Troll answers and that sort. Gotta be very careful how to keep the results serious otherwise we end up with a whooping 69% of the vote for the next playable species being "Your Mom".

Must... refrain... from comment....

I remember. I answer all the questions "Very Satisfied" just so I could log out and swap characters. And I know I was not the only one.

 

Ingame polls are bad. Social media polling MIGHT work better, since nearly everyone is either on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+ or whatever new social media site the internet chooses to launch. It reaches all the players eventually, and it might reach the players who quit. But, again, results can still be iffy. Troll answers and that sort. Gotta be very careful how to keep the results serious otherwise we end up with a whooping 69% of the vote for the next playable species being "Your Mom".

Well now you're changing the debate entirely...originally you were arguing that preferred players or F2P players couldn't answer...I tell you the option is there, but because you yourself didn't take polling seriously, you feel it's now a bad idea and that social media is better?! That's just foolish imo. Social media allows anyone with any agenda to vote (see Worst Company in America as an example). By confining it to an in-game poll, at least you're limiting outside influence.

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

Why don't you have in-game surveys from time to time? A small "what do you think about X? (a, b, c, comment on the forum)" popping up as a help/support notification every now and then. It's not like you even had to exhibit the results in public, and it might give you a better or at least additional idea of general opinion than rifling through thousands of forum posts; it would also make some people feel better about things (hey, who doesn't like being asked about their opinion?), and with some small sweepstake tied in to the surveys (like a handful of cartel coins, companion gifts, ... for "randomly selected participants") I'd imagine a rather good participation.

It also gives you a glimpse into the heads of the people who are not trolling the forums regularly, who are probably the majority. Those people need to be heard outside of customer support tickets, and outside of aggregate statistics. It might also make those people look at the forum, which might not always be a good thing though.

Players taking polls as an indication of something definitely happening is better than your team consistently making bad choices that result is even greater backlash. This would be a much better game if you guys actually took our opinions- the people who are paying you to add new content- into consideration before deciding what you're going to add next.

 

That aside, use in-game polls. That way, people are very likely to vote. Sure, it may take some time to implement, but if it means you start listening to our feedback I personally wouldn't mind the delay.

It's the same amount of backlash either way, especially if something comes up and they have to delay or even drop the winning feature altogether for the health of the game. And they do take player feedback into consideration. The problem is that YOU, the player, feel like you are not being heard because the feature that gets implemented is not what YOU personally wanted.

And we've already explained why game polls never work.

Well now you're changing the debate entirely...originally you were arguing that preferred players or F2P players couldn't answer...I tell you the option is there, but because you yourself didn't take polling seriously, you feel it's now a bad idea and that social media is better?! That's just foolish imo. Social media allows anyone with any agenda to vote (see Worst Company in America as an example). By confining it to an in-game poll, at least you're limiting outside influence.

I said it MIGHT work. I did not say it would and I did reference outsider influence, though I expect the usual 4chan answer rather than the armchair activist, but you raise another valid wrench in Social Media polling.

Well now you're changing the debate entirely...originally you were arguing that preferred players or F2P players couldn't answer...I tell you the option is there, but because you yourself didn't take polling seriously, you feel it's now a bad idea and that social media is better?! That's just foolish imo. Social media allows anyone with any agenda to vote (see Worst Company in America as an example). By confining it to an in-game poll, at least you're limiting outside influence.

Perhaps a "Poll" button could be added somewhere in-game? That would solve the "people just skip through so they can play" argument. There could be an announcement, via the forums and the launcher, so people who wanted to have some say in what gets added would have to actually make the effort. Social media, however, is a terrible idea.

Hey folks,

 

Thought this might be a good place to explain our reasoning on why you don't see a lot of polls from us on the forums. Some of you have already covered some of them but I thought it would be good to get some yellow text behind it.

 

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

 

Another reason is that you have to realize how much of a minority of players actually use the forums. Without looking at the actual numbers and guessing from the top of my head, I would say less than 5% of our subscribers use the forums regularly. Keep in mind that even less than that % would even answer the poll. That is a pretty tiny group of folks to let make actionable decisions on, which is why we use a lot of facets of data (including the forums) to make decisions, and not them alone.

 

One time where we have used polls, like for the Party Jawa, is when we already have plans in place to implement all of the relevant choices. The Party Jawa, which won the poll (on the forums and on Facebook) was given to players for appreciation, while the other two were still available but placed in the market.

 

I am not saying you will never see polls from us again, but they are tricky as players tend to take them as a guarantee, as opposed to just a tool to gauge opinion.

 

Hopefully that makes sense!

