my experience with MM so far this year has been really good! a good distribution of items and item types, values, etc. it has felt pretty even and fair so far.

I suspect a lot of people join when it resets at night and then signs off for the night 💤 and puts items in when they wake up, that's what i did!

I'll be lurking with my just incase :P

Ohhh, I completely forgot about that part! Personally even though I haven't necessarily gotten a ton of stuff I "wanted" I've been pretty lucky with my groups! So I don't really have complaints lol. I was more thinking about for the other folks who were having rotten luck. I'm guessing the grouping system used more in the future will really fix most of the "issues" with MM? The Melody shopping for specific users thing could be implemented in the future with a cap if needed maybe? I think this is such a smart and fun way of doing MM though and am excited to see how it continues to play out / how the concept is used in other ways in the future. :D

Day 3 Experience

One person in my group didn't contribute any presents this time and I ended up receiving six gifts instead of five. Not sure if this is by design or if I just got lucky, but I'm not complaining either way.

No wishlist items this time around but I got mixed haul value-wise. Four items were valued from 100k-250k. One item was worth 895k and the other was 1.2Mill. There were a couple of lower valued items this time around though so I think I got what seemed to be a mix of the mid-to-higher value items.

Still enjoying this method of MM much more than I have in previous years and I'm looking forward to seeing how things change going forward.

Well... Assuming I dig out a new enough browser (and this requirement itself is an annoyance, I've seen whole planet weather/cloud/lava emulators with better backwards compatibility >:) ), I see this: First, the page loads. As in, the "Loading" image in the corner of my tab is replaced by the favicon for the page; the "Stop loading" button becomes the "Reload" button, etc. Then, well, the page looks pretty complete: "Welcome... how it works... Let's work together to make this a joyful and inclusive experience for everyone. After all, the holiday season is about giving, sharing, and community. 🎄✨" in a green rectangle; "Past Melody Groups" in a white one with said groups being subdivisions of that white rectangle. . Only I don't see anything about actual participation. ... .... ...... After a while, if I'm lucky and the Internet didn't fail, "Waiting Room"/whatever comes before it/ "Today's Givings, etc,etc" get loaded in between the green "How-to" rectangle and the white "Past results" rectangle. So... Please, make it so that the "Loading" signals of the browser reflect reality! It's driving me nuts how a website lies about its readiness just because the tiny JS lead-in had loaded and all the uncertainty about page elements that might appear (or fail to appear) anywhere, at any time, even at the start of page and after the page proclaims it's finished loading. After a while I'd probably rather not visit this page than worry that it broke again every time I reload it. I can also imagine new users on less-than-best Internet speeds giving up on it before it fully loads. , , , I'd also like to be able to put my 5 items even before the group has been collected. After all, I know zilch about the group, so its appearance doesn't affect my item choices... but if I have to wait for "5-10 minutes" when I intended to quickly register, drop and go on, I'm that much more likely to forget to return after those 5-10 minutes and join the 23% of non-givers. , , , Grouping/ungrouping items relocates checkboxes somewhat unexpectedly. , , , Can't see the mouseover item info (I assume, on account of new Kumos being a work in progress altogether). , , , And you've heard about items being returned to sender (I don't mind, but it's not what Melody said to expect)... , , , Ah, and put a link to https://kumos.subeta.net/explore/arctic/mysterious-melody in the text at https://subeta.net/explore/mysteriousmelody.php - people go there from Cottage and decide MM is not on. , , , All in all, interesting concept, cool exchange, thanks for allowing us to change elected items (though waiting until midnight for results is sometimes nerve-racking), I'm still trying to figure out if there's a logic behind giftbox colours. Not value, that's for sure - same item gave different colours.

just wanted to chime in that my experience on the whole has been much better since the changes have been made! ultimately i think that if people are looking to receive specific values of items or wishlist items only, etc. then this isn't the right platform for it anyway. you could get better results simply joining up with a group of friends or group of people on the forums promising to gift each other items under your tree. but if you're just looking to be surprised and have fun with some charity, i think MM as it is now is great! i'm loving seeing how melody acts as an NPC interacting with the site too, and love that the items she gets are existing from user shops, that's a great way to give out items without just spawning new ones to deflate their value.

i'm really happy with the experience so far! the previous MM was kind of intimidating because i'd feel bad if the other person sent me a ton of gifts/very expensive ones and i couldn't keep up x_x

but this group setup w/ the 5 item limit takes a TON of pressure off. it's actually pretty fun! even if people don't contribute, melody makes up for it. i see it more about having fun giving than expecting reciprocation, but i would be interested to see how the dynamics change once the filtering goes live.

Okay, for real, my opinion- Melody shouldn't have a limited daily budget. I might be in the minority here, but I super don't care if she abuses having infinite money to give everyone a nice present. And concerns about the economy- please, quests and games generate sP out of thin air every single day. It's not like we're working with fiat currency here.

There's probably hundreds of thousands of high priced items that will never sell in user shops, and it's the holidays. Having the rare possibility of getting a high-roller item is...good? I'm not really understanding why staff wants to remove that possibility at all costs, sorry.

I think it's more to do with users abusing melody for personal gain via the shops.

I somewhat agree with what your saying, however I'd rather Melody be limited than users inflating things for profit

To be honest, I also don't care if people make a profit with monopoly money.

So I have only participated once so far. I thought the gifts would be given out in more even quantities even if not in quality so I was surprised to get 7 items. I never really expected the MM to be equal in value it was an amusing gamble in generosity. As long as I went into it to give instead of receive I was happy with the results and I still am. After last nights experience I have been thinking if there were any ways I would change the current MM. I also had a few questions.

