It’s like they didn’t learn from 2018. First the lottery, which makes 0 sense because Scalpers are all over the place - then the general sale, which once again goes to guess who! - SCALPERS.
There are some people who got the tickets legitimately, but this scalping problem is a big issue. On top of that, they literally had 15,000 tickets - several thousand selling out in 10 minutes - FAR LESS TIME THAN 2018!
What Square needs to do is reward its veterans that actually care about game and look at sub time - as well as play time. Most of these scalpers I bet are bots on XIV that literally have next to no playtime because they get banned in waves. Rewarding players for being loyal to a game through FanFest would make things better.
The other thing they need to do is RENT OUT A VERY LARGE VENUE. This means larger capacity to help match more demand, because the demand was extremely high as always to go. They’re sharing a venue with another convention, so if they don’t have the room, then oh well.
FFXIV FanFest Tickets Are A Disaster This Year
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03-16-2023, 03:42 AMHyperiusUltimaFFXIV FanFest Tickets Are A Disaster This Year
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03-16-2023, 03:52 AMPaulH
Yeah the EU is as frustrating, if I don't get tickets that is fine its a lottery and I was lucky to go to Fanfest in Paris. What does bother me, we get no announcement on social media that EU period lottery application period is over unlike the USA.
Winners are to be told by the 15th of March, but lucky winners get told at 5:18pm GMT on March 15th and then another twitter that we now have to wait till the 16th in sort of second waive. I get the USA is first, we wait behind the general sales, but give EU the same blooming respect as other territories.
Congratulations to winners of the first waive. -
03-16-2023, 04:07 AMPredatoryCatgirl
Wait, didn't they say that the winners' real names are kept on record, and you need to present ID with the ticket this time? How does that work for scalping?
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03-16-2023, 04:09 AMDPZ2
Limiting ticket purchases to two and requiring the original credit card (or was it ID?) to be presented to attend were the two anti-scalping methodologies I believe they adopted for this year.
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03-16-2023, 04:33 AMValkyrie_LennethQuote:
Originally Posted by DPZ2
It's already been shown you can change the name on the tickets through showclix. And names weren't prefilled I believe. You just... Put in w/e name you wanted for the tickets.
That's how people who got lotto tickets were trading them around. All winning the lotto got you was a code. No info needed to match SE account or anything. -
03-16-2023, 04:45 AMMalykrisThe Pain of It All
I'm gonna speak for myself mostly, but I do wanna note that there are some of us veteran players who feel the same as I do in the regard of attempting to go to Fanfest this year.
The preface is that I am a player who was in the PS3 Beta of ARR, I've been playing for 10 years and have given so much time and faith into this game. For the first time in these 10 years of playing the game, I am both hurt and disappointed. I've been wanting to go to FanFest ever since the first one. I've never been able to go because up to this point in my life, I didn't have the means to go and I've had to work hard in my life to get to where I am now. And now that I finally have the means to go, it just so happens to be the FanFest where people who want to go will be subjected to the will of luck.
The initial setting of it being a lottery was already not optimistic. Learning that there would 15,000 tickets feels like it's not enough when the player base for North America, let alone the rest of the world, has grown exponentially large over the last few years. Out of the active players of North America, with each person who got an email getting two tickets, that means only 7,500 people got that email. There are a lot of theories/ways people could still scalp these tickets, but the main fact of the matter is also that all the tickets could be potentially sold out - there's no separate pool for general sales.
Entering General Sales felt less optimistic in terms of logistics. Despite there being "several thousand" tickets left, which one could surmise is either three to five thousand tickets left, that's at the most a third of the tickets to now the rest of the world. And yet, even though it was told that this would be a first come, first serve attempt, it isn't. You had to wait in line where your place is completely randomized - a second lotto for a larger pool of people. To add insult to injury, there were ways you could game the system - you could have multiple browsers open and that would be a position in line, on multiple devices that can include your phone as well.
Do I deserve to go because I'm a long time player since the rebirth of the game? No. How much time or how much love I have for this game doesn't make it obligatory for Square-Enix or Yoshi-P to give me a ticket to FanFest. But I, along with everyone who feel the same as I do about FFXIV, deserve a better chance than leaving it all up to luck. I can't say that I have a better solution to how to go about selling the tickets, but I know sure as hell it wasn't this. -
03-16-2023, 04:58 AMBrynne
While I'm extremely disappointed about not getting fanfest tickets, I don't think that SE should necessarily prioritize players based on how long they've been subbed. That's not fair to players who haven't been playing as long but are just as excited about the game and fanfest as any of us.
