Sarah the trader a few problems I see here. (Spoiler)

[Der Rock]

Wow, what a lot of whiners there are in this thread.

yep, whiners everywhere.
they should read the ea/mythic roc/tot :

THEY can change things in game anytime THEY like !

 

[the 4th man]

I have but a few reds crystals, honestly, I thought it was the blues we needed......oh well. A few costumes too. Items, items, items......too many items, but, some players like it that way.

The devs were wrong to say one thing and do another, whether they can or not, that's not cool. It happened.

Maybe they'll do something about it, maybe not. Either way, it's Christmas time and I'm thankful for what I have.....and who I have.

Life's to short.

 

[red sky]

Perhaps your statement should be:

Someone please highlight where it says the red crystals will have further purpose after the 15th of November. I failed to find that in the FOF.

Okay, so we're going by implications, which are basically based on assuming something that hasn't been set in stone. Everyone who goes by your logic should have turned in almost all of their red crystals. When I examine this thread, it seems just about everyone followed your logic. So therefore, there is completely no point to this thread because everyone made their decision to get the costumes and even if the Devs did make a use for the red crystals, it is just to get rid of whoever forgot to turn one in or wasn't able to play much during that week. Therefore, the odd man out who wasn't given the chance to hoard crystals or hoard costumes for that matter has a chance to get an advantage this time around.

 

[Phineas le Monge]

Do ya really NEED 26 costumes? You can only wear one at a time...

Or are you one of those got to have every little thing hoarded in triplicate people in case it becomes rare and I can brag I got the only one?

Devs, regardless of what happens, I still think it was a great event and thanks for trying to meet the impossible demands of our unique and diverse player-base family.

Merry Christmas

 

[Jhym]

I don't particularly care... but I also didn't get one crystal throughout the event. The couple of times I had the TIME to try to do the quests I couldn't ever find enough sparkles to gather.

So I gave up and went back to picking up pumpkins for pies.

 

[Kellgory]

I'm just waiting for the correction where they say they should have said Blue Crystals can be turned in for 2 points and there will be no further use for Blue Crystals so turn all of them in, and Sarah will not be taking Red Crystals and there are no further uses for them at this point in time either. I wonder how many people would be needing new keyboards or mice for Christmas.

 

[Harlequin]

I have been keeping silent on this to see what would be done. Just wanted to add my 2 cents. Doubt it will change anything since origin has already got the publish.

I fully support the decision to let folks that missed the boat to trade in their red crystals.

However, I do feel these should follow the previous rules, ie full points for 1st turn in, and 1/5 there after.

Using the example below:

If a UO dev told everyone on stratics to delete your best character would you do that too? From the sound of it some of you actually would! And when you realized that was totally stupid it would be your OWN fault just like when you turned in all your red crystals.

Let's say you asked folks that have a char with inappropriate names to delete these chars, if not done, these chars will be unusable.

Most folks complied. Some folks didn't. Come christmas, instead of not being able to use these chars, you decide to intentionally give folks with vulgar names 5 times more gifts.

Doesn't look good does it? Not much incentive for folks to comply in the future. And telling folks they are stupid for listening to the devs in the first place isn't right either.



That being said, most folks have traded in all their red crystals. I don't think too many folks can take advantage of this. So the people that have traded in everything shouldn't feel too bad about the custumes. We aren't really losing out that much compared to most other folks.

 

[legendsguy]

clearly this chick sakkarah or whatever her name is has screwed us over again. and now she won't even respond cept to say 'blah blah everyone likes it better'. just admit you lied and i'll be happy. at least then you show you have some class.

 

[Boogieman]

Sakkarah said:

I actually have a few red crystals left that I didn't turn in because I ran out of time, but I still think it's crap they're worth more than skeleton costumes.

Yes, I remember reading that post.

I don't care if red crystals are worth something in the turn in. Of course they should be. But they shouldn't be worth MORE than the costumes. Who ever did the math on that one? Five crystals turned into one costume - so one crystal should be worth 1/5 costume.

Regardless of the information players were given about the future usefulness - or lack of it - of red crystals.

What has happened is completely counterintuitive. It would be like: Hey, we are taking the 1 dollar bill out of production, but you can of course exchange it to a 5 dollar bill.
Then when all the 1 dollar bills are turned in (except for a few hold onto by collectors): Oh er, you now what, we are going to re-introduce the one dollar bill, only now it's worth 10 dollars.

