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The faction popularity puzzle solved
oliviaclaire
Member Posts: 158 Arc User
In September 2005, Perpetual Entertainment, the original company behind STO, has contracted Nielsen Media Research, a firm that measures media audiences, to conduct an extensive customer survey for a Star Trek MMORPG with over 600 active gamers on their preferences, including playable factions. These were their findings:
Perpetual Entertainment: "We also wanted to ensure that we were hearing from people beyond those that identify themselves as Star Trek enthusiasts since we assume their opinion is under represented within the existing Star Trek Online community forums."
By contrast, Cryptic has conducted its own customer survey exclusively within the STO community. See the Interview With Star Trek Online Producer Craig Zinkievich.
This directly contradicts the earlier statement by Jack Emmert, Cryptic Studios CEO: "Starfleet and Klingon. Yeah. So two factions, full PvE content."
Why is it important to poll outside of Star Trek enthusiasts? There's something called self-selection bias:
Someone will likely be tempted to say that only Star Trek enthusiasts should vote in such surveys and polls because this is called Star Trek Online and because the television show was focused on Starfleet and Federation. However, this is also a computer game, which advertises multiple factions. There have already been Star Trek computer games, such as Star Trek: Klingon, Star Trek: Klingon Academy and Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard, which were exclusively from the Klingon perspective. Therefore, the arguments "Star Trek is about Starfleet! and "the show was about Starfleet!" are inapplicable.
CBS calls the shots on majority of the STO content.
Want evidence? Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online lead writer Christine Thompson, part one:
Back to the factions.
Here's a quote from another early article titled "Isn't It A Little Early For A Star Trek Online Winback Weekend?":
And the first comment summed up a lot of issues with the game:
The puzzle has been solved.
Perpetual Entertainment: "We also wanted to ensure that we were hearing from people beyond those that identify themselves as Star Trek enthusiasts since we assume their opinion is under represented within the existing Star Trek Online community forums."
By contrast, Cryptic has conducted its own customer survey exclusively within the STO community. See the Interview With Star Trek Online Producer Craig Zinkievich.
TrekMovie: Star Trek Online has two warring factions, The Federation and the Klingon Empire. We did a poll on the site and it showed that the vast majority were more interested in playing on the Federation side. Plus it seems there are more Federation fleets forming as well. Are you concerned there is going to be an imbalance in the game? [TrekMovie is also a Star Trek enthusiast site]
Craig Zinkievich: No. Someone PMed me your poll, we did a poll very early on after we announced the game, and our numbers were right around the same numbers. So we have really tried to make sure that the design supports that natural imbalance. So the Klingon gameplay is going to be much different than what the Federation is getting. It is going to be a lot more focused on the PvP [Player vs. Player] and focused on the houses within the Klingon Empire than really big story episodic exploration-focused that the Federation faction is going to have.
Craig Zinkievich: No. Someone PMed me your poll, we did a poll very early on after we announced the game, and our numbers were right around the same numbers. So we have really tried to make sure that the design supports that natural imbalance. So the Klingon gameplay is going to be much different than what the Federation is getting. It is going to be a lot more focused on the PvP [Player vs. Player] and focused on the houses within the Klingon Empire than really big story episodic exploration-focused that the Federation faction is going to have.
This directly contradicts the earlier statement by Jack Emmert, Cryptic Studios CEO: "Starfleet and Klingon. Yeah. So two factions, full PvE content."
Why is it important to poll outside of Star Trek enthusiasts? There's something called self-selection bias:
In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling. [. . .] A poll suffering from such bias is termed a self-selected listener opinion poll or "SLOP".
Someone will likely be tempted to say that only Star Trek enthusiasts should vote in such surveys and polls because this is called Star Trek Online and because the television show was focused on Starfleet and Federation. However, this is also a computer game, which advertises multiple factions. There have already been Star Trek computer games, such as Star Trek: Klingon, Star Trek: Klingon Academy and Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard, which were exclusively from the Klingon perspective. Therefore, the arguments "Star Trek is about Starfleet! and "the show was about Starfleet!" are inapplicable.