Is the gifts going out an automated thing or like adding items to the item directory where one of you has to flip a switch or pull a lever? I was wondering that last night when things didn't seem to roll over precisely at midnight.

Are the groups formed from who ever is actively signing up at that moment or would it potentially pair someone who signed up at 11AM with someone who signed up a 3PM?

What about having a sign up for groups with a theme? All the gifts are a specific type of item. (wearables, plushies, beanbags, food, toys, ect.) Some of us are collectors or achievers, others are looking to fill out their wardrobes.

Could we get some kind of countdown clock on the page so we know how much time is left until it rolls over? It would help me in a number of ways.

According to the information Melody is trying to consider our wishlists which sounds nice but I think sometimes some of us might want that to be ignored. I remember the randomness being one of the things I enjoyed with MM. Sometimes I ended up with stuff in years gone by that I didn't even know was on the site. Maybe it could even be a setting on the wishlist itself a toggle Ignore For MM. Also is she only considering the public wishlists or all the wishlists?

It is probably good we can't see the items others have donated until after the gifts go out but I'm not sure if we should see them at all. Although it gives me ideas and goals for my next group it could also leave someone feeling bad about what they gave, what they got, or jealous of the others in their group. After the roll over it might be better to show a graph or scale with data about the user shop value of the items contributed and their rarities and the types if items they were (plushie, beanbag, ect). Maybe indicate which came from Melody.

As for filters on the vault the only one I've been wanting that we don't have and that is a way to filter by item type. (plushie, beanbag, sticker, toy, ect.) I almost always sort by stack size or price so I hope that doesn't disappear. In the inventory I like it simple I don't sort any of it and while I'm sure other will love the new additions I hope it doesn't take up much space on the page. Maybe a drop down settings box. Would that be more phone friendly or frustrating.

Lastly all the member of my group have cute names but I am so curious what mine is or if that is as random as everything else. Um Melody has contributed 36 items is that right?

i participated yesterday and i actually kinda like this change. i didnt get back what i gave but thats totally okay with me! its kinda fun and at least i know ill get something instead of a ghost secret santa like previous years. this is fun so far, no complaints, but ive only used it yesterday and now today, ... 4/5 stars LOL)

i also like that we can see the item pool after, it fuels my desire to know things and its like a secret card flipping chance game, but we arent flipping them ourselves its geared towards what we give... i like it.

im torn between the item limit BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. it helps me not give everything away on the first day and theres ALWAYS the next day. i think five items is fair, we have lots of friends on here to give things to, if you want to give more, participate in the tree gifting boards, or make a giveaway board or anon gift. THE limit works for me

It's been mentioned in this post already but today Melody isn't recognizing the items I'm contributing T_T

edit: seems that it's been fixed now (:

i really love this new version so far,

also i kinda see why people would want like different "levels" of participation like different spending limits like that could be neat but personally i love the randomness of it, its been great for purging my vault of years of hoarded higher priced holiday items i know people that like collecting and achievements would rather have

my only thing is one of the nights i joined a group then fell asleep/got distracted before i got the notification i was added to one and i got a melody item from it but i kinda feel bad that i got anything since i very much accidentally did not participate. but i am glad that there are safeguards in place so that the others that were able to participate didnt necessarily miss out on anything since there were still 4 other members. but like i genuinely wouldn't have seen it as a problem if i didn't receive anything since i wasn't able to send anything (especially since it was my own sleepy fault)

is there any way to access MM without having to scroll to the news post?

I’m loving MM. It’s fun trying to think of useful gifts, and I’ve been very luckily that all my groups put in similarly value interesting items.

Before I was always nervous to do MM as I am not on Subeta time. I could happily gift back and forth throughout the day, but come 6pm subeta time I’m out. This meant I couldn’t continue throughout the evening when often most people are active. This way I can load my gifts in and not worry.

Agreed it would be nice to have a more personal touch akin to old MM, but I do still like it as-is.

Five items is a perfect amount. I’m happy with the amount of items I receive in return too.

I don’t support having tiers - it’s nice getting a mix. It also means new players get a chance at high-value / rare items. I also think it’s sweet that a newer user could include thoughtful gifts (ie a ontra gift plushie or happy lumi item) rather than high sP value, but get something large in return. Feels more akin to the holiday spirit. If there’s a group and someone doesn’t submit anything, I support the one item rule.

Aside - is there a way to send a screenshot of what my custom css site looks like? Tbh it’s a nice vibe different to classic layouts and I’d be keen to see if it’d be possible to have similar on the new site.

Yes - please! leave me a comment, or check out the feedback (which is now a suggestion sub-forum 😜) thread for the kumos layout.

i've been pushing out changes over the last few days (just updated the luminaire and morostide themes to both have more color range, and for the dark themes to actually apply around the site).

I've been looking at popular custom CSSs along the way, as well.

Overall, I like the thought of this new way of doing MM. My thoughts: when we had the old MM, I would adjust my gift giving based on how the other person was gifting. I think it would be great if we could have some indication of the value of the other gifts in the pool (either have one gift go out early to have an idea of what people are gifting, list highest/lowest price (range) of items in the pool, or something like that). I'm not sure that I like seeing all the items that were given out from the group at the end, as it could make people frustrated seeing that while they gave nice things, they only received low-cost items, while the person who gave the low-cost items got UBs and other expensive gifts. Overall, though, I love being able to gift nice items to people, regardless of what I receive in return, and I'm happy to have this feature back!