Server polls

All of our servers now run a plugin that allows to present a poll to each player and store the answers in a database. I am very enthusiastic about this since this allows us to find out what our players think about our servers, plugins, policies and the plans we have for changing things.

So i thought i'd start this topic so we can discuss what questions we would like to ask our playerbase?

Some idea's:
Orange: What do they think about bodyshots plugin? What do they think about the class limits? Would they be interested in different orange maps?

Rotation: Why do players connect to our server? Why do they disconnect? Would they like to play custom maps? Which map type would they like most?

VIP: This server is used for scrims, matches and pugs. Maybe a question about lag or something else related to scrimming? Or simply no polls.

VIP: no polls please.

Oh goodness no polls on VIP. I don't want to be unable to switch my weapon in an uber push

ok ok but what about the other servers.

btw i tested and you get to see the poll after your first death so you will see it while in spectate.

ok since no one has any suggestions i'm going to post the polls questions and answer options i'd like to tryout. Please do tell if you think the question and/or answer options should be changed/added. Please note that we would not run all of these at the same time.

Rotation Server:

How did you find us?
1.This server is in my favorites list
2.This server had a good ping, thats why i connected
3.I just wanted to play this map
4.I followed a friend here
5.I was looking for a no-crits server

What map type do you like the most?
1.Control Point
2.Capture the Flag
3.Payload
4.Payload race
5.King of the hill
6.Arena
7.Deathmatch

Would you like to play popular custom maps? (this requires longer connect time if you don't already have the map)
1.Yes
2.No

Do you know how you can start a vote to change the map?
1.Yes
2.No

Are you interested to play competitive games with us in a 6vs6 fashion?
1.Yes (then join our forums :-)
2.No


Orange server:

Which of these options would persuade you to make a donation if you were able to do so?
1.A reserved player slot just for you
2.A supercool custom hat that only you have (and no one else)
3.Extra ammo for your guns
4.Immunity for class limits (play any class you like) and autobalance
5.Immunity during bonus round humiliation time
6.None of the above

If we would run custom Orange maps, would you still connect and play here?
1.Yes
2.No i only play vanilla orange_x3
3.Depends on which orange maps

Eraserhead wrote:
Would you like to play popular custom maps (this requires longer connect time since you have to download them)?
1.Yes
2.No

Well if you have downloaded the map previously it won't take long. But Perfect!!!!

I refined the question:

Would you like to play popular custom maps? (this requires longer connect time since you have to download them once)

Would you like to play popular custom maps? (this requires longer connect time if you don't already have the map)

Eraserhead wrote:Which of these options would persuade you to make a donation if you were able to do so?
3.Extra ammo for your guns

are you considering this???

Sounds good, we could always set up an online survey to go along with this. Just create it and send is a newsletter to every forum member.

Hoboapple wrote:

Eraserhead wrote:Which of these options would persuade you to make a donation if you were able to do so?
3.Extra ammo for your guns

are you considering this???

We considered this before but decided not to do it because it would give some players a huge adavantage. But if people will donate for it we might have to re-consider. But lets not go to far off topic. My goal was to find out what is interesting to ask our community.

With votes constantly repeating and happening often enough, I really don't feel that adding more fuel to that can't-change-weapons fire would be very constructive to gameplay.

I agree with you Hatter that votes can get annoying. So to handle that we made the polls not show up more than twice while you are playing, and not till after X amount of minutes. Default is 30 minutes. This way you don't get spammed with surveys.

Are the polls designed to be asked once per player or once per visit?

Once per player, otherwise it would be irritating.

That's good. I suppose your next issue would be collecting correct data. There's a lot of faith in this to expect players to read and answer the questions rather than frantically choose something. 1 will be your most popular answer by far.

The Mad Hatter wrote:That's good. I suppose your next issue would be collecting correct data. There's a lot of faith in this to expect players to read and answer the questions rather than frantically choose something. 1 will be your most popular answer by far.

We can change the # like:
Do you like the bodyshot plugin?
3. Yes
4. No

Make the selections start at 5 instead of 1. Easy solution.

Actually I think the best would be to make the first choice "Leave me alone". If we simply start the good options further down the list it will result in the same button mashing to quickly get it off screen. But if we give an option to get it off screen then at least we know which one we can write off as being from button mashers.

Actually someone modified the plugin so option 1 always reads:

1.Ask me later

So i think this fixes the problem of spamming 1.

Also when you say, I don't feel like answering or whatever it is, it waits 10 seconds then comes back

I just finished a quick draft for a survey about the clan and servers by using Google Docs. Maybe this will be a nice addition/alternative to the server questions considering how it can contain a lot more complicated/boxed questions. We could do a blog pop-up and/or a forum post about it so people notice it and maybe do something extra to motivate people to fill it in.
You can find it over at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dF9rckRna21QcnZfRjhxR1RxZVRuOEE6MA or http://epps.nl/us/6 for short.

Note: data send will be deleted after some final tweaks when/if we decide to use it.

Very nice Epps. Jameless and me have considered this option too. I think we could do both. Especially the open answer questions are useful.

How are the answers presented/accessible?

Eraserhead wrote:Very nice Epps. Jameless and me have considered this option too. I think we could do both. Especially the open answer questions are useful.

How are the answers presented/accessible?

There are two ways to view the results; one is by downloading the Excel file from Google Docs and the second option comes with with graphs, tables and everything which is actually quite nice (not sure if you can view it tho without my account).

Nope, i can't. Unless you share it maybe?