Foostival 2014: Your chance to win 400 gems (EU-only!)

Update March 31, 2014: The winners have been chosen. Congratulations to VedGWII.5281, stjf.7180, BlueIceshard.8495 and Iris.5918!

The Foostival may be over, but we still have some stuff left that we want to give away: 4 little gem cards worth 400 gems each! As is usually the case with gem cards, they are “region-locked” which means that you can only use them if you’ve got a European account. And as usual, we are sorry about this, but there is nothing we can do about that restriction.

On to what you need to do. For a chance to win one of those gem cards, reply to this blog post and tell us:

What is the colour of the t-shirt that Ramon was wearing at Foostival 2014?

If you don’t know, it’s very easy to find the answer. Have a look at either the Guildnews video, the video hosted by Wartower or the translation of the interview with Ramon here on our blog. Also, sooner or later you can probably just cheat and look at what others answered (this may also be helpful if you’re colourblind because it may be a mean question otherwise).

As usual, the rules are as follows
1. One person can win only one gem card! The winners will be randomly chosen out of all correct answers in the comment section. Slight variations of the colour’s name are acceptable (but you can’t say purple when it’s green, etc.!).
2. The Giveaway is open for comments/participants until March 31, 2014, 8 pm Berlin Time.
3. One entry per person (IP addresses are always logged by wordpress.com when somebody comments)! We reserve the right to exclude entries when we think you’re trying to cheat by entering multiple times. Stay fair, please. :)
4. Leave your account name (name.1234 – NOT the email address you use to log in to the game) and we will contact you in the game if you have won.
5. The winner will be contacted in game. Please reply until April 6, 2014. If you do not reply within that time frame, we will choose another winner.
6. No debating about the outcome!

Last but not least, this is not your only chance to win something! Guildnews has two giveaways. You can find the instructions here (the post is in German) for a total of 8 gem codes!

 

3 year anniversary giveaway: Fluff items

Click here for the German paragraph / Klickt hier, um die Instruktionen auf Deutsch zu lesen.

You can win a fluff item pack for Guild Wars 2! We won’t spoil the fun and say what is in the pack, but think dyes and minis here (EDIT: At this time, the item pack is worth almost 39 gold!). All you have to do in order to be eligible to win is leave a comment below and answer the following question: How many level 80 asura does Paeroka have? Hint: Read the previous post to find the answer. This fluff item giveaway is open for all GW2 players. There are no restrictions in sending items across the pond. ;)

As usual, the rules are as follows
1. The winner will be randomly chosen out of all correct answers in the comment section. Both German and English answers will be considered.
2. The Giveaway is open for comments/participants until March 12, 2014, 6pm Berlin Time.
3. One entry per person (IP addresses are always logged by wordpress.com when somebody comments)! We reserve the right to exclude entries when we think you’re trying to cheat by entering multiple times. Stay fair, please. :)
4. Leave your account name (name.1234 – NOT the email address you use to log in to the game) and we will contact you in the game if you have won.
5. The winner will be contacted in game. Please reply until March 19, 2014. If you do not reply within that time frame, we will choose another winner.
6. No debating about the outcome!

Last but not least, go here for a chance to win 800 gems!

Ihr könnt hier ein kleines Paket mit Items gewinnen. Was genau in dem Paket ist, verraten wir nicht, um die Überraschung nicht zu verderben. Denkt aber in Richtung Farben und Minis. ;) Alles, was ihr tun müsst, um eine Chance auf den Gewinn zu haben, ist die folgende Frage zu beantworten: Wie viele Level 80 Asura hat Paeroka? Ein kleiner Tipp: Lest den vorherigen Eintrag. Er ist zwar auf Englisch, aber ihr solltet die Stelle trotzdem finden können. ;) Dieser Item-Giveaway ist für alle offen, egal ob EU- oder US-Account. Items können an jeden Spieler geschickt werden. :)

Wie immer gilt es, einige Regeln zu beachten
1. Der Gewinner wird aus allen richtigen Antworten in den Kommentaren zufällig ausgewählt. Sowohl deutsche als auch englische Antworten werden berücksichtigt werden.
2. Ihr könnt bis zum 12. März 2014, 18 Uhr deutsche Zeit teilnehmen.
3. Pro Person nur ein Eintrag (IP-Adressen werden bei jedem Kommentar automatisch von WordPress erfasst)! Wir erlauben es uns, Kommentare nicht zu berücksichtigen, wenn wir denken, dass ihr gegen diese Regel verstoßt und mehrfach teilnehmt. Bleibt bitte fair! :)
4. Wenn ihr kommentiert, hinterlasst bitte euren Accountnamen (Name.1234 – NICHT die E-Mail-Adresse, mit der ihr euch im Spiel einloggt) und wir werden euch, wenn ihr gewinnt, im Spiel kontaktieren.
5. Der Gewinner wird im Spiel kontaktiert werden. Antwortet bitte bis spätestens 19. März 2014. Wenn ihr innerhalb dieser Zeit nicht antwortet, werden wir einen anderen Gewinner auslosen.
6. Es gibt keine Diskussionen über das Ergebnis!

