Secret Santa Discussion 2010

[Sliver]

This thread will be for all general questions and discussion relating to Secret Santa 2010. It will be the same as last year- you will be randomly paired with another HL2netter, each of you will look at the others wishlist and decide what to purchase for them.

Check out the sign up thread for all purchasing guidelines and to officially sign up to be in Secret Santa 2010. Remember that there is a minimum $10 for the gift you will purchase, and you must have an updated wishlist to participate.

Please post and questions or concerns you have in this thread!

Secret Santa Buying Guide: http://www.halflife2.net/secret-santa-gift-buying-guide/

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People who have sent their gifts:

Eejit
Dekstar
Shamrock
Rizzo
dfc05
Acepilot14
Krynn72
DEATH eVADER
Vegeta897
dabomb29
morgs
CyberPitz
Ren.182
DigiQ8
Mellish
Escape
Tyguy
Sloth
Sheepo
Bad^Hat
DEATHMASTER
Bob_Marley
Nicky0123
RJMC
Dinnesch
kupocake
Higlac
Shakermaker

 

[Escaep]

Am I a trusted member?

 

[ríomhaire]

And yet another year I am too broke to do this.

 

[kineaesth]

Am I a trusted member?

If you have to ask...

 

[Escaep]

If you have to ask...

Just going by what this says:

This is only for veteran and trusted members of HL2.net, everyone who participated last year can join in. Anyone who isn't sure, can post in the discussion thread, we will confirm if you can sign up in this thread.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

You can indeed join Escape and in part with my trust in you I will fix your username too.

 

[taviow]

I might even join, if I manage to get back online by the 17th.

Note that I'm not certain at all.

 

[No Limit]

I'm guessing since this is a secret santa deal our personal information will be kept totally hidden? If so I'm down.

 

[taviow]

There is no need to divulge personal information.

 

[Ren.182]

I understand you just receive the wishlist of the person you'll be buying a game for, you then send Glenn the gift code and he'll send them all on to everyone. They won't know who bought it for them. Unless you tell them of course.

 

[Dekstar]

I really enjoyed last year. I'm totally up for doing it again.
Also my wishlist says NFS: Shift, but my laptop is too shit to play it. I only added it on there for when I eventually get a good laptop (I bought Metro 2033 for the same reason).

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I also added Witcher 2 and probably won't be capable of playing that for a good long time. I really want Dragon Age though, I provided the lower costing one too since I know $50 is quite extreme (unless you're feeling generous enough ).

 

[MJ12]

I would be down with this if we simply waited for the Steam Holiday sale to do the buying.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

That would probably help our wallets.

 

[Stigmata]

I'm down for the sale gifting.

 

[MJ12]

It would be much smarter, let's face it, most of the games on our wishlist are probably 30-50 dollars each. Sorry kids, but most of you are not worth 30-50 dollars to me.

If we can wait like.... a week, at most, longer to buy our presents, then we would save a crap load of money, and possibly be able to buy things for people that are on their actual wishlist.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

I'd totally agree to this again. I can do that. I'll edit my wishlist when I get home.

 

[StarBob]

Normally I'd be all for this but money is a little tight thanks to a series of events. It sucks when you think you have money to buy something but then random necessary expenses come from nowhere just after you purchase it...

 

[morgs]

I added a few 9.99 games to my list to make it easier for people, but if there IS a sale on I'd prefer the 20-30 dollar games if they are brought down.

 

[CptStern]

It would be much smarter, let's face it, most of the games on our wishlist are probably 30-50 dollars each. Sorry kids, but most of you are not worth 30-50 dollars to me.

I work with people I see on a daily basis (some even outside of work) for almost 8 years and our secret santa has a limit of $20 and you're encouraged to spend less.

>$5 is overboard for people you only know from text on a website (obviously this is not the caser for everyone but you dont get to choose who you're buying for). I suspect the motivating factor for people to ask for something in the $20-50 range is that they dont want to get a shitty present instead of thinking of what they could give other people.

why couldnt people gift Evil Genius or Chime or World of Goo; those games are usually < $5. they're good games.

maximum should be <$10 (not that I would participate but it would make it easier for other people to participate)


to top it off most of you are students who couldnt afford a pack of gum

 

[Shakermaker]

I am in again and I am also in favor the Steam sale plan.

 

[Escaep]

If I do participate I only have a max of about $20. Can't swing spending $50 plus having to buy presents for my family. As Stern said, I'm a student and i haz no monies.

 

[Krynn72]

It would be much smarter, let's face it, most of the games on our wishlist are probably 30-50 dollars each. Sorry kids, but most of you are not worth 30-50 dollars to me.

If we can wait like.... a week, at most, longer to buy our presents, then we would save a crap load of money, and possibly be able to buy things for people that are on their actual wishlist.

What do you mean? You dont even get your assigned person until the 17th. If theres no big steam sale by then, theres no big steam sale coming most likely.

 

[StarBob]

I work with people I see on a daily basis (some even outside of work) for almost 8 years and our secret santa has a limit of $20 and you're encouraged to spend less.

>$5 is overboard for people you only know from text on a website (obviously this is not the caser for everyone but you dont get to choose who you're buying for). I suspect the motivating factor for people to ask for something in the $20-50 range is that they dont want to get a shitty present instead of thinking of what they could give other people.

why couldnt people gift Evil Genius or Chime or World of Goo; those games are usually < $5. they're good games.

maximum should be <$10 (not that I would participate but it would make it easier for other people to participate)


to top it off most of you are students who couldnt afford a pack of gum

Not to mention a lot of <$10 are overlooked indie games that end up being awesome. I'd say <$20 covers just about every Indie game. I'd be more inclined to participate if that was the situation... but I don't think it will be so it's not a big deal.

