I just can't believe that I just voted what most people voted as well ! Normally, I'm such a freak and I'm so much different than everybody else !!! Edited November 7, 2013 by AlrikFassbauer

I will spare you the math, but if hundreds of thousands of people play SWTOR, 300 is a fraction of a percent.

 

This. even more than 2k of player voting is a fraction of a percent, so it is not relevant.

I remember a poll here:

 

What language would you like to see in swtor?

Italian was the first, before German and France... with 400 votes or more... of course (i'm Italian), this was not a relevant poll, because as always is a small percent.

I'm going to go ahead and bring in another Bioware forums, game, and poll as an example.

 

DA3 forums had a poll(player made) that indicated that roughly 50% of the people who took the poll viewed the inclusion of other races as make or break for whether they'd buy they game. Bioware's internal metrics however(per dev statement, I believe it was Gaider who brought the number up) showed that over 90% of people who bought and played Dragon Age Origins never played any race besides human.

 

 

The bias introduced by self-selection in polls, and the bias created by the fact that the general forums population most likely does not closely emulate that population break down of players, are very real.

 

The selection bias of your anecdotes is also very real. Just saying.

I agree with you entirely! General Discussion and this forums can certainly be a great representation of the playerbase at large, and its opinions. I don't want you to get the idea that I was saying otherwise. My reasoning is specifically tied to polls. Again, not that polls are bad, just that in many cases players can misunderstand poll results as "undeniable proof" of a point. It is when you can put a tangible number behind an opinion that things get a bit tricky and that is where the "in a vacuum" comment comes in. (like the Warzone type example I made)

 

-eric

 

How, then, do folks actuallys learn what players want ? Metrics alone aren't able to tell you about wishes ... Since wishes are emotions, especially, and as such, emotions cannot be found via logic (and thus via metrics), because emotions are outside of logic ...

 

And if you don't do polls - how, then ? Polls on other web sites don't count. They would produce similarily small numbers like thgis poll here, you know.

 

DA3 forums had a poll(player made) that indicated that roughly 50% of the people who took the poll viewed the inclusion of other races as make or break for whether they'd buy they game. Bioware's internal metrics however(per dev statement, I believe it was Gaider who brought the number up) showed that over 90% of people who bought and played Dragon Age Origins never played any race besides human.

 

The bias introduced by self-selection in polls, and the bias created by the fact that the general forums population most likely does not closely emulate that population break down of players, are very real.

 

The failure in this metrics-based "evidence" is even far, far bigger :

 

Dragon Age players are AN ENTIRE DIFFERENT kinds of players than the usual Star Wars fans & MMO players !!!

 

People were attracted by DA's promise that it would represent an "spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate", and thus, it attracted hardcore RPG players to a great part.

 

And, hardcore RPG players have an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT need for things built in into RPGs than the MMO crowd has or than "the usual Star Wars fan" has !

Edited November 7, 2013 by AlrikFassbauer

This. even more than 2k of player voting is a fraction of a percent, so it is not relevant.

I remember a poll here:

 

What language would you like to see in swtor?

Italian was the first, before German and France... with 400 votes or more... of course (i'm Italian), this was not a relevant poll, because as always is a small percent.

 

not only that, but its a small fraction of a particular base. Those people who visit the forums and those that bothered to push a button.

 

The forum community is not an equal representation of the fan base. It might be the most passionate, but is not an "average player". As an example suppose only the people who sub AND purchase items off the CM bothered to vote. Would that poll supporting expanding the CM and items being offered be a reasonable representation of the community? what if they had a choice between new items exclusive to the CM or gear on a vendor open to all? Would that be "accurate" of the community? Probably not, and the inherit flaw in the forums and polls on forums. It is not a general enough representation to be accurate to indicate it represents even an average sample of the player base, not just a small%

