Announce post #2849: June 2018 Promotion!

Autoposter

<pre>6/1/2018 at 0:01
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
June 2018 Promotion!

It's time for a new promotion! This month we have GIFTBAGS! Hoooooray!

And lesson sales. Lessons are for sale on the website. LEARN ALL THE THINGS.

Normal giftbags come 1 for every 25 credits purchased during the month of June. The first 100 credits comes with an extra giftbag for every 10 credits! That means buying 100 credits gets you 14 giftbags straight off the bat!

We'll also give out LOGINDAYS rewards of a single giftbag for 21 days logged in a minimum of 60 minutes each.

We are keeping the giftbag colors as well.

GIFTBAG EXCHANGE <color>
-------------------
Each color has a 'theme' (I use this phrase lightly) that adjusts its contents slightly.
Red - PvP
Blue - PvE
Violet - Death
Orange - Crafting
Yellow - Shopkeeping
Green - RP
Gold - Shinies

NOTE: Gold is special, and requires 5 unopened normal giftbags to make 1.

The contents of each bag are adjusted from the standard giftbag. For instance, if the normal giftbag lists 5 possible compendium pages, and the colored giftbag lists a single type of page, all that giftbags' "slots" for pages are consumed for that single page type. If the vanilla bag has a 1% chance at pages, the colored bag still has a 1% chance, it is just much more specific in result.

Red Giftbag
-----------
Minipet: a tiny azureus poison dart frog (amphibian)
Relics: Blindsight (blindfold pieces only)
Chocolates: All normal, except Mint changed to White
Artifacts added: Enemy_Expand, Ally_Expand, Hunters_Boon Level 2, Darkness
Compendium Pages: exchanged for warpaints

Blue Giftbag
------------
Minipet: a small golden poison frog (amphibian)
Chocolates: Mint
Relics: Antennae
Artifacts added: Hunting Boon tokens
Compendium Pages: All odds increased
Style Scrolls: All normal, added Crafting
All Artifacts: lower odds


Violet Giftbag
--------------
Minipet: a tiny glass frog (amphibian)
Artifacts added: skullmask more likely, anointing oil
Artifacts removed: XP Chalice
Relics: saltheart (all pieces), Gorget (anaxagorite pieces)
Chocolates: hazelnut, caramel, strawberry, mint
Compendium Pages: None


Yellow Giftbag
--------------
Minipet: a fragile glass frog (elemental)
Relics: Blindsight (rune piece only), Gorget (frame pieces only)
Artifacts added: Stockroom_expand Level 3, extra_shelves level 1, tipjar
Style Scrolls: All normal, added Crafting


Green Giftbag
-------------
Minipet: a stained glass frog (magical)
Artifacts: all normal, fast_shrines
Relics: horns (all pieces), antennae
Chocolates: hazelnut, caramel, strawberry, mint
Compendium Pages: None


Orange Giftbag
--------------
Minipet: a small brown salamander (amphibian)
Relics: Bloodyfang
Chocolates: All normal, except Mint changed to Fudge
Artifacts Added: Salt, Toolboost Level 3, Listen_Painting, All sorts of tradeskill_boon
(Note, if you get Toolboost, msg Me with the tool you'll want it to work on, and I'll get coding,
I've been putting that off)


Gold Giftbag
------------
No junk. Minimum value is higher than 5 giftbags separately, and all things that are more boring
have been removed. Does include all minipet and relic options.
Relics Exclusive: Phylactery pieces


NEW ITEMS!

bamboozle bomb
--------------
(in all bags except Gold)

You may have noticed the imps using these and been confused about their effect...
Like a standard bomb, wield it and THROW BOMB AT GROUND. Everyone in the room struck will lose all telepathic communications for 20 seconds. That's right, no Guildtells, Tells, Ordertells, OR WEBTELLS.


RETURNING ITEMS

A mirror bomb
-------------
(in all bags except Gold)

When thrown at the ground, everybody in the room will see their output in reverse for a few seconds. Quick way to make friends into enemies! Consumed on use.


