Winner of Treasure Hunt Event #2

Foreword

This event ended surprisingly fast. To be honest i haven’t expect it to be finished within the first 5 days. Seems I was wrong. The basic idea was to fund the winning pot with income by advertisement and therefore, the longer the event lasts the more money could be gained and placed in the pot.

Maybe the event was to easy, the place chosen badly or the hint was to obviously. Well, the bad side of this is, the event was so short, that barely anyone (other than hand full of people, less than 50) visited the event page and no revenue was generated with the ads. Will take a few days in the auction to recover from this losses *giggles*

Well, guess that’s a risk. Next time I’d have to make it harder then or see if I can some sponsors for it.

The Winner

You must be thinking now: “Blah blah, just tell us the winner”. Right! Here it is. The winner of this event is Firemonkey Fire Aveon from the society Synergen at 2009-03-14 03:34:58 MindArk time! Congratulation to the 200 PED winning price, will contact you within the next few days so we can set a date and time to deliver your price.

Hope you will use it for something useful and not throwing it to fast in the one-armed bandit (also know as Entropia Universe)! :P

The proof

 

Treasure Hunt #02: 13th March – 28th March – Win 200 PED

So, it’s time for the second event. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get a new sponsor for layer ads in the last week, but I’m still looking for one, as Google Adsense is quite unsuitable for this project as it depends on users to click the ads and with PPM advertising the revenues would be much more predictable.

As last week, this event is also absolutely free. NO COSTS, NO REGISTRATION! Everyone can simply join and search for the treasure. Once you found it, submit a screenshot at

Before you start, make sure to read the FAQ and the Rules.

The Event

This time I’ve hidden 7 Mind Essence somewhere on Eudoria. Once you found this treasure, you have to make a screenshot which shows your avatar, the item on the ground, current time and position (P-Key in-game) as well as your name visible and your skills window sorted by points so we can verify that you’re qualified for the event. Don’t for get to add the current event password/key-phrase

Important: Make sure to use the current event password/key-phrase when submitting your screenshots! The event password/key-phrase will change regularly, so make sure you’ll check out often enough to see if there are new hints and/or event password/key-phrase.

The wining pot will be 200 PED this time (which is equivalent to 20.00 USD) and the payout rate is 100%. Every time, a new hint is released where to find the treasure, the payout rate will be reduced by 25%.

If you don’t have an Entropia Universe Account, you can create a new account at the Entropia Universe Homepage and download the client (the registration and client download is free of charge)

The Hints

Hint #1

The first hint contains a map with the zone where to find it and a close picture of the treasure itself.

Zone:

Close View on the Treasure:

Donators/Sponsors

Currently there are no Donators/Sponsors

Winning pot

The current winning pot consists of:

• Advertisement/My own Money: 200.00 PED
• Donations: 0.00 PED
• Sponsors: 0.00 PED
• Total: 200.00 PED
• Payout: 200.00 PED (100%)

How does it work?

It’s very simple, really! You just need to walk through the given area and search for it. Once you think you found it, make a screenshot with the necessary information visible in the screen shot (check out the Rules before starting!) and set it to

Important: Be sure to have 2 things in the subject-line of the mail “Entropia Treasure Hunt” and the current event’s password.
Example: If the current event’s password is “beginner”, the email subject has to be “Entropia Treasure Hunt – beginner”.

The current password can be found on the right side in the navigation!!!

You can basically submit as much screenshots as you want, however to many may disqualify you, especially if we notice that you’re trying to cheat (i.e. faked or edited screenshots). Screenshots have to be in JPEG or PNG format, BITMAPS won’t be accepted!!!

Also, you don’t have to look for all the time. You can just normally go out and hunt or do mining and if you find accidently find it, submit the picture.

If you have any questions, ask it either in the comments or send a mail to

Hope many people will participate and if you’re in-game business owner who wants to sponsor one of the future events, send an email to the address above.

Happy treasure hunting!

Next Event Announcement & Problems of the last Treasure Hunt Event

Next Event

The next event is planed to start between Thursday 6th March 2009 and Friday 13th March.

I’m planning to increase the winning pot for this event significantly! It should be around 150-200 PED!!!

Future Changes

Payout Penalties active

However, with the next event, there will also be a penalty for most hints given. So for every hint, there will usually be 25% penalty in the payout (100% on first Tip, 75% on second, 50% on third, 25% on forth).

But I’ll reserve the right to post some smaller hints, which won’t reduce the payout amount. So the sooner you find the treasure, the more you can win. The first big tip will take a few days to give the people enough time to find the treasure and win the full payout.

Advertising

For the next event I’m also planning to change the advertising platform and try it with Layer/Floating Ads. Google Adsense is very good in some cases and a good amount of traffic, however it relies actively on the content and the users who click on it to generate revenue. While Layer/Floating Ads only require to be shown for a few seconds (~5 seconds) every few hours.

Important thing: You’d need to keep the Layer open for at least 5 seconds before closing it, then it won’t be shown again for a while. If you close it in less than 5 seconds, it will appear again on the next page refresh.

Feel free to leave comments about the new advertising system and the planed winning pot.

But keep in mind: The advertisement will be necessary in order to fund the winning pots, so it’s also vital that people don’t use some fancy banner blockers which could block it, as it will reduce future winning pots or even lead that the events are completely canceled.

The problems

I’ve also encountered a few problems with my current event system. During the last 48 hours the “Treasure” was picked up by someone who wasn’t participating in the event (no submission was sent). Yesterday it happened very often between 16:00 and 03:00 MindArk time, i had to replace it 3 or 4 times.

