...frequently used forum is a very important source for new ideas...
Here is the problem right here.
People shared their ideas. They have done so since Beta, and the early launch days.
But for the most part, Cryptic ignores the ideas and requests, and does their own thing anyways.
So, why would anyone keep posting up ideas, suggestions, requests, etc, if they know it will never be acknowledged, never be considered, and likely never happen?
Not trying to rail on Cryptic, it's just the way it is, or at least the way it is perceived.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
People shared their ideas. They have done so since Beta, and the early launch days.
But for the most part, Cryptic ignores the ideas and requests, and does their own thing anyways.
So, why would anyone keep posting up ideas, suggestions, requests, etc, if they know it will never be acknowledged, never be considered, and likely never happen?
Not trying to rail on Cryptic, it's just the way it is, or at least the way it is perceived.
Because they want to?
And saying never for all that is extreme. They may not acknowledge everything, but they DO read these forums, so they do see the new ideas.
And for considered, same thing: just because it isn't acknowledged doesn't mean it's not being considered. And though they say no to some of them, it doesn't mean it wasn't considered in the first place.
Seriously, those assumptions need to go, because it's not true, no matter what people think. I know from experience over these forums, all the way back to Open Beta It'll near-always look like the opposite, true, but I know better
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
It's most likely quiet because there's not a lot going on at the moment with STO. We are between seasons and knowing cryptic they wont release any indepth information about season 7 till nearer the time.
Also a lot of people are probably getting burned out with the game and probably dont play much (if at all) and probably wont be very active till season 7 hits.
STO has always been like this, people come back (or join up) around the time a season hits, then after a month or 2 they go and play other games or other more interesting things, only the real die hards play all the time. Although in the past the Devs were more active on the forums so that would contribute to the talking.... These days the Dev's are a lot more quiet and we can only talk about the same old missions so many times.
People shared their ideas. They have done so since Beta, and the early launch days.
But for the most part, Cryptic ignores the ideas and requests, and does their own thing anyways.
So, why would anyone keep posting up ideas, suggestions, requests, etc, if they know it will never be acknowledged, never be considered, and likely never happen?
Not trying to rail on Cryptic, it's just the way it is, or at least the way it is perceived.
This an example of the misconception that the posters on this forum represent some sort of majority.
Only around 1% of people who actually play the game will ever visit this forum, and of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction of that actually post.
And that percentage can be argued to actually be a deviation from the majority, the tiny part of society that's over opinionated, ridiculously critical, and have an overwhelming need to be heard.
If the devs did starting taking these peoples ideas and suggestions going with them, we would be in a lot of trouble.
This an example of the misconception that the posters on this forum represent some sort of majority.
Only around 1% of people who actually play the game will ever visit this forum, and of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction of that actually post.
And that percentage can be argued to actually be a deviation from the majority, the tiny part of society that's over opinionated, ridiculously critical, and have an overwhelming need to be heard.
If the devs did starting taking these peoples ideas and suggestions going with them, we would be in a lot of trouble.
I would say the number of regular posters like myself are at most 200 players.
So out of some est of a player base of 300,000 - that's very small - less than 0.1% of the player base are active on the forums as posters.
The forums never represented the bulk of the player base, and there is still plenty of people in game, and fleet, and item spam in zone (makes me miss the gold farmers at times). Views are a lot higher on threads, so i would think people are just tired of talking about the same thing, and just rather read, than talk.
There is only so much we can talk about the same thing over and over again.
We want more KDF content, than someone will say fix the bugs first before anything....We want romulans...finish the KDF first...we want PVP.....I don't play PVP i want PVE....lock boxes are evil...lock boxes pay for the content...we don't have content, grinding is not content...well we need grinding stuff between content..bla bla bla bla... same thing over and over.
We will have to wait till something comes out lets say Thursday like a lock box and I'm sure someone will start the i hate lock boxes and its killing the game thread to keep us busy till the hate for season 7.
Edit: V key was not working so it said PP, and not PVP lol.
It's not really dying out. It's just full of KDF complaining about how unfair life is. You can't make a thread these days without some hardcore Klingon player derailing it.
So people don't bother making threads.
You just cant mention the feddies who jump into the KDF threads and tell them the KDF needs to die because the resources spent on KDF need to be used making stuff for the Feddies.
