Any CoX, DDO, Lotro, or WoW players who wants to help with a study?

[taolurker]

Too bad you didn't see the edited post.

[Malcolmsprye]

[...] How did survey guy survive the attack dogs?  I'm flabbergasted.

I'm genuinely impressed.  I don't get the feeling that he was over-medicated or anything either.  An almost super-human ability to erect an "I can't hear you being a self-important jackass because it doesn't serve my purpose" filter.  Most impressive.

Survey 'girl' is actually pretty brave. When I changed my fields from math to instructional technology, nobody told me that I needed to deal with people so much in order to get anything done in this area (if you design a game, you need to get play testers. if you need to do a research, you need people to answer question. etc.) . I think it is just natural ability, although it is sometimes challenging in a second language.

[Malcolmsprye]

I was just pointing out (to the new guy) that my comment was meant to be sarcastic and that (around here) we don't require labels to recognize such things (most of the time).  Apparently my sarcastic  comment about adding a sarcasm symbol was missed sarcasm.  

On topic: I tried to take this survey and failed to complete it.  I would bet my life that it was written by undergrads early in their academic careers.  

Yeah, it is sometimes a challenge for me to catch English sarcasm, getting used to it though, thanks to many gamers.

There is no magic potion for creating surveys. It is one of the most challenging methods for research actually. You cannot clarify things for the survey taker because you are not there, you cannot make every questions required, because it is cruel... well. as always, you cannot satisfy everybody. But, i do appreciate your constructive criticism... 

[Typhon]

I was just pointing out (to the new guy) that my comment was meant to be sarcastic and that (around here) we don't require labels to recognize such things (most of the time).  Apparently my sarcastic  comment about adding a sarcasm symbol was missed sarcasm.  

On topic: I tried to take this survey and failed to complete it.  I would bet my life that it was written by undergrads early in their academic careers.  

Yeah, it is sometimes a challenge for me to catch English sarcasm, getting used to it though, thanks to many gamers.

There is no magic potion for creating surveys. It is one of the most challenging methods for research actually. You cannot clarify things for the survey taker because you are not there, you cannot make every questions required, because it is cruel... well. as always, you cannot satisfy everybody. But, i do appreciate your constructive criticism... 

See?  That's just fantastic.  While (imo) Nebu is generally one of the more thoughtful and helpful posters on this forum, this time, not so much.  Not only doesn't he complete the survey he follows it up by calling you a noob.... and yet you manage to come back with "I do appreciate your constructive criticism" - ideally motivating other posters to give you a break and take the survey.  Well done.

[Nebu]

See?  That's just fantastic.  While (imo) Nebu is generally one of the more thoughtful and helpful posters on this forum, this time, not so much.  Not only doesn't he complete the survey he follows it up by calling you a noob.... and yet you manage to come back with "I do appreciate your constructive criticism" - ideally motivating other posters to give you a break and take the survey.  Well done.

You're welcome to comment constructively on the survey.  Matter of fact, I encourage you to.  I don't have the time and should have just passed on this thread rather than commenting.  I do apologize.  

I will say that the survey needs a strong and experienced editing hand.  While I appreciate that you're interested in discovering many things, a good experiment (survey) will attempt to look at the issues individually.  The survey asks a lot of the subject in terms of time and repetition.   

[Malcolmsprye]

You're welcome to comment constructively on the survey.  Matter of fact, I encourage you to.  I don't have the time and should have just passed on this thread rather than commenting.  I do apologize.  

I will say that the survey needs a strong and experienced editing hand.  While I appreciate that you're interested in discovering many things, a good experiment (survey) will attempt to look at the issues individually.  The survey asks a lot of the subject in terms of time and repetition.  

I should have warned people on the actual posting that the survey is long. By the way, it is somewhat OK to not to complete the survey as it also says something about it to the researcher (although not very cheerful things). The reason it is that long is because I have to get my pilot study done and I don't have time to conduct separate surveys (on enjoyment, on motivation, and on engagement) which would be the best so that it would not take so much time of the participants.  After I analyze the surveys results, I need to design a lab study, find participants, which is more difficult than finding participant to surveys, and get it done, have results, write it down, and all has to be done by the end of May. Panicking even while i am tying down these.

[Typhon]

See?  That's just fantastic.  While (imo) Nebu is generally one of the more thoughtful and helpful posters on this forum, this time, not so much.  Not only doesn't he complete the survey he follows it up by calling you a noob.... and yet you manage to come back with "I do appreciate your constructive criticism" - ideally motivating other posters to give you a break and take the survey.  Well done.

