Idea: gift cards for free on Christmas.

[Catsfern]

Christmas is known the world over as a holiday where giving gifts in encouraged, and I thought it would be nice to bring that giving spirit to NS. The only problem is that there's not many things nations can exchange with each other, but then I remembered the cards were a thing and you can gift them to other players. Currently to gift a card to another nation you need to spend the value of that card to do it, but I think it would be nice to add a special feature on Christmas allowing you to gift a card for free to another nation. Now i understand that this can be abused by card traders, so i think we should set a limit of 5 cards that can be gifted for free.

I also think to add to the Christmassy feel you could "wrap" cards gifted this way so that people don't know what they got until they "unwrap" them.

Finally I think you should be able to anonymously gift these cards allowing for a sort of secret Santa situation.

[Authoritaria-Imperia]

Christmas is known the world over as a holiday where giving gifts in encouraged, and I thought it would be nice to bring that giving spirit to NS. The only problem is that there's not many things nations can exchange with each other, but then I remembered the cards were a thing and you can gift them to other players. Currently to gift a card to another nation you need to spend the value of that card to do it, but I think it would be nice to add a special feature on Christmas allowing you to gift a card for free to another nation. Now i understand that this can be abused by card traders, so i think we should set a limit of 5 cards that can be gifted for free.

I also think to add to the Christmassy feel you could "wrap" cards gifted this way so that people don't know what they got until they "unwrap" them.

Finally I think you should be able to anonymously gift these cards allowing for a sort of secret Santa situation.

It's funny you should say this, because I was actually thinking about trying to run a "Cards Secret Santa" event this year. But I fully support your idea — the idea of getting cards in Christmas wrappings sounds great to me!

If this doesn't get implemented, though, I may try to run with the event idea, which might be the next best thing.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

Just no.

[Catsfern]

Christmas is known the world over as a holiday where giving gifts in encouraged, and I thought it would be nice to bring that giving spirit to NS. The only problem is that there's not many things nations can exchange with each other, but then I remembered the cards were a thing and you can gift them to other players. Currently to gift a card to another nation you need to spend the value of that card to do it, but I think it would be nice to add a special feature on Christmas allowing you to gift a card for free to another nation. Now i understand that this can be abused by card traders, so i think we should set a limit of 5 cards that can be gifted for free.

I also think to add to the Christmassy feel you could "wrap" cards gifted this way so that people don't know what they got until they "unwrap" them.

Finally I think you should be able to anonymously gift these cards allowing for a sort of secret Santa situation.

It's funny you should say this, because I was actually thinking about trying to run a "Cards Secret Santa" event this year. But I fully support your idea — the idea of getting cards in Christmas wrappings sounds great to me!

If this doesn't get implemented, though, I may try to run with the event idea, which might be the next best thing.

I was thinking that you could even choose between a few different kinds of wrapping paper, so when you get it one it would be like opening a pack, you don't know what card it is until you click and open it

[Comfed]

Just no.

What makes you say that?

[The Unified Missourtama States]

Just no.

What makes you say that?

Thank you, Comfed, I will explain by dissecting and examining the original post to clear up some apparent misconceptions of the author.

I think it would be nice to add a special feature on Christmas allowing you to gift a card for free to another nation.

If you care about your friends enough to think of gifting them a card, don't you care enough to gather the bank for gifting, if you're planning it now (even if you only are using one nation for cards) you will have enough bank by Christmas to gift some good cards to your closest friends.

Now i understand that this can be abused by card traders, so i think we should set a limit of 5 cards that can be gifted for free.

The potential for free gifting without a limit to be abused by big cards traders in a meaningful way is almost impossible, in reality 9 of the top 10 traders are exceeding their deck capacity (and therefore cannot receive gifts). This part of the proposal is just extra sprinkles for the admin to place in the code on top of removing the gift cost parameters. Not to mention that gifting is done from puppets of which most farmers have hundreds, and so it still fails to prevent wide abuse (like if I have 1 leg on each puppet, then I can save hundreds of bank!).

I also think to add to the Christmassy feel you could "wrap" cards gifted this way so that people don't know what they got until they "unwrap" them.

It's just too late for that to happen this year, the admin are volunteers, maybe you can see it next year? I am actually kind of thinking it would be cool, but I doubt we will see it this Christmas.

Finally I think you should be able to anonymously gift these cards allowing for a sort of secret Santa situation.

Definite no! There is a trades history:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=deck/ ... _history=1
Making parts of the trades history invisible will make it very confusing to tell who has real ownership when asks and bids fail to register removal, and I think overall would enact confusion and let glitches go runaway.

[Flanderlion]

It'd be cool if NS gave out cards to every nation with it enabled - would remind people about the card minigame.

Re the OPs idea about removing gifting costs - I disagree, as will be abused by the card farmers to safely transfer cards. Even if there is a limit, that lets certain players transfer 5000 cards (1k+nations * 5) for free and 0 risk.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

It'd be cool if NS gave out cards to every nation with it enabled - would remind people about the card minigame.

Re the OPs idea about removing gifting costs - I disagree, as will be abused by the card farmers to safely transfer cards. Even if there is a limit, that lets certain players transfer 5000 cards (1k+nations * 5) for free and 0 risk.

But nobody has the capacity to receive 5000 it would be decentralized and meaningless transfers.

