Review of Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest
 

The Pumpkin Carving contest on Unholy Nation is probably one of the worst events I've ever participated in. The contest was to create a pumpkin and the prizes were described as "either a broom, a hat ticket, a special limited edition Halloween hat, or possibly other prizes." The voting for the competition took place for around 20 minutes in an unannounced night, which I thought was weird, but from what I heard there wasn't much participation. My entry came in second place, with Aeko getting first place and Rufus getting third.

I logged on the next day, Nike (The guy who is/was in charge of the contest) had given me a hat ticket. Busy with stuff IRL, I logged off right after. I log back on the next day and my hat ticket has been removed, I PM Vicious the head of Player Relations, Nike and the Manager Absolut_Crono and received no reply from either about my situation. Nothing is happening, so I decide to log off again.


Today I log on and ask Crono about my prize, he replies by asking me what I would like to choose for a prize. I said that I would like my hat ticket back, the one they teased me with winning. He said no because Aeko was given a hat ticket as first place winner. Cool, ok. I'm fine with that. Now I have a choice of a broom NPC which I already have and would be pointless or a limited choice of I think 5 Halloween-related hats. During the time I was offline earlier, Rufus (third place winner) had chosen a hat because he also has the broom NPC. I bring up to Crono that second place winner should have a priority over third by giving me two choices out of the limited hats (in case anyone is wondering, a hat ticket on Unholy Nation allows you to choose any hat that is already uploaded onto the server, Aeko would still have a priority over my choices.) which he seems to disagree with and has now decided to not give me a prize at all due to stubbornness of not believing in fairness.

Apparently second and third place are equal. I think the entire thing has been handled pretty terribly.

P.S. I've already chosen one of the hallowen hats from a different contest that I had won.

o.o... Sorry? D:
I think the voting should have at least lasted a day or more, as I logged in earlier and nothing was happening, logged in again later and found it had started and finished and I'd won first o.o.. I didnt even get to see the others, and only the top 3 are still shown. :(

I agree though that they should have the patience to understand your situation and give you the prize you deserve.

Yeah they have been unfair to you if what you've said is 100% accurate which I believe it is. I hope one of the three decide to post their reasoning, perhaps share a bit of the conversation to us to give us more of an understanding because If this had happened on N-Pulse you better believe whoever did this would have been fired.

I was surprised at how quick the voting had went (not to mention I didn't like the voting gui as I like typing my votes). But Luda should have deserved 2 halloween hats if the 3rd place winner received one.

how many people even got to vote in the contest, 3?

Pretty ridiculous. Just shows you the respectfulness of UN Staff to paying customers.

Heaven forbid the winners get to choose any hat on the server.

lol.

Also, as far as I know it was voted during off hours(I woke up VERY earlier and apparently the voting was finished).

that wud ruin the delicate un economi :<

What Economi? :<

fail

we had a pumpkin carving contest?

The situation was a lot worse than how Luda explained it. Regardless, it just doesn't make sense to me that second place would get 2 hats while first place got one, regardless of the spectrum from which hats are chosen. Before we could come to an agreement, it became more of "let me bombard you with personal attacks till I get what I want" than a real discussion. The biggest issue I have, is that the players all entered the contest knowing full well if they win the broom it is practically like winning nothing at all. My suggestion would be either to sell your current broom for a profit (if possible), or take the EP value of the Broom you won. 2 of the Halloween hats are worth more than the 1 broom, as is the hat ticket so those options aren't available.

As far as the voting goes, that was handled awfully. By the time I had known the voting began it was over already. From what I understand, Luca was the one who handled the specific voting. Regardless, I am not here to point fingers. Future contests will be outlined in much greater detail from the start to finish than this was, including periods from which you can vote (lasting at LEAST 2 days to be reasonable), Specific prizes like Door had (no "Or other things" that was added in there after Nike sent the post), etc.

On a side note @Luda, I don't know what those "other things" Luca promised were, but there is a possibility you can choose from that list of items when I find out what they are. If you would like the EP Value of the broom (Roughly 200ep) that would be fine as well.

Take the ep luda

Entering a contest where the prizes are listed as, "either a broom, a hat ticket, a special limited edition halloween hat, or possibly other prizes!" suggests that you are not going to be lumbered with a Broom if you have one already. There is a large sense of leeway (and uncertainty) in what was advertised, so I don't see how the players who entered can be blamed for anything. The biggest issue you should have is that people were asked to participate and prizes weren't even organized for the potential winners, even now.

In addition to that you seem to be ignoring the core of Luda's issue here: Are second and third places really so similar that they'd receive the same prize? Perhaps you should have given him a bigger choice of hats, which would equate to larger than what I was offered, but smaller than what Aeko was. Would make a lot more sense, and probably have avoided a lot of trouble. It's really not hard to propose this kind of happy medium to smooth things over, but as a player, it's not Luda that should be expected to do it.