CBS calls the shots on majority of the STO content.
Want evidence? Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online lead writer Christine Thompson, part one:
Thompson told me, "I gathered all of my notes together and sent them off to CBS and said 'I have this great idea for three Romulan political factions and a series of adventures on Romulus' and all of this really great stuff. I just got this email back from them that said, 'We have to talk.'"
She was informed, before the 2009 movie was released, that Romulus and Remus had been destroyed in the "Prime Universe" in order to provide a foundation for the creation of the alternate universe in Abrams' film. It was then that she realized a large portion of her work was rendered useless. "About 20 pages of work went up in the air, and I went out to my car and screamed for a little bit, then came back in and started over," Thompson said.
The team at Cryptic wasn't given a lot of advance warning about the issue and was told only that the planets were destroyed in the film script. They were also given advance copies of the Countdown comics that CBS asked Cryptic to include in her story as well.
She was informed, before the 2009 movie was released, that Romulus and Remus had been destroyed in the "Prime Universe" in order to provide a foundation for the creation of the alternate universe in Abrams' film. It was then that she realized a large portion of her work was rendered useless. "About 20 pages of work went up in the air, and I went out to my car and screamed for a little bit, then came back in and started over," Thompson said.
The team at Cryptic wasn't given a lot of advance warning about the issue and was told only that the planets were destroyed in the film script. They were also given advance copies of the Countdown comics that CBS asked Cryptic to include in her story as well.
Back to the factions.
Here's a quote from another early article titled "Isn't It A Little Early For A Star Trek Online Winback Weekend?":
Has Star Trek Online really lost so many of its launch players in the past three months to warrant a Winback Weekend?
And the first comment summed up a lot of issues with the game:
1. Cryptic failed to finish the game.
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Maybe no one at Cryptic has ever heard that old adage; if they had they might not have delivered a half-finished game.
Star Trek Online is unfinished. It was unfinished at release and it's still unfinished, today. And not in just a small way, either, like things need to be polished up or there needs to be a little more content. No, STO is unfinished on an intergalactic scale.
There were suppose to be two playable factions – the Federation and the Klingons. The Federation side is well fleshed out with a good variety of things to do; the Klingon side has nothing to do but PvP. Except for a few grind quests, there's zero PvE on the Klingon side.
In any MMO, at least half the players want to play the bad guys – also known as the Klingons in Star Trek lore – but Cryptic didn't give those players the opportunity. If you wanted to play Klingons, but weren't that keen on PvP, chances are good you left the game and chances are good you left as soon as your first month's subscription expired.
2. Atari and Cryptic failed to keep their greed in check.
From the very beginning, Atari and Cryptic Studios have been too greedy. They went with the too-popular, $14.99-a-month model and made players pony up some extra cash for the collector's edition of the game. That's fine. Gamers are reluctantly getting used to this formula.
But STO has gone a little too far. Right out of the gate, they've behaved like they're successful and have a solid player-base they can rely on to buy their stuff: There's so much desirable stuff in the STO cash store, you'd think it was a free-to-play game.
If you want to play a Federation Klingon like Worf it will cost you money. So will playing a Ferengi. Do you want to respec? More money. Rename? More mullah. Special ships, emotes and bridge designs are all being touted in the cash store, and you can't get them in the game.
More character slots? STO only allows three. That's right. Only 3! Is there another pay-to-play MMO that only allows three character slots? If you want more, you have to buy them from the cash store.
All this nickel-and-diming of the player-base only helps to drive people from the game.
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Maybe no one at Cryptic has ever heard that old adage; if they had they might not have delivered a half-finished game.
Star Trek Online is unfinished. It was unfinished at release and it's still unfinished, today. And not in just a small way, either, like things need to be polished up or there needs to be a little more content. No, STO is unfinished on an intergalactic scale.
There were suppose to be two playable factions – the Federation and the Klingons. The Federation side is well fleshed out with a good variety of things to do; the Klingon side has nothing to do but PvP. Except for a few grind quests, there's zero PvE on the Klingon side.
In any MMO, at least half the players want to play the bad guys – also known as the Klingons in Star Trek lore – but Cryptic didn't give those players the opportunity. If you wanted to play Klingons, but weren't that keen on PvP, chances are good you left the game and chances are good you left as soon as your first month's subscription expired.
2. Atari and Cryptic failed to keep their greed in check.
From the very beginning, Atari and Cryptic Studios have been too greedy. They went with the too-popular, $14.99-a-month model and made players pony up some extra cash for the collector's edition of the game. That's fine. Gamers are reluctantly getting used to this formula.
But STO has gone a little too far. Right out of the gate, they've behaved like they're successful and have a solid player-base they can rely on to buy their stuff: There's so much desirable stuff in the STO cash store, you'd think it was a free-to-play game.
If you want to play a Federation Klingon like Worf it will cost you money. So will playing a Ferengi. Do you want to respec? More money. Rename? More mullah. Special ships, emotes and bridge designs are all being touted in the cash store, and you can't get them in the game.
More character slots? STO only allows three. That's right. Only 3! Is there another pay-to-play MMO that only allows three character slots? If you want more, you have to buy them from the cash store.
All this nickel-and-diming of the player-base only helps to drive people from the game.
The puzzle has been solved.
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This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Which only perpetuates population problems because you are most likely going to stick with the faction with the most people in it, because MMO after all are relatively social experiences even if it is just the want to be around more people, that you don't even talk to.
The good old days, but the ground PVP has been FUN!
Every added extra faction or mechanic needs resources and eventually you end up with very watered down content as resources get stretched or dry up for some areas.
Also the way the plot of the game js going the factions don't make much sense anymore. We're all allies and share technology. We've all been through a galactic war together so any kind of forced separation feels a bit odd.
I'd rather they just did away with them all and merged everything giving players full freedom to follow their own pathway.
I honestly never thought I would say this but..
I agree with sophlogimo.
So I am pretty glad we have the factions, even if they are underserved, it vastly beats being limited to be a "lockbox faction theme".
Is the whole Winback Weekend thing just a hypothetical idea or are they really about to try that soon?
this is the problem that completely undone your argument, just over 600 players which doesnt represent anything at all. its like a poll with 1,000 people to choose something and then the media make a big show about it when really it only represents the 1,000 people. you can not force a minority opinion on the majority, it doesnt work like that because the results would be a lot different if there were many more people voting for it, and i mean in the millions.
now this was way back when and none of it has any relevance for the game you see today.
the rest of what you wrote is just window dressing.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The thread-starting post is basically a trip on memory lane - they did that Winback weekend many years ago, I think. Basically some time after release. That was even before F2P.
The only useful part of the factions are the origin stories. At the point the storyline becomes factionless, the gameplay should follow. By endgame we should all have access to everything.
Wow...and I actually agree with Mr.Chaos here. I don't find an 11 year old poll of only 600 peeps to be relevant now. Times and things change.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
It worked very well for SWG.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
Don't get me wrong, I love the way STO missions play out compared to other MMOs. The problem is, because it's so heavily scripted and cinematic, it takes a LOT more resources to produce content, so the existing factions have a relatively small amount of exclusive content, while most content is slightly altered so it works for all factions. This is great for finishing a level progression path, but there's only so many times a player is going to want to experience the same story. I myself enjoyed the federation story the first time, sped through it two more times on the other 2 careers, but then when my romulan and klingon characters finished their faction exclusive content I just stopped playing them, cause I didn't want to play the same missions yet again.
What I'd argue the game needs content wise are some more space adventure zones, since space is more popular than ground and space adventure zones are likely cheaper than ground since you don't need to generate and tweak any geography. Preferably there would be at least a small amount of faction specific content involved, to help encourage people to play other factions.
