) scrollowners? I can imagine there are lots of scrollowners who are not on the forum and there are spam accounts on the forum so basing numbers on the number of forum accounts is probably not realistic. BUT.... I do think it would help if we'd have an idea of how many entries (percentage wise speaking) there were in the raffle in relation to the actual active scrollowners. That would at least give us an idea. Or perhaps give us a (rough) percentage of the winners? That would give an idea too. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) Well, in a suggestion of a raffle vs some sort of 'exploration' (a rather more difficult series of tasks where everyone wins a prize) I'd prefer the latter (along the lines of a GPX Plus exploration) but most people prefer the former (i.e. easy to enter, difficult to win) over the latter (i.e. difficult to enter, easy to win) I like the difficulty of the raffle. It's something to strive for and it's different from stalking the biomes. I understand that it's a lot to ask for an event like this every month but what about smaller events? Ones with less winners but it occurs more frequently? I just don't want to spend more time looking at the pretty cb shimmers and tinsels, the trades for them, and the profiles of winners themselves than actually trying to get a cb shimmer/tinsel/prize for myself. Edited January 12, 2014 by Sarah864 Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 I strongly support suggestion #1, more prizes in the pool, it just makes the most sense to me. Or, if not an increase in odds, than an increase in the actual raffles. One every few months? I'd like to think that would breed feelings of, "Well, i didn't win this one, but maybe the next one!" instead of, "I didn't win, again. A whole more year until the next one. Great." I love the raffles, I don't like how people really are starting to feel bad about them, though. Not winning doesn't bum me out nearly as much as seeing so many super disappointed people. I really want to see more low gen Prizes getting out there, and even if that lowers their value a little(from 5+ CB metals, to one or two?) I'm all for it. I just want a solution we can all be happy with, or at least not angry about. :/ Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) I like the difficulty of the raffle. It's something to strive for and it's different from stalking the biomes. I understand that it's a lot to ask for an event like this every month but what about smaller events? Ones with less winners but it occurs more frequently? I just don't want to spend more time looking at the pretty cb shimmers and tinsels, the trades for them, and the profiles of winners themselves than actually trying to get a cb shimmer/tinsel/prize for myself. I understand this mentality, but in my humble opinion, I have seen a lot of long term members who have no doubt entered the raffle every year (some who have started Dragoncave far earlier than I have - I started in 2010 which is when prize dragons have been issued) and did not win (I won an HM the same year I started Dragoncave, no doubt some of the sentiments with which the subsection winning this year are directed - unknown names winning prizes, people with 0 posts winning prizes.). The nature of a raffle is to distribute prizes to a very small section of the population. More tries do not mean that you will win a prize, even after a decade (or more likely, many decades). Of course, there's been a lot of hope, probably not much of it is supported or substantiated this year... Especially with the threads, this year, where people describe what they would do if they did win. It promotes a lot of hope. Then this thread, like the other thread, promotes a lot of hope, but a different kind of hope (hope that with enough opinions, the system will change and more people will win prizes). Edited January 12, 2014 by DarkEternity Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 The odds of winning a prize dragon here is a heck of a lot better than the odds of winning the mega millions lottery. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) I was not under the impression that a percent chance of winning per entrant dictates whether something is a lottery or a raffle. Your scroll is entered into a pool and then TJ draws X number of winners at random - that's a raffle, whether .001% of people win or 99% of people win. Saying that the low chance of winning makes it not a raffle is...sort of...incorrect? *nod* I googled lottery versus raffle, and in all of the links I've read so far the difference has absolutely nothing to do with percent chances. Edited January 12, 2014 by diaveborn Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 fake edit: ^^That doesn't make very low odds in a game much better, especially given the effect it has on trade... Also, I've looked at them as well and the primary difference I've seen is in the win frequency and in some cases the number of chances you can get. If Dread Arengee is (theoretically) controlling who wins, there's really not much beyond that no matter how much you fancy it up. As far as I'm concerned, higher win percentages and more frequent raffles would do a lot to alleviate the bad taste the yearly raffle leaves in the a lot of the playerbase's collective mouths. Right now it's "you lost? Too bad, try again for equally bad win chances 12 months from now!". Which is kind of aggravating given the whole "stranglehold on the trade market" thing Prizes got going on. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 The odds of winning a prize dragon here is a heck of a lot better than the odds of winning the mega millions lottery. In here, you can play in the euromillion lottery twice a week, not once a year Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 In here, you can play in the euromillion lottery twice a week, not once a year You also pay for lottery tickets. The DC raffle is free to play. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 The odds of winning a prize dragon here is a heck of a lot better than the odds of winning the mega millions lottery. That doesn't mean the odds are good, though. Anything with odds so low that people are comparing it to a lottery to begin with isn't something I enjoy contending with in an otherwise pretty balanced game. Share this post Link to post
Posted January 12, 2014 (edited) You also pay for lottery tickets. The DC raffle is free to play. Which makes even less sense for a small group of people to have control over all the lineages that we can ever get in the game with tinsels and shimmers - they didn't do anything special for it, not even paid for it I'm still against comparing this raffle to real life situations - a game's raffle/lottery doesn't need to suck and be as awful as a real life one, in my opinion x.x Just because something happens in real life, it doesn't mean we have to agree with it and accept it in other situations Edited January 12, 2014 by LaHaine Share this post Link to post
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