Hi SG,

Happy holidays! We have a holiday event starting now and ending on December 25. The event allows users to create custom gift boxes which can be opened by others in the community to reveal giveaways. To get started, follow the below link to browse all of the available gift boxes, or to create one of your own.

https://www.steamgifts.com/happy-holidays

How it works

  1. Creating a gift box and giveaway

    • To setup a giveaway, use the link above and click "Create a Holiday Giveaway".
    • The giveaway will start immediately and end on December 25.
    • The giveaway will be available to the entire community, although region and contributor level restrictions can still be configured.
    • The giveaway will appear as invite only on your profile and not be visible throughout the site.
    • Once created, you'll see your gift box in the link above and users will have a chance to open it to access the giveaway.
  2. Opening gift boxes

    • You can open 5 gift boxes each day until December 25.
    • When you open a gift box, you unlock the giveaway link and are able to enter the giveaway. Unlocked gift boxes are highlighted in green on the holiday page above, and you can freely revisit those gift boxes and giveaways.
    • You will see a notification if you cannot open a gift box. This could happen when the giveaway contained within is region restricted, when you do not meet the contributor level requirements, when you already own the game, when you do not own the base game for the DLC, when you have previously won the game, or when you have been blacklisted by the giveaway creator.
    • You cannot join a giveaway by only having the direct link. If you did not open the corresponding gift box, but received the link from someone else, you will see an error when attempting to view the giveaway.

No spoilers. Please do not share what games you found or what was contained inside of a gift box.

If you have any questions, please ask. I'm looking forward to seeing all the gift box designs. I'll add a few throughout the month with Steam gift cards and games as well. Have fun!


Updates

  • You can now open 5 gift boxes each day, instead of one every 12 hours.
  • A dropdown menu named "Browse" has been added to the top of the screen. This allows you to filter gift boxes by "All", "Available" (only those you can open), "Opened", and "Created".
  • If you have a giveaway creator blacklisted, you'll still see their gift boxes on the "Available" page, and the button on the gift box page will display "Open Gift Box". You'll only be blocked when you attempt to open the gift box (this will not count towards your daily limit of 5 to open). This will prevent users from blacklisting a user, and then checking whether or not a gift box remains on the "Available" page to identify if they are the creator.
5 years ago*

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Two things:

  1. Maybe you could create two tabs, one for already opened boxes, and one for boxes created? I just had trouble to find the box I created myself and I definitely find it hard to find the boxes again, I already opened. So, it would be cool, if a box would be moved over to an extra tab once it's opened, to find it more easily later on. And to have a tab for my own box.
  2. Since boxes already opened come with a light green background, why not mark boxes you can't open with a light red background? That would make it easier for people to avoid those boxes they can't open anyway. They still can watch the design, but they'd know right away that they can't open said box, without having to click it first.
5 years ago
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I totally agree with point 2. It would be nice boxes you couldn't open, for whatever reason, to be marked so you won't try to open them again.

5 years ago
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Yeah... I have had problems with a lot that I own, since I'm a greedy bastard. So it takes valuable seconds out of my 86400 seconds I get every day, which sucks. Of course, this would still not apply to dlc or GOTY I own. I opened one earlier today.... Q.Q

5 years ago
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Well i prefer to get a warning for something i own, since i know i would like to enter for it if i didn't own it, rather than opening something i have absolutely no interest in, no matter if it is a 1p game or a 3A one.

5 years ago
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Can i use some politically themed pictures on the box?

5 years ago
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as mentioned elsewhere, same rules apply to box images as do to the rest of community, so if you post something that would get you suspended for posting it on forums so will it do with the gift box, if it would be ok on forums it's also ok on the box.

5 years ago
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I think we need to randomize box order, just in case of:
@RandomPerson - Hey dude look for line X, middle box, page Y, contains 50p game.

But even then, people still can share "dude, look for Imma Firin Mah_ Laze.gif box"

5 years ago
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5 years ago
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I got hit with one... GOTY I had scratched off, since I already owned it, and didn't want to see any more of them. D:

Lost a chance.

5 years ago
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I opened one, where the creator asks me to agree to delete if the key will be invalid... hell no, don't put it in a holiday box then!

5 years ago
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lol! Happy Unholidays!

5 years ago
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Gift box is better than Loot box

5 years ago
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Guideline
Entering
We encourage users to write comments thanking the giveaway creator for their generosity, although this is not required.

There are various hobbies, subtle games, free distributed games (treasure for those who do not get it), and various games.
But do not forget to thank donors.

