Curse

Gaile Gray · Feb 14, 2008, 11:17 PM // 23:17

If I remember correctly: Last year they went away with the end of the mini-games, which caused quite an outcry. This year they were around longer than last year's Canthan New Year Festival, actually. There was an event when the collectors were around for about a week -- perhaps that was the dragon Festival? However, the designers felt that having the NPCs in place that long was an unnecessarily lengthy extention of event time, and they prefer to keep things on a tighter timeline in the future.

Roo Ella · Feb 15, 2008, 12:46 AM // 00:46

IMO remove Everything 2 to 6 hours after the last event
Decorations NPC's ect
Remove quests giving from the npc's at the end of last event but allow us to cash in the rewards up to removal don't leave us trying to get the reward after they gone and just have no alternative but to abandon the quest.
Would save people logging in 12 hours later or whatever and seeing decos and npcs then asking when is next event.
Hope that all made sense haven't had me coffee yet.

nitetime · Feb 15, 2008, 01:00 AM // 01:00

I would consider myself to be more informed then the average GW player and I had no idea that when I got home from work Monday the traders would be gone.

afk on nine rings, went to bed, got up went to work...got home, traders gone? Theres needs to be atleast a full day after event for the traders imo.

Ephidel · Feb 15, 2008, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Hello,

Ya know? No matter how much time we allow -- a half-day, a couple of days, a week -- we are asked to bring back the collectors after every festival.

But hey, I understand -- I was in the event until the end, and I did end up with some unexchanged tokens myself.

There shouldn't be a problem if you just leave the collectors in with for a week with no way to get more tokens. By the time the collectors are gone, THEN the people will have no right to complain, as they had plenty of time to trade any leftover tokens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

As to the request: We cannot bring back the traders or collectors for this last event. It's simply not possible for us to roll them back out, as they are intertwined with event elements that we do not wish to restore. There are programming details involved in the events, as you can imagine. The decorations are one element. The mini-games (like Dragon Arena) and the collectors form another. It's not possible to disconnect the currently-connected elements, with regret.

Secondly, I am no genius developer, but I can say with one hundred percent certainty that if it's possible with the way you did it for Wintersday 2006 and the first of the two 2007 Dragon Festivals, it is possible with this. Can the development team possibly be so strained with Guild Wars 2 that there isn't time to code something simple like this? Or perhaps something even simpler, like a new(!) hat (unless you have a single art person working on the entire ANet team, I don't see how this couldn't be possible), or the simple bugfixes to the HoM, or...the list can go on and on. But I'm not asking for any of THAT to be done (at least not at the moment). At the moment, I am asking that the ArenaNet team devote the tiniest amount of resources to something so simple as leaving a few collectors in (perhaps you can just create a new collector? What sort of coding flaw would intertwine ALL of this stuff so inconveniently?) after your events. No more, no less.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

However, the designers felt that having the NPCs in place that long was an unnecessarily lengthy extention of event time, and they prefer to keep things on a tighter timeline in the future.

Keeping this statement in mind as well, I really would like to know how leaving a few collectors in is an "unnecessary extension". What are people going to do, crush the economy with their leftover tokens? If you're (ANet collectively) so worried about economy, I'm curious as to why you would create such a rare miniature as the polar bear that only a select few were able to get, thus delivering us one of the most expensive items in Guild Wars history (the others, unsurprisingly, are more minipets).

Gaile Gray · Feb 15, 2008, 01:37 AM // 01:37

I'm no genius designer, nor programmer, either. And I never, ever make assumptions about "simple code" or "tiniest amount of resources" because I do lack that background and I know and admit it. (So, I would boldly state, does 90% and more of our playerbase.

) I'm closer to knowing about how this sort of thing works than most players, and I do know this: If it were trivial, we would do it.

You have suggestions, and I appreciate that -- we all do. But I want to ask that you please keep them in the tone of suggestions, and don't move into the area of demands. The easiest thing is to do a build, remove everything and be done with it. The fact that we are not is concession to trying to meet different, and sometimes conflicting, needs and desires.

From the official events page: "The Canthan New Year's Festival event begins at Noon Pacific (-8 GMT) on Friday, February 8, 2008 and will run all weekend, ending at Noon Pacific (-8 GMT) on Monday, February 11, 2008." Note: "ending at Noon," which seems a pretty clear message. The problem may be not that we did the wrong thing here, but that we erred in the past in generously extending the time for the collectors beyond the announced end. If it's clearer, and better, we can certainly do a cohesive and final time for everything and that may clear up some of the mistaken expectations.

But I think that everyone appreciates having a bit of time past the final event's wrap-up, and as I said to begin with, if it's truly possible for us to make a change, we will definitely consider it.

Terra Xin · Feb 15, 2008, 03:03 AM // 03:03

This is in contradiction to what you've claimed, but I logged in yesterday to find that the prizegiver for the top 100 rollerbeetle winners still there, (including the NPC in Shing Jea who still gave access to that outpost to get to the Rewards NPC.) That's what originally prompted me to post here when I couldn't find the Lunar traders. If it was an oversight then OK, but it raises a big speculation against what you've said so far.

