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My issue with the AO:AI competition
5150
Member UncommonPosts: 222
Ok first off I suspect loads of people are going to think that I'm just posting this because I'm bitter at not winning the beta competition - if you want to think that then fine, nothing I'm going to say will probably change that shallow knee-jerk opinion
For those who care I'll detail my issue with the recent AO:AI beta competition
I live in the UK and when I got up this morning at 7am and checked my email (its sad but its practically the first thing I do everyday) I see that I am 1 of 200 winners of the competition, but only the first 100 get to actually 'win' the competition - this I do not have a problem with
So I click the link and lo and behold all 100 slots are already taken - bummer, so I check the time of the email 2am (my time) so in less than 5 hours all 100 slots have gone, granted there is a note inthe email to the effect that a duplicate email was sent to my MMORPG.com email account due to email system speed etc but what the whole competition seemed to fail to take into account is international timezones.
Now I dont have a propsed solution to how this can be avoided in the future (except only send out 1 email per prize, although I realise why double the amount were sent out) but I do think that, in future, MMORPG needs to pay some consideration to when they send out their 'winner' emails in a competition like this
While only 100 people out of the 200 could win, it was those 100 most likely to be online when the emails were sent out.
Comments
It isn't mmorpg.com's fault you are not logged into your mail server 24 hours a day. It 's your fault.
It isn't mmorpg.com's fault you haven't acquired a text capable, e-mail capable cell phone. It's your fault.
If it's so important to you that you be able to receive e-mail or e-mail notifications 24 hours a day, 365 days a year than you need to acquire that capablilty. It isn't mmorpg.com's fault that you have made choices in where you live or what you acquire or don't acquire that prevent this.
Your name was picked. Thousands of other's names were not picked.
You didn't reply. Thousands of others were not given the option of replying.
Get over it. Move on. Grow up.
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Wu Name? Misunderstood Menace
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Thomas Jefferson
Understand the frustration of course, its like winning and then have the prize reclaimed..
But I still think this is a good system, the logistics for the mmorpg staff would just be enormous if they did it like say first draw 100 winners, 8 hours later draw however many unclaimed prizes, and then do that over again until all were delivered.
I got lucky and woke up extremely early this morning, 5:30 am and claimed my prize as number 87, I am sure I would have been unhappy had I seen that i won but didnt reply in time, I would have understood the system no less.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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´zup?
Im from Mexico, and registered my valid code at 1am (central hour) being the #77.
Well, they should post different time zones in beta contests for those living in different parts of the world.
But hell, its an US web page.
What the hell can we do?
First of all, it's a contest...so why even bother complaining? What has changed for you? Absolutely nothing. There is no monumentous downfall to your existence for not winning. Yes, I won this past contest. In fact, I also won an entry in the contest before that, the Z-Board contest. Ya know what blows? That night my wireless network went down, and I couldn't claim my prize. I was sort of pissed at the time, but then I realized: nothing has changed.
Second of all, the system in place now works. Hell, it worked when the drawing time was midnight EST. The basis for it works. Draw a bunch of people. Those who really want to win, will try to grab a spot, no matter the time. Yes, it does piss me off that some people have signed up for this sight purely to win the contests. I'd venture as many as 50000 people or more have done that, some posting to inflate their post count in a mock hope to win an entry. Shouldn't you be more bothered by that?
AHH! Run away from the monster! He's going to eat us!
Socializer 80% Explorer 73% Achiever 33% Killer 13%
Killer 100% Socializer 40% Explorer 33% Achiever 27%
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
if you want it that bad, you can atleast make an effort to get up at that time.
hell, when i won my graphics card, i was up till 1am (it was a SCHOOL NIGHT)..i was doing a project, all nighter, figured waht the hell, they drew..you know the rest
but anyway, I think this time admin was trying to help you by holding it at 9pm EST, that's REALLY early over here, considering most all of the raffle's we've had are held at 12 EST, that's like 6am for you guys.
it's not mmorpg.com's fault they're giving away prizes worth thousands of dollars cumulative, i believe it's your fault you're not making the effort to get up at that time, if you want it that bad, and wait
When you entered the contest, you were given the exact time and date they were to be drawn.
my 2 cents.
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
ya im so happy i was at work and didnt win
179 digitydarkman Colorado Springs, CO, United States * closed *
The way MMORPG.com do contests will never be 'fair' for everyone, if they change to another time that works for both US and EU (like morning US time/Evening EU time) then Asia or other timezones will be ignored.
I think best change would be to only draw 100 winners (or whatever number of prizes) and those that havn't answered within 24 hours will lose their prize and more winners are drawn, this won't take much time for the MMORPG.com staff since normally it's just afew prizes and it can probably be made automatic very easy.
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Azzazzimon
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Azzazzimon
I live in the UK, but can't sympathise. If the competition means so much to you then the only solution is to get up and wait at the time the draw is announced.
I pretty much stopped looking at the competition pages as all the ones I was interested in stated US citizens only could enter... is that fair? Who cares, it's their web site, their rules.
Same here, i'm in the UK, woke up, got my you've got a winning ticket email, but as it was about 9am here in the UK and the email was sent at about 2am, all the slots were filled. But as the other posters said, you've not really lost anything have you? I think it would have been better if it were like some of the other competitions where you have 24 hours to confirm your ticket, that would ahve been fair for everyone I think but i'm hardly going to hold it against mmorpg.
At the end of the day, it's a freebie, cant really complain if you dont get it, i'm sure you wouldnt be complaining if you won
// Carl
Currently Playing : anything to keep me occupied until EQ2 comes out
// Carl
Currently Playing : EQ2 of course
funny how most of the people arguing are on their first posts here...
thanks for being part of the community...oh wait, you're not
lol
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
lolololol and therefore my opinion is worthless?
I don't mind the fact that veterans and members of the community have a better chance at winning these things. I don't mind that I didn't win. I am not bitching. I am fully aware of the fact that I agreed to the terms of the contest when I entered it. All I am doing is offering constructive criticism. My point is that if I had been a regular ever since whenever this site launched, I, along with a lot of others, would still have to stay up till 3 AM to see if I had won.
Now, winning and losing this contest aside, can you honestly tell me that you don't think simply drawing one hundred winners instead of this current system would be fairer to a global community?
Drawing 100 winners would be usless...if not all 100 were truly interested, or not everyone confirmed, it would cause MAJOR problems. This is a "you snooze, you lose" type of contest for that reason. It works, it works well, and I can vouch for most of the veterans here that it's what the regulars want in place. I'm sorry if you're offened by that, but the truth is that more then 50% of the registered members only register for contests, and never contribute anything to the site. Therefore, they shouldn't have an equal pull in the decisons. Want something to change? Become an active part of the community and participate. Otherwise, yes, your opinion DOES mean very little. Because of the nature of so many members, this is an elitist community. When the hordes of people stop registering solely for the purpose of winning contests and actually start contributing, there could be a change...until that day, get used to it.
AHH! Run away from the monster! He's going to eat us!
Socializer 80% Explorer 73% Achiever 33% Killer 13%
Killer 100% Socializer 40% Explorer 33% Achiever 27%
I was a winner too, but I wasn't at my computer. Too bad for me and too bad for you.
Stop crying over spilt milk and get over it.
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Justin Joseph
-MMORPG.COM Co-Founder-
justinjoseph@mmorpg.com