The potato has the best verb ever, I laughed for a bit. Then I did it again , and laughed again. I'll probably laugh again later when I do it again later.
It is probably very silly to try and analyze this event, but...
- I am amazed by the lengths people will go to get a status symbol - any status symbol, even when it openly ridiculizes them
- I am amazed by how I wish I had them all
- I found strangely non-nice of TS to roll out these things as limited quantity items. Overpriced stuff? Yes, of course - just think of some cubis. Hard to get stuff? Why not - some badges are pure madness. Complimentary stuff? I think that the items given to first and second round testers were a terribly nice idea. But limited quantity stuff that only very few people can actually get in time/afford/plan to acquire before they sell out? Nasty stuff, guys.
- I visited one vendor only, but it was completely sold out already. I think no more than 12 hours had passed from rollout. How greedy can a Glitch be?
I'm not sure ridiculizes is a word, but it totally should be.
I'm not a businessglitch with a tower shop so I had to sell much of what I had *and* raid the yellow crumb plots just to be able to afford the two cheapest items. Still, I think the Rube potato is sort of cute. If only it'd stop looking me up and down like that...
As a player who has a life and fits Glitch into it (not the other way around), it's frustrating how impossible it is for me to get rare items. It seems like I miss most holidays, events, and now the rare item vendors because I'm at work. The other thing is that I play the game for enjoyment, not for acquiring millions and millions of currants (I do have about 1mil at the moment). It's hard to articulate my frustration clearly. I would like to own some rare items, but how dedicated do I have to be to achieve that? It makes me think only super serious players (who are online most of the day, have tons of currants) will ever be able to experience the excitement of buying from a not-sold-out rare items vendor, or getting a yeti doll, etc. Am I just out of luck?
At the same time, my disinterest in vanity and status makes me feel conflicted about rare items. Sure, I'd love a rare item, but I kind of hate that I feel that way. I don't feel like a rare item makes me more special, and I hate how some Glitchen behave about these items. It's embarrassing to see, and I don't want to be that greedy myself. I could have my fiance (who's at home) log in and get me something, but that feels absurd. I love this game and I want to participate in exciting events, and perhaps experience owning a rare item as a result of that. But I can't fathom altering my real life to fuss about finding enough currants to buy out the rare items vendor when I have a life to live. I don't think it's wrong if some players do that, but I could never justify it myself.
Ayzad, for some of us collecting things is part of the game. For a lot of people who have been playing a while, it gives something to do. A LOT of players have just been able to amass a lot of currants and find there's not really a lot for them to spend it on so they buy collectibles. I don't really think that is the same as greed.
And as for it being "nasty stuff" .... well. Currants are a resource. Having higher quantities of a certain resource means you will have more flexibility in what you are able to do. That's sort of the way these types of games are.
Some glitchen have so much img and level so quickly it makes my head spin. But that's the way they play the game; I play it differently, and sometimes I'd love to have their img per game day levels, but I know other things are more important to me so it doesn't matter. Some glitchen stored up a whole lot of planks before the new housing release, and were able to get a jump start on making resources for their home (and in some cases selling them at high profit margins). Not everything has to be completely equal, or we'd not be having such an amazing game with such wonderful varieties of choices in front of us.
TS, I love this! Thank you for adding these items to the game, it gives those of us with extra currants something to do with them and a new goal to reach for.
@Diaveborn - Of course, of course. Capitalism and such. However, what I was lamenting there was the "Oh, so you didn't read the forums and you weren't there with lots of currants in that precise moment? You believed us when we repeatedly wrote that the really important new currency in the game would be IMG and not Currants? Well, it sucks to be you, loser!" attitude of this rollout - it is SO un-glitchy...
Yah Ayzad, I don't see it. I heard about the location in global, not forum. I also guess I missed the "multiple" statements of iMG being the new currency. Does that mean we can buy upgrades with currants now? Cool.
Plus you act like it just came and went, but you have til Sunday! Plenty of time to make some currants. I was able to make the 200k I needed for one of these items in an hour. You can too.
I have a great deal of sympathy for people who feel conflicted about these items or who feel hurt that they will never be able to get them. At the same time I'm a little confused about some of the negative comments.
If you don't have as much money as other glitch, odds are the number one contributing factor to that is that they placed a greater priority on making money in glitch than you did. Now that might be because they are a college student with tons of free time while you have a job where you work long hours and children to look after. It might be because they are an introvert who relaxes away the stresses of dealing with people all day by interacting with a computer when they get home while you prefer to stay in touch with lots of people and keep an active social life. It might be they just like the game more than you. It might be for any number of other reasons. Whatever the reasons, though, they put a higher priority on being rich in this game.
I think it is completely fair that a person who puts a higher priority on an activity and who organizes their life to reflect that priority ends up having measurably more success at that activity. I think it is fair that such a person is able to realize rewards for doing so that a person who dedicates less time to the activity is unable to realize. In particular, I think it makes sense to design online games so that people who put more time and/or effort in get things that other people can't get.
If you feel these items are unfair to you because you have other real-life priorities that prevent you from playing the game as much as you'd like, please recognize that not being able to play the game as much as you'd like is the unfortunate situation you find yourself in - and that these items are not the cause of that situation.
If you feel that these items were rolled out in bad way, try to imagine how they could have been rolled out better and make a concrete suggestion. If you can't, consider that you might just be annoyed that you don't have a ton of money in the game rather than annoyed at the items or the roll-out of them.
Remember that limited edition items have to be costed at a massive price. If those yetis were only 5k then the first person who found the vendor would have bought all 33 of them (if they had any sense).
