Hi Bismark players,
I must admit I'm getting a little emabarrassed about this, you may well have seen this message before (I've posted on the Main FFXI forum, and on server threads over the last week, but not on Bismark forum before!), and if so please accept my appologies!
For those of you who havent seen this before, I'm producing a post-grad study on FFXI (looking at differences in play-behaviour, weapon prefs, and character creation, between players from different countries / cultural backgrounds) - and am inviting players to fill out a short online survey in order to get data (which will remain utterly confidential).
I assure that this isn't one of the bogus websites that Square-Enix has been warning about, I don't want to know anything about your pol account, and over 900 other players have filled out the survey since last week (thanks everyone who has)!
I'm also listening to player response to the survey: I changed the email address setting, It is now optional (although it helps if you fill it out).
This data will be analysed and published in mid 2006 (and passed onto Square-Enix) To do this I'm asking players to fill out an online survey about how they play FFXI (it should take about 10mins to fill out). There are details about the study on the site, and there should be an article in Famitsu at some point soon (do a search for videogamestudies in google - I dare you!)
Details (including a bad photo of me) can be found at:
www.videogamestudies.com
The survey can be found at:
www.videogamestudies.com/ukform.htm
and the japanese version at:
www.videogamestudies.com/jpform.htm
The more data that I recieve, the better the analysis can be - I'm aiming at hitting 10k+ (gulp!) over the course of 8-10 months of the data-gathering phase - in 1 week I got 900.
I'd really be grateful if Bismark players would fill out the survey, I'm also looking for anyone who could help with survey translation into other languages. There was some posting about this a couple of months ago on the Titan forums, since then I've finished the Japanese translation and the study is officially on.
If anyone is interested, or has a question for me drop me a line at:
alan.meades@gmail.com (or use the link on the site to my work address).
Cheers
Alan
Coeurdegris
31THF 16RNG 10WAR
Titan
·Theme
- Forums
- FFXI Servers
- Bismarck
- videogamestudies and FFXI
videogamestudies and FFXIFollow
I looked over your survey and homepage, and I have a few questions...
First of all, why isn't the surveys at a https:// secure site? The way that the survey is set up right now, I don't know if your data really IS secure as you say. While it may not be of so much importance to a lot of people, some of the FFXI playing population might get a bit uneasy about the potential of their person data/playing preferences being maybe hacked by third=-party individuals. Without a secure web address, you are introducing a "scare variable" into the survey, where certain elements of the population might not respond to you survey because of no garantee that the results are secure, and that will throw off your results and introduce a bias into it.
Second:
This question is biased in wording. The way that it is written suggests to the person taking the survey to pick the noble option, and always be willing to die for the party. Everyone likes to be a hero and die for the better good of the party, and thus your results will be skewed here. A far better question would have been:
You remove the bias in wording, and thus get much more reliable results.
Next, I am surprised you didn't ask what server people were on. International relations and attitude vary from server to server. Having been to Hades, Biamarck, Ramuh, and Lakshmi, I can definately testify to that.
The Lakshmi server for example has probably the most willing to help people that I have come across as of yet. If you need help, the general feeling to me at least is that you will get someone rushing over to you in a very short time. Its a very secure feeling of community, even between NA, JP, and EU players.
Hades, on the other hand, is another story. I have run into more jerks there than I care to imagine. There is a reason why I almost never spend any time there lol. The server has a lot of bad apples in it, and I know that NA, JP, and EU relationships aren't the best in the world there.
The differences in servers can color a person's reply to this survey, and should therefore be taken into account also.
Hmm...I wouldn't mind too much if you gave an indication of if you have any research partners, who they are if there are any, and if your University, Middlesex, is connected to the study in any way. I know I am nitpicking here, but it is just general information that would be nice to know.
Lastly, how do you plan to exactly analyze the results? Transparancy in a study like this, since it is obviously not a blind/double-blind experiment, would be a GOOD THING here. I would like to know specifically how this report is going to be layed out to Squareenix.
For some odd reason, I wouldn't feel quite comfortable with my character name being linked to my personal information, nor would a lot of people. If a company gets that sort of information, it opens up a whole can of privacy issues about how they plan to use it, if they plan to use it to possibly tailor information/emails/game play towards me.