...Then it becomes a flamewar that makes the thread disappear, and it begins again the following day. Those Feddies are obviously back in school where they belong.
All these topics have been around for 2 years. Obviously there is passion for some movement on these topics, but in your opinion, if the Devs made any consideration of them, or any effort to work on them, then this game would be in all kinds of trouble.
Got it. :rolleyes:
Of course, perhaps you haven't considered that these are topics that are important, that people are passionate about, and while the forum community is not the Majority population segment in the game, it may represent at least a percentage of the players, who never come to the forums and post?
Furthermore, when something has been requested or suggested on a nearly 2 year long basis, consistently, perhaps it might actually be a good idea for Cryptic to pay it some heed and look at how they might accomplish getting it done.
For the life of me, I don't know anyone who would say that Cryptic giving us a few requested Vanity Titles is going to cause this game to collapse, or figuring out a way for us to set ship crew uniforms is bound to bring about the apocolypse.
/facepalm
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
You just cant mention the feddies who jump into the KDF threads and tell them the KDF needs to die because the resources spent on KDF need to be used making stuff for the Feddies.
...Then it becomes a flamewar that makes the thread disappear, and it begins again the following day. Those Feddies are obviously back in school where they belong.
Although I really am hoping for a KDF time-ship at the end of the month in a lock-box to go along with the Wells- highly doubt c-store as AL already said no KDF ships until next year - but it is possible.
That said we are due in a few weeks for ANOTHER Fed ship and you will no doubt see lots of "Feds get another Ship!!" threads pop up in the KDF forums.
like it's some sort of suprize "Can you believe it guys, the Feds got another ship! Who would have guessed that would happen!" lol
I would say the number of regular posters like myself are at most 200 players.
So out of some est of a player base of 300,000 - that's very small - less than 0.1% of the player base are active on the forums as posters.
Look at it this way: the current Ask Cryptic poll has only has 3,500 votes on it - not taking into account how many people might have taken the poll under multiple accounts. Based on that I doubt more then 1-2% of the fan-base ever visits this forum; and of that 1-2% only a fraction are regular contributors to the forum - and only a fraction of that group make up the power-posters on the forum.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Look at it this way: the current Ask Cryptic poll has only has 3,500 votes on it - not taking into account how many people might have taken the poll under multiple accounts. Based on that I doubt more then 1-2% of the fan-base ever visits this forum; and of that 1-2% only a fraction are regular contributors to the forum - and only a fraction of that group make up the power-posters on the forum.
In the past one of the devs said it was roughly 10-15%.
In the past one of the devs said it was roughly 10-15%.
I have been here since before launch and I never remember a Dev saying 10-15%. It's possible that I might have missed it. I'd love to see that quote.
I frequent nearly 2 dozen MMO forums and I've never seen anyone official ever make that type of player-to-forum claim on any game forum.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Look at it this way: the current Ask Cryptic poll has only has 3,500 votes on it - not taking into account how many people might have taken the poll under multiple accounts. Based on that I doubt more then 1-2% of the fan-base ever visits this forum; and of that 1-2% only a fraction are regular contributors to the forum - and only a fraction of that group make up the power-posters on the forum.
If that is the case, and the devs do not take forum members into account. Why bother putting up a poll that only forum members will ever see?
If the devs really wanted an honest and fair reflection on what the "community" wants, why not put the poll ingame or at the very least a big section of the launcher with an advert/link to the poll?
Or do the devs not really want to do that, and want to bury it like everything else they do on the forums where 99% of members never ever see it?
If the devs really wanted an honest and fair reflection on what the "community" wants, why not put the poll ingame or at the very least a big section of the launcher with an advert/link to the poll?
I have said the exact same thing at least a dozen times over the last 3 years. Forum polls are meaningless. If you really want to know what the fan-base wants then make it a Launcher Poll - and make it impossible to log into the game without doing the Poll. Then you'll get real numbers.
But even DStahl admitted in the Ask Cryptic thread that the poll is essentially meaningless. Cryptic already has most of 2013 plotted out. Anything they might change due to a Poll will be minor at best.
I would point out that even though people don't interact with the forum does not mean people do not read the website/forum. I have 127 people in my Fed Fleet and only 6 of us post on the forum - and I'm the only power-poster. The rest just don't care enough about the forum to worry about.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
If the devs really wanted an honest and fair reflection on what the "community" wants, why not put the poll ingame or at the very least a big section of the launcher with an advert/link to the poll?