Let's laugh even if the game does not suit your hobby.
Have a wonderful Christmas.

5 years ago
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The spirit of Christmas: https://imgur.com/like0LV

5 years ago
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It'll get better. Just give away some games from time to time.

5 years ago
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this is really fun lol

5 years ago
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Good idea, I would add also other 5 daily but random gifts boxes with these. Or else to get 1 random gift box when you create any new gift or gift box.

5 years ago
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your 2nd idea could be easilly exploited. Make GA, get additional opening, delete GA as 'mistake', rinse and repeat ;p

5 years ago
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Oh, you're right, to fix that I guess that gift box must be given only when you finish the gift (with a min number of entries) and the winner mark it like received.

5 years ago
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but all gifts ends at the same time at Dec 25, so noone would get bonus gift entries anyway ;)

5 years ago
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Yes, then for gift boxes won't work it, only for normal gifts that you can create and finish before 25 for get extra gifts boxes. Anyway, this is an idea that probably never will be implement xd

5 years ago
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so they get 1 less the next day, solved

5 years ago
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You're able to create up to 1,070 additional gifts based on your giveaway feedback.

So I could not care about 'next day', just create shitload of fake GAs in a single day and get enough bonus entries to open every gift there is. Heck I don't even need to lose slots, just make restrictions for GA such that noone can enter - make GA for North Korea only with lvl 10 restriction - noone can enter, noone can say it's fake, when it ends I will get my GA slot back, I can enter extra gift, I will not have 1 less the next day ^^
TL;DR Unsolved ;p

5 years ago
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get enough bonus entries to open every gift there is.

and a perma-ban, solved

make GA for North Korea only

exclude locked ones

5 years ago
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permaban for what? since when i creating region-restricted GAs breaking site rules? :)

also we already have locked GAs in the event, and even so let me make GA for this DLC for the game noone owns - so noone can enter. Or for some well known bugged title that even if someone could enter will net be able to because API reports wrong subID. And so on and on. You see the problem with your 'easy' solution? It is not easy, because then you have to add another layer of protection, then another one, because your last layer gave another exploits, then another and another and so on and on. Impossible to do on live event, can be considered with carefull thinking and lots of testing for future events but not for current one.

5 years ago
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permaban for what?

mass-deleting

'and about the rest'

SG itself is not exploit safe and many people have tried to abuse various stuff and they (hopefully) all got banned, so the same ruling can be applied for the bad guys here

5 years ago
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not to mention simple fact of 'investment' - go to known russian site and bulk-buy 1000 keys for 3$, bam - 1000 additional gifts to enter!

5 years ago
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Honestly, I don't get it. I mean, it's a nice event for people who enter everything they can to get their precious +1 or just don't care what to play, but why is everyone else so full of joy? Or maybe I just don't understand a concept of gifts.

5 years ago
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Surprises are fun! I think... at least...

5 years ago
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Fun surprises are fun! I think.

5 years ago
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You are right. Some surprises are not very fun...

5 years ago
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Box designs. That is the main thing for me. ๐Ÿ˜„

5 years ago
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but... but, where all those boxes will go, on Dec 26?

:O

5 years ago
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Damn, you're right ... that's a lot of digital waste. We don't even know if those boxes can be recycled.

5 years ago
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Can't argue with that))

5 years ago
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I'm kinda choosy with games so I don't enter most of what I open, but I find the entire concept cute. But I'm also a 30-year old child that gets excited over anything, so.. :S

5 years ago
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Now this is a cute comment. Also I'm totally with you. I like surprises furthermore, and I think it' s fun to try and guess from the box design what it may contain.

5 years ago
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Exactly :D

5 years ago
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Being a boring and grumpy old woman (a whole 3 years older than you, yeah!), I totally envy you :)

5 years ago
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I try to guess what is in the box, but the design doesn't always deflect the game given away.

But hey....I am a cat, so by nature boxes excite me! ;-p

5 years ago
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why is everyone else so full of joy?

kinda weird, as question :D

not me, but quite sure there's a -big- bunch of peeps that do not +1 and do care what to play.

add to that this is an event created by this site admin. create boxes with your own special gift wrapping paper. with a pinch of luck, get a chance to win great games...

that said, i totally understand what you're asking... i still think is just... too hard, to answer your question. i mean... how can i let you fully understand why i'm joyful? or, even better: i think cg, sharing the "joy of a gift", will have a wonderful Christmas this year :)

Wishing you, PossiblePsycho, all the best for these festive days, a pinch of luck here and a grrreat 2019

Buon Natale!

