Just my thoughts after this year's EG. I didn't have a shopping pass and declined to participate in the RP part, so don't have anything to really say about those.
Minigames:
-Still not happy with trove tokens being T5 prizes. I've already spoken my mind on this extensively at the beginning of the month and don't care to get into it again. Luckily all my T5's were flare tokens, so I don't have to grumble about wasted millions.
-It was annoying getting baubles (the quest items). I was able to sell a couple dozen at the very beginning of the event to another player, but after that they all ended up getting tossed in a barrel. Would have been nice for those not participating in the event to be able to turn them in for 5-10 seashells... or maybe just have a flag we could set that would prevent us from getting them as a prize.
-It became obvious to me that the flare tokens were meant mostly for low-mid range items to be improved then anything else. Not saying this as a complaint, but an observation. I understand why the main item I wanted to add flares cost upwards of 125k seashells to add flares to (6x fully unlocked energy staff), but opted not to pursue that because it will be less expensive to add flares to it via HESS, I didn't find flares that fit the theme of my energy staff, and wouldn't have been able to participate in the treasure piles. In the end I used two of the tokens on my lowbie cleric's gear (air on his runestaff, puncture on his robes) and the third on one of my treasure pull items.
-At the moment, I'm leaning towards not purchasing a games pass next year. Much as I've enjoyed flare tokens, I just don't have anything else to use them on. In the past the fun for me was seeing what items I got each time I played.... but as the prizes for doing them has moved to being almost exclusively alt currency, it's just become a brain-numbing activity. I could get into it when T4 prizes were trove tokens and a T5 was guaranteed nice thing (be it a flare token in the last couple years or all the wonderful things I won as T5's prior to that).... but sitting there just watching different numbers of an alt currency come my way and occasionally hoping my T4 isn't another bloody bauble or my T5 wasn't a trove token just doesn't do it for me.
Merchants/raffles:
-All the merchants I saw were amazing and I'm glad there were so many that chose to work earlier in the day. That's a great boon for those of us that have to work evenings IRL and can't afford to take time off for a game.
-That said, it did seem like there a couple days with hardly any merchants at all. Unfortunately RL work decided to be unusually busy merchant week and those days happened to be the ones I was able to be around most of the day. I was able to get things on other days either before or after getting off work, but was kinda disappointed to see so few announcements about merchants on the two days I was off.
-Love the fully unlocked Of-The-Faith robe I won at the raffle. It's not something I'd have sought out normally and just entered the raffle on a lark, but it's quickly becoming a stable of my empath's wardrobe/RP.
-Raffle prices continue to get out of hand. It doesn't really affect me cause I have enough silver that 150k is a drop in the bucket, but not every player has that luxury. There really should be some 50k and 75k raffles spread around so those that haven't been building bank accounts for decades can participate as well.
Other:
-I liked the 10k and 25k treasure piles. Luckily the stars aligned and allowed me to be around for the later or I'd have been bummed. I'm happy with what I got from it even thought it's not something I can make use of myself.... that said, I'd really have rather the things I got from the treasure piles have been prizes in the mini-games/digging. I understand the T2-T3 levels being moved exclusively to treasure piles, but it's nice finding something other then seashells/quest items in the T4 level.
-The items in the schooner didn't change much between the first year on Caligos and this year. Yea, there's been a few things added over time, but whatever replaces it at the new grounds needs to be fresh inventory. This year especially it looked like everything in there had been there in past years and I already had anything interesting... another reason games didn't hold my interest like they usually do.
Starchitin, the OG
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