How much of a problem were the scalpers, exactly? Does anyone have numbers on how many of them got tickets compared to legit players? I'd imagine some "fanfest ticket sales" outside of the main channel are scams, frankly. -
03-16-2023, 05:00 AMValkyrie_LennethQuote:
Originally Posted by Brynne
It's not really scalpers as much as people gaming the system. There were people buying up a bunch of start editions to have a higher chance of getting codes.
We were told codes were locked to the account and things would be checked but that wasn't true. -
03-16-2023, 05:06 AMBrynneI'm confused. Each account could only enter the draw once, so were these people making multiple accounts to enter more than once? If so, I'm not sure how SE could guard against it. There are already people who play the game on multiple accounts and unfortunately they'd have higher chances because of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth
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03-16-2023, 05:11 AMSeraphor
You needed an active sub for 90 days in order to enter the lottery for 2 tickets. I'm not sure scalping from the lottery is going to be that prevalent. Once the tickets go up for live sale though sure.
In general though, do you have a better suggestion for selling tickets for an event with far more demand than availability? -
03-16-2023, 05:14 AMValkyrie_LennethQuote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
Names should not be able to just be written in for lotto tickets. It should be forced to match the name on the SE account for the primary ticket.
No changes. And they should have done another lotto rather than General sales. -
03-16-2023, 05:18 AMSeraphorIt's like you didn't read my first sentence at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth
Only people who had an active sub could enter the lottery anyway, maximum 2 tickets. There's no major scalping operation underway here.
What my friends and I did, was we all entered for 2 tickets hoping that if any of us won, we could share the tickets out to get as many of us in as possible. And if by sheer luck we all won and had too many tickets, well it would only make sense to give the extra ones away to other players.
That wouldn't be possible if your 2 tickets were both only in your name... not to mention how stupid it would be to have 2 tickets that only one person could use. -
03-16-2023, 05:34 AMDaemonInazumaThe active sub for 90 days for the lottery is not true at all. I recently bought my best bud a complete edition for Christmas and he finally got around to setting up his account at the beginning of March. We both signed up for the lottery and he got a pre-sale email and I didn't, and I've been playing this game for 10 years since October of 2013. All you need is an active sub that is attached to that region, and even the Starter edition gives you 30 days of active subscription time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
I also confirmed with support teams for NA and EU that all they care about is the ID matching the name on the Showclix and Eventbrite tickets, no additional info needed. Since that is all they care about, people can certainly sell there extra tickets and put whatever names they want on them.
Even though I think a lottery system to an extent is an ok system, it is very easy to cheat. You can buy the EU starter edition for 10 pounds and because the dollar and pound are near equal, it roughly translates to a a $10 savings per starter edition. So in essence, you can buy multiple starter edition with a travel cc that waves foreign transaction fees to increase your chances in the pre-sale lottery. This could have also been done vice versa since the pound is a bit stronger than the dollar and buy starter editions for NA at $15 a pop. It's literally like participating in the Mega Millions lottery drawing.
The Queue-it VCL token system is also easy to cheat as well as you can create a bot that pulls the token necessary for you to move to the front of the queue. This is actually what led to the Taylor Swift ticket debacle that led to a class action lawsuit to break up Ticketmaster's monopoly.
Overall, SE needs to tighten up some of these loophole to make it more fair.
