Thread: Lotteries are coming back!

Tomorrow! October 25, 2012 at Noon!

Some things are changing up a bit. You're going to want to double check the Lottery FAQ and Schedule to make sure you have your times down as they've changed.

To start with, two new scheduled lotteries have been created.

Lottery of Arnor
Level Range: 30-39

Lottery of The Mark
Level Range: 80-85

Those who know the existing system might raise an eyebrow over the Lottery of Arnor. It's part of the new, tighter, level ranges for lotteries. Lotteries will now be 10 levels each instead of the previous 14 levels each.

The Lottery of the Northlands is a good example. Previously it was Level 31-45. Now, that range is split between two lotteries:

Lottery of Arnor
Level Range: 30-39

Lottery of the Northlands
Level Range: 40-49

This should also mean your odds of winning go up slightly as there are fewer characters competing for any given lottery. A level 32 character is no longer competing with a level 45. Your winnings should end up being more level appropriate as a result, too.

We've also adjusted the lottery start and end times. All lotteries now start and end based on this new schedule:

Monday Noon Eastern - Thursday 10:00AM Eastern
Thursday Noon Eastern - Sunday 11:00PM Eastern

Yes, it's one less lottery per week, but remember there are two new lotteries added as well. So in terms of total number of lotteries little has changed.

Finally, we'll be adjusting the number of winners per lottery slightly to improve the odds a bit. Combined with the slightly better odds we anticipate from the level shuffle, some of you may finally get your lucky day.

Awesome, so when does first lottery start?

Originally Posted by kickman77

Awesome, so when does first lottery start?

It's in the first sentence...

Tomorrow! October 25, 2012 at Noon!

Originally Posted by kickman77

Awesome, so when does first lottery start?

Originally Posted by Sapience

Tomorrow! October 25, 2012 at Noon!

Ta-daa!

Originally Posted by kickman77

Awesome, so when does first lottery start?

Having just read what Sapience posted, I'm going to go with tomorrow at noon EST.

Finally!

That's awesome news! I can barely wait until tomorrow's noon .

Originally Posted by kickman77

Awesome, so when does first lottery start?

"Tomorrow! October 25, 2012 at Noon!" according to the beginning of the post ^_^

You do have odd logic

Yes, it's one less lottery per week, but remember there are two new lotteries added as well. So in terms of total number of lotteries little has changed.

For any character, it is one less lottery per week. You can argue that you're still giving away the same number of fabulous prizes, just now in 2 weekly drawings rather than 3, and I'm not eligible for the new tier so those are irrelevant to me.

And the odds of winning are set by Turbine, up or down, so if you say my odds of winning have increased I'll have to take your word for it.

Sometimes I like to argue for the sake of arguing, glad to see the lotteries back, even if they are fewer in number.

Originally Posted by Sapience

Finally, we'll be adjusting the number of winners per lottery slightly to improve the odds a bit. Combined with the slightly better odds we anticipate from the level shuffle, some of you may finally get your lucky day.

I wont be holding my breath, my main hasn't won a lottery in almost a year and 2 more winners per lottery is unlikely to change that.

Glad they are back though, the lower tier lotteries have provided me with a lot of perks.

NICE glad to see the lottos are coming back!!!!

Unfamiliar with the process; to have a shot at winning anything, must one be logged in to the game? This community site? Something?

Hey I see there is a lottery showing up now for me!

The pre-lottery lottery of pre-lotteriness
Ends 2012-10-25 10:00:00
It will be like pre-winning!

Silver
10 x Purple Fireworks
1 x Bright Gold Ring
10 x Green Dragon's Breath Ale

Cute, now I can be slam drunk while fighting my way up to Rohan, cant wait!

Originally Posted by Meliarune

Unfamiliar with the process; to have a shot at winning anything, must one be logged in to the game? This community site? Something?

Sign in to the my.lotro.com page with the same info you use to sign in to the game launcher

http://my.lotro.com/home/lottery is main page

Originally Posted by DarkEmpyrean

Sign in to the my.lotro.com page with the same info you use to sign in to the game launcher

http://my.lotro.com/home/lottery is main page

All good and done, but do I need to keep the page open in my browser during the announced lottery drawing times? Or do things just happen in the background and I can navigate my browser here later in the day?

