Collecting some data
RikkAndrsn
Join Date: 2009-06-07 Member: 67741Members
Join Date: 2009-06-07 Member: 67741Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Yes, it's a survey</div>***POLL IS NOW CLOSED***
Thanks to everyone who participated. The poll recieved 100 responses in just short of 24 hours, and it has some fairly useful bits of data. <a href="http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6965/ns2survey.gif" target="_blank"> These are the results in screencap form</a>. Here are some useful tidbits:
<ul><li>Almost all participants took the quiz from the link posted on these forums (very few from the 4 other links, less than 15%)</li><li>75% of participants had pre-ordered, with 94% having pre-ordered the Special Edition</li><li>Almost 80% of participants have been following NS2's development for more than a year</li><li>The majority of people who know about NS2 know about it from the community (either being a part of it or through connections to it)</li><li>Balance, controls, and depth are the most valued aspects of a game to the participants</li><li>Appealing gameplay is the largest factor in buying games, but other large factors include content updates and community activity</li><li>Nobody really cares about ESBR ratings</li></ul>
So, what can we really gather from this survey? For one, it's mostly a cross section of the Natural Selection 2's fanbase (or at least the portion that visits the forum regularly). Next we can assume that the majority of people visiting these forums are Natural Selection fans and have been tracking this game for a good amount of time, and that a good portion of them have already pre-ordered (yet it should not be ignored that there is a fair sized body of fans who have not purchased the game, but are rather waiting - reasons for which were not explored). As far as gameplay goes, the categories were fairly general but point towards what was essentially the original Natural Selection - a game with tons of depth that was well balanced and had adequate controls. And then we have the ESBR, which nobody cares about... that shouldn't suprise anyone, actually.
The largest thing that should be taken away from this survey is that it can be improved to be more accurate, and to provide much more detailed information. How can this be done? By increasing the number of people who take the survey, increasing the number of places the participants come from, and by refining the questions asked. This is something I cannot do alone. I will need the help of both the community and Unknown Worlds in order to truly make this survey something that can benefit Natural Selection 2's development. The best way to get this survey noticed would be to have it everywhere it can be: on the facebook page, on twitter, in a news update, on the Steam group, and even here on the forums. I'm willing to pony up the cash to expand the survey's results to 1,000 participants, and I will even explore my connections to see if we can pull together something even larger (although 1,000 is certainly not a number to shake a stick at). Anyhow, take it how you want and feel free to comment on the results. Criticism of this survey is something that will help it improve for future versions, so feel free to provide any critiques - but please also include a thought on how to improve the problem that you're highlighting so as to not come across as a troll.
***ORIGINAL***
Always handy to know what exactly people are looking for in a game. Fairly quick survey, if it happens to max out on responses super quickly then I'll drop the $20 and get a larger survey going.
Fairly quick to take:
<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kBNfxYyq2mt2JhpQ0dZc1A_3d_3d" target="_blank">Click</a>
Think of it this way, Unknown Worlds can only benefit by knowing more about what their fans are expecting.
EDIT:
I can see some UWE guys watching this thread. Yes, I will be sharing these results with you. Consider this free market research.
Thanks to everyone who participated. The poll recieved 100 responses in just short of 24 hours, and it has some fairly useful bits of data. <a href="http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6965/ns2survey.gif" target="_blank"> These are the results in screencap form</a>. Here are some useful tidbits:
<ul><li>Almost all participants took the quiz from the link posted on these forums (very few from the 4 other links, less than 15%)</li><li>75% of participants had pre-ordered, with 94% having pre-ordered the Special Edition</li><li>Almost 80% of participants have been following NS2's development for more than a year</li><li>The majority of people who know about NS2 know about it from the community (either being a part of it or through connections to it)</li><li>Balance, controls, and depth are the most valued aspects of a game to the participants</li><li>Appealing gameplay is the largest factor in buying games, but other large factors include content updates and community activity</li><li>Nobody really cares about ESBR ratings</li></ul>
So, what can we really gather from this survey? For one, it's mostly a cross section of the Natural Selection 2's fanbase (or at least the portion that visits the forum regularly). Next we can assume that the majority of people visiting these forums are Natural Selection fans and have been tracking this game for a good amount of time, and that a good portion of them have already pre-ordered (yet it should not be ignored that there is a fair sized body of fans who have not purchased the game, but are rather waiting - reasons for which were not explored). As far as gameplay goes, the categories were fairly general but point towards what was essentially the original Natural Selection - a game with tons of depth that was well balanced and had adequate controls. And then we have the ESBR, which nobody cares about... that shouldn't suprise anyone, actually.
