Detail shot!

In addition to the premade custom, we are also raffling off 5 Glowing Changingshrooms, and several other cool prizes! This raffle will start right now and run through December 13th at 23:59 ST. After our previous discussion board, we’ve decided to test some new ideas for this raffle. We hope that you find them agreeable and enjoy the raffle!

One suggestion we decided to implement from our discussion board was to have geometric progression for our ticket prices, rather than limit you with a cap. Your first ticket will cost 100 nuggets, and each subsequent ticket will be 10% more than the previous ticket. There will not be a free ticket for this raffle. :(

The idea behind this change is that while the raffle is technically uncapped, the cost per ticket gets prohibitively expensive quickly. We decided upon 10% as our rate of growth so that the cost of buying 25 tickets is roughly equal to our usual cost of maxing out in our previous 500-nugget, 25-ticket cap raffles.

One of the things being raffled off is the premade custom, Cranberry Dream. In order to be eligible to win the Cranberry Dream, you’ll need to post a short character description of the character you have in mind for it. You can see full details on the expectations for this description on the raffle page. Like all customs, the Cranberry Dream will not be trade-able for 60 days.

• 1x: Cranberry Dream Premade Custom
• 5x Glowing Changingshroom
• 10x Changingshroom
• 15x Cave Capsule 2013
• 20x Cave Capsule 2014

Ohhh, interesting. Time to play some more games, I guess! o: I’m very excited about the amount of glowy shrooms available and that gorgeous custom!

Quick question: Is it okay to use an existing character for the Cranberry Dream submission? I’ve been.. eyeing them for a few days now, haha, and they would be perfect for my OC Shiloh who already has a pet representation at the moment.

Dove Excellent, thanks! Maybe typing up a submission for her will inspire me to fill out her profile anyway… :v

Good luck, everyone! c:

You guys are having a raffle? I just joined MC though, so here’s hoping i can actually afford it.. ahahah :3 The custom looks really cute too… i kind of want to enter just for the fact that she looks really yummy and i kind of have a thing for dessert looking creatures ;w;

Goodluck to everybody!

Espoir
We tend to have raffles pretty regularly! 8) I hope you manage to get some funds together to enter! Welcome to Mycena Cave by the way! :D

Crow

More raffles means possibly more pets for me, so that’s good news… especially as i only have the starter pet so far :c And thankyou, Crow! I’m already liking the people here… and it seems like the staff are super friendly. and nice too.

Oooh….o.o
I don’t really have chars here, but, I may make an exception for this one. So pretty!

Hmm, now to figure out a budget for the raffle =3

I’d be interested in some public statistics after this raffle ends, particularly the distribution of how many users bought and how many people left the character description blank, but still bought a ticket.

Not to be a killjoy, but what was the thoughts behind adding the requirement for winning the custom? I don’t have any problems creating or matching it with a current OC, but I suppose I feel like I can get much more attached to the idea of winning it. Normally I go into a raffle not expecting to win because the odds are always against you. I have an idea for the custom in the back of my mind, but actually digging it out and visually accepting it would make me feel much more disappointed with not winning. Maybe that’s just me though ^^;

I gotta say I’m with Lycan on this one?  I’m not sure… that I really dig this whole ‘make up a character!!’ requirement for several reasons.  I just don’t like getting super attached to things I likely won’t get? D:  And I guess I just don’t understand the reasoning?  If you’re trying to weed out people who… won’t… rp it?  Then that’s super duper unfair to the collectors that just don’t rp or make up characters?  Like, I know that Mycena in general is tailored to people who write and such, but there are people out there who just like to have pretty things. I don’t see why that should be punished.  Like, if they put it at the top of their prize list then it’s probably safe to say that they want it for one reason or another.  But if that IS the reasoning (which still seems pretty hecked up to me) then what’s to stop literally anyone from just making up some bs character in a few minutes and rolling with it?  Nada.

If the intent is just to stimulate some creativity or whatever… I feel like there’s a better way to do so.  Like, perhaps, a character creation contest or something?  One with a custom prize, maybe? 

I dunno this just seems… unnecessary and vaguely elitist.

