News

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:22pm

Juke (#7625) - Pretty much, because it's an event that just happens to you, you don't have to worry about whether you skip over collecting an item, paying out a fortune to merchants, or being upset that you missed a treasure chest. It will just automatically apply to your account, same as collecting BP. Just as with item currencies, of course the more you click the more you will get, but this gives as close to a "hands off" Adventuring experience as we can give you.

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:23pm

Thanks for explaining!

I am excited to see how it goes, but at the same time worried and to be fair generally.. doing bad which probably doesn't help. x3

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:25pm

Eve (#2775)
When you get closer to ideas you like, maybe put up a poll, or even right now put up something so people can voice what they would like to be done with it? I may not have any ideas right now, but it would be nice to be able to at least give some input on what we get to exchange it for rather then just having to swallow what staff think most of us will like (not that you aren't taking it serious or not trying to make most of us happy, cuz you can't make us all happy, of course). This would also, hopefully, be less hoping on the staffs side, too.

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:35pm

As a newer person, it doesn't really bother me at all that currencies are being shifted, but I suppose that's because I have nothing saved and no expectations from the past.

If nothing else, should items be able to be bought and traded from those who do more adventuring, to those who have less time, I can only think the way to easier facilitate this is to have the shops / places where you get the desired items around for a decent amount of time after all other activities have calmed down, if not also during them as well. Because the only problem I see in people not getting the opportunity to trade with others would be due to shops closing too quickly for people to finish getting what they're after.

If prices are only revealed when a shop opens, and it's only open for a short amount of time, then no one knows how much (or what) to collect until then, and there's a mad scramble to get enough for everything. ... Thus, people would be less likely to trade if they found they miscalculated amounts ahead of time. But if there's more time where people know what they're going for, I imagine people would be able to plan ahead a bit, so they can get things for themselves and still have enough to buy things for others too.

Because that's the only thing that threw me on the last event. I already was collecting a bunch of pumpkins, and inferred I didn't need a ton of candy, it was just stuff like the potion shop and the customs where I was like 'wait, I needed these plants for things? I'd have paid more attention to the greenhouse if I knew these two things that I was super interested in would only be obtainable with plants, oops.' But by the time that got revealed, there was no way to get enough plants with all the cooldowns on top of doing the activities. I figured it was a lesson learned. But I can see how that might be the case for people without much time to collect too, because it boils down to similar things; not knowing what would be needed, and upon finding out, being unable to get all that's needed in that remaining time.

If there was just a good chunk of time where everything was on the table, it would be better to facilitate trading if people are worried that others will 'only get what they need' and not get items for those with less time. Especially if the currency doesn't roll over; if they have excess, why wouldn't they want to give it to others?

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:37pm

I'm glad there will be something to do with currency from past years. I've gotten in the habit of not spending it all if I don't need to because I know I can use it the next year. I'd be rather unhappy if it proved to be totally worthless.

I'll adjust to the new system and I think it will be more fair to new users. I'd like it to be easier to trade currency between users but I'll see how it works out. Tweaks are always possible in the future, right?

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:38pm

Good on staff for addressing the comments from the other news post. Whether or not everyone got the answers they wanted, they did get answers. I think it's good to make it feel like the staff is responsive and at least taking into consideration what users are saying, especially since sometimes it feels like those concerns are being ignored. So I think it was good to get that out there.

I don't have strong feelings about the event currency change one way or the other, at the moment. As long as the other currencies are able to be traded for something actually useful and worthwhile, I'll take it. If the plan is to do something more like the concert hall event with the music token currencies, I'm game. I think I recall that being a lot easier to get, and I had plenty by the end since it was easier to collect than pumpkins and candy canes/snowflakes. With how many concerns have been raised about the event currency drop ratios, shop prices, etc., I think it's probably not a bad idea to look into tweaking the system.