@Meliarune,

Just enter the lotteries by selecting which characters you wish to enter, hit enter, and go about your day as you normally would. You can check back on that page after the posted draw time if you want to see if any of your characters won. If they did, log in on them and they should have letters waiting in the mailbox with all of the goodies and gold that they won enclosed!

Sometimes, if you forget to check and see if you won, you find the letter and it's a wonderful treat!

Originally Posted by Meliarune

All good and done, but do I need to keep the page open in my browser during the announced lottery drawing times? Or do things just happen in the background and I can navigate my browser here later in the day?

Yeah, once you register your characters you can leave the page and you dont have to come back at all, so it doesnt have to stay open.

If you win youll get your prizes in the mail in-world, and itll also show up on your lottery page in a "Recent Winning Entries" listing...so if youre unable to check in-game for whatever reason you can see that you won without logging in to the game.

Originally Posted by Sapience

Tomorrow! October 25, 2012 at Noon!

Some things are changing up a bit. You're going to want to double check the Lottery FAQ and Schedule to make sure you have your times down as they've changed.

To start with, two new scheduled lotteries have been created.

Lottery of Arnor
Level Range: 30-39

Lottery of The Mark
Level Range: 80-85

Those who know the existing system might raise an eyebrow over the Lottery of Arnor. It's part of the new, tighter, level ranges for lotteries. Lotteries will now be 10 levels each instead of the previous 14 levels each.

The Lottery of the Northlands is a good example. Previously it was Level 31-45. Now, that range is split between two lotteries:

Lottery of Arnor
Level Range: 30-39

Lottery of the Northlands
Level Range: 40-49

This should also mean your odds of winning go up slightly as there are fewer characters competing for any given lottery. A level 32 character is no longer competing with a level 45. Your winnings should end up being more level appropriate as a result, too.

We've also adjusted the lottery start and end times. All lotteries now start and end based on this new schedule:

Monday Noon Eastern - Thursday 10:00AM Eastern
Thursday Noon Eastern - Sunday 11:00PM Eastern

Yes, it's one less lottery per week, but remember there are two new lotteries added as well. So in terms of total number of lotteries little has changed.

Finally, we'll be adjusting the number of winners per lottery slightly to improve the odds a bit. Combined with the slightly better odds we anticipate from the level shuffle, some of you may finally get your lucky day.

You just decreased everyone's individual odds of winning by 33%. I hope you remember that when "adjusting the number of winners per lottery," especially with the top-end lottery. I already hadn't won that in more than three months. I shudder to think what will happen now with the Lottery of the Mark now.

The new level ranges mean nothing to each single character. A person with one level 60 character, for example, does not necessarily have a 33% better chance of winning now that the lottery is confined to 10 levels.

"Congratulations - you have won 5x tome of the ability to play and enjoy LOTRO (bug and disconnection free). This tome lasts for 1 hour."

In all seriousness, since Rohan released I have had difficulty logging in, constant random DC's, terrible lag, atrocious framerates, bugged instances, bugged session play. I am no longer enjoying the experience and have to take a break while it sorts itself out. Whilst the lottery is nice and some fun, I would prefer a robust game right now.

CD

Great to hear, now my lvl 79 Lore master can win some lvl 60 stuff..thanks. I've asked a dozen times to have this looked at, (wrong lvl on all my characters on vilya)bugged it , reported it etc etc..so I just leave it like it is..at any rate, good to know its coming back..

Originally Posted by Sapience

Yes, it's one less lottery per week, but remember there are two new lotteries added as well. So in terms of total number of lotteries little has changed.

Finally, we'll be adjusting the number of winners per lottery slightly to improve the odds a bit. Combined with the slightly better odds we anticipate from the level shuffle, some of you may finally get your lucky day.

Yay for the lottos coming back!

Sapience, to the point you made above: Even though there are more level bands, the number of lotteries that a given character can enter is being reduced from 3 per week to 2 per week. So to keep the odds of winning in a given week the same as before, the total number of winners per drawing across all level bands would need to increase by 50% (distributed appropriately among the new level bands).

So for example, if there used to be a total of 240 prizes spread among the previous 6 level bands (avg of 40 per band), then to keep the odds of winning the same, there would now need to be 1.5 * 240 = 360 prizes spread among the 8 level bands (avg of 45 per band).

