Secret Santa Extravaganza

When you think about it, as Eve players, we give each other things all the time; everything from advice and fittings help, to ransoms and corporate wallet access, to smack-talk and NSFW gifs linked in local, to live autocannon rounds from optimal range. Honestly, it brings a tear to my eye just thinking about the overwhelmingly giving nature of this game and its players.

In the spirit of those philanthropic tendencies, I’ve decided to to start the ball rolling with an Eve Online Secret Santa gift-giving extravaganza!

*The 2012 Eve Online Secret Santa Gift-Giving Extravaganza!*

The What:

Secret Santas, for those not in the loop, are a way for large groups of people to all exchange gifts with each other. Essentially, everyone puts their name in a hat and draws another one, ensuring that everyone has someone else to give a gift to. Typically, there’s a set price to ensure fairness.

For our Eve Online Secret Santa, I’ll be using DrawNames.com to randomly assign people, so I’m going to need an in-game character name as well as an out-of-game email. No excuses kids, it takes all of 9 seconds to set up a gmail account.

To make this as accessible to as many people as we can, I’m setting a suggested spending window of 10 million isk. That said, if you’re a high-roller and feeling a little extra of that giving spirit, you’re more than welcome to gift a PLEX, Titan, or 800,000 Exotic Dancers should the spirit move you.

Give something meaningful, helpful, or just downright hilarious.

The Why:

Why not? Who doesn’t like getting presents? The goal here is to make this open to everyone, hence the cheap price suggestion. All you need to do is sign up, and pass it on!

The When:

Do it now! Send me the toon name involved and an out-of-game email address to either aidenmourn(at)gmail(dot)com or PM via twitter @AidenMourn. If we can get this going this week, I’ll send the “who-has-who” out over the weekend. While I grant that there are a number of religions, holiday observances, and traditions expressed by Eve players around the world, for the purpose of personal familiarity, we’ll hold the gift-giving on Christmas Day through. Gift exchanges can be made to whoever you draw via contract or station trade.

Since announcing this on twitter a few days ago, I’ve had, well, more than a few people either ask me if this is a scam or suggest that they’re “on to me”; apparently, I have a bit of a reputation. Let me be clear: this is in no way a scam; in fact, I don’t even know how one could even possibly turn this into one. The gifts will be exchanged between individuals; there is no middle-man, no “holding account”, and no “shares buy-in”. Aside from all that, its well known that scamming Christmas is pretty much the worst karma you could possibly incur, and I think we’re all now thoroughly terrified of the “Yule Lads” (especially doorway sniffer…).

So, get out there and spread the word! I originally opened this up to the #tweetfleet but they seem to be slacking on the uptake. Instead, lets get this out to everyone. If you have a blog, twitter account, corp forum, fleet of carrier pigeons, whatever, spread the word!

-Aiden

Edit:

Yikes, you people have no faith! About 10 of you have emailed me various detailed plans on how I could possibly profit from this using an army of 50 alts. Guys, I appreciate the ingenuity and faith in my ability to be a dick, but that would be FAR more work than I’d be willing to put in for what would ultimately amount to something like 200mil. And while I won’t post the “who has who” list (even I won’t know that, and it would pretty much ruin the idea anyways), I will present a list of those signed up so far as they come in. Hopefully, there’s enough known names on here to convince you die-hard conspiracy nuts.

2012 Secret Santa Participants:

(updated: 12/20/12 12:00pm)
Aiden Mourn
Mark762
Scatha
Logan Fyreite
Zedrik Cayne
Ramdar Chinken
Dethmourne Silvermane
Hofik
K Anasazi
E’dyn
Gwydion Voleur
Jushin Dragon
Arydanika
Slash Harnet
Mord Fiddle
Drew Hosick
M Wu
Rick Corran
Zzzzleepyhead
Alablm Helugo
Phyridean
Bnizzle
Oreamnos Amric
Rapier Girl
Yuri Wayfare
Jelo Magnetti
Sophia Jackson
Securis Unus
Hans Jagerblitzen
Eenbal
Cameron Zero
RedneckGenius

Still a few days! So get those names in, and spread the word.

~ by Aiden Mourn on December 18, 2012.