Awesome. I know, or at least hope, things I acquire someone else will enjoy more than me. I already have a few indie skateboarding games that I don't play. It was one I considered keeping, but I know/hope anyone who enters/wins will play it more than my not playing.
Congrats, enjoy it. The Key is so short-term for redemption, I had to mention it. Thanks also for prompt acceptance.
Hope you don't mind my response here, to leave the Lootboy thread alone for now.
In regards to Discord there's a fair amount of activity there, mainly being the only real place you'll get support if something is wrong with your account or redemption, for better or worse. The important thing ARP-wise is the adventure polls and occasionally Alienware product surveys. Once you link your Discord to AWA in your account settings, IIRC needing the same email for Discord that you use for AWA and then syncing accounts in the arena connect section of the Discord server you get access to various servers of interest but most importantly the adventure polls. It's kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, except the direction of the story and choices are determined by majority votes of the Discord polls, with multiple options and dice rolls to create a branching narrative over time. You can vote once each poll, and only once so choose carefully, checking the arena chat server for community discussion around various options to try and pick the best option, which isn't always the best ARP reward option.
For basic, non choice or non-dice roll polls the reward is typically 5 ARP. For a successful story advancement or dice roll (the latter has been somewhat lacking recently) we get more ARP.....and if we utterly fail, choose the wrong option or fail a die roll we get only 1 ARP, or even possibly end the whole adventure prematurely. When an adventure is running there are typically 5 polls a week, with a break on the weekend. There's typically a week or two break between adventures so the AWA people can actually craft the adventures.
Here is where the latest artifact in the marketplace comes into play. If you had that and equipped it you would get +1 ARP to whatever the Discord poll amount that day was, so say +5 a week in a typical scenario and more if you chose to upgrade it with fragments. Doesn't sound like much but it compounds and rolls over time. It can also be the only way to get decent returns from Discord polls when we have a bad result....as we have been having alot recently. Apart from Cartire's often abysmal dice rolls we also have to deal with a large block of the Discord voters having a hive mind mentality with a predilection for self destruction that would make a particularly depressed lemming blush with shame. Their votes (majority vote is what counts) often end up losing us better ARP rewards or ending adventures entirely, mostly because they chase either high risk rewards or just don't bother considering the options properly. So the Discord artifact can balance that out somewhat, if it's upgraded at least.
I joined Discord for this and other giveaway sites tasks and frankly I think it's worth the few minutes of popping in and looking over the poll option. It's pretty low effort for a decent return and you get to participate in a fun adventure while there. Or just get some ARP, whatever floats your boat. Whether the 1000 ARP artifact cost is worth it is something only you can decide, it will leave a dent in your ARP but it will also increase your rate of ARP collection in the long term.
The starter artifacts I mentioned, including the 1% discount one, all cost 1 ARP each so it's a no-brainer to get them even if you only use 1. You can even use it to discount the cost of the Discord artifact after equipping it, the UI should highlight the discounted price, of not logout and back in again. It's not huge but every bit helps.
Another consideration regarding the current Discord artifact is that it's part of a set, which when you have all 3 parts of that set give additional benefits. There have been two sets released before and now they are releasing the 3rd, the Discord artifact being the first part and the second is being released as the final reward for the next community event. Now we don't know what this second set artifact does yet, or the 3rd, but once you have all 3 one of the set bonuses is a 10% increase in all ARP earned, on top of the Discord bonus and whatever the 2nd & 3rd artifact offer. That's not too shabby, especially as it's been pointed out if a user doesn't have many of the previous artifacts. But, we come back to that 1000 (or 990 ARP) cost; it means no vault for a month or two or even possibly no DRP when it refreshes for one cycle. The cost-benefit ratio is something only each individual user can decide based on their own circumstances.
The site arrangement is a bit lacking in some areas, especially with inventory or rewards received. Sadly the site has never highlighted when or how you receive fragments (unless you buy them in the marketplace), apart from the day of the calendar drop. Having a counter on the artifacts page is probably the best we can hope for right now, at least you can see it at a glance now. 17 fragments is a decent start, there'll be 2 more this month if you maintain the daily streak to the end of the month. You could probably upgrade the Discord artifact twice with that (+3 bonus) or could save them to see what this new artifact does, maybe it's a better option for upgrades.
In my opinion, I would buy the artifact and bank the increase ARP over time. Yes it will make looking at the game vault every month for a while painful but you will get there sooner ultimately with the increased ARP rate, not to mention raising your tier to get better giveaways, like V Rising which I learnt recently is still available to tier 4 (IIRC). Unless your banking on the next tranche of DRP to pay for a major item with other DRP that is expiring, that's the only scenario I can think of to pass on the artifact. Even then it could be a long time before the artifact comes round again. The calendar artifact took nearly a year to come back again before Christmas. It's a shame we can't trade DRP, this week and last week I received 500 DRP in the axe game to go with another 500 I got a month ago. I'm skint and the Dell program isn't very good in Australia compared to the US (especially with its minimum purchase clause), so it's all likely to go to waste for me.
I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with all this, believe it or not it wasn't this complicated when it started. But once the extra ARP channels begin flowing it really makes a difference. Also I'd really recommend that you participate in the community event if you can to gain the new artifact, as there's no guarantee it will be made available otherwise. If you can't use a computer you could idle Steam games on a phone like I have to do sometimes (I'm on mobile data only and some of those F2P games for quests have too massive download sizes to reinstall every month or so).
Feel free to ask more questions if you want, or if you join Discord there are lots of people to help you there. The Discord artifact is in the marketplace for another 13 so you have a little time to think about it.
Oh and PS, you should buy the fragments currently available in the marketplace, they're worth their weight in gold. If you want to seriously increase your ARP rate, artifacts are the way to go and even if you don't want to upgrade an artifact today, you probably will in the future. 10 fragments go a long way, especially at higher upgrade levels.
Hey, sorry about the lack of replies, I stupidly didn't bookmark this page for later and didn't get a notification about the new messages,been pulling double shifts all week so I haven't had much time to browse SG. I'll try and reply to your points one by one in my lunch break today or maybe tonight. Try it bear with me, the AWA stuff isn't as simple as it used to be 😀.
No problem, wasn't trying to rush you. Was more worried you didn't get the notices, I did reply a bunch all in a short time. Take your time. Just wanted to maintain contact. I ran an internet mud for years, we had some, to an outsider, confusing stuff. I'm .. willing to hear nerdy details. Not being able to tell what something does before buying is annoying, which is why I asked about what a few do.
I haven't yet read this post, but noticed it already. I was gonna suggest this as a better way as to not spam that forum. Thanks for the reply, I'll try to read through it when I can. Feel free to keep posting, I have no problem with walls/pages of text.
Only read a portion sofar. I knew about none of this. I totally would have been on discord for that at least a few times a week. I don't use discord, but I have one. All ARP I've earned is from website and options it has/has had. I've seen artifacts and fragments and stuff in the market, and as late streak rewards, but never though much of it, never expected to get one. Figured it's for people who actually have bought alienware stuff and get ARP that way.