Just a few suggestions. I will also be e-mailing to you at the email address you have provided. Take care.^^
First of all, why isn't the surveys at a https:// secure site? The way that the survey is set up right now, I don't know if your data really IS secure as you say. While it may not be of so much importance to a lot of people, some of the FFXI playing population might get a bit uneasy about the potential of their person data/playing preferences being maybe hacked by third=-party individuals. Without a secure web address, you are introducing a "scare variable" into the survey, where certain elements of the population might not respond to you survey because of no garantee that the results are secure, and that will throw off your results and introduce a bias into it.
Second:
Quote:
How often do you allow your character to die in order to ensure that other members of your party survive?
This question is biased in wording. The way that it is written suggests to the person taking the survey to pick the noble option, and always be willing to die for the party. Everyone likes to be a hero and die for the better good of the party, and thus your results will be skewed here. A far better question would have been:
Quote:
How often are you willing to die for your party?
You remove the bias in wording, and thus get much more reliable results.
Next, I am surprised you didn't ask what server people were on. International relations and attitude vary from server to server. Having been to Hades, Biamarck, Ramuh, and Lakshmi, I can definately testify to that.
The Lakshmi server for example has probably the most willing to help people that I have come across as of yet. If you need help, the general feeling to me at least is that you will get someone rushing over to you in a very short time. Its a very secure feeling of community, even between NA, JP, and EU players.
Hades, on the other hand, is another story. I have run into more jerks there than I care to imagine. There is a reason why I almost never spend any time there lol. The server has a lot of bad apples in it, and I know that NA, JP, and EU relationships aren't the best in the world there.
The differences in servers can color a person's reply to this survey, and should therefore be taken into account also.
Hmm...I wouldn't mind too much if you gave an indication of if you have any research partners, who they are if there are any, and if your University, Middlesex, is connected to the study in any way. I know I am nitpicking here, but it is just general information that would be nice to know.
Lastly, how do you plan to exactly analyze the results? Transparancy in a study like this, since it is obviously not a blind/double-blind experiment, would be a GOOD THING here. I would like to know specifically how this report is going to be layed out to Squareenix.
For some odd reason, I wouldn't feel quite comfortable with my character name being linked to my personal information, nor would a lot of people. If a company gets that sort of information, it opens up a whole can of privacy issues about how they plan to use it, if they plan to use it to possibly tailor information/emails/game play towards me.
Just a few suggestions. I will also be e-mailing to you at the email address you have provided. Take care.^^
Proud citizen of Miranda.
-Currently on Pochacco Server of Hello Kitty Online.
-Currently on Pochacco Server of Hello Kitty Online.
I believe the phrasing makes sense.
Say you have a really bad pull, mages have tried to sleep the adds, to no avail.
The mobs are now hitting on the escape-capable members, and the only person who's voke isn't used up has little hp left but knows that by taking the mob on him, he'll allow the mage to cast escape without being interrupted.
Sure people want to think they are noble, but the question that is being asked *is* different from simply "are you willing to die for your party ?", in the sense that the latter could include anything, such as "do you run/warp at the first sign of danger ?"
If the guy wants to know if people are noble or not, he has to ask, even if this includes the risk of some people lying (I don't see why they'd do that; I don't expect raw data of the survey to be published, but anyways.)
Say you have a really bad pull, mages have tried to sleep the adds, to no avail.
The mobs are now hitting on the escape-capable members, and the only person who's voke isn't used up has little hp left but knows that by taking the mob on him, he'll allow the mage to cast escape without being interrupted.
Sure people want to think they are noble, but the question that is being asked *is* different from simply "are you willing to die for your party ?", in the sense that the latter could include anything, such as "do you run/warp at the first sign of danger ?"
If the guy wants to know if people are noble or not, he has to ask, even if this includes the risk of some people lying (I don't see why they'd do that; I don't expect raw data of the survey to be published, but anyways.)
Dear Nigtsintdreams,
Wow, first can I say thankyou for taking a serious look at the survey, and for putting forward some very reasonable concerns / ideas. I'll respond to your email in detail later, but here are some things that - I'd love to be able to use SSL (secured sockets layer - making http into https) but as far as I can see it is very expensive to impliment, if anyone has any info otherwise I'd happily attempt to impiment it.
