Forums as a player sampling?

[xagarelic]

The casual player could not care about making a post because they just dont care about anything too much. Unless it hurts them and the game is too hard, and they just hop to another game without making a fuss. This is why this crowd is so dangerous because their demand is very elastic in economic terms.

Hear, hear
Fear the silent majority!!! =)) =))

[Mikedizzy]

I like to stay informed with what is going on with the game at all times so I like to visit at least once every couple of days. I also like to help newer players with questions so they are not in the dark. I think the community both makes this game good and also makes it a pain in the ass sometimes.

[Sagittarian]

No matter how trivial players make the forums out to be S.E has been listening to some of the suggestions.
*snip*
That's the reason why there's so much arguing on the forums because players don't want the devs to listen to the other side.

That's exactly why I'm curious. If we on the forums are the "vocal minority" and the forums are where the devs are getting all the feedback/ideas, how well do we represent the desires of the majority of players? Particularly in terms of difficulty and content.
It sounds like the impression is that the people not on the forums are basically just "playing the game" (what a concept). The people on the forums are more interested in the "meta-game" - lore, contributing feedback, griping/praising, strategies/theorycrafting, vanity pictures...

I also like to help newer players with questions so they are not in the dark.

.. and the occasional samaritan.

A member of my FC didn't know about the beast tribe quests until yesterday, which surprised me until I realized that if you didn't read the patch notes (or forum complaints) you'd only find them by looking for available quests in Gridania/Ul'dah. >_<

[Anapingofness]

As others have said, I too believe that the forums represent a very small fraction of the game community.

[Rufalus]

I think the forum users do not well represent the players of the game. English forums have a large amount of complaints and people expressing dissatisfaction, while in-game communities seem mostly positive about the game.

[Gramul]

It's the percentage that feel their opinion on what they're experiencing is worth expressing. People who care enough about the game to let the company and players know how they feel.

I generally think that's a good sort of mindset to take.
Then again, I'm irrefutably biased.

[Shneibel]

SE could add feature like player can get a mount by write 1k feed back or 1k complain or 1k they love the game and make it 1/day as lockout feature and same comment & reason do not count

[Doo]

No matter how trivial players make the forums out to be S.E has been listening to some of the suggestions.

1) Withdraw issue in CT - check - implementation - failed
2) Rude behavior in dungeons - check - commendations - Semi failed
3) Housing prices - dunno haven't been paying attention
4) Cash shops - Selling Fantasia

etc etc

That's the reason why there's so much arguing on the forums because players don't want the devs to listen to the other side.

[HumsterMKX]

I visit forums generally to see what is going on. The stuff that get my attention the most are, over negative/postive threads.

2 things mainly get me involved. Latency and overall game acessibilty.

Most of the time will be rooting out white knights <- the real ones and looking for Lalafell and Miqo'tes.

[Billie21]

While I don't believe that the forumers are an accurate representation of the ingame population, it doesn't mean that what they voice is only happening in their own point of view.
Usually, an ingame group of players will have a minority of posters amongst their ranks, but those posters also talk ingame, and share their ideas there, and get their ideas from what other people do/say ingame too.

So basically, each post on the forum actually represents several silent voices.


The variable here is the proportion.
There is a voice for about everybody ingame that reaches the forum. The ratio between different opinions however might differ from the ingame population, considering that a part of said population is less encline than the rest to go to the forums.


As for SE, well, they can only do with the information they have to get feedback. Part of it comes from the forum, but seriously, they probably giver more weight to money flows (and maybe they have ways to check some specific player behaviors? I know it exists in other places somewhat, and it would make sense, but no idea of the details of the practice).