Specials, Contests, Giveaways, Discounts,...

[MrFingers]

This post and topic is not meant as a rant, but just as a objective observation of the differences between the specials/giveaways that are happening in WoWS, between the NA and EU server. Ectar said in mid-September, that comparable and equal contests/giveaways will be held in the near future. I am an old-fashioned man who lives by the rule "when a man gives me his word, I expect him to live up to the promise and the expectation".

The fact that I'm making this topic is a fairly obvious evidence that this is not the case (yet). Thanks to the glorious site called redtracker (courtesy of Shipcomrade), it is possible for everyone to see what is posted by WG staff across the boards, with instantaneous translation where needed... So that's exactly what I did.

 

In a previous topic I already posted the specials that were held on the EU and NA forums, starting from the day the game went into OBT (hence: everybody could join the game), with huge differences that became apparant. Because everybody, even Wargaming, deserves a second chance, I won't use the old contests anymore, the counters are reset. As a new cutoff-date, I used October 01 2015, for the simple reason that October 1st was the day when Alsorobots posted on the NA-forums the following statement:

 Coordinating on contests and prizing with the EU has been a major priority as well, and I'm happy to say we've finally reached the point where we'll be able to have semi-uniformity among the regions. 

 

A major consequence of this coordination on contests and prizing is that the servers are now region exclusive. Whereas previously prizes would be transferable between servers (you could as a EU player join in NA competitions, and ask to receive your prize on the EU server, and vice-versa), this is now impossible, and the NA-server now explicitly says in every new contest that it is only open to players from the NA-server. The EU doesn't mention this vital disclaimer, but I think that the same limitation also applies to the EU. Whilst crossing over between servers was rare (as it has to be known that it was possible in the first place, and only a few players did), it happened. For example: Trigger_Happy_Dad happily won a Tirpitz on the NA-server for writing a strategy guide for WoWS (again, that was a contest only held on the NA server, not a single mention on the EU of it).

Another consequence is that I only keep track of the contests held & backed by Wargaming. So the Tachibana giveaway by Ducatist0, the doubloons-quiz by chamorro (in which I was one of the winners btw, thus it eliminates the notion that I might be a sore loser) nor the invisible sniper-contest by Shepbur or Warspite giveaway by Shipcomrade won't be taken into account, as won't other local contests held by players, on either server. It is solely about Wargaming specials & contests on the forums*. The reason I do this, is because, even though sometimes the contest can be sponsored by Wargaming, Wargaming wouldn't give away the prizes if someone didn't start a competition on their personal behalf.

(* forums = "a notification on the forums, by WG staff", the contest could be held externally)

A thorough scan gives me this, for the period of 1/10 until now:

EUROPE

(EN) It's raining shells:             11000D                                       (in total, 15 winners)

(EU) Halloween Trophy:                20x Fujin & 20x Tachibana                    (2x20 (2x10) winners)

(facebook contest                     Fujin if requirements were met               (posted by a player, not WG-EU))

 

AMERICA

(BR) Creative Contest Halloween:      6000D, 5W Premium, 4 small flag packages     (5 winners)

(NA) Creative Competition Murmansk:   5x Murmansk                                  (5 winners)

(NA) Halloween Candybar Creation:     6000+D, 6W Premium                           (in total, 3 winners, 750D for extra mentions)

(NA) Ishizushi Haiku Contest:         5x Ishizushi, 6000D, 3W Premium              (in total, 5 winners)

(NA) Take down Hank (forum/Twitch):   Fujin for everyone who fulfilled the requirement

(NA) The great ship buildoff:         3x Murmansk, 6000+D, 4W Premium              (3 winners, 750D for extra mentions)

(NA) Shipformers Art Contest:         6000D, 9W Premium, 5 flag packages           (in total, 5 winners)

 

(there were also 6 "moderator contests" held by WG moderators on their personal behalf (2 EU (FR & TU), 4 NA), I didn't take them into account, albeit the prizes were, again, bigger in the NA than the EU)

