The Return of the Survey!

Taken.

Good answers, by the way.

Taken. How many people do you think constitutes a "good sampling"?

Taken. I'm curious to find out how many people think they are 100% sure they will be in the Alpha. I assume that since you have questions like that, you will put out the results before Thursday, no matter how many people take it?

/Taken

Based on prior survey results 30 is usually a  good number. On most surveys I don't like to post results too soon, because it could influence later people taking the survey (minimal, but certainly some).

This survey already has 17 respondents, so I would say it will be highly likely that I will post something within 24 hours.

If it hits 50 respondents before 24 hours, I will post the results as soon as I am aware that it crossed that threshhold.

Yes based on results so far I would say the latest I will post results will be tomorrow night. FYI as of right now more people have put that they are 100% certain they won't be pre-selected than have said they are certain they will be.

In fact, no one has said that they are 100% certain they will be selected, which honestly surprised me.

I certainly enjoyed filling it out.  I like these surveys from time to time.   Perhaps once in a while even more than on a weekly basis.   Since I didn't know it was coming, it kept me on my toes.

(another thing I'd be interested in seeing is one of the old surveys, or at least questions from it, effectivly reposted when the beta community is swarming to see how results changed)

Thank you. I stopped doing them for a while because honestly I felt like I was just coming up with questions for the sake of doing surveys, and I felt they were becoming uninteresting. I am glad you enjoyed this one.

Definitely, I plan on bringing back some old questions after beta and maybe even posting old vs. new results.

/completed

All done!

Taken

Karma

Doesn't surprise me.  SD hasn't said who it will be bringing in, and even if you take a 'hand-picked team', the question is which previous games will they pull from?  Sins gamma test?  Demigod?  GalCiv 2 ToA?  Or, instead of porting whole teams, are they just going to grab a person here, a perosn there...

Am I more annoying than I'm worth?  Do I ask the right questions?  Does the fact that I'm doing my hardest to get hired by them (once I graduate) act as a 'turn off' on the idea of giving me any more access than they absolutely have to?

As shoe-ins go, I'm probably high on the list... but even I have a healthy dose of self doubt even before the obvious 'who do they want' issues.

well, it comes up "how many pre-orders are there?"  I mean, honestly?     There can't be more than 400 right?    which means we all have 1/4 chance to be in anyway (I'm pulling these numbers completly out of my butt.  For all I know there is 5000 pre-orders, and I guess I wouldn't be surprised)

point is, we may not know who was or was not pre-selected just because of the numbers that get in.  One might be able to guess (has 1 karma, 3 posts on sins, demigod, and elemental forums combined, and no other interaction... probebly a random selection)   but since the pre-selected are also including people who have helped out a lot in games of the past and perhaps not so much influence in elemental so far, there are a lot of people who may be a bit too borderline to be sure.  

edit:   igonore the next paragraph, its exactly what the post above me said

(I'm picking on scoutdog to be my example, because he's under 18 and may not be able to sign the NDA anyway.  Not to actually suggest anything about him.)  If scoutdog was picked, would it be random, or would be one of the pre-selected?   Scoutdog has certainly been around here plenty, and I recall seeing him on most (or all) "where do you fit in" lists, I'm sure he's known my all the regulars, and he's got plenty of karma.   But those lists did not include people who have helped SD with every game since GC2 that just happen to not have jumped into elemental yet, or have but not to the extent that scoutdog has.  So I'm not sure how close the "do you fit in" lists reflect the actual pre-selected group.

Poll  Completed

Thanks  Denryu... Lord of the Surveys!

Well, I put my heart and soul (and a couple of years time) into Sins of a Solar Empire and contributed heavily in both the Beta and Alpha (and developed a Sins clan).  However, I didn't do a single thing for DemiGod (not my type of game).

So, I don't feel particularly confident that I'll get into the Alpha.

Interesting, Poll taken...

