Do Turbine ever ask what we want?

[Feldanor]

Hey guys,

Just a little question I have been wondering about. I have been playing for 5ish years now, and check the forums regularly. I have never seen any post from turbine, or poll, asking what we, the players, want from an expansion. Maybe they decide just from store sales and subscriptions. But I dno. Mostly wondering do Turbine ask players what they want to see from the game, or do they just guess? Judging from the opinion I have got from the RoR and to a lesser extent RoI expansions, and the opinions of all the ppl i play with, they do not.

Cheers for reading and if this has been asked elsewhere sorry but there's hundreds of posts and thousands of replies and i cba looking thru them all for a day or so.

[Minquinn]

Hey guys,

Just a little question I have been wondering about. I have been playing for 5ish years now, and check the forums regularly. I have never seen any post from turbine, or poll, asking what we, the players, want from an expansion. Maybe they decide just from store sales and subscriptions. But I dno. Mostly wondering do Turbine ask players what they want to see from the game, or do they just guess? Judging from the opinion I have got from the RoR and to a lesser extent RoI expansions, and the opinions of all the ppl i play with, they do not.

Cheers for reading and if this has been asked elsewhere sorry but there's hundreds of posts and thousands of replies and i cba looking thru them all for a day or so.

I've been around for 3 years and in that time I have never seen a poll. It's probably the easiest way to find out what players overall want. I played Battlefield 3 for about 2 years and they polled the community before every xpac. Not that it changed anything. Dice did however listen to players on the forums and made changes to the game due to player feedback.
Turbine in the Moria/MW days, imo were more responsive to suggestions in the forums.

Fast forward to today. I do not think Turbine is totally focused on this game as much as they were in say the years 2007-2010. I think more or less that WB and Turbine are the ones deciding what they think the players should get.

When you see much more stuff designed for the store lately (none of that comes out buggy) and less designed for actual gameplay you have to wonder. Why is it that there were numerous bugs on Wildemore release but when they added things like hobbit presents and designed mithril coins none of those things had problems.

[djheydt]

I've never seen a poll on the forums. *Very* *occasionally* they've sent out a short questionnaire to our email addresses, asking one or two questions. Not recently, though.

[Ferthcott]

The last out-of-the-blue "tell us what you think" I recall was about Hobby Horse, somewhere in BR section. Not anywhere close to a poll though. While I have never seen (or heard about directly) any in-game or in-mail poll, it's safe to assume they are - or at least were - conducted to some extent. But, as a certain litmus test, there's a question I hope someone can answer: is Exit Poll still embarrassingly obsolete?

[Feldanor]

so a correct summary so far from the replies suggest that turbine work, maybe not against us as players, but defiantly not with us when it comes to game content. Massive shame. It wouldnt take long to make a poll or a forum post asking what ppl want from the game. From what i can tell on Gilrain, there arent many new players joining and more and more older players leaving due to disappointment with content. I dno if thats the situation on other servers but it would still be nice to give us the chance to say what we want from the game.

[Orauk]

There are suggestion threads on the forum, and I have seen patches to fix issues that people have been complaining about (forced emotes while playing music for an example). I have not seen polls etc, which might be a more accurate reading of how many people feel strongly over a certain issue. As for Minquinn's conspiracy theory, there was a week or two this year that the store was not working at all. Unfortunately, there is a lot of buggy content but I think he might be a little quick subscribing thought/motives to these issues.

[whheydt]

The last out-of-the-blue "tell us what you think" I recall was about Hobby Horse, somewhere in BR section. Not anywhere close to a poll though. While I have never seen (or heard about directly) any in-game or in-mail poll, it's safe to assume they are - or at least were - conducted to some extent. But, as a certain litmus test, there's a question I hope someone can answer: is Exit Poll still embarrassingly obsolete?

That was last Fall. During closed betas there are usually a bunch of threads started by Turbine asking for comment on various aspects of the expansion.

While not particularly recent, there have been e-mailed polls sent out.

So far as I can tell, a lot of what Turbine does to gauge what players want is to mine server data to find out what players are *actually* doing, rather that what they'll *claim* to be doing on surveys. After all, if you read the Forums, you'll get a seriously skewed view of what activities are priorities with players.

[Belnavar]

Several points:

1. Turbine does periodically send out surveys, sometimes to everyone, sometimes to a select number of people. There was, for example, a housing survey a few months back, if I remember correctly.

2. A forum poll would not be "the easiest way to find out what players overall want," as we need all players to actively use the forums for this to be the case. The forum population is far smaller than the in-game population, and the volume of truly active forum users is even smaller again.

3. There is a suggestions forum where players make it known what they want quite regularly. Turbine also has a variety of other feedback tools, including the Palantir preview programme.

