ANSWERED:Distributing New Prizes/Special/Limited Dragons

[TJ09]

What do people think about having there still be an inter-user element?

 

e.g. a game like mana alchemy, where the top N scores every week win a prize?

[amthystfire]

What do people think about having there still be an inter-user element?

 

e.g. a game like mana alchemy, where the top N scores every week win a prize?

Awesome! That would limit it to people who were pretty dedicated to the game!

[Fuzzbucket]

What do people think about having there still be an inter-user element?

 

e.g. a game like mana alchemy, where the top N scores every week win a prize?

This people thinks that it would only work (given the ruck about "exclusives") if the prize were something that COULD also be got in other ways too. As in an HM type prize, NOT an exclusive.

 

It would also favour those with a lot of time to spare (and I am one who would have the time, even if I wouldn't probably choose to use it that way, so I'm not begging because I'd be personally disadvantaged !)

Edited January 11, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[_Sin_]

What do people think about having there still be an inter-user element?

 

e.g. a game like mana alchemy, where the top N scores every week win a prize?

Personally, I would love that. Unconditionally.

Edited January 11, 2015 by _Sin_

[TJ09]

This people thinks that it would only work (given the ruck about "exclusives") if the prize were something that COULD also be got in other ways too. As in an HM type prize, NOT an exclusive.

 

It would also favour those with a lot of time to spare (and I am one who would have the time, even if I wouldn't probably choose to use it that way, so I'm not begging because I'd be personally disadvantaged !)

There are also a lot of levers there to reduce the level of dedication required:

 

* Number of prizes

* Exclusion of repeat winners

* Have N winners randomly drawn from the top Y scores (where Y > N).

* X winners from all participants.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Hmmm... would people only be able to win a certain number of times? Because I'm worried the people who currently have the time to sit and hunt for multiple CB Golds / the fast Internet to catch them would be the same people who always have the time to sit and play for ages / good connection needed to wrack up high scores.

Edited January 11, 2015 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Fuzzbucket]

There are also a lot of levers there to reduce the level of dedication required:

 

* Number of prizes

* Exclusion of repeat winners

* Have N winners randomly drawn from the top Y scores (where Y > N).

* X winners from all participants.

I'd still see a ruck about exclusives building up....

[TJ09]

Hmmm... would people only be able to win a certain number of times? Because I'm worried the people who currently have the time to sit and hunt for multiple CB Golds / the fast Internet to catch them would be the same people who always have the time to sit and play for ages / good connection needed to wrack up high scores.

See my second post; very likely.

[_Sin_]

I'd still see a ruck about exclusives building up....

Is there any chance of having zero ruck about anything?

If there are constraints on number of prizes and repeat winners exclusion that could be mitigated...

[olympe]

Hmm, as long as you exclude repeat winners after they reach a certain cap (2 CB / year?), drawing winners doesn't seem like such a good idea.

 

Also, mana alchemy doesn't seem like a good high-score game. If done right, you can play it endlessly and amass points. (What was it, 10 points per tile?) So, if someone was having a weekend off (no family, no work, no other stuff), they could play for 48 hours straight - only taking a break for sleeping, eating and going to the bathroom. All they'd have to do is set their computer so that it doesn't go into hibernation - and keep it running around the clock.

 

Heck, people could even keep their PC running all month long and continue their mana alchemy game! (Unless you make it time out after an hour or so.)

[PolarVortex]

I think that could be cool, as long as there was some kind of limit on repeat winners, or you could end up with many of the same people controlling all the prizes each week.

[Fuzzbucket]

Is there any chance of having zero ruck about anything?

If there are constraints on number of prizes and repeat winners exclusion that could be mitigated...

Ha ha ha ha excuse me.

 

TJ - would the prizes need to be exclusives, or would you consider making them HM style prizes ?

[amthystfire]

I had a thought, as I was reading through the discussion on the first page about levels, what if perhaps instead of weekly prizes, a user was give access to a special page that had the "backlog" of the caves on it, say 5 x 6 eggs, so that they would have special access to the rares that were coming up, but they could recieve this if their score exceeded a specific (extremely high) total, that could be obtained after quite a bit of effort, but not necessarily extremely difficult.

[AnanoKimi]

What do people think about having there still be an inter-user element?

 

e.g. a game like mana alchemy, where the top N scores every week win a prize?

Well this coupled with this:

 

There are also a lot of levers there to reduce the level of dedication required:

 

* Number of prizes

* Exclusion of repeat winners

* Have N winners randomly drawn from the top Y scores (where Y > N).

* X winners from all participants.

 

Would work. Personally if its a way to win the exclusive or prize even it if you earn it and not just win it through luck I would be ok with it. If it could work like both of those then go ahead and add in Prizes because that would give people the sense that they don't have to sit around and wait for another raffle to win, they have a real chance at earning it as well. The prize could rotate every week as well and maybe even be put to a vote so maybe one week the prize is a Silver Shimmer, next week a Holly, Week after that a CB Gold, Week after that a bronze tinsel, things like that. They would still be prizes and as such not remove that value of them (I don't mean trading value I mean just perceived value) while still making them attainable to the general public. Prize dragon and rare HM dragons could be maybe a once a month or once every two month Prize to the top x scores to keep them still rare but not as horribly rare as they are now.

 

If the distribution could be made something more along the lines of this then I would totally support regardless of the dragons involved as prizes.

[_Sin_]

There are also a lot of levers there to reduce the level of dedication required:

 

* Number of prizes

* Exclusion of repeat winners

* Have N winners randomly drawn from the top Y scores (where Y > N).

* X winners from all participants.

Do you envision the game to be limited to a version like the one that was used (easy levels) or would it be like the original Alchemy with several difficult levels?

