Public discussion reopened.

[Liquid Blue]

The survey seems like a great opportunity to use the news/update box that loads up before you get in the zone

The survey could be mentioned there, and maybe throw a staffer's e-mail to handle survey requests from people when they're not in pub

I think more people might be willing to help if they can e-mail a staff, get a reply back with the survey, and then just send it back in, knowing they helped a bit with improving pub

[DankNuggets]

going alright so far, biggest hurdle is of course getting willing participants. From what i've seen so far, only about 1 in 3 people are willing to participate (and all but 1 knew how to PM ) However, the people who did participate were very cordial and excited to "keep the game going" as they put it.


been using poo face's short survey, and it seems to be doing the trick: not to long or too in depth, but providing a lot of useful information. There's also a lot we can glean from teh public statistics site when it's back up (like usage, first played, location, etc). Here's a quick rundown of how it's going so far:

1)What type of playing do you tend to prefer in pub? (e.g. basing, spawn dueling, lev/LTing, roofing, camping, other/write-in, many of the above)

Basic repsonses here are basing, then followed closely by dueling/LT. People seem confused about the wording for "spawn dueling" to which i reply flying around beneath the base, shooting other ships. Many replied that they prefer basing, but often switch to other playing styles in certain situations (ie not enough basers, good terr to LT with).

2)How often you played small weasel, how often you now play big weasel, and thoughts on the difference between them?

I usually follow this with "Basically which you prefer, and why" to make it easier to answer. Most have experience with both. A good many say they dislike both, but have reasons for liking one over the other (ie slow, big target; or small, satisfying to kill).

3)How often do you play each ship, on a scale of 1-10? (or which ships to you play the most?)

This is the hardest question for people to answer. Ideally, I'd get a response like: "1-10, 2-8, 3-2, 4-0, 5-8, 6-0, 7-4, 8-5" or "wb-10, jav-8, spid-7, ..." as those would give the most info. However, it's a whole lot easier for people to respond: "wb most of the time, and a little levi or spider" or "wb>spid>jav>terr>..." So while this would ideally be the easiest question to group answers within, it becomes one of the hardest with incomplete answeres. It will be useful, however, to get informations such as "what do people who enjoy playing levi think about ship restrictions?" or "what do people who only play wb think about basing?" and other questions that can't be directly asked and answered by looking at stastics.

4)Which pub(s) should allow levs?

This is straightforward, aside from responses like "2". I then have to ask if they mean "2 pubs" or "the 2nd pub". good variety of responses so far.


5)What change is most needed in pubs?
6)What should not be changed about pubs?

These last two are the most important, and all the other questions are kinda just leading up to these. Been getting a good variety of responses here as well. many along the lines of maps, player limits, levs, prizes in pub-- all topics you'd expect. Once again these would be useful to help decide which "type" of player wants what for the zone. Also could give priority to projects that are considered the "most needed".


All in all, I've tried to get a somewhat equal number of responses from pub 0 as well as the 2nd (and even 3rd!) pubs. However, it's a whole lot easier to get someone to respond when there's not a timed game running. Also trying to pick names that have at least 1000 k+d so we aren't as likely to get aliases. I've been ignoring squad tags, trying not to pick one or the other (though we know most pubbers don't have tags). I've also asked a few people I know frequent the forums... which was a little awkward... but like i said i'm trying not to be biased.

If you get asked by me or pooface, please just be nice if we've asked you a few days ago, or if you don't want to do it in general. We're keeping lists of people that have responded (not those that ignored the pms, but i'm not gonna knowingly keep asking them) so hopefully you won't get harassed by us.

[kthx]

If we are going to do a poll we might as well do it on the forums where crap doesn't crash, as per other suggested ideas of making people use twd aliases, signing up for the forums isn't any more troublesome than signing up for TWD, and at least then some people might get addicted to this game even more by being a part of the forum community, unless they are absolutely disgusted and horrified as I would think most people would be by us.

[CaptainPoopface]

I hereby nominate dank and poop to be in charge of conducting all public surveys.

Sure, I'll do it, but we need to specify what will be asked, with neutral wording, so we're all asking the same things and getting answers that can be pooled for analysis.

I don't want to preempt whoever really has the power to make changes to pub (Mootland? Who is it?), so I'd rather wait until called upon. I would also want some kind of assurance that these surveys would actually be considered and acted on by those with the power to do so.

I basically live in pub, and I'd be willing to spend a little time each day to canvas people, but I wonder if it should be handled by staff. There are a few players I don't particularly like (although I would treat everyone with fairness), and definitely some players who hate me, so that might color their responses or willingness to participate.

