The Classic Lottery

[ffcmike]

(Credit to Midi for making this oh so wonderful image)

Some of you may or may not know that over the last few weeks we've been working on a Lottery/Raffle (tbh i'm not even entirely sure what the correct term is, feel free to correct me).

What i wouldn't expect people to know is that the main goal of this is an attempt to remove a mass amount of tickets from players aswell as get some valuable items into circulation, these would include currently unreleased items, some new, some old, aswell as items that are not always obtainable (Bat Form, Love etc), although it also supports the option of one time custom prizes.

The way this works is quite simply that you can buy one Lotto Ticket per GC Ticket, there will be a time of game inactivity inwhich to buy tickets (this is expected to be a 2 week period at first, perhaps reduced if/when new prizes are implemented), and at the end of this time a Machine NPC (this is set to be located within a level at the Castle) will automatically begin to spin the balls.
Before too long 3 balls will emerge from the machine and obviously the number combination is the winner.

I've attached some preview images just to give you all the right idea.
(and yes i am aware that there are 10 ball images within the machine and that the same number can be yielded more than once)

The winning number will always be a purchased ticket number, the maximum amount of overall purchasable tickets per game is 999 but there can only be one winner.
If i were to purchase say 500 tickets, this would give me an excellent chance of winning, but even somebody who has entered just one ticket would have an albeit small chance if winning.

The Prize will always be made clear before each game,
the prize order will be a random generated queue,
this means that an individual prize will be selected at random, removed from the queue, and then once the queue has been emptied it would rebuild itself from the full prize list in random order.

This may not be a lone solution to the whole ticket economy issue,
other ideas may yet be explored but this is something that while an exact release date isn't set just yet (i'm not sure why Ben Rain massed it would be released a certain weekend) could be put into practise soon,
there may well be other uses for the Ball Machine.

This being a forum thread and all means opinions are free to be made,
if this is an idea anyone dislikes i'd like to know exactly why you dislike the idea,
but even if any of you like the idea there is always room for it to be improved,
the more constructive an opinion is the more likely it is to be taken seriously.

[xnervNATx]

id like to know if the prize are worth it

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by xnervNATx

id like to know if the prize are worth it

Obviously i can't speak for everyone when it comes to the worth of the prizes,
some aren't too different from GC Prizes which you might feel are useless, others are weapons which can cause damage which you may prefer, but you have to consider that with each game there can only be one winner, a game will occur every 2 weeks, and there will be a different prize every time, so each prize will have rarity.

[xnervNATx]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

Obviously i can't speak for everyone when it comes to the worth of the prizes,
some aren't too different from GC Prizes which you might feel are useless, others are weapons which can cause damage which you may prefer, but you have to consider that with each game there can only be one winner, a game will occur every 2 weeks, and there will be a different prize every time, so each prize will have rarity.

is this true. your gonna have trident in prize list

[Mark Sir Link]

just recently I won the lottery and got a katana

[Ares]

looks like a lot of time and effort were put into this, nice job. i'm looking forward to it

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by xnervNATx

is this true. your gonna have trident in prize list

It's certainly a possibility,
although i'd rather keep this type of prize to weapons that already have a planned eventual release.
In the case of the Trident this was remade under Massokre in 2006 and planned for Kulls Castle (the tower east of Brothers House + west of Aria/Gerudo Camp).

There are no concrete plans for Kulls currently,
it's had some thought, but nobody has been asked to make anything towards it as of yet.

If the Trident were to be released via its original method of buying it for a few thousand gelat it's safe to assume that everybody would have it, and so there wouldn't be much point in having it as a prize.

[xnervNATx]

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

just recently I won the lottery and got a katana

zomg

[jacob_bald6225]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

If the Trident were to be released via its original method of buying it for a few thousand gelat it's safe to assume that everybody would have it, and so there wouldn't be much point in having it as a prize.

If you're doing this to burn tickets good job but if you're doing it to attract players, maintain interest, or boost morale it is a horrible idea. Winning npcs in a lottery is not an accessible gameplay element that will attract players in fact if I were deciding on what server to play I would want one where random events didn't determine who gets what. Random events are not fun, they're frustrating.

[StrykerTFFD]

RNG gets annoying after awhile. Exciting at first, annoying down the road.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by jacob_bald6225

If you're doing this to burn tickets good job but if you're doing it to attract players, maintain interest, or boost morale it is a horrible idea. Winning npcs in a lottery is not an accessible gameplay element that will attract players in fact if I were deciding on what server to play I would want one where random events didn't determine who gets what. Random events are not fun, they're frustrating.

That's a fair opinion but it's not like you'd be being forced to participate, that would be entirely your own choice.
And as you know it is not primarily an attempt to attract new players, but then if it does get some fun items into players inventory, and increase competitiveness within events it can indirectly have that effect, albeit ifs and buts however the same can be argued about any significant update really.