I also think that veteran status and days subbed should increase the odds of you winning the pre-sale lottery. It ensures that the people going are the most faithful to the game and their sub money is what led to the game being what it is today. -
03-16-2023, 05:35 AMWillIrishclover
(copium) surely the EU general sale will be better)
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03-16-2023, 05:38 AMAxxion
just checked on how much someone would buy the resold tickets. they are going for 940 usd. Think they should have bought a bigger venue. Since the game game grew alot within a year
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03-16-2023, 05:47 AMValkyrie_LennethQuote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
It's like you didn't read what I said at all. I said the primary ticket. Not both. Many people gave their codes away to others after getting them. The primary ticket holder is the one who has to pick them up. -
03-16-2023, 05:55 AMVahlnirThey'll tie it to a lottery that you'll have to enter through an obscure magazine promotion. :p Calling it now.Quote:
Originally Posted by WillIrishclover
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03-16-2023, 05:57 AMShebahIf you scroll down a ways, earlier this month the presale ones were going for even more than that lol. Mar 8 a pair sold for 3 grand. Looks like 26 listings have sold in total.Quote:
Originally Posted by Axxion
I think that's the biggest venue in Vegas, but there's other events going on at the same time so they can't even use the full space. -
03-16-2023, 06:05 AMStormpeaksAnd if you lose, you have to go pick up your loser ticket at the actual venue, and be told "Good luck next time !"Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahlnir
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03-16-2023, 06:07 AMVahlnirhttps://media.giphy.com/media/GpyS1lJXJYupG/giphy.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by Stormpeaks
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03-16-2023, 06:15 AMGTK0HLK+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahlnir
buy yeah, if that actually was a thing.., I'd only go, if there was a pity system.., but at that point.., have your other chinks in the system..,
your rusty bolts/connections near the gas tank/engine. -
03-16-2023, 06:45 AMgrinkdaboy
i entered on the very last day and won and was selected and got tickets for me and my gf
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03-16-2023, 10:02 AMrainichan
I keep seeing this.
How.
Because looking at my tickets on Showclix, I cannot. The way ticket sales were set up was you put in the names in your 15 minutes that you had to buy them. I cannot alter them now. I can view them, I can convert them into a pdf, and I can add them to a non-existant for me Apple Wallet. But editing the names after they have been bought is not possible. -
03-16-2023, 11:53 AMDaemonInazumaGo to the Showclix main website https://www.showclix.com/, in the upper right hand corner, hover over Sign In and it produces a drop down that says My Tickets. Click My Tickets. It will send you to a sign in page that requires a email address and password. if you didn't set up a password on login, then you need to reset it. Once signed in, you will be able to see your purchased tickets and you can click on them to expand the page. At the very bottom, there is a prompt to edit your name for the tickets.Quote:
Originally Posted by rainichan
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03-16-2023, 01:34 PMrainichanHuh. Well that's frustrating. Thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by DaemonInazuma
(though I will say, I'm not editing to sell, I just kept hearing and going "???? but it's not letting me???") -
03-17-2023, 12:01 AMDaemonInazumaI'm glad they allow us to change the name because my wife is going with me, but what if she can't for some unforeseen reason and I can have someone else come with me, etc. However, the name change can be exploited so I'm not sure how you fix that when it comes to scalping.Quote:
Originally Posted by rainichan
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03-17-2023, 12:11 AMAvoidy
I love that they saw how angry and sad in game lotteries made people, so they just applied it to their fanfest tickets as well and the results are the exact same.
In fact, this thread even reads like a lot of the housing forum's threads about the lottery, with people being frustrated they lost, and others being like "I won, so the system seems fine to me!" lmao -
03-17-2023, 03:16 AMSclair0
It just feels so darn weird to me that if I want to go to the big general nerd events in the Excel center like MCM I can always get tickets. Pictures with a big Marvel Star? No problem. Literally watched a pre-screening of Spiderverse there without issue, there were even empty seats. But when it comes to this much more niche event nobody in our entire EU friend group managed to get one. x-x Just how many were available for lottery? I guess some of that has got to be the level of enthusiasm the fandom has, but... I dunno it feels like Marvel stans have a ton of enthusiasm too.
I guess some of the demand is the fact that the last one was cancelled, but still!
I wish there was some sorta dumb 'if you didn't get it you'll get more priority on your account next time' kinda thing, but that'll never happen. -
03-17-2023, 03:36 AMAxxioni wish you was making that up. Thats funny and crazy at the same time. Ill be damned if i spend that much for a ticket.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shebah
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03-17-2023, 04:30 AMzoo_york
I am happy for everyone who had been lucky.
But still I cannot hide disappointment at this point - in the organization and the handling and in having a lottery system for it in the first place. -
03-17-2023, 05:03 AMRamiren
Polls on twitter and reddit (while not exactly the most scientific) seem to have about 12-15% of people selected for US tickets, and 7-8% of people selected for EU tickets.
