67 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr Finn]

This is posted on another thread by CptPatch.  It makes very interesting reading. 
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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!

[demanvt]

 I got four challenges , and a total 8600 tokens , they should made the challenge questions for more points.  I wasn't willing to spam have the free world to get tokens.   I few of these people got rewarded for being ****s.  
I not really pissed but, I hope the mailman steals there prize and sell it for crack!

[Beclere]

I've lost one auction by 70 points and another by 80. Curses!

[SynGamer]

Sitting on 6,590 points. Good to see BioWare turned this into a popularity contest (spamming referral link)...props. I haven't seen an auction start for anything less than 8,000 point the the last couple days.

[glucero0]

The sad thing is Bioware has went from being my favorite developer to somewhere further down the list. They completely bonked Mass Effect 2 in my opinion, and although I love Dragon Age: Origins, they tend to create DLC that is too pricey for what you get. I'll keep buying good RPGs (IOW, not the ME series now that they've ruined it IMO) from them but I am a lot more cautious and skeptical.



And then there's this whole auction thing, which is very half baked. What is going on with you guys at Bioware? Get back to the games!!!

[glucero0]

SynGamer wrote...

Sitting on 6,590 points. Good to see BioWare turned this into a popularity contest (spamming referral link)...props. I haven't seen an auction start for anything less than 8,000 point the the last couple days.

Instead of being fun it's all about networking and gaming the system. Just what I want to produce good will, right?

[SynGamer]

glucero0 wrote...

SynGamer wrote...

Sitting on 6,590 points. Good to see BioWare turned this into a popularity contest (spamming referral link)...props. I haven't seen an auction start for anything less than 8,000 point the the last couple days.

Instead of being fun it's all about networking and gaming the system. Just what I want to produce good will, right?

Exactly. And they limit it to 2 wins per account, but how hard is it to make multiple accounts (I haven't done it, but I can only assume it's easy). I was really looking forward to this. I own ME1, 2, DAO and DAA, Neverwinter Nights 1 (Diamond Edition), etc. etc. And yet I don't even have a glimpse of a chance to win anything (even a book would have been nice). Just really disappointing the way they went about this.

[Spazztik]

The way they set up the auction was pretty screwy. Most people didn't have a chance. I only made it because I won 5 challenges, and the books are never as high as the rest of it.

[jeffrey123450]

no-one who complies with da rules can win these auction, its dat simple!

even if you have an account, posses and have registed all 3 possible games, posted da facebook link, and have uploaded a character.



i think we should once again congratulations bioware on NOT rewarding the majority of loyal gamers, that have baught the game, registered and download all da DLC honestly.

[Drignor]

Was there any point at which BioWare said that the referral links would stop working today? I was under the assumption that you'd be able to get them right up until the last auction ended. This really sucks because I could have easily made the 10,000 token mark today had I got an additional 500 from clicks. Instead, I'm hosed at 9840, and not a single auction today has been under 10,000. Wow, i just totally wasted my week trying to get these damn things.

[carlosjuero]

*sigh* Wow, it was nice to get a bid in... oh wait, I didn't even get that chance :/.



The auction is over now and I am sitting on less than 7k points because I only won 1 'challenge' and didn't spam my referral link. At least I can dream about all of the stuff I never had a shot at winning right?

[SynGamer]

carlosjuero wrote...

*sigh* Wow, it was nice to get a bid in... oh wait, I didn't even get that chance :/.

The auction is over now and I am sitting on less than 7k points because I only won 1 'challenge' and didn't spam my referral link. At least I can dream about all of the stuff I never had a shot at winning right?

Pretty much. I never got a single bid in and I was bidding immediately (1-2 seconds into an auction). Sitting on 6,590 points...what a waste of a week. This definitely had a negative affect on me, was really excited to start ME2 (just hooked the 360 up last night) but this has left a bad taste in my mouth, so to say...

[jeffrey123450]

SynGamer wrote...

carlosjuero wrote...

*sigh* Wow, it was nice to get a bid in... oh wait, I didn't even get that chance :/.

The auction is over now and I am sitting on less than 7k points because I only won 1 'challenge' and didn't spam my referral link. At least I can dream about all of the stuff I never had a shot at winning right?