The largest thing that should be taken away from this survey is that it can be improved to be more accurate, and to provide much more detailed information. How can this be done? By increasing the number of people who take the survey, increasing the number of places the participants come from, and by refining the questions asked. This is something I cannot do alone. I will need the help of both the community and Unknown Worlds in order to truly make this survey something that can benefit Natural Selection 2's development. The best way to get this survey noticed would be to have it everywhere it can be: on the facebook page, on twitter, in a news update, on the Steam group, and even here on the forums. I'm willing to pony up the cash to expand the survey's results to 1,000 participants, and I will even explore my connections to see if we can pull together something even larger (although 1,000 is certainly not a number to shake a stick at). Anyhow, take it how you want and feel free to comment on the results. Criticism of this survey is something that will help it improve for future versions, so feel free to provide any critiques - but please also include a thought on how to improve the problem that you're highlighting so as to not come across as a troll.
***ORIGINAL***
Always handy to know what exactly people are looking for in a game. Fairly quick survey, if it happens to max out on responses super quickly then I'll drop the $20 and get a larger survey going.
Fairly quick to take:
<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kBNfxYyq2mt2JhpQ0dZc1A_3d_3d" target="_blank">Click</a>
Think of it this way, Unknown Worlds can only benefit by knowing more about what their fans are expecting.
EDIT:
I can see some UWE guys watching this thread. Yes, I will be sharing these results with you. Consider this free market research.
Comments
Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing the results too!
but dunno how accurate this survey will be as the only people filling it out will the forum members anyway, and not so much the general public
but dunno how accurate this survey will be as the only people filling it out will the forum members anyway, and not so much the general public<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's posted on several community pages as well, most notably GotFrag.
but dunno how accurate this survey will be as the only people filling it out will the forum members anyway, and not so much the general public<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I was about to say this. It is important to know that the results of this poll will be very skewed, and judging by how you posted the survey on more forums... Well the people who took the survey will <i>mostly</i> be the people who are very much into this game and its community.
I wonder if UWE can take the survey idea in hand though and possibly make a more widespread poll? With posts on the NS2 Twitter, the NS2 front page, and the NS2 facebook fan page I definitely feel like there could be some serious results. I'm surprised it wasn't thought of already!
edit: And at the poster below me, that kind of information is probably very helpful. More people should post those details!
Did the poll as well.
I'm assuming you're going to give a link to the official site hosting the results and not just writing some fabricated ones in a forum post? :P
Check the first post, it has been edited.
Demo doesn't make sense for a multiplay only game. It'd probably be a free weekend and/or friend passes.
A demo actually does make sense, especially for a multiplayer only game. In NS2's case, however, the real question is if the beta fills the role of a demo.
There are many out there.
Wierd. Do you play a lot of SP games or do you mostly stick to multiplayer games?
Let me amend my statement a bit becuase when I said multiplayer I was thinking multiplayer FPS. I think demos are good for multiplayer RTS games.
The main ways to release a demo are to limit progression(first person game, or MMO elements), limit maps or modes(FPS RTS), or limit tech level(RTS). You can limit time, but I'd say that falls under "trial" rather than "demo" and I think that approach works best for FPS games.
I would like to have a section that is based on:
Have you (or did you) play Natural Selection, the Half Life mod?
-Leading to->
What gameplay aspects did you enjoy most?
What gameplay aspects would you like to see improved?
What aspects of the game are most memorable to you?
I also want a more in-depth gameplay analysis section, but I'll need help on this section as I didn't play NS until I heard about NS2 and decided to go back and try it with friends.
It would also be nice to hear from the UWE guys to see if they want/will support this survey going further than it already has. If they don't want it to, I can just not do anymore and that'll just be the end of that.
As to the revising for the second survey..
The first question I think is given. Most people wouldn't be here if they hadn't played ns1 before.
The rest of the questions all cover what I've heard to be the best Q's for feedback.
Kudos for coming up with the idea of a survey.
- From 101 respondants, 76 have pre-ordered NS2
- From 101 respondants, 80 have pre-ordered the Standard or Special Edition...
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Appealing/good gameplay was 90% of people's reasons for buying games. So, either people are renting before they buy (demo is a separate option), or there are lot more pirates out there who do actually buy games they like after trying before they buy or (and I know I'm a cynic), more likely, many people on the internet have failings when it comes to logical thought or when it comes to accurately reading text.
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For question six you should have limited the options to 3 and forced the respondant to make 3 choices. This at least tells you the top 3 from the list in order of preference. Question 6 only gives findings on what people generally like in games, and all of the responses could be argued to be positive values in a game. If you asked people to pick their favourite things to have in a partner from the list below you wouldn't get a very decent set of results:
- Hair
- Face
- Eyes
- Brain
- Consciousness
Most respondants would agree that hair, a face, eyes, a brain and consciousness are all positive qualities to have in a partner. So you haven't really done anything more than reaffirm that these things are important in games.
