RIFT Player Survey

[Zann]

Greetings Ascended!

Over the next week, some of you will be receiving an email from Trion Worlds asking you to participate in a short survey that will help us get to know you better, and help us understand how we can serve you better as RIFT continues to evolve.

To ensure that we get the best sample possible, we’re going to be sending the survey to a randomly selected group of accounts, so not everyone will receive one, but we did want to give you the heads-up that we are sending out some surveys, and they are legit. The surveys will direct you to QuestionPro (www.questionpro.com) and will not be collecting any information about your account, or any information that could personally identify you. We appreciate your participation.

Cheers!

[Jack Burton]

Yay. I hope there is room for lots of comments.

[Stormvet]

Why only from selected folks? Why not everyone then you can tabulate the whole population, rather than risk a bias by some oddball demographic? Those that take the time to answer would then qualify as people with a modicum of interest in making the game better.

[vAnathema]

Is it being sent by CSFeedback@trionworlds.com?

Wondering because of "This message looks very suspicious to our SmartScreen filters, so we've blocked attachments, pictures, and links for your safety." More than likely, yes, but just making sure. ;d

[Anuhart]

This is really good to hear, Zann.

Something which has been discussed quite recently in fact and very welcome.
I do share the concern of Stormvet though, this really could/should have been to all current and past subscriptions.

[Nakotix]

Am I able to jump right to the PvP part?.....oh wait i doubt there will be anything regarding PvP in it.

[KatFiveKnives]

I could not find this elusive NA option. Maybe I'm blind?

[Zann]

Just to provide a general update, the survey emails are coming from focusgroups@trionworlds.com, so if you get an email from that address, it's nothing to be worried about.

[intrinsc]

I hope you guys take these serious, because a lot of honesty will come your way. In other words: have elrar give you all at least a 12pack of pabts and prepare to cry a lot.

[Agystha]

Why only from selected folks? Why not everyone then you can tabulate the whole population, rather than risk a bias by some oddball demographic? Those that take the time to answer would then qualify as people with a modicum of interest in making the game better.

Because of the way survey statistics work. The effort required to tabulate and analyze data increases in linear proportion to the number of responses you get, but the statistical significance of additional responses levels off dramatically.

Oddly enough, the accuracy of the result has nothing to do with the size of the overall population! Regardless of the number of subscribers RIFT has, a sample size of 2,000 players will give a 2.2% margin of error at a 95% confidence (that's a weird way to say it, I know; think of it this way: if you asked the same questions to 100 random groups of 2000 players, in 95% of them, the answers would be within 2.2% of each other).

Going up, 2500 players will give an even 2% margin of error - but it takes 10,000 players to get a 1% margin!

(The formula, if you're curious, is margin = 1/(sqrt(samplesize)).)

The only value in having a larger sample size, actually, would be to get specific data on those oddball groups - and that would rely largely on self-identification, which oddball groups are notoriously bad at.

[the_real_seebs]

Why only from selected folks? Why not everyone then you can tabulate the whole population, rather than risk a bias by some oddball demographic? Those that take the time to answer would then qualify as people with a modicum of interest in making the game better.

Well, basically: In fact, the random selection is exactly how you avoid the "oddball demographic" bias.

[Zoam]

Pretty unfair to offer titles to people for taking the survey when you don't offer it to everyone

[Zerosum]

Not that I'm worried, but how can you say, "will not be collecting any information about your account, or any information that could personally identify you" but give those accounts taking part in the survey a title?

I guess if you grant everyone who got sent the email the title wither or not they actually participated in it could make it that accurate.

[Goldenwing]

Some of us have already given our honest feedback on the forum in long threads.

Glad to see Trion is using a focus group. (Red teams are important.) It was one of our suggestions as well.

Hope this will help Trion in the long run.


Good luck with the game.

[Bheale]

Is Trion willing to be transparent about the segmentation of the customer base currently being used?

Without doing a world class job on that segmentation -- and that doesn't mean identifying every corner case player expectation, but it does mean some very smart people spending months looking at data on what players do and what they want, egolessly and professionally cutting the data again and again from too many angles to count (if this doesn't feel like digging a very big ditch it's not being done well)-- this survey will be biased by the way Trion has allocated its resources, and that bias will filter out the most important data the survey could have returned.

A classic example of a survey through which the most important data was unable to pass was the WoW cancel-my-account survey. Blizzard had segmented the WoW customer base incorrectly (not just not world class, they just plain blew it) and as a result none of the check boxes had anything to do with the real reasons U.S. and European players were leaving in droves.

Over the last six months, I've become increasingly concerned that Trion has imported Blizzard's just-plain-wrong segmentation of the player base, has invested based on that segmentation, and as a result does not have content to keep the majority of RIFT's player base engaged.

So back to my basic question: even though it risks a flame war or misunderstandings, is Trion willing to expose the basic player base segmentation its marketing and development assume, to the player base?

Greetings Ascended!

Over the next week, some of you will be receiving an email from Trion Worlds asking you to participate in a short survey that will help us get to know you better, and help us understand how we can serve you better as RIFT continues to evolve.

To ensure that we get the best sample possible, we’re going to be sending the survey to a randomly selected group of accounts, so not everyone will receive one, but we did want to give you the heads-up that we are sending out some surveys, and they are legit. The surveys will direct you to QuestionPro (www.questionpro.com) and will not be collecting any information about your account, or any information that could personally identify you. We appreciate your participation.

Cheers!