-waddles away because idk man-

Hmm this is…. interesting…. :o

I suppose, if I don’t win the lovely custom, I’ll wait for a site color that’ll represent the character I made up as best as it can. Hmmm…. *strokes invisible beard ponderously*

Echoing that thought here! My initial reaction was more or less “Uh, why?” The reason I DON’T make up characters for premade customs is because I’m more more likely to [come up with a good analogy] than win the raffle, let alone the custom prize.

Yeah, I don’t have a lot of issue attaching a character to a pet design, but that’s just it…I can just slap any old idea down there in two minutes and no one would be the wiser. Heck, couldn’t someone just look up like…character/writing prompts and paste that right into the box? Not winning is fine, not winning something I got attached to because I gave it a character is not so fine.

I appreciate the variation in the raffles and the further notion that Mycena is for writing and character development, and I really, really don’t want to jump in be completely negative about it. But, I end up thinking of more cons than pros to this sort of set up.

I personally LOVE the addition of the character creation requirement. It’s simple, but does take some effort to accomplish. Also, I can reuse the character I come up with for another coat, even if I don’t win the Cranberry. This seems like a really nice way to up the odds this beautiful custom ends up in the hands of someone invested into MC and will discourage multi-accounters/offsite-interest-only-trade spammer participation.

Thanks for another amazing raffle! Really excited to see where everything ends up! (What will pop out of those Glowing Changeys!?)

gotta say i’m not a fan of the character requirement either…i’m not interested in this custom myself, so it’s not as though i’m demanding this raffle be changed or something, but like…i would rather not see that be a trend in future raffles. i already can’t afford to buy myself a custom, so the added hurdle to what is already a game of chance seems unnecessary.
i don’t make characters. i have personal reasons for it. i don’t get my hopes up and plan roleplays or other things involving characters anymore(even with the pets i already own) because of that. its hard not to be a little bit down on myself for not being able to write. i just can’t, so i don’t. does that make me less invested in the site? no, why would it? i log in every day and i play the games as much as i can. i don’t do any cross-site trading(cant be bothered!), i don’t make multiple accounts, and i don’t bribe other users for raffle tickets, so if the idea is to keep people like that from winning the custom…idk, i have to wonder how big of a problem that really is on a little site like this, and if there aren’t other things that could be done about it without arbitrarily making others feel unwelcome.

if it does continue to be a thing in future raffles, my suggestion would be to put the pet image under a spoiler tag so that people don’t see the raffle announcement, open the thread and get excited about the big lovely prize only to be immediately be disappointed that there’s an additional catch. like it could say the prerequisite right underneath that for people to read, and those who are cool with that can go and see if they wanna give it a shot, and everyone else can decide if they care to look at it now or afterwards when someone else has already won it. i’d probably look at it regardless because i do like to see the pretties, but i could just as easily see someone wanting to ignore it as though it doesn’t exist and move forward with the rest of the raffle like it’s a non-custom one.

i’ve got no opinions on the price tier thingies, could be a good thing to try? sounds very statistical and calculatey. i’ve never been one to buy a large amount of tickets so it doesn’t sound like it’ll affect me much for better or worse. well, except for the lack of a free ticket, but that wasn’t always a thing. it’s been kind of a nice bonus.

I have to echo Lady’s sentiments! I’m enjoying the “create a character” requirement (providing the answer to Sandhill’s question is ‘‘yes, that’s fine”).

It’s not a long description, and although I’ve now become thoroughly attached to the character I’ve created I can always put it on another pet later. This site seems to have a lot of events that cater to different interests and I think that’s a lovely thing. It’s nice to flex the creative muscles a little bit!

While I don’t mind the character creation requirement for this pet (in fact, I used a character I was planning to create if I ever obtained a Lacey Magpie), I do sympathize with the people that aren’t happy with it.

