I got the idea about Lord Wuffel.
But doesn't sound Black Market illegal like gambling?
That was one of the concerns from the others!^^

Just wanted to ask, but I also like the idea.

jacobgrey wrote:The wuffel market might be problematic because you actually have to set the price of the items. Given that these particular items don't have a set FP value to begin with, this could be hard to do, especially if all these tactics work on bringing down inflation.

These are exactly my thoughts. It's difficult, especially with how Fairy Coins are valued right now. Let's take an old item for example, the Angel Wings. The highest they were ever sold in the market was 15FC. However, that was when Fairy Coins were valued less.
So, how do I value the item now? 15FC a selling price of 95000Food, which seems to be what they are going for now, would be 1,42 Million (!) food.
But if I sell them for less, we have the problem of de-valuing old items again, which is exacty the problem l-lappy mentioned a few pages back.

I do like the idea of a Wuffel-run black market, but not the idea of selling old limited items for a set price that is anything less than the highest price the items were ever sold for and with the Fairy Coin inflation the price would be impossible to determine. Do you value them by what FC used to be then when the item was sold? By what they would be worth now? For me that's all way too complicated with lots of new potential for trouble.

Firn wrote:I appreciate your concern - I admit, personally I am not fond of things like surprise boxes and gatchas. Though for me that's easily solved: I simply don't use them and I think that that's what people who are not fond of the idea should do: I ignore this feature. (If it ever comes).
But, you know, we already kind of having something like this with the Wild Knuffel item raffle and this wasn't even our own idea, but something that was requested by users and I can't recall ever hearing any negative feedback about it.

I am curious to hear everyone elses opinion on this though! Maybe someone has some great ideas? The only thing that comes into my mind to keep people from "spending more than they really want" would be to make a max limit you can spend on the feature per day or week.

(By the way, since people are talking about FCs: My idea for this feature was actually to use Food, not fairy Coins, since it was meant as an anti-inflation feature. )

I have way less problems with random stuff for food - maybe simply because it doesn't translate so directly into gambling away real money. Of course you can buy FC, sell them for food and use that, but there's more indirection there. And I see the benefit of using this as a food sink, as the people who just have a lot of food lying around can gamble away a lot without actually feeling bad about getting some items they don't like so much since they have more food than they could spend otherwise.
I'd be more worried about tempting people who have a hard time getting food into feeling like they wasted it all on some random draw that disappointed them.
Using food is one reason why the wild knuffel item raffle isn't a problem for me. The second reason would be that it is pretty cheap, so you don't risk a huge amount of food at once when you use it.
But there's something else about them that I think might be an interesting point to think about for any kind of future surprise boxes: There are no objectively "better" or "worse" outcomes. Sure, when there are new wild knuffel items, the first few weeks the new ones are sought after and worth more, but that calms down relatively fast. After that, most of the items have at least similar worth and whether you're happy with your draw depends mostly on taste and you might still just be able to sell or trade the item if it's not your personal taste.
With a lot of these kinds of features I've seen, there's this idea of different item tiers, different rarities, where you can objectively have a bad draw and get a very common item. That feels more frustrating to me than getting an item that is just not my personal taste but has roughly the same market value as the items I would like getting (meaning I have the chance to maybe trade with someone else who has different taste, got something I like but prefers what I got). It doesn't even matter if I end up keeping it or trading it or selling it or whatever, just the initial disappointment when seeing the result of the draw is very different.

One other point that came to my attention while thinking about the wild knuffel example: Wild knuffel have always kind of been a loot box. A very pretty one, where you don't just buy it for the content, but rather to keep the box (which is good! Makes it worthwile even if you don't like the items it gives you!) - the reroll feature is actually more a result of people disliking the random draw. They wanted the possibility to repeat the roll in order to get something else, for a fee much smaller than just buying another box.
Not sure what exactly to take away from that, but I found it an interesting observation ;)

I love the idea of a wuffel-run black market lore-wise, but I see the problem with setting prices.
Maybe the lore idea can still be used if you end up having some kind of surprise boxes to avoid that issue, unless you already had something else in mind for them.

ToxicFirefly wrote: But doesn't sound Black Market illegal like gambling?
That was one of the concerns from the others!^^

Toxic, the difference is that this suggested "black market" just sounds like something shady, it is made to seem illegal inside the lore of the site, but would be a perfectly normal site feature, whereas gambling with fairy coins might actually be considered real life gambling.
So it's kinda "pretend-illegal" vs. "real-life-illegal" ;)

Oops, sorry for the wall of text

Maybe the prices in the wuffel market could be random through some algorithm? Like, no lower than let's say 50k but no more than 500k, but something randomly in between. I don't even know if that's possible to make... And I'm not sure about fairness of such a way.

memoriam wrote:Maybe the prices in the wuffel market could be random through some algorithm? Like, no lower than let's say 50k but no more than 500k, but something randomly in between. I don't even know if that's possible to make... And I'm not sure about fairness of such a way.