 

-eric

Makes sense to me. All I would say is, and you guys know this already I'm sure, despite the fact that we represent a tiny fraction of the playerbase we can be seen as a "tide" sort of thing, or a "slice" would probably be more accurate.

We could be seen percentage wise as a way to get the pulse of the players.

If you really want accurate poll results, post the question inside the game. Have it pop up when folks log in. You will get a much more accurate polling result that way I would expect.

One thing I feel you guys have wrong....and this is just an assumption on my part...the importance of housing in this game. This game is attracting a HUGE amount of casual players right now. You need casual friendly content, content that invests folks in the game that is not part of the themepark system.

Our starships and hangars, IMO, would make perfect SWG style housing. Not only that, expanding our starships role in the game to more than just a plot device and taxi would have a very strong impact on retention IMO.

Things like.....

Adapting the current space combat feature to allow for multiplayer play, both turret play with folks on our ship and allowing other players to enter your pipe in their ships.

Putting doors back into our ships, put an exit area (ship) button on our UI or in the cockpit, with a toggle for both, adding a legacy cargo bank for legacy wide use, and having random space combat encounters during travels for that folks that wish to have them on a toggle.

Allowing folks to remain in the hangar on their ship.

Changing the initial planet visit sequence for each planet to be more like the initial sequence for Makeb.

Creating an internal decoration system for our starships as powerful as the SWG housing system, and adding craftable decorations, trophies and other items to the game to quest, craft, as drops, etc. Same goes for our hangar.

Having missions that play out on board your ship, like smuggling, breaches, etc. More than just cutscenes. Our ships should feel like a part of the storyline in the game. Imagine something like the boarding action in New Hope, or landing on a planet in a new area with your ship directly to do a few missions there....you get the gist.

I know it's not at the top of your list...I think you guys should poll the folks in game to see if it should move up. I think you would find it is more important to the player base than you might think.

Perhaps a "Poll" button could be added somewhere in-game? That would solve the "people just skip through so they can play" argument. There could be an announcement, via the forums and the launcher, so people who wanted to have some say in what gets added would have to actually make the effort. Social media, however, is a terrible idea.

Excellent idea! Sadly, a wasted one most likely - Eric has spoken.

It's the same amount of backlash either way, especially if something comes up and they have to delay or even drop the winning feature altogether for the health of the game. And they do take player feedback into consideration. The problem is that YOU, the player, feel like you are not being heard because the feature that gets implemented is not what YOU personally wanted.

 

And we've already explained why game polls never work.

Why do people always have to resort to the "no you're just not getting what you want, everything is great!" line. It's really annoying and total BS. I know many people in-game who dislike the direction the game is taking and feel like their feedback falls on deaf ears, but according to all the EAware supporters we're "the minority". As for the backlash being the same; I think people get more angry about being ignored and given what they never asked for than they do when something has to be cancelled for a legit reason.

Unfortunately, EAware rarely gives a legit reason for giving up on requested features. Hood toggle, for example.

Perhaps a "Poll" button could be added somewhere in-game? That would solve the "people just skip through so they can play" argument. There could be an announcement, via the forums and the launcher, so people who wanted to have some say in what gets added would have to actually make the effort. Social media, however, is a terrible idea.

Now a Polling section could work better, provided it make it very clear that the results and release dates are subject to change and/or be removed tempoarily. Something that get added may cause a game breaker bug and need to be redacted until they work it out.

Now a Polling section could work better, provided it make it very clear that the results and release dates are subject to change and/or be removed tempoarily. Something that get added may cause a game breaker bug and need to be redacted until they work it out.

I think most people will understand if something has to be delayed. It's part of the process. But people don't like being ignored, and the lack of any kind of feedback request (polls or otherwise) would suggest, to me at least, that EAware feel that they know what we want to be added. Given the past few months, it's clear that they do not.

A poll section would add least suggest the possibility of them listening to players and acting on that information. Whether they would put the results to any use or ignore it, I don't know.

Hey folks,

 

Thought this might be a good place to explain our reasoning on why you don't see a lot of polls from us on the forums. Some of you have already covered some of them but I thought it would be good to get some yellow text behind it.

 

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

 

Another reason is that you have to realize how much of a minority of players actually use the forums. Without looking at the actual numbers and guessing from the top of my head, I would say less than 5% of our subscribers use the forums regularly. Keep in mind that even less than that % would even answer the poll. That is a pretty tiny group of folks to let make actionable decisions on, which is why we use a lot of facets of data (including the forums) to make decisions, and not them alone.

