Don't bother with the Twitter key giveaways

[PlaceboCyanide]

Got one after my 80th tweet.

PS- BetaKeyBill, best person @ SOE

[Vanu Techpriest]

Finally got one after 3 days and 180 tweets. I wasn't spamming at all until about tweet 150 then I started to copy/paste the same message and change it slightly so that I could carpet bomb them with 10 at a time. Worked like a charm.

Sorry for the Spam but I was getting desperate.

Now I'm just wondering if my old PS1 account (played for a few months at release) will be given "Veteran" status or if this twitter code will be called up first. Also wondering if having both accounts linked to the same e-mail will screw something up.

[PlaceboCyanide]

Originally Posted by Vanu Techpriest

Finally got one after 3 days and 180 tweets. I wasn't spamming at all until about tweet 150 then I started to copy/paste the same message and change it slightly so that I could carpet bomb them with 10 at a time. Worked like a charm.

Sorry for the Spam but I was getting desperate.

Now I'm just wondering if my old PS1 account (played for a few months at release) will be given "Veteran" status or if this twitter code will be called up first. Also wondering if having both accounts linked to the same e-mail will screw something up.

The Station account w/ the PS1 payment history will be given veteran status and will be in the very first round of beta alongside the PCGamer Keys. The Keys from twitter & Facebook get into beta shortly after. You can doublecheck to see that account has priority by logging in, clicking your name in the top right, then clicking membership info. If you see Planetside2 account active then you can give a friend the twitter key.

[Vanu Techpriest]

Originally Posted by PlaceboCyanide

The Station account w/ the PS1 payment history will be given veteran status and will be in the very first round of beta alongside the PCGamer Keys. The Keys from twitter & Facebook get into beta shortly after.

So you are given Veteran status as long as Planetside 1 shows up in your account info? Still not sure about what makes someone a "Veteran" or if there's a place I can check.

Edit: I asked on Twitter and Beta Key Bill said

"If you played PS1 and have the same station account [BKB]".

So apparently you just need PS1 linked to your account regardless of how long you played.

[Kayos]

I wonder if active PS1 accounts make a difference

[Trafalgar]

Originally Posted by TheBear

Yup. I have to call bots. Unless there are simply THAT many people trying to enter codes (which I really hope is the case, and possible)

I have to doubt the bots claim, because I got one of the scrambled public ones myself a couple days ago (after a day or two of trying). I didn't mention it until yesterday because I was concerned someone might try to hack my station account, but considering that the vast majority of people here appear to be PS1 players, and many others are acquiring PC Gamer keys, anyone with a twitter key is probably far lower priority if anyone was actually going to try to hack accounts.

Originally Posted by TheBear

I had the day off, and I had tweet deck open with an account I created for a friend (Already have 2 vet accounts signed up).. Copy and pasta'd probably 30 or so codes @ under 5 seconds from tweet.

No luck.

5 seconds is too slow.

Originally Posted by Stew

Hackers with bots claim all your keys sadly ... it seams all the beta keys are gone whithin 3 seconde or less !

I think you guys should post all the beta keys in a ((Picture format ))

I'll also note that I didn't use any scripts or bots. I had Seesmic Desktop 2 open (seemed more effective than TweetDeck) on one monitor, and on another monitor I had the key entry page open (and had to keep stopping it from logging me out, or log back in if it did). When one of the PS2 staff posted a 5-part scrambled tweet, I started typing it into the key entry box (not trying to copy and paste it). For the one I won, I started with the first section, and while typing it, found the next section, then while typing that one, found the next section, etc, since it is not difficult to keep something in memory and do something with it while also doing something else and not looking at it. It wasn't until I took that approach that I was able to do it fast enough to get one of the keys. (Prior to that I had been typing, looking for the next section, typing, looking for the next section, and not getting them)

For the split-in-two-posts ones I was copying and pasting, and was always too slow on those, despite using mouse-select, ctrl-c, alt-tab, ctrl-v, enter.

I expect there were a ridiculous number of people trying to get the codes, so it doesn't surprise me that it took me over a day to get one, and that I had to keep improving how fast I was until I got one (and that I had to use an external twitter program to receive the tweets, but I was doing that from the beginning because I knew twitter itself would be too delayed).