To be honestly, that surprised me a bit, as i was thinking that the rate of “ninja” pickups would be much smaller. Well, on other side, in the day before it was only picked up once.

I’m not sure how much problems this could cause at a later point. I see that there could be a problem, if people are checking out a certain place after the object was “ninja looted” and don’t come back again.

The only thing i could recommend for now: Check the places more often than just once. I’ll try to regularly check it, but there are also times I’m sleeping or not at home

Maybe I underestimated the “ninja looting” rate, as i thought that there aren’t so many players running around (you usually don’t see many outside of PA and the big cities/meeting points). Or I was just unlucky to place the treasure in a place which is quite close to an teleporter not far way from the starter towns.

For the notes: It was in Billy’s Spaceship Yard in one of the broken Spaceships. The decision for this location was mainly due to it being an introduction event and newcomers should easily be able to access it without having first to run over to the other end of the world.

Future events may have the treasures placed much further away from the next teleporter or the starter areas of Port Atlantis, so the chances will probably be lower that people accidently “ninja loot” the treasure.

If you have any ideas how to improve this, so people don’t accidently loot the treasure, leave a comment please. Any ideas will be welcomed on how to improve the system!

Winner of Treasure Hunt Event #1

We finally got the first winner of the event! Congratulation to Marie TheOne Omega. I’ll drop you an email to set a date when and where to meat for your price.

Side note: Please add the coordinates and time next time too. This time I’ll bend the rules a bit, as there was not so big participation and the Picture of was quite obviously. For future events, please include all necessary information.

The event itself

The participation wasn’t as high as i expected it to be. There were 68 unique visitors in the past few days, only a few of them came back regularly (161 Visits). Well the reason may be the quite low winning pot and therefore I’m going to increase it for the next time and see if more people are willing to participate.

Also if you’re visiting this website, please make sure also to vote, even if you’re not yet qualified for the event. If the demand is high, I may adjust the rules to let the more advanced players to join the event too.

Treasure Hunt #1: 19th February – 5th March

Today I’ll start the first event. The event will last 2 weeks (or until someone finds the treasure).

It’s absolutely free. NO COSTS, NO REGISTRATION! Everyone can simply join and search for the treasure. Once you found it, submit a screenshot at

Before you start, make sure to read the FAQ and the Rules.

The event

I’ve hidden a small treasure somewhere on Eudoria. It’s TT value isn’t high, in order to prevent from people profiting who aren’t participating. Once you found this treasure, you have to make a screenshot which shows your avatar, the item on the ground, current time and position (P-Key in-game) as well as your name visible and your skills window sorted by points so we can verify that you’re qualified for the event. Don’t for get to add the current event password/key-phrase

Important: Make sure to use the current event password/key-phrase when submitting your screenshots! The event password/key-phrase will change regularly, so make sure you’ll check out often enough to see if there are new hints and/or event password/key-phrase.

The wining pot will be 10 PED for now, this may grow up if the events become more popular and the payout rate is 100%. Every time, a new hint is released where to find the treasure, the payout rate will be reduced by 25%.

The Hints

Hint #1

The treasure is located somewhere inside the red area. The current event’s

 

Hint #2

Well it’s more like extra information, as i realized that “Animal Oil” is often placed by players and made “stucked” so it can’t be picked up. I will only use items for the treasure hunt event which can be picked up again. The main reason is that after a few events there would be many old “treasures” left and I’m no fan of trashing up the world.

Well, the actual treasure i have hidden somewhere in the red area are 2 Lysterium ingots!

I also decided to increase the winning pot to 20.00 PED as 10.00 PED seemed a bit low for the beginning and the duration of the event.

Hint #3

As the participation seems somewhat low, I’ll give out the next hint.

Hint #4

One additional hint: It’s near or inside an structure (vehicle, building, wreckage etc.)

Hint #5

Update: Today the second time the treasure was picked up, but no submission came. I replaced it. If anyone comes with an better idea on how to handle this without random people picking it up (and without “locking” it), drop me an email at

For the introduction events (and the low winning pot) there won’t be any payout penalties for hints. How ever, in later events with higher winning pots, penalties may be applied.

Donators/Sponsors

Currently there are no Donators/Sponsors

Winning pot

The current winning pot consists of:

• Advertisement/My own Money: 20.00 PED
• Donations: 0.00 PED
• Sponsors: 0.00 PED
• Total: 20.00 PED
• Payout: 20.00 PED (100%)

How does it work?

It’s very simple, really! You just need to walk through the given area and search for it. Once you think you found it, make a screenshot with the necessary information visible in the screen shot (check out the Rules before starting!) and set it to

Important: Be sure to have 2 things in the subject-line of the mail “Entropia Treasure Hunt” and the current event’s password.
Example: If the current event’s password is “beginner”, the email subject has to be “Entropia Treasure Hunt – beginner”.

The current password can be found on the right side in the navigation!!!

You can basically submit as much screenshots as you want, however to many may disqualify you, especially if we notice that you’re trying to cheat (i.e. faked or edited screenshots). Screenshots have to be in JPEG or PNG format, BITMAPS won’t be accepted!!!

Also, you don’t have to look for all the time. You can just normally go out and hunt or do mining and if you find accidently find it, submit the picture.

If you have any questions, ask it either in the comments or send a mail to

Hope many people will participate and if you’re in-game business owner who wants to sponsor one of the future events, send an email to the address above.

Happy treasure hunting!