Antiraffle

A raffle in which the item being purchased to take part in the raffle (the ticket) costs less than its general mall value. Therefore, even if, as a participant, you lose the raffle, you still come out a winner. For example, if you, as a raffle-holder, put 10 hell ramen (usually costing around 5,000 meat) in your store for their minimum sale price (122 meat) with a limit of one per person, and had a prize for the winner, this would be an anti-raffle.

Please note that while an antiraffle is defined by its tickets, the host still needs to award a prize. Even if it is 1 meat. Without a prize, this is just a sale, and not an actual game.

In /c games, many people use a macro to respond to questions of "What's an AR?" and the like. The text of this is as follows: Anti-raffle (n): Similar to a Raffle, this is where an item is sold for lower than its actual cost as the ticket, so even if you don't win, you're still well off. -as defined by HyperKitti

Guide on How to Hold an Antiraffle

A guide to holding an antiraffle in 6 easy steps:

1. Place a number of a certain item in your store, usually 10, to be used as tickets. If the volume of players in chat at the time is high, the number of tickets should probably be higher than 10.
2. Set the limit-per-day for the ticket item to 1. Set the price for the item to the minimum price allowed, or close to it (if the cheapest price for the item in the mall is much more than minimum price).
3. Announce the Antiraffle (using any of these terms; AR, anti, anti-raffle, antiraffle) in chat. It is helpful to specify what the tickets are and what the prize is.
4. When all ticket-items have been purchased, have Chatbot or Smashbot publicly roll a 1d<number of tickets>, in most cases a 1d10. You can do this by sending /msg chatbot roll 1d10 in games yourself, or by asking for a public 1d10 (in which case someone else will get chatbot to roll). Chatbot will say "Rolling 1dx for y gives z", where x is the number of tickets and y is the name of the person who initiated the chatbot roll. For instructions on rolling privately (using chatbot or repbot), verifying a private roll (by chatbot), and setting up one macro to do all your rolling, see Chatbot. **NOTE: Chatbot requires a wait of ten minutes between public rolls by one player, and one minute between public rolls by different players.**
5. Whatever number z is, check your store purchase log and find the person who purchased the corresponding ticket. If, for example, z turns out to be a 3, find the third person who purchased the ticket-item. (A small minority of people prefer to count down from the top of their store log, in which case a 3 would correspond to the third-to-last person who bought a ticket-item.)
6. Announce the winner in public chat and send them the prize.

Antiraffle Hosting Hints, Tips & Tricks

• Tickets should be an item of value, priced at either minimum sale price, or significantly lower than the mall price. Don't let this discourage you if you don't have any "good" tickets though, anything can be a ticket within reason.
• Make sure you limit the tickets. The most common limit is one per person, but if there is a large number of tickets, a larger limit is generally used. If there are only 90 people in /c games and you place 900 tickets at limit 1, /c games will miss out on your generosity. Don't be afraid to up your limits while in the middle of an antiraffle.
• Be creative with your announcement in games. It's quite fun. Many players turn all their antiraffle announcements into a few sentences about the use of the item that is the ticket. But if people don't pick up on subtle hints, don't be afraid to openly announce "Antiraffle in my store".
• Announce the winner by copying the text from your store log, such as: "11/14/07 05:24:41 John bought 1 (Cerebral Culottes) for 200 Meat <--Winner, please speak for prize". It is acceptable, and even recommended, to ask the winner to speak up for their prize. This verifies that they are in /c games and not a mallbot. This step is vital if you are a new hoster of antiraffles; odds are one or more of your tickets will be snapped up by mallbots.
  • Indeed, if you are thinking about holding antiraffles, you may want to ask around in /c games for mallbot names to baleet. If you find a mallbot don't think twice about baleeting them. They won't go away, and not baleeting them allows them to get more of your tickets. To stop baleeted people from buying tickets at your store, go into your store management and click the button "Refuse Purchases by Ignored Players."
  • Another option for particularly valuable tickets is to use proxy tickets (i.e. one ticket that represents another). For example, if you wanted to use clovers as tickets but were worried about mallbots, instead of putting the clovers in your store use something less valuable or worthless instead, such as useless powder. Announce to chat that the you are having an AR with useless powder as proxy tickets for clovers. Once all the tickets are gone, kmail the real tickets (clovers) to each person that bought a useless powder ticket. Then proceed with the AR as normal.
• Prizes can be anything including items, meat, GMA smiles and buffs. It could even be 100 meat. Everyone that gets a ticket in your antiraffle has won already.
• What makes a good ticket? Almost any item is good, as you are naturally running a game for /c games. Anything can be a ticket, but remember the definition of an antiraffle: "An item sold for lower than its actual value as the ticket." An example of a "bad" ticket is meat paste.
• Finally, if you have any problems don't worry. You're trying to give stuff away! People will respect that and won't hold a grudge if you make a mistake. Just rectify your mistakes. If you have any problems that you don't know how to fix or prevent just ask the people in the channel for help. Some good soul in there will help you at anytime, on any day.