We might as well see how it goes and give it a chance before kicking up too big of a fuss, and then we can see if there are any pressing issues after trying it out for an event :)

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:42pm

ChaosAzeroth (#43055) - We're right there with you! We wouldn't make a change that we think would negatively affect a large portion of our users (or even a small portion!) so we're hoping this will prove to be better than people are worried about. Though, of course, worry is natural and often healthy! If things really don't work out how we hoped then of course we're going to reconvene, reconsider, and plan it out again ^^

weezee 🦉 (#107) - I completely understand. We're moving towards polling more, and having more hidden comment posts so people are able to freely speak their mind, and this should have come with a much more advanced warning. We absolutely hold our hands up to that, we have let you down there absolutely. This is something we wouldn't have polled though, because it's something that needs to happen to keep us all moving forward - I know it can seem silly that this change will do anything major, but making events more accessible means we can do more. We can multi-layer things so people can take part or not, like with the Halloween event just passed. Strange little changes can mean a world of difference to the potential we have to play with, because even though we can't make everyone happy (as you said lol) we're still going to keep trying. Events shouldn't be slogging in Adventure unless you want it to be slogging in Adventure, there needs to be more for the different types of people we introduce into our Aywas family every day.

Aberrance🐙👁️ (#77201) - I agree we need to better explain events - we've gotten complacent in forgetting that not everyone was here the previous year to know how something works, or what to do, or what's on offer. We're also working to update item descriptions that fall under that problem too.
We usually open the shop on Christmas Day and have it open until at least January 1st (we have been known to extend it to the 6th or 7th, but this is not always standard). This tends to give enough time for people to trade or Adventure more, but we will of course be keeping an eye on things much more closely this year!

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:44pm

I'm curious to see how this will play out. While the idea of having a new currency and a fresh start for each event is exciting, I'm a bit skeptical on the account-bound concept.

A lot of the people I talk to either don't have time for adventuring, work from a phone/tablet, or have slow internet, making adventure based currencies difficult for them to obtain. While those of us who have some time would be capable of offering to buy items for users who can't get them, I feel some of the more active adventurers will see this as a marketing opportunity to profit off those who can't participate rather than offering to help. I get the feeling this would lead to the "popular" or "high end" items being bought in bulk for sales, leaving collectors who can't adventure left to scour the market for overpriced collectables that would have otherwise been fairly cheap in the event shop by comparison.

If this were to be a problem in the future, may I suggest we move back to the item-based currency? Having the currency be trade-able gives non-adventurers the chance to barter and haggle before the shop opens, allowing them a much larger window to accumulate the points to spend as they wish. Having the item retire at the end of the event will encourage adventurers to spend, sell, or give away their extra when they've done what they want, and the month long accumulating/selling of the currency items will help prevent the urge for people to monopolize the event shop in the hopes of making an extra profit. I think helps keep the balance between "those who can" and "those who cannot" adventure, that way the events don't feel discouraging to anyone.

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:54pm

Eve (#2775) I total understand the wanting the clean slate part and that there are other ways of trading that work well enough that coding something like this might not be worth it or feasible at this time. My suggestion was more about ease of use as well as trying to find a compromise between tradability and the new way the currency works which is why I had said the item should *expire* at the same time the currency does (aka only usable for one event). So, what's got me totally confused is how having a tradable item would undermine resetting the currency if the item expires and becomes collectible or like Coryn suggested is wiped along with the currency. Just trying to understand.

Posted on: Sun Dec 3, 2017 9:55pm

@Eve Oh gosh, that's exciting and super appreciated! c: I've taken to reading basically all the comments in these news posts, because I see that sometimes more information is revealed within when I'm a little lost, and any bit of clarification is good, in my opinion~

Aalso thanks for knowledge on the shop times! I'd honestly think that doing something like extending to the 7th like you said might be great (depending on how people are doing with things), if only because from Christmas to New Years, lots of people are away / visit others, etc. That extra period after New Years when things are settling down on the real life front for many might be appreciated by people who have a lot of RL obligations to take care of for the holidays.