 

The only thing that was virtually equal was the "Ghost & Witches" -thing (it wasn't a real special, as it didn't benefit everyone, and it wasn't a contest, since the sole thing that would get you in such a match was luck), but the NA-server got 5h/day of Supertesters playing the game, compared to the 2h/day in Europe. Wargaming didn't give a number on how many people were winners, nor about the amount of supertesters, but it's a fair bet (Supertester number, size of the playerbase and timeframe) that it was easier to win in the NA than the EU. So the base event was the "same", but as you can see the NA held way more surrounding competitions, with bigger prizes. Maybe it's somewhat understandable with Halloween being a big(ger) thing in the Americas than in Europe, but that doesn't mean that the EU can't get ersatz-competitions (that are not that tied to Halloween), to fill the void.

 

Also the NA gets more contests/giveaways outside of the forums, as last weekend, when in 2 separate occasions, hundreds of bonuscodes were given away via Alienware/Reddit for 500.000 credits, 3 days premium, and an Aurora. That's right, the NA got the opportunity to get a rare premium ship for free, again. If I recall correctly, this has been the sixth time this occurred, versus zero for the EU.

What does that learn us?

- The difference between the NA and EU server is still there, and ever as blatant as it was in the past, despite promises from WGEU that "things will get better".

- The NA hosts more competitions for the players to join in, and have a diverse spectrum (arts & crafts, language, in-game performance), thus allowing ALL kinds of players to join in and win.

- The promise of Ectar that the EU will get comparable events & specials, with comparable prizes is still not being met. The differences are too huge for that.

- Meanwhile the EU still has to buy expensive & big packages if they want to obtain a new premium ship. RU, SEA and NA have the ship solely, or in a very small package which is cheaper. Also when the German & Russian ships came live on the servers, the RU-server held an event in which the Soviet & German ships were at a 50% discount up until tier V for a week, because "the home fleet has arrived". If I recall correctly, Germany is a (big) part of Europe, yet we didn't see a comparable event. It sure would have helped Wargaming and the players, as the German Cruisers are in no way worth their money at this moment. At 50%: maybe.

 

TOTAL

For fun & giggles I calculated what the total of prizes were, that were given out by Wargaming in the course of the entire OBT/Release lifespan of the game:

EUROPE:

- 4x Tirpitz, 4x Mikasa, 15x Diana, 1x Aurora, 1x Ishizushi, 20x Fujin, 20x Tachibana

- 58.050 Doubloons

- 39 Flag Packages (excluding the "Ghost & Witch thingy")

- 0 weeks of Premium Time

AMERICA:

- 87x Tirpitz, 27x Warspite, 16x Murmansk, 4796x Marblehead, 205x Diana, 10x Atlanta, 5x Ishizushi, 5x Fujin

- 235.862 Doubloons (30000 were given away alone in October 2015, that's half of what the entire EU gave away for the whole duration of OBT+Release)

- 120 Flag Packages (excluding the 50 flags that were given PER PERSON just for joining a competition, and excluding the "Ghost & Witch thingy")

- 145.5 weeks of Premium Time

(this excludes the Aurora's (hundreds) that were given away by Alienware for the NA server only, and excludes the 250D giveaway for filling in a survey)

 

The numbers speak for themselves. Maybe this is Wargaming's idea of "Semi-Uniformity"?

 

Players: discuss! (But keep it civil, civilized & try to stay polite)

[WolfGewehr]

Maybe this is just a secret plan to show that America is the best place on earth where everything is bigger and better

 

[General_Kunde]

Sooner or later they will see a decreased revenue from the core players as they fu**ed it up in the early stages.

 

This will hit them hard when the typical three-month wallet warrior has moved on to the next F2P cash sink and the growth will deplete.

[Anulmentor]

Interesting, one reason could be that they have a dedicated WoWs team for the NA but not so in EU, so the workload is different.

And as long as they get no more helpers, or a restructuring that allows for dedicated teams(which will probably not happen due to the amount of languages spoken on the EU server) there will always be a difference between the servers.