Its called "plausible deniability". As long as the polls are held on the forums, if they dont like/agree with the results they can simply say that the forums only represent a minority of the playerbase. But if they did an in game poll that everyone would see and the majority would likely vote in, they couldnt do that without it being obvious.
I have said the exact same thing at least a dozen times over the last 3 years. Forum polls are meaningless. If you really want to know what the fan-base wants then make it a Launcher Poll - and make it impossible to log into the game without doing the Poll. Then you'll get real numbers.
But even DStahl admitted in the Ask Cryptic thread that the poll is essentially meaningless. Cryptic already has most of 2013 plotted out. Anything they might change due to a Poll will be minor at best.
I would point out that even though people don't interact with the forum does not mean people do not read the website/forum. I have 127 people in my Fed Fleet and only 6 of us post on the forum - and I'm the only power-poster. The rest just don't care enough about the forum to worry about.
Its called "plausible deniability". As long as the polls are held on the forums, if they dont like/agree with the results they can simply say that the forums only represent a minority of the playerbase. But if they did an in game poll that everyone would see and the majority would likely vote in, they couldnt do that without it being obvious.
Yup, I agree with both of you. Just wish the devs would take its customers seriously for once...
I have been here since before launch and I never remember a Dev saying 10-15%. It's possible that I might have missed it. I'd love to see that quote.
I frequent nearly 2 dozen MMO forums and I've never seen anyone official ever make that type of player-to-forum claim on any game forum.
I remember this as well. It was right around 15% and I believe Stahl posted it. I'd love to look up the quote for cosmic but unfortunately the new forums make that like finding a needle in a haystack, virtually impossible.
I remember this as well. It was right around 15% and I believe Stahl posted it. I'd love to look up the quote for cosmic but unfortunately the new forums make that like finding a needle in a haystack, virtually impossible.
Aye. There is virtually no way to find it now, but we both remember the same thing. And it was actually him agreeing with what someone else said. In a nutshell, someone was having a discussion about whether the forums represented the playerbase or not, and someone said that only 10-15% of players used the forum. Dstahl replied to that post saying that was about right, although he did not give any exact figure himself.
The forums do serve a useful purpose IMO, or I wouldn't have bothered applying to become a volunteer moderator.
While it is more than likely true that forum users only account for a fraction of the entire playerbase, even 10% would be a good sample size to represent the majority of silent players. I bet they'd be okay with 2-3%.
If the forums are splintered over something, there's a good chance that a majority of the rest of the players are too. If most forum users agree on something, then it's reasonably likely that most of the other players do, too.
That's not foolproof, of course. No marketing guy in his right mind would make any decisions solely on that basis. But it's a relatively cheap way to get continuous feedback about the game and about what players want, so it's still important in that respect.
It's also important for developing a community around the game. Yes, we're a fractious bunch overall, but we still form our cliques and associate with other players outside the game through the forums.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The forums do serve a useful purpose IMO, or I wouldn't have bothered applying to become a volunteer moderator.
While it is more than likely true that forum users only account for a fraction of the entire playerbase, even 10% would be a good sample size to represent the majority of silent players. I bet they'd be okay with 2-3%.
If the forums are splintered over something, there's a good chance that a majority of the rest of the players are too. If most forum users agree on something, then it's reasonably likely that most of the other players do, too.
That's not foolproof, of course. No marketing guy in his right mind would make any decisions solely on that basis. But it's a relatively cheap way to get continuous feedback about the game and about what players want, so it's still important in that respect.
It's also important for developing a community around the game. Yes, we're a fractious bunch overall, but we still form our cliques and associate with other players outside the game through the forums.
It doesnt really work like that. Human nature is such that people are more vocal when they are unhappy than when they are happy. Therefore the majority of the people who feel motivated to post on the forums are going to be unhappy about one thing or another. And that being the case, that majority of forum posters can never represent the majority of people who are happily playing the game and oblivious to the noise on the forums.
STO is going to finish out 2012 with a bang, and 2013 is going to be even brighter and bigger. It's going to be awesome.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Unfortunetly those same words have been used by two different community managers in the last two years ... -- specifically the word "awesome" -- and well ... , I'm hoping that this year that might actually become true ... .