Having requirements like this bars groups of users from participating (for example, some ESL or non-English speakers, those with trouble writing, or issues writing “throwaway” characters, or just plain don’t-want-to, etc). Though it was technically unofficial, it does come right after the profile drive which was also all about character creation/expansion. Though these groups certainly don’t have to be catered to in every instance, the requirement emphasizes that Mycena is for role-players and storytellers, and that people that don’t do those things aren’t… well, I won’t say they aren’t welcome, but more that they’re not really playing the game as intended.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I don’t personally have a problem with it. But imo it sends a message to users about what they’re supposed to be doing on Mycena, rather than allowing people to use the site for the things they like best (whether that’s playing games, RPing, animal dressup, collecting, chatting, or trading for offsite currency, or whatever).

A raffle! I just spent ages writing my character description. (mainly because i was procrastinating throughout it all.) I really like the idea of writing a description based of a character. It’s really fun!
Gonna go play more games so i can get more tickets c:

_{did someone say….......} CRANBERRIES?!?!?

_{(I apologise for this stupid reference bye)}

_{if anyone doesnt get it its a gamegrumps reference from their series of “trauma center: second opinion”}

Oh my! A raffle! I am so excited! *w*
*LICKS CRANBERRY DREAM*

Gabriel
*COUGHS*

While I can understand the reasoning for the ‘make a character’ idea for the custom, I’ve got to add my voice to the side that doesn’t like it. I don’t make character ideas for customs in raffles beforehand because I’m 99% likely not to get it and that having a character concept is going to make me ten times more disappointed when I don’t win. I don’t want to get attached to it because I know that I’m almost certainly not going to get it.

Sure, in theory I could reuse the character concept on another ineki/drasilis/kelphi as people have pointed out, but the issue here is that usually when I make a character…the appearance of the coat is what prompts me to make it most of the time. If I make a character for a certain coat, then I become attached to the notion of it being for that coat and only that coat. It just doesn’t work for any other coat out there because I’ve made it for that particular appearance or whatnot. So now, if I don’t win, I’ve gotten this idea in my head of what I’d have done with it and will actually have that there reminding me of what could have been. As a borderline obsessive at times, having things like this is bad for me, because I have one heck of a time getting them to go away instead of staying up till four in the morning dwelling all over ‘what might have been.’ So I tend to be very careful not to make characters in advance for coats, because I can’t just move it onto a different coat, personally, because in my head I’ve put it on that one and that’s that.

And so now I’m being required to make a character idea for something I’m virtually guaranteed not to get for the almost impossible chance to actually have a chance at it. Sure the site has something of a bent toward roleplay and art and stories, but I feel like this is putting the cart before the horse and makes me almost not want to even enter the raffle, and kills like half of the excitement I had had for this raffle, personally. I suppose I’ll sit and stare at it a while, see if I really want to go through with even trying for anything at all because of this. (Probably stupid I know, but I can’t make my brain wire itself differently, I’ve tried.)

Good luck to anyone who has already entered, or will be entering, irregardless, and thank you to the staff for doing these sorts of things, and being willing to experiment!! I suppose on the plus side, this may mean that I don’t spend tons of money on tickets that I might have otherwise…but it is really disappointing for me personally.

I just want to echo the concerns about the character creation requirement. While I do understand that this is a very writing-centric website, it doesn’t sit right with me to do so. Like Dracogryph, I’m reluctant to create a character before I actually have a coat, as often the personality is influenced by what I see in the coat, and it isn’t that simple to just reuse. Even making a ‘throwaway’ character doesn’t work for me, as I put just as much effort into a short bio for them as I would for one of my OCs. I know I’m not likely to win the Cranberry, so having to attach a character to it knowing this just feels like a waste of time and a potential character to me.

That being said, good luck everyone!

Before I read through everyone else’s comments, I was rather pleased with the tiny little creative blurb we are expected to come up with. I agree with Lady above, and I think it’s a small, cute way of stimulating the creative juices. Coming up with a character can be cheated, and can be stressful for some, but I think it can also be done in a quick little one or two sentence description and won’t take too much time for most people. They don’t even have to use the character description. For the majority of people who do try their hand at winning the custom, I think it’s a nice way of putting forth minimal effort in order to get a chance at something nice. I admit I haven’t had the time to read every bit of criticism, but I plan on going back and looking.

Anyway, good luck to everyone and I hope whoever wins it is going to be really happy with it. It’s so pretty!