Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Gifting Epicness? (Stuff in the 'Bad Idea' Bin)

I was thinking about my Epicness and though I don't use most if any of the features, it is a 'nice to have' thing. I was gifted a wand when I joined and of course I had to activate it which I get, but it did lead me to have a question. When gifting Epicness, could there be a way to have the one giving the gift to opt to activate it for the one they give it to? I felt it was only right to use the wand I was given for myself since it was gifted to me, but nothing would have stopped me from not using it and sending it on to someone else.

I was debating on giving some Epicness gifts out, but I would want the receiver to use it, not put it on display or raffling it off or giving it to someone else. I can't see any harm having a non-Epic user get activated Epicness as it doesn't deter anything for them, but gives them the added features. Of course it would only be an option for gifting Epicness only.

Thoughts on having the option to gift and activate Epicness for others? Is there a reason it isn't done?

I don't know, I think not having the option to activate it for someone else is kind of a good thing... like, as much as I would appreciate someone giving me a gift, I don't really need or want epicness; if I was given an epicness item I would respectfully regift it to someone who could use it. I'd feel bad if someone payed to directly give me epicness that I wouldn't get much use out of. I expect some others probably feel the same way

A gift is a gift, not an obligation. I would be extremely opposed to someone being able to force me to not only accept but also 'wear' the gift I was given and having no choice to do whatever I wanted with it.

Imagine if someone gifted you a very, very ugly sweater that did not suit you and makes you unhappy, but because they gifted it to you, you are now forced to wear it for the next 6 months and you don't have any option to take it off. Having Epicness activated automatically when gifted is kind of like that.

Once the item has been given to the recipient it's up to them how they use it. If you don't trust the user to use the Epicness on their own account, your best bet is to not give them anything at all. Or you can just accept that once it leaves your account, it's up to them to use it however it makes them happy? Sometimes passing a gift along can bring more joy and brightness to the world than just using it yourself.

Whoa! I couldn't see there being an issue with having epic vs non-epic, but I guess there is? Point taken.
I was looking at it as just activating extras on the site for people, but I guess the word 'gift' got in the way.
Nevermind. Thought it would be a nice gimmick to help the site out as I couldn't see it hurting anyone.
Wouldn't want to 'force anybody to wear Epicness' though. File this away in the 'bad idea' folder.

Fun facts - this used to be how it worked! When purchased, Epicness would be applied immediately to your account, or to someone else's if you bought it as a gift.

I totally get why you don't see it as a problem, because I, too, also didn't think it would be a problem when I built it that way.

But it was, in fact, a constant problem and the source of a ton of work for me. I would get messages from the receiver that they were going on vacation for two weeks and they didn't want to waste the gift, could I please manually remove their Epic time and restore it to them later? Or someone would purchase two years of Epicness on sale, then message me and ask me to manually divide up that Epicness time that had been applied to their account between them and their (insert number here) friends. Or someone who already had three years of Epicness they had bought for themselves received an extra month as a gift from a friend, and since they turned out to not actually need it they wanted to know if they could refund it to their friend, or transfer it to a different friend. Or someone would buy epicness for a friend only to discover that they had gone inactive the day before and just never really came back, and needed help getting the epicness manually transferred.

The transition to objects that could be activated was meant to solve all of the above issues, so that people buying tons of Epicness on a discount could send the item(s) to their friends, so that people receiving it could activate it when it was most useful to them, or so they could decline it and regift if they already had plenty/were never going to use those features.

Epicness isn't the same as a sweater you don't want to wear, per se, but it is the same as all gifts in that it turns out the recipient needs some control over when/where/how to use it to avoid weird problems.

Wow! Interesting! Thanks for sharing the history, Kim. I can see how that had to be an unmanageable pain.