Next thing is that despite what WG says this game is still in its beta stage, it is a "full release" by name only, so work goes mostly towards more basic features an not nearly as much towards bonus stuff.

 

Also the server population is different, EU has more players than NA(this makes the discrepancy between the amount given away per player even bigger), maybe they need to get more players go get profitable in the first place so they do a lot of promotions and events to get more people to play the game.

 

And then there is the cultural difference of communities and companies between EU and NA, which surely factors in.

 

The EU team does OK. Could they do more, probably. But it also depends on WGHQ and what they say and whant. 

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

87x Tirpitz

 

holy wow

[MauserPhoque]

For NA alienware is giving away codes for Diana, 500k credits and 3 days premium click.

[Johnny_Phate]

OMG give them a break! They are too busy preparing more awesome 50EUR+ packages.

[neeravin]

Just some stuff to add

 

The facebook contest: it was a mix of fujin and tachibana being given away, also the amount of prizes were limited. 8 fujin and 10 tachibana

 

The marbleheads: there was a WG contest for marbleheads on reddit, this actually ended up being open for NA, EU and SEA. So maybe some credit for that

 

Streams: I assume stream giveaways don't count towards contests in your post? Because otherwise WG does give streamers ships to give away. I.e iEarlGrey gave away Imperator Nikolai's

 

Company related giveaway: while not anywhere near the size of the alienware; razer has one going now http://www.razerzone.com/world-of-warships-comms

 

Other than that, it seems hard not agree with the skewed picture the data presents

[Pawndemonium]

WG NA does a trash job in being a business. They have like 33% of the EU playerbase, and throw premium stuff around like candy, yet there isn't even a remote increase in population (hell it's even dropping lol), all they're doing is padding their base population. You don't really need to be a genius to see what's wrong here.

The numbers you posted make WG NA look ridiculous, I'd love to see their annual financial report.

 

I'm not saying WG EU does the best job ever, but we are NOT getting milked, this is totally wrong assumption which emerges from topics like these, I have no clue why wargaming doesn't fire their NA department because of incompetence, as their behaviour sheds a bad light on the whole company.

Again, the EU situation is not optimal, but comparing it to NA doesn't fix anything. If EU would act like that this game would be a mess.

 

Fact is, WoWs works just fine without even spending a single penny, unless you really want to reach T10 (which is not what most people want).

Those who commit themselves to the game, will be able to get certain premium ships, with some competition... but throwing stuff around randomly just sucks.

 

That's obviously just my opinion... but seriously, WG NA does a bad job, and both RU and EU have to make up for it (and asia I guess, no idea), with way harder working conditions to begin with.

 

edit: 87 Tirpitz... lol that's just ridiculous

[MrFingers]

Just some stuff to add...

 

Other than that, it seems hard not agree with the skewed picture the data presents

Not everybody has facebook/reddit/... thus they can't possibly know about these competitions. As I previously stated: I kept the focus on WG competition held on the forums, posted by WG staff (as those posts can be tracked by the redtracker). Including the reddit/twitch/facebook/... giveaways doesn't really matter, as they are fairly equal for both servers (thus they cancel eachother out). Goodies given by wargaming to streamers are mainly as a publicity for the streamers, not for WOWS, and for several of those giveaways, you have to be a (paid) subscriber to their channels, thus having a considerable paywall. I can understand you find those numbers skewed, but adding all the other variables won't make a difference in the difference, because "What the EU gets, the NA gets as well".

 

That's obviously just my opinion... but seriously, WG NA does a bad job, and both RU and EU have to make up for it (and asia I guess, no idea), with way harder working conditions to begin with.

 

There are more people who say that, and I can understand that, but frankly... Why is that the EU/SEA/RU's problem? Why do we have to suffer and make up for because one faction is misbehaving itself? If that's the case, WG should fix that internally. Yet for some reason it seems that it's not a problem for WG, as the discrepancy keeps existing, and the NA keeps throwing out goodies via all kinds of orifices, windows, doors,...

 

About getting milked, I've got one word for you: bundles (RU, SEA & in lesser degree NA) all have more profitable bundles, or have the ability to buy the ship as a standalone... That's a huge difference that exists, thus it can be conceived as milking by many people.

 

[Johnny_Phate]

WG NA does a trash job in being a business. They have like 33% of the EU playerbase, and throw premium stuff around like candy, yet there isn't even a remote increase in population (hell it's even dropping lol), all they're doing is padding their base population. You don't really need to be a genius to see what's wrong here.

The numbers you posted make WG NA look ridiculous, I'd love to see their annual financial report.

 

I'm not saying WG EU does the best job ever, but we are NOT getting milked, this is totally wrong assumption which emerges from topics like these, I have no clue why wargaming doesn't fire their NA department because of incompetence, as their behaviour sheds a bad light on the whole company.

Again, the EU situation is not optimal, but comparing it to NA doesn't fix anything. If EU would act like that this game would be a mess.

 

Fact is, WoWs works just fine without even spending a single penny, unless you really want to reach T10 (which is not what most people want).

Those who commit themselves to the game, will be able to get certain premium ships, with some competition... but throwing stuff around randomly just sucks.

 

That's obviously just my opinion... but seriously, WG NA does a bad job, and both RU and EU have to make up for it (and asia I guess, no idea), with way harder working conditions to begin with.

 

edit: 87 Tirpitz... lol that's just ridiculous

 

I agree that good special <> competition for ton of free stuff (with minimal chance to win anyway). But thats about it! All we get are ridiculous bundles that are like 50 dubloons cheaper than buying all the crap separate (some of them even more [edited] expensive due to "currency conversion"). Only good special EVENT on EU so far was test drive of new ships.   

[Loran_Battle]

Welcome to WG's business practices. Where everybody is equal, only some more than others.

 

Has been going on for years. WoT players are all too familiar with this.

[Vanhal]

4796x Marblehead

 

Like, yeah. And yet they whine about the Mikasa, of all things...

 

which will probably not happen due to the amount of languages spoken on the EU server

 

NA also got 3 languages there, so while it is significant less than what we've got on EU they don't mention this like ever.

Anyway, the language problem on EU is pointed out by WG employees constantly. So either it's only an excuse or WG is simply not willing to fix the problem or the company is in such mess that no one have control over situation anymore.

[Pawndemonium]

 

There are more people who say that, and I can understand that, but frankly... Why is that the EU/SEA/RU's problem? Why do we have to suffer and make up for because one faction is misbehaving itself? If that's the case, WG should fix that internally. Yet for some reason it seems that it's not a problem for WG, as the discrepancy keeps existing, and the NA keeps throwing out goodies via all kinds of orifices, windows, doors,...

 

About getting milked, I've got one word for you: bundles (RU, SEA & in lesser degree NA) all have more profitable bundles, or have the ability to buy the ship as a standalone... That's a huge difference that exists, thus it can be conceived as milking by many people.

 

 

I totally agree with fxing that internally, however NA messed it up big time already, their NA team just can't turn by 180 degrees, and be done with it. They'd lose more than they'd gain. Greed works for both a business and the customer, and the latter just leaves if he's not satisfied. I'm not sure what the average NA-player is willing to shell out, but by the looks of it NA expects some generosity, instead of commitment.

 

That bundle stuff is a very delicate topic... which however is a global WG issue, NA just decorates those with random give-aways. Their Tirpitz offer was even worse than ours iirc.

However I think, that premium ships are not necessary to have a great WoWs experience. While collectors do suffer, or people who have a certain affinity to a ship, it still isn't necessary to enjoy the game (for the majority of players). I know, this is something most can't agree on, but that's as objective as it can get. In the end it's your very own decision if you fall for this bundle crap.

 

Bundles also sort of have some control on how many of these vessels sell. The Tirpitz for instance... even with that heavy price tag, nearly wrecked the higher tier experience. They don't slap on a price tag and hope to find idiots who buy them... no, there is a valid marketing strategy behind them.

I'm not fond of bundles at all, in the case of the Tirpitz, I was aware that I shelled out 10 bucks for nothing (30d premium time)... but in the end it was/is worth it for me. (and yes that's subjective ofc, but in the end I don't buy all the ships I like, I tend to keep control on how much I spend, that's far from getting milked)

[neeravin]

Not everybody has facebook/reddit/... thus they can't possibly know about these competitions. As I previously stated: I kept the focus on WG competition held on the forums, posted by WG staff (as those posts can be tracked by the redtracker). Including the reddit/twitch/facebook/... giveaways doesn't really matter, as they are fairly equal for both servers (thus they cancel eachother out). Goodies given by wargaming to streamers are mainly as a publicity for the streamers, not for WOWS, and for several of those giveaways, you have to be a (paid) subscriber to their channels, thus having a considerable paywall. I can understand you find those numbers skewed, but adding all the other variables won't make a difference in the difference, because "What the EU gets, the NA gets as well".

 

Fair enough, the only reason I mentioned facebook and giveaways were because you yourself brought up examples (like alienware). And actually I'm not sure the WG sponsored streamer giveaways are behind paywall, at least I haven't seen it yet - though streamers do make sub giveaways "sponsored" by themselves.

 

And I didn't mean that you skewed the numbers of the data, but that the factual ratio of prizes NA vs EU seems undeniably skewed/bias 

[xtrm_]

Despite getting less freebies i see more tirpitz on EU than NA, this shows how much a big customer EU is, and when you have a loyal customer and throw some freebies in his face ( not flags) more ppl will join the fleet of paid-on-f2p.  

Currently EU's player base feeling like we paid now we're in the pocket so we don't matter.

[Johnny_Phate]

 

I totally agree with fxing that internally, however NA messed it up big time already, their NA team just can't turn by 180 degrees, and be done with it. They'd lose more than they'd gain. Greed works for both a business and the customer, and the latter just leaves if he's not satisfied. I'm not sure what the average NA-player is willing to shell out, but by the looks of it NA expects some generosity, instead of commitment.

 

That bundle stuff is a very delicate topic... which however is a global WG issue, NA just decorates those with random give-aways. Their Tirpitz offer was even worse than ours iirc.

However I think, that premium ships are not necessary to have a great WoWs experience. While collectors do suffer, or people who have a certain affinity to a ship, it still isn't necessary to enjoy the game (for the majority of players). I know, this is something most can't agree on, but that's as objective as it can get. In the end it's your very own decision if you fall for this bundle crap.

 

Bundles also sort of have some control on how many of these vessels sell. The Tirpitz for instance... even with that heavy price tag, nearly wrecked the higher tier experience. They don't slap on a price tag and hope to find idiots who buy them... no, there is a valid marketing strategy behind them.

I'm not fond of bundles at all, in the case of the Tirpitz, I was aware that I shelled out 10 bucks for nothing (30d premium time)... but in the end it was/is worth it for me. (and yes that's subjective ofc, but in the end I don't buy all the ships I like, I tend to keep control on how much I spend, that's far from getting milked)

 

Still dont see how having a lot of competition and free stuff is "messing up bit time".

[Vogel]

It's even more hilarious when you consider EU has 2x the numbers of players on NA. 

[Pawndemonium]

 

Still dont see how having a lot of competition and free stuff is "messing up bit time".

 

Wait, are you picking random stuff out of two posts?

Having many competitions and free stuff with a third of the community, to make other branches look greedy is messing up big time for me.

 

There is a difference with having to compete over something though... more so when there are actually enough players present to participate (which is the case on RU and EU).

[Johnny_Phate]

 

Wait, are you picking random stuff out of two posts?

Having many competitions and free stuff with a third of the community, to make other branches look greedy is messing up big time for me.

 

There is a difference with having to compete over something though... more so when there are actually enough players present to participate (which is the case on RU and EU).

