I am trying to buy tickets to RtCF, this would be the first ticketed event I, as a premium subscriber, have ever attended (other than EG which is unlimited). Everyone is always complaining about how the ticket sales are handled and now I experienced it first hand...

I just tried to buy tickets to RTCF that went on sale at 12PM. I sate there hitting reload and as soon as it became available at exactly 12 PM EST I clikced sign up. I received an internal server error, then reloaded and they were sold out.

This does not seem like a very effective way to sell tickets to an event especially considering premium subscribers do not get any advanced notice/reserved ticket spots/etc.

For the price of this game and this event I am pretty surprised that its basically impossible to get any tickets. I think those who were able either were very lucky and hit reload/signup at the exact correct milisecond, or they are scripting registrations which gives an unfair advantage to those who can program.

To me it seems bots/scripts must be winning the tickets.
http://imgur.com/4Bcgdfa

OK and how would I get one of those? By hitting reload/signup at the exact correct second beating out other premium members? In other words is it the same spam/reload/luck system but just a smaller pool of competition?

"By hitting reload/signup at the exact correct second beating out other premium members? In other words is it the same spam/reload/luck system but just a smaller pool of competition?" -- MLowry01

In all fairness, for an event with limited numbers, what better option might you suggest for them?
- No matter what time they run it, someone will complain about the inconvenience for their time zone (or continent).
- If they reserve tickets for Premium accounts--one of the perqs for that level of subscription--they'll catch flak from the Basic subscribers.
- If they do not do so, the Premium people will bitch.
- Even going so far as to GIVE AWAY [i.e. "make no money on"] two tickets, people are complaining--granted to Heather, it was a tamely worded complaint--because it is a requirement to have to hunt to have a chance at finding one.

.

About the only things that they could realistically do--and I have no doubt whatsoever that people would still bitch about any or all of these, too--would be something like:
+ Generate random character PINs and send an email to the account holder. (Given the amount of crap they get about the games RNG, I have no doubt a veritable firestorm would result from this.) (And people would howl about any relatively inactive characters--like, I don't know, "Krakii", for example, if any of them wound up with an invite.)
+ Allow interested characters to sign up--over the course of a week or so, to reduce the crap they would catch for having it available only on a single day...--hold a lottery of their PINs, and send an email to the account holder. (Same RNG issue.)
* Note that neither of these even begins to address the issue of people who do not have a valid email address tied to their accounts.

.

Everyone knows it's coming. They know the day & time. They know how many tickets there are. They know what services are being provided, so they know whether or not to (try to) attend (yes, people have complained that there was "nothing for them" at these, too). But it will be a limited number, which means that Someone Is Guaranteed To Get Screwed.

Seriously, what more could Simutronics do to make it "fairer" for folks?

<<<<In all fairness, for an event with limited numbers, what better option might you suggest for them?>>>>

For 75 bucks, how about they sell a dang ticket to anyone that wants one? This "limited" nonsense is crazy. Either the services are game-breaking or they aren't. If they are, they shouldn't be offering them at any price in any amount. If they aren't, then there's no reason to limit these very high-priced services. The high price-point, itself, is the limiting factor. Not everybody can or will drop $75 for a one-off event in what is already the highest priced mudd, ever. Making tickets limited on top of that just jacks up demand--which is what they want, of course.

I love GS4 and Simutronics, and I want them to succeed so they'll be around a long time. I want them to continue to provide a quality product, which they do. But they're slowly devaluing what's been their bread and butter for all these years, namely their premium customers. I think this is a mistake. Numbers may disagree with me, however, considering how everyone seems to be gleefully willing to jump on the RtCF bandwagon.

I don't know, just seems like a mess to me.

~ Heathyr and friends

<<<It isn't as simple as you make it out to be.>>>

Well, no, that's true and I'm not ignoring the fact. But there are really two simultaneous issues happening here. One is the effect of the event within the game, and the other is the effect of the event outside the game. I realize it's not simple, but from the customer side of the fence it strikes me as nonsensical to start with such a high ticket price, and limit those tickets. As I said, the high price, itself, is a limiting factor. It could be that they underestimated demand, in which case one might suggest they actually priced tickets too low.

But there's yet another level of protection, and that's happening in the game, itself. Each major service is, itself, limited in quantity. Furthermore, every account is limited to one major service. So if you add all that up with the price of a ticket, it seems to me that limiting tickets is not only redundant, but actually a very poor business decision.

~ Heathyr and friends

>So you'd be in favor of dropping the major guarantee?

Personally I feel I'd have a better shot at getting something by the major guarantee being dropped and allowing more people to attend that I have at somehow clicking at the exact right millisecond to score one of the tickets in a 25-ticket batch.

The best way to release this high dollar event would have been to let everyone know up front and above board that there are ONLY going to be 300 MAJOR awards. Then, send everyone who is a premium member an email with a link that states Join Up Now. The players can then decide if the price point versus the cost is worth their investment, and they can choose which running of the event they wish to join. Let your premium subscribers buy tickets one per account for two weeks. (heck a month this thing is still far away) Then send the same email to your basic subscriptions, with the same caveats.

There really is no reason to give Premium advance notice, or opportunity, as the number of tickets becomes moot, and they are getting a discount anyway.

You, SIMU, will sell hundreds of tickets at an elevated price, and everyone who wants to attend will attend. It's a win win for everyone, except those who do not win one of the 100 MAJOR awards per run. But hey, they knew the risks when they purchased the ticket.

I fail to see a valid downside to this method, although I am sure someone will point one or three out to me soon.

