[Potential Project] Napoleon: Total War Survey

[Augustus Lucifer]

Please see the forum dedicated to this project to input. If you are a non-Citizen and want to participate, please express interest in this thread or PM me.

In this post I touched on the fact that the value of user feedback we provide to CA is depreciated by the disorganization and disambiguation of its presentation. Individual sentiment is helpful, but where marketing or development is concerned the opinion of a singular user on a subjective facet of a game can't be extrapolated very far. With enough delving certain trends can be picked up, but the prevalence of these trends depends wholly on how big of a composite and in which locations it is picked up from.

As the hardcore contingent of the Total War fanbase, the opinions of TWC users are a valuable barometer for how a game stacks up, especially to other games in the series. We often play them more deeply than the average user, or utilize their systems for our own projects, which enables us to find segments of good and bad quality more fundamentally through that prolonged experience. Outside of the internal testing I'd go as far as to say that the feedback from players like those on TWC are the next best thing to a total census, since even though casualness is foregone, the perceptions are more strongly rooted.

The problem is we're disorganized. The most organization we achieve is a consolidated thread for praise or criticism on an untold number of game areas, the occasional gripe/bug compilation thread, and a petition here or there which attempts to highlight a specific issue. In order to harness our base to provide a concise and valuable feedback loop for CA, we need more fundamental organization and a format that is conducive to the gathering of wide-ranging opinion. Forms, or surveys, fill this function in the majority of market ventures, and they'll work fine for our situation as well.

The Goals

• To draft a survey to encompass as many aspects of the Napoleon Total War game as possible
• To standardize these points for ease of data aggregation, including a standardized ratings system
• To distribute this to the members of TWC who purchase the game
• To ultimately produce the results of the survey publicly or privately for CA to use as they will

Itinerary

Step One

The first step in the process is to section the content of the game and determine the questions and statements for use in such a survey. This means determining a list of feedback categories, such as 'AI', 'General Gameplay', 'Visual Presentation', etc. Categories can be determined by need based on the amount of viable questions that can be grouped under them, and should serve as a way for those inputting to get a general sense of what they're inputting on.

Some of the questions or statements can no doubt be devised early on, because there are enough constants in Total War games. Others will have to wait until users have had a chance to play the game. Questions and statements need to be concise, in clear and plain English, and be answerable by a standardized set of options such as: Yes/No, 1-5, Poor-Excellent, Much Worse-Much Better, Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree, etc. Similarities between questions need to be reconciled so that the list is manageable both for users who decide to take the survey and for those trying to interpret it.

The people who ultimately decide on which questions or statements are included need to be a small group no larger than 6-10 so that consensus is not difficult to determine, but those who input should be all inclusive. The questions will effectively be geared to gauge opinion on what is good and what can be improved on in the game, and depending on the implementation may be interwoven with personal explanations.

Step Two

After a rough draft of questions and statements along with the possible answers to them has been devised, the next step is to determine the best way to apply them to a form which is manageable and accessible. There are certain sites on the web which allow you to create forms and link to -- one as such was used for a mod players survey -- and this may very well be the only option initially. Ideas for places such a survey should be hosted may be forwarded and the most suitable location will be selected.

Ideally we will want to pursue an implementation of a forms system within the framework of vBulletin so that it can be integrated with the user experience. There are hacks which achieve this for our current version, which I'll look into, but that should not be our only possibility due to overhead. Such a system is more plausible for a future iteration if the current one works well.

Step Three

Determine methods for distribution of the survey to TWC members who have purchased and played the game. These methods need to be visible enough to get enough people participating, otherwise the survey results will not be much help. They also need to shy away from being invasive, especially to users who do not own the game or care about it. Proposals will be assessed for this and the one that is the most intuitive which is also feasible and approved will be selected as the distribution method. Multiple distribution channels may be pursued.

Step Four

Allow the survey to run for a long enough time, and occasionally compile the results privately if possible within the framework of the implementation. If the information gleaned from the survey achieves what it set out to, then a means of providing the results to CA should be looked into. There will inevitably be shortcomings both in the usability and the utility which will need to be addressed and possibly remedied by future iterations in kind.

If the survey is determined to have worked, in so far as it provided useful information, or at the very least came close, then we can pursue other surveys with different intent. And if it worked really well then there's the possibility down the road that CA may wish to provide us with their own survey which we can distribute on their behalf using a tried system.

How Can I Help?

A number of users will ideally be needed to form the core of the initiative. This means doing the legwork as well as collectively having the final say on what is implemented. The two are inseparable, so anyone who wants that role needs to be willing to do any work required as well. I'm thinking 6-10 users will be the amount that should be accommodated at the most, but less than that will work well enough. I'm willing to select these users, but I'm more than willing to defer to popular sentiment on a more effective and non-bureaucratic means to determine said participants, assuming there's any interest at all in this project.

Everyone else can help by providing input and front line feedback. Proposing questions, categories, implementation methods, etc are all things that anyone should feel free to do in this thread. Actually implementing them is for the above parties to do. Since this section is intended for both Citizen and non-Citizen participation, I will post about it in the Curial Commentary thread and accommodate interested non-Citizens if this project merits a sub-forum.

