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A piece of feedback about the Extra Life Key giveaway

It was a mess. Luckily I have the money for the key, so I won't feel too upset about it, but for future optics for the company I'd suggest a much better way of doing this.

Keys were being distributed, assumedly, through a twitch chat bot that was tracking chat activity. I took these pics (shown below) during the 50 key giveaway, but there were a few smaller ones before that.

The first few giveaways went seemingly "fine". The bot found some chatters and then mods supposedly gave them out keys. They'd stop chat and the bot would post names of chosen players.

7tv allows users to see a short history of messages of other users (seemingly only from the period of the latest few minutes). During the first few giveaways some people used that feature to look at those who got keys and saw that those users "didn't have history of messages" (which I assume simply meant that they were active within an hour or two, instead of the last few mins). And the ones who found that out commented on this fact.

The next few giveaways had "technical issues", so usernames weren't posted in chat and mods supposedly gave out keys w/o chat knowing who received them. I assume this was the case because the tracker could no longer properly track hours-worth of messages. Alternative is that mods changed the tracker settings from hours to minutes.

The alternative becomes a definitive fact for later giveaways because mods simply said "be active right now, because giveaway is going on; you'll get a pm if you win". Which means that the setting was most likely 1min. Winners weren't announced.

Then we come to the last giveaway of 50 keys. I assume picking out random people from the spam was difficult, so mods decided to come back to the first version of the giveaway, but with the 1min setting. So they'd stop the chat completely, after the chat had been spamming messages for a while because mods said to be active cause giveaway would start soon.

And here's where we come to a problem. Throughout the entire stream mods been saying that spamming chat won't increase your chances of getting a key (I assume to try and lessen the spam, and because 1-2h setting of the bot would've caught their message). But here's how the first 19 key winners looked like against the latest messages in chat.

Here's how to read the picture. The right part goes bottom-up right-to-left. So remorni was the latest message in chat before the giveaway and czejkenwow's was the earliest (kaprin's and mine messages are repeats to show the cuttoff). The left part is the winners of the giveaway. There you read them up-to-bottom left-to-right. Remorni was the first winner and Atwood was the last announced in chat winner.
we6ild8pibsp.png

As one might notice, all 19 names were within the latest ~30 names in chat. I assume mods noticed this "peculiar" function of their bot, so the rest of the keys were given out by hand w/o announcing winners in chat.

Now, I won't deny that I'm a fair bit butthurt. I spent the last 27h paying attention to the donation values and repeatedly typing smth in chat to upkeep my activity at all times. I missed another opportunity to try for giveaways during the previous stream, because I didn't know this particular rule for the giveaway (and I don't know if it was explained anywhere before the stream).

Due to some other circumstances I only slept 4h in the last 2 days, because I knew this would be the last chance to try to win a key in a giveaway. Now, the 4h is totally on me (although the previous stream did went over 2h the plan), but the 25h of stream still stands.

So, obviously, having noticed the "peculiar" function of the bot beforehand, I spammed messages quite a bit, in order to be within the latest messages (as obvious by 3 messages within the latest 30). So when NINETEEN OUT OF 30 names got picked, while mine didn't - it stung quite a bit.

When mods announced the invisible giveaway after the 19th winner - it stung even more. I assume they did so because they noticed the "peculiarity" of their bot, which was now way more obvious than before. I noticed it before because I clicked through the Pet giveaway winners and compared them to the chat names. There were 20 winners, most of which were within the latest 40 names in chat. Obviously mods did not notice this during the last pet giveaway.

Now for conclusion . Intrepid, please do better. I dunno how, but I'd imagine a tiny bit of better preparation/research could've let you avoid this issue. This definitely left an even bigger sour taste in my mouth than the previous small blunders (for obvious current reasons).

This was unnecessarily messy.
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Comments

  • Obviously more about the cause than the keys but I get that they wanted to reward the most "active" chatters but it felt like it just encouraged unnecessary spam preventing more genuine interaction. If you weren't there spamming you essentially wouldn't get a good chance at getting one which I would assume to discourage people more from getting a key and potentially push them away from participating in stream. Could've potentially had more viewers to contribute or partake in event.

    Should have just been random actives(non away/afk) with the time to reply window with potentially maybe just 1-2 giveaway windows for most active chatters.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    Obviously more about the cause than the keys but I get that they wanted to reward the most "active" chatters but it felt like it just encouraged unnecessary spam preventing more genuine interaction. If you weren't there spamming you essentially wouldn't get a good chance at getting one which I would assume to discourage people more from getting a key and potentially push them away from participating in stream. Could've potentially had more viewers to contribute or partake in event.
    Also, saying "spam doesn't help", when it super obviously did, also didn't help. And they repeated that phrase right during the giveaway of the remaining 31 keys.

