Dark Lord Day 2016

I have heard very similar things. I chose group a and got through in about 10 seconds. Other friends that chose best available wound up with e or nothing. I also chose group c to buy my buddy tickets because he was having a hard time (also chose best available) and got through literally immediately

 

I chose "Best Available" because, first and foremost, I wanted to get in the gate, get some DL and have fun sharing beer. Friends of mine got shut out last year going for A on etix, so I didn't want to take that risk.

I ended up in B, which is fine. That being said, I've already paid essentially $50 for BA variant since it's packaged with the deal. Don't want to pay for a variant? Then you don't get any DL at all. Given that I'm forced to buy the BA variant, I'd really hope to get something I can enjoy. Obviously, in group B, I'll almost certainly be fine. It's the later group people I feel sorry for. If I got into a late group and my only option was earl or muerte, I wouldn't buy one if I didn't have to. This year people don't have that option. I would feel bad for anyone who's pre-paid for a very expensive variant that they won't want.

 

Guys when a website is hit with such a heavy load there is no rhyme or reason to who gets in first. Just be cause you hit refresh first, or were on the site earlier, or were on your desktop vs mobile etc.. doesn't mean you will automatically get in first.

If you went in and selected Group A and got right in, great, you got lucky. You didn't do something that everyone else failed to do and thus are more deserving of the tickets. There are so many factors such as your ISP, latency, traffic, number of hops, peering locations, which requests the server responds to first, etc.. that play into it there is no one way to do it the "right way". You just won the internet traffic lottery and got in.

Best Available was not an option in the drop-down with the Groups, it was a separate tab, and easy to miss.

 

Except this year there is no lottery ticket for variants & all ticket holders are guaranteed one which is significantly different than prior years. And I don't see any 'bitching' the last several pages of the thread but rather a discussion. What else is going to be discussed over a month ahead of the event? So I blame the OP creating this thread 3 months ahead of the event.

 

My (main) motivation for wanting the randomization the variants (and I'm in Group B):

The usual suspects will push / cut / bribe their way to the front of the Group A line and flip the bottle that they perceive as selling for the most. They couldn't care less about drinking any of the stuff. I would much rather them receive a bag that could pin them with the "worst" (read: lowest resale value) bottle, as a big middle finger to these people contributing to the dark side of this hobby of ours and immediately posting their bottles for sale online while still at the event. That's it, plain and simple.

 

100% agree with the reasoning, I just think its a little extreme. Randomization eliminates the optionality for people who truly want to drink the beer as well. It's the "If I am going down, I am taking you with me" mentality. Craft beer will always have people who turn around and sell the rarest beers to turn profit. No different than sporting events and concerts, unfortunately it's supply and demand. For every asshole that sells a $500 VBDL, there is an asshole who pays $500 for a VBDL. Until that slows down, I am not worried about it. I just want to get the bourbon vanilla goodness in and around my mouth.

 

Agreed that it's a slash and burn mentality, but here is how you, as a future drinker of a BA DL variant, are/will be impacted- you will wait longer in line, you will have a lower chance of getting what you want (if it happens to be the perceived "best" variant), you will have to plan ahead of time to get in line with at least a 50-100 person buffer to offset the increase in line cutting, etc. that will occur at the front of each group, the list goes on.

Or, alternatively, you can enjoy DLD, grab whatever you get and drink it accordingly (the difference in quality between the 2nd "best" variant and the 4th "best" variant is minimal) and not worry about getting variant A or variant B. Just a different frame of mind, I suppose, which is likely not the popular opinion.

 

If people truly want to drink the beer, have it on tap at DLD. All the '15 variants seem to have been on tap last year. It's likely to be the case this year as well.

 

Also, dumb question. What colored wax are they using for 2016? I recall seeing a silver wax behemoth but I am not sure.