And finally, I saw one reference to the fact that many people will never get to experience the excitement of buying one of these items. But, on the flip side of that, I don't think I ever hear anyone talk about how great it is that all players get to experience the excitement of buying buns from a grocery vendor. Without the effort that was put into getting the money, there is no excitement in blowing it on something useless.
And may I add the obvious (inferred by Humbabella, but not explicitly stated) that if everyone could experience the excitement of buying one of these items then the item would be completely worthless. How much would you pay for a spigot that does absolutely nothing and that everybody else owned, too? Some posters above seem to be saying, "I, like thousands of other glitches, have not been able to purchase one of these rare items, yet I think I should be one of the few hundred to own one." I don't quite see that making sense.
The great thing about Glitch is that we all get to choose what is the most fun for us. For some people that is earning currents and buying rare things. For others, it is earning tons of IMG and leveling as fast as possible. Or getting ALL the badges. Or just hanging out in Chat. Or Having as big a house/tower as possible. Or, etc., etc.
TS's job is to reward all of those different gaming styles and in order to do that, they need to provide challenges that are worth the tremendous effort that people put into this game. Only with countless hours in Ur should anyone be able to achieve one of those goals, let alone multiple.
If a player has not made currents a priority before now, now they have extra incentive to do so. If TS was smart (which they clearly are), then new 'rare items' will show up from time to time to reward those that have been hoarding currents. If someone feels that they REALY want a super rare, extra special, one in a thousand item, but can't afford one of this set, then they can buy the next one.
Could someone please write a description of what the rare items _do_? I've seen a lot of coy descriptions about how awesome they are and how they have to be seen to be believed, but I only have enough to buy one thing, and I want to know what I'm getting.
By definition, rare items are those that only a small percentage of players can have. I think providing opportunities for players to acquire rare items from time-to-time will enhance the game overall. However, I'd like to see some additional methods that provide opportunities for lower-level and casual players.
Sure, there need to be rewards for playing the game. However, I think it is also important for the long-term health of the game to retain players who reach 20-something, and to attract and retain casual players. So I'd like to see fun stuff that's geared towards folks in these categories as well as towards those who play the game intensively.
One way to do this might be to have "rare item vendors" also pop-up at random and offer rare items on a one-per-customer basis at lower prices.
I like that idea, Splendora. If I feel left out as an experienced casual player, I can imagine how much worse it is for newbies to hear about all the limited edition items they can never afford (not without months of saving up). In that infamous dusty stick thread, I mentioned the need for more items that are interesting, but not extremely rare. There are so few items meant to just sit on a shelf (trophies, dolls, etc.) or provide a little entertainment (pickle, dusty stick, etc.). Housing decor meets this need in a minor way, but it's not like we can interact with cute knick knacks (not yet, anyway). What about a line of dolls from the toy vendor? The rares would still exist, but alternates (though minus the rare status) would be available for lower level or casual players.
I dont think anyone needs to worry. Im sure TS has tons of toys,items, knick knacks, etc planned for later release. I mean, the game's not even out yet. They gotta save content for the many years Glitch will be live, you know?
Won't someone think of the thousands of players that will never be able to have a limited edition item cause... it was sold out. (Just wait for it.. people will lament that and then fault TS for not having larger stocks of the items)
I'm with Pengwen too. Some of us have jobs/family/other offline things that keep us from being able to play.
I really haven't played more than 10 minutes since the sloths/foxes were released because I've been turned off with the direction the game has been going. I've been here since the alpha test (don't get me started about the Xmas Yeti I never got) and I used to LOVE this game. Like get home, play for an hour, make dinner, play some more while I watched TV with my husband and told all my friends about it. Now since the change to spending imagination to build up skills rather than simply learning them and all the other roadblocks the devs have put up to push out the casual gamer, I don't see myself playing (or paying) for this game anymore. Which is a shame.
I stood in front of the vendor for quite some time, trying to decide whether I wanted to spend half my currants on a rather ugly spud, and decided to pass. To each their own. =)
Yes, I probably didn't phrase it right... let me try to explain...
The context is that I see Glitch more as a feelgood experience than a game (game: activity involving skill, conflict and competition). Thus I am a bit irked by elements like these rare items, that feel very out of place with the surrounding experience. I would probably have enjoyed that infinitely more if we also had flamethrowers and plague bombs to rip the rare items with from the cold, still twitchy hands of slain glitches cursing the Giants' names while barfing their innards out.
*nod* Glitch is totally a different experience from a lot of stuff out there! Conflict and competition aren't really here as much, skill somewhat... but what we do hear time and again from people in the forums is that they value "different styles of play" so I suppose that's one way to look at this issue.
i've heard a lot of things from players who go on and on about all the img they earned or the sdbs they filled with stuff and who sniffed smugly at my silliness of choosing to collect currants because, as they told me so often, currants aren't worth anything.
i probably didn't need a spigot and a potato and a yeti and whatever else (were there five items?) but i just waltzed right up to the vendor and bought me some.
i think this is a charming example of TS finding ways to cretae value in all the cueerncies of the game.
you want some things? img or stuff or currants will get you some.
you want alllllllll the things? you want the whole experience? take yer time and accumulate wealth in all the currencies.
This is a meatsink, but i'll be darned if i didn't buy two spigots earlier {350 &383} So uhm, they are numbered.... to show just how limited edition they are? What do you bet people will charge more for resale of lower numbered ones :-)
I'm a sucker for collecting things. I do it in every game I play, sometimes driving people nuts!