It doesnt really work like that. Human nature is such that people are more vocal when they are unhappy than when they are happy. Therefore the majority of the people who feel motivated to post on the forums are going to be unhappy about one thing or another. And that being the case, that majority of forum posters can never represent the majority of people who are happily playing the game and oblivious to the noise on the forums.
You have a point... but the flip side of that is that when forum users are happy about something, or consider something "no big deal", that probably is a reasonably accurate reflection of the larger userbase.
Unhappy forum users could also represent possible reasons for drops in revenue, cancelled subscriptions, or in time played. In that case also, they would be a partial representation of the base.
Again, not the only source of data, or even the most important from a business perspective. But it does provide information that can't be mined out of the database, in a form that can be useful to the Developers in some cases.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
It doesnt really work like that. Human nature is such that people are more vocal when they are unhappy than when they are happy. Therefore the majority of the people who feel motivated to post on the forums are going to be unhappy about one thing or another. And that being the case, that majority of forum posters can never represent the majority of people who are happily playing the game and oblivious to the noise on the forums.
While that's absolutely true, there's great value in surveying the folks who aren't happy, because you want to retain or regain their custom.
Forums should never be your only source of market research, or even your main source; but they're still a useful source. They can help you tell if you're going badly off the mark due to insufficiently-granular survey questions, or if your expensive but dated market research still has relevance or needs to be redone.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
The Grand Nagus used to start one or two threads a day , and since he's been gone ... well ... .
Unfortunetly those same words have been used by two different community managers in the last two years ... -- specifically the word "awesome" -- and well ... , I'm hoping that this year that might actually become true ... .
Awesome is one of those subjective terms that means different things to different people. For example, if you love PvP then a new PvP System would be "awesome," whereas if you hate PvP then the man-hours and resources put into making such a system would be a tragedy to the game.
Even though we lost nearly a year in the FTP conversion STO has continued to grow over the last 2.5 years. It's added things I like: FEs, Foundry, etc. It's added things I don't like: Shooter Mode, STFs, etc. It's added things I'm completely neutral about: Difficulty Slider, Fleetbases, etc. All of those things probably sit in different categories for you; and likewise for someone else. So the things I find awesome you might hate.
The important thing is that STO keeps growing. There's no way to please everyone in a community this large. Every MMO out there is currently suffering the same problems. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Anyone else got the impression that this forum is slowly but steadily dying out? You can almost count the new post made in a day with one hand. There are almost no dev posts anymore and the "official" threads are hardly held up to date.
That's a pity. I think between all the hate and complaints an active and frequently used forum is a very important source for new ideas. And it is central for keeping up the player's interest in this game. A "silent forum" often marks the near end which I hope is not the case.
the inevitable fact is, one day the forum will go and so will the game, but that is a little while off yet. the others have made the rest of the point clear; no it is not dying out.
While that's absolutely true, there's great value in surveying the folks who aren't happy, because you want to retain or regain their custom.
Forums should never be your only source of market research, or even your main source; but they're still a useful source. They can help you tell if you're going badly off the mark due to insufficiently-granular survey questions, or if your expensive but dated market research still has relevance or needs to be redone.
it can also be a source of great interest as well, negative comments can be turned into a good update, or a place to discuss these negatives then look for common ground to setup something. if you look back through sto, there are many such cases where there was negative points turned into a positive. it may be human nature to be vocal about a dislike, but throughout history there are many negatives that created positives.
Its called "plausible deniability". As long as the polls are held on the forums, if they dont like/agree with the results they can simply say that the forums only represent a minority of the playerbase. But if they did an in game poll that everyone would see and the majority would likely vote in, they couldnt do that without it being obvious.
That is of course, assuming we see the results, as opposed to just the data that we ourselves enter. As such, although taking in all of the player base, rather than a small portion of it, the process is far less open.
Theoretically, I could make a poll where people are asked if they like pork pie with cheese, or with say... something other than cheese. Pickled onion maybe. And then with the results to myself, if I was afronted by the number of people shunning cheese in favour of pickled onions, I could doctor them with impunity. Who'd know? You wouldn't. They wouldn't. A pickled onion wouldn't. Nobody would. Because I control the poll, and therefore I control the pork pies. :eek:
While that's absolutely true, there's great value in surveying the folks who aren't happy, because you want to retain or regain their custom.