 

 

All they'd have to do is set their computer so that it doesn't go into hibernation - and keep it running around the clock.

 

Heck, people could even keep their PC running all month long and continue their mana alchemy game! (Unless you make it time out after an hour or so.)

I'm lost. Even if the computer is running, how would they complete the board without interaction??

[amthystfire]

If the distribution could be made something more along the lines of this then I would totally support regardless of the dragons involved as prizes.

Like say top score for the week (or top six, actually, to keep the ratio going) plus six randomly chosen people who played at least one game that week, plus another six from scores #7 to 100? Seems slightly complicated, but doable.

[AnanoKimi]

Sin what they mean is lets say I'm playing Mana Alchemy at like 2 am and feel sleepy half way through, I could leave my board unfinished and untouched so long as my browser doesn't close or my computer doesn't shut off and continue my game unhindered in the morning. Allowing the game to time out after some time of inactivity makes it fair so that people don't leave their games half done and return to them later to finish and get really high scores.

 

amthystfireI was mainly thinking 1 Prize could be given out to the top X scores every week so the top 5 or six just once a week not 6 ut top scored, 6 out of random players, 6 out of somewhere else. Since the prizes will be weekly I don't think there is much need to have that many winners, especially if there is an exclusion for people who have already won the week prior. Even if something like a Tinsel or Shimmer was given out once a month, 6 people every month would get that prize That's 72 people in the whole year who would have a chance to win a tinsel or shimmer through the year. That's quite the number :3 Coupled with Christmas raffles we have a nice number of people there.

 

The only one I think fits would be maybe a random participant of the game whether top score or not to also have a chance at the weekly prize. So 6 plus the 1 participant would be nice :3

[olympe]

Come to think about it, the kind of "Prizes" being handed out would be an interesting lever, too. Will they be the current prize dragons, or completely different prize dragons, or work like HM prizes? Will the prizes be announced in advance (This week/month: CB alt blacks; next week/month: CB red stripes...) or will they be secret until the end? Will the prizes be staggered (1st place gets a gold shimmer, 2nd place a gold tinsel, 3rd a silver shimmer...) or will it be the same prize for everyone participating that week/month?

 

Also, there's the question of how often you want to have these things, and how many prizes you hand out. If you do it weekly with 100 prizes (for example) with varying prizes (3 shimmers, 3 tinsels, gold, silver, three coppers, CB alt black, CB alt vine, CB red/green/blue/black stripe, CB geode, CB bluna, CB goldfish, CB ultraviolet, CB hellhorse, CB soulpeace + CB holiday of choice during the respective breeding season), you'd send out (roughly) 200 prizes of each variety every year. In such a case, even a cap of 1 of each kind per year would be enough. (Someone could still win roughly half the time.)

 

However, if you do a monthly "game" and reward the top 10 winners with something - well, let's say that having someone win 6 out of 12 games would cause bad feelings.

 

Another question to consider: Can someone endlessly build up their highscore by playing repeatedly, or will only the best entry of each person count? Or maybe the 5 best or 10 best?

 

To sum it up: There are countless questions that need to be answered before we can give you a good idea about our feelings towards this change.

[Fuzzbucket]

Come to think about it, the kind of "Prizes" being handed out would be an interesting lever, too. Will they be the current prize dragons, or completely different prize dragons, or work like HM prizes? Will the prizes be announced in advance (This week/month: CB alt blacks; next week/month: CB red stripes...) or will they be secret until the end? Will the prizes be staggered (1st place gets a gold shimmer, 2nd place a gold tinsel, 3rd a silver shimmer...) or will it be the same prize for everyone participating that week/month?

AS I said - PLEASE HM dragons.

[birdyluv]

I support this, only if it would be really hard to get the prize dragons.

[Imzadi]

There are also a lot of levers there to reduce the level of dedication required:

 

* Number of prizes

* Exclusion of repeat winners

* Have N winners randomly drawn from the top Y scores (where Y > N).

* X winners from all participants.

I rather like the idea, but have questions. Can they be traded? Not that that's bad in itself, but I can see the trade sections changing to "have 4 CB golds, want CB whatsit." Followed periodically by "have 2 Cb whatsits, want second gen prize." How long does exclusion of repeat winners last? And if you do trade one for CB metals or whatever can you get another one sooner? I will probably think of more.

[Amazon_warrior]

I'm intrigued by TJ's suggestion; fuzz and aini have raised some of concerns/questions I'd have about it.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Amazon_warrior

[TJ09]

I rather like the idea, but have questions. Can they be traded? Not that that's bad in itself, but I can see the trade sections changing to "have 4 CB golds, want CB whatsit." Followed periodically by "have 2 Cb whatsits, want second gen prize." How long does exclusion of repeat winners last? And if you do trade one for CB metals or whatever can you get another one sooner? I will probably think of more.

I would think the prizes would not be trade-able.

 

And there's a lot of ways repeat exclusion could be done. Could just be up to X of a given prize per scroll (e.g. you can only ever win 2 CB 2010 prize dragons ever). There could be a timeout. A lot of that depends on what actually happens, though; if there's no problem with repeat winners, then...?

[_Sin_]

To sum it up: There are countless questions that need to be answered before we can give you a good idea about our feelings towards this change.

There is another way to see that. Consider that this is an "idea being developed" so, instead of expecting answers that maybe do not exist yet, provide input on different options.

[Imzadi]

I would think the prizes would not be trade-able.

 

And there's a lot of ways repeat exclusion could be done. Could just be up to X of a given prize per scroll (e.g. you can only ever win 2 CB 2010 prize dragons ever). There could be a timeout. A lot of that depends on what actually happens, though; if there's no problem with repeat winners, then...?

I could live with that.