Pretty much. I never got a single bid in and I was bidding immediately (1-2 seconds into an auction). Sitting on 6,590 points...what a waste of a week. This definitely had a negative affect on me, was really excited to start ME2 (just hooked the 360 up last night) but this has left a bad taste in my mouth, so to say...

basically dis compitition wz NOT about rewardin loyal gamers... 'BioWare Bazaar; wz about promotin Bioware the company.... and using use people to do it! Dont agree with me?... well da only way ye could earn enough tokens and win an auction, wz if ye spammed your internet freinds about Bioware.
if bioware really wanted to reward thier customers, buying and registering all their games would have been enough. iv lost all respect for bioware.... we are paying cattle to them. 

[Ecliptic Deimos]

First off, Mr Finn(and CptPatch), I didn't cheat or make seperate 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 updateing my tokens quickly enough.

Modifié par Ecliptic Deimos, 11 avril 2010 - 06:24 .

[CptPatch]

Hi.  I'm the data cruncher.  Here's some of the preliminary stuff:

Of 412 auctions:

I missed the winner of the Mass Effect T-shirt Pack     11885    Apr 08, 2010  23:30:00     Apr 08, 2010 @ 23:45:00
Anybody know who that was?

Winners that do NOT have a Profile (how could they even place bids with no Profile?): 14

Winners with Private Profiles (no info available): 8

winners with 2 wins: 1 (Ecliptic Deimos see above)

Largest winning bid: 16820 (Draugr)

Smallest winning bid: 8620 (OmegaKappa)

Most tokens spent on wins: 18571 (Ecliptic Deimos; see above )

Winners with no registered games: 39
winners with 1 registered game:  79
winners with 2 registered games: 83
winners with 3 registered games: 150
Winners with 4 registered games: 26
winners with 5 registered games: 11
winner with most registered games 7: desurge, who has all three platforms for both DA games, but just one platform for ME2

winners that registered on or after 3/29/2010: 27 (20 of those have no games registered.)

@ED: I just sent you a PM explaining why I was certain _you_, for sure was NOT a cheater.  The main reason is that cheaters would most likely NOT use just one account for multiple wins.  The first win would most likely deplete the account to where winning a subsequent auction would be iffy.  Easier to just switch to a secondary account with a higher token total.  (Keep in mind that with all the clicking going on, multiple accounts would grow at about the same rate.)

[EDIT: corrected some numbers]

Modifié par CptPatch, 11 avril 2010 - 07:39 .

[Amschel]

I feel that the way bioware did this contest really alienated a lot of their fans. I mean its great that they wanted to give out free prizes. i got really excited when i heard about this. and i do feel bad complaining about something that bioware tried to do for us. but they really went about doing this in a bad way.



I actually did try to put a lot of effort into this. but im a full time student, i have a part time job, and i need to sleep. so i just did not have very much time to devote to this. i was barely able to enter any of the twitter challenges, and i posted my link in every referral link thread i could find, and even joined a few forums just to throw my link of here and there. i felt bad about spamming it but i just felt that i was falling further and further behind a lot of people. I ended up with only about 8500 points, so obviously didn't stand a chance.



Again i thought it was great that bioware tried to do something for their fans, and i still feel kind of bad complaining about it. but there are plenty of us hardcore bioware fans that have really busy schedules and couldn't sit around on our computers to spam links and answer twitter challenges all day. I've lost a lot of respect for bioware.

[jeffrey123450]

Amschel wrote...

I feel that the way bioware did this contest really alienated a lot of their fans. I mean its great that they wanted to give out free prizes. i got really excited when i heard about this. and i do feel bad complaining about something that bioware tried to do for us. but they really went about doing this in a bad way.

I actually did try to put a lot of effort into this. but im a full time student, i have a part time job, and i need to sleep. so i just did not have very much time to devote to this. i was barely able to enter any of the twitter challenges, and i posted my link in every referral link thread i could find, and even joined a few forums just to throw my link of here and there. i felt bad about spamming it but i just felt that i was falling further and further behind a lot of people. I ended up with only about 8500 points, so obviously didn't stand a chance.

Again i thought it was great that bioware tried to do something for their fans, and i still feel kind of bad complaining about it. but there are plenty of us hardcore bioware fans that have really busy schedules and couldn't sit around on our computers to spam links and answer twitter challenges all day. I've lost a lot of respect for bioware.

if bioware really wanted to reward thier gamers, they wouldnt have wanted anythin in return.
by getting me, you and others to spam, they were using loyal gamers to promot their company. 