 

[CptStern]

and people wouldnt feel pressured to buy an expensive game just so they wont be seen as cheap

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Seen? It's anon. Well except to Glenn.

 

[Stigmata]

On top of it being anonymous, you should add games of varying prices. I'll probably be gifted The Polynomial or Super Meat Boy, but if the right sale comes around I might get Amnesia, Bad Company 2, or even Arma2. So it's also a little like gambling, and what's Christmas without a little gambling?

 

[Krynn72]

This image in the walkthrough should have big red text saying DO NOT CLICK THIS. As it is, the tiny little paragraph above the image just has some only slightly discernible bold text saying not to click it.

 

[Rizzo]

Heh, right now I just copied your wishlists to be able to join in. I need to have a better look tomorrow I think.

 

[MJ12]

What do you mean? You dont even get your assigned person until the 17th. If theres no big steam sale by then, theres no big steam sale coming most likely.

You're a crazy dude, you keep talking about how there is going to be no steam sale. There will be a steam sale, and if I recall, it started the 23rd last year. Also, weren't you the guy who said he missed out on last year's sale? The same crap happened last Christmas where everyone bought their steam gifts prior to the sale so that everyone could get their gifts by Christmas day. But if everyone can suck it up and get their gift a few days later, we'll all have to spend less.

 

[Ren.182]

I'm up for waiting for the sale. Nothing bad can come from saving money, and you'll probably get a more expensive game as your gift

 

[Krynn72]

You're a crazy dude, you keep talking about how there is going to be no steam sale. There will be a steam sale, and if I recall, it started the 23rd last year. Also, weren't you the guy who said he missed out on last year's sale? The same crap happened last Christmas where everyone bought their steam gifts prior to the sale so that everyone could get their gifts by Christmas day. But if everyone can suck it up and get their gift a few days later, we'll all have to spend less.

I already explained this damnit. I didn't miss last year's, I remember it quite well. But one of the years before that, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a big sale in December. But if the sale last year started on the 23rd, then ok, theres a chance it will happen again. I just didn't think it would have started so late (honestly, I have no concept of time, so I wouldn't have remembered when it started last year). But last year, was there another big event steam had before the proper sale, like this sweepstakes thing?

EDIT: Yeah, 2008's sale started after Christmas. Thats probably why I was disappointed.

At any rate, I agree with you. I think we should probably give it a couple days past Christmas day for people to buy stuff on sale without worrying about being late.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

>$5 is overboard for people you only know from text on a website (obviously this is not the caser for everyone but you dont get to choose who you're buying for). I suspect the motivating factor for people to ask for something in the $20-50 range is that they dont want to get a shitty present instead of thinking of what they could give other people.

why couldnt people gift Evil Genius or Chime or World of Goo; those games are usually < $5. they're good games.

maximum should be <$10 (not that I would participate but it would make it easier for other people to participate)


to top it off most of you are students who couldnt afford a pack of gum

People buy what they can afford, $10 being the minimum opens up a much larger pool of games. <$5 is limited and I agree there are lots of good $5 indie games. Last year people bought 2 indie games equalling $10. It seemed to be popular last year when we had 30 people involved! There is no price cap because occasionally your SS may be a good friend and want to buy you something specifically. Yet again, common sense...most people will use the $10 ballpark figure and buy sensibly.

This image in the walkthrough should have big red text saying DO NOT CLICK THIS. As it is, the tiny little paragraph above the image just has some only slightly discernible bold text saying not to click it.

Done that for you!

You're a crazy dude, you keep talking about how there is going to be no steam sale. There will be a steam sale, and if I recall, it started the 23rd last year. Also, weren't you the guy who said he missed out on last year's sale? The same crap happened last Christmas where everyone bought their steam gifts prior to the sale so that everyone could get their gifts by Christmas day. But if everyone can suck it up and get their gift a few days later, we'll all have to spend less.

Last year I think I gave gifts out just before xmas, it was a long old job. If there is a general consensus that people would be happy with getting their gift after xmas in order to wait for the Steam sales then I'd be happy to adjust to that.

Potential date format:

17th Dec - Closure of sign ups & Secret Santas picked
27th Dec - Final deadline for sending Steam gift to me
28th-29th Dec - Sending gifts

That gives 10 days of opportunity to buy your gift, with the assumption the Steam Sale will be just before xmas or over xmas. Most people won't be around on the 25th so you have 2 further days to buy.

We can't keep waiting for the Steam sale forever & I can't mess the dates around too much since this requires a lot of admin and I need the time.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

How long did the last xmas sales last?

 

[Bad^Hat]

I'm down with waiting for the sale. Aside from saving money, it could mean certain people get several games from their wishlists instead of just one. I'm sure people won't mind waiting a few days if it means we get to gift/receive more.

 

[Krynn72]

Perhaps a poll should be added to the thread to see if most people are ok with pushing the gift reception back a few days. I quite like Glenn's proposed timeline.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Who wouldn't be. It can only benefit everyone.

 

[MJ12]

17th Dec - Closure of sign ups & Secret Santas picked
27th Dec - Final deadline for sending Steam gift to me
28th-29th Dec - Sending gifts

That gives 10 days of opportunity to buy your gift, with the assumption the Steam Sale will be just before xmas or over xmas. Most people won't be around on the 25th so you have 2 further days to buy.

I think you should allow the 29th-31st to be the last day to give you the gifts depending on how late the sale starts.

We can't keep waiting for the Steam sale forever & I can't mess the dates around too much since this requires a lot of admin and I need the time.

Pff, what, do you not have a job or something? Just let me handle the gifts, I'll get around to giving them out somewhere in June, if I remember.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Yeah I don't see the particular rush.

 

[Dekstar]

Let it be known that one lucky Santee will be getting a copy of SAW: The Game, along with their normal gift :E.