I used everything I had for Dell reward points. All my dell points were going to expire on november 15th. I got up just enough ARP a few days before to get 2000 more Dell points. I was able to get a - Toshiba 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 1 Toshiba Canvio Advance portable external hard drive $79.99. Ended up being $87.39 with $7.40 tax. Points I guess convert to Dell Advantage, I had $80, so, I paid $7.39 for it. I did not get more Dell Rewards points for purchase. Didn't expect to, but woulda been cool to get 800 points.
I'm up to 1431 ARP. As much as I hate/can't stand parts of new website, the ARP has been way more, though I seem to get double(twice) for a lot of things.
For 1000 ARP "Zorathian Cosmotheque - An amazing discovery has taken place. The lost civilization has been found... Type: Knowledge"
what does this one do? How can you even tell what any do? People just learn and share on discord?
Unfortunately the artifact details aren't revealed untill you buy it or receive it but Megumin's thread I linked above usually has all the details added hours after they're made available, or usually they're floating round Discord. In this case it adds (per Megumin)
Discord Poll +1 ARP
Bronze｜+1 (Base artifact)
Silver｜+2 (when upgraded with fragments)
Gold｜+3
Plat｜+4
Inters｜+5
And it takes this many fragments to reach new artifact levels
Rust 0
Bronze 2 (Discord one starts at this level)
Silver 5
Gold 10
Platinum 16
Interstellar 25
So you can see you ultimately need alot of fragments to upgrade to +5 benefit, and this is only for this one artifact of course, so once you get more it becomes a decision of strategy in a way to decide what to prioritise. Just for example we got 6 via the calendar in Feb and another 5 from the community event (if you participated, there's still time if you haven't); March looks to only have 5 on offer the whole month.
If you bought the Discord artifact you could upgrade it a tier or 2 (+2 or +3 bonus) or you could sit on them and wait for artifacts with better returns come along.....but that could be a while. That calendar one available before Xmas had one of the best passive returns but it might not come again for another 6 months or more maybe. You will of course get more fragments over time. And there is a yet to be released 3rd artifact of the new set which may be useful or have a more beneficial bonus worth expending fragments upon. Or maybe not and the Discord one may be the best one to spend on right now.
Ultimately its a decision of short term sacrifice versus long term ARP gain, which really only you can decide if it's worth it. If you want more ARP right now then upgrading the Discord one to +3 will give you +3 ARP on-top of whatever ARP we get from a Discord poll/adventure, 5 days a week (typically). So that's generally+ 15 a week. Doesn't sound like much but in the absence of better artifacts, any increase in ARP is better than nothing. Or you could bank those fragments for a better artifact.....whenever it's actually made available.
My best option is long-term gain, since most things cost so much anyway. I'm not trying to fast grab with just daily stuff. I bought the 1 ARP artifacts, and equipped the 1% marketplace discount and +1 ARP for steam quests. Not that I do them, but more likely/useful than +1 ARP for twitch, for me. I did equip that too though.
One is a weapon, one tech, and one language I guess.
Are the things under "Flash Deals" on artifacts marketplace page actually artifacts?
right now for me it's "Campfire treats with Wumpus!" and "Welcome to Alienware Arena, Wumpus!" for 4 ARP each.
I never expected to have any, so never looked into the system. I'm an oldskool gamer, I've played some confusing stuff, if you're a noob to it. I only knew about what I saw on website and a few times artifacts were mentioned in comments somewhere at some points. I also get text adventures, ran a few muds long ago. I get sets too, played enough diablo2. I'll have to link and look at discord server later.
This is the link I have set up on my mobile browser start page so I can just visit once a day, it goes straight to the arena connect page where all the polls/adventures are.
But first basic housekeeping, you have to join the Alienware Discord server or receive the invite thingy if you haven't already. I think you can get that via the link accounts section of your control centre>account settings. That is where you link your Discord to AWA. Note the email for your Discord must match the one you use for AWA. It's been a while so I can't remember if you can view the arena connect board immediately so I'll just post the opening text and instructions here. I'll add some notes in italics.
Welcome to the Alienware Arena section of the Alienware Discord Server!
Get information on new Giveaways, Sweepstakes and more. Join Community Events. Take part in daily Polls and earn ARP!
Alienware Arena Members, follow these steps to connect your account and gain access to the Discord features.
Make sure your Discord account is connected to your Alienware Arena account.
Log in to your account on Alienware Arena
Navigate to your accounts page: https://www.alienwarearena.com/account
Select the Discord icon under connected accounts. If its white, its not connected. If its blue, it is.
Connect your Discord account
Note: Your AWA and Discord emails must match.
(It's probably easier to change your Discord email if they don't match but you can change your AWA one but I think you'll need to ask one of the Dev's on Discord to help)
Sync your account on Discord
Make sure your Discord account is connected to your AWA account (The above step)
Then, simply pressing the ✅ below this post.
Alternatively, in one of the Arena channels, type /sync-profile. Note: this must be typed and command selected. Do not Copy/Paste.
You should now see new channels available to you.
(The green tick is probably the simplest way, you do it once and that's it untill you advance in a new tier on AWA, when you just come back here again, deselect it and select it again to make sure you're represented properly and have all the servers on offer)
Get notified when a new Poll releases and other Arena announcements
Select "Channels & Roles" [Top of channel listing]
Select "Arena News and Polls"
(I find this useful, you can add some extraneous servers if you want - pets, food et - but the most important thing is that it allows Discord to either ping you or send you an email when there's a new poll, a godsend for me because I forget somedays. You can tailor your notification settings for the server as a whole by opening the Alienware menu at the top of the page, going down to notification settings and selecting your preference, I selected only @ mentions. Apart from AWA and other giveaways I don't use Discord for anything so this keeps the level of nagging to an acceptable minimum. You can also use browse channels to select or hide the servers you aren't interested in. My main ones are arena connect, arena chat, giveaways/key drops really, report issue, community events, deals and floofs because I'm a hopeless cat person 😁, your interests will vary of course)
FAQ (WiP)
If you are having trouble seeing the poll, make sure Embeds and Linked Previews is turned on in your settings.
Adventure Poll FAQ
How does voting and ARP work on adventures?
Each poll will present a choice for the community. The majority answer on each poll will be the only answer used in the adventure. Everyone will earn the same ARP.
(For the current adventure be advised that the number of votes is being hidden on some of the polls, to stop the hive mind from wrecking everything I suspect. We'll see.)
What is a D20 Roll?
A 20 sided dice is rolled and the corresponding number is used as a result for a challenge.
[When Applicable] What does (15+ | 20 ARP) mean next to each choice?
15+ is the number range required to hit on a D20 roll for the try to be successful. The ARP is the number given in the event of a successful roll on the next Discord poll.
End AWA Discord text
After all this you can just pop back to arena connect every weekday (usually) and read and take part in a new adventure polls to advance the story. You get ARP for that poll the next day when the choice advances the story. Better outcomes/choices result in better ARP but even a fail still gets you 1 ARP (+ whatever bound from Discord artifact). It's pretty low effort really, there usually a discussion on arena chat about the poll options if you want some guidance or opinions. Getting a the biggest reward isn't always the best option especially if it requires a dice roll from Cartire, his dice rolls almost ended the last adventure after only 8 or 9 days. The hive mind did us in in the end anyway. When that happens we get some tech polls while the Dev's prep the new adventure.
