I've wanted to help out new players for a little while now, and I haven't been able to think of much that hasn't already been done until now. I have a few extra, fairly decent runes that I don't need and don't care to profit from, so I'm going to be giving out all my spares to new players who may need them. I buy and trade runes very frequently, so whenever I get something new I'll add it to the list here. In order to get ANY rune you want from this list, you must be a new player, and in addition fill out this little form and PM it to me: In-game Name? Which Rune? Why do you think you deserve this rune? Who is your favourite Beatle? Fourth one is just for the hell of it and because I like to think people can spend 3 minutes to answer a weird question in order to get a good rune. Finally, I have just two rules. 1) You MUST be a new player: I will be checking to make sure that you are an actual player and not an alt. If I see that you have no games played, I'm going to suggest the tutorials and public decks first. If I see that your account was created <= 48 hours before you asked for the rune, I'm not giving it out. 2) One rune per person per week. So, here's the current list: LEGS x1 Salaman Commando x1 Imp Familiar x1 Fae Oracle x1 Snowcharger Cavalry EXOS x2 Wood Marshall x1 Akakios x1 Lich King x1 Corrupted Guardian x1 JFQ x1 Dwarven King x1 Fae Enchantress x1 Serkan Lich Master x1 Putrid Creeper x1 Mairdreth of the Rot RARES x1 Imp Trickster x1 Kas Master x2 Mindflayer Queen x2 Draksar Marine x2 Draksar Persecutor x1 Fleshweaver Witch x1 Ruthless Enforcer x1 Seeker of Blood x1 Vexian Neodrake x2 Skeezick Ripper UNCOMMONS x1 Kanen Alpha x1 Kanen Howler x4 Kas Adherent x3 Mengclan Lord x2 Mindthief Creeper x3 Blood Banshee x1 Bloodletter x1 Broodmother x2 Crystal Howler x2 Cyclops Battlefiend x6 Darkmarsh Instigator x2 Draksar Rocketeer x2 Elsari Magelord x1 Ember Wasp x7 Flamemage of the Circle x2 All Skeezick Uncommons x2 Spark Crone COMMONS x12 Broodguardians x2 Cackling Witch x2 Contained Thrall x2 Crazed Warmandrill x2 Crusader x3 Drakewing Swarm x2 All Draksar Commons x2 Freeze Bug Keeper x2 Frostfall Tardigrade x2 Guardian of the Circle x10 Hyaenid Breaker x2 Ice Caster x2 Imp Strangler x2 All Kanen Commons x8 Kas Apprentice x10 Lichling x1 Lodestone Armory x1 Long Knife Adept x2 Minotaur Culler x1 Minotaur Fury x1 Minotaur Sentry x2 Mysian Necromancer x2 Myx Spitter x2 Needleclaw Imp x7 Perfected Runner x2 Rip Witch x1 Rotmaw Creeper x1 Sarnghavian Herder x1 All Skeezick Commons x2 Stitched Dreameater x2 Stitched Mangler x2 Stitched Hexer x2 Stitched Warlock x2 Voil Jester x1 Voil Life Stealer TOKENS x1 Platinum Token x2 Gold Token x4 Silver Token x2 Bronze Token As I said, these are just my current extras and they are available to ANY new player at absolutely no cost, just fill out the quick survey above. Thanks!
my advice would be to focus on (un)commons and rares so players can get quantity over quality. this is probably the only way to fight against those fake-new players. and 1 rune for a new player won't be a big deal if he is a honest new player. I also think that the current mentality of us is a bit extreme. I remember, when new players were looking for the help. the current vice versa model simply doesn't work. you basically feed new players, who probably don't even want something, but if they get, they don't blame... sorry for the first post being this way in your innocent thread... good job for doing this!
Valid points. I'll add my spare CUCR's to the list, I just wanted to do something a bit different by actually offering whatever quality runes I can afford. Most rune pools don't offer LEGS or even many Exos
People might just make a new account and try to get free Legendaries. What I do is keep a strong supply of low cost (Poxbox Valued) exotic runes that are meta. When I see a new player asking questions in lobby (Showing initiative to become better) I hand them a few exotics and rares. Then I point them to Poxbox to inform them that they can trade in the runes I gave them to build themselves a small deck. So far I've helped a few people and some have even become long term players!
When I did my giveaway, I focused on giving fully functional meta viable cheap battlegroups that could be upgraded rather easily. I thought at the moment that this would spare the player the frustation of sucking at deck building and losing for that, or receiving a isolated set of runes he couldn't manage to it's full efficiency. Check the profile and trades of the player before giving away anything.
That's more of that we can't offer Legs or Exos. We operate solely on donations, and the rune pools are built to lose value over time. I would love to start opening up into the Exotic trade, but historically, we have never received exotic donations. We rarely get rare donations even. While we have received some donations recently which has certainly helped, there are still some uncommons that we do not have and multiple rares that we ran out of stock of. I try to buy packs and boxes (often packs worth of boxes since we try to aim towards the rares instead of the exotics), however, the exotic, Legendary, and LE market historically lies in the hands of the Rune Stores, since they operate for profit, can gain many more Exos, etc. and be sustainable and keep trading. Again, I'd love to start opening up into the exotic trade and we historically have been the place to get war banners traded (though we have also recently run out of some war banners). If you have an ida of how I could approach it, I'd be happy to hear out any conversation!
