Kung Fu Tea Promotion [Merged]

[jeweledleah.2840]

so i never got to get the code from the promotion before they paused it. connected my facebook to the app, finally, but I can't seem to get the codes mailed to me? so I figured - I'm going to try Instagram then. except.. my instagram is tied to my facebook (as in I log into it using facebook login rather then its own credentials), and when I log in using facebook it tells me that this account was registered to another user??? what the bloody hell??? I just.. am at my wit's end :/ how in a world do I make it give me the codes? (oh and my facebook profile does show in the app, but on a page for connected social media - all 3 possible accounts are in off position and nothing I tried seems to move that little tab to on. please don't tell me I'd have to create twitter account after very successfully avoiding it for YEARS.

[Urud.4925]

Well, I play from EU and I'm not a smartphone-savvy (in fact, I received one as gift but never used). I created 2 fb accounts (fake, as I don't use it), KFT account, downloaded their app, Google account, downloaded 2 app to change my GPS location and 2 app to create a VPN, registered to all of them (with 1 email account, fake ofc). It didn't work... I still see only the Deluxe version, despite my location seems set to... somewhere near Dallas.. yeah.

I hate typing on those slow devices with a small screen (and I didn't want to install any emulator on my PC), so I gave up (I won't even bother to delete/unlink my fake accounts). I don't care about the skin (I wouldn't have worn it in any case). I hoped for a new core account, but I'll look at the bright side: if my friends want to try GW2, the free account is good enough, and about me... I won't start to log-in with 2 accounts everyday, playing the game like a farmer.I'm just curious to see if the price of the mystic coins will drop now (I don't even know how much it is atm. Gotta check. Going to check, I'm not from Dallas anymore).

[Blanche Neige.7241]

@"Miss Lana.5276" said:And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players STILL going to be left out?

To cover almost every one, they would have to make a partnership with a very big company like Coca-Cola, Pepsi or McDo. But I doubt they would be interested in a partnership with a small gaming company like Anet. They would have nothing to gain from it.

Even a partnership with a mostly canadian only company like Tim Hortons is highly improbable. TH is so much bigger than Anet. I don't see them adding a "you won a free GW2 virtual T-Shirt" in their "Roll Up the Rim to Win" annual campaign.

If other partnerships are to happen again, I think they will be mostly with smaller local partners like KFT.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

Can we get a way to convert the influence that came with the Kung Fu Tea promotion? The least amount we can convert is 10,000.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't think that will happen. It's just a hold-over from the old Heroic Edition. (And that edition is the only code that will activate a Core-only game.)

[Shikigami.4013]

The amount of favor you would get is pitiful at most. Even if you had 10000 to exchange, the guild would merely get 50 favor which is 1/6 of an easy guild mission. So you really don't miss much if the guild won't exceed the 10000 mark.

[Lost Dimension.9014]

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:@Gaile Gray.6029For my suggestion who to partner up with, how about Five Guys? Maybe with Starbucks or Domino's Pizza?

And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

How about you suggest one? Besides, I am not listing those that are exclusive to US-only, do a google search, US is not the only one that has those. I am not even from the US.

Edit: Besides, I think it is better they do regions at a time. One event for North America, one event for Europe, etc.

[Linken.6345]

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:@Gaile Gray.6029For my suggestion who to partner up with, how about Five Guys? Maybe with Starbucks or Domino's Pizza?

And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

How about you suggest one? Besides, I am not listing those that are exclusive to US-only, do a google search, US is not the only one that has those. I am not even from the US.

Edit: Besides, I think it is better they do regions at a time. One event for North America, one event for Europe, etc.

So Europe, then canada then australia are owed how many events each now 4-5 before usa get another one?

[Alimar.8760]

I'm not sure if this has been asked yet. According to the Kung Fu Tea page. It says all promotion DLC codes need to be used by the end of the month. I was hoping to save 1 or 2 of my codes for gifts later on to other players. Does this mean they'll be invalidated if not used?

[Danikat.8537]

@Alimar.8760 said:I'm not sure if this has been asked yet. According to the Kung Fu Tea page. It says all promotion DLC codes need to be used by the end of the month. I was hoping to save 1 or 2 of my codes for gifts later on to other players. Does this mean they'll be invalidated if not used?

They're valid until the end of October. But yes, it means any codes not used by that date will be disabled. Presumably to stop people obtaining codes, holding onto them for a while and then selling them for even more than people are currently charging.

(Interestingly the KFT blog post now also says that anyone using a VPN or signing up using fake social media accounts will have their social media account shut down due to suspicious activity, but it doesn't say anything about preventing you from participating in the promotion. I wonder if they've given up on actually restricting it and resorted to warnings that someone else might actually do something about it because they clearly can't get it to work as they want.)