This is all I can do for now in my lunch break so I'll try and respond to more later to other posts, really hope you can deal with all my waffling text 😳.
I agree that AWA could do a bit more polishing to help newcomers, there's this page https://anz.alienwarearena.com/rewards which spells out the basics but is a bit lacking in specific detail. Basically the streams of ARP these days are (in no particular order) Twitch quests, Steam quests, daily mini-games/weekend quest, time on site, Discord polls/adventures and community events with the odd smattering of random ARP here and there for site snafus or other special events (like the one before Xmas).
Fortunately for the moment AWA is open to all regardless of purchase, which is good because the Dell program outside of North America isn't really good unless for certain circumstances. There no way to simply buy outright as there's a minimum spend requirement only after which Dell money can be applied and the choice for goods is vastly limited compared to North American options. Still it has some use for big purchases I suppose, just not for me at the moment. Like you I've read accounts of many people making amazing purchases with DRP, often essentially for free or just a few dollars.
The AWA site is really more of a brand awareness endeavour than a simple loyalty scheme I suppose, something that nudges you to think about Alienware/Dell products the next time your in the market to buy, with inducements along the way.
Starter artifacts? for 1 ARP? Where?
Vault? I've never come close to getting anything from there. Miss a month.. I've never once used it.
How many artifacts can be used/equipped?
Okay.. Maybe I found the 1 ARP artifacts? Didn't understand this market page..
There's three.
"Mysterious Text - Origins of the mysterious language have eluded us. We are unable to decipher this text."
"H`erkow Warrior Script - This chant is used before battle to calm anxiety. Attempts to increase its power have failed to this point."
"Scion of the Light - [Expedition Team Report] Our attempts to research this celestial body has proven difficult. We are unable to approach it without experiencing massive trauma. Symptoms include hallucinations and eventually an intercranial hematoma."
What are the 3 under flash deals?
35 ARP "Tin Hat - Can anyone hear me in this thing?"
35 ARP "Straw Man Hat - It's a little itchy..."
65 ARP - "Lion Suit - Roar!"
Are these also artifacts? Should I buy them?
The marketplace can be confusing at first untill you sort out what you're actually interested in. The flash deal stuff is almost always cosmetics for your AWA alien avatar thingy that you see in the forum's/relay/control panel etc. It's up to you if you want to pimp out your avatar or not. If ARP is tight I wouldn't recommend it unless it's something you really, really want. And only ever using a discount. You can filter different sections so you can find what you want quicker. Mostly I just use the artifact filter and occasionally the game vault filter, though that has its own link on the main page.
The three 1 ARP artifacts are always there and essentially free so just claim them all. As I've said, any artifact is better than no artifact. After purchasing any artifact in the marketplace you then go to your artifacts showroom. Select profile from the green cogwheel at the top of the page, then click on your artifacts showroom. At the top you'll see any currently equipped artifacts, if any. There's a filter option to sort the proper artifacts ("chaotic") from the others, which are basically just the old site achievements.
You can have up to 3 chaotic/perk artifacts active at a time, and only 3. To activate one, scroll down the page to find the artifact you want, click on it and you will see the slot screen where you can select where it goes. To enable one, select a slot and click save changes. You'll also notice that it's here you can upgrade artifacts that have that functionality, by selecting upgrade on the slot selection screen. It will show you the cost to upgrade, the benefit you'll receive and your current fragments. To upgrade an artifact just click upgrade. If you want to see it in action, that 1 ARP Twitch artifact, Scion of the light can be upgraded once to give a +2 Twitch bonus for 5 fragments (IIRC).
Now we come to a tricky part. Once activated in a slot, an artifact cannot be removed for 24 hours. If you only have the starter ones it's not a huge issue but once you get a few it becomes a bit strategic. It's important once you want to swap artifacts that you select the artifact you want to activate and select the slot of the artifact you want removed from active use and then press save changes. DO NOT PRESS UNEQUIP ON ANY ARTIFACT!!!! It will lock that slot for another 24 hours and you can not place your new artifact until then. It's a known bug which is being worked on. Here's another of Megumin's threads with solutions of it still won't work (changing the prefix always works for me). https://na.alienwarearena.com/ucf/show/2169325/boards/awa-information/ForumPost/awa-faq-unofficial-awa-status-solutions-all-working
Apart from general artifacts like the starter ones, some artifacts are parts of "sets", just like Diablo. You get bonus effects of you equip all 3 artifacts in that set. For example you've probably heard folk talk about he 15% discount set (which is distinct from the upgradeable marketplace artifact). That's the Stanley Excavation set which consists of one Steam artifact (+ARP on Steam quests), the calendar artifact (+ARP on daily logins) and the Fertility Robes (changes forum title colour, pointless now except as part of this set). When you have all 3 activated you get all 3 benefits AND bonus Steam quest ARP AND the 15% marketplace discount. But only when you have all 3 set artifacts installed as your current setup.
The discord artifact is part of a new set, the second has just been released as a reward in the community event and the 3rd is still to be released. Now we know the Discord artifact perk, the new one is just to help with community events, rather pointless really except again as part of this set because when combined with the 3rd unreleased artifact it gives a 10% bonus on all ARP except Twitch. This is essentially why collecting artifacts when they're available is the key to ARP collection. The set is often more than the sum of its parts. For someone who doesn't have the Twitch artifact (or doesn't want to do it) or do Steam quests or have the calendar artifact this is quite a nice little boost.
This leads me to your observations about vault/artifact costs and available ARP which I'll have to try and share my opinions later as I'm about to get my bus home. I think you can see what's coming though. Choices to be made ultimately.
Okay, yeah that make sense. I did notice the upgrade option, and the 24 hour swap restriction. Like you said, having only a few, nothing to swap and nothing upgraded, not currently an issue. I can see how swapping to an "earnings build" a "spending build" and other specific builds would work, and have to be accounted for to swap to/from.
That unequip bug, good to know, didn't know about that.
Yeah, set bonuses. I assume only for full set, no partial bonuses.
I've only done one or two steam quests ever, even the choose my own often doesn't seem to register/count, and I don't play that many games. I never watch twitch anymore, both my PC's dislike it, even though all sorts of other streamings work. Pretty sure it's the live aspect..
I couldn't figure out how to do anything useful in discord once I finally got in. Where should I be going?
Any bonus to all ARP would obviously help me. I get majority of ARP from daily quests/login time/calendar/streak.
After today's earnings, I'm up to Redeemable ARP: 1,393
my page is .. the link you probably know, member Karp55
I have two equiped, twitch one still unequiped.
So, even though it's on Artifacts page of marketplace, the flash deals aren't artifacts..?
There's nothing else currently I could get on that page otherwise.
Hey sorry for the late reply, haven't had much more than a few mins to browse SG at a time recently.
The upgrade stuff and balancing strategies really come into play once you get more than a few artifacts, it just comes down to what you need at the time. Generally at the moment I have a ARP build most of the week and switch out one day to the Stanley set do do Steam quests and back to the Twitch to catch up before the daily reset. That's where the real ARP gain can occur.