Forums should never be your only source of market research, or even your main source; but they're still a useful source. They can help you tell if you're going badly off the mark due to insufficiently-granular survey questions, or if your expensive but dated market research still has relevance or needs to be redone.
That is true too. However you can never make everyone happy, so your goal should always be to make the most people happy as possible. If, hypothetically speaking, the majority of your players are happy, then doing what the unhappy people want could very well backfire.
That is true too. However you can never make everyone happy, so your goal should always be to make the most people happy as possible. If, hypothetically speaking, the majority of your players are happy, then doing what the unhappy people want could very well backfire.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the KDF..."
Trek enough, although it has slightly improved in this area since launch. Finally, like the post above mine states, the development of story. The game hasn't had any advancement in it's story since the Romulan FE which was now 18 months ago. The trophy in my ship's crew lounge is still "No Kill I".
I hear this loud and clear. I am a serious Trek Fan but I not religious about it. Even still I find the heavy swerve AWAY from Canon to be displeasing. STO is more of a decent Space Shooter with a somewhat awkward ground shooter rather than a real Star Trek game even with all the fan service thrown in. All these Federation players flying all sorts of ships that do not belong is an obvious smack in the face of Canon but it is far from the only problem.
I admit that all sounds great, but I have to ask: as the community manager wouldnt you still be saying the same thing even if things were going downhill?
Easily answered: Would the President tell us that our country was about to be destroyed? Your observation is Keen and right on the mark.
The forums nor the games are going to die entirely likely as not but the forums USED to be a place where we interacted with the Devs and many felt like they were actually getting somewhere with their discussion. These days they are where we talk to the PWE Figure Heads, Talk to Each Other which is usually fruitless as we are unable to do anything to help one another, and vent pointlessly about what is bothering us. However, there is also little point in talking to the Devs now either because really the game is out of their hands as well. That level of participation is gone and will remain that way for the foreseeable future because PWE has its own metrics that it believes applies to all internet gaming and is going to shove it down your throat rather anyone agrees with them or not.
So once you come to the full realization of how pointless it is to give your feedback many folks loose all motivation to do so. So what you are left with is just talking to other players which can be good in some cases like organizing a fleet, finding out about good builds, learning how to play various missions and the like, but the main thrust of the forums used to be the feedback and Dev/Player interaction and as that has died off the forums have cooled off respectively.
Comments
Here is the problem right here.
People shared their ideas. They have done so since Beta, and the early launch days.
But for the most part, Cryptic ignores the ideas and requests, and does their own thing anyways.
So, why would anyone keep posting up ideas, suggestions, requests, etc, if they know it will never be acknowledged, never be considered, and likely never happen?
Not trying to rail on Cryptic, it's just the way it is, or at least the way it is perceived.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
And saying never for all that is extreme. They may not acknowledge everything, but they DO read these forums, so they do see the new ideas.
And for considered, same thing: just because it isn't acknowledged doesn't mean it's not being considered. And though they say no to some of them, it doesn't mean it wasn't considered in the first place.
Seriously, those assumptions need to go, because it's not true, no matter what people think. I know from experience over these forums, all the way back to Open Beta
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
I believe THIS is the reason also.
This an example of the misconception that the posters on this forum represent some sort of majority.
Only around 1% of people who actually play the game will ever visit this forum, and of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction of that actually post.
And that percentage can be argued to actually be a deviation from the majority, the tiny part of society that's over opinionated, ridiculously critical, and have an overwhelming need to be heard.
If the devs did starting taking these peoples ideas and suggestions going with them, we would be in a lot of trouble.
I would say the number of regular posters like myself are at most 200 players.
So out of some est of a player base of 300,000 - that's very small - less than 0.1% of the player base are active on the forums as posters.
There is only so much we can talk about the same thing over and over again.
We want more KDF content, than someone will say fix the bugs first before anything....We want romulans...finish the KDF first...we want PVP.....I don't play PVP i want PVE....lock boxes are evil...lock boxes pay for the content...we don't have content, grinding is not content...well we need grinding stuff between content..bla bla bla bla... same thing over and over.
We will have to wait till something comes out lets say Thursday like a lock box and I'm sure someone will start the i hate lock boxes and its killing the game thread to keep us busy till the hate for season 7.
Edit: V key was not working so it said PP, and not PVP lol.