~

The event is nowhere near as exclusive without the aspect of a certain Major. Thus, it's likely not worth the gate price it is now. They'd have to increase the price in order to limit participation otherwise it becomes a far less attractive event option.

They've held over a half dozen events as described in the last year or two.

Basically it boils down to this. Either releasing x number of major services into the game is a good idea, or it isn't. If it is, then anybody willing to drop $75 to attend the event should be able to get some kind of major service. If it isn't, then the entire event is ill-conceived and you're doing both the players and game a disservice.

And yes, I realize that's oversimplifying things. But that's the basic issue as I see it.

~ Heathyr and friends

>>Basically it boils down to this. Either releasing x number of major services into the game is a good idea, or it isn't. If it is, then anybody willing to drop $75 to attend the event should be able to get some kind of major service.

You don't think it's possible that it would be acceptable to release some amount of major services between 0 and unlimited? Because that requires either lifting the guarantee or imposing a limit on tickets.

For example, I hope you would agree that padding one suit of armor is not gamebreaking, and equally that padding every suit of armor in the game would be a terrible idea. Necessarily, then, there has to exist some in-between number, which we can estimate if not measure, which would be "too much" padding, and Wyrom should be aiming to release as much padding as he can without crossing that line. But doing so means limiting the number of customers, either by limiting tickets or by making each ticket less likely to get padding. (For padding, of course, substitute any major service.)

If you guys think I could get MORE services approved, I really don't know what to tell you. Getting what I got approved was a lot of work. Now, we could have made everything a major service, and limited it to 1 win per account, period, but that means someone would be walking away with just getting fire flares added. We could have bumped more minors into majors, but then people would be getting things that weren't up to par, such as a custom title or spell prep.

We're already offering a Lite entry for those that don't care about merchants or services, and just want to shop and compete for the quest. All your feedback has been taken into a big old file I have saved as to how an event will be done next time. But RtCF, as it stands, is a done deal. EG is right around the corner, which believe it or not, we started working on that last month. Events take about 6 months of work.

So with that all said and done, after EG, we'll be planning the next big thing. But another service-oriented festival isn't next in line. These are a lot of work.

---

~Wyrom, SGM
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I don't know if what I caught wind of was true but...

If it's possible that someone developed a program that would buy out tickets 50x faster than a person can do it...

Is there a prevention method or something that prevents botting (like 'type the word you see here in script'!) possible for the next ticket sales?


Rolf

>>So you'd be in favor of dropping the major guarantee?

Nope.

Someone else did mention what I thought was a brilliant solution, though.

Increase the price. In fact, increase it significantly. You have the demand for it. And if you go too far, slowly drop the price until you get the demand back.

Sure, folks are going to scream. But what are you going to do?

Get paid for having to listen to the screams, that's what. ;)

Doug

Forgot to add one more thing: This is more of a general observation, but it seems like the same people are usually ending up with all the best/rarest/stuff in the game. And they just horde it. They ALWAYS get tickets, they ALWAYS get work done at events, it really makes me feel left out. I think the best thing ive ever gotten in the 10 years ive played on and off has been a sonic alter. THATS IT. Ive never had padding done, ive never had anything above some minor scripts added to an item. Part of that is due to the fact that I play at odd hours being that now I live in Germany. But now when I FINALLY have the chance to get some thing really good. The same damn guys buy up all the tickets and I'm shafted again. Its this that is ruining my motivation to continue playing. :(

I think we can all agree that having a good bot or being a fast keyboard spammer with a low-latency connection should not be the criteria by which spots are selected. A web-based lottery seems to be the best alternative.

As a player who just returned after an 8 year hiatus, I have to say that I'm amazed it's still a fastest-clicker system. Surely this has been brought up and discussed every time an event is sold out.

Here's a crazy idea that would quell any favoritism or rigging accusations. Have each account that wants a ticket sign up for an online lottery, and number the signups. Tie the selections to state Powerball numbers for a given day, using a formula that everyone knows in advance.

I think the lottery system is a very fair method of distributing limited tickets.

The half-marathon I ran last Sunday was very much like this. To enter, you signed up for a random lottery. If you were selected, only then was your account charged the entry fee. They could have done something based upon time trials, or forced people to wait in line, or even held an online sign-up like we have here, but obviously such methods would not have given everyone who wanted to participate a fair chance. In the end there were 15,000 runners. The lottery was really the only fair and practical method to give everyone a chance to enter the race. Apparently, this is fairly common.

I don't see why that wouldn't work equally well here, certainly better than this year's "fastest finger" selection.

~ Heathyr and friends

>Issue with the lottery system is the same issue with the raffle system we currently have. People will always cry that the same people always win. I'm sure there would even be conspiracy theories about GMs rigging the contest so that their friends can go...

This is what happened when there was a lottery system for first class tickets for the Wavedancer.

Congrats on the half marathon, though! That's a great accomplishment.


~Vanah

Just because "people will complain" doesn't mean that a lottery isn't the most fair method of distribution for a limited amount of tickets.

If there is one thing I took away from the RtCF thread, being fair is not the proper way to go. And speaking as a GM, favoritism is the absolute worst claim of all of them. I would 100% not want to deal with that, ever.

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~Wyrom, SGM
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I honestly don't think there's ever going to be a method that makes a majority of people happy AND have a majority of people agree it's fair.

Huh. I agree with farmer for once. Must be a blue moon.

-Taakhooshi, and Me

For the Story of Taakhooshi:
http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Taakhooshi