DM was just as much fun the second time as the first time I ran it. In fact even more so since I didn't have to sit in the ready room for 10 minutes with an escalating death timer.

That being said I was unlucky enough to pull one of the 40 charge crumbly unstun brooches. Now, I'd like to say first of all that the idea of this brooch is actually insanely good. It periodically checks your health and unstuns you if you are stunned. What an awesome item!

Except that after 40 uses it crumbles into nothing.

People complained on the forum when these mini runs were first introduced about the prize being a teleport ring that would be navved after 20 uses. Why in the world was this type of item introduced again? No one feels good about paying $25 for the chance to win an item that is absolutely guaranteed to destroy itself IF YOU USE IT.

I realize that this type of item needs some sort of limitation. However it should be something like 1x per day only or that you have to recharge it with bounty points or expensive gems or silvers or something. To have it disappear after 40 stuns is at the least heart breaking and borderline enraging.

Please, please have some empathy and change these brooches so that they don't crumble. Even if you have to change it into something less powerful or just let us turn these in for the leftovers at the end or something. Of the 3 that have been pulled already, the other 2 people are just as unhappy as I .. and there are what 5 more in the pool?




p.s. I won this on my 2nd account, but I'm too lazy to log it into the forums. I just pray that I don't win another one tomorrow night on this account.

>>No one feels good about paying $25 for the chance to win an item that is absolutely guaranteed to destroy itself IF YOU USE IT.<<

Yeah, this.

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Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein

The chance is fine when its the chance to win an interesting weapon/armor or something more fluffy/rp. In fact to some people the fluff/rp items are the more interesting. That is fine.

What is not fine is when the chance is to win items that will still exist after you use them and items that will destroy themselves after you use them.

And yeah there have been a few riots over this very problem with the Droughtman runs. The latest was the plan for the original mini runs and the 20 use teleport rings were thrown out as a prize. People flipped out and Simutronics wisely backed off and made up the current mini-treasure lists.

I can't understand why they thought only a few months later that adding 8 crumbly 40 charge items to the pool would be a good idea. I guess perhaps because only 8 people will be affected and as usual no one on these forums gives a crap unless it happens to them. Its much easier to use the standard ignore the problem until it dies customer service policy with only 8 people pissed off instead of everyone.

What's really driving up my blood pressure is that I was one of the unlucky few to have the escalating death timer last time, too. I easily sat out 10 minutes of the runs heh. I love DM but I seem cursed to get the crap end of the stick whenever there's a problem with it.

As someone said in game, I guess I only have myself to blame since I keep paying $25 to buy tickets to it.

Huh. So you're saying that Simu being lazy and putting in 40 charge crumbly items into a run of Droughtsman's where the treasure list was posted barely 2 hours before the first run was actually an ingenious form of market testing. Testing what? How to piss off their player base by doing something again and again and again that has pissed off their player base?

Maybe its to see just what the threshold is for how many people they can screw without impacting enough of the player base that they can get away with it.

I suppose they have sort of succeeded if that was their aim. Just looking through the several complaint threads here with these mini runs, whether its the death timer, crumbly items, etc I guess they've figured out your personal threshold (see below).

How exactly am I supposed to learn the rules when the rules consist of arbitrary (some would say random) and unannounced changes? There haven't been any artifacts in any of these runs. There also haven't been 8 CRUMBLY items thrown in because 8 other items couldn't be created in the weeks between runs of the event. I didn't expect to win anything earth shattering but I did expect to win something non crumbly. This was based on the previous mini runs and Simutronics seemingly learning its lesson with the teleport ring fiasco.

So you know what? I did exactly what you suggested. I observed, learned the rules and paid my money. Then Simutronics changed the game after the fact. There's no way I could have theorized my way around that unless I just didn't buy the tickets. And if that is the gist of your argument then guess what, its a totally useless point to make. Totally. Useless. As in why come here and post it?

There's a huge gulf between getting a disappointing item and getting an item that will destroy itself if you use it. One will exist in 2 months and the other will not. When that was going to happen to everyone with the crappy teleport rings with the original mini-DM run the forums blew up and rightfully so. The only difference is that I'm one of a few people that is being screwed this time. If you don't see that then I guess I've wasted 3 minutes making this post.

That being said, you are entitled to your opinion no matter how unreasonable it appears to any individual outside your own head. Just, do you have to post it every time someone correctly points out a mistep by Simutronics that doesn't directly affect you?

Because lets not kid ourselves, just like any other rational entity you also react by using "recognized behavior" when Simutronics, someone in the real world (maybe a low flying plane, I don't know) when it happens to you.



TL;DR version:

If it doesn't affect Doug then its just unreasonable people of lesser intelligence/morale fortitude using whining to get their way.

>>just like any other rational entity you also react by using "recognized behavior"

Actually, I've spent years working to unlearn exactly that, it's a work in progress. :) It's ironic you should select this specific verbiage. I get that you're unhappy. Not asking you to change your mind, either.

>>Just, do you have to post it every time someone correctly points out a mistep by Simutronics that doesn't directly affect you?

I never do. That should be a clue.

>>If it doesn't affect Doug then its just unreasonable people of lesser intelligence/morale fortitude using whining to get their way.