If you're ok with stretching the definition of "playing" you could consider using an idler to do the Steam quests. I use an app called Idle Daddy on my phone and after sorting out some teething issues with the phone too keen to push it out of memory, I've never had any issues using it to complete Steam quests when I don't have the spare bandwidth that month to download the games. It's a good chunk of ARP, even without artifacts.
As for Twitch I can't offer many suggestions. I use the desktop site in my mobile browser with a few extensions for some QOL improvements. Strictly speaking you don't actually need to have the stream playing, just having the AWA widget loaded is enough. When my data is tight for the month I just let the widget load and then pause the stream until I accumulate my points. It means keeping the screen on but on desktop you could just put it in a background tab and leave it be for a bit.
Those flash sale thingies are almost always cosmetics for your avatar, so ultimately unimportant unless you either really, really want to pimp out your alien or if you've got ARP to burn. If in doubt just use the filter menu to sort out important stuff. The only really important sections of the marketplace are fragments/artifacts, Dell rewards and game vault.
I take it you decided against the discord artifact? I'd still pop in for the Discord polls (and ARP) when it's on offer, it's literally just free ARP in a Discord task. Without doing Steam quests or Twitch there isn't a whole lot more you can do at the moment to maximise ARP collection. Making sure to visit the site once a day (preferably at the same time to ensure you don't miss days) can help with calendar ARP acquisition. I have a quick tile on my mobile browser start page so I see it whenever I use the browser incase things slip up. Maintaining the run of uninterrupted days can be quite lucrative ARP wise. I also imagine by now you've worked out when the site's daily reset happens in your timezone; that's where I see alot of people on the forums slip up, not checking in on the site within AWA's 24hr period, compared to their own. Apart from that there isn't much else different to what your already doing.
Artifacts really make all the difference these days but they come with an obvious choice. Sacrifice short term spendable ARP in favour of recouping that ARP quicker on the other side? It can be tedious and painful but I found its the best way to go in the long term. I won't lie, I sat out quite a few of the game vaults when I might have taken a plunge on something. It will be even harder for someone like you with access to the superior version of Dell rewards. Maybe the upcoming artifact will be useful, or hope for a rerelease of older ones I suppose.
No problem, I'm happy for any info whenever you get around to it. I haven't read your reply yet, just saw beginning, but figured I'd reply, and acknowledge that I noticed it.
I still haven't really spent much time since my last reply. I still don't even know how to do the discord stuff. I was on the alienware discord once like a month ago, but couldn't figure out where to find any of what you've mentioned. I never found the polls or adventure game stuff, or even where to buy an artifact, or any way of earning ARP. Dunno if I'm just blind, ignorant of how their discord works, on wrong discord, not sure. I'll have to come back and re-read your last response, only skimmed it so far. My notices on this site just hit 99+ so gonna have to clear them soon. I'm just trying to not lose this post/comments. If I ever fail to respond, at least with an acknowledgement reply comment, after a few days, feel free/please hit me with another comment, so I can eventually get around to a proper reply. I really do appreciate the time your taking when you can to help. Life .. interferes/distracts. A few times with some of your replys I've started reading multiple times, but took over a week just to actually read it all at once, and mostly understand it. I have no issues with the length of replies. I'm sorry my replies are so many more, I often read a segment/paragraph and have to type out my questions/etc before I forget or get distracted or browser or tab crash and lose a partially typed unsent reply. I have no problem sacrificing in short-term for ARP, as I've only ever really used it for one thing. I'm still tier-2, getting to tier-3 would be nice to claim more giveaways, but I still won't be rolling in ARP to buy a tier-3 game from vault. I try to do my alienware website daily as often as I can, ends up being about 4-6 days a week generally. Missing a day here and there and breaking the login streak probably doesn't help either.
Hi. My post above somewhere sets out most of the discord stuff but the most important step is to make sure your AWA account is linked to your Discord, the same way you have to do it for Twitch or Steam, via the account settings on AWA. Then in discord the only really important server AWA-wise is the arena connect ( https://discord.com/channels/97149047281827840/1069815226045833296 ). I'd suggest you bookmark this page so you can just click it 5 days a week for quick ARP. The bot will show you the latest poll/adventure with selection buttons just under, usually a 1/2/3 or coloured squares for whatever option the adventure suggests. The bot will let you know if you've voted properly. If you scroll up the page you can find the original text of the post I quoted in this thread earlier, including instructions for syncing accounts (somewhat important/helpful for getting to access to other servers) and setting up the bot to ping/email you when a new poll is posted (very very helpful imo).
This discord artifact was available in the marketplace on AWA for a time but it's gone now sadly, as is the opportunity to acquire the 2nd set artifact via the community event. It could be 6+ months before those particular ones are made available again sadly. Maybe the as-yet-unreleased 3rd artifact will be worthwhile. Otherwise I'd just suggest wait it out and snap up any artifacts that do get re-released, especially anything that effects calendar ARP.
I've got no problem helping out and I know too well how other stuff gets in the way. I know I could stand to be more contrite but I find it's best to try and give as much detail as possible. AWA was a bit overwhelming for me too at the start, compounded by a total overhaul into the current system just a few months after I joined. And it's more involved than other platforms like Lootboy or even SG, but if you can stick with it the rewards are insane after a while. But artifact have become rather important, so I'd save some ARP aside for those at least.
Despite appearances the calendar rewards do have some flexibility, as most people believe you have to align the AWA calendar with the real world calendar precisely. Not entirely true (apart from non-leap year February). It's the total cumulative logging in that gives rewards and not simply 30/31 day stretch, hence the "buffer" days after the 28th. You can miss 2-3 days, depending on the month, and still get the bonuses as long as you get those other logins, not necessarily in precise chronological order. So for example in March you could miss 3 days throughout the month and still qualify for the best rewards as long as you check in on the site every other day of the month. If you have a secure or non shared PC you could check the keep me logged in setting (it seems to work reliably now) to make it just one click a day and forget. Or have a visible icon/link in a web browser on your phone, or even link the website to your home screen for even greater visibility. Setting an alarm on your phone every day is also an idea, I have one set via my calendar every evening for AWA, MS rewards, Lootboy and other stuff I might forget. And I dare say it comes in handy on hectic days. And not because I'm old. Definitely not.
Hope this isn't jamming your inbox too much. It's just if your prepared to invest the payout over time (a considerable amount of time I concede) is like nothing else. I've easily acquired $100s of dollars worth of often AAA games and I imagine the NA Dell rewards options are even more enticing. I sat on the sidelines during 2021 observing AWA from the outside before committing and I wish I hadn't been so cautious. There were some nice freebies but it would have given me a good leg up when the current system was introduced, esp for that second game vault.
Key worked great, thanks so much for the chance! Gonna go ollie out an empty pool or something like that!
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Awesome. I know, or at least hope, things I acquire someone else will enjoy more than me. I already have a few indie skateboarding games that I don't play. It was one I considered keeping, but I know/hope anyone who enters/wins will play it more than my not playing.
Congrats, enjoy it. The Key is so short-term for redemption, I had to mention it. Thanks also for prompt acceptance.
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Hope you don't mind my response here, to leave the Lootboy thread alone for now.
