Thread: What do players want - questions by Turbine, answers by players

I have received one or two emails for surveys. The appearance of which in my email was a shock and got an immediate visit to the forums to check legitimacy with the CS postings.

Most of the surveys/questionnaires I have seen have been on the forums, they usually present a series of 3 questions and present 3 topics for us to answer the questions on. I think it was 3 and 3 anyway??

Been a while since I have seen one of those though.

Originally Posted by Korrigan

And that's pretty much the point of my "joke"... don't you think such elements should be added to the game FOR FREE, like it is for most other MMORPGs on the market? .

They should be but it will never happen. IMHO, this is pretty much the future for MMOs. I don't like it, but that will not stop it from happening.

As for character slots, I know they are for sale in the shop but I want MORE!

More cosmetic slots too!

I'm happy with it, it's cheap entertainment, not my life.

Originally Posted by Sapience

We use literally all of the methods mentioned in this thread. We also do live focus groups and collect data from social media and third party sites. Sales data is another metric we use. All of that goes into the decision making process when deciding what to do 'next'.

Hmm, been playing for two years and have yet to see a survey at log-in, which is a method mentioned here repeatedly, which you just said you use "all" of. I'm confused a bit now. Live focus groups are a few people, social media and third party sites are only a small portion of the people actually playing the game. My kin has a GL site page, and only a small number of members use it. Members have told me that they don't want to expand anything from the game beyond the game itself, they have no interest in using other web sites, they just play the game... which requires logging in... so... just sayin'.

Oh well, you be you. My friends keep leaving LotRO because of your decisions. But i guess that's WAI too.

And that is all i have to say, about that.

Originally Posted by Kolde

Hmm, been playing for two years and have yet to see a survey at log-in, which is a method mentioned here repeatedly, which you just said you use "all" of. I'm confused a bit now. Live focus groups are a few people, social media and third party sites are only a small portion of the people actually playing the game. My kin has a GL site page, and only a small number of members use it. Members have told me that they don't want to expand anything from the game beyond the game itself, they have no interest in using other web sites, they just play the game... which requires logging in... so... just sayin'.

Oh well, you be you. My friends keep leaving LotRO because of your decisions. But i guess that's WAI too.

And that is all i have to say, about that.

There has been at least one on-launcher survey that I know about, way back well before F2P.

Focus groups are a lot more important than most people give credit to, while they may make up a tiny portion, that tiny portion can actually provide a lot of feedback on topics related to the focal point.

Social Media, which based on Facebook's and Twitter's numbers go to show that it is a larger slice of a focal group pie. Third party sites, such as MMORPG.com and other examples can make up a larger, unbiased sampling. There can be a lot of value in those that don't play the game to make suggestions on how to improve a game.

Outside of that, there's the Palantir system, which allows Turbine their own pocket focus groups and general mindset of the playerbase.

As for your friends leaving LOTRO, that's THEIR decision, not Turbine's...seeing as people aren't required to use this service that is. Of course, Turbine's decisions can weigh the decisions of players, it's ultimately the player's decision to continue or stop playing, so yes, it is WAI. But hey, what good is a post without some form of doom and gloom eh?

The discussion is a bit moot.
Turbine of course has a pretty precise picture of what the general idea of the playerbase is. They´ve been in business too long not to.

There is however 1000 possible things to do and only enough resources to do 100 of them.
So the question in project management is:
Do we invest 20.000 dollars in man hours to make improvements to housing/legendary items/cosmetic weapons, or do we invest 1000 dollars to make gamble boxes or star lit crystals? And what are the projected returns on investment of these measures?

The art of good management is to do a maximum of the second while dong just enough of the first to keep people happy to the 90th percentile.

The numbers are obviously fantasy

Originally Posted by Sapience

Oh sorry. let me try another approach.

The Eagles spy on you and report your most secret desires to us on the second Tuesday of the Month. Eagles are never wrong.

The eagles have reported that you changed the link in your forum sig from Sapience to.... <http://twitter.com/rickheaton >


On To Surveys:
Surveys only tell you what you already know, not what you want to know.