Originally Posted by Digero

Yay for the lottos coming back!

Sapience, to the point you made above: Even though there are more level bands, the number of lotteries that a given character can enter is being reduced from 3 per week to 2 per week. So to keep the odds of winning in a given week the same as before, the total number of winners per drawing across all level bands would need to increase by 50% (distributed appropriately among the new level bands).

So for example, if there used to be a total of 240 prizes spread among the previous 6 level bands (avg of 40 per band), then to keep the odds of winning the same, there would now need to be 1.5 * 240 = 360 prizes spread among the 8 level bands (avg of 45 per band).

Except you ignore leveling. With smaller level bands and longer time to enter lotteries it's possible to level into a new lottery before it's drawn. True it reduces the value of the lower lottery, but you pick up a new possible win in the mean time.

And for the record, your numbers are way, way, way low. The typical number of winners across all level ranges are much higher. Per server.

*camps out/crosses fingers for Steed of the Minstrel Lottery* I had to choose between that and cosmetics for my war-steed...war-steed won but I still want the instraments on the back of the Minstrel Horse for my WS.

Originally Posted by Melanuial

*camps out/crosses fingers for Steed of the Minstrel Lottery* I had to choose between that and cosmetics for my war-steed...war-steed won but I still want the instraments on the back of the Minstrel Horse for my WS.

Currently the lotteries don't award the War-steed cosmetic when you win a travel mount. We're still working on that.

When will the Inkling's special lotto be run?

Originally Posted by Crell_1

When will the Inkling's special lotto be run?

Assuming this weeks goes off without a hitch, next week.

Sapience,

Do you ever sleep?

Originally Posted by akaBlues

Sapience,

Do you ever sleep?

LOL. Ummm.. sometimes.

Thanks for the update info Sapience.

Yay! The lotteries are coming back!

Nice to see tighter levelranges too. I like that change.

Looking forward to a streak of lucky days. As it's LOTRO luck, it comes in streaks .

Originally Posted by Sapience

Originally Posted by Digero

Yay for the lottos coming back!

Sapience, to the point you made above: Even though there are more level bands, the number of lotteries that a given character can enter is being reduced from 3 per week to 2 per week. So to keep the odds of winning in a given week the same as before, the total number of winners per drawing across all level bands would need to increase by 50% (distributed appropriately among the new level bands).

So for example, if there used to be a total of 240 prizes spread among the previous 6 level bands (avg of 40 per band), then to keep the odds of winning the same, there would now need to be 1.5 * 240 = 360 prizes spread among the 8 level bands (avg of 45 per band).

Except you ignore leveling. With smaller level bands and longer time to enter lotteries it's possible to level into a new lottery before it's drawn. True it reduces the value of the lower lottery, but you pick up a new possible win in the mean time.

And for the record, your numbers are way, way, way low. The typical number of winners across all level ranges are much higher. Per server.

Well since entering multiple lotteries at once can only happen for a character once per level band, over the lifetime of the character you'd get at most 7 extra lottery entries.

In the long run, the fact that you can enter multiple lottos when you cross a level band makes no difference on your odds, since everyone else has the same opportunity. When I cross level bands, it doesn't increase the total number of prizes available -- it just increases my odds of winning at the expense of everyone else. Conversely, on weeks when I don't cross a level band but another player crosses into or out of my level band, then my odds of winning are lower than average that week. In the end, it's a wash.

And about the numbers in my example... they weren't an attempt to guess at how many lotto winners there are, I was just giving an example with concrete numbers to help describe what I was talking about. The point still stands regardless of the true number of winners -- if there used to be 100,000 winners per drawing with 3 drawings per week (300,000 winners per week), then there would have to be 150,000 winners per drawing with 2 drawings per week to have the same odds of winning in a given week (still 300,000 winners per week).

--

The main reason I'm mentioning it is because in your post you indicated that this change would make our lucky day happen sooner . I'm just pointing out that you'd have to increase the total winners across all level bands by more than 50% to increase the frequency that any given player will win.

* One assumption that I AM making, is that people interested in the lottery are entering every lotto that's available. If someone is only checking the lottos once per week, then their odds of winning would go up dramatically if you increase the number of winners by 50% per drawing. And in that event, the odds for the people who do enter every lottery would go down even with a 50% bump in winners per drawing because each lottery would have more entrants on average.

