Early Enrollment Survey - Time Sensitive!


Pathfinder Online


Greetings folks! I decided to do another quick survey to help GW get a better sense of where we all stand on the start of EE. The survey is brief- should take less than 5 minutes.

Please promote the survey to people you know who are vested in the game but not currently active on the Paizo forum due to the lull in development activity.

This survey will be live for 3 days before being closed.

The link is below:
https://duke.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0Dmrs9nvbcXHwMd

Thanks!

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

Filled out, though I wish you had an option for "When do you think EE should start, based upon current state of the game?" and list various dates ranging from a week to 3+ months. That would add a much needed metric for this poll:

1) 1-2 weeks
2) 2-3 weeks
3) 1 month
4) 1-2 months
5) 2-3 months
6) longer than 3 months

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

"Daily", lol

Goblin Squad Member

Nice work Sspitfire :)


Switched to "Survey Temporarily Unavailable" after I submitted the final answer. Should I retake it or just leave it?

I did laugh at one of my answers - "Happy" to wait 4 weeks/month, but only because they're releasing DA3 on the 360...otherwise 2 weeks.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Done. I want EE now! :)


Gloreindl wrote:

Filled out, though I wish you had an option for "When do you think EE should start, based upon current state of the game?" and list various dates ranging from a week to 3+ months. That would add a much needed metric for this poll:

1) 1-2 weeks
2) 2-3 weeks
3) 1 month
4) 1-2 months
5) 2-3 months
6) longer than 3 months

Yeah I started to do one like that but I was kinda taking this as a quick-and-dirty survey instead of an optimal survey. That question would have taken too much brain power to make sure I did it right. Sorry!

Part of the issue there would have been figuring out whether to put it in terms of time or in terms of number of builds or in terms of content.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Hobson Fiffledown wrote:

Switched to "Survey Temporarily Unavailable" after I submitted the final answer. Should I retake it or just leave it?

I did laugh at one of my answers - "Happy" to wait 4 weeks/month, but only because they're releasing DA3 on the 360...otherwise 2 weeks.

No, you are fine.

If you completed the survey but it did not submit properly (or don't submit it at all), it will automatically time out after 4 hours, recording your responses as they are. So either way it is a completed survey.

Goblin Squad Member

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I think EE is starting once they get the desync issues fixed. Feature wise, the game is ready for EE to start.

Goblin Squad Member

Done. Whatever it takes, so long as everyone is honest about what it is and open to the process of a reasonable development cycle.

Goblin Squad Member

Done.
I'd like POI's, not tower clocks, but I'll play without either if a stable, player looting environment is there. Going blood simple at this point ; )

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:
I think EE is starting once they get the desync issues fixed. Feature wise, the game is ready for EE to start.

Agreed. But I do think getting the PVP Towers working is important.


Black Silver of The Veiled, T7V wrote:
Valkenr wrote:
I think EE is starting once they get the desync issues fixed. Feature wise, the game is ready for EE to start.
Agreed. But I do think getting the PVP Towers working is important.

Even if they are working, I don't think towers are planned to come into play until week 2 of EE.

Goblin Squad Member

Filled out and done

Goblin Squad Member

sspitfire1 wrote:
Even if they are working, I don't think towers are planned to come into play until week 2 of EE.

They may have made them easy to turn on and off, but my guess is that they'll be there, but won't be doing what they are expected to do.

Goblin Squad Member

done and thanks for the warning about when it need done by


41 responses and counting.

Please keep pushing it out to folks who do not use these forums regularly so we can get a broader perspective.

Goblin Squad Member

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I would have preferred an option other than Yes/No on if I'd play if EE launched as is. I'd play, but it wouldn't be much. Maybe an hour or two a week.


TEO Alexander Damocles wrote:
I would have preferred an option other than Yes/No on if I'd play if EE launched as is. I'd play, but it wouldn't be much. Maybe an hour or two a week.

Fair point. This is why we usually workshop a survey before we put it live.

Goblin Squad Member

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Nihimon wrote:
"Daily", lol

think they should have had an hourly option for some of us.


Yeah I would have checked that one off; but then it might have been a little too depressing to include :P

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
"Daily", lol

Hourly... more likely for me.

Goblin Squad Member

TEO Alexander Damocles wrote:
I would have preferred an option other than Yes/No on if I'd play if EE launched as is. I'd play, but it wouldn't be much. Maybe an hour or two a week.

Yes, I found the options were all predicated on EE happening soon, and we deciding if we would join in EE.

