Survey results are in!

[theolaf 24]

Also, having opened the poll back up, I have had nearly 200 more respondents so far, (25% more) and not ONE of the results have tipped either way even a full % point yet. We will see what it looks like at the end, but this honestly looks like the real results.

[herbster 34]

Is there a reason why software houses or even internal IT departments have project managers and/or producers to control the various aspects of game/software development/update control rather than developers? Yes, it's because the majority of developers are pretty crap at the mundane things like QA, managing time, understanding the end user requirement and/or communicating with the end user. Hence the requirement for project managers and business analysts etc.

But hey, sorry if a lot of you pink and fluffy people take offence to what is the case in reality.

The solution...find some people to act as the interface between the development team and the community to determine what are the key areas that players deem as needing improvement.

EDIT: And that's not having a go at the development team at all, it's purely a case of utilising the best resources for the job in hand.

Edited February 27, 2013 by herbster

[theolaf 24]

Is there a reason why software houses or even internal IT departments have project managers and/or producers to control the various aspects of game/software development/update control rather than developers? Yes, it's because the majority of developers are pretty crap at the mundane things like QA, managing time, understanding the end user requirement and/or communicating with the end user. Hence the requirement for project managers and business analysts etc.

But hey, sorry if a lot of you pink and fluffy people take offence to what is the case in reality.

The solution...find some people to act as the interface between the development team and the community to determine what are the key areas that players deem as needing improvement.

This man... genius. There is a missing PR link somewhere in the system, and as I said- the nod to the people was a great idea, just not executed well according to the majority. There was a step missed in the development process where a proposed idea was never proposed.

[herbster 34]

Another thing I find strange is that any budding developer, project manager, tester or any other key role in the development cycle of a game should be biting the hand off the person who offered them a role in the development of this mod.

***********It has had 1.5m players**********

What a great asset to a CV!!!

[sirinon 80]

I would rather see the results in a screentshot / URL from the survey site with results, surely you can make them public ?

Just adds more credibility.

[Max Planck 7174]

Is there a reason why software houses or even internal IT departments have project managers and/or producers to control the various aspects of game/software development/update control rather than developers? Yes, it's because the majority of developers are pretty crap at the mundane things like QA, managing time, understanding the end user requirement and/or communicating with the end user. Hence the requirement for project managers and business analysts etc.

But hey, sorry if a lot of you pink and fluffy people take offence to what is the case in reality.

The solution...find some people to act as the interface between the development team and the community to determine what are the key areas that players deem as needing improvement.

EDIT: And that's not having a go at the development team at all, it's purely a case of utilising the best resources for the job in hand.

Nah, let's avoid the impersonal talking PR suits and continue with what we started with: A man and his plan.

This whole foofaraw might be annoying, but I like the close contact we have with the devs, the discussions, the rage, the warts and all.

People might be screaming at each other at the moment, but it will all be lost in time (like tears in the rain). Developement will go on, things will get polished, the standalone will come out.

Rejoice!

Professional PR people will turn this thing into an EA nightmare in 0.002 seconds, mark my loud and angry words.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Max Planck

[herbster 34]

Sounds a bit utopian to me tbh, are you a paper communist?

[theolaf 24]

Nah, let's avoid the impersonal talking PR suits and continue with what we started with: A man and his plan.

This whole foofaraw might be annoying, but I like the close contact we have with the devs, the discussions, the rage, the warts and all.

People might be screaming at each other at the moment, but it will all be lost in time (like tears in the rain). Developement will go on, things will get polished, the standalone will come out.

Rejoice!

Professional PR people will turn this thing into an EA nightmare in 0.002 seconds, mark my loud and angry words.

One of the issues is the "man with the plan" would reach out to all the community sites. Reddit, dayzmod, twitter, facebook, even 4chan. The current devs don't even try to do that. Dean arguably posts on reddit more than here.

[Max Planck 7174]

Sounds a bit utopian to me tbh, are you a paper communist?

Paper communist?

What the fuck kind of insult is that?? I type out a reply to you, in a friendly and calm manner, and that is the kind of shit you respond with?

It is not utopian, it is the current state of affairs, by the way.

One of the issues is the "man with the plan" would reach out to all the community sites. Reddit, dayzmod, twitter, facebook, even 4chan. The current devs don't even try to do that. Dean arguably posts on reddit more than here.

He does favour reddit, yes. Which is strange, since this is supposed to be the official forum.

Would it not be natural to have the news and the core discussions here?

Edited February 27, 2013 by Max Planck

[theolaf 24]

I would rather see the results in a screentshot / URL from the survey site with results, surely you can make them public ?

Just adds more credibility.

I have a pdf that I could share, but theres no way for me to post it here... let me see if I can upload it somewhere.

[solus84 19]

What a ridiculous thing to fuss over.. The brand name doesn't show in the inventory all I see is beans and trail mix ect. Immersion? Shit I've been reloading an hatchet and crowbar for months until this latest patch.... After going to Reddit and reading such petty complaints it just cements my thought towards redditors.