Originally Posted by Notturno

I think it's become painfully obvious there are bots farming the keys. They had the right idea on Facebook to put the keys into an image format to stop the bots, but I think the damage has already been done at this point. It would be a safe bet to say that when those accounts are accepted, you will see them go up for sale.

There were a ridiculous number of people trying to get these keys. Now, I don't know if the numbers have gone up or down in recent days - I have no way to know, really. I'm sure SoE could probably tell if they wanted to (just set up the key entry server-side script to track how many people try and fail to get a key within 60 seconds or so).

Originally Posted by Notturno

Writing a program to copy and paste data into a field is a trivial matter and isn't something that takes days to complete. It's something quite easily doable and feasible in a situation like this. Especially when you consider how we've seen next to nobody claiming to win the random text Twitter beta keys. Plenty of people have won them through direct messages, but it's an extreme rarity to here anyone winning one from the random text posts.

You would still have to descramble the keys (only slightly more effort, still) or assemble multiple tweets. Personally, I didn't write a program to harvest keys, because it wouldn't have been fair to anyone else trying to get a key.

Finally, I think you overestimate the chances of people saying "I won!" and underestimate the chances of them being paranoid about being hacked and losing their station account.

[IgloGlass]

Both med and my friend have gotten a key each from Twitter by being nice and appealing so yeah, bother people, bother!

[IgloGlass]

Originally Posted by Kayos

I wonder if active PS1 accounts make a difference

An active Ps1 account will automaticly give you a beta-key, just make sure SoE has your right e-mail!

[Truemedic]

I've tried for 3 hours on average for the last 3-4 nights while people were steaming PS1. Stream on one monitor with the other two pages setup side by side... Still nothing. I even did some probability to see how long it would be till the next tweet but it wasn't consistent enough to see a pattern... Oh well, I'll keep trying.

[ConsPark]

Send them tweets now and then. With luck (and in the case of some people, time) they'll respond and just might jet you a key. That's how I got mine.

As others have said, don't bother with the keys they post directly. They go stupidly fast.

[Trafalgar]

They go stupidly fast, but it's not impossible to get them if YOU can be sufficiently fast. (It was easier for me to get one of them than to get a DM'd one)

[mirwalk]

Took me 4 nights and about 120 tweets, then Sentinel DMed me one.

[Jaenus]

Originally Posted by Hamma

They are giving away keys via tweets right now and not DMs.

Which is a stupid, ineffective way to get those keys into the hands of real-life people/loyal fans.

As you know first hand how quickly those bots gobble up keys and then sell them for upwards of $50.

The frenzy only lends itself to the spammers being seen.

Worse still, Valk and others aren't consistent with their awarding of keys.

They say fan art, and award some but not all, quality clearly not being what they're looking at, which only leads me to my next point:

I find if you kiss Valk's ass or appeal to the beta-key-person-of-the-day's ego or factional bias, you're more likely to get a key.

I posted VS fanart several times and was constantly ignored while people who draw bullshit in paint about TR killing VS, something like "I wasted my life" or w/e get the key. (Admittedly, I laughed at it, but it took the guy 30 seconds?)

Or someone I never saw in my 6 days of lurking/posting says, "I need a reason to stop playing BF3! and then Valk replies to them with a key.

So rule of thumb from a twitter vet?

1) Appeal to their factional bias;
2) Kiss their ass;
3) Make stupid comments or inane tweets while doing 1 and 2;
4) Profit from a key!


And as a side note; you're free to disagree with me, you're free to dislike what I say, but after 6 days of trying for a key for 3-4 hours every evening after work, this is the information/feeling that I have gotten for myself, first hand. I don't mean my observations to be an insult to any of the SOE staff, I do know they are swamped, but it is what it is.

[Koosalagoosagoo]

I told Sentinel that I was the king of Nigeria and was going to deposit 2 million dollars into his bank account for a beta key, that got me one.

[DirtyBird]

I managed to snare one from TRay on twitter when he was giving up on the NC that hadnt sent him a DM when he called them out from his follower list.

I told him a zillion NC had sent him a msg for a key and the ones he was listing arent loyal to the cause.

Next thing, my nick was called out

That key went to a mate of mine that missed out on playing PS1 with us but is very keen to get in on PS2 after seeing all the stuff thats been released so far.