In regards to Discord there's a fair amount of activity there, mainly being the only real place you'll get support if something is wrong with your account or redemption, for better or worse. The important thing ARP-wise is the adventure polls and occasionally Alienware product surveys. Once you link your Discord to AWA in your account settings, IIRC needing the same email for Discord that you use for AWA and then syncing accounts in the arena connect section of the Discord server you get access to various servers of interest but most importantly the adventure polls. It's kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, except the direction of the story and choices are determined by majority votes of the Discord polls, with multiple options and dice rolls to create a branching narrative over time. You can vote once each poll, and only once so choose carefully, checking the arena chat server for community discussion around various options to try and pick the best option, which isn't always the best ARP reward option.
For basic, non choice or non-dice roll polls the reward is typically 5 ARP. For a successful story advancement or dice roll (the latter has been somewhat lacking recently) we get more ARP.....and if we utterly fail, choose the wrong option or fail a die roll we get only 1 ARP, or even possibly end the whole adventure prematurely. When an adventure is running there are typically 5 polls a week, with a break on the weekend. There's typically a week or two break between adventures so the AWA people can actually craft the adventures.
Here is where the latest artifact in the marketplace comes into play. If you had that and equipped it you would get +1 ARP to whatever the Discord poll amount that day was, so say +5 a week in a typical scenario and more if you chose to upgrade it with fragments. Doesn't sound like much but it compounds and rolls over time. It can also be the only way to get decent returns from Discord polls when we have a bad result....as we have been having alot recently. Apart from Cartire's often abysmal dice rolls we also have to deal with a large block of the Discord voters having a hive mind mentality with a predilection for self destruction that would make a particularly depressed lemming blush with shame. Their votes (majority vote is what counts) often end up losing us better ARP rewards or ending adventures entirely, mostly because they chase either high risk rewards or just don't bother considering the options properly. So the Discord artifact can balance that out somewhat, if it's upgraded at least.
I joined Discord for this and other giveaway sites tasks and frankly I think it's worth the few minutes of popping in and looking over the poll option. It's pretty low effort for a decent return and you get to participate in a fun adventure while there. Or just get some ARP, whatever floats your boat. Whether the 1000 ARP artifact cost is worth it is something only you can decide, it will leave a dent in your ARP but it will also increase your rate of ARP collection in the long term.
The starter artifacts I mentioned, including the 1% discount one, all cost 1 ARP each so it's a no-brainer to get them even if you only use 1. You can even use it to discount the cost of the Discord artifact after equipping it, the UI should highlight the discounted price, of not logout and back in again. It's not huge but every bit helps.
Another consideration regarding the current Discord artifact is that it's part of a set, which when you have all 3 parts of that set give additional benefits. There have been two sets released before and now they are releasing the 3rd, the Discord artifact being the first part and the second is being released as the final reward for the next community event. Now we don't know what this second set artifact does yet, or the 3rd, but once you have all 3 one of the set bonuses is a 10% increase in all ARP earned, on top of the Discord bonus and whatever the 2nd & 3rd artifact offer. That's not too shabby, especially as it's been pointed out if a user doesn't have many of the previous artifacts. But, we come back to that 1000 (or 990 ARP) cost; it means no vault for a month or two or even possibly no DRP when it refreshes for one cycle. The cost-benefit ratio is something only each individual user can decide based on their own circumstances.
The site arrangement is a bit lacking in some areas, especially with inventory or rewards received. Sadly the site has never highlighted when or how you receive fragments (unless you buy them in the marketplace), apart from the day of the calendar drop. Having a counter on the artifacts page is probably the best we can hope for right now, at least you can see it at a glance now. 17 fragments is a decent start, there'll be 2 more this month if you maintain the daily streak to the end of the month. You could probably upgrade the Discord artifact twice with that (+3 bonus) or could save them to see what this new artifact does, maybe it's a better option for upgrades.
In my opinion, I would buy the artifact and bank the increase ARP over time. Yes it will make looking at the game vault every month for a while painful but you will get there sooner ultimately with the increased ARP rate, not to mention raising your tier to get better giveaways, like V Rising which I learnt recently is still available to tier 4 (IIRC). Unless your banking on the next tranche of DRP to pay for a major item with other DRP that is expiring, that's the only scenario I can think of to pass on the artifact. Even then it could be a long time before the artifact comes round again. The calendar artifact took nearly a year to come back again before Christmas. It's a shame we can't trade DRP, this week and last week I received 500 DRP in the axe game to go with another 500 I got a month ago. I'm skint and the Dell program isn't very good in Australia compared to the US (especially with its minimum purchase clause), so it's all likely to go to waste for me.
Here's the old forum thread still maintained by Megumin who's active here. It's a good visual guide and it highlights just how complicated the artifact system has become since it was introduced, especially for newer users.
https://na.alienwarearena.com/ucf/show/2167784/boards/awa-on-topic/ForumPost/artifacts-info-new-chai-stones-artifact-10-fragments-marketplace
I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with all this, believe it or not it wasn't this complicated when it started. But once the extra ARP channels begin flowing it really makes a difference. Also I'd really recommend that you participate in the community event if you can to gain the new artifact, as there's no guarantee it will be made available otherwise. If you can't use a computer you could idle Steam games on a phone like I have to do sometimes (I'm on mobile data only and some of those F2P games for quests have too massive download sizes to reinstall every month or so).
Feel free to ask more questions if you want, or if you join Discord there are lots of people to help you there. The Discord artifact is in the marketplace for another 13 so you have a little time to think about it.
Oh and PS, you should buy the fragments currently available in the marketplace, they're worth their weight in gold. If you want to seriously increase your ARP rate, artifacts are the way to go and even if you don't want to upgrade an artifact today, you probably will in the future. 10 fragments go a long way, especially at higher upgrade levels.
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bump
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Hey, sorry about the lack of replies, I stupidly didn't bookmark this page for later and didn't get a notification about the new messages,been pulling double shifts all week so I haven't had much time to browse SG. I'll try and reply to your points one by one in my lunch break today or maybe tonight. Try it bear with me, the AWA stuff isn't as simple as it used to be 😀.
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No problem, wasn't trying to rush you. Was more worried you didn't get the notices, I did reply a bunch all in a short time. Take your time. Just wanted to maintain contact. I ran an internet mud for years, we had some, to an outsider, confusing stuff. I'm .. willing to hear nerdy details. Not being able to tell what something does before buying is annoying, which is why I asked about what a few do.
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I haven't yet read this post, but noticed it already. I was gonna suggest this as a better way as to not spam that forum. Thanks for the reply, I'll try to read through it when I can. Feel free to keep posting, I have no problem with walls/pages of text.
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Only read a portion sofar. I knew about none of this. I totally would have been on discord for that at least a few times a week. I don't use discord, but I have one. All ARP I've earned is from website and options it has/has had. I've seen artifacts and fragments and stuff in the market, and as late streak rewards, but never though much of it, never expected to get one. Figured it's for people who actually have bought alienware stuff and get ARP that way.