This is a joke, and it makes SE look absolutely incompetent, like the entire shadowbringers era player increase just flew over their heads. The Excel Centre can hold 60,000+ people if they booked up the entire thing, and while I don't expect that kind of capacity to be needed, or conducive to what is essentially, a keynote speech, a performance and some merch stands, the scope was there for greatly increased capacity on the EU side with some schedule adjustments. It seems like they probably booked an auditorium when they should have booked an event hall or two. In an era when the rest of SE is reeling from bad management and poor choices, we really don't need anything FFXIV related to be poorly managed with bad choices like this has been, that just makes it look like the rot is spreading.
Nobody wins here.
SE has lost out on revenue.
Players can't attend the event.
Those who can, will probably be attending without most of their friend group. -
03-17-2023, 06:03 AMVahlnirSE has been slow to catch up and KEEP up for some time now, so unfortunately none of this surprises me. They have also been very clearly investing the bare minimum in FF XIV in general, from the game itself to...well, events like this. Their golden goose can't keep them afloat forever if they don't give it a hand every now and then. The player base increased significantly, meaning the interest in this event also increased. There was no good reason that they couldn't have booked a bigger venue, which they clearly did not. As per usual, they have shot themselves in the foot and are probably wondering where all the money went because they just don't get it yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramiren
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03-17-2023, 06:06 AMTroxbark
The funniest part of this is that instead of just doing a second raffle with the left over tickets for account holders, they just FFA the tickets so now those people had to deal with more rng but now with scalpers and bots.
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03-17-2023, 06:14 AMRamirenThe irony is, they booked the biggest event venue in the UK, but only a small part of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahlnir
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03-17-2023, 06:15 AMVahlnirThat's...even more confusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramiren
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03-17-2023, 01:34 PMrainichanThey did the same here for NA, but they're also sharing the space that weekend. Are there any other events going on there the same weekend? Because that would limit how much room they have available to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramiren
As for why they did this lotto style: here's the 2018 ticket issue that they actually apologized for, in English, on a Japanese-only Live Letter. It was bad that year. tl;dr for those that don't want to read through that thread (and I don't blame you): ShowClix messed up after ticket sales opened and had no line system like they were supposed to, nor did it have the hard stop of 4 tickets per sale when they decided to fix it while ticket sales were live instead of... pausing, throwing everyone back in line, and making it fair for everyone. If you refreshed the site you could just skip the line and buy as many tickets as you wanted, and within 10-15 minutes of the sales opening, they were gone. A lot of people were incredibly angry for people gaming the system so badly, on the next JP-only LL between the ticket sales and NA FanFest, they apologized in English to their NA playerbase.
Contrast to 2016 sales (which I went to), tickets didn't sell out until about 8 hours after they went on sale - they went on sale at 1pm, and the notice that they sold out hit at about 9pm that night.
It seems there were issues for the ~2000 tickets that 2014 Fanfest had, with the site having errors and similar to 2018 things happening. The only difference was they pulled the site down to fix it and had tickets left. They didn't bother to do that for 2018. Out of all of the years I've tried now (2016, 2018, and now this year) the 2018 one was truly the worst.
But for as much as things change, all things stay the same, because there was heavy complaints on all years over this same thing lol. -
03-17-2023, 05:14 PMYeol
NA/EU ticket situation looks very bad. Seems like JP won’t be any different. I really want to attend the JP one.
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06-14-2023, 10:39 AMKonstanza
Is this thread still open. I just want to know if you can change the name on ticket for your extra person. My person flaked and Im forced to try and bring someone else or can I just bring someone else will they ID the person you bring? I don't wanna go alone I have bad anxiety
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06-14-2023, 11:23 AMCidHeiral
That brings up a good question. If someone ends up not being able to go, does the ticket just go to waste since there's no reseller option like some other sites?
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06-14-2023, 01:00 PMrainichanNo. There was a period where you could, but that passed back in the middle of April. All names are now locked in and you cannot change them. I got this email from the vendor in April, you likely did too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Konstanza
https://i.imgur.com/H0v74uf.png
God the preview is such potato quality, right click -> open in a new tab because the thumbnail is bad, sorry.