[Alimar.8760]

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:(Interestingly the KFT blog post now also says that anyone using a VPN or signing up using fake social media accounts will have their

social media account

shut down due to suspicious activity, but it doesn't say anything about preventing you from participating in the promotion. I wonder if they've given up on actually restricting it and resorted to warnings that someone else might actually do something about it because they clearly can't get it to work as they want.)

I mean, if the account is fake, and the code has been used then wouldn't that mean that it doesn't hurt them at all? I don't know how they'd get facebook to cooperate on this.

[schokelmei.8271]

That's why it was all translated in languages not spoken in the US, right? Why shouldn't I feel like a second class customer, when promotions like that aren't for the whole playerbase? Sorry, it's 2018 and if you have a game where 80% of your customers isn't from a certain country, you shouldn't limit content to 20% of your customers.Excluding people is just terrible. Either you make it available to everyone or you just don't do it.It got even worse after a lot of the keys got donated by people who get 10+ of them due bugs. Instead of ending that promotion, because the partner KFT wasn't able to provide a working client and make the rewards available for players that play this game for years, they ignored the majority of them.There wasn't a single helpful post from Anet until around the 20st. And even than it was "check Kung Fu Tea" like Anet has nothing to do with that promotion.

I just feel cheated as a customer by a) complete silence from Anet's side, b) making a promotion for some players only and c) not even trying to adress the critique from the playerbase that has been left out

And that's the same way Anet deals with WvW for years now. You get a "we work on something awesome, trust us" and after that there is silence for month or even a year until another "we are still on it, but we have nothing to show you - post" is on the forums. Sorry, no, been there, done that.

[Mrs Lana.2506]

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:@Gaile Gray.6029For my suggestion who to partner up with, how about Five Guys? Maybe with Starbucks or Domino's Pizza?

And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

How about you suggest one? Besides, I am not listing those that are exclusive to US-only, do a google search, US is not the only one that has those. I am not even from the US.

Edit: Besides, I think it is better they do regions at a time. One event for North America, one event for Europe, etc.

So you'd prefer to restrict it to people who have access to locations with those stores, and leaving out anyone who refuses to drive 4+ hours for a promotion? Sure, they may have stores in more than one location, but what about those who don't have those stores? Are you going to leave those out? What would you do to make up for that?

There's no way that partnering with anyone will appease everyone. What will appease me is the devs finally addressing and fixing the issue that they keep neglecting those of us who aren't in the US. Instead of suggesting a partnership with a company that will inevitably leave me out for some arbitrary reason I'd much prefer Anet finally come out and make a proper statement about it. I'm not suggesting shit until I know I'll be included.

And as someone else above has mentioned, will they make up for all the competitions and promotions that non-US players have missed out on?

IMO if you have an international audience, you should either run a promotion that includes ALL OF THEM or NONE OF THEM, instead of leaving out a massive portion of your audience over and over and over and over and over.

[Zushada.6108]

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@"Miss Lana.5276" said:And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

To cover almost every one, they would have to make a partnership with a very big company like Coca-Cola, Pepsi or McDo. But I doubt they would be interested in a partnership with a small gaming company like Anet. They would have nothing to gain from it.

Even a partnership with a mostly canadian only company like Tim Hortons is highly improbable. TH is so much bigger than Anet. I don't see them adding a "you won a free GW2 virtual T-Shirt" in their "Roll Up the Rim to Win" annual campaign.

If other partnerships are to happen again, I think they will be mostly with smaller local partners like KFT.

I think it is highly unlikely it would be bundled with roll up the rim. But we do have kung fu tea in Canada which is fundamentally why I am irritated witj the USA approach.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:@Gaile Gray.6029For my suggestion who to partner up with, how about Five Guys? Maybe with Starbucks or Domino's Pizza?

And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

How about you suggest one? Besides, I am not listing those that are exclusive to US-only, do a google search, US is not the only one that has those. I am not even from the US.

Edit: Besides, I think it is better they do regions at a time. One event for North America, one event for Europe, etc.

So you'd prefer to restrict it to people who have access to locations with those stores, and leaving out anyone who refuses to drive 4+ hours for a promotion? Sure, they may have stores in more than one location, but what about those who

don't

have those stores? Are you going to leave those out? What would you do to make up for that?

There's no way that partnering with anyone will appease everyone. What will appease me is the devs finally addressing and

fixing

the issue that they keep neglecting those of us who aren't in the US. Instead of suggesting a partnership with a company that will inevitably leave me out for some arbitrary reason I'd much prefer Anet finally come out and make a

proper

statement about it. I'm not suggesting kitten until I

know

I'll be included.