 

One time where we have used polls, like for the Party Jawa, is when we already have plans in place to implement all of the relevant choices. The Party Jawa, which won the poll (on the forums and on Facebook) was given to players for appreciation, while the other two were still available but placed in the market.

 

I am not saying you will never see polls from us again, but they are tricky as players tend to take them as a guarantee, as opposed to just a tool to gauge opinion.

 

Hopefully that makes sense!

 

-eric

Eric-

None of your explanations hold water for me. First, if only a small number of people read your forums, then why do you bother? Why are you even employed as a community manager, if you are only helping 5% of the player base? Seems like BW could put your salary to better use by killing your job and hiring another developer/designer. That would make 95% of the player base happier, with more content for their money.

Second, you've done a decent job of saying when something isn't a "guarantee". Like today's patch, that's coming out tomorrow. The forums will talk about it, of course. But I'd rather bad news, than no news.

And that's what you are saying. You 5% don't matter enough for us to ask your opinion, because the negative backlash isn't worth it. Ummmm...honestly, is that really the message you were hoping to send? I sure hope not.

Why do people always have to resort to the "no you're just not getting what you want, everything is great!" line. It's really annoying and total BS. I know many people in-game who dislike the direction the game is taking and feel like their feedback falls on deaf ears, but according to all the EAware supporters we're "the minority". As for the backlash being the same; I think people get more angry about being ignored and given what they never asked for than they do when something has to be cancelled for a legit reason.

 

Unfortunately, EAware rarely gives a legit reason for giving up on requested features. Hood toggle, for example.

Yeah, I didn't say that was the current state of the game. I said that you feel like you're not being listened to because your desired feature isn't here now. I never said the game is fine. The only minority we know for certain is the forum minority. Your idea of "many people ingame" is also subjective. It could be ten people, it could be twenty. Now compared to the 50k estimated subscribers and who knows how many Preferred and Free Players, you may very well be a "minority". You could also just be the minority who's complaints or suggestions may coincide with the Majority. You can't really tell unless you polled every across the game, all day,every day, for some amount of years at every hour to catch any offliners or sporadic subscribers.

People's anger would still the same. Angry is angry. Either way, someone gets pissed and rants.

Social media allows anyone with any agenda to vote (see Worst Company in America as an example). By confining it to an in-game poll, at least you're limiting outside influence.

^ Fact

I have no recollection of assisting Rick Astley to top current artist accolades years after he left the limelight.

Thats what a poll is for, to see what the players want. I would assume that people who play the game and also use the forums are more active than people who dont care about anything and just play the game and never use the forums...

 

So basically we have no say in what goes in the game?

Ask what a bunch of elementary school children want for lunch, put ice cream on the list, and you'll get your poll answer. I'm sure it works for Junior High, too. Your assumption about forum members being more active is wrong. The data would suggest 5% of the players use the forums; the rest are out playing the game. In other words, active forum users spend LESS time playing the game. It would make far more sense for Bioware to measure game metrics to see how, in fact, players are interacting to get a sense of what they want.

To ask forum members what they want in a poll is statistically invalid just because the subset is not representative of the majority of players. The ONLY way to construct a statistically valid poll would be to randomly select from the entire universe of players (not just a select 5%) and measure their responses. It might make you feel good to see polls on here, but it would be statistically a worthless exercise. And, of course, it would set up expectations of what was to come that would be endless fodder for more ***** Threads. You'd just complain about the options in the poll. It's just so unfair that transgendered cross-dressing Jawas were not listed as an option. QQ

But you are correct in one sense. You actually have no say in what goes on in the game. That is true.

Originally Posted by TUXs View. Social media allows anyone with any agenda to vote (see Worst Company in America as an example). By confining it to an in-game poll, at least you're limiting outside influence.

Ain't it the truth? But we're not talking about an "in-game" poll; we're talking about an "in-forum" poll, and that's a problem. Also, outside influence cannot be discounted. One example is parents who actually pay for the game. There are a lot of people here who use Daddy's credit card. I can almost guarantee you a poll asking of the sex scenes on here should be a little more explicit than a black screen would be met with enthusiasm (Look at the uproar for including same-sex romances as an example), but if Daddy (or Congress) got wind of that, SW would be history. There are a lot of balls for BW to juggle at once, and forum members think of themselves as a lot more important than they really are.

Yeah, I didn't say that was the current state of the game. I said that you feel like you're not being listened to because your desired feature isn't here now. I never said the game is fine. The only minority we know for certain is the forum minority. Your idea of "many people ingame" is also subjective. It could be ten people, it could be twenty. Now compared to the 50k estimated subscribers and who knows how many Preferred and Free Players, you may very well be a "minority". You could also just be the minority who's complaints or suggestions may coincide with the Majority. You can't really tell unless you polled every across the game, all day,every day, for some amount of years at every hour to catch any offliners or sporadic subscribers.