On another note, I think they will knock it out of the park on the variants this year. 20th anniversary, I am expecting a coconut variant, double barrel (Magatu voice: "it's so hot right now"), vanilla bean, and la muerte. Who knows, they could have some pappy dark lord! I think they will reward the Three Floyd faithful with simple variant styles that will keep the masses happy.

 

New idea for them: They should ask each person what their intentions with the bottle are. If the person plans to do anything besides drink it (sell, trade, drop on the ground) they should be given a random bottle. If they plan to drink it they should get to pick what they want. Problem solved. Everybody would be honest about their intentions, because people are awesome at beer events, especially when drinking.

 

Very true, I love the guest taps but two years ago they were cycling different BA Variants and it was a mosh pit, people were cutting the line and shoving others out of the way. I am a pretty big guy, 6-3 235 lbs and I stood no chance. At the end of the day, I didn't really care. People neglected to see the value in the other taps and I got King Sue, Black Tuesday, and Double Barrel Hunah (I think) with ease. That was also the first year of GA tickets and there was a very large DL theft problem.... shit is changing this year!

 

black with silver speckles this year

 

Not only that, but having to select Best Available seemed to generate a round trip to the server to reload the page, adding to the delay in actually submitting a request for tickets.

 

It sounds like, at 5'7 175, I better not worry too much about what I get at the taps (which was my plan anyway). I'm gonna have fun with my friends, get some DL, and share some great beer with whomever is interested. The rest is all gravy for me (at least that's my plan as a first time DLD'er).

 

I understand this argument that the randomization takes place with eTix, but it's a less equal randomization.

By putting the randomization at the group selection step, a bottleneck is created for the earlier groups which means your odds of selecting group A and getting it are lower than selecting group E and getting it. That's not the worst thing in the world. But when you consider some percentage of ticket buyers have reasons other than variants to select group A, that makes things unnecessarily more difficult for them. If we all understood going into it that each group had the same chances of getting a more desirable variant, any bottlenecking in any group would be solely down to factors outside FFF's control. And when I pay the same price for a product as everyone else, I prefer the vendor to treat me the same. First come, first served on variants when we don't all have equal chance to be first just feels a little contrary to that notion. I get that FFF apparently has their reasons for doing first come, first served. And like I said, that's fine. But that doesn't mean I agree it's ideal.

Now I want to clarify, I'm going to go to DLD this year, and hopefully future years, regardless of how variants are handed out. I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to accept the best variant I can get and drink it and I'll judge it on its merits. But I still have a preference for how it should be done and I don't see anything wrong with voicing that preference. I don't think it makes me whiny. I don't think it means I don't understand the true meaning of DLD and I need to be visited upon by three spirits. It just means I have a beer related preference and I'm sharing it on a beer related forum.

 

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not...

 

No dude, he is serious. Technology like that exists, it's the beer version of the sorting hat in Harry Potter. Look it up...

 

First timer looking for the best way to handle line jumpers. Does FFF do anything about it? Or, is it a free-for-all?

 

Sorry, meant to post this:

 

Line jumping is nowhere near the problem it used to be before they started selling tickets to the event. I remember one year where there were two lines, one coming from the north, and one from the south, and they met in the middle. No ropes, no FFFs peeps telling anyone what was up, it was the biggest cluster#$$@ I've ever seen. (FFFs has come along way in trying to control the chaos as the event has grown.)

Now, with tickets, its generally a more controlled chaos, and line jumping in the DL line hasn't been too bad, at least in my experience. There are other lines, such as for Dark Matter / glassware, and that's not my thing, so don't know how that was, and for the guest taps, and I do know about that, as I spent a fair amount (read: ALL) of my time there last year. For the most part, not too bad, but on occasion, you'll see some cutting in front.

My strategy is to time the entry into the queue in about how long it will take me to finish the beer I have in my left hand, accounting for any shares that might occur during the queue. Its actually quite a bit of advance math, but I can't input my algorithm here because its proprietary.....