Valentines day event fail

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

And the story was mildly amusing (at least the WoL's helpless smile and shrug at the end).

It's something they did, maybe tried it out as an experiment for future reference.
Now they know how easily player votes may be swayed very one-sided depending on presentation of the event / choices, and will maybe do better if something similar comes up in the future.

What happened to Ywain at the end of Astrid's quest and Lisette laughing it off and calling it a giant success was amusing?

With their track record I have zero confidence they would ever implement something like this and not screw it up, so I for one hope they never do majority voting for anything ever again. And if they do, keep it client-side. You vote for this, this happens for you. Would have prevented this whole debacle from happening in the first place. Especially when it was so painfully obvious one of them would garner all the votes.

And may the other two storylines, nobody will be able to ever experience ingame, rest in peace.

[Chyro]

What happened to Ywain at the end of Astrid's quest and Lisette laughing it off and calling it a giant success was amusing?

Mildly amusing, yeah. How he got dragged off by a bossy researcher and then the WoL's reaction to it. Didn't really care for the dialogue afterwards with Lisette, didn't seem interesting to me.

I'll never know how the other two quest lines would go, but even if I had tried to decide by 'best outcome' based on what the characters suggest to try - it's a (three-sided) coin flip either way.
Any of the three options could have led to finding a proper love interest for Ywain. Any of the three options could have turned out horribly wrong.
What if the person that came to the carpenters guild as a client hadn't been a bossy researcher, but the love of his life? Love isn't something that has a predetermined path on which it will be certain to happen.
Heck, even the bossy researcher may actually come to fall in love with Ywain if the stars align and they actually get to know each other.

Players are people. People have different things they value and enjoy. And many players when they go into an event care more about the thing they will keep after the event ends rather than which dialogue / cutscenes happen.
Also a lot of players go the 'way of least resistance' - I don't think it's a majority that go to look up the details of what the choice means, if the outfit is dyeable etc. And even if realizing its dyeable, it's still easier to just pick up the one in the color you like if its available.
The outcome is more or less inevitable, if looking at how most people vote. Most may not even be aware that it 'is' a vote.

If the developers wanted the choices to be more balanced, a simple solution (reward-wise) would be that any of them give the same outfit - in white, but with some dye bottles in the respective color as an addition depending on the choice.
This makes it 'click' to even a non-informed player that no matter the choice, they do get the outfit they want and can make it whatever color they wish.
Can be argued that they'd also have to change the third choice to not be so different from the others as a NPC (Astrid), though I think that could stay the way it is - still means its the player's choice which NPC to go with, unaffected by possible rewards.
(would possibly still end up with the same vote results then though)

[Beardo04]

It's funny because I find hitting on your clients a wack idea. She didn't won because of her idea imo

[Duskane]

the other two had no chance against the female child with the most popular color combination in the world

[Alleo]

Its not really a surprise that she won seeing how she was the only girl, wearing red and we already knew her..I am just disappointed that SE did not have the foresight again for this..(even worse since she imo has the worst piece of advice...dating clients can go wrong so fast..)

Why not just give us one outfit (maybe in pure white) that we can dye and Lisette just gives us the three piece of advice without any hint who it was that said it. That way people might just vote for the advice they like.

Edit:

It would have also been a great way to end it, if they all worked together instead of just using that one advice. (Okay other than Astrid because I found her advice bad no matter what) If you first start out and find yourself and know what you want, you can afterwards also choose a hobby that you truly like.

[Brynne]

It would have also been a great way to end it, if they all worked together instead of just using that one advice. (Okay other than Astrid because I found her advice bad no matter what) If you first start out and find yourself and know what you want, you can afterwards also choose a hobby that you truly like.

That's the way I thought it was going to end, like yeah decorations change color depending on who you get, but the three end up having to work together so the questlines converge very quickly with only a little bit of variance in the beginning. And then Lisette takes all three on as proteges and they will have to work together. Which would set us up for having the same event on every server next year regardless of who got the popular vote.

Idk how they were going to set up next year's event if there were different results on different servers. New NPCs entirely? That's why I figured the outcome would be roughly the same regardless of the winner, but I guess not. Oh well.

