Public Test Poll Results

GeoGnome · 2013-06-19, 12:34 AM

Introduction
So a while back I announced a poll that I was doing in regards to the Public Test Server and incentivizating use. I decided to do this based on the statements made by Higby when it came to the PTS not being able to test weapons; as well as, statements I read that were in regards to wiki contributors getting rewards for contributions, while the test server, which had been requesting such for some time, had no such reward on the horizon. My goal here wasn't as much to show that people want things for doing things... if you need a poll for that, there is not much we can do for you. More of what I was trying to do, was break down what exactly people are looking for and why. I will be frank, considering the size of the sample, you would be wise to take these results with a grain of salt, I was only able to get 271 participants. That said, here are the results.

Poll Questions and Results
How many hours have you logged on the test server.
0: 22% (60)
1-10: 58% (158)
10-50: 19% (50)
50-100: <1% (1)
100+: 1% (2)
271 total answers

How many hours have you logged on PS2's regular servers?
1-10: 0% (0)
10-100: 8% (22)
100-1000: 80% (216)
1000-5000: 12% (31)
269 total answers

Would you play more on the test server if you were compensated for your time?
Yes: 80% (218)
No: 20% (53)
271 total answers

Would you play more on the test server if events were regularly scheduled?
Yes: 84% (227)
No: 16% (53)
271 total answers

Do you watch FNO?
Yes: 44% (120)
No: 56% (151)
271 total answers

Were you present for any of the lattice stress tests (If you were not playing PS2 at the time of the stress tests, then please do not respond)
Yes: 50% (129)
No: 50% (128)
257 total answers

What type of rewards would you prefer for playing on the test server? (Please Select the one you most prefer)
IG Currency (Certs, Station Cash): 41% (108)
Cosmetic Items (Camo, vehicle cosmetics, etc.): 36% (97)
Weaponry (Platinum/gold gun varients, special melee weapons): 12% (33)
IG Titles: 11% (28)
266 total answers

Would you play on the test during periods that the regular servers are down?
Yes: 84% (228)
No: 16% (42)
270 total answers

Would you play on the test if there were double XP weekends on the test (That were not on the Live Servers)
Yes: 30% (81)
No: 70% (186)
267 total answers

How many characters do you have on the Test server?
0: 21% (56)
1: 22% (60)
2: 9% (24)
3: 31% (85)
4: 9% (24)
5: 1% (4)
6: 7% (18)
271 total answers

Do you want to preserve your test server characters? (If you don't play on the PTS, please do not respond to this question)
Yes: 22% (52)
No: 78% (180)
232 total answers

Would you be interested in transfering XP from your Test character to your Live Character for a price?
Yes: 29% (78)
No: 71% (190)
268 total answers

Question Explanations
As one person in the comments section so aptly put it: "What the fuck kind of suggestion is this last one?" When it became abundantly clear that this question was generating that kind of response, I made sure to clarify for people on Reddit and elsewhere that these questions did not represent my opinion, but had been worded in such a way as to elicit a reaction from people, in the hope of understanding how great their individual desires were. So, for that one person, here is a break down of each question:

Questions 1&2 [Asking how many hours you had logged on the public test server {PTS} and the live servers respectively] are rather straight forward, they were in place to help divide the people who answered. Question 3 [Asking if people would play on the test if compensated for their time] was pretty standard as well, this simply came right out and asked people the simplest and most straightforward form of the question I hope to be answering with this poll. Question 4 [asking if people would play on test if events were regularly schedueled] was asked for much the same reason, and is based on a number of opinions I have heard from people, that the most they wanted was simply to have a schedule for testing. Question 5 [asking who watched Friday night ops {FNO}] was asked as to gauge the kind of exposure, announcing tests on FNO would have. Question 6 [asking if people were present for the stress tests of the lattice] was asked mostly to see how many people actually contributed to an announced stress test. Question 7 [asking what type of rewards people would like to see for playing on PTS] was a more complete version of questions 3&4, it also was there to force an answer, regardless of whether or not people preferred to have compensation or not. Question 8 [Would you play on PTS during periods which the regular servers were down] was based on a suggestion I read, where someone said that some games would run major events on their test servers when the game was down for maintenance. Question 9 [would you play on test if there were double XP periods on the test but not on live] was mostly asked to help evaluate the people who would answer yes to the question. Question 10 [how many characters one had on PTS] was asked strictly as a control, to check some of the other questions involving play time on PTS. Question 11 [asking about preservation of the PTS characters] was asked to gauge how attached people feel they are to their test characters, and to be used as a guide for other responses. Question 12 [Paying to get XP transfered from PTS to live] was asked to intentionally illicit a polarized response, paying for things in PS2 is something people will render an opinion on, so it was used to help screen opinions.

Using the data available, I interpreted a number of other questions.
Of the entire 271 people, 5% of them [14 people] simply did not care about the PTS and pretty much straight dislike the idea of the existence of the PTS, this is based on them neither wanting compensation, or announced events while having 0 or <10 hours playtime on the test server.

Of the 218 people who wished compensation for their time on PTS, 86% of them [188 people] also wanted announced events, 14% [30 people] indicated otherwise.

Of the 227 people who wished events be annoucned, 45% [102 people] watch FNO currently, while 55% [125 people] do not watch FNO.
of the 218 people who wish to be compensated for their time, 34% of them voted for double XP on the PTS, but not on live as some form of compensation for time.

Of the 53 people who did not want to be compensated for their time, 74% [39 people] wanted announced events.

Comments section
61 comments were made.

When it comes to top comments: 5 people were dissatisfied with the installer itself, or the fact that you had such a large update before you were able to participate. There were 5 that were EU players stating that they were pretty much out of the loop as all tests were American times, so while they would like to contribute, there was next to nothing that they could do on their own time. And the top comment, with 6 people was that the PTS be turned into a version of the VR room, where everything was available.