5 years ago
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Right back at you! I may have a little bit of Grinch in me, but not to the extent of minding others having fun)
I just wish giveways filter were taken into consideration somehow.

5 years ago
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Grinch in me

<3

5 years ago
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shut up and enjoy things, you're not allowed to complain or think different from others ๐Ÿ˜ 

View attached image.
5 years ago
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shut up and enjoy

<3

5 years ago
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I bookmarked a bunch of boxes just because of their designs and when checking out the first 5 bookmarks today one of them happened to be deleted so I was wondering: What happens to the people that opened that box? Do they lose that daily box or gain back a chance to open 1 more?

5 years ago
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Opened a box with... a GOTY I owned. Lost a chance. So, hopefully if it's done again sometime, this can be fixed, since it's broken right now.

5 years ago
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Yeah right now it seems that SG cannot check one's account against bundles and subs, it happened to me twice today. Kinda frustrating but still better than nothing :P

5 years ago
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Definitely - I've opened some pretty decent ones overall! Trying to keep the bright side glasses on!

5 years ago
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SG can't check for DLC, because it doesn't show on your profile... Nevertheless it shouldn't show boxes with hidden games.

5 years ago
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I don't think 'not showing boxes for games you have hidden' is a solution as it can be exploited. Hide/filter every game there is beside highly wanted AAA games or premium indies - and suddenly you will have much higher chance than any other user on winning best stuff.

5 years ago
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Make some restrictions, like you can only hide 10 games an hour, so it can't be automated, then good luck hiding and unhiding them...

5 years ago
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but hiding games is already part of SG design, and there are already people with tens of thousands of stuff hidden ;p

5 years ago
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why would you want to hide so many stuff? wishlist isnt enough filter?

5 years ago
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I do not, I only use hide-filter for false-positives (like DLCs, packs or stuff bugged in API), but there are such people ;p In this very thread someone who has 13000 games hidden commented about it ;p

5 years ago
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the OCD is strong with that one lol

5 years ago
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~13k here too - it's not OCD, at least in my case, by any stretch. I like winning games, and I like finding new, interesting games. Without hiding the ones that I don't want yet appear by the dozen, it's almost impossible to find the new ones because they are buried. That's all :)

5 years ago
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realizing, that you have a problem, is the first step towards healing!

5 years ago
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I wish you strength for your journey, it's a difficult discussion

5 years ago
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so far 4/10 of my opened boxes are stuff I cannot enter ;P it can be frustrating, but then again - not much can be done about it, as it's because of Steam flawed API, not because of SG. And I don't think 'not showing boxes for games you have hidden' is a solution as it can be exploited. Hide/filter every game there is beside highly wanted AAA games or premium indies - and suddenly you will have much higher chance than any other user on winning best stuff.

5 years ago
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wow

grrrande zelgha!

5 years ago
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Opened 2 boxes today with games I already have in my account,
opened another 2 boxes with games I have keys for, but not yet redeemed
opened 1 box with a mildly interesting game.

Not a lucky day today!

5 years ago
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Oh I know. Got one yesterday from a bundle I was planning to buy but waited. Should have activated before package-hunting.
Oh well, no point worrying over spilled milk... packages.
Plenty of days to go, plenty of chances, and it's fun overall and love most designs.

Still hate having to wait for the cooldowntimer to see if the 10 tabs open even have a single enterable giveaway though :/

5 years ago
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It certainly IS fun!

I keep wondering what is in the boxes I didn't open.........

5 years ago
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I wonder if we can convince SG to make all links public dec 26. At that point you can't enter anymore anyway, just peruse the content, and congrats great designers for packages you couldn't enter for various reasons (well, aside the blacklisted ones).

5 years ago
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This tickles me in a nice way ( อกยฐ อœส– อกยฐ)

5 years ago
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The big problem is that, they're linkable, people can make lists of good ones.

5 years ago
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Just to disagree with everybody, I actually like the fact that sometimes I get a link to something I already own, or some trashy game I absolutely do not want.

I mean, isn't this exactly like the Xmas gifts you get from your family? Sometimes it is total trash, but you force yourself to smile because it was given with love? :D :D :D

And sometimes, it is total trash given by obligation, too. :D

Cheers!

5 years ago
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I mean, isn't this exactly like the Xmas gifts you get from your family? Sometimes it is total trash, but you force yourself to smile because it was given with love? :D :D :D

another pair of socks! ;p

5 years ago
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Except that your family probably has a reasonable idea of what you may like, and not just give you things at random, and particularly not things they know you'd hate...

