First Trinsic Player Raffle in 3 years now up!

[Muolke]

The first Trinsic Player Raffle in about 3 years is now up and running. It's the item on the green table closest to the teleporter in Trinsic.

Up for grabs is a very rare Black Tower Shield. Only 5 of these have ever been created. Each one has been sold at auction with an average price of 51.6 million gold.

Go buy a few tickets and win a very rare and awesome looking shield.

Raffle ends at 7pm eastern time on March 7th. That's 0:00 shard time on the 8th.

[Johnny Warren]

Is shill bidding allowed on this raffle? Can you actually buy tickets in your own raffle? I mean, if you are collecting the profits anyway what's to stop you, or Deckard, from dropping 10m, or 100m, on it each just to "rev up some interest and encourage people to buy more to match what you've spent". You get all of that gold back even if you lose so its literally no risk to you guys. You might even also get to keep the shield if you win, so you've essentially grifted everyone if shill bidding is allowed.

The whole thing feels a little dodgy to me, hence my question about whether or not u can actually buy tickets.

[Muolke]

Is shill bidding allowed on this raffle? Can you actually buy tickets in your own raffle? I mean, if you are collecting the profits anyway what's to stop you, or Deckard, from dropping 10m, or 100m, on it each just to "rev up some interest and encourage people to buy more to match what you've spent". You get all of that gold back even if you lose so its literally no risk to you guys. You might even also get to keep the shield if you win, so you've essentially grifted everyone if shill bidding is allowed.

The whole thing feels a little dodgy to me, hence my question about whether or not u can actually buy tickets.

I get the point you’re making but you’re coming across quite hostile and you’re always looking for the bad in the good.

Yes, I can go and buy 100 mil worth of tickets but as someone that’s been here 7 years…nobody can say I’ve ever done something this shady. As a matter of fact, before the raffle started I actually suggested to Colibri to not allow a player who submits an item to purchase any tickets for this exact purpose. He can verify if that’s true if you’d like. Also, I haven’t purchased any tickets, nor do I plan on purchasing any tickets.

The problem you run into is that even if the person submitting an item doesn’t buy tickets…they can always get someone else to. You’re never going to get a system that 100% guarantees someone isn’t being shady.

[Johnny Warren]

I appreciate the answer around shill bidding. I probably am seeing the bad over the good here, but it's due to genuine apprehension about purchasing a ticket for the reasons mentioned. I trust that you wouldn't buy a ticket, as I've seen you run player auctions and raffles of sorts over the years, so I know that for you, your word is important, as you run those types of ventures. I think you're being honest and honourable when you say you wouldn't buy a ticket. You could always get a trusted friend to buy on your behalf, as you've said there's no system that couldn't be played in some way.

I guess it's more... well... I see your business partner win a LOT of the raffles these days... I'll eat my words and apologise to them when I'm shown to be false on the shill bids with this raffle. I'll also buy some tickets, when I know I'm not playing against the owners of the item.

I suppose the fact that it announces the winner and how many they bought is some deterrent to trying to game this table...

[+Colibri]

Btw when we were placing this item on the raffle stone, Muolke has mentioned the potential for exploiting with shill bidding, and at the time my thoughts wandered off to the whole complexity of having secondary accounts (and me finding such accounts). I guess I can take a peek at who the biggest ticket buyers were... and perhaps this info would be worth adding to raffle stones in general (or if not to all, at least to player-raffle ones). Kind of how co-owners of vendors at TC were revealed, and you're all keeping an eye on eachother.

As for how many these shields exist, just a disclaimer that the auction history data isn't 100%, there might be 2 entries in the database for this shield... I just did a search, there's 6 of them currently in player's posession (so this one on the raffle is 6th) but it's possible that some were sold years ago, and their owner's account has already been wiped... Who knows, maybe it was a reward for a winner of an event way back in 2009, but there's no record of it. Still, quite rare.

