Daria

Unfortunately, one cannot assume that a person is alright with their pet having a sprout if they’ve gone inactive. Unless you asked before they went inactive than my suggestion is to select another geness or find other means. If you’re rather attached to the idea of getting a sprout, you can purchase a loneshroom and remove your pet from the geness to find another. They sell them in the fungimental magic store.

You can also select a semi-custom for your winnings instead of a sprout. That way does not require you to have a geness to enter at all.

You will be able to purchase raffle tickets starting on February 14th at 12:00 ST, and the raffle will be pulled on February 21st at 12:00 ST.

Re-emphasizing this because it’s the first time we’re doing this: the ticket shop will open and the final drawing will occur at noon server time (instead of midnight server time)!

That sounds like a cute idea! I’m not sure how exactly it’d work with regards to scheduling and such, but having sprouts with a carving date of Feb 14 would be nice. Definitely something we can consider :)

glitch

I think your counterpoint is fair to consider.
Personally, the odds on this site has blessed me. I’ve been active on other sites before this one with RNG aspects of the game and have won absolutely nothing. In the same vein, I didn’t have an official date until I was a senior in high school, so I grew up watching a lot of my friends go through many people, getting gifts, all that stuff during this time of year. (In the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a huge deal, but I think most can remember how agonizing this could be in middle/high school.)

I’m happy for my friends, but I think at the same time it’s very tiresome. Sometime you feel more or less of this happiness for said friend depending on how other aspects of your life is going. I imagine with each passing year you either grow more wearisome and/or let the bitterness creep in if your goal was to find someone… or in this case get a sprout? I’m not one to directly blame the person that receives good things, but naturally some people do.

But I digress. I’m not sure if having sprouts delivered on that specific day would change those types of feelings since the raffle is still held around the same time frame. Everyone knows those sprouts are a product of valentine’s day. I honestly believe for those able to collect/buy PP, having the sprout queue has lessened this underground animosity, because it’s a tangible objective. I think if new year winter activities and art are squared away it would be welcomed to do another coat like the Essence of Love in 2015? I found this to be a particularly exciting experience — especially for some people who never owned a sprout — to be directly hands on with the growing process. Though it isn’t *exactly* like receiving a sprout of your own, the driftable coat gave enough variety to make it feel more unique. That’s my thoughts on this, anyway.

glitch
Honestly, I always do that for each raffle. I’ve got an Excel sheet that has the recurring formula in it. I simply set it to the number of rows (tickets) that are available to get per person (in this case, 35), and sum it up at the bottom, or sum individual chunks for smaller amounts.

I think if new year winter activities and art are squared away it would be welcomed to do another coat like the Essence of Love in 2015?@lycan

That’s a great point! We did run into some issues with the Essence of Love project, but I think all of them have a solution we can explore (especially considering some plans we have in the works). As I recall, the Essence of Love was almost universally appreciated and enjoyed, so it’s well within the realm of possibility to do something like that again :)

I personally like the idea of having the sprout raffle on or drawn on the 14th. I understand that some people like carve dates but there are petrified shrooms for that. I’d be pretty sad to not participate in anything on the 14th and just elongate the celebration of those who got sprouts.

Alternatively, the sprout raffle could be drawn on the 14th and given that carve date right? Programming and stuff?

I do hope that there will be another Sprouty coat like the EOL since I’ve never experienced a sprout myself (I bought my EOL as a pet). So many possibilities.

I wasn’t here for the EoL but I’ve watched the goings on and have been sad it wasnt repeated.  I agree, it seemed to have been such a fun idea, especially as there were so many different colours available. 

I live in hope that there may be a future Dog or Fox Ineki sprout in the same vein c=

I think I broke the raffle-
I’ve tried to select a geness a few times, but it still says: “You currently do not have a geness selected:
If your ticket is drawn, you will win a Semi-Custom.”, yet I still get the green notification: “You have selected a geness, and so will receive a sprout if you win!”. ; A ;

Glitch has been poked about the sprout selection error. :) Hopefully it’ll be fixed soon!

Dammit, Myla.

...is it terrible of me to admit that I discovered that the error was fixed by the fact I’ve been compulsively trying to select a geness every minute or so until it stuck rather than this annoucement? *coughs* e.e;

(Also, thanks so much glitch for fixing it!)

Congrats to all the winners! I can’t wait to see all your pets!

I have to say though… I’ve seen MC staff win items/pets in a number of raffles. This one, the little raffle in January, the December raffle, the November raffle, the September raffle, the July raffle… The most recent raffle (and the only one I can find in the past year) where staff has not won was May last year, unless I’m not recognizing some of those names. But go back further and there’s the April-May raffle, the Winter Holiday raffle, and even the last February sprout raffle have staff winners.

I guess I’m just wondering why staff can consistently enter and win these raffles. I understand that they play the game too, but each raffle I’m left wondering if a staff memver will be picked, and they usually are. It leaves me feeling a little sour, maybe because it feels like one of the raffle runners has won in their own raffle. I know it’s just luck, but it does feel a little unfair.

Vely

At the present moment we have no plans to restrict staff entries in raffles. As staff invest the same time and resources into raffles as other players we do not see reason to do so. Raffles are completely random and if someone is drawn repeatedly, whether it is a user or a staff member, it is completely a matter of chance.

We respect that people may have mixed feelings on this matter; however, we do not feel it is in the best interests of our website to impose restrictions on anyone for being lucky.

Dash

I hope I didn’t give the wrong impression! I don’t think restrictions should be imposed for being lucky at all, and I know it’s all chance.

I guess I just wanted to express those mixed feelings regarding staff being able to enter and win raffles.