The State of the Sphere Survey

[dieffenbachj]

Hello, friends, and welcome to the State of the Sphere survey! ... a bit late, but still! (This is a repost of my thread on the MechWarrior Online forums; someone recently suggested I post to the MechWarrior: Living Legends forums).

This project is an attempt to collate the gaming preferences of all MechWarrior fans into one single set of data—for use by the developers of the up-and-coming MechWarrior Online, as well as the MechWarrior Online community itself—to help clear up whether any given topic's proponents are in the majority or in the minority.

Here's how it works: I have created a survey, as comprehensive as I could manage, which takes approximately 20-40 minutes to complete. I have publicized this survey on several forums, and will gather a statistically significant number of respondents. I will then write up this data into a semi-formal analysis on these forums, publish the raw data itself alongside, and e-mail the entire spiel to one of the Mechwarrior Online devs. Ideally, the results will involve a more settled community, a more informed developer, and more happy faces all around when MechWarrior Online is published.

What do you have to do to contribute to this monument of player-developer communications? Well, you just have to take 20-40 minutes from your day to answer some questions about your MechWarrior passions and opinions! Just follow the link (Link) and you'll be on your way to helping create the most comprehensive poll MechWarrior Online has ever seen and is likely to ever see. Get your opinion heard! Sway the developers! Make MechWarrior Online the game you want it to be by filling out this survey, today!

I also have one favor to ask of you kind folks. In addition to filling out the survey, please tell your friends--ones who are familiar with the MechWarrior series, that is--to fill out the survey, too! I need as many responses as possible, but more importantly, I need them from as wide a sample as possible. Every friend you get who wouldn't answer this survey without your pushing is one more piece of validity to my test results.

FAQ
Q. Will this actually have an impact on the developers?
A. Most definitely. If for no other reason, than the developers have frequently made it clear that they read the forums and give serious consideration to all of the major movements. A company paying that much attention to the community, with as much riding on MechWarrior Online as Piranha does, simply will not ignore a massive wad of statistics on their fans.

That in mind, Piranha Games is composed of professionals who spent a lot of time and money and love learning their craft, and unlike our pipe dreams as respondents, they're working within a budget in order to create a mass-market product. We might overwhelmingly vote for a feature, only to have them say no anyway, and for good reasons. We must respect that decision, even if we hope for them to say yes.

Q. What's to keep people from contaminating your test results?
A. I have a few tricks up my sleeves which I won't go into. But if you attempt to post a troll response, or you attempt to take the survey multiple times: the joke's on you, because detecting that sort of thing is trivially easy, it takes me like 5 seconds to delete the response, but it takes you 20-40 minutes to fill it out. Worth it?

Q. What sort of scientific validity are we talking for this survey?
A. I'm not a scientist, but I've taken many courses in survey-taking and have a firm grounding in statistics. I've taken pains to make sure that questions are worded to avoid biasing people toward certain responses, the answers to many questions are placed in random order, and there is an abstain-type response to every question where I felt it was appropriate to add one. In other words, it's about as scientifically neutral and valid as an opinion survey can get.

In terms of statistics, the MechWarrior community is relatively small: I only need 1,000 or so responses before the results of this survey are so statistically valid that the probability of them being unrepresenative of the whole community is less than the probability of you winning the jackpot with a scratch-off lottery ticket.

Q. Can I help you in any way?
A. If you just generally want to help, find all of your friends who will be playing MechWarrior Online, and find all of your friends who might be playing MechWarrior Online, and force them to take this survey. I need a lot of respondents, but what's more, I need them to be from a wide variety of sources. The wider the better. That's why I'm posting this on so many different forums.

If you want to help me with the statistics, I would like to gently decline: I can handle myself well enough to write up my own personal analysis. If you want to write up your own, my raw data will be bundled with my analysis, so you can go nuts and start your own thread / hijack my thread then.

Q. You don't happen to play Team Fortress 2, do you? Because there was this one survey...
A. Yes, I did the State of the Fortress survey, as well as the State of the Fortress 2.0 survey. I had fun with them, and I'm bringing my patience with constructing and analyzing large surveys to this community.

Q. When are you going to publish the results?
A. Probably a day or two after I decide I've collected enough responses and had time to peruse them and think about them.

Q. How many responses is "enough"?
A. It depends on how many responses I can get. If I work as hard as I can publicizing this, and it turns out I'm only getting 5-10 respondents a day, I'll probably stop the survey at 100 or 200. This means it could take weeks. On the other hand, if there's an overwhelming response, I honestly only need 1,000-2,000 responses to provide a solid-as-a-rock set of statistics, so I'll probably stop around there even if the responses are continuing to flow in.

Q. Is this a scam for e-mail addresses?
A. Nope. I don't take e-mail addresses, nor do I want your name, exact location, or even username. I also make all of the demographics information totally optional. You can answer this in total anonymity if you want, and if you're nervous about me stealing your teeth while you sleep, you might just want to accept that anonymity.