That could be an option!


alternate idea: combine the wuffel black market & gambling

A hooded figure approaches you and invites you to visit their back alley shop. They currently have 7 random items of varying rarity for sale, but you can only buy 1 per visit, and you can't pick which one.
For 50k you get a random item from the 7.
For 100k, you can remove 2 items from the pool, and receive a random item from the smaller, 5-item pool. So you pay more, and in return your chances to receive the item you want increase from 1/7 to 1/5.
And for 150k, you choose 3 items from which your final item will be chosen, so your chance to get the item you want is 1/3.

All numbers and prices were picked somewhat randomly and could of course be adjusted to what sounds most reasonable!

The shop could show up randomly like a fairy popup, or more like the candy caravan. The items would change with each visit.

In either case though, I think the user should have a bit of time before they make their choice, so they can possibly collect some funds. Otherwise it might be quite frustrating for new users. The 50k example would already be crazy hard to collect for newbies ... maybe there should just be more base items, like 20, so the cheapest ticket could be 10k, and the most expensive one for a 1/3 chance for your preferred item would be super high, like 500k.

Oh just for funsies, imagine a wardrobe randomizer button for dressing up your avatar.

Like I change mine daily, I think it could be funny.

Knuffel App or at least a mobile version of the website. :D This would make it so much easier to access accounts on phones and tablets!!

Chrizine wrote:

ToxicFirefly wrote: But doesn't sound Black Market illegal like gambling?
That was one of the concerns from the others!^^

Toxic, the difference is that this suggested "black market" just sounds like something shady, it is made to seem illegal inside the lore of the site, but would be a perfectly normal site feature, whereas gambling with fairy coins might actually be considered real life gambling.
So it's kinda "pretend-illegal" vs. "real-life-illegal" ;)

Oops, sorry for the wall of text

Suugar-Fiend wrote: At least in the USA, according to the law it isn't gambling at all. Bcs you can't trade the "virtual" cash for any real money. Like you can't trade a "knuffel" to a bank, or an instituation, and get real life money in return. So it isn't gambling. Regardless of the fact you spend real money to get it, the fact you can't trade that away for real money is why it isn't gambling.

Why casino chips are considered gambling is bcs you can buy them with real money, and then return them for real money.

I think most countries have laws like this regarding online gaming. Otherwise no game who uses the "summoning" "gacha" "surprise box" etc etc could make a profit of any kind. Take LINE PLAY for example, they have this system and you can download it all over the world. Paying real life money to get virtual cash to spin on virtual gachas to get virtual items. But since you can't sell those items back for cash thru conventional means. It isn't gambling.

Suugar, I'm not against gambling features because I'm greedy and want everything for free. I don't have a problem with things costing fairy coins. I wouldn't be against more content put out for fairy coins, I just don't want this content to be luck-based. Because I think that in the long run that could hurt the site. Because people might make bad judgements, and to protect themselves from that, quit the site for good instead of ignoring the feature. Sure, bad judgements of people are not on Firn. But she does have to consider the possible consequences. I'm afraid of such a feature feeling exploitative, because I know that if I felt like the site wants to exploit my weaknesses, that would make me less likely to donate to it at all. As it is now, I buy fairy coins with the feeling of donating to a site I love. If there were features that made me feel like the site is trying to get as much money out of me as possible using whatever psychological tricks available, I would not feel that way anymore. I would be more reluctant to spend any money on such a site. I don't know how many people would feel the same, but that is ultimately where I'm coming from. I don't want to discourage such features because I personally dislike them, I am afraid of them having a negative impact on the site in the end.

As for your argument about gambling and laws: US laws are pretty irrelevant here, since the site and Firn are not based there. I'm not entirely sure what the laws in germany say about this kind of thing, but in europe there have been discussions about laws being changed to include lootbox features under gambling laws. So while it might not be a problem right now, it could very well become more tricky in the near future. I don't think it is very likely that somebody will actually sue kofk in any case, but it is a risk that Firn has to take informedly, if at all. Which is also why I think other examples of such features don't really prove anything, for one, if they're based somewhere with not very harsh laws on it, they can offer them anywhere without a huge danger of legal repercussions. To sue somebody not based in your country under your laws is not an easy thing to do in general, and only large companies would really have an office or something in all the countries they offer their services in. And even if it is in a legal grey area, most small apps will generally not be examined that closely and nobody will go to any lengths to persecute them. Doesn't mean a site owner shouldn't be aware of the grey areas they steer into.