I used everything I had for Dell reward points. All my dell points were going to expire on november 15th. I got up just enough ARP a few days before to get 2000 more Dell points. I was able to get a - Toshiba 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 1 Toshiba Canvio Advance portable external hard drive $79.99. Ended up being $87.39 with $7.40 tax. Points I guess convert to Dell Advantage, I had $80, so, I paid $7.39 for it. I did not get more Dell Rewards points for purchase. Didn't expect to, but woulda been cool to get 800 points.
I'm up to 1431 ARP. As much as I hate/can't stand parts of new website, the ARP has been way more, though I seem to get double(twice) for a lot of things.
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For 1000 ARP "Zorathian Cosmotheque - An amazing discovery has taken place. The lost civilization has been found... Type: Knowledge"
what does this one do? How can you even tell what any do? People just learn and share on discord?
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Unfortunately the artifact details aren't revealed untill you buy it or receive it but Megumin's thread I linked above usually has all the details added hours after they're made available, or usually they're floating round Discord. In this case it adds (per Megumin)
Discord Poll +1 ARP
Bronze｜+1 (Base artifact)
Silver｜+2 (when upgraded with fragments)
Gold｜+3
Plat｜+4
Inters｜+5
And it takes this many fragments to reach new artifact levels
Rust 0
Bronze 2 (Discord one starts at this level)
Silver 5
Gold 10
Platinum 16
Interstellar 25
So you can see you ultimately need alot of fragments to upgrade to +5 benefit, and this is only for this one artifact of course, so once you get more it becomes a decision of strategy in a way to decide what to prioritise. Just for example we got 6 via the calendar in Feb and another 5 from the community event (if you participated, there's still time if you haven't); March looks to only have 5 on offer the whole month.
If you bought the Discord artifact you could upgrade it a tier or 2 (+2 or +3 bonus) or you could sit on them and wait for artifacts with better returns come along.....but that could be a while. That calendar one available before Xmas had one of the best passive returns but it might not come again for another 6 months or more maybe. You will of course get more fragments over time. And there is a yet to be released 3rd artifact of the new set which may be useful or have a more beneficial bonus worth expending fragments upon. Or maybe not and the Discord one may be the best one to spend on right now.
Ultimately its a decision of short term sacrifice versus long term ARP gain, which really only you can decide if it's worth it. If you want more ARP right now then upgrading the Discord one to +3 will give you +3 ARP on-top of whatever ARP we get from a Discord poll/adventure, 5 days a week (typically). So that's generally+ 15 a week. Doesn't sound like much but in the absence of better artifacts, any increase in ARP is better than nothing. Or you could bank those fragments for a better artifact.....whenever it's actually made available.
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My best option is long-term gain, since most things cost so much anyway. I'm not trying to fast grab with just daily stuff. I bought the 1 ARP artifacts, and equipped the 1% marketplace discount and +1 ARP for steam quests. Not that I do them, but more likely/useful than +1 ARP for twitch, for me. I did equip that too though.
One is a weapon, one tech, and one language I guess.
Are the things under "Flash Deals" on artifacts marketplace page actually artifacts?
right now for me it's "Campfire treats with Wumpus!" and "Welcome to Alienware Arena, Wumpus!" for 4 ARP each.
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Okay, just bought the fragments.I'm now up to 29.
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I never expected to have any, so never looked into the system. I'm an oldskool gamer, I've played some confusing stuff, if you're a noob to it. I only knew about what I saw on website and a few times artifacts were mentioned in comments somewhere at some points. I also get text adventures, ran a few muds long ago. I get sets too, played enough diablo2. I'll have to link and look at discord server later.
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Where do I find the discord link? I linked my account..
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Nevermind, I think I found it
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Where do I go in the discord server to find all of this?
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This is the link I have set up on my mobile browser start page so I can just visit once a day, it goes straight to the arena connect page where all the polls/adventures are.
https://discord.com/channels/97149047281827840/1069815226045833296
But first basic housekeeping, you have to join the Alienware Discord server or receive the invite thingy if you haven't already. I think you can get that via the link accounts section of your control centre>account settings. That is where you link your Discord to AWA. Note the email for your Discord must match the one you use for AWA. It's been a while so I can't remember if you can view the arena connect board immediately so I'll just post the opening text and instructions here. I'll add some notes in italics.
Welcome to the Alienware Arena section of the Alienware Discord Server!
Get information on new Giveaways, Sweepstakes and more. Join Community Events. Take part in daily Polls and earn ARP!
Alienware Arena Members, follow these steps to connect your account and gain access to the Discord features.
Make sure your Discord account is connected to your Alienware Arena account.
Log in to your account on Alienware Arena
Navigate to your accounts page: https://www.alienwarearena.com/account
Select the Discord icon under connected accounts. If its white, its not connected. If its blue, it is.
Connect your Discord account
Note: Your AWA and Discord emails must match.
(It's probably easier to change your Discord email if they don't match but you can change your AWA one but I think you'll need to ask one of the Dev's on Discord to help)
Sync your account on Discord
Make sure your Discord account is connected to your AWA account (The above step)
Then, simply pressing the ✅ below this post.
Alternatively, in one of the Arena channels, type /sync-profile. Note: this must be typed and command selected. Do not Copy/Paste.
You should now see new channels available to you.
(The green tick is probably the simplest way, you do it once and that's it untill you advance in a new tier on AWA, when you just come back here again, deselect it and select it again to make sure you're represented properly and have all the servers on offer)
Get notified when a new Poll releases and other Arena announcements
Select "Channels & Roles" [Top of channel listing]
Select "Arena News and Polls"
(I find this useful, you can add some extraneous servers if you want - pets, food et - but the most important thing is that it allows Discord to either ping you or send you an email when there's a new poll, a godsend for me because I forget somedays. You can tailor your notification settings for the server as a whole by opening the Alienware menu at the top of the page, going down to notification settings and selecting your preference, I selected only @ mentions. Apart from AWA and other giveaways I don't use Discord for anything so this keeps the level of nagging to an acceptable minimum. You can also use browse channels to select or hide the servers you aren't interested in. My main ones are arena connect, arena chat, giveaways/key drops really, report issue, community events, deals and floofs because I'm a hopeless cat person 😁, your interests will vary of course)
FAQ (WiP)
If you are having trouble seeing the poll, make sure Embeds and Linked Previews is turned on in your settings.
Adventure Poll FAQ
How does voting and ARP work on adventures?
Each poll will present a choice for the community. The majority answer on each poll will be the only answer used in the adventure. Everyone will earn the same ARP.
(For the current adventure be advised that the number of votes is being hidden on some of the polls, to stop the hive mind from wrecking everything I suspect. We'll see.)
What is a D20 Roll?
A 20 sided dice is rolled and the corresponding number is used as a result for a challenge.
[When Applicable] What does (15+ | 20 ARP) mean next to each choice?
15+ is the number range required to hit on a D20 roll for the try to be successful. The ARP is the number given in the event of a successful roll on the next Discord poll.
End AWA Discord text
After all this you can just pop back to arena connect every weekday (usually) and read and take part in a new adventure polls to advance the story. You get ARP for that poll the next day when the choice advances the story. Better outcomes/choices result in better ARP but even a fail still gets you 1 ARP (+ whatever bound from Discord artifact). It's pretty low effort really, there usually a discussion on arena chat about the poll options if you want some guidance or opinions. Getting a the biggest reward isn't always the best option especially if it requires a dice roll from Cartire, his dice rolls almost ended the last adventure after only 8 or 9 days. The hive mind did us in in the end anyway. When that happens we get some tech polls while the Dev's prep the new adventure.