No wonder people are disconent.

I read all the rare traders say: Of course the red crystals are worth more - everybody turned them in so now they are *rare*. Yes, in themselves they have a value as a 'rare' - just like old bills and coins.

But why should that value reflect on the trade-in value of the crystals? They were so common that you could pick them up from ground at the hag's place.

And why should that deflate the value of items they could be traded for? The effort to obtain one mask was five times the effort of obtaining one crystal. There wouldn't be a discussion over who said what and what exactly did it mean, if the turn-in value of the items was reasonable.

 

[Sakkarah_]

Oh brother...

So this is the last reply I will make to this thread and thus will try to address each point you guys brought up.

First, as stated before, there had initially been no intention whatsoever of having further use for the red crystals. But since a number of people failed to turn in some of their remaining crystals by the end of the event, we decided to give them one last chance with this.

Second, I debated for a while what kind of value to give the red crystals. I settled on 2 because while you could get a value of 1 for a skeleton costume, you had a chance of a value of up to 5 for a shadow wyrm costume. The average was mostly 3. So having turned in the crystals was still better. Would 1 point have been a better choice? Possibly.

Third, why not 1/5 like for the crystal turn in? Because frankly based on the feedback we got, most people actually reran the first part of the quest with noob or alternate characters so they could turn in 1 crystal per costume. I personally spent quite a few hours doing that myself and pestering my friends to turn in my remaining crystals when I ran out of characters! This also avoided issues of people having only 3 crystals to trade to Sarah and no way of acquiring the 2 missing for a costume.

Fourth, people are not hoarding millions of red crystals. Most got turned in during the event. Many of those who kept them did so on purpose because they want to keep them either as rares or as decoration. Not all will get turned in despite the new costumes. And we do not feel the number that will be is significant enough to cheat the people who turned them in on time.

Fifth, we have read your feedback from TC1 and discussed whether or not we should change the values, have new ways for the crystals to drop or make Tomas accept the crystals again. But in the end we do not feel modifications are required, decision supported by a lot of feedback also received.

Will there be other ways to get these costumes in the future? Probably. When and how, who knows? The blue crystals will be of use in the future but not for the costumes. It will be part of the Magincia story arc. You won't need them to take part, it will simply give a bit of an advantage.

I am sorry if some of you feel cheated or lied to. It wasn't intentional. Normally, I wouldn't bother "justifying" myself or I would spend my entire days trying to pacify this person or that person as there will always be someone displeased with whatever decision we make. However, since I did say red crystals wouldn't be of use later (which was true at the time), I understand why some of you are aggravated. But realize that UO is a living entity and as such things evolve and change. We will not deliberately mislead you but we do reserve the right to make modifications or adjustments we think appropriate.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Will there be other ways to get these costumes in the future? Probably. When and how, who knows? The blue crystals will be of use in the future but not for the costumes. It will be part of the Magincia story arc. You won't need them to take part, it will simply give a bit of an advantage.

This is probably my biggest problem with this... It would probably have been better to save these additional costumes for Halloween next year rather than release them post-Halloween. This whole debate would have been a non-issue then. The problem with "Probably," is that in UO, it does tend to not happen, mostly for the reasons you mention below:

But realize that UO is a living entity and as such things evolve and change. We will not deliberately mislead you but we do reserve the right to make modifications or adjustments we think appropriate.

The other problem is this:

I am sorry if some of you feel cheated or lied to. It wasn't intentional. Normally, I wouldn't bother "justifying" myself or I would spend my entire days trying to pacify this person or that person as there will always be someone displeased with whatever decision we make. However, since I did say red crystals wouldn't be of use later (which was true at the time), I understand why some of you are aggravated.

The problem with this is that no one knew these additional costumes would even be coming out, so there was no reason to presume that this might change. When you make a definitive statement, going back on it just for the sake of putting in something that could be saved for another year does sort of bother me.

This is why: What are you going to implement for Halloween next year?

One of the coolest things about the holidays is that something new tends to come out each year. Costumes are an AWESOME thing. And yeah, there's a lot of "costumes" that could be implemented... The question is, if you put a huge handful in now, what about next Halloween? Wouldn't it be better to have five new costumes next year than putting them in now after the fact?

