Dear Yoshi P: What is your vision?

[Azurymber]

Actually to discover what people do and don't like, Yoshi added forums that community reps looked through to see what people are praising about the game and what people are raging about in the game. Forums are an excellent way to see what kind of player-base your game has and what they like about the game, even if it does get a lot of flamers and trolls.

This in turn helps them decide on what kind of content to add to the game sooner rather than later, to make everyone happy.

from a scientific standpoint if he did this the game will probably fail.

There is a way to go about determining peoples opinions on things to get unbiased results.

A forum results in VERY biased results. You get mainly extreme opinions with moderate people pushed to the side. Those extreme opinions are usually far from what people really want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_%28statistics%29

If they are seriously basing all their decisions off their forums then they probably have less than 10% chance at success. Because any half-competent corporation knows how to handle statistics.

A good example of bias is the following (a result of sampling bias, similar to what this forum has):
"In the early days of opinion polling, the American Literary Digest magazine collected over two million postal surveys and predicted that the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election, Alf Landon, would beat the incumbent president, Franklin Roosevelt by a large margin. The result was the exact opposite. " (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samplin...rical_examples)

If SE seriously based their actions on these boards, its very likely they will end up doing exactly the opposite of what they intended due to bias.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

from a scientific standpoint if he did this the game will probably fail.

There is a way to go about determining peoples opinions on things to get unbiased results.

A forum results in VERY biased results. You get mainly extreme opinions with moderate people pushed to the side. Those extreme opinions are usually far from what people really want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_%28statistics%29

If they are seriously basing all their decisions off their forums then they probably have less than 10% chance at success. Because any half-competent corporation knows how to handle statistics.

A good example of bias is the following (a result of sampling bias, similar to what this forum has):
"In the early days of opinion polling, the American Literary Digest magazine collected over two million postal surveys and predicted that the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election, Alf Landon, would beat the incumbent president, Franklin Roosevelt by a large margin. The result was the exact opposite. " (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samplin...rical_examples)

If SE seriously based their actions on these boards, its very likely they will end up doing exactly the opposite of what they intended due to bias.

So in other words, they shouldn't listen to you?

[Azurymber]

Haven't you thought that people just don't want to read your lore guide or your solo guide? I prefer to find out things on my own, also I rather read about the lore in the game not on the forums. Thanks for your hard work, but I think most people have no use for it or rather do things on their own and that's not the game's fault.

edit:



IMO MMOs shouldn't need a wiki, especially a recently released one. You should be able to find whatever you looking for in the game with ease. I think they should only have a wiki for items because people like to compare weapon stats.

I asked how to solo a few weeks before i made the solo guide, everyone said its impossible and you have to group.

So i gave people more choices. and ive gotten well over 100 people saying thank you and that it helped. So i know people use that one.

the lore one is based 95% on character creation + normal npc dialogue at the moment. Remembering all the little facts about the world is unrealistic, so its useful to have a guide to reference. Im assuming people who like finding things out for themselves have talked to most of the normal npcs by now in which case there are almost no spoilers in the guide. People who haven't probably don't care much about lore.

FFXI also had a lore website which was quite popular and used a lot. (Something this game really should have)

And while you may like playing without using guides or wiki's the fact that every MMO out there has a detailed wiki (cept this one) would suggest the average player doesn't share your attitude.

edit: oh and the solo guide i posted when the game came out ended up with well over 45,000 views.

[Gramul]

I see guns. Thousands and thousands of guns!

You won't be able to take a step without swimming in guns! I want gun blades, gun cities, gun BABIES! I AM THE SOUL HEIR OF THE MIGHT OF ZARDON! THE SUN RISES AND SETS BY MY WHIM! [SIZE="5"]I AM THE MASTER ON HIGH! [SIZE="6"]YOU WILL ALL KNOW MY WORK AND WAIL FOR THE DAWN OF A DARK AGE PAST!

[/SIZE][/SIZE]

And now you know.

[Azurymber]

So in other words, they shouldn't listen to you?