Q. Does your link send me to a virus?
A. My link sends you to a site called SurveyBuilder.com. It's a relatively new site, but it's quickly approaching the quality of professional survey websites which require $1,000 licenses to use. It doesn't have a Wikipedia page yet, but you can check the site out on your own if you like.

Q. Can you repeat that link one more time? I'm bad at finding hyperlinks.
http://www.surveybuilder.com/s/IiZ3z7cfwAA?source_id=3&source_type=web I'll even leave it like that so the paranoid guy in the previous paragraph can copy-paste it to his address bar.

[[IPA] Taltos]

...takes approximately 20-40 minutes to complete...

This is a typo, and you mean 2-4 minutes, right? right??   
5-10 minutes may be okay, but 20-40 won't fly, especially considering the average internet attention span nowadays...

[CGB [CoffiNail]]

yeah takes max 10 minutes.

[dieffenbachj]

*shrug* I haven't had much of a problem with attention spans. Around 55% of all people who open the survey at all end up filling it out entirely, which isn't that bad of a figure.

I'm trying to gather a very large chunk of information, because if the survey were any smaller the information would quickly become useless.

[(TLL)CapperDeluxe]

Q. Will this actually have an impact on the developers?
A. Most definitely. If for no other reason, than the developers have frequently made it clear that they read the forums and give serious consideration to all of the major movements. A company paying that much attention to the community, with as much riding on MechWarrior Online as Piranha does, simply will not ignore a massive wad of statistics on their fans.

I took the poll, but you should probably change "Most definitely" to "Somewhat likely".  Just saying shouldn't be so sure about having an extremely high effect, but probably more than no effect still.

[Profane Arbiter]

done

[Xesle]

Please someone tell me I'm not the only one who was tempted to check NO for every Inner Sphere light mech except for the Urbanmech?

[dieffenbachj]

Q. Will this actually have an impact on the developers?
A. Most definitely. If for no other reason, than the developers have frequently made it clear that they read the forums and give serious consideration to all of the major movements. A company paying that much attention to the community, with as much riding on MechWarrior Online as Piranha does, simply will not ignore a massive wad of statistics on their fans.

I took the poll, but you should probably change "Most definitely" to "Somewhat likely".  Just saying shouldn't be so sure about having an extremely high effect, but probably more than no effect still.

I never claim it'll have a huge effect--the next paragraph goes into discussing how just because the community wants something and the developers acknowledge it, doesn't mean they'll change anything.

I just said it'll have an impact, of some degree. It's pretty much impossible for them to look at this data and not have it, even without their consent, alter their perspectives on what MWO should be like. Subconscious suggestion, and all that. The only way for this survey to not alter the developer views in any way is for them to never even look at the statistics at all--which, for reasons I mention, I find that possibility incredibly unlikely.

Please someone tell me I'm not the only one who was tempted to check NO for every Inner Sphere light mech except for the Urbanmech?

Nothing wrong with that It's a survey. As long as you're not trying to put troll responses in ("My Age? 200! My language? Klingon!"), and as long as you're not putting duplicate responses in, your opinion still counts and will still work to sway the analysis slightly in your direction.

And I can tell you that some people have already done that--some people vote that the clans shouldn't even be in the game at all, no on all their 'Mechs, and some people vote no on all inner sphere mechs except for one or two favorites.

[Bloodycrow]

I was a little confused by the "how jump jets should work" questions, but I muddled through. And I have no idea what all the different 'mechs are, so I just clicked that they all should be included. 

[dieffenbachj]

I was a little confused by the "how jump jets should work" questions, but I muddled through. And I have no idea what all the different 'mechs are, so I just clicked that they all should be included. 

Works for me. I probably should've included an 'indifferent' option, but I was having this fantasy that forcing people to pick between yes and no would force them to consider each option Still, even with indifferent people clicking all yes or all no, a general pattern of favorite 'Mechs appears from the 30% or so of respondents who DO distinguish between favorites and unfavorites.

[S7alker117]

I'm actually interested in the final results of this.

[=KoS= Tripod]

I'll do it when I got time

[Scruffe]

Please someone tell me I'm not the only one who was tempted to check NO for every Inner Sphere light mech except for the Urbanmech?

you are not alone.

[Squibby]

I wanted to tick no for all the weapon effects , it'd be loltastic.

Also yes, I just clicked through saying yes to everything, unless the mech looked silly, was a LAM, had stupid hands or axes or other retard melee weapons, or was just plain dumb (e.g. Charger). I did wish the survey had a "Holy Smuck Yes!!!" column so I could tick it for the Urbz.

[=KoS= Tripod]

Quick question, what's the difference between "unlockable over time" and "pilot experience"?