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A survey only lasting 24 hours is fundamentally flawed since the results will naturally skew towards whichever demographics go online most in that period, be it day of the week, hour, etc.. For example, it was posted at 8:56pm GMT, a time that coincides with peak recreational internet usage in Western Europe on a Thursday. If you limit the responses to ~100, which seems to be the case, most of those 101 respondants will be European. If you were simply adhering to a 24-hour cycle you will tend to get more responses from less busy people. Many people in certain demographics are socially active on weekends versus weekdays, and vice versa.
To get a full range of responses the survey should have run for at least a week, preferably even a month. A month is a really anal way of doing it, but a week is certainly going to get a better spread than a 24-hour, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't kind of survey. It's the same school of thought that has lead to TV programmes showing the same content twice in a week to allow for people not to miss it.
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Far more importantly, many questions undermined the validity of the survey on one or more levels. To briefly sum it up:
- To assure the validity of the survey, all possible variables must be included in the list of possible responses
- To minimise false positives, the survey must be clearly understood by the maximum of respondants with a minimal risk of misinterpretation
- To further assure the validity of the survey, no bias should be present in the vocabulary or word order used to formulate the list of possible responses
<b>Variables</b>
E.g. One of the replies to the first question, asking if respondants have pre-ordered NS2, was:
"No, but I plan on purchasing the game"
This introduces a second, conditional variable: 'If not, do you plan to purchase?', a question that has 3 possible states ('yes', 'no' and 'maybe'). The responses should have been:
1. Yes.
2. No, but I plan to purchase.
3. No, and I do not plan to purchase.
4. No, I may purchase.
<b>Accessibility of Language</b>
Someone who is not so good at English might not understand a fairly obscure and idomatic word like 'buzz'. It's better to use more formal and clear phrases that most people can understand without referring to a dictionary. Did "ESBR Ratings" score lowly because it is unimportant or because not everyone knows what an 'ESBR Rating' specifically is ("Age Rating" would be a more suitable option).
<b>Precision of Language</b>
Similarly "Community Buzz" is not in any way precise. It could very easily overlap into other areas. E.g. a friend, who is also a member of the community, could have showed me the teaser trailer for the game. Which option do I pick?
Most will understand that "Controls" implies that the game has a suitable and easy to use control system, others might regard it as whether the controls can be customised, fewer still might even consider that, yes, a control system is an invaluable part of a game.
I said "Age Rating" would be a more accessible way of writing "ESRB Rating", but "Suitable Age Rating" would be more precise, since you are clarifying between the desirability of the game having been age rated and the desiribility of the game having an age rating that suits your needs.
<b>Neutrality of Language</b>
In the same way questions should include all possible reasonable responses, they should never overemphasise any particular product or service if possible. E.g. "Reviews (GameSpot, IGN, Metacritic, etc.)" should be "Positive reviews (press coverage, user feedback)".
There are also much more subtle ways responses can affect the outcome through a lack of neutrality. To go back to my list of preferred responses for the first question, notice how the 4th response maintained the best balance between neutrality, style and accessibility.
"4. No, I may purchase."
Imagine if I'd instead written:
"4. No, but I may purchase."
When we use the word 'may' there are, linguistically speaking, a positive and negative version. If you ask the question:
"May I have a drink?" You could answer: "No, you may not." or "Yes, you may.". This is because 'may' is one of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_verb" target="_blank"><i>modal verbs</i></a> in English (can, could, may, might, ought, shall, should, will, would, and must) used, loosely, to describe possibility, and it happens to fall more or less in the middle of the extremes. It differs from 'can' because 'can' involves physical or mental capacity and 'may' involves permission, option or choice.
Because with this answer you want to stay in-between these possibilities, you need to avoid anything that points towards the positive or negative. If I ask: "Did you do it yet?", and if you answer "No, but I may do it." the inclusion of the 'but' creates a contrast and a preference for the positive. You would never reply: "No, but I may not do it.", would you?
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Finally, always include an 'other' unless totally unneeded. It covers you for options you may not have considered and it also highlights any weaknesses in your format or presentation.
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You made me write a lot. :x
Could that be because you don't play SP games? Also I disagree that MP FPS demos make sense, more often people will just play the demo online to death and then trash it, making the whole point of the demo (to sell the game) pointless.
I'm a firm believer in free weekends and discounts to sell a game like NS2.
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I find it important, too! Please, NS2 devs, keep it under M.
I'm a firm believe in free weekends and discounts to sell a game like NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Absolutely true, never bought Wolfenstein, but played the MP demo for months :P