4. If any of you really think that Turbine randomly picks a list of things it wants to do, with no consideration for player wishes, requests, etc., then you must not have been playing the game over the last few years. We have consistently received features that players requested. In fact, mounted combat is one of them. Turbine has promised a major housing revamp this year, which players have asked for repeatedly. It can take a long time for some features to appear, but no company as successful as Turbine gets by without listening to the customers.

5. I think it is unwise to assume that just because you, your friends, and certain regular posters on the forum did not like certain content that the feeling is universal. The most vocal people tend to be the ones complaining. If I am happy with something, there is generally less reason for me to shout from the rooftops.

6. Minquinn, are you seriously wondering why a major new piece of landscape, with numerous quests, deeds, warbands, phasing, and all sorts of other stuff, has more bugs than an item on sale in the Store or a very small feature like the Hobbit Presents? The larger and more complex something is, the more chance there is for things to go wrong. This is just common sense and says nothing about Turbine's priorities. You might also consider the volume of time and work that went into Wildermore compared to the Store item/s and Hobbit Presents. I think I know which took substantially more investment.

-Bel

[Ferthcott]

It wouldnt take long to make a poll or a forum post asking what ppl want from the game.

In before forums-are-not-representing-majority.

It wouldn't be a bad thing to create a poll system via modified LOTRO mail. That way the usual excuse about "forum =/= majority" would be useless and Turbine wouldn't be reduced to some random polls that, like the Exit one, smell outsourced. As for players inactive long enough to miss a poll that stays on for eg. a month - tough luck, their voice should not carry the same weight. Ironically, focusing on "short-term customers" supports that as well.

They don't need polls about what players *do* anyway, a lot of data already available exclusively to Turbine. Think about *why* - and how much space left for misinterpretation there is.

During closed betas there are usually a bunch of threads started by Turbine asking for comment on various aspects of the expansion.

I think Hobby Horse was not a part of closed Beta - that's why it stood out for me in comparison. Closed Beta feedback requests, as the name suggests, are not exactly directed to a general population. Then there's a question about who gets in Beta, what part actively participates, what part of that part answers feedback, what part of that part offers information useful for Turbine. After cutting so many people out, whatever group is left has even less to do with "general population" than eg. near-exclusive Music or PvMP forum dwellers.

[SavinDwarf]

Polls are not a great way of getting accurate information from a player community because a larger percentage of the happy people won't even bother to answer a serious poll because it takes time.

What most gaming companies do is analyze the data from actual player actions in the game etc. There are even third party companies that sell software specifically to help game companies analyze behavior patterns.

I suspect that Turbine is being driven by player usage patterns. They can easily get stats of players and how much time they spent in the landscape, doing quests (derived), killing mobs, doing instances etc.

they are investing where the majority of the people spend their time. For example, if only a small percentage of the players use the chat channel more than 5 times a day then don't expect any enhances to that sub systems.

If 20% of the people do 1 player and 3 player instances but only 0.5% do 12 player instances -- guess what.

The area where polls might help is in trying to work out the "why" of the behavior. Turbine don't seem to do that -- or perhaps the Player Council is meant to help?

people who threaten to leave or scream at LOTRO because they want more of something just don't get it. If they want more of something they need to find a way to encourage of the players to do it first.

[Ferthcott]

Polls are not a great way of getting accurate information from a player community because a larger percentage of the happy people won't even bother to answer a serious poll because it takes time.

10G, or better yet - 10TP, attached to a survey using in-game mail, detachable after completion?

[SavinDwarf]

10G, or better yet - 10TP, attached to a survey using in-game mail, detachable after completion?

that is a great idea!!

The survey would need to be professionally designed to avoid bias, would have to be one per account somehow, and would need to be short enough that people will answer it correctly and focused enough to actually get good data back.

An example of an area to focus on might be instances with a survey designed to find out what people like and dislike about them including why they don't use them at all.

Your idea is a great one!! Good out of the box thinking. I made the mistake in my reply of doing what I accuse others of -- saying why it won't work rather than trying to think about how to make it work. Thanks for getting me back on track!!

Savin

[Fortinobrand]

Polls should be linked through the launcher, so all active players see them and have to intentionally chose to not be included. And yes, give 10 TP to encourage participation. Keep them short and to the point.

However, let's not forget history. People expressed a desire to have a mannequin in their houses to preview outfits or display trophy armour. Turbine proudly announced that they had heard the player wishes and were granting them...and gave us glittering sales dummies in every town. They intentionally made them over-the-top obnoxious so when players predictably raged about it they could play the good guy and "compromise" by toning them down a bit. It was a calculated move to push in-game store advertising while letting players feel they had taken a stand to maintain the integrity of the game world.

The point? Polls are useless if the results are going to be twisted to suit a decision that's already been made.