So the rewards for lvl 80 - 85 are horrible.. im not vip... nor do i play monster play.. commendations are completely useless to me... fail..

Originally Posted by Sapience

Currently the lotteries don't award the War-steed cosmetic when you win a travel mount. We're still working on that.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, because the Steed of the Rune-Keeper that I won some months back from a lottery most certainly allows me to use the RK steed cosmetics on my new war-steed.

The new level ranges are like the ground shifting under my feet for me. An earthquake. Fortunately, looking at the way the dust has settled. No harm has been done...this time. My 'approach' is to leave one tail-end charlie, out of all my alts, in each lotto level range. Just beacuse I am nosey and don't want to miss anything unusual in a low band. This time, the lowest band goes UP by four levels, so no harm done. Had it dropped DOWN at all, I'd be SOL, as there is no way to 'de-level' a character. As it is, poor old Montmorency COULD climb four new levels, if he wanted to ( but would still fall short of riding). To be honest, I doubt Monty will be in any rush to take advantage of the new space, just in case things change again and his band DOES go down.

But this worldview DOES cast doubt upon the overall effectiveness of new level ranges. Me, I am dropping one character off at each lotto level point ( in theory - in practice, I doubt I will have the time to do *exactly* that - although I do have each range nicely 'covered' at the moment) with most proceeding, eventually, to cap. MOST players tear hell for leather straight to cap and then *sit* there, until the next cap-raising expansion arrives. This means, surely, that the 'population' of the 'mark' lottery is going to be near-as-dammit exactly the same as the population of the angrenost lottery was. I.e. I expect 90% of the player base to be sitting at cap, with all other states being merely temporary conditions on the way there.

Originally Posted by Sapience

Currently the lotteries don't award the War-steed cosmetic when you win a travel mount. We're still working on that.

Is this only a post-RoR issue? I won the Steed of the Guardian in a lottery, months ago, and all of that gear is equippable on my war-steed now that RoR is out.

Originally Posted by furtim

Is this only a post-RoR issue? I won the Steed of the Guardian in a lottery, months ago, and all of that gear is equippable on my war-steed now that RoR is out.

Then someone fixed something without telling me. I retract my previous comment.

Originally Posted by Sapience

Then someone fixed something without telling me. I retract my previous comment.

OOO a chance to win something for FREE! I am up for that! Dont care if the prizes are not really applicable to me THIS Time, they may well be NEXT Time! Whoot!

And Sapience.......... Is it Old age or lack of Sleep? lol

Sigh... Pity my main two accounts, one of which is lifetime and has my max level characters, are unable to enter any lotteries. My main account has been unable to since mid July. The old white screen of death problem that plagued many accounts a while back has returned for many people, and so far there has been no response from Turbine that it will be fixed.

I know this thread looks a week or two old now but I can't find anything more recent amongst all the lotteries are gone / lotteries are back forum threads over the last few years. Since RoR I have entered one lottery and that is it. Now all I get is the message that none of my characters are eligible depsite me actively playing them all. Am I missing something or are the lotteries on hold again? Would be nice to have a page somewhere with the scheduled lotteries shown as actual dates not just:
Monday Noon Eastern - Thursday 10:00AM Eastern
Thursday Noon Eastern - Sunday 11:00PM Eastern

That way we would know if they were actually on or not. The current schedule implies they are running every week but I can't see em. Any help or advice as to whether others are having this problem would be good.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Fodder66

I know this thread looks a week or two old now but I can't find anything more recent amongst all the lotteries are gone / lotteries are back forum threads over the last few years. Since RoR I have entered one lottery and that is it. Now all I get is the message that none of my characters are eligible depsite me actively playing them all. Am I missing something or are the lotteries on hold again? Would be nice to have a page somewhere with the scheduled lotteries shown as actual dates not just:
Monday Noon Eastern - Thursday 10:00AM Eastern
Thursday Noon Eastern - Sunday 11:00PM Eastern

That way we would know if they were actually on or not. The current schedule implies they are running every week but I can't see em. Any help or advice as to whether others are having this problem would be good.

Cheers

Same here.The weekend Lottery was put off.But i don't see this weeks Lottery so far.