Best Of

So the person I was thinking of when I wrote this was actually Crashed, who when we were discussing banquet milestones on the CCP server said words to the effect of "there's a reward I really want [in those top milestones] but I don't think we will actually reach." I'm pretty sure it was this milestone they were referring to. He wasn't the only one: a couple other devs echoed that sentiment. Because they just design them, but they have no control over whether we reach them. No Stark Foundation bail outs this time (or likely ever again). This was all on us.

Which we actually pulled off. Even I was skeptical until we had the double track bounce, and then the SBC offer bounce, and then the radiance bounce. Three days in a row of exceptionally high scoring put us in range of milestone 63. We scored so high, in fact, that we came very close to reaching the absolute highest stretch milestone Kabam initially planned for. We came this close to forcing them to convene a design chat to sketch out more milestones. Or maybe they did and I just don't know about it. We must have been giving them a bit of a scare there in the end. Compared to last year, scoring stayed strong throughout the last week:

And if there was any doubt we're a player base of procrastinators:

Who waits until the last hour of the event to open a ton of crystals? Actually, my guess is that giant spike of points right at the end is in large part high scorers jockeying for position by waiting until near the end to blast open a ton of crystals, just in case their alliance has scoring moles leaking data. You can see that unlike every overnight period in the last eight days (and throughout the event actually) the first half of the day has more points, then it slows down at night (each vertical line represents 10am Pacific on successive days). So every day, the second half of the day is low. Except last night, when scoring went up, and by a lot. And then it reached a crescendo this morning about an hour before the end.

Some of those are almost certainly stragglers, but there's too much points for all of it to be procrastination. I think we're seeing the last enthusiasm signal: the big spenders, and even many medium spenders, going down in a blaze of glory units. My guess: you're looking at about $300k USD of spending in just the last 45 minutes of banquet. This did not happen last year - at least not to this same degree as far as I am aware.

I guess the biggest problem for Kabam now is how to at least match this level of energy next year. Everyone is going to be looking forward to banquet 2026. I mean: check this out:

This thread has 116k thread views and counting. The only thread I'm aware of that has more is the old school Meme thread (which has about a million thread views). This thing has been attracting some serious eyeballs (which I can't monetize, darn). Popular I may be, but not this popular. That's all you guys. Your enthussiasm. Your attention. And yes, your spending. You guys were really interested in the banquet this year, and my occasional Tom-foolery. I do appreciate all the kind words of support, but I do this for all you guys. If it made banquet just a little more fun for some of you, that's all I need to hear to pencil my laptop in for 2026.

2026:

0 days since the last bug.

As soon as I saw the first appearance crystal I knew that despite the 84% chance of me not getting a 2nd shiny Jane Foster that there was a 100% chance that I would get another shiny Jane Forster which is exactly what happened. I hope I hit top 2600 so I can actually pick the shiny champ I want. If it hit 1% I’ll most certainly get a 3rd shiny Jane Foster from the rank rewards

It's literally just a cosmetic. A good way for Kabam to monetize something without it coming with an advantage.

Come on bugged people, push us to the next milestone or consider yourselves failures…

DNA, thank you for all your hard work on this event. It’s been a blast reading your analysis. There were so many great aspects of this banquet, and this thread was one of them. I love this community!!

it's been a little over 1 minute without the ranked rewards, my life is falling apart.

Release them or I shall protest!

Really wanted that colossal SBC