On a separate note, another thing that hurts my personal ability to play KDF is the presence of so many aliens ... seeing an Orion talk about honor makes me cringe to the point of hitting Alt+F4 screaming:
Oh yeah, that I totally agree with. I should have been more clear in that I agree the game doesn't need 'opposing' factions. I'm in total agreement that the KDF and Romulan Factions belong in the game, what I thought was silly was having them be in opposition to each other like it used to be. All that really accomplished was limiting areas where players could go. The game isn't a PvP game in any way, shape or form.
I'm glad that Romulans and Klingons are in the game.
My character Tsin'xing
The study's response was both remarkable, and telling:
50% of participants believed that Tribbles should be the next major faction, whilst the other 50% believed Pakled should be when asked the same question.
Side studies revealed that 100% of Klingons questioned felt that Tribbles should NOT be part of the next major faction (with some strong indications that Klingons may be hold prejudice feelings about Tribbles in general).
Conversely 100% of people with the surname 'La Forge' believed Pakled should NOT be part of any major expansion.
The Daystrom institute recommends that more data should be collected in all of these area's in order to more fully manipulate them. A wider pool of participants will enable the researcher to more fully make things up as the go along, whilst providing the illusion that they actually know what they are talking about.
1 Billion credits have been approved to provide future studies in this area.
Hey, it seems I read that article somewhere on the web. Maybe a few things like "Tribble" and "Pakled" were spelled differently... And some of it may have not been written on the lines, but between them.
The other thing about that poll is the wording of that question. Assuming that most of the respondents read it correctly, it asks which opposing faction you would like to play. Meaning that 83% wanted Federation to be the main faction. Assuming literacy among those who participated in the poll only reaffirms the reality that we see in the game, people want Federation as the main faction in a Star Trek game. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone that played multi-faction Star Trek games with multiplayer in the past. Starfleet Command II had 8 playable factions, yet a campaign on it would have about half playing Federation if the server admin didn't put in faction caps. The player fan base for any other faction is low in this property.
I'm sorry OP, but your premises, like so many who have brought up this poll in the past, are flawed.
Indeed. Ask anybody who has worked in stat's, and they will tell you that (stat's) can be 'massaged' to give you pretty much any answer that you want. Statisticians are only kept around nowadays (mostly by government and PR/Spin firms) because there are still a lot of people who are unaware of the above fact, and that such people will continue to swallow pretty much anything.
Then again... only 75.6% of what I have just said is true.
You can also manipulate it by carefully choosing your wording, as many people will give two completely different answers to the same question depending on how it's asked.
Indeed that is true. And you don't even need to do much for it to work, even subtle semantics will do the trick.
I was asked to word a study for a certain firm that wanted themselves worded as 'better' than a rival firm in a questionnaire (and later ad campaign). You can't (overtly) put a rival down (without 'some' kind of evidence) because that would be defamation.
In this case the firm (quite cleverly) informed me they had already won an 'award' (from good house keeping) for their product. And asked us to word the questionnaire in a way that referred to this award. So the customers where basicly questioned as thus: Would you rather use a product from an award winning firm (us) or somebody who as not (the other firm).
They were very clever because the very same stats where used in the Radio campaign (they basicly said 99.9% of customers would rather used a good housekeeping winner than the rival who did not).
It's all pretty much bull TRIBBLE, believe me as somebody who has worked in both PR and Psychology (sometimes it's even worse in the field of Psychology...)
Common sense goes a LOOOONG way
P.S: If you was wondering 'yeah but they did get an award'.... well... most magazines will award you pretty much anything for the right price.
I found it interesting that fewer players chose Federation over Klingon or Borg. That indicated that players would've chosen to play Federation vs Federation more likely than Federation vs. Romulan.
Odder still is Canon- Kronos and Romulus both destroyed, feddies violating temporal (and prime) directives to save themselves from Borg destruction, yet they still would prefer to play them over the more traditional Federation enemies.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG