Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
A piece of feedback about the Extra Life Key giveaway
Ludullu
Member, Alpha Two
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.
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.
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.
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.
13
Comments
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.
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
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.
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.
Congrats on winning an A2 key. Its not your fault the giveaway was scuffed.
It's not a big deal.
I don't think you need an alpha 2 key to survive in life.
So it's not a big deal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
yea, you ain't wrong
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.
AoC class wish: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/422108#Comment_422108
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.
But you got no $$?
Why the emoji?