5 years ago
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Depends on the family...

5 years ago
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Oh, I've got many bottles of very fine wine...

....which my wife really enjoyed, since I myself do not drink. :P :P :P

:D

Cheers!

P.S: It's not their fault, though, since I was really thankful anyway...
...which is probably the reason why they still give me wine, I seem so happy to get it. :D :D

5 years ago
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You will not be blocked from opening a gift box if you blacklisted the creator after the event started. This is done to prevent users from blacklisting a user, and then checking whether or not a gift box can be opened to identify if they are the creator.

May I ask what exploit or other negative outcome this is actually warding off? The explanation seems to fall short of an actual conclusion.

I'm only asking because, as we predicted from the start of the event, we have more and more troll users popping up, and now we have no way of blocking their intentionally misleading boxes. While I'm not necessarily overly concerned with that on its own, I am however a bit peeved that it seems like the rules have been changed to deliberatly aid trolls, so I am kinda curious if that configuration actually has a purpose which is worth its downside. :/

5 years ago
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Yea, even if you know who created a giveaway, so what? That doesn't change the fact that you still wont know what the giveaway is for. At best you might be able to vaguely guess if the giveaway is higher or lower priced based on that users history.

5 years ago
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That was quickly added so users couldn't identify the creator of a gift box. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair if someone could check the gift boxes while blacklisting users to find out which ones are posted by any given person. That's a very important purpose, as it keeps the event running as intended, otherwise gift boxes wouldn't be anonymous. It could be done a better way, and I'll likely do so tomorrow if I have a few moments. It'll be changed so the "Open Gift Box" button is displayed when you have the creator blacklisted. However, after you click and confirm to open the box, you'll then receive the error (unlike the other errors that are displayed by simply viewing the page). That'll keep the blacklist working as intended, and users will also not be able to identify creators since they need to make an attempt at opening the box before seeing if the creator is blacklisted (the failed attempt wouldn't count against the daily open limit).

5 years ago
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I don't get what difference it makes if the blacklist message is displayed before or after opening a box.

5 years ago
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Cause now you have to potentially 'waste' one of your opening attempts if you were wrong about the creator - before, you could blacklist them, refresh the gift page, and if it said "you've blacklisted the creator" (or w/e), you knew who the creator was before using one of your daily open attempts...

If/when the new after-attempt-error-message goes into effect, you'd have to actually open the box before you'd get confirmation, and if you're wrong you just used one of your daily attempts... at that point it's little different than actually just opening boxes, except that if you come across some spammy troll dropping crap in boxes, you can blacklist them and won't have to worry about using up your attempts opening their boxes anymore...

5 years ago
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It's a fun idea and mostly a good event, but it's not as great an idea considering you haven't fixed the fact that all Learning games and all DLC aren't counted as owned. Also bundles as mentioned above.

5 years ago
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Nothing to "fix". It's not in the SteamAPI, not much Steamgifts can do. Any and all other scripts working around that require you to be actually logged into your own account, Steamgifts can't do that.

5 years ago
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Barter.vg seems to be able to find Learning games you own, so there must be some other way.

5 years ago
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5 years ago
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It starts to become a blacklist recruitment event

View attached image.
5 years ago
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SWEET!

5 years ago
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Good idea but ruined by the community. Gifts are 99% clickbaits with $1 junk games. I get the impression people are doing it on purpose to troll us.

5 years ago*
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Anyone else having the issue that only the first 12 boxes show correctly on the list and after that, the images for the boxes just don't show up at all but you can still click on them?
https://i.imgur.com/ajGJq0s.png

5 years ago
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you probably have a script with endless scrolling, disable it so each page loads 9 12 boxes.

5 years ago*
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Ah, didn't think about that, thanks. =)

5 years ago
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Yep, as Mully said, ESGST's endless scrolling can't load further boxes.

5 years ago
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Yeah a lot of trolls around ruining a what could've been a great event. I really don't like the idea of taking a shit in a box and throwing it under the Christmas tree, so i guess i'll be blacklisting 5 people every 24 hours until the 25th....Marry Christmas yall! :)

5 years ago
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5 years ago
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Lol your reading comprehension is impeccable. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul!

5 years ago
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this box feels like an omen ๐Ÿค”

View attached image.
5 years ago
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Respect to the snarky creator of that one, it made me laugh ๐Ÿ˜‚

5 years ago
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Closed 4 years ago by cg.