Announce post #3048: January 2020 Promotion

Autoposter

1/1/2020 at 2:24
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
January 2020 Promotion

Happy New Year! Soon we will share the EoY post, and talk about next year... but first, January Promotion!

First, a 30% price reduction on credits!

Next, an entirely new promotion, balanced similar to the Wheel of Fates, with odd twists.

The Iron Bank has long stored all sorts of random things, and when the owners of those vaults fail to pay their dues, they are repossessed! Imps have better things to do than make auctions for all this stuff, so instead, they pass the winnings on to you.

Iron Bank vault keys are available online at www.aetolia.com/credits and may be made from four pieces, should you find those pieces in other ways (Milestones, wink wink). Once you have your key, go to your city's bank (or the open market in Esterport for you tetherless) and IRONBANK ENTER. A new area awaits!

Key to the this promotion is the prize list. While it is not so varied and high value as normal, it is static instead of random. There are 100 vaults. There are 100 prizes. If the total average value of the vaults fall below 20cr, they reset. If there are less than 15 prizes left, they reset. If you are feeling froggy, use a key and MAKE them reset. Otherwise you may see what has been claimed, what hasn't, etc. Clever players could wait for ideal moments to attempt to snipe!

BONUS: At the end of the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 31st we'll gather up the people who have used keys and be giving out a 500cr prize at random!

Note: The Iron Bank is neutral territory. It is also all safe rooms. Please don't make trouble here, I had some heartache about making a central zone like this. BE NICE. It is not meant in any way to provide an advantage, so I'll explode you if you find a way to make it do so and abuse it instead of just telling me.

In front of the vault, you may use the IRONBANK commands, listed via IRONBANK HELP.

IRONBANK ENTER - Travel from city bank to the Iron Bank.
IRONBANK EXIT - Travel from the Iron Bank gates to your city bank.
IRONBANK - Look at the vaults! (visual, do not use as VI)
IRONBANK # (or click) - Look at a specific vault, to see what its status is
IRONBANK OPEN X Y - Open the vault, using a key, by its x, y coordinates.
IRONBANK OPEN NUMBER # - Open the vault by number.
IRONBANK OPENED - List numbers that are open (for VI!)
IRONBANK CLOSED - List numbers still to be opened (for VI!)
IRONBANK PRIZES - List the unclaimed prizes.
IRONBANK COMBINE PIECES - Combine 4 pieces into a key!
IRONBANK RESET WITH KEY - Force the bank to reset its vaults by USING a key.


Minipets
--------
a soot-covered canary x1 Avian *NEW*
a horde of baby chicks x1 Avian
a large spider cricket x1 Insect *NEW*
a crimson millipede x1 Insect *NEW*
golden exchange token x5 (For those that forget, this ensures an exchange makes a pet you do not own)

Credits
-------
25 x20
50 x5
100 x1
250 x1
500 x1

Bound Credits
-------------
30 x19
50 x5

Items
-----
a hunting boon token x1
a small bag of chocolates x10
a cryptic chest x10
artifact salvage x4
XP Chalice x3
a box of artifact vials x1

-T

PS. Obviously, this is new and different. Please leave commentary and questions, and I'll be modifying this all through the month. I made myself sick coding this, so it has a lot of options we're not using. We could use more than 100 prizes, so there's more randomness to boards... we could remove the reset option, make it so that there are multiple vaults to go see, etc. Heck, we can even move the reset barriers around! Do you hate the prizes? Tell me what makes you happy :) The idea here is to remove junk prizes and put in a barrier to prevent people from getting TERRIBLE value. We could even make it not reset, so it always gives out ALL its prizes, the last person would know exactly what they get.

PPS. This Flintbeard guy keeps @'ing me. Who the heck is this?

PPPS. WHO LET HIM POST ON ANNOUNCE, WHAT THE HELL RAZMAEL?!

Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 15th of Arios, in the year 485 MA.

Drystin

Less randomness is definitely a good direction in my opinion. For me personally, in the 2 years I've been playing I've spent more $$$ than I'm comfortable mentioning and mostly hoping to get salvage. With that said, I've never gotten a single piece of salvage. Maybe its intended to be that rare? I dunno, but since you asked specifically what would make me happy, my answer would be a more predictable way of obtaining salvage. I mean, best case scenario from my perspective is just throw it in the arti cart once in a while or throw out a promo where once you buy threshold of credits you get a piece of salvage, etc.

As far as the prize list itself, the only thing there that really gets me excited is the salvage and the 500 credit prize but I still wouldn't want to participate in this based on just those. The salvage will be the primary thing getting sniped and if I want credits, I wait for a credit sale because I'm getting a good deal and I know exactly what I'm getting for my money.

Bulrok

The opportunity to snipe what I want also means someone else is going to being trying to snipe what I want. The last promo had a lot of gambling involved already (gamble for gold/plat, gamble on opening, gambling at racetracks, and even gambling on chests you'd open if you got one of those). I'll be waiting for a promotion with far less gambling before I spend anything close to what I did this month.

Seurimas

Do Iron Keys give any org credits? I know chests do but stockings didn't, which is weird.

Phoenecia

So, where exactly is the room for non-thethered people to access the bank in Esterport? 

Seurimas

~~Most IRONBANK commands don't seem to work for me.~~ Nevermind, go to the vaults.

Tiur

It's the first 'market' named room as you walk into Esterport from the west. I'll add more rooms in the morning and make it more obvious. Or put it somewhere easy to path-track.

The commands really only work in front of the Vaults, other than Enter/Exit. Some require a key to work.

They don't give org credits, I forgot to turn that on. I'll get it tomorrow!

All promotions are inherently gambling these days. The sad fact is that if I do a 30% sale less people will buy credits than if I offer a sale of items that gamble for stuff. So each sale, like this month's reduction, is tied to something gambling-ish as well. I do try to be super honest about all this stuff, and this promotion is unique in having even odds, as in 100 prizes, 100 slots. So I can reveal the odds, because you can calculate them. I might give a discussion about ethical promo design later!

A thought, maybe I can do both? I could set up a vault room that is MUCH more gambling, with worse prizes in some places, and MUCH better ones elsewhere. So a high risk vault in addition to the current one?

Simply: 95% of the time a promotion is geared to give you a sale value. Something that costs $10 should give the same credits as $10, plus 30-40%, on average. The bigger the amazing lucky prize, the smaller the other prizes need to be to compensate. For every 2k credit award, I need to add a ton of 5-7cr prizes to bring the average down to the correct value. (The 95% accounts for giftbags, which we lie about. They're actually much better than they say they are, because Xmas)

Seurimas

They don't give org credits, I forgot to turn that on. I'll get it tomorrow!

Thanks for that! Org credits make me feel better about spending money.

Seurimas

Are Org credits in now?

Tiur

Added now!

Seurimas

BONUS: At the end of the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 31st we'll gather up the people who have used keys and be giving out a 500cr prize at random!

Did this happen?

Mjoll

It did!

Aeryx

Seurimas said:

BONUS: At the end of the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 31st we'll gather up the
people who have used keys and be giving out a 500cr prize at random!

Did this happen?

They announced it in a live in game OOC announcement instead of a post or anything, but Aisar won the first one.

Tiur

I always feel weird announcing something that only matters to one person. I'll also add winners here!

Seurimas

Thanks, all!

Phoenecia

Still no Esterport bank room? None of the rooms work for the Iron Bank and I've tried the commands a few times now. It'd be great to have a vnum for it.

Tiur

It should have worked from day 1 at v53357. Msg me if not.