You just cant mention the feddies who jump into the KDF threads and tell them the KDF needs to die because the resources spent on KDF need to be used making stuff for the Feddies.
...Then it becomes a flamewar that makes the thread disappear, and it begins again the following day. Those Feddies are obviously back in school where they belong.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Oh, really?
So ideas, suggestions & requests like:
Customizable Ship Interiors
Ship Interior Uniforms
Interiors Revamp
Requested Vanity Titles
Suggested Mini-Games
Crafting Revamp Requests
Ship Tier Revamp Requests, Suggestions & Ideas
KDF Content
Ship Requests
All these topics have been around for 2 years. Obviously there is passion for some movement on these topics, but in your opinion, if the Devs made any consideration of them, or any effort to work on them, then this game would be in all kinds of trouble.
Got it. :rolleyes:
Of course, perhaps you haven't considered that these are topics that are important, that people are passionate about, and while the forum community is not the Majority population segment in the game, it may represent at least a percentage of the players, who never come to the forums and post?
Furthermore, when something has been requested or suggested on a nearly 2 year long basis, consistently, perhaps it might actually be a good idea for Cryptic to pay it some heed and look at how they might accomplish getting it done.
For the life of me, I don't know anyone who would say that Cryptic giving us a few requested Vanity Titles is going to cause this game to collapse, or figuring out a way for us to set ship crew uniforms is bound to bring about the apocolypse.
/facepalm
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Although I really am hoping for a KDF time-ship at the end of the month in a lock-box to go along with the Wells- highly doubt c-store as AL already said no KDF ships until next year - but it is possible.
That said we are due in a few weeks for ANOTHER Fed ship and you will no doubt see lots of "Feds get another Ship!!" threads pop up in the KDF forums.
like it's some sort of suprize "Can you believe it guys, the Feds got another ship! Who would have guessed that would happen!" lol
In the past one of the devs said it was roughly 10-15%.
I frequent nearly 2 dozen MMO forums and I've never seen anyone official ever make that type of player-to-forum claim on any game forum.
If that is the case, and the devs do not take forum members into account. Why bother putting up a poll that only forum members will ever see?
If the devs really wanted an honest and fair reflection on what the "community" wants, why not put the poll ingame or at the very least a big section of the launcher with an advert/link to the poll?
Or do the devs not really want to do that, and want to bury it like everything else they do on the forums where 99% of members never ever see it?
But even DStahl admitted in the Ask Cryptic thread that the poll is essentially meaningless. Cryptic already has most of 2013 plotted out. Anything they might change due to a Poll will be minor at best.
I would point out that even though people don't interact with the forum does not mean people do not read the website/forum. I have 127 people in my Fed Fleet and only 6 of us post on the forum - and I'm the only power-poster. The rest just don't care enough about the forum to worry about.
Its called "plausible deniability". As long as the polls are held on the forums, if they dont like/agree with the results they can simply say that the forums only represent a minority of the playerbase. But if they did an in game poll that everyone would see and the majority would likely vote in, they couldnt do that without it being obvious.
Yup, I agree with both of you. Just wish the devs would take its customers seriously for once...
I remember this as well. It was right around 15% and I believe Stahl posted it. I'd love to look up the quote for cosmic but unfortunately the new forums make that like finding a needle in a haystack, virtually impossible.
Aye. There is virtually no way to find it now, but we both remember the same thing. And it was actually him agreeing with what someone else said. In a nutshell, someone was having a discussion about whether the forums represented the playerbase or not, and someone said that only 10-15% of players used the forum. Dstahl replied to that post saying that was about right, although he did not give any exact figure himself.
While it is more than likely true that forum users only account for a fraction of the entire playerbase, even 10% would be a good sample size to represent the majority of silent players. I bet they'd be okay with 2-3%.
If the forums are splintered over something, there's a good chance that a majority of the rest of the players are too. If most forum users agree on something, then it's reasonably likely that most of the other players do, too.
That's not foolproof, of course. No marketing guy in his right mind would make any decisions solely on that basis. But it's a relatively cheap way to get continuous feedback about the game and about what players want, so it's still important in that respect.
It's also important for developing a community around the game. Yes, we're a fractious bunch overall, but we still form our cliques and associate with other players outside the game through the forums.