As far as data security goes I can assure all users that the data will not be passed onto ANY companies (nor educational institutions, Middlesex included) in its raw / personal format. As it stands the data will only be published, as a set of broad geaographically located data sets - far removed from either character name or email address (I'm using character name to avoid double posting / for ease of use, but as it will not be directly analysed in itself - I'm not looking for cultural naming trends - feel free to use a pseudonym - or anything really).
As for the ever thorny subject of bias, I'd worked long and hard attempting to remove bias from the wording - and the final text was passed by the board of my supervisors. However I must admit dissatisfaction with the
I'm not attempting to make any judgement of nobility (then again the notion of nobility is a socio-cultural construct in itself), just quantify a specific repeat social situation -
I accept that some players will interperet this as a direct moral question - how noble are you? And that that the current wording does have a hint of the 'hero' within it - I'll look into making some adjustments.
With reagrds to research partners etc. I never really know how much to include in an initial contact - I'm happy to say that this survey is utterly self funded (bar the enrolment fee's which are being paid by my workplace Canterbury Christ Church) - I'm not being bankrolled, or selling this data in any way.
As it currently stands I am working in isolation, with repeat visits to Middlesex in order to justify / keep the survey working in the right direction - the ultimate aim is a 10-20k dissertation, and possible game-studies / academic conference presentations. - It is this paper that I will present to Square-Enix, as no more than a 'nod and a wink' as say thanks for producing such a stimulating game.
I hope that this answers some of your very reasonable concerns... and while we're back on the issue of bias - here is the awful problem - how can you ever get a representative data-set from such entertainment? BBs and forums have a (I hate this word) 'hard-core gamer' bias, and makes so many assumptions.
This study is an attempt to work towards obtaining a data set that may be of use... to academics, not companies.
Kind regards,
Alan
Edited, Sun Mar 6 15:47:43 2005 by loxforddoughboy
Wow, first can I say thankyou for taking a serious look at the survey, and for putting forward some very reasonable concerns / ideas. I'll respond to your email in detail later, but here are some things that - I'd love to be able to use SSL (secured sockets layer - making http into https) but as far as I can see it is very expensive to impliment, if anyone has any info otherwise I'd happily attempt to impiment it.
As far as data security goes I can assure all users that the data will not be passed onto ANY companies (nor educational institutions, Middlesex included) in its raw / personal format. As it stands the data will only be published, as a set of broad geaographically located data sets - far removed from either character name or email address (I'm using character name to avoid double posting / for ease of use, but as it will not be directly analysed in itself - I'm not looking for cultural naming trends - feel free to use a pseudonym - or anything really).
As for the ever thorny subject of bias, I'd worked long and hard attempting to remove bias from the wording - and the final text was passed by the board of my supervisors. However I must admit dissatisfaction with the
Quote:
How often do you allow your character to die in order to ensure that other members of your party survive?
I'm not attempting to make any judgement of nobility (then again the notion of nobility is a socio-cultural construct in itself), just quantify a specific repeat social situation -
I accept that some players will interperet this as a direct moral question - how noble are you? And that that the current wording does have a hint of the 'hero' within it - I'll look into making some adjustments.
With reagrds to research partners etc. I never really know how much to include in an initial contact - I'm happy to say that this survey is utterly self funded (bar the enrolment fee's which are being paid by my workplace Canterbury Christ Church) - I'm not being bankrolled, or selling this data in any way.
As it currently stands I am working in isolation, with repeat visits to Middlesex in order to justify / keep the survey working in the right direction - the ultimate aim is a 10-20k dissertation, and possible game-studies / academic conference presentations. - It is this paper that I will present to Square-Enix, as no more than a 'nod and a wink' as say thanks for producing such a stimulating game.
I hope that this answers some of your very reasonable concerns... and while we're back on the issue of bias - here is the awful problem - how can you ever get a representative data-set from such entertainment? BBs and forums have a (I hate this word) 'hard-core gamer' bias, and makes so many assumptions.
This study is an attempt to work towards obtaining a data set that may be of use... to academics, not companies.
Kind regards,
Alan
Edited, Sun Mar 6 15:47:43 2005 by loxforddoughboy
Just a quick note -
I've just found a site that offers SSL for $49 for 1 year - I'll look into it.
Also, take a look at Nick Yee's Daedalus Project - it's about the most well regarded academic study on virtual worlds and MMORPGs, and is, well, superb. Over 10k people fill out his surveys:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
Now, not even Nick Yee has SSL on his site (although perhaps this is negated by the data that he is asking for in his surveys, and the fact that it concerns a number of MMORPGs and not one specific one) - I know... just because someone does somthing doesnt make it right, but 10k responses.