[CptPatch]

For my (lengthy) critique of the Bazaar, you can read up on it at
HookedGamers.com:
http://www.hookedgam...com/blogs/capta

... azaar.html

I would like to clarify that
although there was most likely _some_ hanky-panky going on, at least
85% of the winners have at least one game registered.  However, most
assuredly, EVERY winner had garnered a LOT of tokens via referral
clicks.  About the only one that did not have to have quite as much of
it as everyone else was desurge, with _7_ games registered.  (That made
his starting base total to be a whopping 11,850)

[Murkman4683]

CptPatch there is no reason to double post your article to try and gather more people to your cause. What you just did is the same exact thing I was doing with my link. Right now you are referring people to your site to read your article, I referred people to Bioware to buy their games, what is the difference.

And once again you cannot register the same game more than once. If you own a 360 and PC version of Mass Effect 2 you only get points for one copy. The most points you could get for owning the games and uploading a character is something around 5750. Please stop lying, you cannot get double points for owning multiple copies of the same game.

1000 Points Mass Effect 2
1500 Points Dragon Age Origins
1750 Points Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
500 Points for uploading
1000 Points for having a social account

Modifié par Murkman4683, 11 avril 2010 - 09:39 .

[Murkman4683]

CptPatch is the perfect example of what happens when you don't read the rules and are mis-informed. Quit trying to make up for the fact that you lost, the Bazaar auction information cannot be viewed any more, you are spreading rumors.

[CptPatch]

Murkman4683 wrote...

CptPatch is the perfect example of what happens when you don't read the rules and are mis-informed. Quit trying to make up for the fact that you lost, the Bazaar auction information cannot be viewed any more, you are spreading rumors.

BTW, thank you for the clarification @game registration.  BioWare took down _everything_ concerning the operation of the Bazaar within minutes of the end of the auction.  That included the Official Contest Rules, which seem to have not been posted anywhere else.  I had been hoping to access those while delineating the details.  That means the optimal base token amount before referrals and Challenge wins was 5950.

As for me "losing", I never even tried to post a bid.  I knew before the first auction that it would be a waste of time.  So instead, I wasted my time assembling an auction database.  The data pretty much confirmed what I suspected: if you weren't inclined to go a-begging for referral clicks, you would NOT be able to win anything.  Period.  End of story.  As such, despite being billed as a way, "To show our appreciation of fan support", it actually rewarded only one segment of the community: those that had no compunction about hustling for referral clicks.

Since you are one of the 411 winners -- out of the (tens of) thousands in the community -- it is not at all surprising that you find fault in those that air complaints about how the event was run.  Hard to enjoy your winnings if you suspect that what you did in order to win may constitute objectionable social behavior.  Therefore if there is a problem, it MUST be with those whining looooosers.  Totally understandable.

[CptPatch]

Looking for member feedback. Please cast a vote in the "Reaction to the recent Bazaar event" poll under the "Polls" tab. And encourage others to do likewise, so we can get a better feel of how the community as a whole feels about how it went down.

[Murkman4683]

You are right, I am one of those top elite "social beggars", you didn't even try. How accurate can your data be if you are just finding out about the rules after the fact. What are you campaigning for? To prove what point? That certain individuals don't have the stomach for competition. Hell yeah I begged for clicks and I won something. SO you are better than the rest of us, is that it? How does it feel on your high horse. I guarantee you tried to get fifty clicks a day and gave up mid-week.



You are posting on Bioware forums, you own the games, you own the DLC, way to stick it to the man.

[jeffrey123450]

Murkman4683 wrote...

You are right, I am one of those top elite "social beggars", you didn't even try. How accurate can your data be if you are just finding out about the rules after the fact. What are you campaigning for? To prove what point? That certain individuals don't have the stomach for competition. Hell yeah I begged for clicks and I won something. SO you are better than the rest of us, is that it? How does it feel on your high horse. I guarantee you tried to get fifty clicks a day and gave up mid-week.

You are posting on Bioware forums, you own the games, you own the DLC, way to stick it to the man.

i dont think its a case of not having "the stomach for competition" more like we wont become beggers.
gamers loyality should NOT be reward, by turnin use into spammers 4them

[Murkman4683]

You decided from the beginning that you didn't want to post your link and beg for clicks. So why are you mad, are you mad at Bioware? Because it looks to me that you "guys" are taking it out on the wrong people. Bioware was responsible for this Bazaar, so don't sit here and call us(auction winners) cheaters and beggars. Take your anger out on someone else and quit posting inflammatory comments towards your fellow gamers.