I know you are all angry but!!!!!!!

[Fregor]

i just had to get it out on the other pages again..

This is really well put. When even players from the german servers points out its unfair for the others,, Cmon!

Still going for it, despite the clear disadvantages that have been imposed.
Please BB, take a very long, hard look at how this was run, and seriously ask yourselves if this was ever a fairly run 'competition'.

Salient points to view are:

The downtime suffered by certain servers in Phase 1, Germany 9 and 10 had less than 3 days to qualify as opposed to 4 days elsewhere.
This in part lead to some of the following:

The pairings/groupings of servers for Phase2. On the whole, none of these ever made sense, there are several 'power pairings' and quite a few that seem completely handicapped. As an example, just compare the pairings of Germany 4 (known 'quest monsters' in previous events) and Germany 9 (my server) which is an eqivalent age to newfoundland, very active, and again a proven track record in these events. versus Northisle (came 3rd of our local servers in Phase 1) paired with Czech Republic 1, a very young server.
These just don't stack up, and the tables show this, there is a massive gap between all the German groupings plus Poland 1 and 2, compared to the rest of the world.

Maintenances, yet again the rest of the world got handicapped here. The german servers had their regular maintenance on Monday night, before Phase 2 got under way and after Phase 1 was complete, so no production at all was lost.
This may have balanced out over time, if we hadn't then seen the UK servers get surprised with 10 minutes notice that our maintenance was a day earlier, with no chance to renew buffs and explorers stuck out in limbo, Provision Houses left idle, quite a kick in the teeth there.
The French fared even worse than us, with their regular maintenance Tuesday night (again into Phase 2), they were then surprised with an extra 'special' maintenance the following night, utter chaos.
Seeing as there is a reward for finishing the 100% goal first, everybody else is playing 'catch up', as the unaffected servers will easily reach this goal before they experience a maintenance.
The Germans did experience some unexpected downtime yesterday, which the Techs worked manfully to resolve quickly, and no doubt that in part, this crash was due to an overload because of the following:

The 300% gem sale. This is completely cynical to time this now, and completely unprecedented. Never has there been such an offer, and it doesn't seem to relate to any 'special occasion', and has given an huge advantage in this competition. The top two Polish servers must be furious at this, they are both now being overhauled by the boosted 'pay to win' teams.
Sickening manipulation of what was supposed to be a 'fun event'.

[Nogbad2]

Shouldn't you be saving this for the `happy hour thread' Positive thinking here now people....like we're gaining on P1 and took 2% out of them today so far...keep up the good work Newfies and Sandycovians ( And Northislers, I'm still rooting for you too )
After them comes the first of the German servers, what more motivation do you need? Especially as they will be celebrating reaching 100%...now's the time to catch them napping ( Tortoise and Hare people, Tortoise and hare )

Although, to be fair to P1, we have just been given a similar advantage to the germans last week, albeit a shorter promotion.
Feels more than a little dirty now.

[Larili]

Although, to be fair to P1, we have just been given a similar advantage to the germans last week, albeit a shorter promotion.
Feels more than a little dirty now.

Yes Nogbad, the cynical side of me saw that as well, and if BB marketing strategy was to sell gems by manipulating a competition this way then they can give themselves a well deserved pat on the back. The fact remains that BB will have a much harder time to repeat this again, as it is clear that the trust given to them for a second time to run a `fair' competition will not be so forthcoming for a third. To be honest I can not see them even attempting this again, and they will only do smaller events between localised server groups. ( For me though I still would want to see ALL the calculations upfront, they will not manipulate my trust again)
However onwards and upwards I hit my halfway target this morning 250k balloons And a big thank you to those lootspot buyers for adding extra hwl to the price that was asked, your the people that make this community great

[lulu10093]

However onwards and upwards I hit my halfway target this morning 250k balloons And a big thank you to those lootspot buyers for adding extra hwl to the price that was asked, your the people that make this community great

yeah well done

[RonPope]

This event is and will never be and never have been fair. The way they paired up the servers.

The ones that benefit the most are those low pop german servers 12 and 15 that got put in with 2 and 3. they're getting carried to the top and getting their 200% prize completion without effort.

its disappointing.

[RonPope]

Once you get to 100%, there is no point in trying to go for 200% (those extra gems isn't worth the donations).

Save all your balloons and convert them to coins in the next patch update. You make more money selling balloons than the value of the gems you get from those extra 100% -> 200%

They rigged it so that the required amount of balloons have diminish return. As I noticed somebody has done a stats comparison on the rate of donations.

[RonPope]

250k balloons = 2500 coins. You can easily buy watermill or silos with that (value of 600+ gems).

[lulu10093]

Once you get to 100%, there is no point in trying to go for 200% (those extra gems isn't worth the donations).

Save all your balloons and convert them to coins in the next patch update. You make more money selling balloons than the value of the gems you get from those extra 100% -> 200%

They rigged it so that the required amount of balloons have diminish return. As I noticed somebody has done a stats comparison on the rate of donations.

I personally am going to be making balloons and donating them to the end of the even if there is some qued up in ph that wont count when event over fair enough if we can change them into coins like on the test server but i'm not purposely going to store any.
At the end of the day I am doing this for server pride to see how far we can get not give up as soon as we hit 100% whether the rewards are worth it or not its all about pride after 100% not the rewards.
Also I set myself a new target to have donated 2 million balloons in this even so i'm aiming for that already over my 1 million mark yesterday which was my original target I thought I could reach
Bring on the water balloons to the bitter end I say

[Odetteb]

This game was meant to be my bit of fun, a bit of relaxation, I liked the chat and the challenge of moving up the levels, I like to help my guild if I can, I don't have the money to spend on gems (I have only ever bought $5 worth) so I have have to wait a very long time to earn anything, I don't know the ins and outs of why this event has been run the way it has been, all I know is my spare resources are gone I have used them to make thousands and thousands of balloons and whats the point? I have no resources and the bottom 8 on the results table are so far behind the top 8 it's very obvious somethings not right with the way this has been run, I will continue to make what balloons I can but needless to say I'm not a happy bunny. And if they ever run an event like this again I think twice before I participate. And I don't think I will be alone

[Sto_Helit]

Maybe next time they need to give people the option to opt out of events? Then the people that continue would actually be the ones interested in playing. Another way of doing it would be to ask people to sign up to play an event - opt in.

Or make it so that the top x number of level 50 players from each server compete, based on their activity from a short qualifying phase.