This is all I can do for now in my lunch break so I'll try and respond to more later to other posts, really hope you can deal with all my waffling text 😳.
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I agree that AWA could do a bit more polishing to help newcomers, there's this page https://anz.alienwarearena.com/rewards which spells out the basics but is a bit lacking in specific detail. Basically the streams of ARP these days are (in no particular order) Twitch quests, Steam quests, daily mini-games/weekend quest, time on site, Discord polls/adventures and community events with the odd smattering of random ARP here and there for site snafus or other special events (like the one before Xmas).
Fortunately for the moment AWA is open to all regardless of purchase, which is good because the Dell program outside of North America isn't really good unless for certain circumstances. There no way to simply buy outright as there's a minimum spend requirement only after which Dell money can be applied and the choice for goods is vastly limited compared to North American options. Still it has some use for big purchases I suppose, just not for me at the moment. Like you I've read accounts of many people making amazing purchases with DRP, often essentially for free or just a few dollars.
The AWA site is really more of a brand awareness endeavour than a simple loyalty scheme I suppose, something that nudges you to think about Alienware/Dell products the next time your in the market to buy, with inducements along the way.
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Starter artifacts? for 1 ARP? Where?
Vault? I've never come close to getting anything from there. Miss a month.. I've never once used it.
How many artifacts can be used/equipped?
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Okay.. Maybe I found the 1 ARP artifacts? Didn't understand this market page..
There's three.
"Mysterious Text - Origins of the mysterious language have eluded us. We are unable to decipher this text."
"H`erkow Warrior Script - This chant is used before battle to calm anxiety. Attempts to increase its power have failed to this point."
"Scion of the Light - [Expedition Team Report] Our attempts to research this celestial body has proven difficult. We are unable to approach it without experiencing massive trauma. Symptoms include hallucinations and eventually an intercranial hematoma."
Can I only pick one? If so, which one?
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What are the 3 under flash deals?
35 ARP "Tin Hat - Can anyone hear me in this thing?"
35 ARP "Straw Man Hat - It's a little itchy..."
65 ARP - "Lion Suit - Roar!"
Are these also artifacts? Should I buy them?
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3400 ARP for a tier-2 game in vault. My lifetime ARP is up to 2,656. Current is now at 1,306 after fragments and today's earnings.
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The marketplace can be confusing at first untill you sort out what you're actually interested in. The flash deal stuff is almost always cosmetics for your AWA alien avatar thingy that you see in the forum's/relay/control panel etc. It's up to you if you want to pimp out your avatar or not. If ARP is tight I wouldn't recommend it unless it's something you really, really want. And only ever using a discount. You can filter different sections so you can find what you want quicker. Mostly I just use the artifact filter and occasionally the game vault filter, though that has its own link on the main page.
The three 1 ARP artifacts are always there and essentially free so just claim them all. As I've said, any artifact is better than no artifact. After purchasing any artifact in the marketplace you then go to your artifacts showroom. Select profile from the green cogwheel at the top of the page, then click on your artifacts showroom. At the top you'll see any currently equipped artifacts, if any. There's a filter option to sort the proper artifacts ("chaotic") from the others, which are basically just the old site achievements.
You can have up to 3 chaotic/perk artifacts active at a time, and only 3. To activate one, scroll down the page to find the artifact you want, click on it and you will see the slot screen where you can select where it goes. To enable one, select a slot and click save changes. You'll also notice that it's here you can upgrade artifacts that have that functionality, by selecting upgrade on the slot selection screen. It will show you the cost to upgrade, the benefit you'll receive and your current fragments. To upgrade an artifact just click upgrade. If you want to see it in action, that 1 ARP Twitch artifact, Scion of the light can be upgraded once to give a +2 Twitch bonus for 5 fragments (IIRC).
Now we come to a tricky part. Once activated in a slot, an artifact cannot be removed for 24 hours. If you only have the starter ones it's not a huge issue but once you get a few it becomes a bit strategic. It's important once you want to swap artifacts that you select the artifact you want to activate and select the slot of the artifact you want removed from active use and then press save changes. DO NOT PRESS UNEQUIP ON ANY ARTIFACT!!!! It will lock that slot for another 24 hours and you can not place your new artifact until then. It's a known bug which is being worked on. Here's another of Megumin's threads with solutions of it still won't work (changing the prefix always works for me).
https://na.alienwarearena.com/ucf/show/2169325/boards/awa-information/ForumPost/awa-faq-unofficial-awa-status-solutions-all-working
Apart from general artifacts like the starter ones, some artifacts are parts of "sets", just like Diablo. You get bonus effects of you equip all 3 artifacts in that set. For example you've probably heard folk talk about he 15% discount set (which is distinct from the upgradeable marketplace artifact). That's the Stanley Excavation set which consists of one Steam artifact (+ARP on Steam quests), the calendar artifact (+ARP on daily logins) and the Fertility Robes (changes forum title colour, pointless now except as part of this set). When you have all 3 activated you get all 3 benefits AND bonus Steam quest ARP AND the 15% marketplace discount. But only when you have all 3 set artifacts installed as your current setup.
The discord artifact is part of a new set, the second has just been released as a reward in the community event and the 3rd is still to be released. Now we know the Discord artifact perk, the new one is just to help with community events, rather pointless really except again as part of this set because when combined with the 3rd unreleased artifact it gives a 10% bonus on all ARP except Twitch. This is essentially why collecting artifacts when they're available is the key to ARP collection. The set is often more than the sum of its parts. For someone who doesn't have the Twitch artifact (or doesn't want to do it) or do Steam quests or have the calendar artifact this is quite a nice little boost.
This leads me to your observations about vault/artifact costs and available ARP which I'll have to try and share my opinions later as I'm about to get my bus home. I think you can see what's coming though. Choices to be made ultimately.
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Okay, yeah that make sense. I did notice the upgrade option, and the 24 hour swap restriction. Like you said, having only a few, nothing to swap and nothing upgraded, not currently an issue. I can see how swapping to an "earnings build" a "spending build" and other specific builds would work, and have to be accounted for to swap to/from.
That unequip bug, good to know, didn't know about that.
Yeah, set bonuses. I assume only for full set, no partial bonuses.
I've only done one or two steam quests ever, even the choose my own often doesn't seem to register/count, and I don't play that many games. I never watch twitch anymore, both my PC's dislike it, even though all sorts of other streamings work. Pretty sure it's the live aspect..
I couldn't figure out how to do anything useful in discord once I finally got in. Where should I be going?
Any bonus to all ARP would obviously help me. I get majority of ARP from daily quests/login time/calendar/streak.
After today's earnings, I'm up to Redeemable ARP: 1,393
my page is .. the link you probably know, member Karp55
I have two equiped, twitch one still unequiped.
So, even though it's on Artifacts page of marketplace, the flash deals aren't artifacts..?
There's nothing else currently I could get on that page otherwise.