I've just found a site that offers SSL for $49 for 1 year - I'll look into it.
Also, take a look at Nick Yee's Daedalus Project - it's about the most well regarded academic study on virtual worlds and MMORPGs, and is, well, superb. Over 10k people fill out his surveys:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
Now, not even Nick Yee has SSL on his site (although perhaps this is negated by the data that he is asking for in his surveys, and the fact that it concerns a number of MMORPGs and not one specific one) - I know... just because someone does somthing doesnt make it right, but 10k responses.
Alan
If i may inquire, what program are you in?
Currently I'm an MA student in Cinema Stuidies at New York Univeristy, but I'm from more of a comparative media background (undergrad at MIT) so I'm shopping around for PhD prgrams that may do more research on new media and media cultures such as thouse in Cardiff and Univ. of Ontario.
Thanks a lot,
-J
Edited, Sun Mar 6 16:43:35 2005 by Cambot
If i may inquire, what program are you in?
Currently I'm an MA student in Cinema Stuidies at New York Univeristy, but I'm from more of a comparative media background (undergrad at MIT) so I'm shopping around for PhD prgrams that may do more research on new media and media cultures such as thouse in Cardiff and Univ. of Ontario.
Thanks a lot,
-J
Edited, Sun Mar 6 16:43:35 2005 by Cambot
Hi J,
Oddly enough this too began as a PhD application - to be done at my workplace CCCUC www.cant.ac.uk , however funding fell through at the final hurdle, and I was kindly offered the opportuinity to continue the study as an MA/Mphil instead (according to performance / how I feel) - I'm sure you're aware but an Mphil gives the opportunity to streamline back into a PhD (so I havent lost too much time).
There seem to be a number of institutions in the UK that are responding very well to new-media / PSW studies, off the top of my head - Middlesex, Goldsmiths, Birbeck, and if you're really interested in getting studious in this subject you really couldn't falter the staff expertise at Copenhagen's ITU (they've made themseleves Europe's base for game-studies, and it's worked). If you're interested drop me a line on alan.meades@gmail.com , explain what stuff you're interested in doing and I'll have a word with some of my colleagues to see if I can think of an institution (but more importantly subject staff) that may offer 'best fit'.
At the end of the day it's not so much the institution as the expertise of the staff that you have available to you, (I don't know if you have already but,) I'd be looking for and sending out feelers trying to get an awesome set of supervisors - I originally Contacted Edward Castronova for mine - once you've got them I reckon that eveyting should drop into place.
Best of luck with your studies,
Alan
Please get in touch!
I'd be
Oddly enough this too began as a PhD application - to be done at my workplace CCCUC www.cant.ac.uk , however funding fell through at the final hurdle, and I was kindly offered the opportuinity to continue the study as an MA/Mphil instead (according to performance / how I feel) - I'm sure you're aware but an Mphil gives the opportunity to streamline back into a PhD (so I havent lost too much time).
There seem to be a number of institutions in the UK that are responding very well to new-media / PSW studies, off the top of my head - Middlesex, Goldsmiths, Birbeck, and if you're really interested in getting studious in this subject you really couldn't falter the staff expertise at Copenhagen's ITU (they've made themseleves Europe's base for game-studies, and it's worked). If you're interested drop me a line on alan.meades@gmail.com , explain what stuff you're interested in doing and I'll have a word with some of my colleagues to see if I can think of an institution (but more importantly subject staff) that may offer 'best fit'.
At the end of the day it's not so much the institution as the expertise of the staff that you have available to you, (I don't know if you have already but,) I'd be looking for and sending out feelers trying to get an awesome set of supervisors - I originally Contacted Edward Castronova for mine - once you've got them I reckon that eveyting should drop into place.
Best of luck with your studies,
Alan
Please get in touch!
I'd be
37 posts
I didnt see anything that would really hurt a person really, you dont need to use your email and no personal info is really given. I enjoyed it and I hope that you do reach your goal.
OMG, your post grad study is revolving around this game. My god what is the next project, the history of Street Fighter? Being sarcastic cuz i don't have have the same luxury : (.
Recent Visitors: 28
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (28)
- Forums
- FFXI Servers
- Bismarck
- videogamestudies and FFXI
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC