Hey! Do an RoI Lottery Here Too! Not Everyone Twitters!

[redwoodtreesprite2]

Ironic, I had just posted in a thread that I was hoping the lotteries would not become twitter obsessed again. And then I read in a thread here that you are giving away codes for the new expansion exclusively on Twitter!

And what do we get? Fireworks and ale!

Throw us more than a bone here! Do lotteries here as good as the Twitter ones, PLEASE???

[arcanamajor]

I agree! Not everyone on this earth tweets! +rep.

[Evo_Chris]

I have to agree with the original poster. Social networking sites tend to not make people's privacy a priority. Therefore many of us do not use them. Perhaps there may be a different method such as email campaigns and such. I am ok if I miss out but it would be nice to not have to go to those sites to get neat stuff for a game that I am already paying for. Does Turbine have deals with those sites maybe? Free advertising for getting their subscribers over to twitter and facebook? Who knows these days. Seems greed is more important than happy customers..

[N.Legler]

A twitter account is free, all you need in an email address. Twitter is not gonna check if your real name is 'Jumpin Jehosaphat'. Turbine doesn't care if your only tweets are to enter their contest.
That said, I wouldn't enter a Facebook only contest.

[Wessing]

Got to agree as I don't tweet or facebook as I have no friends j/k.

[MontyMan]

A twitter account is free, all you need in an email address. Twitter is not gonna check if your real name is 'Jumpin Jehosaphat'. Turbine doesn't care if your only tweets are to enter their contest.
That said, I wouldn't enter a Facebook only contest.

No one said anything about money. That it is free is not the issue. Many people do not want to give them an email address or have to monitor an external site to gain information and participate with a service they use that already has a site of their own.

I don't want to friend, like, follow, tweet or retweet to be able to participate in a service that I pay for. I just want to come to the official site and be treated at least as well by the company I pay as people are getting treated by using some other company's service.

I understand the marketing aspects of it. I don't understand the exclusiveness.

It is disappointing when customers of Twitter and FaceBook are treated better than customers of Turbine.

[NaughtyMistress]

No one said anything about money. That it is free is not the issue. Many people do not want to give them an email address or have to monitor an external site to gain information and participate with a service they use that already has a site of their own.

I don't want to friend, like, follow, tweet or retweet to be able to participate in a service that I pay for. I just want to come to the official site and be treated at least as well by the company I pay as people are getting treated by using some other company's service.

I understand the marketing aspects of it. I don't understand the exclusiveness.

It is disappointing when customers of Twitter and FaceBook are treated better than customers of Turbine.

Pointless for me to even write anything, as this is exactly how I feel.

[Hjki]

I don't do TwitFace.

[husaragi]

The saddest part of this thread is that Turbine fails to post a reply to such a simple concern. I wonder if they need a new Director of Customer Support....I think I will send them my resume. I would treat you guys better!

[Nakiami]

Did you also complain about the Hauberk of the Mithril Guard which you need to sign up for MMORPG.com to receive for free? Not everyone has an account there.

Different areas have different exclusives, and there's nothing wrong with that. Advertisers have long been doing it.

[redwoodtreesprite2]

Did you also complain about the Hauberk of the Mithril Guard which you need to sign up for MMORPG.com to receive for free? Not everyone has an account there.

Different areas have different exclusives, and there's nothing wrong with that. Advertisers have long been doing it.

It's not the signing up, it's their invasive popup that has been hacked, at least once very severely. I will not put my computer at risk that way.

[Sapience]

The saddest part of this thread is that Turbine fails to post a reply to such a simple concern. I wonder if they need a new Director of Customer Support....I think I will send them my resume. I would treat you guys better!

We've replied to threads like this repeatedly. The answer, at least in part, is actually in the post directly below yours. The other part of the answer is in the FAQ about lotteries, we cannot put account level items in the lottery. They system does not have access to player account information, only character data pulled from the server.

We have different opportunities to win items/prize across all of our player channels. In fact right now they are...

Facebook: Win an Alienware PC (US Only)
Twitter: Win Rise of Isengard Legendary Codes (All Regions)
Forums: Pumpkin Carving contest (All Regions), Mount Emote Lotteries (All Regions)

It's also probably worth pointing out that the Twitter ROI code promotion was a direct response to EU and other, non-US, players who asked if we could at least let them be eligible for the other prizes in the Whitehand/Alienware contest. We couldn't for legal reasons, so instead we started offering the ROI codes via Twitter and associated it with the Whitehand promotion on Facebook.

[MontyMan]

We've replied to threads like this repeatedly. The answer, at least in part, is actually in the post directly below yours. The other part of the answer is in the FAQ about lotteries, we cannot put account level items in the lottery. They system does not have access to player account information, only character data pulled from the server.

Not true. I won a PAX horse code. I received an in-game mail on the character that won that had an account code. There was no need for the system to have account information.

We have different opportunities to win items/prize across all of our player channels. In fact right now they are...

Facebook: Win an Alienware PC (US Only)
Twitter: Win Rise of Isengard Legendary Codes (All Regions)
Forums: Pumpkin Carving contest (All Regions), Mount Emote Lotteries (All Regions)

We are aware of this. It is kinda the point of the thread.

It's also probably worth pointing out that the Twitter ROI code promotion was a direct response to EU and other, non-US, players who asked if we could at least let them be eligible for the other prizes in the Whitehand/Alienware contest. We couldn't for legal reasons, so instead we started offering the ROI codes via Twitter and associated it with the Whitehand promotion on Facebook.

Great! So how about responding to non-Twitter/Facebook using players by throwing a few ROI codes in the lotteries. "Lottery of the Whitehand" has a nice ring to it.

[KennebecDiamond]

I don't understand why this post even started. Companies have always used different outlets to advertise, usually having special promotions at different venues or events. Facebook, Twitter and other online areas are some of the different outlets that Turbine uses for their promotions. There are usually exclusive items at promotions, things that you can't get anywhere else. So why is this an issue? If you don't go to the event that has the exclusive item then you don't get it.... Yes we would all like to have everything handed to us because we think that it is "fair" to all. It isn't like Turbine DOESN'T do things via their lotto system. Last I checked the Emotes are NOT being given away via Facebook or Twitter is that "fair"??

[Zohal]

Not true. I won a PAX horse code. I received an in-game mail on the character that won that had an account code. There was no need for the system to have account information.

But the item was not account level, was it? It was sent to that specific character and bound to that character, so it wasn't account-wide.

[MontyMan]

But the item was not account level, was it? It was sent to that specific character and bound to that character, so it wasn't account-wide.

Yes, it is account wide. I get the horse on all characters, even newly created ones.

Sapience's own words about it

[Yogol]

we cannot put account level items in the lottery. They system does not have access to player account information, only character data pulled from the server.

This is too funny as excuse... the system does not have account info ? Cause, yes, THAT is hard to do!

And now the real reason, please ?

[Yogol]

But the item was not account level, was it? It was sent to that specific character and bound to that character, so it wasn't account-wide.

They had account-wide wins in the past, a horse iirc, that every chars got.

[Zohal]

Yes, it is account wide. I get the horse on all characters, even newly created ones.

Sapience's own words about it

That's odd because I didn't. I only received it on one character.

Edit: Read a bit more from the linked thread. I get the impression Sapience is responding to a question about applying a code from PAX to the account - not the horse from winning the lottery. Thus I think you're misinterpreting his words (which is very easy to do when there are several questions floating around).

[MontyMan]

That's odd because I didn't. I only received it on one character.

Edit: Read a bit more from the linked thread. I get the impression Sapience is responding to a question about applying a code from PAX to the account - not the horse from winning the lottery. Thus I think you're misinterpreting his words (which is very easy to do when there are several questions floating around).

Please read the title of that thread and then read the whole post. It was an account wide PAX horse lottery.

[redwoodtreesprite2]

The point I was trying to make was that at the same time we were just getting lotteries for fireworks and ale, on Twitter codes for RoI and other really cool stuff were being given. There could have been a nice lottery here with a mount or such done at the same time. Also, it was a Twitter Flash lottery recently with the skelly horse. Any reason why a regular lottery with the skelly mount could not be done here? It was the same last spring with the PAX horse. Only on Twitter till lots of complaints here.

I do appreciate the last gasp lotteries with the PAX mount, and I love the lotteries themselves. But do think of ALL your players. If you can't do an account wide code lottery, then how about something else nice here at the times you are doing the Twitter stuff.

[anwar]

.
.
,

Maybe it's like the government and lobbyists...they get kickbacks or free trips or extra cheese on their pizzas or something for promoting 3rd party programs. No good reason for offering prizes for people to NOT be in game or on the forums that I can see.

[JBomber]

But they are offering cool things here as well, right now their have been several lotteries with the new horse emotes running. I agree that it is odd to offer stuff on the other sites as well as here that is different, but if it mattered that much you could go create an account, I could care less so I will not(I have no account on either Twitter or facebook). Sure it would be nice to get that type of free stuff but why is it so important to make it available here. It is just like when you preorder a videogame, sometimes you can get different cool stuff if you preorder from somewhere different(ie the new war in the north game, if you preorder from gamestop you get a 'man' pack, from walmart a 'dwarf' pack, and from bestbuy an 'elf' pack, sure the 'fair' thing would be to allow you to pick which one you wanted regardless of the place you went, but since it is free to go online and create an account with these places and just preorder that way and it will be shipped to your house, it is not really that painful to get one, even if you do not have one of those stores anywhere near to you.

And to the PAX horse question, was the system checking to see if you already had the horse, or if you were at a certain level range, it could be that sort of design, and was the item sent as a code you had to enter, or as an item you had to click to activate/was activated on receiving, if it was a code, then you are right and it hurts Turbines argument, but if it was an item that would be a bit different since ROI is something you need a code for.

Anyways, just my thoughts on this, hopefully I am not woefully in the wrong here.

[MontyMan]

And to the PAX horse question, was the system checking to see if you already had the horse, or if you were at a certain level range, it could be that sort of design, and was the item sent as a code you had to enter, or as an item you had to click to activate/was activated on receiving, if it was a code, then you are right and it hurts Turbines argument, but if it was an item that would be a bit different since ROI is something you need a code for.

Ok, I will try to be as clear as possible. I enter a lottery. I win the lottery on a character. I log in the character and check my mail. I receive the following IN-GAME mail:

----
Congratulations! You have won the Post PAX Lottery! Please follow the instructions to claim your prize.

1 - Go to myaccount.turbine.com and log into your account.
2 - Enter the Product Code below and click submit. You will receive your mount on March 22, when Update 2 is live.
3 - Once you have logged in a character, you will see the item in your inventory or in your mounts panel.

Product Code:4WPCNJJWZRFZ7WQ9AADKZQCYC
----

This was not a FaceBook contest. This was not a Twitter contest. This was not a lottery for a single Cremello Steed. This was the lottery mentioned in the thread that I posted a link to earlier.

This was not a single horse. This was an account wide horse code. I get it with every character on every server on the account, even a newly created one.

P.S. Don't bother trying to use the code as it was a single use code.

[Sapience]

Ok, I will try to be as clear as possible. I enter a lottery. I win the lottery on a character. I log in the character and check my mail. I receive the following IN-GAME mail:

----
Congratulations! You have won the Post PAX Lottery! Please follow the instructions to claim your prize.

1 - Go to myaccount.turbine.com and log into your account.
2 - Enter the Product Code below and click submit. You will receive your mount on March 22, when Update 2 is live.
3 - Once you have logged in a character, you will see the item in your inventory or in your mounts panel.

Product Code:4WPCNJJWZRFZ7WQ9AADKZQCYC
----

This was not a FaceBook contest. This was not a Twitter contest. This was not a lottery for a single Cremello Steed. This was the lottery mentioned in the thread that I posted a link to earlier.

This was not a single horse. This was an account wide horse code. I get it with every character on every server on the account, even a newly created one.

P.S. Don't bother trying to use the code as it was a single use code.

You are an extremely lucky individual. Those codes were the rarest of the rare winnings. Because the lottery sends the same email to EVERY player that wins (regardless of server), and because the codes are unique, that meant there was ONE winner of each of those lotteries.

It was that attempt at putting codes in the lotteries that proved they were the wrong medium for giving away codes and account level items. In fact, it's probably the worst possible way to do it, which is why we've never repeated it.

But all of this is beyond the point, we have multiple methods of outreach. Some get one type of promotion, some get others. We have done this in the past (the noted mmorpg code as well as PC Gamer codes and other similar promotions) and will do so in the future. No one is barred from using any and all of these methods. You may choose not to use them, just as many players choose not to visit the forums and use social media instead.