NEW RELICS!

saltheart
---------
* 1x An aorta of salt
* 1x A right ventricle and atrium of salt
* 1x A left ventricle and atrium of salt

Any attempt to steal your heart (like Cannibalism or Cruelty) will find that you do not, in fact, have a heart. Instead you have salt. Of course you do.


antennae
--------
* 4x a piece of an insect antennae

A racial relic, once possessed you will always hear while deaf. No need for mindseye or lipreading.
You will also gain access to the premote "ANTENNAE".


blindsight
----------
* 4x a small blindfold section
* 1x a mindseye rune

This blindfold, when worn, will act as though you can always see. No need for mindseye.
It also looks cool.


bloodyfang
----------
* 4x a rotting shapeshifter jaw

A racial relic, once possessed you will be able to gain nutrition via eating corpses.
Gross.


an anaxagorite gorget
---------------------
* 3x a curved plate of anaxagorite
* 2x half a venantium gorget frame

This gorget, when worn, makes your body impossible to decapitate. Note that its power is only active when you are dead, and despite its superb construction, it cannot protect you from behead.


Divine Phylacteries
-------------------
* 4x a <divine> phylactery fragment

These are phylacteries (HELP PHYLACTERY) designed by your Patrons. You may only receive pieces of the relic associated with YOUR patron. If you do not have a Patron, you will receive a random phylactery from the list in HELP PHYLACTERY.
-T

For those of you that stuck with me the whole time: Expect an artifact auction later this month.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 17th of Lanosian, in the year 473 MA.</pre>

Leana

an anaxagorite gorget
---------------------
* 3x a curved plate of anaxagorite
* 2x half a venantium gorget frame

This gorget, when worn, makes your body impossible to decapitate. Note that its power is only active when you are dead, and despite its superb construction, it cannot protect you from behead.

Not a big fan of this one. It directly renders another artifact, a skill, and a woodcraft item useless . I honestly hate this relic and think it should be out of the game.

Same feeling with:

saltheart
---------
* 1x An aorta of salt
* 1x A right ventricle and atrium of salt
* 1x A left ventricle and atrium of salt

Any attempt to steal your heart (like Cannibalism or Cruelty) will find that you do not, in fact, have a heart. Instead you have salt. Of course you do.

It also appears relatively easy to assemble. Can these have some sort of cooldown? Or just be deleted?

EDIT: I'm honestly sad by the Gorget being in the game. What purpose does it serve other than to spite and make things -less- fun? Unless I can -SHRINK HEAD- still attached to a corpse, I'm really unhappy by this new set of relics.

Stine

I went through 50 giftbags all changed to red and got 1 section of the blindfold. I'm not sure if I have the worst luck possible or what, but those odds seem really, really low. Maybe they're not as easy to assemble as you'd think, @Leana.

Tiur

The odds are low, which is why you don't normally see relics in giftbags. Their values are showing to be where they should be. I might be installing an odds viewer for later. Or tweaking them on the refresh. Not sure. I was a little hesitant to add the relics because of the necessarily low odds. But dang, we had so many good ones waiting!

I keep logs of all the opening and stuff, so I'd do something for people who opened pre changes, no worries.

@Leana I see it as a counter to a vanity thing. I don't normally get into artifacts 'beating' others and such, but this was seen as a major edge case. I expect to see like 1 or 2 gorgets in the game.

The heart thing was after we established good statistics on the sources of essence. Hearts are by far not the source anymore. They've -almost- been relegated to vanity as well.

Mjoll

Hearts are the only way to use Savagery Cruelty though :<

Leana

@Tiur Counter that can't be experienced, since the person has no knowledge of what happens to their corpse. They'll have no idea it even works unless they try it themselves or are told by an enemy when it fails. Even one gorget in the game exists solely to disappoint another player and not enhance the experience of the owner. It invalidates artifact pikes, decapitate, the shrunken head artifact, and just undermines a game staple (Decapitate and piking heads).

Maybe it's a vanity thing, but it's an expensive vanity thing to a few people. It's something important to others. I don't think anyone was clamoring for this and maybe there are people who really like and want this relic, but it really bums me out. If it did something besides invalidate others, I wouldn't have a problem with it. It just makes the game unfun for someone else and there must be some other function this can provide that's actually fun for the owner.

Xenia

Mjoll said:

Hearts are the only way to use Savagery Cruelty though :<</p>

Gonna echo that, because I don't think my +1 strength stat is pure vanity, and instead more a boon to the class.