You're welcome to comment constructively on the survey.  Matter of fact, I encourage you to.  I don't have the time and should have just passed on this thread rather than commenting.  I do apologize.  

I will say that the survey needs a strong and experienced editing hand.  While I appreciate that you're interested in discovering many things, a good experiment (survey) will attempt to look at the issues individually.  The survey asks a lot of the subject in terms of time and repetition.  

Re-reading my post I was way more of a dick then I intended to be, sorry Nebu (only meant to be a little bit of a dick, for teh funny).

I took the CoX and WoW surveys.  They were long, but I didn't see anything specifically wrong with them.  That said, I don't/haven't ever had to create a survey so I don't know what I'm talking about.  I will say that I didn't fill out any of the parts that required typing because that was more effort than I was willing to expend (there! feedback!  :)  ).

Edit: I thought of something else.  Both surveys that I took assumed that I was currently playing those games.  I'm not, but I played them in the past.  I assumed that this was ok, but maybe it's not the demographic that you're looking for (yes, bad sentence, sorry).  If it is ok, the questions could be modified to "while you were playing the most, did you...".  If it's not ok, add a question "are you currently playing X", and use this yes/no to quickly include/exclude survey takers that are/aren't in the target demographic.

[Malcolmsprye]

I took the CoX and WoW surveys.  They were long, but I didn't see anything specifically wrong with them.  That said, I don't/haven't ever had to create a survey so I don't know what I'm talking about.  I will say that I didn't fill out any of the parts that required typing because that was more effort than I was willing to expend (there! feedback!  :)  ).

Edit: I thought of something else.  Both surveys that I took assumed that I was currently playing those games.  I'm not, but I played them in the past.  I assumed that this was ok, but maybe it's not the demographic that you're looking for (yes, bad sentence, sorry).  If it is ok, the questions could be modified to "while you were playing the most, did you...".  If it's not ok, add a question "are you currently playing X", and use this yes/no to quickly include/exclude survey takers that are/aren't in the target demographic.

I know that filling out the open ended questions would require more time and effort, but there is usually a lot good and interesting thoughts on these writings as they don't restrict answers.

In terms of playing the games, I should have clarified it, you are right there. you don't have to be playing the games at the moment. So, i will try edit questions accordingly. Thank you! 

[Xanthippe]

See?  That's just fantastic.  While (imo) Nebu is generally one of the more thoughtful and helpful posters on this forum, this time, not so much.  Not only doesn't he complete the survey he follows it up by calling you a noob.... and yet you manage to come back with "I do appreciate your constructive criticism" - ideally motivating other posters to give you a break and take the survey.  Well done.

You're welcome to comment constructively on the survey.  Matter of fact, I encourage you to.  I don't have the time and should have just passed on this thread rather than commenting.  I do apologize.  

I will say that the survey needs a strong and experienced editing hand.  While I appreciate that you're interested in discovering many things, a good experiment (survey) will attempt to look at the issues individually.  The survey asks a lot of the subject in terms of time and repetition.  

Re-reading my post I was way more of a dick then I intended to be, sorry Nebu (only meant to be a little bit of a dick, for teh funny).

Nebu scores again!

[Malcolmsprye]

If it makes you feel better, I don't really mind Nebu or any other gamer scores. I am in the area of instructional technology (in a grad school in education) and trying to make a case that games matter for learning. There are specific features of games that makes them engaging and makes them appropriate tools for learning. Customization, the feature I chose, have potential to foster player creativity among other things (which I am trying to find out in this study).                                                                     In the original post, I asked for feedback and I am more than happy to hear feedback and do better next time with the survey. If I had given up just because someone humiliated me, I would be back home teaching math to high school students. I do want to contribute in the area of game research, and I cannot expect support from everybody anyways. Thank you!

[Nebu]

Games are appropriate tools for learning and this is pretty well established in the literature.   I assume that you're trying to ascertain which elements in MMOs contain those features.  I'm fairly certain that this is established knowledge as well.  Take a deep look through both the educational and sociological literature related to MMO's.  The volume of papers in that arena seems to be growing rapidly.

I stick by my earlier suggestion in that you should select fewer measurements to make at a time.  Gamers will be happy to take your survey providing that it is to the point.  Unfortunately, I don't believe surveys of this type are possible without many obvious biases.  What audience are you looking to hear most from?  What do you hope to learn from that audience?  Do you need random sampling or are you interested in the veteran, jaded gamers such as you're likely to find here?  Choose your measurement criteria.  Choose your population type (or random).  Edit.   