I would have preferred an option that suggested putting off EE for weeks or even months.

I personally think EE should be pushed off until at least 2 - 3 more builds are completed and tested. If that means roughly Q1 of 2015, then so be it.

Goblin Squad Member

I get the feeling what we will get is a HUGE patch that is basically 2 builds worth of content, and then we will have to test it, make sure stability is right. If stability isn't right, I guess we keep going until it is.

Goblin Squad Member

My experience is that stability shrinks exponentially with number of things patched ... so unless the GoblinWorkers has made ample sacrifices to a reliable god ....

Goblin Squad Member

Well, stability has improved with the last build (for me at least), and now that I know I had a buggy armor feat slotted (Binder), I can kill goblins and bandits again. So that's a win.

And, yeah, I answered the survey.

Goblin Squad Member

Thanks for the survey! I would have liked to see an question where there was a differentiation between "Paid, as in start using up the months I already have on my account" and "Paid, as in, need to spend 15 dollars right now".

Because with the latter, I would have answered that first question about wether I would pay to play, differently(as in, no, not yet).

Those months on my account are paid and lost anyway, so may as well start collecting that xp. So I think you are going to see some false positives with that first question. Reading the forums lately, you see a lot of "Sure, I'll be spending my months from day 1, but after they are used up, I will reconsider and see if I keep paying".

I have a feeling that a lot of those people might have answered that question differently also if they had that option.


Bluddwolf wrote:
I would have preferred an option that suggested putting off EE for weeks or even months.

Yeah I started to do one like that but I was kinda taking this as a quick-and-dirty survey instead of an optimal survey. That question would have taken too much brain power to make sure I did it right. Sorry!

Part of the issue there would have been figuring out whether to put it in terms of time or in terms of number of builds or in terms of content.

Goblin Squad Member

I believe that the major draw for starting day one of EE, is not to actually play the game in that state but to begin accumulating xp from day one.

Regardless of what Ryan said on the point that he was hoping not to have people banking all of that XP, and then "Bang!!" you're a high level noob. The reality is, the XP is the real time constrained factor, not the achievement grind.

It will probably only take a day or two (or approximately 8 hours) to kill a few hundred Goblins, with multiple weapons (especially for Fighters), to unlock level 8+ Roles.


Bluddwolf wrote:

I believe that the major draw for starting day one of EE, is not to actually play the game in that state but to begin accumulating xp from day one.

Regardless of what Ryan said on the point that he was hoping not to have people banking all of that XP, and then "Bang!!" you're a high level noob. The reality is, the XP is the real time constrained factor, not the achievement grind.

It will probably only take a day or two (or approximately 8 hours) to kill a few hundred Goblins, with multiple weapons (especially for Fighters), to unlock level 8+ Roles.

Yup. Which will factor into my analysis of the results when we get there.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

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"Hourly"... When I'm busy doing something else.

Goblin Squad Member

again a very good survey, Sspitfire
(at least for the issues you set out to investigate).

to me the key issue for EE is not so much such-and-such specific feature, but that the features claimed to be in are working meaningfully. Otherwise the impression quickly becomes that GW would like to sell me gold-painted kaka.

Features don't even have to work in their final form, as long as there is transparent info of how it actually works now + how it will work eventually.

Mouseover text "functionality for this skill has not been implemented" is ok, repeated or predictable server crashes are not.

Goblin Squad Member

And the reactives bug is horrendous, either the Reactives should be temporarily disabled (especially as lots of the nifty things don't work on Mobs) or being fixed (together with the afore mentioned nifties on Mobs).


about 90 responses in with 24 hours to go.

Get out the vote, yall! Or something like that.


Survey Closed.

Results "at a glance"

About 100 respondents, representing a highly active group of players

Roughly 80% of folks will accept another 1 month or more delay on EE

2/3 of people said they would play the game, paid, "in its current state" (meaning Alpha 11.0)

This increases to 3/4 of respondents playing the game if the first month of EE were free

This increases to 83% of respondents playing the game if EE were free until the server issues are fixed

Not surprisingly, 90% of respondents said the server issues are a deal breaker for EE.

Take Home Message: People will play in EE if it were to start today; but a significant portion won't. Fixing the server issues is the biggest priority to players and the single largest detractor of value to the game right now.

Questison I did not ask but would have been good to:

"If EE started tomorrow and the server issues were 100% fixed, would you play?" (we can infer that that would be close to 80% or higher)

"How long would you LIKE to see EE delayed by?" (We can infer the mean would have been at least 1 month, but the key determinant is content, not time, so it is difficult to say)

Cleaner analysis to come later when I have cleaned and processed the raw data.