If they really cared what people wanted they would hold a poll weekly or every 2 weeks and offer in game rewards for completing the poll (ex. 20,000 gil). This would still have bias since people who quit the game would not be taking part in the poll.

[Konachibi]

So in other words, they shouldn't listen to you?

He has a point there.

The easiest way to use forums to see what people like is to only pay attention to the people in it that aren't screaming, shouting and yelling or insult others for having differences of opinion. No one wants a game that was developed to satisfy forum ragers.

Pay attention to the insightfull ones that simply go "I like this because..." or "Wouldn't it be great if we could...", then see how many people all agree with that opinion (whilst ignoring the troll and flamer posts), then you get a rough idea of what parts of your game some players like. This gives you fuel to work towards adding more of that kind of stuff.

The only other possible way of getting some idea of what new content to add is to get GM's to send /tell to every single player in the game asking "What would you like to see in this game?", but then that'd take forever, a lot of people wouldn't bother answering, and you'd end up with an enormous list of 'wants' that has no centralised options to choose from for adding new content.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

And while you may like playing without using guides or wiki's the fact that every MMO out there has a detailed wiki (cept this one) would suggest the average player doesn't share your attitude.

I agree, like everyone doesn't want to read your solo or lore guides. Also I don't care if an MMO has a detailed wiki, I'm just saying a MMO shouldn't need one. I'll played Aion without needing a wiki and I'm sure I could play WoW without a wiki because I could most likely find everything I needed in the game. If other people want to use wikis that's fine, but I rather not have to search to multiple pages trying to find something while playing a game.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

If they really cared what people wanted they would hold a poll weekly or every 2 weeks and offer in game rewards for completing the poll (ex. 20,000 gil). This would still have bias since people who quit the game would not be taking part in the poll.

He has a point there.

The easiest way to use forums to see what people like is to only pay attention to the people in it that aren't screaming, shouting and yelling or insult others for having differences of opinion. No one wants a game that was developed to satisfy forum ragers.

Pay attention to the insightfull ones that simply go "I like this because..." or "Wouldn't it be great if we could...", then see how many people all agree with that opinion (whilst ignoring the troll and flamer posts), then you get a rough idea of what parts of your game some players like. This gives you fuel to work towards adding more of that kind of stuff.

The only other possible way of getting some idea of what new content to add is to get GM's to send /tell to every single player in the game asking "What would you like to see in this game?", but then that'd take forever, a lot of people wouldn't bother answering, and you'd end up with an enormous list of 'wants' that has no centralised options to choose from for adding new content.

Hehe, I was joking. I didn't mean any harm behind that statement.

[Azurymber]

He has a point there.

The easiest way to use forums to see what people like is to only pay attention to the people in it that aren't screaming, shouting and yelling or insult others for having differences of opinion. No one wants a game that was developed to satisfy forum ragers.

Pay attention to the insightfull ones that simply go "I like this because..." or "Wouldn't it be great if we could...", then see how many people all agree with that opinion (whilst ignoring the troll and flamer posts), then you get a rough idea of what parts of your game some players like. This gives you fuel to work towards adding more of that kind of stuff.

The only other possible way of getting some idea of what new content to add is to get GM's to send /tell to every single player in the game asking "What would you like to see in this game?", but then that'd take forever, a lot of people wouldn't bother answering, and you'd end up with an enormous list of 'wants' that has no centralised options to choose from for adding new content.

thats not the point. the point is certain players will not touch the forums and those players are "different" and like "different" things than the people on the forums due (obviously since they arent inclined to use the forums). By listening to people on the forums only , you only get the opinions of a biased group of people (forum users) while you miss out on the opinions of all others.

the big players poll was done right in january. That was a fairly statistically proper survey.

[weeble]

i don't agree, half a state smokes pot, but u can still lose the votes,...why cause the drug dealers and politicians help with the votes. in this game people with multi accounts and box 6-8accounts also help if it means anything. heck it probably why they got ride of the first battle system, was impossible to duel box or pl. ...very loud people that wanted and got what they wanted.