[Namesse]

Data mining our activities only goes so far. Turbine called Hytbold a great success, but it was pretty much the only way to acquire on-level armour, and while an interesting concept, many don't like the 45 day grind to complete it.

We aren't given unlimited choices, and sometimes what we prefer to do is limited by the availability of other people. If you want to run an instance but kinmates and friends aren't available and you don't want to pug, then you find something else to do.

Who really, really wants to run daily quests to get the entire Survivors rep? Only those that are completionists and those that want the pocket item, yet I'm sure Turbine is looking at the data and thinking that we love 30+ day rep grinds and will give us more.

[Fortinobrand]

Data mining our activities only goes so far. Turbine called Hytbold a great success, but it was pretty much the only way to acquire on-level armour, and while an interesting concept, many don't like the 45 day grind to complete it.

We aren't given unlimited choices, and sometimes what we prefer to do is limited by the availability of other people. If you want to run an instance but kinmates and friends aren't available and you don't want to pug, then you find something else to do.

Who really, really wants to run daily quests to get the entire Survivors rep? Only those that are completionists and those that want the pocket item, yet I'm sure Turbine is looking at the data and thinking that we love 30+ day rep grinds and will give us more.

Spot on. I hated Hytbold. I did not enjoy most of the quests after the 3rd time, much less further into the grind. I did it because I wanted to keep my alts current, and because 1 of my characters is a completionist character who has completed everything up to that point. If Turbine looked at my play during that time, they could declare that obviously I want that kind of content because that's what I was doing. That said, Of 4 85s, only 2 completed it.

But what happened next? Only 1 of those two alts ran Wildermore. And after two days of Survivors of Wildermore, I walked away. I'm no longer willing to reinforce Turbine's grind just because it's all they offer. I hope enough others are doing the same so that in the future we might get back to fun.

[BotLike]

The fact that Turbine called Hytbold a great success or w/e shows that they have no idea and are out of touch with their playerbase.
Sure , monitoring in-game activities is nice , but without any form of active communication you have no clue what the playerbase actually enjoys.
It can be a survey , a poll , it doesnt really matter , they just need to communicate.

[Minquinn]

Several points:

1. Turbine does periodically send out surveys, sometimes to everyone, sometimes to a select number of people. There was, for example, a housing survey a few months back, if I remember correctly.

2. A forum poll would not be "the easiest way to find out what players overall want," as we need all players to actively use the forums for this to be the case. The forum population is far smaller than the in-game population, and the volume of truly active forum users is even smaller again.

3. There is a suggestions forum where players make it known what they want quite regularly. Turbine also has a variety of other feedback tools, including the Palantir preview programme.

4. If any of you really think that Turbine randomly picks a list of things it wants to do, with no consideration for player wishes, requests, etc., then you must not have been playing the game over the last few years. We have consistently received features that players requested. In fact, mounted combat is one of them. Turbine has promised a major housing revamp this year, which players have asked for repeatedly. It can take a long time for some features to appear, but no company as successful as Turbine gets by without listening to the customers.

5. I think it is unwise to assume that just because you, your friends, and certain regular posters on the forum did not like certain content that the feeling is universal. The most vocal people tend to be the ones complaining. If I am happy with something, there is generally less reason for me to shout from the rooftops.

6. Minquinn, are you seriously wondering why a major new piece of landscape, with numerous quests, deeds, warbands, phasing, and all sorts of other stuff, has more bugs than an item on sale in the Store or a very small feature like the Hobbit Presents? The larger and more complex something is, the more chance there is for things to go wrong. This is just common sense and says nothing about Turbine's priorities. You might also consider the volume of time and work that went into Wildermore compared to the Store item/s and Hobbit Presents. I think I know which took substantially more investment.

-Bel

No I wonder why those things are taking longer to fix then they normally would have. Compared to what we received for Wildemore and what we got for Great River am I wrong to assume that less time and or resources were devoted to the newer update? The Great River content had better:
Story
Questing (and more of them)
And less bugs if I remember correctly
Group content

The RNG loot system should also be looked into as that seems like lazy development to me.
Stop defending the developer. They must be called up when things are not to par.

[Sapience]

Many, many, many times. Not polls, as others have noted they're not really valuable in terms of actual feedback.

For those who recall the Tell the Community Team threads, three questions, every week, for a couple of years. Unfortunately those became a case of the same 75-100 people answering every week and rarely did we see any new answers from new people. We actually got to the point where we could predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the general sentiment, typical response, and average number of responses to any question we asked.

We even, in an effort to change things up, would occasionally ask players to tell us what questions they wished we'd ask them, and rarely would they come up with any questions we hadn't already asked.

We take in a lot of feedback. The forums, twitter, facebook, certain third party sites, comments on game sites, guild sites, surveys, and the data pulled from the servers. So we have a pretty clear picture of what players are saying and what they like/dislike.