 

People's anger would still the same. Angry is angry. Either way, someone gets pissed and rants.

Well, even the less angry people I come across in-game say they don't like the new direction of the game. I don't pretend to believe I speak for everybody, but if I raise a point and say "people don't want" or whatever, it's from speaking to people in-game. I'm in a few different guilds atm, and I tend to watch general chat a lot of the time, so I get my information from there. That's about as close as you can get to hard data without a poll system at any rate.

Would it be easier to enter a subroutine into sending a poll link to all of the chars in the game( linked to one account) to the website and upon answering deleting the remaining messages on the other chars.

Or Setting up a poll message, inquiering to participate in a poll about subject 'x', those that decline are registered as neutral and the those that accept the poll can answer it accordingly.

The same thing like when we get the message to resub e.g. when ending our subscribtion and get the message.

And about the idea of harrasing people with polls, Bioware. Simply give people the option to select if they want to participate in polls yes or no, in a tab on our 'my account' on the website.

So that takes care of the amount of people responding to that issue.

Now, about the use of polls.

Eric. For you I have one remark. If you ask questions as: "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?", ofc people would like to see the winner pick come first. MMO's still need to learn that they need to give players a certain amount of transperancy what they have in the making for players, so they have an idea - based on the feedback they get from those announcements - of how it will be received by those players.

Give us polls about future projects... or priorities for content or whatever can be done. Whether we would like a new species or prefer a new planet or if we would like to get our guildships first

So you guys can serve us customers better. And wasn't that one of your remarks Eric? Or was it Bruce or Mr. Cody's remark? That they said that they were there for us and offer of the best service there is for 'their' customers...

I'd like to get some feedback from you guys on this frankly...

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

so why not do polls that express people's opinions of things already in game? "fun" polls, not ones that would lead people to expect something in return, such as:

Favorite Role. dps (even with the longer queue times)

Favorite Faction to play. Empire

Favorite species to play. Human

Favorite class story. agent

Favorite pvp map. huttball

Favorite planet. dromund kaas

Favorite starter planet. hutta

Favorite flashpoint. boarding party

Favorite type of weapon to use. sniper rifle

Favorite empire companion. Dark Jaesa

Favorite republic companion. M1-4X

Favorite crew skill. Cybertech

Favorite spacecraft. Phantom

Favorite armor set. clandestine

Favorite color crystal. Mint green (though i dont have one yet)

Favorite alignment. Mix of neutral-dark

look at that, you do one of those each week, and i already planned the next 4 months for you guys

Well, even the less angry people I come across in-game say they don't like the new direction of the game. I don't pretend to believe I speak for everybody, but if I raise a point and say "people don't want" or whatever, it's from speaking to people in-game. I'm in a few different guilds atm, and I tend to watch general chat a lot of the time, so I get my information from there. That's about as close as you can get to hard data without a poll system at any rate.

Indeed and that's a very close way of data gathering. But remember, for all Bioware know, you're gathering data from one server. Which is why a Poll section works better.

We also need to take into account that ingame polling only works on the current population of the game. We need to figure out a way to get to the players who have already quit and players who haven't reached the legal age to play. That's another reason why I prefer a Social Media poll, despite TUX's logical reasoning against it. If Bioware makes a poll, it only appeals to the current population. If your friend quit the game a few months and during that time an ingame poll went through, they come back to find implemented features they might not like in the game. They'd feel like that because they weren't playing at the time, they missed out on getting their voice heard. So they would have to either stay obligated to keep playing in hopes that the next poll might include their desired feature on it or rely on third parties to keep them in the loop about when the poll comes around.

Now we could remedy that with setting a time and make an annual poll, like the actual Presidential elections, and like the months leading up to it, plaster the announcements all over sites. But as TUX pointed out, we could garner the attention of biased pollers and get skewed results.

Bioware needs to make a way to get the player's feedback and opinions, that does not exclude anyone in the process. It has to be well known enough so that the old players and potential players can see what could be coming, but selective enough so the results are not messed with.

so why not do polls that express people's opinions of things already in game? "fun" polls, not ones that would lead people to expect something in return, such as:

 

Favorite Role. dps (even with the longer queue times)

Favorite Faction to play. Empire

Favorite species to play. Human

Favorite class story. agent

Favorite pvp map. huttball

Favorite planet. dromund kaas

Favorite starter planet. hutta

Favorite flashpoint. boarding party

Favorite type of weapon to use. sniper rifle

Favorite empire companion. Dark Jaesa

Favorite republic companion. M1-4X

Favorite crew skill. Cybertech

Favorite spacecraft. Phantom

Favorite armor set. clandestine

Favorite color crystal. Mint green (though i dont have one yet)

Favorite alignment. Mix of neutral-dark

 

look at that, you do one of those each week, and i already planned the next 4 months for you guys

They actually do that on Facebook.