It would have been the dragon festival that I was thinking about, where there was a collector that stayed a week after the event ended. I think that was a good idea, because as I understand, the collector was there but the minigames were unavailable? This ensured that the casual gamers wouldn't have to come into the game at a certain time to empty their tokens in exchange for the reward. I would've thought that the reception of that idea was good, but if it wasn't, then that's just too bad for us, really.

It doesn't bother me to have two stacks of tokens in my inventory. I also knew exactly what time the event was to end, I was just confused about the situation that the collecters had. It's like saying why you have collectors available at the beginning of the event, when you know that it'll be a while before people actually start using them. If it takes time to stock up on tokens to be exchanged, then it would also take a while to exchange it themselves.

But thanks a heap for taking this issue into consideration, that's really helpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

But I want to ask that you please keep them in the tone of suggestions, and don't move into the area of demands.

This is why it's handy to just ignore the people whom you know have no idea what they are talking about, and focus on the ones that actually want to know

Ephidel · Feb 15, 2008, 03:53 AM // 03:53

Passing over that oddly-worded jab at me...

Sorry about that, Gaile. I sort of overreacted on the matter. I didn't mean to make it sound like a demand or anything. I guess all of the complaints I kept seeing on the forums got to me, and I wanted some answers. Since you've affirmed that it's not a trivial matter, I guess I have no place to talk.

No harm done, I hope.

shoyon456 · Feb 15, 2008, 05:21 AM // 05:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

If I remember correctly: Last year they went away with the end of the mini-games, which caused quite an outcry. This year they were around longer than last year's Canthan New Year Festival, actually. There was an event when the collectors were around for about a week -- perhaps that was the dragon Festival? However, the designers felt that having the NPCs in place that long was an unnecessarily lengthy extention of event time, and they prefer to keep things on a tighter timeline in the future.

I too was stuck in the same situation... in fact last week i ended up trashing 300 or so jade orbs because there was simply no convenient place to keep them anymore. I'll probably do the same with the tokens.

Anyways, thanks for posting gaile and clarifying some of this up... if only you did this for some of the more dicey threads :P

Ascalon Runner · Feb 15, 2008, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Why not just add a lunar token collector and victory token collector to Sunqua Vale whenever someone in the party has the aforementioned items in their inventory? It might take a little programing effort but once it's done, the Guild Wars programing team might never have to touch that particular line of code again.

vixro · Feb 15, 2008, 12:35 PM // 12:35

I knew the event would end at noon, because that's what it said on the front page. I was sure to turn in all my tokens around 11:45am. This gave me enough time to play what games I wanted to do and use the traders before they disappeared. When they went away at noon, was I surprised at all? No, because that's when Anet said they'd go away.

All I'm mad about is repeat names on the beetle racer list taking up space for those that would have placed top 100 and got a mini if it were unique players. Either way, as Gaile has said, if it were a simple fix it would be done.

Oink The Pig · Feb 15, 2008, 09:20 PM // 21:20

It definitely seems problematic that the methods of receiving tokens stay open until the announced end of the event, but the method of disposing of them leave at the exact same time. People's natural inclination is to continue engaging in those activities until the very end, particularly when one such activity can lead to a very rare miniature (Rollerbeetle Racing). At the end of that activity, they are left with a bunch of items in their inventory that they can no longer get rid of, but which they don't want to trash because of the value they hold at the next event.

I can understand keeping the Rollerbeetle Racing NPC around so winners could collect their Rewards, but I think most people don't understand why the same courtesy couldn't have been extended to everyone else with regards to the Lunar Tokens, particularly when the towns remain decorated. In addition, in the distant past, a new build would signal the end of an event, and some people still seem stuck on that.

I think future events might run smoother if there's an announced end to the quests/minigames/etc. that produce items that can only be traded in during the event, and then an announced end to when those quest givers and collectors (and, in this case, Lucky Hochei to dispose of loose tokens) would be leaving that's anywhere from 1-12 hours later. One hour would let people just to get out of whatever they were in and cash things in, while up to 12 hours would let people who forgot to cash things in the night before to log in when they get home to dispose of the items.

This sort of staggering seems especially important if there's ever another event that provides collectible items that are never ever used again (hello, Jade Wind Orbs).

Burning Blade · Feb 15, 2008, 09:31 PM // 21:31

looks like my 70 lunar tokens going to recycle bin

stretchs · Feb 15, 2008, 09:44 PM // 21:44

I understand a week is a bit too long, but 24hrs after the event's end allows everyone in all timezones at least time to get rid of their remaining items. Many of us may have idled overnight and didnt get a chance to relieve ourselves of quite a few things that have no value except during that festival. If the event ended at noon pacific time, that is 2pm cst where i live and most if not all people would have had school/work on Monday so we wouldnt have been able to get rid of those excess items.

Just my 2cents

Dryndalyn · Feb 16, 2008, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

I too was stuck in the same situation... in fact last week i ended up trashing 300 or so jade orbs because there was simply no convenient place to keep them anymore.

Ah ha, ha! I still have Jade Orbs too! I guess they are no good anymore and I should let them go to the recycle bin as well.