Of course, I also understand that by next year, we might have someone else deciding what goes in for Halloween (not saying I don't love ya and want to keep ya around, Sakk, just saying we never know what's going to happen), and so if you wait, they might not never make it in.

It just seems that there should be a way to collect them without making people feel cheated because they did as instructed. I mean, I know that I personally, once I had one of each of the five costumes and the robes, I was pretty much done with the event. Not that it was boring, but there were issues with the red sparklies that made it difficult to be efficient collecting them. So the novelty wore off after awhile... no biggie. But I'm certain if myself and others knew these additional costumes were even in the pipeline, it would have been a different situation entirely.

I'm certain you've made up your mind on the matter, but please understand that most of us who feel there's an issue with this believe you have done so without really taking the whole equation into consideration.

 

[Viquire]

I'm certain you've made up your mind on the matter, but please understand that most of us who feel there's an issue with this believe you have done so without really taking the whole equation into consideration.

Which part of the equation is it that you think they have not taken into consideration?

I count five very valid and lucidly detailed points of consideration and an apology.

The only thing I don't see is the team deciding to spend additional man hours to cater to a group of folks who are grumpy and pouting because they do not feel they are getting as much as they possibly can.

Put a sock in it, and have an extraordinary day.

Yippie Kai yay,

 

[Der Rock]

Oh brother...

So this is the last reply I will make to this thread and thus will try to address each point you guys brought up.

First, as stated before, there had initially been no intention whatsoever of having further use for the red crystals. But since a number of people failed to turn in some of their remaining crystals by the end of the event, we decided to give them one last chance with this.

Second, I debated for a while what kind of value to give the red crystals. I settled on 2 because while you could get a value of 1 for a skeleton costume, you had a chance of a value of up to 5 for a shadow wyrm costume. The average was mostly 3. So having turned in the crystals was still better. Would 1 point have been a better choice? Possibly.

Third, why not 1/5 like for the crystal turn in? Because frankly based on the feedback we got, most people actually reran the first part of the quest with noob or alternate characters so they could turn in 1 crystal per costume. I personally spent quite a few hours doing that myself and pestering my friends to turn in my remaining crystals when I ran out of characters! This also avoided issues of people having only 3 crystals to trade to Sarah and no way of acquiring the 2 missing for a costume.

Fourth, people are not hoarding millions of red crystals. Most got turned in during the event. Many of those who kept them did so on purpose because they want to keep them either as rares or as decoration. Not all will get turned in despite the new costumes. And we do not feel the number that will be is significant enough to cheat the people who turned them in on time.

Fifth, we have read your feedback from TC1 and discussed whether or not we should change the values, have new ways for the crystals to drop or make Tomas accept the crystals again. But in the end we do not feel modifications are required, decision supported by a lot of feedback also received.

Will there be other ways to get these costumes in the future? Probably. When and how, who knows? The blue crystals will be of use in the future but not for the costumes. It will be part of the Magincia story arc. You won't need them to take part, it will simply give a bit of an advantage.

I am sorry if some of you feel cheated or lied to. It wasn't intentional. Normally, I wouldn't bother "justifying" myself or I would spend my entire days trying to pacify this person or that person as there will always be someone displeased with whatever decision we make. However, since I did say red crystals wouldn't be of use later (which was true at the time), I understand why some of you are aggravated. But realize that UO is a living entity and as such things evolve and change. We will not deliberately mislead you but we do reserve the right to make modifications or adjustments we think appropriate.

let me say 1 thing here:

i LOVE how you dev´s answer latly, i like the way you STOP following each time the same handfull of whiners.

go ahaed, i like it

 

[ACB1961]

Somewhere along the line I think a lot of us forgot this is a video game. They're doing the best they can, and really its the best it ever was (imo). I'm glad I turned in that last 150. I can't really imagine a better costume than the 3 shadow wyrms it brought in. I'd have been happy with that costume if I never got another one.

We'll get ALL the costumes no matter what anyway. They will sell cheaply in a lil' while and most of them will end up in containers like everything else. I wish there was a way to earn them now, but it doesn't matter really.