What if players type a command like ?vote, and then the next available staffer enters the arena to give the survey? Or maybe ?help vote, if we only have ?help and ?cheater to work with. That way we're not hassling anyone at an inopportune time, we can employ a larger group of people to get answers, and we have a better shot at objectivity. We could periodically zone for the ?vote command, add a background image in spawn to describe it, or put up an image on arena entry (check the Extreme Games pub for a good example of this - they show leaderboards).

So here's what we need:

• The actual questionnaire (I'm willing to write it, but I'd imagine there are other questions we should ask besides just what I come up with)
• A way of collating all the answers (I can make an Excel spreadsheet that everyone uses for entering the data. I can also analyze/pivot table the aggregated results, since I have a lot of experience doing that at work...)
• A way of verifying that only one alias votes per IP address, and all aliases linked to that IP/alias cannot vote from any other IP (Surveyors would record usernames, then submit the entire list of usernames to someone with the ability to check aliases, who would then remove the duplicates and send the list of names back to us)

I'd like to get the green light from staff before going forward with this.

[dads revenge]

I hereby nominate dank and poop to be in charge of conducting all public surveys.

[DankNuggets]

Things I'd like to know:

• What type of playing do you tend to prefer in pub? (e.g. basing, spawn dueling, lev/LTing, roofing, camping, other/write-in, many of the above)
• How often you played small weasel, how often you now play big weasel, and thoughts on the difference between them? (List pros and cons of previous and current weasel settings)
• How often do you play each ship, on a scale of 1-10?
• Which pub(s) should allow levs?
• What change is most needed in pubs? (open; 3 lines)
• What should not be changed about pubs? (open; 3 lines)

It could be a lot of legwork, but it's worth knowing what people really want and what they really think about TW, whereas we tend to argue (and decide) based on conjecture.

I think this can be done in steps. I'm going to use this as a template, set 'em as macros, and ask around in pubs. Gonna keep a list of people willing/unwilling to participate, and tally the votes anonymously. When i get a sizable # of surveys done, i'll share the outcome. Shouldn't take more than a min or two to conduct an interview once you find someone willing to provide feedback.

[Troll King]

The one thing that's important is that people understand that a level of compromise will be required. Most people will come into this with a very singular vision of what to change, and often at the expense of other styles of play.

I'm in the camp that basing should be a beneficiary of changes because it's been overlooked for so long, but it shouldn't be the only concern. Swaying too heavily in one direction may cause just as much harm as we're trying to fix. It'd also be harder to get an idea accepted if it's too far in one direction.

There must be a common ground, and like Wark says, it must be made fairly. If people are too unwilling to compromise, we'll never see any progress.

[kthx]

I say we just let Mootland do what he basically rejoined staff to do, which is fix pubs. I trust Mootland over just about anyone else in the entire game to make sure that whatever changes are made in pubs are fair, and as pleasing as possible to the largest majority of players.

[Mootland Farmer]

Public Development nowadays is a collective effort. While I have stated leading the division again, Dads Revenge has been helping with map related stuff. He has also done other stuff to make Publics more interesting. Qan has been working on the RoboBots adding new modules. Pure sometimes does his own thing. I hope that makes things a bit more clear as to who is involved with Public Development. I am undecided as to whether I am going to form another Public Committee.

I am planning to get involved with players who play Public, just like I did last time, and get their views on what we can do to make Publics more fun. To be honest, forums are not the best medium to gauge opinions on Publics because most of those players do not read the forums.

At the moment I am working on a specialised F1 Help guide for Trench Wars. Extreme Games has one and I think Trench Wars could use one to help players understand the game better. After that I will look at forum posts like the ones in this thread and player's opinions.

[CaptainPoopface]

There's always the option of talking to the pubbers personally. Not just in pub chat because the loudest opinions will overwhelm the quieter ones, but PMing (ok we must assume they know how to PM or can be taught). But then this process would take a lot more work.

I think it would be good to canvas pubbers individually, but there are many hangups:

• Players might not want to invest the time to type for a minute, vs. just sending a few numbers to a bot
• Staff could outright falsify if they chose - how could there be transparency/accountability?
• Only a few staff (BanG?) have access to player IPs and aliases, so there would potentially be duplicate opinions

- If we use a bot, and assume the bot will not be stable for a month:

• Can the bot write its vote tally to some external database every hour or so? So if it crashes, the data is not lost.
• Can a player verify his/her vote at a later date, to make sure the data is persistent and accurate?