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It doesnt really work like that. Human nature is such that people are more vocal when they are unhappy than when they are happy. Therefore the majority of the people who feel motivated to post on the forums are going to be unhappy about one thing or another. And that being the case, that majority of forum posters can never represent the majority of people who are happily playing the game and oblivious to the noise on the forums.
Unfortunetly those same words have been used by two different community managers in the last two years ... -- specifically the word "awesome" -- and well ... , I'm hoping that this year that might actually become true ... .
You have a point... but the flip side of that is that when forum users are happy about something, or consider something "no big deal", that probably is a reasonably accurate reflection of the larger userbase.
Unhappy forum users could also represent possible reasons for drops in revenue, cancelled subscriptions, or in time played. In that case also, they would be a partial representation of the base.
Again, not the only source of data, or even the most important from a business perspective. But it does provide information that can't be mined out of the database, in a form that can be useful to the Developers in some cases.
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While that's absolutely true, there's great value in surveying the folks who aren't happy, because you want to retain or regain their custom.
Forums should never be your only source of market research, or even your main source; but they're still a useful source. They can help you tell if you're going badly off the mark due to insufficiently-granular survey questions, or if your expensive but dated market research still has relevance or needs to be redone.
Even though we lost nearly a year in the FTP conversion STO has continued to grow over the last 2.5 years. It's added things I like: FEs, Foundry, etc. It's added things I don't like: Shooter Mode, STFs, etc. It's added things I'm completely neutral about: Difficulty Slider, Fleetbases, etc. All of those things probably sit in different categories for you; and likewise for someone else. So the things I find awesome you might hate.
The important thing is that STO keeps growing. There's no way to please everyone in a community this large. Every MMO out there is currently suffering the same problems. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future.
the inevitable fact is, one day the forum will go and so will the game, but that is a little while off yet. the others have made the rest of the point clear; no it is not dying out.
it can also be a source of great interest as well, negative comments can be turned into a good update, or a place to discuss these negatives then look for common ground to setup something. if you look back through sto, there are many such cases where there was negative points turned into a positive. it may be human nature to be vocal about a dislike, but throughout history there are many negatives that created positives.
That is of course, assuming we see the results, as opposed to just the data that we ourselves enter. As such, although taking in all of the player base, rather than a small portion of it, the process is far less open.
Theoretically, I could make a poll where people are asked if they like pork pie with cheese, or with say... something other than cheese. Pickled onion maybe. And then with the results to myself, if I was afronted by the number of people shunning cheese in favour of pickled onions, I could doctor them with impunity. Who'd know? You wouldn't. They wouldn't. A pickled onion wouldn't. Nobody would. Because I control the poll, and therefore I control the pork pies. :eek:
That is true too. However you can never make everyone happy, so your goal should always be to make the most people happy as possible. If, hypothetically speaking, the majority of your players are happy, then doing what the unhappy people want could very well backfire.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the KDF..."
-Spock
Win!
I applaud your use of logic and call Win for this as well.
I hear this loud and clear. I am a serious Trek Fan but I not religious about it. Even still I find the heavy swerve AWAY from Canon to be displeasing. STO is more of a decent Space Shooter with a somewhat awkward ground shooter rather than a real Star Trek game even with all the fan service thrown in. All these Federation players flying all sorts of ships that do not belong is an obvious smack in the face of Canon but it is far from the only problem.
Easily answered: Would the President tell us that our country was about to be destroyed? Your observation is Keen and right on the mark.
The forums nor the games are going to die entirely likely as not but the forums USED to be a place where we interacted with the Devs and many felt like they were actually getting somewhere with their discussion. These days they are where we talk to the PWE Figure Heads, Talk to Each Other which is usually fruitless as we are unable to do anything to help one another, and vent pointlessly about what is bothering us. However, there is also little point in talking to the Devs now either because really the game is out of their hands as well. That level of participation is gone and will remain that way for the foreseeable future because PWE has its own metrics that it believes applies to all internet gaming and is going to shove it down your throat rather anyone agrees with them or not.
So once you come to the full realization of how pointless it is to give your feedback many folks loose all motivation to do so. So what you are left with is just talking to other players which can be good in some cases like organizing a fleet, finding out about good builds, learning how to play various missions and the like, but the main thrust of the forums used to be the feedback and Dev/Player interaction and as that has died off the forums have cooled off respectively.