Und zum Schluss noch der Link zu unserem 800 Edelstein-Giveaway!

3 years of Nerdy Bookahs – and 2 giveaways!

Edit: The Giveaways are over. You cannot participate anymore.

It’s that time of the year to get all nostalgic again. Nerdy Bookahs is celebrating its 3 year anniversary on March 12. As we have recently “expanded” and added a German blog, we are also going to host a giveaway in each blog. If you don’t care about my nostalgia and only care about the giveaway, click on the images. Otherwise, read on and click on the images afterwards. ;)

Back in August 2010, I had made the decision to start blogging about games. I knew I wanted it to be in English. Reaching more people was one of the reasons, but not in order to gain more page views. I’ve just always enjoyed the heterogenity that comes with people from different parts of the world. And I knew I could not reach all of you if I wrote in German. The other reason was that I wanted to practice my written English skills. During my studies, I’d done a lot of reading of English scientific papers, but not that much writing or speaking. I also knew I wasn’t and still am not in it for any money. No ads, no trying to get as many hits as possible in a month. This is for fun only. At some point, bookahnerk wanted to join the fun as well and we decided that it would make more sense to have one blog together. He does not write much here, but he’s quite often reading my blog posts before I publish them and gives me feedback. He is also in charge of the good videos on our YouTube channel. ;) And recently, we decided to have two blogs, after all! Why not have a German branch of Nerdy Bookahs! We’ve switched roles for that part and bookahnerk is responsible for publishing posts while I take on the editor role. When it comes to nice-looking videos, nothing has changed. That is his domain. ;)

Oddly enough, while Guild Wars 2 had been on my radar from the beginning, Rift had been, too. And just when Rift launched in March 2011, Nerdy Bookahs launched as well! This is a coincidence, but I still quite like it. :) It had also been the time where I’d been studying for my university diploma. I succeeded and started my work at a university a few months later (I like universities too much. They won’t get rid of me easily). Hated the job I got, looked for another one, found one in April last year and couldn’t be happier. So much about my private life in the background. ;) But all of this has happened in those three years and it’s nice to look back at this as well.

Gaming-wise, when we started Nerdy Bookahs, I was still playing Lord of the Rings Online, had found Rift but soon realized that I do not want to play games with monthly subs anymore and was looking forward to playing Guild Wars 2. By now, I am playing Guild Wars 2 and since Rift went f2p, I’ve been playing this game again as well. I got my warrior in Rift to level 54 and only need 6 more levels to reach the current level cap. In Guild Wars 2, I have gotten 3 asura to level 80 (mesmer, warrior, guardian) and added one level 80 sylvari ranger and one level 80 charr engineer to the mix. I have a love-hate relationship with my asura elementalist and just can’t warm up to the other professions, unfortunately. I would love if ArenaNet could release a profession close to the GW1 dervish. I never got her to max level, but I still loved that style! ;)

Some of you have been around for the last three years. Thank you for that! And even more visited at some point in between, of course. I always love receiving comments with your thoughts as that is what I love about blogging the most. And now that I managed switch from talking about our blog to you, our readers, let us continue with the giveaway: We’re going to have two, actually! One will be here and will be open for EU and US GW2 players. The second one is only open for owners of a EU GW2 account (because the code is only valid for those. Sorry!) and can be found in bookahnerk’s blog. Click the images above to jump to the blog posts.

Christmas Giveaway: Win 1000 gems

Update December 25, 2013: We have drawn our winner. Congratulations, Sime!

NOW I have really finished November’s NaBloPoMo: 30 days with posting at least 1 blog post every day. We decided we should let this challenge end with our Christmas Giveaway! As the subject says: You can win 1000 gems.

Unfortunately, we cannot simply give the lucky winner a code as the codes we can buy are EU-only (and thus, we would exclude at least half of our readership). So we decided to buy a gem card worth 2000 gems and we’ll give away 1000 here and the other 1000 on the Dragon Season forums. Thus, the lucky winner from this giveaway will be able to choose whatever they want from the gem store worth up to 1000 gems (the remaining gems will be traded for gold when we buy the items and will be sent to the winner as well)!*

Since we’re going to use the gift function to give you your gem items, you can’t choose anything from the “upgrades” tab. Those items cannot be gifted, unfortunately. :( Look for the little gift icons to be 100% sure the item(s) can be gifted.

