Maybe its time for an Anet survey ?

#18 - Sept. 26, 2014, 2:47 p.m.

If you’re considering how the GW2 Team can best hear your input about the game — such as what you’d like to see in the future, how things are working now, etc. — I personally don’t think a survey is necessary. Honestly and truly: These forums are a huge and very effective medium for communication. They are read daily by members of the team — probably more people than you think! — and the forums, as a whole, give us a much better view of what’s important to Guild Wars 2 players than most surveys would do.

Too we have interaction here that’s incredibly effective. Yep, I’m thinking CDIs and I’m glad they’re back! (Even if I marvel how Chris is able to keep up the pace! )

Surveys are difficult to devise in a way that makes them unbiased and statistically accurate. That’s not to say it cannot be done, and the idea of surveys linked to an active game account certainly sounds better to me than those random Internet surveys, like “Who’s your favorite singer,” which get gamed through fan groups, artist management companies, publicists, agents, and the use of “ballot-box stuffing” methods, like vote, clear cache, vote again; vote, change computers, vote again; vote, set up 100 fake e-mail accounts, vote again.

Anyway, just wanted to add a couple of pennies about the subject, fwiw.

#46 - Sept. 26, 2014, 6:39 p.m.

I appreciate the feedback. I just wonder how such a survey could work. Most surveys are not essay questions. They’re like this:

• Should we change [this thing]? Yes/No.

That seems unhelpful. First, things are seldom answered with just a yes or no answer. Instinct is to react, “Well, I need to know more about why you’re looking at that area,” or “That’s not as important as [these other things]” or “Yes, please change it [this way] and not [that other way].”

Or maybe you’re thinking:

• Which of these things should we focus on? [list]

And we all know, given we’re forum members, that those opinions — about priorities or changes — could number in the dozens. Nah, probably in the hundreds.

Maybe it’s an essay question. Maybe it’s “We’re looking for feedback on [this thing]” where you can provide your thoughts in detail. If that’s the case, may I introduce you to the CDIs?

You make good points, it’s not possible for any human being to read every thread. And certainly when their job is making a game — design, programming, art, writing, and all the other facets of development — reading the forums in large amounts could take them away from their job at a cost to the game.

But if 300 Anet Team members are reading the forums, even if lightly, it starts discussion. Heck, I’ve sent notes about threads to various teams, and I know just about every other person here has done the same. Like this: “I don’t work on [such-and-such], but I found [this linked thread] really interesting.” Or maybe, “This is for your team. I think we can support it by doing [our stuff] if you are going to work on this.”

So surveys? Maybe they’ll happen, I’m not sure. Could you outline your thoughts on how they’d look? Input on something topical? CDIs are great — are you participating? Have you made a suggestion there that we have one on a topic near and dear to your heart?

Please don’t see this as a “never happen” response. I’m mostly just asking questions, that’s all.

#51 - Sept. 26, 2014, 7:09 p.m.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Why can’t the survey be something like
on a scale of 1-5 how happy are you with XXXX
out of these 5 things which was your most liked
out of these 5 things which was your least liked
please rate these 5 items in order of most liked to least liked
on a scale of 1-5 how would you rate your experience from levels 1-5, 5-10,10-15, etc
on a scale of 1-5 how would you rate the speed at which you gain skills, the speed at which you gain traits, the speed at which you unlock the ability to do XXXX
what things would you like added to the game out of these 5
what things would you like changed out of these 5
how is your overall satisfaction with XXXX

I think some of these could help you with interpreting what your metrics are telling you. Rather than telling everyone what someone thinks or wants the metrics to tell them.

Now those are interesting ideas! That form of survey makes a lot more sense than the one requiring a answer coupled with an essay question, or the simple yes/no. A few are too vague, but overall, they have good potential. Thanks for these ideas.

#56 - Sept. 26, 2014, 7:48 p.m.

Exeon — thanks for expressing yourself constructively.

Crash — I’m asking about that thread. I know it’s huge, and believe me, I hear you (and a thousand other forum members ) loud and clear. I don’t have an answer for you on that subject, but I know you’d like to know more about the status of that thread, if nothing else.

DDCarvalho — Those are very practical suggestions. Thanks!

Melvin — I like that idea of an “immersive solution” very much!