** I know I used this recently whatever **

Edited February 27, 2013 by Solus

[herbster 34]

Paper communist?

What the fuck kind of insult is that?? I type out a reply to you, in a friendly and calm manner, and that is the kind of shit you respond with?

It is not utopian, it is the current state of affairs, by the way.

By paper communist I mean, utopian - i.e. great in theory but not in practise. An yes it IS utopian. I don't disagree with the sentiment, purely the reality behind what you said.

And yes, it might be the current state of affairs as far as the mod is concerned (and unsurprisingly issues been brought up) , but if you think the SA development is running along those lines, you're way off the mark.

Edited February 27, 2013 by herbster

[Max Planck 7174]

... but if you think the SA development is running along those lines, you're way off the mark.

Am I? Does this http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/125037-dayz-devblog-22nd-february-2013/ look like professional PR to you?

To me it looks like a bunch of guys being happy and excited about what they are doing, and that's the way I like it.

Screw your pro PR department.

[herbster 34]

Am I? Does this http://dayzmod.com/f...-february-2013/ look like professional PR to you?

To me it looks like a bunch of guys being happy and excited about what they are doing, and that's the way I like it.

Screw your pro PR department.

Who was the one mentioning PR? You!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but while Rocket might be the main man behind the DayZ standalone, it's a BI product. If you think BI are investing time, money and resources into a one man band you're sadly deluded.

Funnily enough, what do you think is more professional PR, a bunch of guys being happy and excited about what they're doing or ones getting frustrated with time/budget contraints and all the other stressful parts of development?

Maybe you're more hooked by the "non-existant" PR than you like to believe.

EDIT: Just what to emphasise that by "one man band" I mean a single person with no remit.

Edited February 27, 2013 by herbster

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Love this song.

[Bisonman80 12]

Well and also the fact that it's biased because only people who feel strongly about it will vote in large numbers and most voters are from Reddit, not the actual DayZ community (where the names derive from).

A more proper approach would be to PM around 50 random, but active, people. Maybe people who have posted recently (not on the can thread). Repeat that 3 times and provide evidence you did it, then Rocket should take it seriously.

I've been lurking for months now, and there's almost always somebody claiming that reddit's /r/dayz community is not the "actual" dayz communty. What is up with this dayz community elitism? Why is it always an "us versus them" issue? Why is it that one community, reddit or dayzmod or another, always seems to bash the other? People here constantly bash reddit for their hivemind effect (which was largely responsible for many mis-understandings of yesterday) and then hypocritically act out of a very similar groupthink.

Don't get me wrong, I see the same bullshit on /r/dayz, just from the other perspective.

How about instead of pretending that one community is inherently superior to another, we embrace the amazing fact that this game is so popular that it has multiple large communities based around it that all can contribute to lively discussions on content, planned-features, and general game issues?

I mean, isn't this what Rocket was getting at in his response to this whole canned food issue? How about instead of this 'loyalty' for one community and animosity towards the 'others', we all realize that we're all fans of the same mod?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Bisonman80

[lille_bingo-mannen 10]

I would rather see the results in a screentshot / URL from the survey site with results, surely you can make them public ?

Just adds more credibility.

Would there be a reason to be suspicious, dear?

[theolaf 24]

Would there be a reason to be suspicious, dear?

Some people are never happy. It happens, I dont take offense, some people are naturally un trusting.

[liquidmind 320]

I've been lurking for months now, and there's almost always somebody claiming that reddit's /r/dayz community is not the "actual" dayz communty. What is up with this dayz community elitism? Why is it always an "us versus them" issue? Why is it that one community, reddit or dayzmod or another, always seems to bash the other? People here constantly bash reddit for their hivemind effect (which was largely responsible for many mis-understandings of yesterday) and then hypocritically act out of a very similar groupthink.

Don't get me wrong, I see the same bullshit on /r/dayz, just from the other perspective.

...

I feel the same way.

The poll from yesterday showed, that the likes and dislikes where distributed evenly over both parts of the community. Still there are some people who insist, that it was a conflict, where the forum, all togehter, wanted the cans, while reddit, all together, bashed that down.

I do agree that this negative trend exists in both parts, but the constant "the others should shut up and go away"-elitism is stronger in the forum, than it is on reddit, in my opinion. I believe that to be the case, because the forum-community is smaller and closer than the reddit-community is, and the feeling of "us" is a lot stronger here.

But no matter who has that elitism. It is wrong. Everyone has a right to participate in the process, if he wants to. But no one has the right to exclude a whole group, just because he doesn't like the the opinion, he thinks they have.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but while Rocket might be the main man behind the DayZ standalone, it's a BI product. If you think BI are investing time, money and resources into a one man band you're sadly deluded.

Actually, Rocket's mod brought BI so many extra sales for Arma II that "investing time and money" is a bit of an overstatement. DayZ, as he developed it, was ment as a tech-demo (as he said in many interviews) to show the possibilities of arma engine for consistent, multiplayer sandbox games. It was a proof of concept, from a Developer.