I'm looking forward to healing Magincia because the other day I recalled (by accident) into the magincia mage shop to buy something on a character with 0 fighting skills and armor with 20ish resists. Now, that was challenging.

 

[Boogieman]

Ok Sakkarah has given us some valid answers in my humble opinion. However - one little math issue is still standing.

Third, why not 1/5 like for the crystal turn in? Because frankly based on the feedback we got, most people actually reran the first part of the quest with noob or alternate characters so they could turn in 1 crystal per costume. I personally spent quite a few hours doing that myself and pestering my friends to turn in my remaining crystals when I ran out of characters! This also avoided issues of people having only 3 crystals to trade to Sarah and no way of acquiring the 2 missing for a costume.

Ok, so most people did the smart thing and used all available characters to do a crystal : costume in 1:1 exhange. So a certain balancing of the value of the crystals in relation to costumes would be in order - I see that point.

But how does that translate to the skeleton costume being worth HALF a red gem?

Well, I'll let it rest for now. We're down to the usual discussion of who's whining and who's not in any case. Talk about lowest denominator. Whining + accusations of whining = double whining.

 

[Viquire]

Ok Sakkarah has given us some valid answers in my humble opinion. However - one little math issue is still standing.

Third, why not 1/5 like for the crystal turn in? Because frankly based on the feedback we got, most people actually reran the first part of the quest with noob or alternate characters so they could turn in 1 crystal per costume. I personally spent quite a few hours doing that myself and pestering my friends to turn in my remaining crystals when I ran out of characters! This also avoided issues of people having only 3 crystals to trade to Sarah and no way of acquiring the 2 missing for a costume.

Ok, so most people did the smart thing and used all available characters to do a crystal : costume in 1:1 exhange. So a certain balancing of the value of the crystals in relation to costumes would be in order - I see that point.

But how does that translate to the skeleton costume being worth HALF a red gem?

Well, I'll let it rest for now. We're down to the usual discussion of who's whining and who's not in any case. Lowest denominator.

It doesn't translate to the skele costume being half the value of a crystal at all, and, quite obviously, that one little point is where everyone doing any complaining gets completely stuck.

It translates to crystals being worth quite a bit less than half the weighted possibilities for all costumes, just not at the lowest possible weight of any of the costumes. *shakes head*

SO if you turned in reams of crystals and received ONLY skele costumes then
besides the fact that you don't own the game or dictate the decisions the devs make, and that this system does not give one iota of advantage to any player that participates in it, or that its just completely for fun and there are i don't know how many many other forms you can choose to be or not be in for absolutely no cost at all what so ever, then yeah I guess you have a legitimate beef.

Or maybe its me, yeah I'm sure that's it. We would all be hugely better off if they would just go ahead and spawn one of each of these new costumes in a stack on every available tile in the game and increase our storage by 400 percent.

Then we could do this all over again next spring when they are allocating points to a turn in system over whether the old or new costumes are worth more.

 

[Crysta]

Sakk's explanation was enough for me.

 

[altarego]

Sakk's explanation was enough for me.

This. Now, who wants to sell me their red crystals on Napa?

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Well for the merchants.

I did mention weeks ago buying costumes for 200k or less.

that was cheaper the buying 5 red crystals

it was less time consuming then getting 5 red crystals


there were other alternatives.


I sold red crystals for 200k to 300k. Bought costume discards for 400k to 50k.

Its all relative.

 

[riohnyx]

First, as stated before, there had initially been no intention whatsoever of having further use for the red crystals. But since a number of people failed to turn in some of their remaining crystals by the end of the event, we decided to give them one last chance with this.

I'm going with 'you snooze, you lose' on this.

Second, I debated for a while what kind of value to give the red crystals. I settled on 2 because while you could get a value of 1 for a skeleton costume, you had a chance of a value of up to 5 for a shadow wyrm costume. The average was mostly 3. So having turned in the crystals was still better. Would 1 point have been a better choice? Possibly.

Yes. 1 Point would have made a lot more sense.

Third, why not 1/5 like for the crystal turn in? Because frankly based on the feedback we got, most people actually reran the first part of the quest with noob or alternate characters so they could turn in 1 crystal per costume. I personally spent quite a few hours doing that myself and pestering my friends to turn in my remaining crystals when I ran out of characters! This also avoided issues of people having only 3 crystals to trade to Sarah and no way of acquiring the 2 missing for a costume.