[TheUltimate3]

Meanwhile when I point out that Ywain may be in more trouble than he bargained for, she pointed that perhaps Ywain is a man who likes being a Pen-Picked Husband and we shouldn't really worry about it while her husband Hortefense gives a happy thumbs up in the background.

Not gonna lie, I laughed.

[Niyuka]

I think you are all going far too indepth on this. The 90% of players dont read quest texts, or watch cutscenes. Nobody I knows cares for "story". They either randomly pick the first option available to get to the rewards ASAP, or pick the female option. If given the choice of 2 female options, they take the blonde/pretty one. Goes for girls AND guys in both my guilds.

Hitting on your clients, while being on the way out in RL, is something a lot of people would actually like if they could do it. Its a common fantasy/wish, just that the reality of it doesnt work out so we have to create this newish taboo around it. But almost all romantic ideas of todays concept of love are deeply problematic. Doesnt mean people dont desire them.

[Wissp]

I think you are all going far too indepth on this. The 90% of players dont read quest texts, or watch cutscenes. Nobody I knows cares for "story". They either randomly pick the first option available to get to the rewards ASAP, or pick the female option. If given the choice of 2 female options, they take the blonde/pretty one. Goes for girls AND guys in both my guilds.

Hitting on your clients, while being on the way out in RL, is something a lot of people would actually like if they could do it. Its a common fantasy/wish, just that the reality of it doesnt work out so we have to create this newish taboo around it. But almost all romantic ideas of todays concept of love are deeply problematic. Doesnt mean people dont desire them.

Oh come on, 90%? I don't believe that for a second. Yes, lets play a STORY based MMORPG and totally IGNORE the main reason this game exists. I do know people who do that, but I think it's more in the 20/30 percent range.

As for the whole work romance fantasy.....No, just no. Sure it's a common fictional romance theme for various media, but I would like to think people aren't stupid enough to consider it. Even if it was not so taboo and was allowed, it's simply not a good idea to pursue romance in an environment which you frequent often whether it be work or otherwise. If things go south in the romance attempt, that environment can be a rather uncomfortable place to be at.

As for the whole Astrid thing, it's as others said: female, familiar character, and red outfit. Those 3 things combined guaranteed her the win. The bad job idea barely had any effect on her voting.

[Niyuka]

Oh come on, 90%? I don't believe that for a second. Yes, lets play a STORY based MMORPG and totally IGNORE the main reason this game exists. I do know people who do that, but I think it's more in the 20/30 percent range.

As for the whole work romance fantasy.....No, just no. Sure it's a common fictional romance theme for various media, but I would like to think people aren't stupid enough to consider it. Even if it was not so taboo and was allowed, it's simply not a good idea to pursue romance in an environment which you frequent often whether it be work or otherwise. If things go south in the romance attempt, that environment can be a rather uncomfortable place to be at.

As for the whole Astrid thing, it's as others said: female, familiar character, and red outfit. Those 3 things combined guaranteed her the win. The bad job idea barely had any effect on her voting.

I ve been running a large RL office and now my own company for years. Workplace romance is frequent. Workplace romance is normal, because romance happens where people meet, and doesnt care about the surroundings. The Fallout , inevitably, is a pain to manage, but that hasnt deterred anyone yet. Its one of those areas where I believe trying to taboo it is fighting windmills, but we will see.

90% is probably wrong. I would put money on 70% though - the MSQ is not an indicator at all, because its the only story that people sometimes consider interesting (and even then my guildmates and linkshells mostly consist of people skipping and watching the cutscenes on YouTube to preserve limited game time, while they can watch them on their daily commute, travels or whatnot. You STRONGLY overestimate how many people play a PvE raiding/theme park MMO for the story, and this is a dainty little event about a "holiday" tons of people find extremely pointless and annoying because its really just a consumer excuse and fully artificial - so yeah, for everyone who made a choice, there are easily 5 who just picked the most convenient option - hence every single server deciding in favor of exactly that behaviour.

I mean it really doesnt matter, but this is not the first time we have seen that majority behaviour is FAR FAR different than story-loving RPG player behaviour.

Also, rewards. In MMOs, its about rewards, and Red is the universally accepted color of the love/roses/heart theme.