[jorollychu]

2 weeks is too long

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by jorollychu

2 weeks is too long

It might be too long, it might not be long enough,
ideally the first game or 2 would eliminate in the region of a few hundred tickets and from then on it would become competitive, but this isn't gauranteed, maybe those with a large quantity of tickets available might only sacrifice a fraction of their ticket total each game but still more than what most players can normally earn through events in that amount of time.
We need to try before we know for sure, and as already mentioned this time period is planned to be reduced eventually.

[xnervNATx]

im not gonna waste more than 0 tickets in every!

[BlackSolider]

Sounds like a good way to get rid of some tickets. Good work.

[Shadow87]

Ya I honestly plan on holding onto my tickets, i might spend 1 or 2 on a ticket and then see my luck, but certainly not going to spend more than that. And, to attract players, well no update has been good enough to do that so far, and I know the newspaper wont, this lottery wont. On the statement thats about creating competitiveness between players, well it might? Thats something im gonna have to see.

[BlackSolider]

Well the 'competitiveness between players' comes from, I think, the fact that most people have [i]so/[i] many tickets that winning events is really nothing special anymore. Do rich people get excited when they make a thousand bucks? I don't know, I'm not rich.

What I do know, is that people are happy when they get something they don't have, or achieve something they didn't achieve before. So with a reduced ticket count, maybe players will try just a little bit harder to win events because (hopefully) the prizes will be worth it.

[Shadow87]

Well for that to happen, then GC has to host a lot more, but for that to happen, we need a bigger player count to happen, so really it stems back to getting us a better player count again.
And also, you have to ask, will the people with a lot of tickets want to use them on the lottery? Its like me, i dont want to spend all my tickets on the lottery, maybe 1 or 2, and then ill wait for released GC prizes.

Actually, i think there should be a daily drawing of tickets, then ill spend my tickets LOL, seriously though, i would. The fact of knowing there is a prize waiting to be won at the end of each day is fun. And im not saying it has to be a big prize, you could have like minor prizes during the week, and the big ones on like weekends.

[ffcmike]

Update:
This is literally about 99.75% ready,
only really waiting on default prize list confirmation apart from the actual implementation of the lottery.

Ideally this would run sometime on the weekend,
ticket buying time is supposed to be 2 weeks long at first (subject to change at a later time),
but for the sake of cutting down delays we could perhaps do a shortened buying time for the first run and have this played either this weekend or the next.

[fragman85]

I suggest making it so that the player has to be online when the lottery runs, otherwise he won't be able to win anything :o

[BlackSolider]

IMO frag that is a bad idea. Too many people from different time zones, and perhaps, however unlikely, real life might get in the way.

[fragman85]

It's supposed to bring up the Playercount :o

Maybe something like at the Weekend players have to go into the Castle (or whereever the Lottery will be placed) to check if they won

[ffcmike]

"The Lottery is commencing".
"1........ yes!".
"6........ come on 4!".
"You have been disconnected from the server".
"Connecting to Classic".
"4".
"Bugger".

[trifle]

Looks like a pleasure to be using that machine!

[Shadow87]

Please wait to increase player count

please wait

please wait!

[Bell]

Originally Posted by Shadow87

Please wait to increase player count

please wait

please wait!

This project never was intended to increase playercount. Classic's only economy has always been ticket based. In recent times that economy was ruined and I find this to be a creative way of restoring that. It by far beats plan b of doing a ticket reset (been through that twice now and it sucks) and removing everyone's GC items or having a tiered pricing policy. There will always be a few people that just want to hold their tickets and that's fine. If you want to have 1500 tickets and be able to brag about having the most, go for it! But the rest of us would rather have toys to play with.

Kudo's to the members of the staff team that were involved in this particular project. Whether the release is considered small or large, I don't care. All things done to improve the quality of a server become a part in the overall increase of playercount in time.

[Shadow87]

Ya bell, I've heard that one before.

Or instead of ripping us all off of our hard earned tickets, they could just keep making fun toys to buy with tickets.

How do you even know people will buy into the lottery? If they realize that they could get more for their buck if the dev was doing what has always been done and just kept updating the GC prize room, we probably wouldn't have a ticket stockpile problem.

Is this complicated? I feel people are taking things to extreme sometimes. For instance this..
"omg people have way to many tickets"
"Oh ticket economy on graal is plummeting!"
"New managers try to think of way to save graal economy!!!"
"Lottery idea thought up! Means to save Graal economy!"
"Lottery implemented! Spend lots of tickets to possibly win a prize!"
"People find out lottery idea is really a scam to make you waste tickets"
"People rather just buy new GC prizes to keep themselves occupied!"
"People pissed about not having any more tickets and not enough new prizes in their inventory!"
"GC prize room useless!"
"GCs being shot to death!"
"Thor and Storm hanged!"
"Someone is made manager!"
"Someone thinks that doing a quest would be a good idea!"
"Classic has a player count!"
"Hoorah for someone!"

...you are all screwing yourselves in thinking this ****s gonna be any kind of fun, they want you to waste tickets, hence the lottery. If you all really want those tickets to goto something useful, just ask them to make new NPCs that are fun but have no point to any kind of story line. They used to do it, now i don't know why they don't want to. I swear classic becomes more and more like Nazi Germany every day.