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Hey sorry for the late reply, haven't had much more than a few mins to browse SG at a time recently.
The upgrade stuff and balancing strategies really come into play once you get more than a few artifacts, it just comes down to what you need at the time. Generally at the moment I have a ARP build most of the week and switch out one day to the Stanley set do do Steam quests and back to the Twitch to catch up before the daily reset. That's where the real ARP gain can occur.
If you're ok with stretching the definition of "playing" you could consider using an idler to do the Steam quests. I use an app called Idle Daddy on my phone and after sorting out some teething issues with the phone too keen to push it out of memory, I've never had any issues using it to complete Steam quests when I don't have the spare bandwidth that month to download the games. It's a good chunk of ARP, even without artifacts.
As for Twitch I can't offer many suggestions. I use the desktop site in my mobile browser with a few extensions for some QOL improvements. Strictly speaking you don't actually need to have the stream playing, just having the AWA widget loaded is enough. When my data is tight for the month I just let the widget load and then pause the stream until I accumulate my points. It means keeping the screen on but on desktop you could just put it in a background tab and leave it be for a bit.
I posted a message above about some of the Discord stuff, I'll post the link here, it's getting a bit messy in here.
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/4jflSw5
Those flash sale thingies are almost always cosmetics for your avatar, so ultimately unimportant unless you either really, really want to pimp out your alien or if you've got ARP to burn. If in doubt just use the filter menu to sort out important stuff. The only really important sections of the marketplace are fragments/artifacts, Dell rewards and game vault.
I take it you decided against the discord artifact? I'd still pop in for the Discord polls (and ARP) when it's on offer, it's literally just free ARP in a Discord task. Without doing Steam quests or Twitch there isn't a whole lot more you can do at the moment to maximise ARP collection. Making sure to visit the site once a day (preferably at the same time to ensure you don't miss days) can help with calendar ARP acquisition. I have a quick tile on my mobile browser start page so I see it whenever I use the browser incase things slip up. Maintaining the run of uninterrupted days can be quite lucrative ARP wise. I also imagine by now you've worked out when the site's daily reset happens in your timezone; that's where I see alot of people on the forums slip up, not checking in on the site within AWA's 24hr period, compared to their own. Apart from that there isn't much else different to what your already doing.
Artifacts really make all the difference these days but they come with an obvious choice. Sacrifice short term spendable ARP in favour of recouping that ARP quicker on the other side? It can be tedious and painful but I found its the best way to go in the long term. I won't lie, I sat out quite a few of the game vaults when I might have taken a plunge on something. It will be even harder for someone like you with access to the superior version of Dell rewards. Maybe the upcoming artifact will be useful, or hope for a rerelease of older ones I suppose.
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No problem, I'm happy for any info whenever you get around to it. I haven't read your reply yet, just saw beginning, but figured I'd reply, and acknowledge that I noticed it.
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I still haven't really spent much time since my last reply. I still don't even know how to do the discord stuff. I was on the alienware discord once like a month ago, but couldn't figure out where to find any of what you've mentioned. I never found the polls or adventure game stuff, or even where to buy an artifact, or any way of earning ARP. Dunno if I'm just blind, ignorant of how their discord works, on wrong discord, not sure. I'll have to come back and re-read your last response, only skimmed it so far. My notices on this site just hit 99+ so gonna have to clear them soon. I'm just trying to not lose this post/comments. If I ever fail to respond, at least with an acknowledgement reply comment, after a few days, feel free/please hit me with another comment, so I can eventually get around to a proper reply. I really do appreciate the time your taking when you can to help. Life .. interferes/distracts. A few times with some of your replys I've started reading multiple times, but took over a week just to actually read it all at once, and mostly understand it. I have no issues with the length of replies. I'm sorry my replies are so many more, I often read a segment/paragraph and have to type out my questions/etc before I forget or get distracted or browser or tab crash and lose a partially typed unsent reply. I have no problem sacrificing in short-term for ARP, as I've only ever really used it for one thing. I'm still tier-2, getting to tier-3 would be nice to claim more giveaways, but I still won't be rolling in ARP to buy a tier-3 game from vault. I try to do my alienware website daily as often as I can, ends up being about 4-6 days a week generally. Missing a day here and there and breaking the login streak probably doesn't help either.
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Hi. My post above somewhere sets out most of the discord stuff but the most important step is to make sure your AWA account is linked to your Discord, the same way you have to do it for Twitch or Steam, via the account settings on AWA. Then in discord the only really important server AWA-wise is the arena connect ( https://discord.com/channels/97149047281827840/1069815226045833296 ). I'd suggest you bookmark this page so you can just click it 5 days a week for quick ARP. The bot will show you the latest poll/adventure with selection buttons just under, usually a 1/2/3 or coloured squares for whatever option the adventure suggests. The bot will let you know if you've voted properly. If you scroll up the page you can find the original text of the post I quoted in this thread earlier, including instructions for syncing accounts (somewhat important/helpful for getting to access to other servers) and setting up the bot to ping/email you when a new poll is posted (very very helpful imo).
This discord artifact was available in the marketplace on AWA for a time but it's gone now sadly, as is the opportunity to acquire the 2nd set artifact via the community event. It could be 6+ months before those particular ones are made available again sadly. Maybe the as-yet-unreleased 3rd artifact will be worthwhile. Otherwise I'd just suggest wait it out and snap up any artifacts that do get re-released, especially anything that effects calendar ARP.
I've got no problem helping out and I know too well how other stuff gets in the way. I know I could stand to be more contrite but I find it's best to try and give as much detail as possible. AWA was a bit overwhelming for me too at the start, compounded by a total overhaul into the current system just a few months after I joined. And it's more involved than other platforms like Lootboy or even SG, but if you can stick with it the rewards are insane after a while. But artifact have become rather important, so I'd save some ARP aside for those at least.
Despite appearances the calendar rewards do have some flexibility, as most people believe you have to align the AWA calendar with the real world calendar precisely. Not entirely true (apart from non-leap year February). It's the total cumulative logging in that gives rewards and not simply 30/31 day stretch, hence the "buffer" days after the 28th. You can miss 2-3 days, depending on the month, and still get the bonuses as long as you get those other logins, not necessarily in precise chronological order. So for example in March you could miss 3 days throughout the month and still qualify for the best rewards as long as you check in on the site every other day of the month. If you have a secure or non shared PC you could check the keep me logged in setting (it seems to work reliably now) to make it just one click a day and forget. Or have a visible icon/link in a web browser on your phone, or even link the website to your home screen for even greater visibility. Setting an alarm on your phone every day is also an idea, I have one set via my calendar every evening for AWA, MS rewards, Lootboy and other stuff I might forget. And I dare say it comes in handy on hectic days. And not because I'm old. Definitely not.
Hope this isn't jamming your inbox too much. It's just if your prepared to invest the payout over time (a considerable amount of time I concede) is like nothing else. I've easily acquired $100s of dollars worth of often AAA games and I imagine the NA Dell rewards options are even more enticing. I sat on the sidelines during 2021 observing AWA from the outside before committing and I wish I hadn't been so cautious. There were some nice freebies but it would have given me a good leg up when the current system was introduced, esp for that second game vault.
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