are polls useful to obsidian?

[vattghern]

i see a huuuge number of polls pop up on the forum and i wonder if they are any help at all to obsidien devs to decide what to add to the game and what not. do you think they even pay attention to the results?

[l3loodangel]

It depends on the poll and might give some general indication about consensus. But should not be really important...

Edited September 21, 2012 by l3loodangel

[Malcador]

I sure as hell hope not.

[PsychoBlonde]

Lol, it's a meta-poll!

 

Are the devs likely to decide what to do based on the polls? Probably not. Are they of interest for the actual community? Well, people vote on them, so they must be.

 

It doesn't hurt to register your opinions, you never know what might stick.

[Archon]

Great idea to set a poll about the polls :D

 

Polls are great because sometimes they hint the existence of a silent majority.

Have a bunch of people debate on an idea, set a poll after they're going in a direction and watch the votes refelecting the opposite. It's somehow fascinating.

[Merin]

Yes. Obsidian has said repeatedly they are watching the forums and paying attention to what the community wants.

 

But degree of usefulness is probably more to the point.

 

They are a data point that can help them decide what they ultimately want to do. One data point. Not a frivalous one, but certainly not an overriding one either.

 

I think, overall, the polls will have little affect. Some, but mostly on the edges and tipping scales on game decisions that Obsidian was already on the fence about internally.

[Pangur]

Probably it's the devs who should vote on this poll, not us.

But I think polls can give a good idea of what people are thinking. After all, it's much easier to look at the results than to read tons of posts.

[Sordel]

43,000 backers of the project so far, twenty votes on this poll.

 

I would think that Obsidian would not be basing any major decisions on our polls, no.

[Kopi]

I think they are useful if they need to convince the masses

[Jarmo]

Maybe, probably, but polls can be very misleadingly tilted as well.

The same way as all other discussion in the forum.

 

The people frequenting the forum are... certain kind of people.

The vast majority of gamers don't hang out in forums. Or answer polls.

 

That aside, polls do provide some indication of what forum visitors think of things.

Like, I thought there'd be a significant amount of gamers who don't want any more undead in their games,

so I set up a polll about it and... oops, looks like I'm totally in a minority.

[Reddie]

I don't think polls are useful to them, the amount of voters is really too small to justify any decision. But I do think polls threads can be useful, just as any other.

[WDeranged]

I'd say they are, exactly how usefull I don't know but if I was in their place I certainly wouldn't mind them, also there are the fifty billion pages of debate that usually go with a good poll

Edited September 21, 2012 by WDeranged

[Orogun01]

How the **** should I know?! Go ask someone at Obsidian.

[Grimlorn]

I think the real question is:

Are polls of polls helpful to Obsidian?

[Luckmann]

Where is the "Maybe"?

[teknoman2]

im pretty sure they already know what they are going to make and the possibility of being influenced by our polls is minimal at best

[TCJ]

I think that only Obsidian staff should be permitted to reply to this poll.

[Piccolo]

I think it's a lot better to actually take the time to read lots of different opinions inside a thread rather than just glance at some poll results, and i'm sure Obsidian do that.

 

Taking in lots of opinions about the game is a great way to get an idea of what the fans want, but the devs also need to use their own best judgement as well. For every good idea, opinion, or suggestion, there's often a lot of bad ones.

[Rajaat the Warbringer]

I'd like to believe that if they wanted our opinion on something that much, they'd make an official topic with a poll.

[Kai]

I think the real question is:

Are polls of polls helpful to Obsidian?

 

I think we need a poll to decide that.

[Shevek]

Most polls created here are push polls. People use biased language in the poll and that leads to questionable results. I do think the well written polls can be a useful barometer of public opinion for Obsidian.

[Aedelric]

Generally polls are not overly useful, due to the fact the majority of them are made by people with an agenda. They often word them to reflect their own opinion over others or omit choices that should have been added.

[Shevek]

Generally polls are not overly useful, due to the fact the majority of them are made by people with an agenda. They often word them to reflect their own opinion over others or omit choices that should have been added.

 

Exactly.

[Archon]

I think it's a lot better to actually take the time to read lots of different opinions inside a thread rather than just glance at some poll results, and i'm sure Obsidian do that.

 

 

I wish they do but reading forums is sooooooo time-consuming. Nobody can read everything, even the team of moderators must find it hard since Kickstarter launched.

 

 

Generally polls are not overly useful, due to the fact the majority of them are made by people with an agenda. They often word them to reflect their own opinion over others or omit choices that should have been added.

 

An universal option "Other" with a comment solve this problem. But then you end up with a standard thread and a useless poll :D

[Tychoxi]

lol this poll should be restricted to Obsidian devs, BUT judging from their KS updates they're listening to what we are saying and that most probably includes checking them tasty polls.