[Catsfern]

If you care about your friends enough to think of gifting them a card, don't you care enough to gather the bank for gifting, if you're planning it now (even if you only are using one nation for cards) you will have enough bank by Christmas to gift some good cards to your closest friends.

Some nations just don't have the bank to gift cards, especially high value ones. weather its because they have ongoing bids in place, don't junk all that many cards, or made a large purchase too close to Christmas. The whole point is to allow free transfer of cards so that anyone can gift cards to friends without worrying about effecting their bank.

The potential for free gifting without a limit to be abused by big cards traders in a meaningful way is almost impossible, in reality 9 of the top 10 traders are exceeding their deck capacity (and therefore cannot receive gifts). This part of the proposal is just extra sprinkles for the admin to place in the code on top of removing the gift cost parameters. Not to mention that gifting is done from puppets of which most farmers have hundreds, and so it still fails to prevent wide abuse (like if I have 1 leg on each puppet, then I can save hundreds of bank!).

you may have somewhat of a point here, big farmers will use anything they can as much as they can, but I still think setting some limitation on the possibility of abuse is better than setting none at all.

It's just too late for that to happen this year, the admin are volunteers, maybe you can see it next year? I am actually kind of thinking it would be cool, but I doubt we will see it this Christmas.

that's fine I was just hoping the technical team would notice this idea and see about integrating it to the card market, maybe it could even become a small anual event.

Definite no! There is a trades history:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=deck/ ... _history=1
Making parts of the trades history invisible will make it very confusing to tell who has real ownership when asks and bids fail to register removal, and I think overall would enact confusion and let glitches go runaway.

Im not saying you have to make these trade invisible, but instead of listing the nations name as the seller it could just say "Anonymous" . and as far as asks and bids not registering removal, I Imaging if the idea were integrated you would still have to have no offers to sell the card to gift it.

[Catsfern]

It'd be cool if NS gave out cards to every nation with it enabled - would remind people about the card minigame.

Re the OPs idea about removing gifting costs - I disagree, as will be abused by the card farmers to safely transfer cards. Even if there is a limit, that lets certain players transfer 5000 cards (1k+nations * 5) for free and 0 risk.

Yes I am aware that big card farmers will use this to do big card farmer things, but considering this whole idea is about giving presents for Christmas, lets consider that the card farmers Christmas present.

[Levy]

I would love to see this happen, but knowing the card community, some bright bulbs would spam create nations to get infinite free cards. It should be done so, "Nation X has to have Population Y", Similar to how N day needs your account to be around a week old to participate.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

I would love to see this happen, but knowing the card community, some bright bulbs would spam create nations to get infinite free cards. It should be done so, "Nation X has to have Population Y", Similar to how N day needs your account to be around a week old to participate.

That would only disadvantage newer nations, it would not stop large farmers.

[Catsfern]

I would love to see this happen, but knowing the card community, some bright bulbs would spam create nations to get infinite free cards. It should be done so, "Nation X has to have Population Y", Similar to how N day needs your account to be around a week old to participate.

That would only disadvantage newer nations, it would not stop large farmers.

nothing anyone can do will stop big farmers, at least noting that[s not too extreme, so some restriction should be in place. Thus I agree that a nation should be created prior to the event to participate, but maybe not a week before. I think the 23rd of December should be the last day a nation can be created on to participate in the event.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

That would only disadvantage newer nations, it would not stop large farmers.

nothing anyone can do will stop big farmers, at least noting that[s not too extreme, so some restriction should be in place. Thus I agree that a nation should be created prior to the event to participate, but maybe not a week before. I think the 23rd of December should be the last day a nation can be created on to participate in the event.

I'm not even a big farmer and I have 300 puppet nations for farming that are over a year old; you'd only be hurting newcomers.

[Catsfern]

nothing anyone can do will stop big farmers, at least noting that[s not too extreme, so some restriction should be in place. Thus I agree that a nation should be created prior to the event to participate, but maybe not a week before. I think the 23rd of December should be the last day a nation can be created on to participate in the event.

I'm not even a big farmer and I have 300 puppet nations for farming that are over a year old; you'd only be hurting newcomers.

yes I understand I'd be hurting newcomers, but only for two days of the year. I think that's a worthwhile sacrifice to make for putting some restriction on large card farmers instead of letting them run amok

[Riemstagrad]

I think it would be nice to add a special feature on Christmas allowing you to gift a card for free to another nation.

If you care about your friends enough to think of gifting them a card, don't you care enough to gather the bank for gifting, if you're planning it now (even if you only are using one nation for cards) you will have enough bank by Christmas to gift some good cards to your closest friends.

^This.

[Catsfern]

If you care about your friends enough to think of gifting them a card, don't you care enough to gather the bank for gifting, if you're planning it now (even if you only are using one nation for cards) you will have enough bank by Christmas to gift some good cards to your closest friends.

^This.

If you care about your friends enough to think of gifting them a card, don't you care enough to gather the bank for gifting, if you're planning it now (even if you only are using one nation for cards) you will have enough bank by Christmas to gift some good cards to your closest friends.

Some nations just don't have the bank to gift cards, especially high value ones. weather its because they have ongoing bids in place, don't junk all that many cards, or made a large purchase too close to Christmas. The whole point is to allow free transfer of cards so that anyone can gift cards to friends without worrying about effecting their bank.

^This