Wow. A logical decision. Buuuut.... still going with you snooze, you lose.

Fourth, people are not hoarding millions of red crystals. Most got turned in during the event. Many of those who kept them did so on purpose because they want to keep them either as rares or as decoration. Not all will get turned in despite the new costumes. And we do not feel the number that will be is significant enough to cheat the people who turned them in on time.

If it's not that significant of a number, why bother?

Fifth, we have read your feedback from TC1 and discussed whether or not we should change the values, have new ways for the crystals to drop or make Tomas accept the crystals again. But in the end we do not feel modifications are required, decision supported by a lot of feedback also received.

Devs: Crap, we made people cranky again. Anyone want to stick around and fix this? No? Alrighty then. Let's get this publish out.

Yes, I'm being a bit of a snarky witch here. I do actually appreciate getting new events and shiny new pixel crack. There are times when I am boggled by some of the decisions made, but I guess I should be thankful that feedback appears to be taken into consideration.

Will there be other ways to get these costumes in the future? Probably. When and how, who knows? The blue crystals will be of use in the future but not for the costumes. It will be part of the Magincia story arc. You won't need them to take part, it will simply give a bit of an advantage.

Costumes are cool. Probably should have waited til Halloween next year, but ok. Whatevs. Blue Crystals though? Since you're catering to people who failed to listen to you about the red crystals, I'm kinda predicting you'll do the same with the blue. I shall just roll my eyes and sigh with annoyance.

I am sorry if some of you feel cheated or lied to. It wasn't intentional. Normally, I wouldn't bother "justifying" myself or I would spend my entire days trying to pacify this person or that person as there will always be someone displeased with whatever decision we make. However, since I did say red crystals wouldn't be of use later (which was true at the time), I understand why some of you are aggravated. But realize that UO is a living entity and as such things evolve and change. We will not deliberately mislead you but we do reserve the right to make modifications or adjustments we think appropriate.

Well, at least there's an apology. Yes, UO is a living entity and I can live with the constant evolution of it. We live at the whims of the devs and the only thing we can do about it is voice our opinions. Sometimes it seems to get us what we want.

 

[Viquire]

I do actually appreciate getting new events and shiny new pixel crack. There are times when I am boggled by some of the decisions made, but I guess I should be thankful that feedback appears to be taken into consideration.



Costumes are cool.

Yes, UO is a living entity and I can live with the constant evolution of it. We live at the whims of the devs and the only thing we can do about it is voice our opinions. Sometimes it seems to get us what we want.

nicely said

 

[legendsguy]

don't like the uo policy? wait a couple days and it'll change.

 

[Mark Knotts]

My only beef with the costumes (and I'm not a roleplayer) is that they're equipped in the weapon hand so if you did do roleplaying you'd only be able to cast spells really (AFAIK, haven't really tested them out). Shield hand would've been a little bit better.

I would've preferred them to be in the talisman slot which makes less sense but what makes sense in UO these days?

 

[red sky]

don't like the uo policy? wait a couple days and it'll change.

I want my pixie costume so I can pwnz da noobz in style!

 

[Ken of Napa]

Sakkarah, first let me thank you and the rest of the team for the wonderful activities you've given us. They have been terrific.

However just to show where some of your logic may be in error, I'd like to share my experience. I for one loved the challenge of hunting for the red sparkles, including outwitting the others on Napa to get to the best areas before they did. I wound up with 50 costumes, I obtained these 50 costumes by using 20 characters to trade in the red crystals. I used my main 3 accounts for trading in. I got very bored running the quest, so did not turn in any crystals with my other 4 accounts.

So I obtained 20 costumes for 1 crystal each and 30 costumes for 5 crystals each. Further break down is as follows:

20 Skeleton costumes x 1 point = 20 points
15 Gazer costumes x 2 points = 30 points
9 Blood Worm costumes x 3 points = 27 points
2 Dream Wrath costumes x 4 points = 8 points
4 Shadow Worm costumes x 5 points = 20 points

This gives me a total (if I turn them all in) of 105 points
It took 170 crystals to obtain those 105 points, if I had held on to those crystals they would now be worth 340 points. I believe this is why people feel that the points should have been done a little differently.

I realize you made the decision that you felt made the most sense and am not asking for any change (it's too late now anyway I'm sure) I'm just trying to show the other side to the argument. I'm sure something like this will come up again :shudders: and perhaps this gives you another perspective.

Regardless, of this or anything else, I for one really appreciate all the quality content that has been added to UO the last couple of months.

Thanks again!

 

[Thashinel]

Wow, what a lot of whiners there are in this thread.

I think there would be fewer if there was not a history of design flaws and communications from the developers of this game.

Simple 'new' math + the communications on how to spend the crystals = bad emotions.

Jo/Thash

 

[Skullcollector]

I have noticed a few people like Viquire and others calling everyone who is upset with this decision “whiners” and/or are “grumpy or pouting”. If it wasn’t for the “whiners” and crybabies with the left over red crystals WHINING and/or are POUTING about not getting theirs turned in as were told to, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation…. Don’t be a hypocrite!

As far as the Devs and Sakkarah, you guys are doing a great job! To save any future problems like this just STICK to your deadlines…NO MATTER WHO COMPLAINS! When an event is over, IT’S OVER!

 

[Viquire]

I have noticed a few people like Viquire and others calling everyone who is upset with this decision “whiners” and/or are “grumpy or pouting”. If it wasn’t for the “whiners” and crybabies with the left over red crystals WHINING and/or are POUTING about not getting theirs turned in as were told to, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation…. Don’t be a hypocrite!

As far as the Devs and Sakkarah, you guys are doing a great job! To save any future problems like this just STICK to your deadlines…NO MATTER WHO COMPLAINS! When an event is over, IT’S OVER!

I can't personally recall having a single word to say one way or the other regarding red crystals at the time, but your point is taken. I might, possibly mind you, have come off a bit strong.

Others since have done a much better job at expressing themselves and their concerns regarding values and turn ins. And I very happily sat on my hands and read those constructive posts.

 

[christy1221]

I have noticed a few people like Viquire and others calling everyone who is upset with this decision “whiners” and/or are “grumpy or pouting”. If it wasn’t for the “whiners” and crybabies with the left over red crystals WHINING and/or are POUTING about not getting theirs turned in as were told to, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation…. Don’t be a hypocrite!

As far as the Devs and Sakkarah, you guys are doing a great job! To save any future problems like this just STICK to your deadlines…NO MATTER WHO COMPLAINS! When an event is over, IT’S OVER!

I never seen anyone complaining about not getting to turn in their red crystals. I could have missed it but don't remember anyone whining and crying over it.

I have left over crystals because of not being able to play due to being sick but I never once whined or complained about it. I just sucked it up as a loss. Am I happy I get a chance to turn them in well yes. Do I understand why people are upset about it? Of course. The same people who are complaining wouldn't be if they had not been able to turn in their red crystals and was getting a chance too.

 

[Kellgory]

I don't think people have a problem with being able to turn in the red crystals, I think it is more with them being worth more then the skeleton costume. The way I look at it is that I had fun collecting and doing the event. I have a chest of about 80 or more masks and all but about 10 of those where collected by one char. I'll probably turn most of those in to get the entire set (which will probably be thrown into a chest) and if I have spares then I'll help guildmates as much as I can. Hopefully they will continue making so that items used in one event will have a use later on in the game, since who knows what will happen in real life that will cause you to miss the event to turn in the items.

 

[christy1221]

I don't think people have a problem with being able to turn in the red crystals, I think it is more with them being worth more then the skeleton costume. The way I look at it is that I had fun collecting and doing the event. I have a chest of about 80 or more masks and all but about 10 of those where collected by one char. I'll probably turn most of those in to get the entire set (which will probably be thrown into a chest) and if I have spares then I'll help guildmates as much as I can. Hopefully they will continue making so that items used in one event will have a use later on in the game, since who knows what will happen in real life that will cause you to miss the event to turn in the items.

And I totally agree that they shouldn't be worth more then the skeleton costumes. I think they should be worth one or less.

 

[Tom_Builder]

I say just forget the whole thing and work on some more bug fixes instead.

 

[legendsguy]

I say just forget the whole thing and work on some more bug fixes instead.

if you're going to do it wrong, don't do it at all. just fix bugs.