Keep in mind that the avenues available to this initiative are contingent on the support, opposition, or indifference of administrators towards it. All ideas should be forwarded however, even if they are summarily denied.

Involved Parties

Citizens

Augustus Lucifer
Belisarius
La De Da Brigadier Graham
Raglan von Döbeln

Non-Citizens

DoomBunny666
KippyK
Mr MM

I will help out with this if there's interest, but I don't claim this as my own and will willingly pass it off to other eager folks if they present themselves. I'm also pretty busy by all accounts, so if this falls on me alone it simply isn't happening.

[Belisarius]

I too am very busy with many projects at the moment but will lend a hand. My suggestion AL is to advertise in the ETW and NTW section as there are many passionate people there.

[y2day]

Wish I had more time to help AL. A fellow at work was recently doing a project that included creating a survey. He quickly learned that it isn't easy. There is a reason that there are companies that do nothing but create surveys. Good luck my friend.

[Augustus Lucifer]

I too am very busy with many projects at the moment but will lend a hand. My suggestion AL is to advertise in the ETW and NTW section as there are many passionate people there.

I'll probably wait until there's enough interest to merit a forum before opening the floodgates, but yeah.

Wish I had more time to help AL. A fellow at work was recently doing a project that included creating a survey. He quickly learned that it isn't easy. There is a reason that there are companies that do nothing but create surveys. Good luck my friend.

Indeed. I'm sure it won't be easy, but we have a couple advantages over people trying to distribute surveys in person.

Ill help out old bean ,mark me down, I will be interested in reviewing the game especially the musical aspect, so yes, good initiative!

Okay.

[Raglan]

i am more than willing to help with this, i am generally quite good at taking an inital idea and expanding it into something decent (well if i can say that and not sound arogant ). I don't have empires (poor computer - but will buy it if i ever get a better one) however i am willing to put the leg work into digging through the complaints thread, asking questions, making the tea and biscets etc.

something that i immediately can see with regards to asking the right people, is two ways, people who post in the empires forum and secondly on the user profile you can mark which games are owned, possibly (you will know better than i) there is a way to bulk display which users have marked the empires one?

also i think if this is something that CA will take seriously, it needs to be done on some sort of basis, rather than once in a blue moon

[Augustus Lucifer]

i am more than willing to help with this, i am generally quite good at taking an inital idea and expanding it into something decent (well if i can say that and not sound arogant ). I don't have empires (poor computer - but will buy it if i ever get a better one) however i am willing to put the leg work into digging through the complaints thread, asking questions, making the tea and biscets etc.

Added your name to the OP. I'd like to get one more on board before requesting a forum for the organizing of this.

something that i immediately can see with regards to asking the right people, is two ways, people who post in the empires forum and secondly on the user profile you can mark which games are owned, possibly (you will know better than i) there is a way to bulk display which users have marked the empires one?

Yes, it's possible to find out who marked a game as owned. Currently 3758 users have marked Empire as owned, excepting those who've forgotten to utilize that profile field. On an unrelated note, only ~500 users appear to own every TW game, though that's not necessarily unexpected on the front or back end. Whether these profile fields can be attached to a hacked usergroup promotion I'm not sure, but I'll look into it.

also i think if this is something that CA will take seriously, it needs to be done on some sort of basis, rather than once in a blue moon

Assuming this gets off the ground at all that's something to think about.

[Augustus Lucifer]

A.L there are already calls in the Napoleon threads for a "sub forum" so I think it a good time now to ask for this if possible!

I wasn't aware there was a thread about this elsewhere. If there is, could you link me to it?

[Augustus Lucifer]

I take it you mean this? What I meant was I have seen members on various threads who are saying there should be a "subforum" sorry for any confusion!

Napoleon: Total War General Discussion

A subforum for what though!

When I said that I meant a subforum for this proposal. If someone seconded that somewhere I can include them in the OP. Not sure why it'd get discussed in the NTW GD though, so I think we're talking about two different things.

[Raglan]

well i'm disappointed by the fact its only me and graham who have volunteered for this, should we just do it or wait in vain for another volunteer?

[Augustus Lucifer]

Well the best place to ask for volunteers officially would be in the Napoleon thread, from what I havw seen there are some quite knowledgeable fellows who frequent that forum, sticky a thread in there outlining the requirements, I am sure we will get volunteers! many members probably don't know of the Q&A s existence never mind the forum Magnum!

If you'd like to gauge interest from the NTW folk, that would probably be advantageous. I never post around there, but you're enough of a known quantity in those parts that there would likely be attention paid. Feel free to post a thread there about it, I'd suggest the GD, and if it garners interest then I'll ask Nikos for a forum.

[Braindead Colonel]

I may be too late, but I am interested in helping out with this.

I play NTW regularly, plan to mod the game if possible, and have access to feedback from tens of veteran players from the old NTW2 community. I would be more than glad to compile what info I find myself or gather from other players (who, though they play regularly, are not very active on this forum).

[Augustus Lucifer]

I may be too late, but I am interested in helping out with this.

I play NTW regularly, plan to mod the game if possible, and have access to feedback from tens of veteran players from the old NTW2 community. I would be more than glad to compile what info I find myself or gather from other players (who, though they play regularly, are not very active on this forum).

Since you're a Citizen you should be able to post in there. It's not too late, still plenty of discussion to be had.