A lot of new players don't know about the rune pool. Also I thought it was a 1:1 trade kind of thing? Also you could use the script a forum member made to shard stuff and keep maybe 50 of each C/UC then use the shards to forge high tier Exotics. Then trade those Exotics into Poxbox for 15 Dirge/Juya/Vindrax or other low tier Faction Heroes. Then give them to a new player. They love that Faction Hero.
Honestly, I believe that GabrielQ would have the better idea. If you find a new player you want to foster, offer them a functional battle group, even if it isn't chocked full of Legendaries etc. Runes have really devalued over time, but I remember before when it was impossible to get runes for free the first rune I ever owned was a present from HawkFain for beating him 1v1 in the Training Grounds with the starter decks at that time. I still have that ambling frond to this day. However, now that runes are so much more accessible, and the number of runes are far more numerous, I'd encourage again to offer a "deck" to get them started, similar to how other CCG's work. When I started playing MtG and YGO, I got started by my friends giving me a deck, admittedly, it was pretty much junk, but it worked enough to teach me the game and get me started. As I expanded my knowledge of the games, I could eventually try trading and/or buying my own cards but I got started by a deck, not a single card.
Personally it's too much time and effort to invest building a battlegroup, keep it in my collection, and showing someone how to operate the deck. Though I agree that the idea will help a new player more, my target newbie is the one who already has a deck but garbage runes and doesn't have the money or trade power to obtain shinies. When you give them a few Exotics and Rares and point them to Poxbox, they can begin building their own deck. Kinda like giving a kid $5 at the candy store.
It's built around a 1:1 ratio with certain rules I have put in to try to keep the value from depreciating too much. If a rune you would like to take out is understocked (we have fewer than 10 C/UC or fewer than 5 R), then we ask for double the in. If a rune you would like to trade in is overstocked (we have more than 50 C/UC, or more than 20 R), then you would need do donate twice as many in to get one rune. The Rune Pools again, however, are more or less built to lose value, and in general we care more about the number of runes available over the value. With that said, however, it would be extremely expensive to craft exotics by sharding the runes. I regularly have to buy boxes as it is and dump them into the pool, to give a perspective, at any given time at SOE, I would probably be regularly capped out on SC (50k on both accounts) buying on the triple SC sales and waiting on box sales in order to dump them into the pool. Even with that, however I don't have any Occuli Slags, Snowcat Burrows, Time Slips, Blinks, Alter of Bones, Fading Recollections, or Voil King Crypts (all C/UC runes), etc. Exotics cost 250/500 shards. I said earlier that I have 800 fire blasts. If I would be sacrificing 500 of them in order to get 2 Dirge's, or maybe 1 high value exotic. The Rune Pool honestly can't afford to do that =/.
True, though they would then need to have an idea of what kind of deck they would like to build. If you gave them a bunch of unused C/UC they could try to go in and trade with the Rune Pool (or shard them themselves these days. Our goal is to try to beat the 2:1 or 4:1 ratio that exists and allow for the "convenience" of being able to put in bulk orders, I put it in quotes because we are obviously highly outcompeted with PoxBox who can do trades much quicker and even back then, we were outcompeted by Pox Portal due to no automated way to verify the trades (I have to look at each trade, measure the value of each rune for both the In and the Ou, and I cannot check it 24/7, though I have tried to set up email alerts when trades are posted to try to check them as quickly as possible)) - That was a really, really long parenthetical XD. Again, I'd love to open up the doors more and offer more, over time, and there have been many, many donations that have been given to us over time that I really value and appreciate. However, as it stands, outside of the guild Rune Pools, there is my Rune Pool, and there is the SP Rune Pool left.
Each Common shards for 1 or 2 if it's from Extended. Uncommons shard for 2 or 5. You could shard it for a 60k like a Demonvein and sell it to Poxbox. Then withdraw something like 10 Dirge.
All suggestions have been noted. I'm probably going to do something like what GabrielQ suggested, by fashioning some template meta decks to give out. This wil take some time however. In the mean time, I've updated the post with my CUCR spare stock, and a few extra exos that I didn't know I had until I looked. All of this stuff is just spares, so I'm not TOO worried about scammers coming in if it's anything below LEG rarity. Anything above that and I will be checking to make sure I'm giving the rune to a real new player. Thanks for the comments, guys!
It is not possible to start an exo-only trade snowball on poxbox. (the highest forgeable exo will earn you at best 3 exo worth 150 shards or +/- 8 worth 50 shards).
In-game name is ImbaGosu You should be able to PM through the forums, however. Any chance I could get this stickied, so that it's easily visible to new players?
Props for the initiative. Doubt theres more to add that others havent already mentioned. Training grounds would be a much more appropriate place to find such a thread imo, though general would work with a bit of friendly bumps or an awesome sticky.
I would be very wary of advertising generosity. The way is to do it quietly and low key. Scam artists will pretend to be new at the game to milk any valuable rune you have. Trades and game history are some indication but these guys aren't stupid and will cover their tracks. You would be suprised the length these idiots will go for free stuff. I prefer a 'big brother' kind of method. See a new guy in lobby and get to know them. You each got a new game buddy and know if you help them out it isn't going to some fool. Kudos to what you are doing though and I hope your runes find the right people.
So, the first rune was donated a few days ago: Ash the Bandit Prince, and it went to Silveraine. I've bought a few more packs since then and will be putting up my extras later. I'd still like to get this stickied so that new players and returning players can see this easily, since I don't exactly advertise it anywhere. The concerns over scammers have been noted, but I'm very careful when a player asks for a rune, and I think I"ll be okay. Even if a few scammers get through, their only getting 3rd or 4th copies of runes so I don't feel so bad.