Poll completed. Nice, thanks

Honestly Ron, if you are not on the list after all the countless hours you put in on other projects, I would be flabbergasted, frankly speaking. I sincerely believe they recognize your value on several levels and clearly understand your motivation so I would not fret brother man.

Nice survey. Taken.

First batch of responses with 55 respondents. The formatting is almost always terrible so hang in there until I can get a few edits in.

DownloadCreate Chart1. How do you feel about extending beta and pushing the release date back to August 2010?
	answered question		55
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
Push it back		45.5%	25
Stick with February		3.6%	2
Decide after a few months of beta		50.9%	28

DownloadCreate Chart2. As a beta tester, what will be your top priority?
	answered question		54
	skipped question		1
		Response Percent	Response Count
Play and report problems		57.4%	31
Try to break the game		5.6%	3
Modding		7.4%	4
Suggest gameplay changes		25.9%	14
Other		3.7%	2

DownloadCreate Chart3. As a beta tester, what will be your secondary priority?
	answered question		55
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
Play and report problems		38.2%	21
Try to break the game		3.6%	2
Modding		7.3%	4
Suggest gameplay changes		45.5%	25
Other		5.5%	3

DownloadCreate Chart4. Recently it was announced that for now, the simplified economic model will be used. Bearing in mind that this is an anonymous survey (as opposed to the forums) how do you feel about this decision?
	answered question		53
	skipped question		2
		Response Percent	Response Count
Good call. I always wanted the simple and fun option.		17.0%	9
I preferred another option, but let's see how it goes.		60.4%	32
Bad call. Most people wanted a more complex option.		22.6%	12

DownloadCreate Chart5. How important is it to you that features that you want are included in the "canon" game?
	answered question		55
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
Very important. I will likely only play the canon version		14.5%	8
Somewhat important. I may mod or apply some mods.		81.8%	45
Unimportant. I look forward to modding my perfect game.		3.6%	2

DownloadCreate Chart6. StarDock has announced that for alpha, two dozen or so people will be pre-selected, with the rest randomly selected from pre-orders who have bought other SD games. Remembering that this is an anonymous poll, how likely do you think you will be to be one of the pre-selected?
	answered question		55
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
I am 100% certain I will be selected.		5.5%	3
75-99% confident.		7.3%	4
50-74% confident.		5.5%	3
25-49% confident.		12.7%	7
1-24% confident.		27.3%	15
I am 100% certain I will NOT be selected.		41.8%	23

DownloadCreate Chart7. From what I have heard of Elemental so far, I think it is shaping up to be:
	answered question		55
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
The perfect game		14.5%	8
A great game		56.4%	31
A good game		7.3%	4
A poor game		0.0%	0
Insufficient data to judge		21.8%	12

I was pretty surprised at the results to almost every question - which is cool, I like surprises. My analysis:

1: I was amazed more people did not select push it back based on the feedback in Frogboy's related thread.

2 & 3: Surprised so few people have "trying to break the game" as an option.

4: about what I expected.

5: Very intersting that only 14% feel that having the features that they want in the canon games is "very important".

6. 41.8% are 100% sure they would not be pre-selected. That blindsided me. Only 10 of the 55 respondents feel they have a 50% or better chance.

7. No real surprises. I thought based on some posts that we might get a smattering of "Poor". If there was anything that stuck out to me is that over 20% don't feel they have enough information to judge.

Good stuff. You should conisder doing a weekly gameplay survey exploring different systems and related options.

Regarding the results for two and three, it does not surprise me. I bet the average age of people in this community is 30+ and many of us 40+. Most kids would select such an option because of ignorance methinks.

Oops, looks like I voted too late :/

No worries, this is just the first batch of results, and responses are still coming in at a pretty good rate. When it slows down to a new response every few hours I will be posting updated results.   There were just a few people that were getting anxious to see feedback, and I told them when we broke 50 surveys taken I would post it.

I'll play the beta no matter what, so no such worries about alpha.

The survey nice and simple and interesting too.