[+Colibri]

From what I see the item yielded about 24 mil. What's your score on this project/experiment?
(i'll drop by later to bring the gold)

Btw apparently there was a bug/problem with the towncrier announcement in the last 24 hours, did anyone see the towncrier announcements Sunday and Monday?

[arrow]

Town Crier Announcements were going on Monday even after the auction.

[Muolke]

From what I see the item yielded about 24 mil. What's your score on this project/experiment?
(i'll drop by later to bring the gold)

Btw apparently there was a bug/problem with the towncrier announcement in the last 24 hours, did anyone see the towncrier announcements Sunday and Monday?

It was nice to put the player raffle stone to good use in Trinsic even though I ended up losing a couple of mil since the deed itself cost me 8.1 mil gold.

Some changes I would make...

1. Increase the length from 7 days to 14 days. Or auction off 2 different deeds, one for 7 and one for 14 days.
2. Prevent the player submitting the item from buying tickets. Make this an account restriction so that an alt character on the account can't either.
3. Charge a 3% commission (up to a max of 5 mil gold) just like on TC vendors. This would limit the gain a player raffling an item would make since they would lose out on 5 mil gold off the top if they got someone else to buy 200 mil worth of tickets.
4. Automate the raffle process so that a player can start the raffle exactly when they want instead of having to submit a ticket and waiting for you to do it manually.

[culichi]

even two weeks wont be long enough it should be a month long raffle or just forget about it entirely. i had that raffle deed a few years ago and i also lost money on it although not very much cuz my submission wasn't so valuable.

[ButteryBiscuits]

I agree with Culichi- if someone is spending 5-15mil to get the raffle deed, that will usually be a big ticket item so a month long auction would be good. Could also make it variable- with the auction winner choosing the auction length when they set it up. But I (personally) would rather see that stone with something on it every month. *chef's kiss*

As far as players manipulating the prices... maybe a dual prong approach. Seems like banning the account with alt-characters should be a given. Posting the main character of the account with the deed on the stone would give it some accountability and transparency. Reputation is pretty much king here. If you already have a reputation for being unfair in game play, most people aren't going to want to chance putting money into a raffle with you. If people find out later, make reports and have a permanent ban on participating in the raffles.

I don't understand the commission idea- the raffle deed is already gold spent (more than a 3% tc commission) so that seems like that would be more of a punishment since these have not been huge moneymakers, more like a way to get *part* of your auction money back.

So here are my final thoughts (drum roll please)...

1. Make it a monthly stone with it starting first of every month. Sell deed at auction with it starting at first of next month- this will help bidding as people will only bid if they have something they want to put up and they will have an idea of how much it is worth to them to bid on it. If it doesn't sell or there was no auction, put a raffle deed on that stone. If someone gets it for less than they would at auction, they can make more profit or put up a lower value item.

2. Ban the account from bidding and post the main character on the stone so people can make an informed decision about whether to participate.

3. The automation for starting sounds like a great idea.... and a fair bit of coding. Maybe not a quick solution but would be great long-term. Put a "reserved for character's raffle" on the stone on the 1st. Stone is reserved for them for the month and make arrangements before the end of the prior month so it can be up on day one.

All that said... totally appreciate all the auctions and interaction with +C. Nice to see you visible

[Possum12]

Personally I don't see much in making the player raffle run 4 weeks rather then 1 week? If I am willing to buy 100 tickets say in a 1 week raffle, I'm not going to buy 400 tickets because the raffle is 4 weeks.

Though seeing the $ result of this raffle and hearing of a few others - it does seem extremely risky for the player putting up the raffle. Having to buy the deed for millions , then the variable return from tickets sold. Who's going to put something like a Titan's Hammer on with the risk of only getting like 20-50 million for it??

[Wil]

Here's my crazy idea:

When you sell the raffle deed at auction, don't make the bid for gold, make it for percentage points -- the percent the house keeps. Then, whatever the percent comes out to, the "house" keeps that much of the raffle revenue with some reasonable minimum like 1M gold.

This kills two birds with one stone -- keeps the raffle populated with interesting items and discourages shill bidding since a percentage of any shill bid will be lost to the house.