And keep in mind, the last couple of those quotes are just joking, im serious about the first couple.

[BlackSolider]

Quick joke.

If this was turning into Nazi Germany, we'd go from a horrible economy where a couple thousand german dollars were worth 1 US dollar to a pretty darn good economy capable of waging war across Europe. People forget that, before starting ww2 and killing millions of people, Hitler took a country broken from the after effects of ww1 and turned it into a respectable economy again. Not saying what he did with that economy was a good thing, nor that he did it all himself, but he certainly played a roll.

History lessons aside, we still need better gc prizes whether this lottery is successful or not.

[Shadow87]

Glad i wasn't pressing on the economy aspect of Nazi Germany, I was more taking a stab at how DC still really has no care for players like he said he did, its just what he wants gets done.

but at least we are on the same page that we need more GC prizes.

See they thought up a more complicated possibly flop of an idea solution, to a problem that had a very very easy solution. Players want more to do, give us more GC prizes, god you can crap those out. Then we'll spend our tickets.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Shadow87

we need more GC prizes.

Suggestions?

[Shadow87]

Im not looking at it as a suggestion, its more you should probably go do this AND make the lottery, atleast then you give players that choice to spend their tickets, and see what they really want.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Shadow87

Im not looking at it as a suggestion, its more you should probably go do this AND make the lottery

That is what you call a suggestion. However, what I was asking was if you had any suggestions or creative ideas that could make for good GC prizes? I don't.

[BlackSolider]

I liked the idea of a portable horse npc that you could change the colors/image of, and that only you could use.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by BlackSolider

I liked the idea of a portable horse npc that you could change the colors/image of, and that only you could use.

Context breaking, removes Tatsumi's promotion of an adventure server.

[BlackSolider]

Wouldn't being able to always mount your sturdy steed help you go on adventures?

[Shadow87]

Rufus i said that i won't look at it like a suggestion, because if i was manager, it would be more of an order
Something that is probably vital to do.

And why would a horse NPC ruin the idea of having it as an adventure game?

Link had Epona, who came to him at the call of his ocarina.

And i can think up some ideas of GC prizes, but would they make them? If its me suggesting them chances are DC won't let it happen. Hes biased like every other dev admin we have had.

Do you have to be biased to get hired as dev admin?

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Shadow87

And why would a horse NPC ruin the idea of having it as an adventure game?

Link had Epona, who came to him at the call of his ocarina.

Unlike Epona, the levels on Classic rarely identify themselves. If Epona was placed on Classic I would be able to summon the horse from anywhere, even if was somewhere that a horse couldn't go, simply because you can't identify that stuff. It wouldn't "ruin" anything, but the concept as an event prize is almost Unholy Nation standard.

Originally Posted by Shadow87

And i can think up some ideas of GC prizes, but would they make them? If its me suggesting them chances are DC won't let it happen.

What are they? Maybe someone who likes them as a suggestion would take them up and do the work on them? It also makes for a greater strength within your statements when you provide examples.

[BlackSolider]

You can't use npcs in water I believe, so that should eliminate that problem. Do correct me if I'm wrong though. In addition, elaborate on "somewhere that a horse couldn't go" if water wasn't the only thing you were thinking about.

[Shadow87]

Excuse me? Have you ever played ocarina of time? That ****in horse will come from anywhere you want it to, and you don't even have to do anything for it , just grow up and you can go and learn the song. Thats not even a quest.

Thats more an event triggered situation that you get epona out of. Rufus , if you don't know about the game, don't try to argue with me about it.

I agree that if we had a horse calling NPC, it should be gotten in a quest, but only because its an excuse for a quest, more side quest though.

And lets see, since you are obviously being a woman about this and demanding answers like you always do. Ill throw some ideas out there.

Nerf Gun LOL
Balloons that could cost a ticket each and you can carry around for a limited amount of time
Pack of cigs
How about Dolls/action figures/figures that could be placed in player houses, or just in your inventory to hold out and show people.
More boots.
Make like a 10 minute staff boot item, player can buy it for a nice amount of tickets, and it will give them the power of running everywhere they want for sometime.
Different NPCs that will show different emotions, kissing, holding hands, i dont know, homo **** like that.
Instruments even, i know UN has em, but does it really matter if we make some of our own?
Make a hover board , much like a skateboard, but without wheels, thats like 100 tickets even.
Stupid stuff is what GC prizes are, stupid, pointless ****, although i like that hover board.

Anyone can think of them, they just gotta get made. Give me more time i could actually think of some good legit stuff, this is all just whatever popped into my mind. I'm lookin at a pack of cigs, hmm...it would be funny to watch a player smoking, come on lets support pixel smoking! Graalmals!

[fragman85]

Originally Posted by BlackSolider

I liked the idea of a portable horse npc that you could change the colors/image of, and that only you could use.

Actually PKT suggested that too, I even tried starting this project, but Classic seems to use custom Horses, so I forgot about it really fast again