This place right here. I love the gift exchange but I feel like it needs some sprucing up. Getting word out about it as well would be nice so I'm not playing it either with myself or a couple of other users.

1. The landing page needs work. In fact the warning notes could be reworded so it's not so snarky and instead user friendly.

2. Remove the dropbox on the item selection page. Make it so we can see the item images (like how it is on the other giving items pages, Charity, bonfire, ect).

3. When we're matched and items traded it should say what item of ours was traded. I toss in a lot of items and usually forget what item(s) I placed. It's worse when it's hours or a day later.

4. Is there anyway we can see what items we still have floating in there not matched yet?

If anyone doesn't know that the gift exchange is; it's basically Mysterious Melody where you get back around what you put in. Or you'll get your item(s) back. You also get to know who you've traded with as well.

Anyone else have any ideas for this?

I've stumbled across it a couple of times but I had no idea that it was like Mysterious Melody. The wording always turned me off though - it just always made me scared to try it, so I didn't know what it was like nor did I care to. I'd rather play it safe. I wonder how many other are sitting in my boat, it could explain why people aren't using it.

Update the wording first and foremost. It shows its age and we don't really need to blame anybody anymore, even if it is anonymous. I'm also not part of the tinyupdate ping group so I don't know what constitutes as tiny updates but maybe once the wording is improved, we can ping that group and spread the word?

it's like a white elephant exchange, yeah? i popped a subeautique invite in it the other day just to try it out. no matches yet, so i suppose i'll end up seeing what the length of time it takes to return the item is.

i agree with , the landing page could use some touching up. condense the notes, get rid of the grouchy call-out, give a timeline for item returns more definitive than "a couple of days" if possible

tbh the best way to draw attention to it would be an achievement like holiday helper or maybe adding it to the sidebar? otherwise a thread would be fine but i can't think of a good incentive for using the gift exchange over the presents feature. maybe an after-luminaire arid zentu exchange thread? p;

[edit] got my alert, added the time limit

I completely forgot that this was a thing! It's a nice alternative for gift exchanges; no time pressure, no worry about getting under-valued gifts in return, minimal time commitment. It could be a really great site feature if more people got involved.

A just little bit of sprucing up and I'm sure it could garner a lot more attention:

• give it it's own little NPC like the gift wrapping section. (they could pretty much be wearing the same outfit as they work at the same place). Throw in one for the Presents section, too, just to be consistent. -make the interface more friendly and simple - at least have a decent sized button to give a gift instead of a link at the bottom of a wall of text
• You can keep the warnings etc, just separate them off into another section, so the information is still there, but it doesn't feel like you're being judged before you even start.
• Keep the Gift Center top banner across all pages in the gift center, so all the sections are more easily visible
• As nice as the random gifts at the top are, it might be better to replace them with something with newer art, so it feels less like a forgotten corner of the site.
• Announce changes in a siteupdate ping or news post, and link it in the side bar.

I'm wondering... Would it be possible to somehow combine the gift exchange with the wishing shrub idea?

Sign up to get partnered with a random (anon) user for 12-24 hours. Get a peek of a few (R1-150) wishlist items of theirs as a general idea on what to send. There is a limit on how many items you can send (10? 20? 50?) and a certain cap on items you have to meet (5? 10?). You can either grant their WL wishes, or send them something else you think they might like. When your timer runs out and both users have met the minimum cap, both users get their respective presents and they get the username of the person they exchanged gifts with.

If user A decides to sign up but doesn't send any gifts, user B that sent items gets their items back. Neither of them get to find out the other's usernames (event could say the gifter was accidentally partnered with the Darkheart Phantom or something, idk)

Then again, this is kinda complex, and the drama potential is thicc even with this idea (people could just send crap like slots sporks and get rare stuff in return), so... Bleh. ._.

I feel like if it were updated then I would use it more often. As it stands it's not very user friendly. I tried using it yesterday and it was difficult to see what I was putting in and even harder to see that I'd been matched right away. The walls of text just suck...

I love 's ideas for improvements. Currently, the wall of text is jarring and unfriendly. I also have no idea how many or what items I have left to be matched or how long they'll stay in limbo before being returned.

Can there be an event or alert when we get paired up with someone? It could say "Your [item that you put in] has been gifted, and you've received [item other person gave]!" Or something like that so we know what's going on in there. :P I think this has potential to be a lot of fun, but it could use some polish and attention. I'd post in a gift exchange thread tho! Sounds fun!