The next bit of info that you’d probably like to get is: How can you win? It’s quite simple:

Winter is here! Yay!

1. We want you to comment and present us a screenshot of your Guild Wars 2 character in winters day spirit. This includes snowy regions (like Hoelbrak), Lion’s Arch when it’s decorated for winter’s day (this should come on December 10), or whatever else you come up with.

2. The Giveaway is open for comments/participants until Tuesday, December 24, 2013, 11.59pm Berlin Time (this should give you the time for your time zone).

3. One entry (and one screenshot!) per person (IP addresses are always logged by wordpress.com when somebody comments)! We reserve the right to exclude entries when we think you’re trying to cheat by entering multiple times. Stay fair, please. :)

4. Leave your GW2 account name (NOT your login email address, but the name with the numbers like Paeroka.7924). Alternatively, if you prefer not to post your account name publicly, make sure you leave a valid email address when commenting, so we can contact you via email instead. It will only be used by us for contacting the winner and nothing else! The best way to do that is to enter said email address into the “email” field. We can see that address but nobody else will be able to see it (if you instead put it into the body of your comment, everybody will see it)!

5. From all screenshots, we will choose the ones we like the most (no definite number. If there are lots of great entries, then we’ll choose lots) and out of that pool, we will randomly draw the winner of the 1000 gems giveaway.

6. The winner will be contacted in game or via email. Please reply until January 2, 2014 and tell us which item(s) from the gem store you want! If you do not reply within that time frame, we will choose another winner.

7. No debating about the outcome!

If you’re wondering where or how to upload the picture, read the following instruction (written by Tilion from DragonSeason):
1) Go to http://tinypic.com/ and select Browse.
2) Find your picture from your PC at the pop-up window. Once you select it, click Upload Now.
3) Fill in the CAPTCHA code that will appear on your screen and click once more Upload Now.
4) Once you’re through with that, copy the Direct Link for Layouts that has been given to you and come back here and leave a comment.

*I did test the gifting function by gifting a box of fun to ArcherAvatar who has a US account. He messaged me saying he received it, so gifting between the EU and US regions is possible!

My precious: A signed copy of the Rift CE

Quite some time ago, I was watching the weekly Rift livestream. I admit, I also do that because they give away codes for hellbug mounts and I would love to get one. If you watch the video, you will see that I did not win that one. Bummer… or maybe not. ;) At the one hour mark, they’re showing a Rift Collector’s Edition: pretty, shiny and signed by the Rift staff. At 1 hour and 4 minutes, they’re drawing the winner. If you’ve ever wondered how to pronounce my name, you can hear it on there. ;) I almost fell out of my chair. There were more than 1000 people watching. What are the odds…?

I still can’t believe I’ve won this thing! I did get the digital upgrade to the CE back when the game got released, so I may give the CE key to a friend who has started playing after it went free to play. After all, it would make two people happy instead of just me! I also don’t think I’ll get anything fancy that I don’t have yet, because the digital goodies that came with the digital CE upgrade are identical to the digital items that come with the physical CE key. But the CE came with a mousepad, a Rift USB-stick (the “Rift” letters glow in blue when it’s plugged into the PC), the soundtrack and a Rift comic book. So lots of physical goodies.

It took the CE quite a bit to get here and for a while, I feared I would never have it sent to me. I bothered the CMs for a bit, though, and I also assume it was stressful for them with Elrar leaving, Trion Worlds restructuring a bit, etc. Last week, I was told that the CE would be sent on Friday. When did the snail mail get that fast? It flew from the USA to Germany within just a few days. Amazing! It also had almost perfect timing as it was my birthday last week.

When it arrived, I wasn’t the only one who was excited, though. My dog sadly mistook the parcel for one containing something edible. While I went to get the scissors to open the box, she happily gnawed on a corner of the parcel to get it open. She is rather smart, though, and decided to not waste her time when she saw me return with the scissors and just waited until I had opened it. As you can see, she thoroughly inspected the parcel just to be really disappointed when she saw it contained nothing to eat at all. Anyway, enough about my dog. Here is the shiny Collector’s Edition. And it really is shiny with all the gold and silver signatures on it!

The best part is the soundtrack CD, though. I love soundtracks and this one is very nice and distinctive.

Thank you, Trion Worlds!