It can't just be a complaint without declaring heinous motivations and assumptive behaviors? Are we actually operating at a level that because one's feelings were hurt, another's feelings need to be hurt, too?

By the way -- I'll buy your brooch.

Doug

Hi Velvette,

I can't blame you for being angry. I got a stunning skull back during the huge run of DM last year....considering I had dreams of animated cauldrons or a gem-eating spell-casting rod, that one hurt pretty bad.

I sold the skull for a pittance, grumbled a lot, and then bought the gem eating rod I wanted for 20 million.

All I can say is, if you view it as money spent on running a pretty fun maze and not as an attempt to get a super-cool item, then it doesn't hurt as much. I know, that's hard to do.

Rishi
- Player of Kembal

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Speaking to Plur, Belnia says, "You're no Kembal."

>"When I came back they were selling tickets and everyone that went to the original one had such a great time and got such great prizes that I was persuaded to give it a go." - Velvette

The people cheering about the spectacular wins tend to drown out the grumbling if you're only looking for glitter and glory.

When I went over the list for things that would be personally valuable to me, I saw like 35 items out of the 1,000. Those are pretty much lottery like odds.

Sell the item, assist and try to trade it in for an alter or well it and forget about it. You paid a lot less than the people who got shafted on the original run.

I understand not everyone is going to be happy with every prize. That's why we implemented the consolation prizes of the alter/lighten/deepen scroll for these runs. There were some crumbly items in the original runs as well, so this is not unprecedented.

I know that Droughtman urged unhappy winners numerous times to trade in their prizes if they didn't like them.

~Sirina

As the now-owner of one of these, I'm just going to reiterate that I think the item being crumbly is really a kick in the teeth.

Any item that is non-permanent should be EXCEPTIONALLY BETTER than a permanent item. These brooches should give me +100 AS and DS and TD for 5 minutes at 40 rubs. That'd be a decent prize that I wouldn't complain about.

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Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein

Another winner of a brooch, well there was a number of us that round. I have lockers of random stuff from various events and situations from when I started playing gemstone. I still have them as souvenirs because they simply didn't crumble! I'm sure I had a few neat items that broke, crumbled, or were lost over the years but I'd rather not remember them as I imagine it was not a pleasant time in game. Just seems an all around poor choice to put into the hopper. Perhaps someone might have said the same of the permanent crystal amulet, but I personally saw that as a proper consolation prize. I was tempted to buy the first one and had a new character idea in mind specifically for that item...but well it went for more then I wanted to spend on a laugh.

Lastly, 10 of the same item seems a bit excessive. Granted the last unclaimed brooch might be completely different but....10% of the maze is a horribly underwhelming identical prize?

Just adding my thoughts.

Lochiven

Honestly, Wyrom, I think whomever was responsible for this run of brooches being prizes punted. The concept behind them is cool, but their being SO limited with only 40 charges is very UNcool.

At this point, I've run DM exactly 5 times over it's course in GSIV. Now, I've never pulled anything absolutely amazing (like a blink certificate or a chaos weapon), but I've never been unhappy with anything I've pulled either (mostly just some decent enhancives and a niche-y RP item), and I always felt the item had a right to be there.

Even when presented with the gross inequity that my elven-reading glasses has 1/5th of the market value of someone elses shiny new piece of equipment, I didn't feel like I had any space to complain. I got an interesting and unique item that I can use and enjoy.

These unstunning brooches though, their lack of permanence makes them an extremely unsatisfying and unrewarding prize. The are only two reasons why I didn't turn mine in for a GALD. One is because GALDs are so common, it would be fair I think to say that the opportunity for a GALD is easily once a week (as a premium subscriber). At least this item, while disappointing, is more uncommon than a GALD. That's the only thing it's got going for it. The second is, that my hope and continually waning faith in Simutronics will be revitalized by a decision to make these items more on parity with the rest of the prizes offered.

Honestly, this item feels like the 'consolation prize', despite that actually being the GALD service.

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Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein

I'm not raging mad, or threatening cancellation or anything like that... I'm just severely underwhelmed.

The way I see it... you can't give one guy a porche, and another guy a golf cart, and expect them to both equally appreciate the two. The disparity there is too great. Nobody wants to be the guy with the golf cart, when all their buddies are driving away in brand new porches.

What it boils down to for me is that, variance is expected within the DR prizes. Everyone knows that going in to it and they can prepare themselves for it. What I think that is missing ultimately is full disclosure of that disparity.

I think if any such events like this are going to be run in the future, you need to let players know exactly what they could or could not win. You tell us what every item is when we win it. Why not go that extra step and tell us all before we buy tickets? To do otherwise is dishonest, and preying on players and their willingness to gamble for something exceptional. If I had known 10% of the prize pool was going to be one of these items, I wouldn't have bought a ticket. Those odds are not good enough for me. I've been willing to suffer the possibility of a couple of gowns and such in the past, because their representation was low comparatively, and I saw enough things that interested me and or that I recognized that I would have been willing to risk it.

When you ask players to gamble, and then you don't tell them all the possible outcomes, it starts to feel a lot like a scam instead. I really don't think that's where any of us wants to be.

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Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein