Gamewide releases
* - BOW release
* - Siksraja Herb Shop
* - Login Inventory Sort Maintained
* - Ranger Signal
* - Thief Sign Caught Modifier lowered
* - Tinkering
* - Profile Locations
* - Update to Guide to Being an Empath
* - Storyplait
* - Ice-veined Leather

Premium Only
* - Advanced Anatomy
* - Fenwrythie Curio's Update
* - Fang Cove Crafting Hall
* - Premium inventory slot expansion
* - Estate Holder Ring cooldown reduced

Premium Free, Basic and F2P paid to enter
* - Bacon Man Birthday Fest
** -- Threads of Color
** -- Feleah Family Crafts
** -- Marnie's Elegance In Wire
** -- No Guts, No Gory
** -- The Traveling Cook
** -- Owirvald Auction Company
** -- Nidia's Floral Arrangements
** -- From Top to Bottom
** -- Dwarven Deals
** -- A Silver Tent
** -- The Heavy Hammer
** -- Salamii's Towel Bazaar
** -- Goods for Life
** -- Gersvinda's Natural Studies
** -- The Foraging Emporium
** -- Albrhae's Adornments
** -- Packrat's Paradise
** -- Twansic's Tent
** -- Burning Embers
** -- Auntie Phanie's Phancies
** -- Graimairo Wares
** -- Ties for Things
** -- Merit Badges
** -- The Refined Lady
** -- Sophisticated Swine
** -- Thaumaturgic Things
** -- Tildi's Flowers
** -- Smells and Tails
** -- Gashpa's Gathered Goodies
** -- Grooming Gazebo
** -- Thorkim Family Farm, Barnyard


Add-on Events, All paid to enter
* - Pig Maze
* - Raffle Dispensers
* - Token Auction
* - Jisi Raffles (in game cost only)

Trivia --

The prime token auction winners broke down as follows: 15 premium subscribers, 13 basic subscribers, 0 F2P.

The average dollar amount spent per participant was just under $23 over ~20 days. Please compare this to a brand new quest like BTB which went up in the box office for $30, and you got to participate for 4 hours and take home one end prize, or Safari, which was $25 to enter for 72 hours.

We've been moving toward a system where, instead of going on a timed quest and getting one item, you pay for only what you want to. While some people will never participate in pay events, many of the items from these pay events are tradeable. If you aren't personally willing to spend real money, it shouldn't be too hard to gain these items with plats. Our goal is to allow players to participate as little or as much as you want to.

I feel like this event was pretty close to where we want to be in terms of average cost per participant. In the end, it cost the average user less than a traditional quest, and that user got more for their money spent.

Those worried about F2P stealing items -- We took feedback from past events on this concern and put in a level restriction (which wasn't made known until last minute) to curb the behavior of people making alternate F2P accounts to sway odds on their favor. To be clear -- we value our F2P players and don't generally think they should be excluded from things, particularly in events like this when they're asked to pay to participate just the same as everyone else.

Duskruin, Ulf'Hara and the Thorkim Farm have all been testing the waters with different types of events to better judge player participation and engagement with paid events. We ARE trying to move away from the box office where you spend $25+ (on a new quest) for 1-4 hours and walk away with a single item at the end. Lowering the entry cost lets more people see the content -- from several dozen accounts to hundreds. We probably have more experimenting to do, but overall we like seeing more players participating. Whether you go once or dozens of times, we hope it's a nice break from the daily grind.

Personally I'm not interested to invest in anything I'm not 100% guaranteed to receive a return on.

Ya, we would probably need to know the number of players for that average to make sense.

The mean, median, mode, and frequency are fun (I don't do statistics, I just do some simple 'looking at data' stuff for work, so please don't hit me math people).

Thanks for the summary and explanation behind your (the GM's) thought process with this event, Lyneya. I appreciated the insight.

I like that we're trying new things (I'm a scientist; experimentation is the way to my heart). One of the qualities I like most about DR is the variety, and if anything the boards has taught me is that you can never please the entire player-base. From your tone, I'm assuming that future old-style quests still have the possibility of being developed in the future.

Nikpack

PS Somehow I missed some of these releases; thanks again for the list. I like these.

Oh yeah. Fun.

I spent over 300 grooba tickets to win a galleon (some spent far more than I did) and 11 tickets to win the custom manor. I won the manor and whiffed the galleon. If anything that should show, for those angry over money spent/averages/and who won what, that in the end it is all odds. I do agree that a "premium fest" should be open to only premium subscribers. If you want premium benefits buy a premium subscription, if you are getting the benefits anyway there is no reason to shell out so much every month. F2P players and regular subscription players aren't missing out, especially since there is another mini fest to close to that one. F2P, Standard, and premium are all levels of subscription, and they should have appropriate levels of access and benefits. It is like that in every other game I have ever seen that has micro transactions and a selection of subscription levels.

On a side note the behavior after the auction and the comments made to the GMPC that held the token auction were pretty disgusting. Be mad at the results, be mad at the system if you want but to do that to someone who is just trying to host an event is pretty crappy.

Just some food for thought :)

Alright,

Let's be very clear here.

The debate/discussion on if something is or isn't gambling is over. Further posters will 'win' you a forums time out.

Feedback on the festival itself can happen, the rest is just dragging something that was shut down already in another thread here.

It's completely over.


Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

A post was removed.

General Reminder: Your feedback on the festival is what we're interested in. Please keep the discussion on topic, and not directed at people you don't agree with.


Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

I'm late to this discussion. But, better late than never, I suppose. So, I spent a LOT on coins for the festival. I went into the decision of making the purchase with one expectation - have fun. Nothing more, nothing less. I didn't pay the money expecting to get something super special. i didn't pay the money expecting to come out of it with some piece of awesomeness.

Now, after spending all those coins and not knowing fully what was going to be available outside of the searchable pig farm, I did happen to win a few very nice items. But, what I enjoyed more than that, was the role-play pieces that were provided. Pieces that are now part of my characters story. Pieces that make playing her that much more fun for me. Now by "pieces" i do not mean items, I mean experiences, interactions, things she was able to take part in and that I am molding to be a part of her going forward.

Khatlyne was very fortunate with her wins. But even without them, she'd have been equally fortunate for the fun she was able to share with people while sitting with Farmer Thorkim and talking about adventures in the mud, the naming of the pigs, the outfits they will wear, etc.

So with all of that said, thanks GM's and everyone behind the scenes that pulled this together. Like I said, I spent a lot for those coins, and I don't regret a single dollar spent. It was an amazing time, and I really hope to be a part of these things in the future.

~ Kim - the mind behind Khatlyne and a few others.