    Either not all mods were in the know about the bot or they just lied to people. I'd hope it's the former. Though that's still a problem, cause mods are a presentable face and having a lying face is a bad practice for a company.
  • xDoggehAltxDoggehAlt Member
    edited November 2023
    .
  • SonicXplosionSonicXplosion Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Yea there was 1 guy who won without even following the channel, another guy who won with an obvious alt in the chat. One of the giveaways had all the winners spamming in the 30 seconds before the chat went to sub mode. It was completely messy.
    7ay8tzh1md4a.jpg
    bk3vxdssf0zy.png
    wvumdu7jsxn2.png
  • edited November 2023
    NiKr wrote: »
    Obviously more about the cause than the keys but I get that they wanted to reward the most "active" chatters but it felt like it just encouraged unnecessary spam preventing more genuine interaction. If you weren't there spamming you essentially wouldn't get a good chance at getting one which I would assume to discourage people more from getting a key and potentially push them away from participating in stream. Could've potentially had more viewers to contribute or partake in event.
    Also, saying "spam doesn't help" when it super obviously did also didn't help. And they repeated that phrase right during the giveaway of the remaining 31 keys.

    Either not all mods were in the know about the bot or they just lied to people. I'd hope it's the former. Though that's still a problem, cause mods are a presentable face and having a lying face is a bad practice for a company.

    I missed a lot of the stream to be honest so I'll have to take your word on it. Does seem a bit weird based on the information you provided.

    EDIT: that picture does match up quite evidently too lol
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Yea there was 1 guy who won without even following the channel, another guy who won with an obvious alt in the chat. One of the giveaways had all the winners spamming in the 30 seconds before the chat went to sub mode. It was completely messy.
    I could somewhat understand the difficulty of preventing alts and/or newest followers, but yeah, the system itself was very flawed and process was super messy.
  • ChroninhoChroninho Member, Alpha Two
    While I understand the frustration and thinking this was not fair considering they mentioned that spamming would not help, but since (it seems) they had problem with the bot, there wouldnt be much they could do.

    The mods have limited access and time to try to make everything work, so I dont think they did this thinking it would be detrimental to others or in bad faith.

    Again, I totally understand being frustrated with this because being over 24h watching a livestream and not getting the key is something that really make you tired and then thinking it was unfair can aggravate it.

    But in the end this was a charity livestream and it really served it purpose.
    Hopefully for next years they would be able to improve and better test the bot to try to avoid these problems again.
    img]
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  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Chroninho wrote: »
    Hopefully for next years they would be able to improve and better test the bot to try to avoid these problems again.
    Yeah, this is my ultimate goal. I can be butthurt all I want, but I'd simply prefer if I didn't have to be butthurt in the future.

    Even just a clearly laid out set of rules for the giveaway, that matches the system they're using would've helped.

    And while tech issues do in fact happen, they can also be remedied in a better way. Naming winners would've alleviated at least some issues with this process. Cause saying "just spam chat, you'll get a PM if you win" and then not telling who won seems shady as fuck. Needlessly so.
  • TitanSwanTitanSwan Member, Alpha Two
    hmmmmm
  • SonicXplosionSonicXplosion Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    TitanSwan wrote: »
    hmmmmm

    Congrats on winning an A2 key. Its not your fault the giveaway was scuffed.
    wvumdu7jsxn2.png
  • VyrilVyril Member, Alpha Two
    TBF.

    It's not a big deal.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Vyril wrote: »
    TBF.

    It's not a big deal.
    That's relative. To me, $250 is quite a huge deal. Which is exactly why I stayed throughout the entire Extra Life stream in hopes of getting a key. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it currently, but I'd rather not if I could help it.
  • VyrilVyril Member, Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Vyril wrote: »
    TBF.

    It's not a big deal.
    That's relative. To me, $250 is quite a huge deal. Which is exactly why I stayed throughout the entire Extra Life stream in hopes of getting a key. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it currently, but I'd rather not if I could help it.

    I don't think you need an alpha 2 key to survive in life.

    So it's not a big deal.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    You sound entitled. But "luckily you got the money to get the key" that didnt find its way to you, amongst thousands.
  • SorfSorf Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    NiKr wrote: »
    Vyril wrote: »
    TBF.

    It's not a big deal.
    That's relative. To me, $250 is quite a huge deal. Which is exactly why I stayed throughout the entire Extra Life stream in hopes of getting a key. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it currently, but I'd rather not if I could help it.

    Come on now it's like a lottery at the end of the day, no need to be like that.

    Maybe it could have be a better process but the stream was mainly to raise funds for charity, not for getting Alpha 2 access. It's a bonus, don't go in there with expectations.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    Sorf wrote: »
    Come on now it's like a lottery at the end of the day, no need to be like that.