 

No, i picked the same thing from two posts.

[Nefczi]

TOTAL

For fun & giggles I calculated what the total of prizes were, that were given out by Wargaming in the course of the entire OBT/Release lifespan of the game:

EUROPE:

- 4x Tirpitz, 4x Mikasa, 15x Diana, 1x Aurora, 1x Ishizushi, 20x Fujin, 20x Tachibana

- 58.050 Doubloons

- 39 Flag Packages (excluding the "Ghost & Witch thingy")

- 0 weeks of Premium Time

AMERICA:

- 87x Tirpitz, 27x Warspite, 16x Murmansk, 4796x Marblehead, 205x Diana, 10x Atlanta, 5x Ishizushi, 5x Fujin

- 235.862 Doubloons (30000 were given away alone in October 2015, that's half of what the entire EU gave away for the whole duration of OBT+Release)

- 120 Flag Packages (excluding the 50 flags that were given PER PERSON just for joining a competition, and excluding the "Ghost & Witch thingy")

- 145.5 weeks of Premium Time

 

 

One of Marblehead givaways("use shiip name in a song givaway") on reddit was also for EU. Few hundred Marbleheads went to EU players. Still, the diference is massive :/ 

.

[MrFingers]

 

One of Marblehead givaways("use shiip name in a song givaway") on reddit was also for EU. Few hundred Marbleheads went to EU players. Still, the diference is massive :/ 

.

We know, now... Because there was a notification after the event ended that there was such a competition on reddit. If you aren't a reddit-er (I am now), or were away from the keyboard for a couple of hours, you would have missed it. It was mentioned on the US forums though. Therefore -> not equal, favourable for the NA.

 

"Few hundreds" Marbleheads is a bit optimistic. From what I've heard, 500ish Marbleheads were given out in total (I calculated with 500 in the round-up), the vast majority going to the NA, with "a couple of dozen" to the EU and SEA.

 

 

EDIT: for the Reddit-ers amongst us:

[Pernumbra]

Pawndemonium, on 05 November 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

That bundle stuff is a very delicate topic... which however is a global WG issue, NA just decorates those with random give-aways. Their Tirpitz offer was even worse than ours iirc.

 

 I do not think so.

 

According to the news article (here) we only had the Tirpitz available from 29th August until 7th September, while it was available on the NA server (17th September to 1st October (here)) for almost 50% longer, The SEA server only got the Tirpitz from 8th to 15th September (here) so they had it available for the shortest time. The RU server had it offered from 10th to 25th September (here) so a bit longer than the NA server.

 

Our price was around EUR60 (roughly equivalent to USD65). NA server was USD64.99 or USD 69.99.

 

I think the RU server, as usual, had a minimal (and therefore cheap) bundle as well as a more expensive one (by RU server standards).

 

Back to OP.

 

I think that we get more promotional stuff (events, competitions, etc.) than the SEA server (but only just) but are definitely outclassed by RU server (bigger server population) and even more so by the NA server (smaller server population - they probably get more than RU too, looking at those figures!).

 

But it is all "Working as intended" and even if was not, it would be fixed Soon™  <- There, just done the standard WG EU reply for them...

 

[Sams_Baneblade]

I really begin to hate this company... And I come from far, as I was a WoT fanboy.

 

GG WG.

[MrFingers]

 

 I do not think so.

 

According to the news article (here) we only had the Tirpitz available from 29th August until 7th September, while it was available on the NA server (17th September to 1st October (here)) for almost 50% longer, The SEA server only got the Tirpitz from 8th to 15th September (here) so they had it available for the shortest time. The RU server had it offered from 10th to 25th September (here) so a bit longer than the NA server.

The NA got it even longer, as the window of purchase of the Tirpitz overlapped with the "make a strategy guide"-contest on their forums. The playerbase asked (and got) an extension of 72hrs after the event ended (the end of the event was scheduled to end together with the window in the shop), so that those who weren't lucky enough to win a Tirpitz, could still buy one.