The general consensus is "Your game sucks, Elder Scrolls/Wildstar FTW"

Thank you, internet.

Another reason is that you have to realize how much of a minority of players actually use the forums. Without looking at the actual numbers and guessing from the top of my head, I would say less than 5% of our subscribers use the forums regularly. Keep in mind that even less than that % would even answer the poll. That is a pretty tiny group of folks to let make actionable decisions on, which is why we use a lot of facets of data (including the forums) to make decisions, and not them alone.

This alone should be enough to answer the people who complain that suggestions are never acted on.

Hey folks,

 

Thought this might be a good place to explain our reasoning on why you don't see a lot of polls from us on the forums. Some of you have already covered some of them but I thought it would be good to get some yellow text behind it.

 

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

 

Another reason is that you have to realize how much of a minority of players actually use the forums. Without looking at the actual numbers and guessing from the top of my head, I would say less than 5% of our subscribers use the forums regularly. Keep in mind that even less than that % would even answer the poll. That is a pretty tiny group of folks to let make actionable decisions on, which is why we use a lot of facets of data (including the forums) to make decisions, and not them alone.

 

One time where we have used polls, like for the Party Jawa, is when we already have plans in place to implement all of the relevant choices. The Party Jawa, which won the poll (on the forums and on Facebook) was given to players for appreciation, while the other two were still available but placed in the market.

 

I am not saying you will never see polls from us again, but they are tricky as players tend to take them as a guarantee, as opposed to just a tool to gauge opinion.

 

Hopefully that makes sense!

 

-eric

The ppl who use forums are the ones that also are most interested in the game and it's development. If someone can't bother to look at a poll once per week - they dont deserve a say in "what spieces" gets implemented either imo.

Either way, i dont really trust your "reason" for not hosting polls. I think its more a matter of not wanting to highlight player "wants" publically because BW knows tthey have a history of failing to deliver any of the poll options.

Prove me wrong by showing me some grand plans for open world pvp, as per this poll you actually did host. Which of these options is in the works to be implemented eh?

Hey folks,

 

Thought this might be a good place to explain our reasoning on why you don't see a lot of polls from us on the forums. Some of you have already covered some of them but I thought it would be good to get some yellow text behind it.

 

I think the first and most important thing is that by us posting a poll, folks will assume that the winner is guaranteed to see action. If we say "What species would you like to see in SWTOR?" and Togruta wins, in your example. Everyone will assume we are definitely going to add Togruta to the game. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't work that way.

 

Another reason is that you have to realize how much of a minority of players actually use the forums. Without looking at the actual numbers and guessing from the top of my head, I would say less than 5% of our subscribers use the forums regularly. Keep in mind that even less than that % would even answer the poll. That is a pretty tiny group of folks to let make actionable decisions on, which is why we use a lot of facets of data (including the forums) to make decisions, and not them alone.

 

One time where we have used polls, like for the Party Jawa, is when we already have plans in place to implement all of the relevant choices. The Party Jawa, which won the poll (on the forums and on Facebook) was given to players for appreciation, while the other two were still available but placed in the market.

 

I am not saying you will never see polls from us again, but they are tricky as players tend to take them as a guarantee, as opposed to just a tool to gauge opinion.

 

Hopefully that makes sense!

 

-eric

This has got to be one of the most sensible, down to earth no-bs PR replies I've had the chance of reading in a while.

The ppl who use forums are the ones that also are most interested in the game and it's development. If someone can't bother to look at a poll once per week - they dont deserve a say in "what spieces" gets implemented either imo.

No, people on the forums just want to say stuff. It has nothing to do with "love of the game."

No, people on the forums just want to say stuff. It has nothing to do with "love of the game."

Oh my god you don't realize how wrong you are lol

No, people on the forums just want to say stuff. It has nothing to do with "love of the game."

Speak for yourself. I know for a fact that the absolutly most dedicated players in any MMO also use the forums. Not several hours per day, maybe not even more then 5min - but they do use them. Because THATS where announcements are made.

There are of course exceptions, but those are a minority. Do you really mean to tell me that SWTORs most dedicated players and those who want to influence the games direction, do not check the forums for news every week? lol...