I believe you'd also benefit from knowing a bit about the culture at the forums where you've been posting your survey.  Perhaps you could start with a local survey at your university first.  Then edit, fine tune, and develop a hypothesis for outcomes at other popular gaming sites.  It would be interesting to see what types of outcomes you get from places with radically different visitor types. 

[sinij]

There are rules somewhere? Who knew!

All these years we lived in the dark. I guess its time to clean up and start new rule-following life.

[Malcolmsprye]

Games are appropriate tools for learning and this is pretty well established in the literature.   I assume that you're trying to ascertain which elements in MMOs contain those features.  I'm fairly certain that this is established knowledge as well.  Take a deep look through both the educational and sociological literature related to MMO's.  The volume of papers in that arena seems to be growing rapidly.

I stick by my earlier suggestion in that you should select fewer measurements to make at a time.  Gamers will be happy to take your survey providing that it is to the point.  Unfortunately, I don't believe surveys of this type are possible without many obvious biases.  What audience are you looking to hear most from?  What do you hope to learn from that audience?  Do you need random sampling or are you interested in the veteran, jaded gamers such as you're likely to find here?  Choose your measurement criteria.  Choose your population type (or random).  Edit.  

I believe you'd also benefit from knowing a bit about the culture at the forums where you've been posting your survey.  Perhaps you could start with a local survey at your university first.  Then edit, fine tune, and develop a hypothesis for outcomes at other popular gaming sites.  It would be interesting to see what types of outcomes you get from places with radically different visitor types.  

Thank you for you suggestions Nebu. I will definitely consider them for my future studies.

Every survey has bias. Any researcher using survey methodology assumes that the participant is telling the truth. I am looking for random sampling as I am interested in demographics information and player choices. Doing surveys on the internet allows for random sampling although it is still biased towards participants who visit the forums - and the researcher must point this out on her/his paper/presentation.

In terms of game features that make games engaging, there are several pieces written by game developers, gamers and some by researchers. There is very very few empirical research exist. I like empirical research where i can point out numbers. And there is no research that I have found on the area of customization of different features. If anybody stumbles upon an academic paper on games and customization in MMOs (not written by us :) ) send me the link. I will be very very very happy.

[Lantyssa]

Hah!  Squirrel Girl.

[sinij]

Hah!  Squirrel Girl.

Its a damn FURRY! BURN HER!

[Malcolmsprye]

Its a damn FURRY! BURN HER!

nooooo.... that is just cruel :(

[Malakili]

So, I don't know if you want our options outside of our survey answers, so I'll put this post in spoiler tags.

[Malcolmsprye]

So, I don't know if you want our options outside of our survey answers, so I'll put this post in spoiler tags.

Hi Malakili,

Yes, I would love to see how people are thinking about customization. The way I am looking at customization is very broad.  very simply, I can say how players have control over their game. So, I am looking into individual features - from control in the game that what your character can do (abilities and skills) ,how she/he can do(animation), crafting, how your game interface look like etc. There might be different reasons for all these customizations or not. Patterns emerge as I get answers for the survey. I may find things that I have not thought of like the "the collective" customization you suggested here. I may quote you somewhere if it is ok for you. Thank you!

[Malakili]

I may quote you somewhere if it is ok for you. Thank you!

Sure.

[Malcolmsprye]

Sure.

Thank you Malakili! I will let you know when I do.

i will be collecting data for 10 more days then I will close the survey and start analyzing data. I will be happy to share with you guys whatever I find out from surveys.

cheers!

[Rendakor]

On the WoW survey, when you ask how much time we spend on WoW forums, do you mean the official forums or any WoW related forums?

[Malcolmsprye]

On the WoW survey, when you ask how much time we spend on WoW forums, do you mean the official forums or any WoW related forums?

Any forum. It does not matter if it is official or not. Probably for me, it is like 15-20 hours for a few weeks :P

[Malcolmsprye]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for you help so far - both for filling out the survey and for giving me feedback on it. My research cannot happen without your help. I just wanted to announce that I will be collecting data until February 7th (including Feb 7th). I appreciate your help if you have 15 minutes or so to spare to fill out  the survey.  I define customization quite broadly, but I would like to hear how others think about customization in games....

Thanks again!

cheers,
Selen

[Malcolmsprye]

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you know that I can still need responses to be able to run analysis :(  Especially for DDO, CoX and Lotro. If you know people who play any of these games, please feel free to forward them the link to this thread. Thank you so much for your help!