While the average voter in this poll may not necessarily represent the 'average' player of TOR in general, it should also be remembered that someone who's active and subscribing to TOR is probably of greater value (as a source of information and a consumer) to Bioware than someone further downt he 'commitment spectrum' (I don't see any logical reason for setting a dedicated subscriber's desires as equal to a F2Per that barely plays/has no real interest in playing more, for example). Lumping all users in together and searching for the holy grail of the "average user/player" isn't going to necessarily get you accurate results with the kind of player base that TOR has. Edited November 7, 2013 by Lesaberisa

Actually, as has been pointed out multiple times in this topic, this would be a very flawed method of tracking customer preferences about future content. I spend a lot of time running dailies, but I don't want that to be a priority for development at all (to say nothing of the time spent idling or in queue or grinding in other ways). That's not to say this poll is perfect - it isn't - but your suggestion is going to be heavily skewed.

 

Agreed. This is a bit of a catch-22 that I think caused the, until recently, downfall of space sim games. If no one makes space sims then no one can buy space sims. If no one buys space sims they assume that no one wants space sims, and publishers stop greenlighting space sims.

 

The conclusion flies in the face of reality (see success of Star Citizen), and falls prey to the age old "correlation != causation" trap.

 

While the average voter in this poll may not necessarily represent the 'average' player of TOR in general, it should also be remembered that someone who's active and subscribing to TOR is probably of greater value (as a source of information and a consumer) to Bioware than someone further downt he 'commitment spectrum' (I don't see any logical reason for setting a dedicated subscriber's desires as equal to a F2Per that barely plays/has no real interest in playing more, for example). Lumping all users in together and searching for the holy grail of the "average user/player" isn't going to necessarily get you accurate results with the kind of player base that TOR has.

 

One cannot conclude that those on the forums are active players, or more active than those who don't frequent the forums. Some of my guild members are on every single day, but never come on the forums. Then we have some people like those-banned-members-who-shall-not-be-named who spend all day on the forums but don't play the game.

I'd love to have a real chapter 4 of our class stories, but BioWare seems to be only interested in operations and PVP.

Agreed. This is a bit of a catch-22 that I think caused the, until recently, downfall of space sim games. If no one makes space sims then no one can buy space sims. If no one buys space sims they assume that no one wants space sims, and publishers stop greenlighting space sims.

 

Exactly. People may want class stories, but how do they demonstrate that with in-game actions apart from spending all of their gameplay time leveling alts and, I don't know, replaying cutscenes over and over? Or, from the other angle - if all you provide people to do are dailies and occasional flashpoints and ops, then it's extremely disingenuous to then look at that and say "Hey, all people like to do are dailies/flashpoints/ops)

 

One cannot conclude that those on the forums are active players, or more active than those who don't frequent the forums. Some of my guild members are on every single day, but never come on the forums. Then we have some people like those-banned-members-who-shall-not-be-named who spend all day on the forums but don't play the game.

 

You misunderstand a bit - I was just responding to the idea that the fact that forum goers are (likely to be) more passionate/"hardcore" doesn't mean anything. It should mean something - a dedicated/'hardcore' fan is far more likely to be a part of the TOR community going forward than the F2Per that really doesn't care and just plays because it's free. Some sort of weighting would need to be done.

1 - Class Story

2 - Operations

3 - New Class

 

Thats all most a PvE player needs to be happy

Exactly. People may want class stories, but how do they demonstrate that with in-game actions apart from spending all of their gameplay time leveling alts and, I don't know, replaying cutscenes over and over? Or, from the other angle - if all you provide people to do are dailies and occasional flashpoints and ops, then it's extremely disingenuous to then look at that and say "Hey, all people like to do are dailies/flashpoints/ops)

 

 

I'm fairly sure that if they were to take an "overall" look at my playing history that they would see a lot of it has been spent going through all the class stories.

But if they look at the short term/recent activities they would get the idea that what I really want is "Star Wars: Bussiness Simulator" - since the vast majority of my "playing" time these days is spent standing on my ship while giving my crew working orders, followed by occasionally tabbing into game to do some GTN'ing and to make sure that those slackers are still working.

 

Of course with Class stories over and done with, that overall data is going to reflect that over time too...

"Okay, this guy obviously wants SW: Bussiness Sim with a helping of some Operations, Flashpoints and doing dailies until his reputation is maxed!"

Which would indeed be a somewhat flawed conclusion.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Callaron

PvP content

Crew Skills and Crafting

Mini games

Would like some QOL improvements on the crafting/crew skills. Either make it more interactive and hands on or some way to where I don't have to hop from toon to toon to toon. Maybe a legacy unlock to dispatch my alts toons on their missions with a legacy wide credit pool while we are at it.

 

Other than that? PvP. Speaking of credits? More ways to make some in PvP via more PvP dailies or missions. more objective based PvP. More Hutt Ball.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Technohic

bring back class stories and new maps of huttball.

That list was almost a cruel as the dev commenting on why they didn't add PvE space content....

1 :PvP (as in 8 vs 8 objective games. NOT ARENAS.)

2. Operations

3. Mini games

 

The rest is just a coin toss for me. Also, I don't necessarily believe that new class missions would be that much ahead of everything els if you asked everyone in the population. Personally I've never been a fan of class story because a lot of single player games (mass effect) do it better. It's just not the reason to why I would pick up a MMO.

Edited November 7, 2013 by MidichIorian

Good poll.

 

BTW - hey, BioWare, can we get dual spec added to the legacy?

Edited November 7, 2013 by Laiov

I can tell you right now what my over-riding fear is.

 

One of the things that has come up consistently both here in the polls and in Cantina events is a desire for the continuation of class story in some form. Class story is what got many of us hooked, and was the KEY selling point of what made this MMO different from others.

 

However, in those cantina tours (and I know first hand from the one I attended in Chicago, actually Rosemont), when the question has been brought up (and echoed in the other cantina tours based on the transcripts I read on them), is a total sales job on planetary quests, and telling people essentially to forget about class story quests, using Makeb as an example.

 

So my chief fear, and one my sub is riding on, is whether class quests continue in some form. And maybe its just my lense, but what Eric said about polls feeds into that fear, as I don't know if he would have worded it the same way if Class Stories wasn't the #1 request.

 

 

I just wish there was more dialogue on class stories coming from up top, instead of trying to sugar coat telling the player base "you're gonna take your planetary stories and you're gonna like it or else!" Makeb crapped all over the class stories, trivializing them to ridiculous lengths.

 

I get how its more expensive to continue the class story line. I just wish the devs would commit to better writing and work to better incorporate class storylines into the planetary stories as well as use the planetary stories to push class agendas further, instead of just paying each class lip service and then telling them to go on their merry way.

 

I just have no faith in the writing and development team to achieve that, because we have a horrible attempt at that in Makeb, which otherwise was a decent planet story addition, and based on the poll and cantina comments, there's no hope of it getting any better going forward.

Nooooo! That's my favorite WZ of them all. CURSE YOU AND UR FLAWED POLL ERIC!!!

 

If we don't get more HBs I'm going to put the BW logo on a glove then smack myself in the face with it.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Joesixxpack

please, for the love of god, vote pvp.

 

please. we have had a net of almost zero content over two years. please throw us a bone. we are a minority and cant win this alone. please pity us, we deserve something.

 

please

 

sincerely, lots of pvpers

Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet, but could we maybe get a link to this on the game launcher? Overall a pretty small number of the population regularly visits the forums, which means you are not going to have anywhere near a proper sample size.

 

Stick a link on the game launcher, and everyone that logs in is going to at least see that this poll is going on. More exposure = more people voting = more accurate representation of the community.

 

At the time of writing this 705 people have voted...... thats miniscule in comparison with the total size of the population.

At the time of writing this 705 people have voted...... thats miniscule in comparison with the total size of the population.

 

Not if you listen to some people

I think the pvp Poll options need to be changed. I want to see more warzones but do NOT want to see more arenas.

Top 3 picks, huh.

 

1. PVP content. More WZ's.

2. PVP content. A diff location from fleet with all the things a pvper needs like vendors, class trainerss, mission givers and a dueling area. Etc.

2. PVP content. More pvp vendor items to spend comms on.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Cryowolf

new warzones!!!! class story=LAME