    Maybe it could have be a better process but the stream was mainly to raise funds for charity, not for getting Alpha 2 access. It's a bonus, don't go in there with expectations.
    Like I said in the post, to me this is just yet another "small blunder". Those usually add up to seeming like way bigger problems. Systemic ones.
    You sound entitled. But "luckily you got the money to get the key" that didnt find its way to you, amongst thousands.
    Except it wasn't thousands. It was barely a few dozen, as my screenshots showed.

    But again, the post is about the messiness of the giveaway. Any newcomer could easily call this kind of situation a scam, because the stream involved "rewards" for charity.

    Those who want to just give money to charity can always do so. The point of this stream was to get something else out of doing that good deed. And that "something else" was then presented in a fairly bad way.

    Repeating the "tax deductibility" of charity wasn't helping the case either imo.
  • HartassenHartassen Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    I watched the entire stream and most of the pregame along with my brother in hopes of winning a key for him. We were both active regularly but never spammed like a lot of people did.

    I also noticed large problems with the key giveaways. I'm not saying it was rigged but there were clearly technical issues that made the key giveaways unfair. Lots of people in chat reacted to how obfuscated the lottery became and it definitely eroded the trust in the process.

    I think intrepid can and should do better. Giving out the remaining keys that weren't unlocked during november livestream would be a nice gesture.
  • edited November 2023
    @Sorf it's about the system and flaws on which the winners were chosen as you can see with the time stamps prior to the draw. It's not so much that @NiKr didn't get one per se. Just how to improve fairness for the draws to select winners.

    We all knows it's for the charity at the end of the day but many supporters from the community and where ever else were also there for the keys and pet skin. It was incentive to participate by being a viewer or donator etc.

    It is what it is.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    NiKr wrote: »
    Like I said in the post, to me this is just yet another "small blinder". Those usually add up to seeming like way bigger problems. Systemic ones.
    This is my thoughts.

    If Intrepid aren't competent enough to run a giveaway properly on a platform with the tools to do so, what else are they not competent enough to do?

    I don't care about the giveaway, didn't even know it was happening.

    I do care about Intrepid being incompetent.
  • LinikerLiniker Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    Noaani wrote: »
    This is my thoughts.

    If Intrepid aren't competent enough to run a giveaway properly on a platform with the tools to do so, what else are they not competent enough to do?

    I don't care about the giveaway, didn't even know it was happening.

    I do care about Intrepid being incompetent.

    it was ran by the volunteer moderators tho, not intrepid staff, and mainly happened due to a bug with the bot system and mods probably had no idea what to do in that situation and just tried to figure it out,

    OP feedback is valid tho
    img]
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  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    Liniker wrote: »
    it was ran by the volunteer moderators tho, not intrepid staff
    Intrepid are ultimately responsible for what their representatives do/say. Especially when those actions have potential ties to people's money.
  • LinikerLiniker Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Intrepid are ultimately responsible for what their representatives do/say. Especially when those actions have potential ties to people's money.

    yea, you ain't wrong
    img]
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  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited November 2023
    Liniker wrote: »
    Noaani wrote: »
    This is my thoughts.

    If Intrepid aren't competent enough to run a giveaway properly on a platform with the tools to do so, what else are they not competent enough to do?

    I don't care about the giveaway, didn't even know it was happening.

    I do care about Intrepid being incompetent.

    it was ran by the volunteer moderators tho, not intrepid staff, and mainly happened due to a bug with the bot system and mods probably had no idea what to do in that situation and just tried to figure it out,

    OP feedback is valid tho

    Truthfully, this just lowers my opinion of Intrepid. A company owned by someone with the money Steven has should never have anyone volunteering in their name.

    Ever.

    That said, I also agree with NiKr above, even if they are voluntarily representing Intrepid, they are still representing Intrepid.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    You guys have too much free time.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    You guys have too much free time.
    Well yeah, that goes w/o saying B)
  • at least it's not moderator wining giveway (yeah i saw that 2 times on different chanels) :disappointed: i guess a simple !raffle could have been better.
    sorry for my bad english, my native langage is french.
    AoC class wish: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/422108#Comment_422108
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    You guys have too much free time.

    If by that you mean I sometimes have a few free minutes, sure.

    The last 3 or 4 days have been absolutely hectic for me, to the point where finding time to eat, drink or use the bathroom has been hard (probably partially why I didn't know the thing was happening).

    Today though - today I have a few free minutes I can use to catch up on a few things, and make the occasional post.
  • When I joined a few seconds the stream I saw the chat and I was confused. Now it makes sense what was happening.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    You guys have too much free time.
    Well yeah, that goes w/o saying B)

    But you got no $$?
    Why the emoji?
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    But you got no $$?
    Why the emoji?
    Who needs money? I have enough to have internet and some food and got lucky to have some money for A2 key. Don't really need more than that. Have all the time in the world though B)
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