And as someone else above has mentioned, will they make up for all the competitions and promotions that non-US players have missed out on?

IMO if you have an international audience, you should either run a promotion that includes

ALL OF THEM

or

NONE OF THEM

, instead of leaving out a massive portion of your audience over and over and over and over and over.

It is not an arbitrary decision. This promotion was more about kung fu tea than it was about guild wars, the way it was structured was clearly KFT hosting the promotion with anet just providing the goods. It is not beyond reason for them to limit the promotion to people who live in the region that the company hosting the promotion does business in.

Regional promotions are a standard thing. It's not unusual or uncommon. It is done all the time by nearly every company. Some companies, like gamefreak, have the connections and influence to do multiple promotions in order to have them reach more regions. And even gamefreak still has more events in Japan than in other regions. Anet is not gamefreak, they do not have the influence to attract companies for promotions on an international level.

Does it suck when there's something cool happening but you aren't in the region it is happening in? Yes.Would it be awesome if they found someone to partner with to bring the promotion to more regions? Yes.Are you arbitrarily being left out? No.

[Danikat.8537]

@Alimar.8760 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:(Interestingly the KFT blog post now also says that anyone using a VPN or signing up using fake social media accounts will have their

social media account

shut down due to suspicious activity, but it doesn't say anything about preventing you from participating in the promotion. I wonder if they've given up on actually restricting it and resorted to warnings that someone else might actually do something about it because they clearly can't get it to work as they want.)

I mean, if the account is fake, and the code has been used then wouldn't that mean that it doesn't hurt them at all? I don't know how they'd get facebook to cooperate on this.

The way I read it is KFT can't or won't do anything about it themselves but they're aware social media sites have processes in place to find and ban fake accounts and they're assuming ones used for this promotion will be picked up in that, and hoping a warning about it will scare some people off trying.

[Mrs Lana.2506]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:It is not beyond reason for them to limit the promotion to people who live in the region that the company hosting the promotion does business in.

They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously do have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

[Blanche Neige.7241]

@Miss Lana.5276 said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously do have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:I'm not sure if this has been asked yet. According to the Kung Fu Tea page. It says all promotion DLC codes need to be used by the end of the month. I was hoping to save 1 or 2 of my codes for gifts later on to other players. Does this mean they'll be invalidated if not used?

They're valid until the end of October. But yes, it means any codes not used by that date will be disabled. Presumably to stop people obtaining codes, holding onto them for a while and then selling them for even more than people are currently charging.

(Interestingly the KFT blog post now also says that anyone using a VPN or signing up using fake social media accounts will have their

social media account

shut down due to suspicious activity, but it doesn't say anything about preventing you from participating in the promotion. I wonder if they've given up on actually restricting it and resorted to warnings that someone else might actually do something about it because they clearly can't get it to work as they want.)

***PARTICIPANTS SIGNING UP WITH FAKE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS WILL BE SHUT DOWN BY SOCIAL MEDIA SITES DUE TO SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY.

Well, they're technically correct (the best kind of correct ;D ). Social media sites are on a constant hunt for fake accounts and shut them down on a regular basis. Some even have algorythms that can detect most fake accounts within minutes of them being created.

KFT however has no say in which accounts get closed and the social media sites aren't closing accounts on KFT's behest.

***PARTICIPANTS USING VPNS OR MANUALLY CHANGING THEIR IP/LOCATION ARE BEING DETECTED BY SOCIAL MEDIA SITES AND WILL RECEIVE WARNINGS OF UNUSUAL BEHAVIOR FROM THESE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES.

Again they're technically correct. If you've always logged into your social media account from one location in Europe and suddenly there is a login request from somewhere in America, you will likely get an e-mail informing you of suspicious activities on your account. They just want to make sure your account wasn't hacked. The worst that is likely to happen is that you have to confirm the login attempt.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Pretty much this, extremely limited. And the second one in Vietnam is not even up and running yet according to the website. If KFT expands further in other countries maybe in the future they would be willing to host promotions with Anet outside the US. Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Pretty much this, extremely limited. And the second one in Vietnam is not even up and running yet according to the website. If KFT expands further in other countries maybe in the future they would be willing to host promotions with Anet outside the US. Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

So its perfectly fine to promote something globally online, requiring no purchase without restrictions, get people to download their app and provide SM permissions.. then try to reword their promotion under the radar to then exclude a large portion of the GW customer base and you don't think the response was justified... that smells like bait and switch promoting to me.. but again I really don't think you have actually read up on this issue, rather jumping in armed with just a shortsighted opinion on players views.I honestly hope they don't expand to the UK, if they do I'll be sure to stick to Costa Coffee ... heck I would rather pay me ole ma to make me a cup of cheap and cheerful using 2 week old tea bags - and I don't think I would be the only one to give any future ANET/KFT promotions a very wide berth.