[ColorSpecs]

Many, many, many times. Not polls, as others have noted they're not really valuable in terms of actual feedback.

For those who recall the Tell the Community Team threads, three questions, every week, for a couple of years. Unfortunately those became a case of the same 75-100 people answering every week and rarely did we see any new answers from new people. We actually got to the point where we could predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the general sentiment, typical response, and average number of responses to any question we asked.

We even, in an effort to change things up, would occasionally ask players to tell us what questions they wished we'd ask them, and rarely would they come up with any questions we hadn't already asked.

We take in a lot of feedback. The forums, twitter, facebook, certain third party sites, comments on game sites, guild sites, surveys, and the data pulled from the servers. So we have a pretty clear picture of what players are saying and what they like/dislike.

If this is true, then why are so many major raiding kins across so many servers either collapsing, hibernating or maintaining skeleton crews? All post-RoR. Are there others? You've recently said pvp populations have remained static. Have raiding pops as well?

[Sapience]

If this is true, then why are so many major raiding kins across so many servers either collapsing, hibernating or maintaining skeleton crews? All post-RoR. Are there others? You've recently said pvp populations have remained static. Have raiding pops as well?

In terms of percentage of player base? Yes. All populations fluctuate over time, but PvMP and Raiders have held roughly the same position in terms of percentage of playerbase for a very long time. It's roughly the same base percentage as it always has been. It's on par (roughly) with PvMP in terms of overall percentage.

[ColorSpecs]

In terms of percentage of player base? Yes.

I don't question this when it comes to pvmp. Raiders though I find this more difficult to agree with. To me a raider is someone who plays this game to endgame (that's endgame as a verb). They roll alts to support mains to play raids. They join kinships that raid. They run landscape updates to grind rep to gain gear to support raids. Etc. They carve out a substantial portion of their budgeted entertainment hours to participate in these activities.

If you're telling me that this type of player is playing this game as much as they ever were, in relation to the general population then I have to ask a few questions.

1) Where are they? Because I don't see many of them anymore. Are there more raid centric servers? Or are you just talking about the casual player that will spam run Durchest T1 for an hour and group him in with the player that will conquer Orthanc T2C on level... Cause those are way different players

2) If the population level has remained stable then why is there less and less content to support that player base? It makes sense that there's less content if there were less players. But same amount of players and less content doesn't compute.

[Psarra]

I don't question this when it comes to pvmp. Raiders though I find this more difficult to agree with. To me a raider is someone who plays this game to endgame (that's endgame as a verb). They roll alts to support mains to play raids. They join kinships that raid. They run landscape updates to grind rep to gain gear to support raids. Etc. They carve out a substantial portion of their budgeted entertainment hours to participate in these activities.

If you're telling me that this type of player is playing this game as much as they ever were, in relation to the general population then I have to ask a few questions.

1) Where are they? Because I don't see many of them anymore. Are there more raid centric servers? Or are you just talking about the casual player that will spam run Durchest T1 for an hour and group him in with the player that will conquer Orthanc T2C on level... Cause those are way different players

2) If the population level has remained stable then why is there less and less content to support that player base? It makes sense that there's less content if there were less players. But same amount of players and less content doesn't compute.

Sapience never said the population level has remained stable. He stated the percentages have.

I'll make up some numbers to illustrate my point.

Let's say there are 750,000 subscribers. 7500 of those are considered raiders (i.e. 1%).

Let's then say that the number of subscribers has fallen to 50,000. 500 of those are considered raiders.

It's the same 1%, but your chances of interacting with them has decreased by about 93%.

Sapience is just spinning it as usual.

[ColorSpecs]

I'll make up some numbers to illustrate my point.

Lets just see what Sapience says.

[Ragekiss]

1. What player's want:
Doesn't matter - see #2 below.
My guess: less lag, less bugs, better performance, full expansions with great content and full number of raids and instances.

2. What Turbine wants:
- Something easy to make - that they don't have to spend a lot of time or money on (reusing old assets/images, basic quests, nothing too big). And ... something flashy like Mounted Combat to make up for a small expansion and to sell a lot of pre-orders.
- A big success with their other game - Infinite crisis.
- People in Lotro to keep giving them money - even if they don't put that money into the game

Lastly, Turbine is supposedly getting input from players through the player council. So in a way, they are hearing what players want.

[Psarra]

Lets just see what Sapience says.

LOL, yeah. Can't wait. :-)


And let me be clear. I'm not an fan boy and I'm certainly not making excuses for Turbine. I'm just illustrating that anyone can spin anything into a positive, especially when dodging certain questions.


I agree with you. I have seen compelling evidence on Gladden that raiders are leaving in droves... me included. And the reasons behind the exodus are clear and well documented by the many dedicated raiders expressing their opinion on these forums.