Other interesting comments that I wanted to bring up:
1.) Removing the leadership requirements of level 10 would help in making sure that people were able to perform an accurate test. If these restrictions are left in place, people will be unable to use spawn beacons unless they have a higher ranking member of the PTS available to drop one. As beacons are a critical part of the game, making this unavailable is an issue.
2.) Another very good suggestion was that the devs could stream content on the PTS for people to encourage testing.
3.) Another popular comment was that the low population itself often turns people away. If a decent pop can be brought to the test, it will itself attract people.
4.) Another suggestion was simply to advertise schedueled playtests on facebook and twitter.

Closing Statements
I would like to start by saying that if you disagree with my statments here or would like to see what was said:Here is a link to the results, I am making them available for view for a few days. You are more than welcome to do with the results as you please. After I disable the link, if you still need a copy, feel free to contact me via PM here and I will try to get you the spreadsheet.

When it come to interpreting this, I would like to mention that additional support was shown for incentivization in the comments section. People really without exception want 2 things with the PTS: Greater Exposure for the server itself, and some kind of reward for their time. When it comes to rewards, I was personally surprised the number of people would just prefer some kind of cosmetic item, as opposed to those who preferred just certs. You have 30% of the polled people asking for the ability to Pay to transfer XP to live characters, this is about 29% higher than I expected it to be. The number of people who just outright dislike the idea of the test based on comments and votes was minimal at best. The interest is there.

Another big thing I'd like to draw people's attention to was the results of question 8: Playing on the test when servers are down. If events were announced during this down time, it could go a long way to helping to stress test coming systems, or provide feedback on features, weapons, or abilities.

Potpourri
So, it's a well known fact that adding a comments section will produce a few things that are funny. So, top comments that had nothing to do with anything:

"I know what you're trying to do and fuck you."
"Obama for President 1999!"

And finally the wisest words I have ever read anywhere... truly not even a comment, as much as it is a philosophy to live by:
"Titty sprinkles"

Titty sprinkles indeed.

OCNSethy · 2013-06-19, 02:49 AM

Thanks Geo. There are some interesting & surprising answers here... all in a good way.

Thanks for your efforts with this.

Titty sprinkles... word.

Rolfski · 2013-06-19, 04:11 AM

Awesome stuff mate, seriously

Rbstr · 2013-06-19, 11:42 AM

People would want to do something more if it was more fun, useful and presented some kind of reward?
Surprise!

I will be frank, considering the size of the sample, you would be wise to take these results with a grain of salt, I was only able to get 271 participants.

It's not the size that really matters, it's where you got it. You just linked to it in some threads as a voluntary thing, correct? It's likely skewed heavily to those that are interested in PTS and those that want compensation for it.
The kind of players likely to see it to begin with are already those interested in the game enough to be on communities outside of it.
The structure of your playtime question is somewhat related to this: 100-1000 is a huge gap and when it's not a rate (per week or whatever) or a range (when did you last play) you remove the temporal element.

Obviously you don't have many options to get a good poll sample.
SOE could force a poll on login to get something reliable.

GeoGnome · 2013-06-19, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Rbstr

People would want to do something more if it was more fun, useful and presented some kind of reward?
Surprise!

It's not the size that really matters, it's where you got it. You just linked to it in some threads as a voluntary thing, correct? It's likely skewed heavily to those that are interested in PTS and those that want compensation for it.
The kind of players likely to see it to begin with are already those interested in the game enough to be on communities outside of it.
The structure of your playtime question is somewhat related to this: 100-1000 is a huge gap and when it's not a rate (per week or whatever) or a range (when did you last play) you remove the temporal element.

Obviously you don't have many options to get a good poll sample.
SOE could force a poll on login to get something reliable.

I am not going to argue with you, but I did what I could. When I did the poll, I advertised it on PSU, PS Reddit, and PS2 forums. I made mention on all three that I wanted people who had no interest in the PTS to take the poll.

In regards to being skewed towards people who want compensation, you might be right, but more people stated a desire just to have events Announced, than did asked for incentives. So even if it people who wanted incentive were the majority, it shows that they also just want some transparency. Not to mention I haven't really seen many people Against the idea of incentives, for obvious reasons. As I state above: If you are surprised that people want something, to do something else... your either very young, or a giant yellow bird who lives on a street in New York, named after the little pieces of grain that litter the top of burger buns.

As to the range for playtime... yeah that was probably my biggest mistake in the poll. I didn't spend as much time considering that, as I did trying to evaluate what questions to ask.

And while SOE could do a poll, they have not. They have not shown any interest in doing polls at all, because the stance as explained to me (On an unrelated topic to the subject at hand), is that polls denote some kind of direction that will be taken, and development of a game is not a democratic process. Hence why I have gone to lengths to make this not be: "Here are solutions, vote on them" but more "Here are some options, overlapping, unrelated, and various degrees of extreme, which can you tolerate and how much do you hate them?"

Hence while I find the thing about Promotion being a bigger deal than incentivization, I find the fact that I even got 30% to vote for PAYING TO TRANSFER XP, which is a bloody insane notion IMO, shows that people are a bit desperate for something here. I honestly expected that to be like 10% or less.

I would also like to note, on a somewhat related note, I am rather surprised this has been allowed to continue. Tbh, I expected to get shut down on PS2 early on in the polling and in the results process. I'm rather glad that hasn't happened mind, but still I have found it surprising.

camycamera · 2013-06-19, 09:44 PM

i would go on more if the times weren't so Americanalised..... I'm Aussie and i want to participate, but not at 1am