So everything above is accurate without needing further elaboration.

The two biggest things that folks wrote in as deal breakers are Auction House UI (specifically its searchability) and Combat (various aspects).

Other mentions were the UI generally being more intuitive, better newbie tutorials, and meaningful game play (mainly in the form of more players for more social interaction).

Thanks for participating!

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Now if you could get GW to email anyone who's logged in in the last week and ask them to take it.....

I know, I know.... A guy can wish.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:

Now if you could get GW to email anyone who's logged in in the last week and ask them to take it.....

I know, I know.... A guy can wish.

If GW sent out a survey, I might respond.

Goblin Squad Member

So about 80 people will play if EE opened...

Goblin Squad Member

Only 100 people took the survey though...

Goblin Squad Member

Calidor Cruciatus wrote:
So about 80 people will play if EE opened...

Uh, yeah. 80 people who hang around the boards and noticed the survey and bothered to take it.

From my group of 20ish, that's exactly one person (Me). 15 of the others have never been on the boards at all.

Goblin Squad Member

Right, but those most interested and motivated to play are the ones on here.

If I survey the Republican Convention about who's going to vote for their candidate I'm going to get a much skewed response that doesn't reflect reality. (Same for the Democratic Convention or any other one...)

All this survey says is that 80 people who frequent these forums will play in EE. Absolutely no further extrapolation can be made.

Thinking otherwise is simply a result of the echo chamber effect so common around here.

Goblin Squad Member

Did anybody say otherwise?

"About 100 respondents, representing a highly active group of players."

A survey about the state of the alpha based on people who aren't highly active would not be very meaningful about the state of the alpha.


Calidor Cruciatus wrote:

Right, but those most interested and motivated to play are the ones on here.

If I survey the Republican Convention about who's going to vote for their candidate I'm going to get a much skewed response that doesn't reflect reality. (Same for the Democratic Convention or any other one...)

All this survey says is that 80 people who frequent these forums will play in EE. Absolutely no further extrapolation can be made.

Thinking otherwise is simply a result of the echo chamber effect so common around here.

Yeah Calidor, you need to go reread my post. Especially the part in bold. Before you go slamming my analysis and claiming I said things I didn't, anyways. I'm a fanboy, not an idiot analyst.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Calidor Cruciatus wrote:

Right, but those most interested and motivated to play are the ones on here.

If I survey the Republican Convention about who's going to vote for their candidate I'm going to get a much skewed response that doesn't reflect reality. (Same for the Democratic Convention or any other one...)

All this survey says is that 80 people who frequent these forums will play in EE. Absolutely no further extrapolation can be made.

Thinking otherwise is simply a result of the echo chamber effect so common around here.

Selection effect is well-documented, and there were questions on the survey specifically intended to evaluate what group the sample was representative of. That's enough to do quite a bit of extrapolation, but certainly not enough to extrapolate to "all eligible players".


The more important thing is this: Say 80% of that 6 or 7K player pool did jump in on day one EE, and EE looked like it did in Alpha 11.

Ouch man. That is going to be a hell of a lot of pissed off, disgruntled players who feel duped. Why? Because they *don't* follow the boards. They'll be expecting a clean running system and get teleported across the map 10 minutes into the game. Then quit.

GW already knows this, of course, which is why they are waiting for server stability to be solid before launching EE.

The larger point of those questions, however, was to see where the avid players in the community are on diving into EE in its Alpha 11 state. People would play, yes. But as Bludd pointed out, a lot of people would just log in to get their Exp counters going. Because I worded the questions so broadly and didn't ask any questions to poke around in that particular issue, it is difficult to say how many people interpreted "play" to include just getting the EXP counter going versus "play" meaning actually spending a meaningful amount of time in the game.

That the number of folks saying "yes" to the free EE questions increased from paid to free for Month 1 to free until the servers are fixed underscores the value of working servers to the players.

Beyond this, we can't really say anymore from these results. But, as I said before, this was a quick and dirty survey. I think I spent all of 1.5 hours putting it together, with most of that time going to formatting.

Oh and no, extrapolating to all players was never the intent. Perhaps I could have clarified that better with an explicit statement. But it was already covered implicitly in the way I presented the results.

Goblin Squad Member

Maybe you needed an option "will start at EE regardless of when it starts just to accumulate my XP (because like most players I am irrationally XP obsessed) but may not actually play the char until the server issues are fixed " .

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