70 réponses à ce sujet

[Dead Soulja96]

Mr Finn wrote...

As the title says I call shenanigans on the bazaar.  The reason for this is that there are far to many people with 10,000+ tokens.  How the hell does someone get that many tokens and why is it as soon as an auction starts and I mean as soon as it starts (2 or 3 seconds) the token amount is already 9000+.  This happens on every auction everytime.  Every bloody item is sold for around 9000 to 10000 tokens even the ****e ones.
A lot of peole on here have around 4000 to 6000 tokens.  What are we supposed to do.
Plus I call shenanigans on the Bazaar for letting it be USA only.  I think everyone from outside the USA should bet and see how many of the prizes don't get sent out.

Here's a tip Bioware, don't ****** off your customer base.  You have been warned.

             

I agree with you 100%

I have around 6000 tokens, and I did not take advantage of the referral link.

[lavosslayer]

all of this mattered to me until I reread the rules and realized that I live in Florida and can't even participate...talk about BS! I'm with you my Euro friends this sucks!!

[BobaJames]

http://social.bioware.com/brc/1693876

[Dorian Cain]

Help me out!



http://social.bioware.com/brc/125061

[pediep]

lavosslayer wrote...

all of this mattered to me until I reread the rules and realized that I live in Florida and can't even participate...talk about BS! I'm with you my Euro friends this sucks!!

I feel your pain and I didn't even notice that part of the rule even when it was at the top. I suggest you take it up with your state lawmakers. It's their fault.

You are so close, yet so far away. Is there any way assuming the rules allow you to transfer those winnings to someone you know in a different state? At least somebody can take advantage of your hard work.

[Dorian Cain]

Help me out!



http://social.bioware.com/brc/125061

[CptPatch]

Ah, an appropriate thread for pointing out Bazaar flaws.

I realized almost immediately that with 5950 tokens, I wasn't going to get squat.  So, instead, I've been crunching data.  Found some interesting stiff (and I'm far from done!).

How do you explain that 28+ winners have _no_ games registered?  Game registration alone is worth anywhere from 1200 to 6000+ tokens, so you just know that if they had them, they would have registered them.  According to the rules, you do NOT need to own or register any games, but... It's like starting your token collection at -6000 compared to everybody else.  Yet these people amassed enough tokens to win auctions that cost 8620+ (the lowest winning bid).  The peculiar thing is that many winners with no games registered _do_ have game achievements and other indications of having played the games.  Are they just playing on their siblings' copies of the games?  Or are they themselves their "brothers" and "sisters" and "mother" and "father" and...and...  The rules say a _person_ can have only one token-accumulating account.  But the only verification that one person is different from another is the email address and name.  It seems it would be incredibly easy to amass a dozen or more free email accounts from various providers such as Yahoo, Comcast, GMail, etc., and assign a different identity to each.  Then you start having each account do referrals to each other to start the ball rolling.  Then bring in a dozen of your friends, each doing the same thing.  Then start swapping clicks.  There's 500 points a day right there.  And it might be pertinent to point out that at least 15 of those 28+ didn't join the forum until on or after the Bazaar was announced on 3/29.  (They don't own the games.  They don't play the games.  They're just here for the free stuff.  How does that qualify them as part of "the community"?)

There' was also a fascinating bit, Statistics-wise, that occurred yesterday.  Three winners in a row each had the exact same avatar.  It's odds-defying because A) same avatar, 1-in-105 chance individually, but in a row? They're all in the auction at the same time, C) they each have enough tokens to actually bid, D) and they each actually _win_ their auctions 1, 2, 3.  As a racing Trifecta, the payout would be enormous and the fact that it happened strains one's credulity -- UNLESS you know Occam's Razor and come to the simplest explanation.

For a contest where a winner can take home only two prizes max, this has happened ONCE.  Ecliptic Deimos dropped 9321 on a BW Lit Pack + 9250 on a  ME Novels pack = 18,571.  Then the very next item was a graphics card valued at $179 that went for a bid of  10806.  (I guess it doesn't pay to be impatient.)

Enough nuggets for now.  Time to get back to mining data!

[Fantom3x]

I really wish bioware didn't make it an auction. it makes it so unfair. if it was maybe even like a sale event it'd be less unfair. and who was the brain behind the unique links because he was not thinking right. i swear. i'm stuck at 6.6k and people have 10K+ and i'm like "What!? how the $#@$ did they get that much?" i just feel beaten down.

