Producer's Letter: Happy Holidays and more!

Sounds like the marketplace items may be going away soon, where does that leave us who bought all the item unlockers when it was announced they were being taken off the marketplace, and then had them replaced with Goblin Gold when armor restrictions were removed entirely? Never have spend any of the Goblin Gold, just nothing in that section of the marketplace that interests me.

I, too, am bummed at the pending demise of the Goblin Games. However, it is my guess that the games were added to generate additional SC sales (tickets) and that that did not work out as well as SOE hoped. As with any other profit driven business, the under performing units get the axe.

I don't care about the merc UI. How about we improve the merc AI?

That would be true if it cost SoE anything to keep the games running, but I suspect it's basically free given that the code is already implemented. If it's not used much, it's not generating any measurable server load. If it's basically free to leave in place but is generating some tiny amount of SC purchases, then why not just take what comes however small?

Rather, I suspect it is disappearing due to questions about whether it constitutes internet gambling or not. The US congress has been and continues to try to regulate and/or tax intenet gambling (e.g. HR 3491 The Internet Gabling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2013 -- which however hasn't made it out of committee). Imagine the headaches for SoE if the income from goblin games started to be taxed specially and separately from other SC-based income.... How to decide what percent of SC income is taxed at what rate? When do you recognize the income? When the SC is bought, when the tickets are bought or when the tickets are used? The whole thing is liable to make the SoE in-house attorney so twitchy you'd think he's having an epileptic fit.

i agree- all of my friends love them too

What is this pridewing you speak about, i've been looking on the prizes for gobbie gold and i dont see any pridewing. Please enlighten me.

You cannot buy it from the SC market for Goblin Gold. You can only WIN it from the actual chest that drops from winning the game. If you examine the game ticket, you'll see it listed there. It's a super rare thing to win compared to the other items on the list.

BTW, I won 50 Goblin Gold yesterday in one of the games, and since I'm a paying Gold Member, it gave me an extra 50 GG coins.

The Goblin Games were one of the main things fun about the game lately.

Long Live the Goblin Games!!!!

Please make double alternative currency a permanent feature for gold members.

Sorry to hear about goblin games going away. They were cute and fun to play!

I feels like Gold members are getting less and less all the time while members that play for free are getting more and more all the time. What incentive do we have to keep paying anymore?

1

Extra run speed and xp.
Double currency.
I bet we'll see more benefits for being gold before too long. The eq2 team have realized the same thing -- silver is too good.

And a 'Very Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy New Year' to all at SOE!!

Meh i found the goblin games rather boring, few nice bonus items such as the heritage sets, but nothing i won't miss.

Should we be excited for the other announcements or shall i get my torches ready?

Add my name to the list of people bummed about the Goblin Games. I look forward to them every month.

why take away Goblin games...we love them?

Not the Goblin Games! It's one of my favorite things! I look forward to logging in, just to get my tickets. Grr.

No goblin games? Shame on you!

Either the RNG doesn't recognize the Pridewing as an option, or winning one takes a level of luck and skill I don't possess. From the measly 5 tickets I claimed, somehow I've played around 400 Goblin Games over the past month. I've only taken the heritage armor crates, unattuners, and mounts over more goblin gold (used to buy more tickets). I just wanted the Pridewing but instead I got 17 Prowlers, 10 Magical Storms, 6 Warhogs, 2 Dark Harbinger Wings, 2 Nightmare Wings, 10 Ratonga crates,10 Gnome, 6 Ogre, 6 Barbarian, 3 Human, 3 High Elf, 2 Dark Elf, 2 Erudite, 1 Arasai, and 14 unattuners.

Getting the 100-gg and 50-gg rewards (doubled for Gold Members) every 25 tickets or so was how I could keep trying, but that probability seems to have changed too since the latest patch. Only got a 50-gg win once over the last 100 tickets.

Losing too many SC armor purchases to goblin rewards?

I don't get the point.

Also: I'm miffed that after I finally got my Billie Doll legit for my 5-year, it's now available for Loyalty tokens to anybody-- I'm no longer the coolest Arasai on the block. I will cease being miffed if COV goes up for Loyalty tokens. Holding my breath startin. . . *now*