Happy New Year to all and welcome to January! We're saying goodbye to stockings (though your platinums should all now be full - enjoy!), and welcoming back giftbags, which have been given a bit of a facelift and tune up in value!

Every 25 credits purchased from the website (www.aetolia.com/credits) rewards a giftbag! The first 100 credits purchased comes with an extra bag for every 10 credits. This means that your first 100 credit purchase awards 14 bags right away!

After examining the existing giftbags (especially while keeping an eye on the Ironbeard bags which were part of the old system), I found that it suffered from similar issues to stockings insofar as the average returns were extremely low, with rewards tuned around the 10 bonus bags in order to flatten out their values. This meant that even the bonus bags barely met the acceptable threshold for promotion values, and single bags were unacceptably poor.

I've done a full pass through on giftbags now and more than doubled their minimum value, and further increased the gold bag's minimum value to be worth more than 5 bags combined. This means that all bags are now worth at least the equivalent of a 30% credit sale, and the bonus bags are a true bonus - coming out at almost double again for the first 100 credits. Ironbeard's bags will now also adhere to this new system going forward and be much more rewarding as a consequence.

GIFTBAG EXCHANGE <colour>
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Single bags can be exchanged for either a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet bag. Almost everything in the coloured bags can also be found in the standard bag, but at a lower rate. Coloured bags contain many of the same prizes as standard bags but allow you to more easily target a specific item.

Five unopened bags can be exchanged for either a gold giftbag or a monochrome giftbag. Gold giftbags have a higher minimum value than five separate bags added up. Monochrome bags have the same prizes as a standard giftbag, but when opened, up to ten people in the room with you also get prizes as if they had opened one too!

Regular & Monochrome Giftbag
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Chocolates, Divine oils, elemental globes, customisation certificates, chalices, discount vouchers, Iron Coins (these are now UNBOUND), minipets, ilmenite puzzle boxes, voxes, compendium pages, style scrolls, consumables, relic coffers*, steed whistles**, and a chance at various artifacts in the 50-2000 credit range.

Note: All of the minipets and compendium pages in this bag are drawn from the individual ones in the coloured bags.

Red Giftbag
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Minipet: a tiny, pink flamingo, Page: Bloodwood, Vox: Slurring, Chocolate: Strawberry. This bag has a much higher chance at giftbag consumables.

Orange Giftbag
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Minipet: an oak toad, Page: Snake Pit, Vox: Weatherbeaten, Chocolate: Fudge. Standard misc artifacts swapped out for crafting and trade artifacts.

Yellow Giftbag
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Minipet: a fluffy jambaali, Page: Bakal, Vox: Melodious, Chocolate: Caramel. This bag has a much higher chance to award elemental globes.

Green Giftbag
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Minipet: an undead wolf pup, Page: Clawhook, Vox: Wheezing, Chocolate: Mint. This bag has a much higher chance to award silver chalices.

Blue Giftbag
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Minipet: a skeletal fish, Page: Eftehl, Vox: Sad, Chocolate: White. This bag has a much higher chance at relic coffers.

Violet Giftbag
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Minipet: a spirited baby mule, Page: Shastaan Warrens, Vox: Arcane, Chocolate: Hazelnut. This bag has a much higher chance at Divine oils.

Gold Giftbag
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Minipets, voxes, and compendium pages are removed. Single chocolates are now bags of 3. Divine phylacteries and gold translocator pieces added. Higher chance at relic coffers and a very low chance at salvage.

All giftbags always award either a guild/city experience buff or an iron coin alongside other prizes. For gold bags, this is a tether-wide or global buff!

* Relics in the coffers this month are: flair_icy, chrys_ice, ice_shield, phyl_tundral, whispering, sensemirror, everfull, everburning, vigilant.

** Mounts available are: a mud-coated hippo, a war-painted orel, a black rhinoceros, an oversized, mountable ant, and a new addition of a spine-necked arrex.

There is also now a global prize that's triggered after every 500th giftbag opened, where one of the next 50 after that will give a bonus 500 credits!

Enjoy!

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 25th of Slyphian, in the year 499 MA.
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