As well as a lot of know-how and code from arma III development was put into dayZ. A lot of the data and experience collected with dayZ flows back into Arma III. Dean's military and software background, make him the perfect candidate to help with motion-capturing (which he does since he started working for BI). His Goal with dayz was very well defined, so he doesn't have completely free hand on this, as the general goal is already defined.

Considering how Rocket got his job at BI, what freedom he claims to have and how BI uses his knowledge in other processes makes your view of the situation look "sadly deluded", not the believe that a company might actually have faith in a person.

Edited February 28, 2013 by liquidmind

[theolaf 24]

Liquid, I think he meant the BI doesnt give him 100% freedom with everything. DayZ is a BI copyright, and a BI product now. Although Dean may be the "man in charge", he is still only the lead developer (And a bit of a PR faceman). He still answers to someone else who ultimately gives him direction. The game is being developed on BI money now, so naturally they will keep a strong hold on the development process. We as players and potential customers will benefit from real QA, whereas that wouldnt be practical otherwise. Essentially it is a symbiotic relationship where they (DayZ and BI) benefit off eachother- However I cant believe BI needs DayZ more than the converse.

[Heiduk 265]

Typically, surveys allow for a 3% margin of error, to assuming 24 trolls only posted negative things- that will not skew the results any significant amount.

Citation? I can assure you scientific polls go to quite a lot of trouble attempting to assess their actual margin of error. They don't just assume some arbitrary value.

"Easter eggs break my immersion", whined the randoms.

A "random selection" poll has always been proven statistically to have a larger margin of error both due to the fact of a significantly smaller sample of people, and a larger percentage of people who don't really take the survey seriously.

Again, citation needed. I'm pretty sure that almost all modern polling is based on the premise that correctly selecting your sample and designing your questions is more important than a large sample size. For example, most political polls only have a sample size of ~1000 people, but because they tend to be designed pretty well they generally get the answer right. This is also the reason most internet polls are, if not useless, not terribly reliable.

[theolaf 24]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

Read it up. Essentially says the larger the sample, the lower the margin of error. This was a TRUE randon polling of viable particupants (active people on the forums) and a snall SELECTION of people has a greatly increased chance of bias- either accidental or intentional. My 800 participants would put me at an *average 3.5% margin of error. whereas your proposed 150 would be closer to 7 or 8%.

Scientific polls do not go through a lot of trouble figuring out margin of error. It is a simole mathmatical equasion based on level of confidence, and sample size. Looking at the results I can ascertain a 95% confidence level (whick literally almost all surveys and polls are) leaving me at roughly a 3.5% margin of error. As we speak now none of the stats are even a whole percent different- over 200 participants later... well within the 3% i roughly estimated at the start. Now since I had to prove myself to you, prove yourself to everyone else by showing what led you to "assure" me that poll margin or error calculation is a lengthy process, and provide source that proves my sampling is bad.

Edited February 28, 2013 by theolaf

[herbster 34]

Liquid, I think he meant the BI doesnt give him 100% freedom with everything. DayZ is a BI copyright, and a BI product now. Although Dean may be the "man in charge", he is still only the lead developer (And a bit of a PR faceman). He still answers to someone else who ultimately gives him direction. The game is being developed on BI money now, so naturally they will keep a strong hold on the development process. We as players and potential customers will benefit from real QA, whereas that wouldnt be practical otherwise. Essentially it is a symbiotic relationship where they (DayZ and BI) benefit off eachother- However I cant believe BI needs DayZ more than the converse.

Thanks for understanding what I meant! It's a shame he just quoted that and not the edit at the end though......

[Ozelot (DayZ) 394]

No disrespect to your survey but your questions have not been though through properly. There a lots of flaws:

1- Some questions have personal views imposed on (leading questions)

2- Sampling strategy not clear (who were invited to this survey)

3- Scale is very biased (more negative options than positive)

I'm no PHD student but I have done lots of reseach questions for my Masters.

so let's see your credentials, college boy

[Heiduk 265]

This was a TRUE randon polling of viable particupants (active people on the forums)

I think this is where the misunderstanding is occurring. You don't have responses from a random sample of the relevant population (active people on the forums). You have responses from people on the forums who: 1.) read & write english, 2. saw the poll and 3.) cared enough to answer. Sure margin of error is trivial to calculate, but that number is meaningless if the assumptions it requires are not met.

Seeing as we are linking to Wikipedia, you may want to checkout the sampling bias page. Probably the biggest problem with these types of surveys is self-selection bias. One might also consider whether a more relevant population would be "people who play DayZ", in which case you also have an exclusion bias because you are only soliciting answers on the most popular forums. Combine that with potential issues in the way the questions were worded and I'm sorry but there is no way your data supports your claim of a 3.5% margin of error at a 95% confidence level.

Please understand, I'm not saying your poll is worthless or that getting it right is easy. I also appreciate the effort you went to, certainly more than I did. I would just encourage you to think a little more critically about your data and what you can reasonably infer from it.

One last link to one of the better general audience statistics books out there:

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't