Guidelines for Playing an Antiraffle

• Please don't ask for antiraffles. In fact, please don't ask for any games while you are in /c games. People get mightily annoyed at this seemingly innocent question.
• Be quick! Antiraffles generally sell out extremely quickly, especially with the advent of the chat right-click tools.
• Don't moan that the tickets are 'crap' or 'not good enough'. A person is giving stuff away from the generosity of their own hearts. If you don't like it, hold your own games!
• Respect the person holding the antiraffle. It's their game, what they say goes. Again, if you don't like it, don't participate. Host your own games!
• If a person has accidentally forgotten limits, one method is to buy all the tickets and send them back to the antiraffle holder, so they can do it again with limits. It's generally preferred that you just buy the 1 ticket, as though the limit was actually there, and hope everyone else does the same. But if the tickets are particularly valuable, for example 400 meat per spooky hockey mask, buy all the tickets and send them back promptly. You might even get a reward. Please be sure to give everything back; if you keep all the tickets for yourself you will be very disliked in /c games.
• If you get a ticket, thank the hoster. In fact, many times people that did not get a ticket will still thank the hoster to show their appreciation. Remember, it's their generosity you are enjoying and benefitting from.
• Try to congratulate the winner. It's a nice touch to the antiraffle system when people congratulate you and vice versa.
• It is considered poor etiquette to ask what a raffle winner won.
• If you have an issue with an antiraffle a person is holding, please discuss it in PM or K-mail. Don't openly accuse or flame in chat.
• Finally, anyone, from player ID #1 to #1,000,000,000, can hold an antiraffle. Enjoy them all.
• Be careful! Scammers usually claim that there is an AR in their store and have the items at a high price. Look at the prices carefully. Also, watch out for "price-switchers" who put cheap tickets in their store but quickly switch them to outrageously high prices while gamers are buying tickets, in the hopes that they won't notice the high price.

Variations

• Ascension-friendly AntiRaffle (AAR), in which the holder asks for the first 10 or so Kmails or chat blue-messages, and then distributes the tickets via packages (usually limited to Hardcore or Ronin players). A Hardcore or Ronin player who wins an AAR should be sent the prize in a package as well.
• Compound AntiRaffle (cAR), in which multiple tickets are provided, and a single roll determines multiple winners. For example, if there are 5 tickets, and the roll comes up a 6, then the five winners are the players who bought each item sixth. Of course, players may buy one of every ticket if they like (and are able).
• Anti-AntiRaffle, where there is a very low number of tickets (usually 5) which are very good items, while the prize is something relatively stinky (i.e. the ticket itself is the prize). Example: 5 spooky hockey mask tickets, 10 cans of ice-cold Sir Schlitz as prize.
• Progressive AntiRaffle, in which there are many tickets, from 20 to 1000 or higher; as the game progresses, the holder increases the limit of tickets each player can buy, so one can end up buying many tickets to increase their odds of winning.
• Flea Market Anti-Raffle/Scavenger Hunt, in which the host places items at the Flea Market priced at 1 meat, and players try to find them.

See Also

• Take a look at the list of Games Rules for information on other games that can be hosted.
• Take a look at the Games Etiquette for information on how to behave properly during games.
• Take a look at the Shopkeeper's Guide for information on other aspects of selling items in the Mall.