This isn't bad in itself, but surveys are self-serving and if Turbine can't fix the language translation for the French and Germans hiring someone to run the metrics on a survey just doesn't make sense... Oh but in that case: GO FOR IT! <g>

* translation issues are outstanding since their close down of Codemasters 6 months ago or more. Not only that but just a few days ago Sapience claimed they a have a full contengient of French and German speakers but they it seems they can't find their Harry Potter wands because Prof Rogue has whisked them away...

Post Link....
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...44#post6198644

Originally Posted by Sapience

Oh sorry. let me try another approach.


The Eagles spy on you and report your most secret desires to us on the second Tuesday of the Month. Eagles are never wrong.

As much as I love Hotel California and Desperado, I don't feel comfortable imagining Don Henley & others spying on me :b

That aside, it's good to know that you "spy on us". I guess I wish we had more feedback then, like there was Dev chats back in the days where players could ask questions and devs answered... or dodged the question by talking about pie

The OP has a slight error in his thoughtmaking process.

If he accepts that noone at turbine is interested in the opinion of the players. His question would be obsolete. or selfexplanatory. Since this is F2P the company does not need to know what players want or not.

They totally knew what there key audience wants and needs.

Like pr0n. Where content or qualaty is never a concern or plays any role in the process of making money out of it.
Its similar with F2P consumers. The only thing they seek is a Fix. Nothing else.

I believe its not so hard to imagine yourself in the role of a F2P producer. And understand how this type of business works. Outside of the internet that form of business is regulated or even forbidden by laws. But as a player of such a game it seems problematic to draw the parallels.


And do I really need to explain what is wrong with hoping to be spyed. Just to get the feeling someone thinks its importent what I do and feel? Do I really need to explain that this mind set is so totally wrong and humilating?

This is close to a serious pathological case. I hope you (all) dont mind the direct form of expressing my disgust.

Originally Posted by bastardoGrande

The OP has a slight error in his thoughtmaking process.

If he accepts that noone at turbine is interested in the opinion of the players. His question would be obsolete. or selfexplanatory. Since this is F2P the company does not need to know what players want or not.

They totally knew what there key audience wants and needs.

Like pr0n. Where content or qualaty is never a concern or plays any role in the process of making money out of it.
Its similar with F2P consumers. The only thing they seek is a Fix. Nothing else.

I believe its not so hard to imagine yourself in the role of a F2P producer. And understand how this type of business works. Outside of the internet that form of business is regulated or even forbidden by laws. But as a player of such a game it seems problematic to draw the parallels.

So, you think that since the game is F2P devs do not need to know what we want or don't want? This game might be free for YOU, but without paying customers this game would not be alive.

Yes, people still pay. Some pay subs for being VIP, some buy things from store. If company does not listen it's customers, there would be no customers sooner or later. Free to play or not.

Originally Posted by bastardoGrande

And do I really need to explain what is wrong with hoping to be spyed. Just to get the feeling someone thinks its importent what I do and feel? Do I really need to explain that this mind set is so totally wrong and humilating?

This is close to a serious pathological case. I hope you (all) dont mind the direct form of expressing my disgust.

Umm.. I guess you missed the context there.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

...

There is however 1000 possible things to do and only enough resources to do 100 of them.
So the question in project management is:
Do we invest 20.000 dollars in man hours to make improvements to housing/legendary items/cosmetic weapons, or do we invest 1000 dollars to make gamble boxes or star lit crystals? And what are the projected returns on investment of these measures?

The art of good management is to do a maximum of the second while dong just enough of the first to keep people happy to the 90th percentile.

Also, what makes the players happy is not always what makes money for Turbine. Is their goal to make more money off the game or to make the game better for players? I think the first goal is the number one priority. They have to improve the game only enough to keep things going and keep up some reputation.

There is not always a direct correlation between improving the game for players and making more money from players. There was more of a correlation when it was a sub game - but now less. There will always be new players to come and spend money - people leaving due to gameplay issues is less of a concern.

So knowing what players want does not mean that they will do what players want.

Yea I always wondered as well why Turbine never surveyed paying customers and what made them stay, what they liked and how to retain them. It would seem common sense to me to survey your customers and build on core competencies of your product obviously they're must a logistical problem and quantifying the results from a couple of thousand customers.