Welcome to Jester's Trek.
I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.
You can follow along, if you want...

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Coal in my stocking

So just as a reminder, if you're curious what today's holiday gifts are about, you can read about them in my Special Edition Assets post from a couple of weeks ago.  Spoiler warnings on that post are now OFF.  ;-)

How CCP chose to implement giving these assets, I really really like a lot: everyone seems to have received one Genolution implant, one special edition ship, another big pile of snowballs, and then seven items mixed between the Special Edition Assets and the New Eden Open "trading cards".  +50 points to CCP on that.  That's a really fun way of doing this.  Sadly, between my four subscribed accounts, I did not receive either of the NEO teams that had Rote Kapelle members on them.  Ah well, maybe I'll buy them.  Interestingly, there appear to be zero trading cards for The HUNS team in New Eden.  Whoops.

EDIT (20/Dec/2012): HUNS trading cards began appearing in Jita at 21:30 today, so either a new mix of gifts was created that included this card or it was just an amazing coincidence that there were literally zero of these cards for sale in Jita until then.

I did receive both Special Edition Assets that I particularly wanted: a Postcard from Poitot and an Animal Medical Expert.  Yay!  I didn't receive any of the new Catalysts, which was the ship I really would have asked for but I guess almost nobody did.

That brings me to the second most interesting thing about the way these gifts were distributed: they appear random, but they're not.  Two of my accounts received:
  • Tank of Honor;
  • Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1;
  • Model of a Fighter;
  • NEO trading cards for: EFS, Expendables, Goggle Wearing Internet Crime Fighters, Why Dash;
  • Sarum Magnate;
  • Snowball CXIV; and,
  • The Mini Monolith.
And I've heard from several other players that encountered similar situations, with different mixes.  The chances of that happening randomly are astronomical.  So there were specific mixes of gifts created and it was those mixes that were distributed randomly.  But when creating the mixes, I think the person whose job it was to create them (a) didn't create enough; and (b) forgot to include a HUNS trading card in one of the mixes.  I think I'll leave my second set of the above gifts unredeemed for a few days.  CCP, if you want to change it to a new mix that includes a HUNS trading card, I won't stop you.  ;-)

All in all though, very cool idea!  I hope everyone enjoys their gifts.

First most interesting thing about the gifts?  The first set I redeemed had one unit of Carbon in it mixed with the other items.

That's right, boys and girls: CCP put a lump of coal in my stocking.
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31 comments:

  1. Guess you have been bad this year? :-D

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  2. I got two lumps! So I've been very, very bad.

    Plus I already exploded a Sarum Magnate full of gifts, so I have almost a complete set of cards already! I like this, more fun from CCP and lots of tongue in cheekiness. Good stuff.

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  3. As a guy who uses exploration to make ISK I can only applaude the creation of the faction covops frigs!

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    Replies

    1. Its identical to the t1 hull

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  4. I figured it was a reference to the Charon/Carbon scam. Who wouldn't want a Freighter under their tree?

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  5. I didnt get any more snow balls :'(

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    Replies

    1. That's surprising. I got 300 in all four of my packs.

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    2. Check again and petition, if necessary. The additional snowballs are actually a separate gift (see latest news) from the rest of that stuff.

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  6. I guess you don't have a character with a 5.0 sec status, otherwise you'd have gotten the free remap, instead of the CA-1 implant....

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    Replies

    1. I have one alt with a 5.0052 sec status. Troll: failed.

      Delete

  7. Which NEO teams had RK players?

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    Replies

    1. Much Crying Old Experts and Gentlemen Renegades.

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  8. No apparent rhyme or reason to it; of two characters I run, the one that got the 1 unit of Carbon was the one who's never so much as locked another player in anger.

    Now I'm wondering if the Christmas gift-giving is the method by which stocks of the Genolutions will be replenished?

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    Replies

    1. Yeah, I was just being funny. I'm sure I got the Carbon randomly. As for the implants, I'm sure of it: since they're most useful to newer players, I'm sure CCP doesn't intend for them to be super-expensive collector's items or anything.

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  9. > (b) forgot to include a HUNS trading card in one of the mixes.

    Theory busted: I git a HUNS TC in my christmas loot.

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    1. Yep, these are just starting to appear in the last few hours, when there were literally NONE for sale in Jita until 21:30. Either they added a new block of gifts to the mix that included this card in the last few hours, or this was just an amazing coincidence that nobody got one.

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  10. I love the Concordokken and the Unit of Lag. Thought they are funny. Unfortunately missed out on the Faction Probe. Anyone like to trade his/her for a Magnate?

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    1. Most of the items are now on sale with large volumes in Jita, so you can trade for the ones you want there.

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    2. Why do people sell these items instead of just keeping them? Most of them become more valuable.

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  11. Refine the Mini Monolith into a Handful of Tiny Stars. Take the stars to the big Monolith in the Dead End system. You'll get a very special X-mas bonus!

    Note 1: Make sure to do this in your main - you don't want to get this bonus applied to a disposable alt.

    Note 2: Only works once.

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    Replies

    1. Tried it. Didn't work exactly like this. You need to have both the mini monolith and the tiny stars. You go to the monolith in dead end, jettison the tiny stars. You should hear "its full of stars". The monolith then acts like acceleration gate (the mini monolith is a gate key), sending you off to a big version of a wormhole. You cannot enter the wormhole. Instead you get some message from something called the star child. Next time you do a remap, you will have an extra attribute point to use. If you don't have a remap now, then you have to wait until your next remap to see the extra point. There is a timer on the monolith gate, so it only allows one player through, so, if you miss, you have to wait or come back. Not sure how long, around an hour; it seemed random but probably is not.

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    2. Admit to being intrigued by this, but also admit to not being willing to try without confirmation. +1

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    3. I reached the giant wormhole, but cannot confirm receipt of the extra attribute point, since I do not have a remap until next month.

      Getting the monolith to trigger as a gate took a while. Nothing happens when you drop the Handful of Tiny Stars, unless the gate is ready. I almost gave up trying, but it worked on my 6th attempt.

      Cloaky ship recommended.

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    4. Attribute point confirmed. Thanks, CCP!

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  12. weird really i got them later on in a second batch, the snowballs.

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  13. Receiving the same gift sets maybe related to when you redeem them. A buddy redeemed one account, then redeemed two others latter at the same time. The second and third account received the same sets, the first didn't.

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  14. I got a boots.ini.

    tbh, I'm scared of wearing them.

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  15. Three paid accounts, all linked to the same email address, and all three received the exact same gifts...

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  16. I don't know for sure about all this special destroyers but I think I have seen special editions of GTCs a few weeks ago at some known GTC traders (think it was shattered but couldn't find them anymore).
    Those GTCs stated that they would yield this or that special edition destroyer once you use them.

    ReplyDelete

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