Xenia

Sorry for the double post, but the prospect of a saltheart becoming common is a little frustrating because I have come to rely on that +1 strength the Carnifex gets from the Cruelty skill.

Is it possible that this was overlooked, or is it the official stance that +1 strength from a mortal player vanity? And, if it's the latter, can we get a work around to still get the +1 to strength from taking hearts off named NPC mobs to counteract the vanity issue?

Edit: So it looks like +1 strength is actually cosmetic (talking less 100 dmg difference). Carry on, my salt is being saved for the saltedhearts. Feels bad, though.

Tina

In response to the note about making gold bags maybe more desirable or less of the waste they are now. While the odds may be increased for a big win, most of the time you just get a normal one, and lose four gift bags. Part of the gamble, I know. But I'm probably not the only one who is only getting gold not for a big artifact win, but for the new just for flavor divine phylacteries. Opened a bunch already and haven't even gotten one piece of it. Just a suggestion, but as it is a flavor thing and not for combat or pve, maybe you could make it so a phylactery piece is guaranteed from each gold bag on top of the normal prize gamble, or at a greatly increased drop rate of 50% or something. Like how we used to get pills from every cryptic chest on top of the prize.

Vyxsis

Tina said:

In response to the note about making gold bags maybe more desirable or less of the waste they are now. While the odds may be increased for a big win, most of the time you just get a normal one, and lose four gift bags. Part of the gamble, I know. But I'm probably not the only one who is only getting gold not for a big artifact win, but for the new just for flavor divine phylacteries. Opened a bunch already and haven't even gotten one piece of it. Just a suggestion, but as it is a flavor thing and not for combat or pve, maybe you could make it so a phylactery piece is guaranteed from each gold bag on top of the normal prize gamble, or at a greatly increased drop rate of 50% or something. Like how we used to get pills from every cryptic chest on top of the prize.

i'm very much in agreement with tina here. i just want those sweet, sweet tanix phylactery pieces, and the fact they have such a low drop-rate in the already-expensive gold bags is actually discouraging me from buying. i've got very limited money to spend, and as it is, i can probably only afford three gold giftbags' worth of credits. if i spend all my money and don't get any, i'd be pretty frustrated. given that few people seem to be getting enough phylactery pieces to complete even their own god phylacteries, it seems unlikely anyone in my order will have extra i could buy (with those credits i purchased but didn't need in the hopes of getting phylactery pieces). that's a hella bummer to me. i really want the shiny, and i'm willing to put money in to get it. i just don't have the funds to buy an endless stream of credits until i finally get the pieces, and without any forseeable way of completing this relic with only 1 or 2 pieces - which, from the sound of things, i'd be stupid lucky to get in three gold giftbags - i'd rather keep my money for something else. which is to say, aetolia's not getting my measly $40 or whatever.

i'm not under the impression that my pittance of a budget is important or should entitle me to anything, to be clear. i'm just saying, for what it's worth, that i feel discouraged by the potential cost of acquiring a cosmetic item, and probably, at this point, i won't spend my little pile of fun money on the promo.

edit to add: if i could buy the credits to get three gold giftbags and be guaranteed the phylactery piece in each, you bet your bottom dollar i'd piss my money into the abys- er, give you my money, because then i could at least keep an eye out for a morphic metal to complete it.

Leana

I find myself more inclined to traditional gift bags... I didn't know the phylactery pieces only showed up in gold bags. I'm planning to spend more to get some more bags, but can I get confirmation on the chance that gold will get you one?

Or maybe make a special gold, like Platinum or whitegold, that cost 5 regular but makes phylactery the only item you can get? Or something like that? 

It's a limited item (only order people?) limited further behind a pay wall. For a small or dead order it will be impossible to get. Having a better chance would increase purchases and it won't break the game. Like the Gorget or salt heart.

#deletegorget #everythinghasaheart

Mordion

Out of curiosity what can show up in the regular gift bags without converting them to the colored ones? I tested one and all it had was a bamboozle bom and an ophidian pin. That was pretty sad. Is the helpfile for giftbags accurate at present?

Tiur

It's a little off. They include everything from colored ones, pretty much, just at less specialized odds.