[Therigan]

Hehe, a few days ago I thought I would win a big prize but now I see that isn't going to happen, was shooting for a headset.

[Mr Finn]

The fact that new accounts have been created just becuase of the bazaar is not only suspect but has been proven to be a con.
What is the point of trying.
I'm noticed something odd also.  The bazaar runs 24 hours a day and yet every auction still gets over 10,000 token bids after 3-4 seconds of starting on every auction even if it's 0200 or 0400 in the very early morning.
The bazaar is bollox and I'm not taking part anymore.

:devil::devil::devil::devil::devil::devil:

[Callasan]

BellosTheMighty wrote...

I think you're making much too much of this. The Rules say you can go home with 2 prizes max, meaning that you can either split it up and try to take 2 prizes, or go all-in on one and get it (hopefully). With 412 prizes vs. thousands of participants, I think pretty much everyone realized very soon that there will always be someone willing to bid them all. In other words, your tokens will ultimately get you one prize, and only one. So, why not spend them all to ensure you get the prize you want?

You missed the point entirely.

People who do not actively push on Facebook/in this forum/Twitter/do the Challenges in effect have absolutely no chance of winning anything at all, or of even participating i this auction.

I know of one person (a Webcomic artist) who advertised for Facebook contacts on her site, and as a direct result was able to walk away with one of the t-shirt/video card combo packs, and was talking about it on her site afterward.  A person like myself with no Web site, no wish to attention-**** has absolutely NO chance of even participating in the auction at all - 4200 tokens (the base for registering all games, uploading a char, etc can't even ante in this place.

That's more than a  little unfair - rewarding the attention ****s and letting the rest of the playerbase hang.

[pediep]

Callasan wrote...
You missed the point entirely.

People who do not actively push on Facebook/in this forum/Twitter/do the Challenges in effect have absolutely no chance of winning anything at all, or of even participating i this auction.

I know of one person (a Webcomic artist) who advertised for Facebook contacts on her site, and as a direct result was able to walk away with one of the t-shirt/video card combo packs, and was talking about it on her site afterward.  A person like myself with no Web site, no wish to attention-**** has absolutely NO chance of even participating in the auction at all - 4200 tokens (the base for registering all games, uploading a char, etc can't even ante in this place.

That's more than a  little unfair - rewarding the attention ****s and letting the rest of the playerbase hang.

Yup, basically if you didn't participate in the Twitter challenges and spread your referral link everywhere you aren't likely to get rewarded for it. You really have to put the work in to get anything and this is true in most competitions like this.

Also, you had an immense advantage if you joined early. Those Twitter challenges was fairly easy to get if you were creative and read the rules on how they score your response.

[CptPatch]

If you stop and think about it.....
There are (tens of) thousands of BW community members.
There will be at most, 412 winners.  (Less because of double winners, of which there is at least one.)

Of the thousands of members, many will pimp out themselves and their friends/contacts to build up tokens -- and _still_ not win anything.  Then there are the large number of members that find it demeaning to go around pleading, "Please, please, please click my link!" and will fault BW for turning so many members into beggar children (behavior-wise).  Then there's the thousands of members NOT in the US.  And those in the US, but living in FL or NY.

Just how many people did the BW folks think would actually be happy about how it went down?

Either the BW folks have absolutely no talent for forecasting, or they really don't care about what the customers think.  That is, this whole event was about the free advertising they would get when the players hit Facebook and TWITter and every other forum they belonged to.  Which itself means that the "last minute complications" involved in going international and the "giving something back to the community" was an incredible load of hogwash.

[Raycer X]

CptPatch wrote...

Ah, an appropriate thread for pointing out Bazaar flaws.

I realized almost immediately that with 5950 tokens, I wasn't going to get squat.  So, instead, I've been crunching data.  Found some interesting stiff (and I'm far from done!).

How do you explain that 28+ winners have _no_ games registered?  Game registration alone is worth anywhere from 1200 to 6000+ tokens, so you just know that if they had them, they would have registered them.  According to the rules, you do NOT need to own or register any games, but... It's like starting your token collection at -6000 compared to everybody else.  Yet these people amassed enough tokens to win auctions that cost 8620+ (the lowest winning bid).  The peculiar thing is that many winners with no games registered _do_ have game achievements and other indications of having played the games.  Are they just playing on their siblings' copies of the games?  Or are they themselves their "brothers" and "sisters" and "mother" and "father" and...and...  The rules say a _person_ can have only one token-accumulating account.  But the only verification that one person is different from another is the email address and name.  It seems it would be incredibly easy to amass a dozen or more free email accounts from various providers such as Yahoo, Comcast, GMail, etc., and assign a different identity to each.  Then you start having each account do referrals to each other to start the ball rolling.  Then bring in a dozen of your friends, each doing the same thing.  Then start swapping clicks.  There's 500 points a day right there.  And it might be pertinent to point out that at least 15 of those 28+ didn't join the forum until on or after the Bazaar was announced on 3/29.  (They don't own the games.  They don't play the games.  They're just here for the free stuff.  How does that qualify them as part of "the community"?)

There' was also a fascinating bit, Statistics-wise, that occurred yesterday.  Three winners in a row each had the exact same avatar.  It's odds-defying because A) same avatar, 1-in-105 chance individually, but in a row? They're all in the auction at the same time, C) they each have enough tokens to actually bid, D) and they each actually _win_ their auctions 1, 2, 3.  As a racing Trifecta, the payout would be enormous and the fact that it happened strains one's credulity -- UNLESS you know Occam's Razor and come to the simplest explanation.

For a contest where a winner can take home only two prizes max, this has happened ONCE.  Ecliptic Deimos dropped 9321 on a BW Lit Pack + 9250 on a  ME Novels pack = 18,571.  Then the very next item was a graphics card valued at $179 that went for a bid of  10806.  (I guess it doesn't pay to be impatient.)

Enough nuggets for now.  Time to get back to mining data!

Mind = Mildly blown

Seriously, people can be very crafty when it comes to wanting to get "free" stuff.

[N17pr]

I think the Bazaar was a great idea and honestly the marketing is brilliant even with the referral flaws. I can see why they did most of it and even though I agree that the referral links make things a bit unfair, I can see why they did it. I think the big problem that Cptpatch is on to is that bioware did not expect the con men. There are people out there who don't even know that Bioware is, they scam contests and such for a living and I think the token inflation is largely due to Bioware's failure to compensate for these guys.



That said I think the twitter challenges were one of the best ideas for a contest ever.

[Ryouga]

Clearing small misconception:



Without registering your three games, you can still gain the equivalent worth of points through short questionnaires.

[CptPatch]

Ryouga wrote...

Clearing small misconception:

Without registering your three games, you can still gain the equivalent worth of points through short questionnaires.

But you _do_ have the games, why not register them?  It MUST be simpler than doing a questionaire for each.  (Hmm.  Unless the copies that they do have have been pirated and bought at discount.  Hmm.)

[Ryouga]

Wow. The paranoia level kind'a scared me. Off-hand, I can think of two reasons to not register:

- May not have the game case with you (like keeping your game discs in a CD booklet for convenience when at university).

- The questionnaires are god-easy. Five questions, mostly answerable if you've played the games.

[Kelanil]

I have to say I agree with almost everything said in this thread. Its like you people got in my head and took my thoughts on the bioware "auction"....get out of my head, ahhh!

[Murkman4683]

You can take quizzes to make up for not owning the games, with are worth the same exact amount of owning the games. Just having a social account is 1000 and you can download a free character creator to upload a character from Dragon Age for 500. So, you don't have to own the games at all. I finished with 13919 points, and only got points rom two twitter questions. The rest was from posting on every single message forum that I could think of while at work, home and late into the night. It took a lot of time to get those points and it resulted in me being banned from about 24% of the internet for link posting.

[durasteel]

For what it's worth - and I'm not complaining, just dropping some info - with all three registrations, a fairly well connected facebook page, and answering every single twitter challenge but one (I won 3 of them) I think my token pool total was just over 11k. I got up to 9445 and dropped it all on a comic pack (about which I am very happy - I wanted the art book although I already have the comics.) I kept earning points including two twitter challenge wins after that point.



The idea that anyone could get 18k, or that anyone could place a winning bid without registering any of the games, makes me think that something might have been rotten in Denmark. Still... I got free loot, so I'm not complaining.

[ztonkin]

The Bazaar was a big, fat FAIL.

ahem...

END OF LINE!

[BewareTheDrow]

Oh come on. No one realized this was all just one big marketing stunt on Bioware's part? "Thanking our loyal fans" my ass. Any publicity is good publicity, and thats exactly what this was all about.

[CptPatch]

Murkman4683 wrote...

You can take quizzes to make up for not owning the games, with are worth the same exact amount of owning the games. Just having a social account is 1000 and you can download a free character creator to upload a character from Dragon Age for 500. So, you don't have to own the games at all. I finished with 13919 points, and only got points rom two twitter questions. The rest was from posting on every single message forum that I could think of while at work, home and late into the night. It took a lot of time to get those points and it resulted in me being banned from about 24% of the internet for link posting.

And I see all that effort paid off for you:
Kingston 4GB RAM, Headset & BioWare T-shirt     13917     Apr 10,
2010 @ 05:00:00     Apr 10, 2010 @ 05:15:00    Murkman4683


Out of curiosity: Do you actually have 4 games, or are those the
ones that you did questionaires for?  Or do you have those, and you got points for doing questionaires for others that you didn't have?

[Ecliptic Deimos]

CptPatch wrote...

Ah, an appropriate thread for pointing out Bazaar flaws.

I realized almost immediately that with 5950 tokens, I wasn't going to get squat.  So, instead, I've been crunching data.  Found some interesting stiff (and I'm far from done!).

How do you explain that 28+ winners have _no_ games registered?  Game registration alone is worth anywhere from 1200 to 6000+ tokens, so you just know that if they had them, they would have registered them.  According to the rules, you do NOT need to own or register any games, but... It's like starting your token collection at -6000 compared to everybody else.  Yet these people amassed enough tokens to win auctions that cost 8620+ (the lowest winning bid).  The peculiar thing is that many winners with no games registered _do_ have game achievements and other indications of having played the games.  Are they just playing on their siblings' copies of the games?  Or are they themselves their "brothers" and "sisters" and "mother" and "father" and...and...  The rules say a _person_ can have only one token-accumulating account.  But the only verification that one person is different from another is the email address and name.  It seems it would be incredibly easy to amass a dozen or more free email accounts from various providers such as Yahoo, Comcast, GMail, etc., and assign a different identity to each.  Then you start having each account do referrals to each other to start the ball rolling.  Then bring in a dozen of your friends, each doing the same thing.  Then start swapping clicks.  There's 500 points a day right there.  And it might be pertinent to point out that at least 15 of those 28+ didn't join the forum until on or after the Bazaar was announced on 3/29.  (They don't own the games.  They don't play the games.  They're just here for the free stuff.  How does that qualify them as part of "the community"?)

There' was also a fascinating bit, Statistics-wise, that occurred yesterday.  Three winners in a row each had the exact same avatar.  It's odds-defying because A) same avatar, 1-in-105 chance individually, but in a row? They're all in the auction at the same time, C) they each have enough tokens to actually bid, D) and they each actually _win_ their auctions 1, 2, 3.  As a racing Trifecta, the payout would be enormous and the fact that it happened strains one's credulity -- UNLESS you know Occam's Razor and come to the simplest explanation.

For a contest where a winner can take home only two prizes max, this has happened ONCE.  Ecliptic Deimos dropped 9321 on a BW Lit Pack + 9250 on a  ME Novels pack = 18,571.  Then the very next item was a graphics card valued at $179 that went for a bid of  10806.  (I guess it doesn't pay to be impatient.)

Enough nuggets for now.  Time to get back to mining data!

First off, CptPatch, I didn't cheat or make separate accounts to boost Tokens. I posted my referral in the referral threads on here and in my signature on the Xbox.com forums and registered my ME2 and DA:O and did the character creator along with the DAO:A questionnaire, I didn't bother with the twitter challenges.

What happened was I bid all my tokens (9321 at the time) on the Lit. pack and won, not knowing I had won (I hadn't gotten the message yet and my token count was still at 9321) I immediately bid 9250 on the next
auction and to my surprise, won that.

The system hadn't updated my token count or something when I bid on the second item and let the
bid go through, but when it did, it put me negative 9220 tokens.

If I actually had 18,571 I would have a custom ME/DA:O computer coming to me and not a BW Lit. Pack.

i122.photobucket.com/albums/o243/jasty_bucket/12345.jpg
i122.photobucket.com/albums/o243/jasty_bucket/DSC03050.jpg

Pictures that show me going negative.

The first auction I won (BW LIT Pack)was a legitimate win by me.

The second (ME novels) was due to the site not updating my tokens quickly enough.
../../../../images/forum/emoticons/uncertain.png

Modifié par Ecliptic Deimos, 11 avril 2010 - 06:22 .