[Lost Dimension.9014]

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:@Gaile Gray.6029For my suggestion who to partner up with, how about Five Guys? Maybe with Starbucks or Domino's Pizza?

And what about the countries that don't have any of those? Are non-US players

STILL

going to be left out?

How about you suggest one? Besides, I am not listing those that are exclusive to US-only, do a google search, US is not the only one that has those. I am not even from the US.

Edit: Besides, I think it is better they do regions at a time. One event for North America, one event for Europe, etc.

So you'd prefer to restrict it to people who have access to locations with those stores, and leaving out anyone who refuses to drive 4+ hours for a promotion? Sure, they may have stores in more than one location, but what about those who

don't

have those stores? Are you going to leave those out? What would you do to make up for that?

There's no way that partnering with anyone will appease everyone. What will appease me is the devs finally addressing and

fixing

the issue that they keep neglecting those of us who aren't in the US. Instead of suggesting a partnership with a company that will inevitably leave me out for some arbitrary reason I'd much prefer Anet finally come out and make a

proper

statement about it. I'm not suggesting kitten until I

know

I'll be included.

And as someone else above has mentioned, will they make up for all the competitions and promotions that non-US players have missed out on?

IMO if you have an international audience, you should either run a promotion that includes

ALL OF THEM

or

NONE OF THEM

, instead of leaving out a massive portion of your audience over and over and over and over and over.

No. I do not prefer to leave and restrict those people out. You are right about not doing the event at all if it is impossible to include every player. I do not think big corporation like McDonald's would waste their time partnering up gw2 as it would not benefit them. Only small companies like KFT are willing to partner up with gw2 in my opinion but you are right, they should find a different approach to include every player that can participate. It just seems ANET is still willing to keep doing promotion in the future eventhough that is not what we international players want. I am just suggesting companies with plenty of stores available that can do better than KFT if they refuse to give up partnership.

[Tsar CUBE.9281]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

KFT deserved every bit of hate they got for this.And good riddance if we see no more disaster promotions like this.

Anet should just hold an art contest or something in the future, giving codes out to those who promote the contest on social media and giving deluxe codes to winners. At least that would create some interesting content...

[Majic.4801]

As mentioned here, I claimed by GW2 codes last Thursday and received a confirmation from the Kung Fu Tea app, but still haven't received any codes.

After allowing at least two full business days as instructed by the KFT blog, I have contacted info@popdeem.com requesting assistance, and am noting it here as a way of tracking the process.

If/when I receive my codes, or if other news develops, I'll post an update to this thread.

[Greener.6204]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@"Miss Lana.5276" said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Pretty much this, extremely limited. And the second one in Vietnam is not even up and running yet according to the website. If KFT expands further in other countries maybe in the future they would be willing to host promotions with Anet outside the US. Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

So its perfectly fine to promote something globally online, requiring no purchase without restrictions, get people to download their app and provide SM permissions.. then try to reword their promotion under the radar to then exclude a large portion of the GW customer base and you don't think the response was justified... that smells like bait and switch promoting to me.. but again I really don't think you have actually read up on this issue, rather jumping in armed with just a shortsighted opinion on players views.I honestly hope they don't expand to the UK, if they do I'll be sure to stick to Costa Coffee ... heck I would rather pay me ole ma to make me a cup of cheap and cheerful using 2 week old tea bags - and I don't think I would be the only one to give any future ANET/KFT promotions a very wide berth.

If you're a company that's running a promotion and finds out that people outside of your country are accessing it, and you have not ensured that your promotion is compliant with the laws in every other country, the first thing you do is stop your promotion. You then assess what went wrong, evaluate what you're capable of doing, and plot a course of action that fits within your capabilities.

If KFT wanted to run their promotion so that people in Canada would be able to participate, their costs go up. If they want to add in Mexico, costs go up. Add in more and more countries, and costs go up. And what are they gaining by running the promotion in countries where they don't have customers? Nothing.

You may not like the fact that KFT doesn't want to spend time and energy running a global promotion when their customer base is almost completely in the US, but expecting them to do otherwise is silly.

For reference, here's what Anet had to go through for their Design-a-Weapon contest. While the rewards from that contest were substantially bigger, you'll see that the number of countries they were able to run the promotion in was severely limited (i.e. not at all like the global legal exposure KFT opened themselves to when collecting your personal data). https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e33a02017-Design-a-Weapon-Contest-Rules-English.pdf

I feel it should also be noted that Anet's ability to operate internationally is not conferred to KFT just because they're in a joint promotion. Or more mundanely, my passport does not allow my friend to cross borders with me.