- If we don't use a bot:

• Can staff advertise and "host" a voting session just as if it's an event? I.e., pose the questions one at a time, tally the vote PMs manually, and send them to a database?
• Can a player verify his/her vote at a later date, to make sure the data is persistent and accurate?

Either way:

• We could put up a background image or set of flyover tiles on the golden bar in pub telling people about the vote(s). That's hard to miss. Also the arena entry message could advertise it, or a periodic auto-PM if a bot detects that a player has not yet voted.
• A staffer or bot could "host" an event where players type up to 3 lines of their own opinions/suggestions, then store that in a database for subsequent analysis.

Things I'd like to know:

• What type of playing do you tend to prefer in pub? (e.g. basing, spawn dueling, lev/LTing, roofing, camping, other/write-in, many of the above)
• How often you played small weasel, how often you now play big weasel, and thoughts on the difference between them? (List pros and cons of previous and current weasel settings)
• How often do you play each ship, on a scale of 1-10?
• Which pub(s) should allow levs?
• What change is most needed in pubs? (open; 3 lines)
• What should not be changed about pubs? (open; 3 lines)

It could be a lot of legwork, but it's worth knowing what people really want and what they really think about TW, whereas we tend to argue (and decide) based on conjecture.

[Kontrolz]

What the fuck are you people talking about. There are a lot of people who rarely/don't twd and play pub often/frequently for YEARS. Wouldn't they be the best people to ask/listen to?

Someone who TWDs and rarely plays publics will try to push his TWD preferences into pub (no matter what division). Someone who is new to the game/zone wont know what the fuck is best for sustaining a high player population.

Common sense people. Listen to the pubbers who have played pub religiously for years. I think if you pull your collective heads out of your asses (which seem to be located in matchbots for TWD/L) you will find that most of us agree on some very basic but important issues.

Anyway, that's my last desperate whine about publics on these forums. Hopefully moot or someone will start up another public committee with people who are and have been pubbers for years.

[MirrorriM]

There's always the option of talking to the pubbers personally. Not just in pub chat because the loudest opinions will overwhelm the quieter ones, but PMing (ok we must assume they know how to PM or can be taught). But then this process would take a lot more work.

[DankNuggets]

Besides Izor being right about the fact that you will never get a good consensus from pubbers because they either don't care or are too new to know how to vote or what a bot is or how to PM a bot in that case.

On top of that, the server crashes once a week if not more, good luck keeping a bot up for a month.

Basically the poll will tell you what twd players who play pubs only occasionally want from pubs, not what newbies who enter the zone and shoot around want from pubs.

for the most part you are right, but if it's left up long enough, and zoned occaisonally then a lot will figure it out. And if everyone only gets one vote, then we don't have to worry about people rigging it.

[kthx]

Besides Izor being right about the fact that you will never get a good consensus from pubbers because they either don't care or are too new to know how to vote or what a bot is or how to PM a bot in that case.

On top of that, the server crashes once a week if not more, good luck keeping a bot up for a month.

Basically the poll will tell you what twd players who play pubs only occasionally want from pubs, not what newbies who enter the zone and shoot around want from pubs.

[CaptainPoopface]

Look at it this way the reason Levs are still there is because more people want them then people who don't the same goes for the size of the cloaks.

What method was used for determining this, in both cases?

I would very much like to see both of these things numerically verified among the current player population. Put up a voting bot in a dedicated arena, where people can only vote once (IP + alias check). Milosh did it for his elim experiment. Leave it up for a month and let's see how it shakes out.

I prefer to allow leviathans:
1) in all pubs
2) in at least one pub, but not in purepub


I think weasels should be:
1) like they are now (slow speed, slow bullets, 1300 energy, slow recharge with cloak + stealth, have rocket and repel, no x-radar, do not fit through holes)
2) like they were immediately before (faster speed, faster bullets, 1020 energy, energy drain with cloak + stealth, x-radar, no rocket or repel, fit through holes)
2a) [optional]...but let every ship green or buy xradar
2b) ...but take away multifire
2c) ...but downgrade to L2 bullets

I want to know what the NUMBERS are, as of right now. Not a particular person's impression, not a staffer's bias, not an apparent consensus from 4 years ago, not some poll or magic wand estimate of what people on the forum say. I think it's important to figure out who is in the majority, and then figure out how to please them while minimizing the discontent for the minority.

There are other votes we should also conduct in-game, but I think these two are top priority.