713 réponses à ce sujet

[Kuari999]

Destr1er wrote...

Apparently he's ok with EA spamming polls and buying reviews. But the users are a pack of idiots and their opinions don't matter.

He also trivializes the effort required for poll spamming in the first place.  There's a reason not every single poll on the internet is spammed.  Frankly, hackers are a dime a dozen.  Good ones that could get around a lot of the protections?  Not so much, and generally they keep away from things as trivial as a poll about a game.  For what he described, it'd take more than just proxy servers for a lot of the polls.  Not to mention if one had a list of known proxy servers, those IPs could be ignored..  there's generally a set list of IPs a proxy server can choose from because those are the ones available to them through their provider.  A service provider has a specific range of IPs that are theirs, THAT is why sites can figure out what city you're in.

[Gigamantis]

Destr1er wrote...

Apparently he's ok with EA spamming polls and buying reviews. But the users are a pack of idiots and their opinions don't matter.

I don't trust any online polls and plenty of EA games get mediocre reviews, so I doubt EA is paying people off. 

[kbct]

Gigamantis wrote...

kbct wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

Online polls are meaningless.  They always have been and they always will be.  An online reaction like this may be unprecedented but it doesn't mean anything.  We don't know the actual size of these polls person by person and if they're even remotely legitimate. 

The sales estimates are the only legitimate information we have and they're promising.  If someone wants to conduct a scientific poll and draw conclusions from it they should.  Passing around an internet poll is beyond poinltess, though. 

A random sample of only about 750 people can predict the a population of 10 million with a margin of error of 3-5%.

We know the BSN poll of 71,500 people shows 2% liked the ending as-is.

Let's say BSN poll is a random sample (we know it's not). A sample of 71,500 would have a margin of error of less than 1%, but let's call it 1% for now.

Under a normal distribution, the entire population people that liked the ending as-is would be 2% +/- 1%. 68% of the time it would be between 1% and 3%, 95% of the time it would be between 0% and 4%, and 99% of the time it would be between 0% and 5%.

A self-selecting sample has predictive power if the sample is large enough and the results are lopsided enough. Both criteria exist in the BSN poll. It is almost 100 times larger than what is required for a random sample. It is so skewed that it really can't be any more skewed. I mean, what is lower than 2%???

So, even if we use a 20% margin of error, 68% of the time, the percentage would be between 0% and 22% and 95% of the time, the percentage would be between 0% and 42%. That's still not a majority.

The thing is with a sample size so large, the margin of error won't be 20%. It will be less. So we have even higher confidence that the people that liked the ending as-is is not a majority.

Nothing is certain unless we ask every man, woman, and child what they thought of the ending, but we can state with a high degree of confidence that the majority didn't like the ending as-is.

You're talking about sampling for scientific polling, which has nothing to do with a random internet poll.  If not strictly monitored one person can account for over 1,000 votes on a poll.  If conducted in a place where you know people who are upset will gather, like a forum, it guarantees lopsided results with no base in reality.

If I wanted to devote a lot of time to it my friends and I could construct a poll with 10's of thousands of votes from unique IP addresses that say whatever we want them to say.  Internet polling is meaningless.  Scientific polling has it's merits but that's not what we're talking about. 

All the internet polls about the ME3 ending are heavily lopsided. In every poll, the majority didn't like the ending.

Keep in mind, the market reasearch industry uses self-selecting internet polls, but gives them a 20% margin of error like I mentioned. A poll this large will have a smaller margin of error.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting 2% is the correct number for the population of ME3 owners that experienced the ending. It could be 10% or 30%, but it is almost certainly not 51%. It's not a majority.

[Kuari999]

Gigamantis wrote...

Online polls can be made viable, but what we're talking about is a hack-job that was taken from one carefully selected forum to the next.  The fact it can't be verified that the poll was not spammed instantly makes it irrelevant for any purpose other than entertainment.  You can't use a potentially tainted poll as evidence of anything. 

The hate for Skyrim was essentially about the game being broken to varying degrees of being completely unplayable.  As typical with Bethesda releases the game engine was a horribly optimized disaster and people were severely pissed off.  The forums were easily just as bad, but the complaints were a variety of technical issues instead of one specific one. 

Except not all the polls that share similar results were a result of that.  As I said, one that shared similar results was clearly very biased against the people complaining about the ending.  Various news sites have had similar polls with results that came out about the same.  The fact of the matter is, this subject hasn't just hit here.  The majority of gamers who bother to check online for anything involving games have probably heard by now and come across some sort of poll, and when you have the kind of results that we're seeing, yeah, something is up, and again, even BioWare has made it very clear that they've noticed for the most part, otherwise, guess what, the Extended Cut wouldn't even be an idea.  There would be no reason for it and it'd just be a waste of money.  Do you honestly believe that BioWare would be doing anything if there wasn't some big risk involved in doing nothing?

[Cazlee]

Something is wrong with that #1 BSN poll with 70,000 votes because it allowed me to vote four different times. Another user also confirmed that he was able to vote more than once. Not all at one time, but on separate days.

Anyhow the DA2 forum rage was so bad that half of the threads on the front page were locked at any given time. The influx of trolls caused the moderators to open a new forum for DA2 owners only, and even that forum got trolled when people realized how to bypass the restriction. The moderators were better prepared for ME3 and made almost all forums owner only when the game released. Actually the ME3 forums seemed civil in comparision. Bioware did not give DA2 players new extended DLC endings, but we all got ME2 for free.

On the topic of fan rage, it happens because expectations are too high. People believing everything that comes out of marketing doesn't help.  EA also pushes limits on how much extra they can charge for the least amount of work.

Modifié par Cazlee, 12 avril 2012 - 06:46 .

[Gigamantis]

kbct wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

kbct wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

Online polls are meaningless.  They always have been and they always will be.  An online reaction like this may be unprecedented but it doesn't mean anything.  We don't know the actual size of these polls person by person and if they're even remotely legitimate. 

The sales estimates are the only legitimate information we have and they're promising.  If someone wants to conduct a scientific poll and draw conclusions from it they should.  Passing around an internet poll is beyond poinltess, though. 

A random sample of only about 750 people can predict the a population of 10 million with a margin of error of 3-5%.

We know the BSN poll of 71,500 people shows 2% liked the ending as-is.

Let's say BSN poll is a random sample (we know it's not). A sample of 71,500 would have a margin of error of less than 1%, but let's call it 1% for now.

Under a normal distribution, the entire population people that liked the ending as-is would be 2% +/- 1%. 68% of the time it would be between 1% and 3%, 95% of the time it would be between 0% and 4%, and 99% of the time it would be between 0% and 5%.

A self-selecting sample has predictive power if the sample is large enough and the results are lopsided enough. Both criteria exist in the BSN poll. It is almost 100 times larger than what is required for a random sample. It is so skewed that it really can't be any more skewed. I mean, what is lower than 2%???

So, even if we use a 20% margin of error, 68% of the time, the percentage would be between 0% and 22% and 95% of the time, the percentage would be between 0% and 42%. That's still not a majority.

The thing is with a sample size so large, the margin of error won't be 20%. It will be less. So we have even higher confidence that the people that liked the ending as-is is not a majority.

Nothing is certain unless we ask every man, woman, and child what they thought of the ending, but we can state with a high degree of confidence that the majority didn't like the ending as-is.

You're talking about sampling for scientific polling, which has nothing to do with a random internet poll.  If not strictly monitored one person can account for over 1,000 votes on a poll.  If conducted in a place where you know people who are upset will gather, like a forum, it guarantees lopsided results with no base in reality.

If I wanted to devote a lot of time to it my friends and I could construct a poll with 10's of thousands of votes from unique IP addresses that say whatever we want them to say.  Internet polling is meaningless.  Scientific polling has it's merits but that's not what we're talking about. 

All the internet polls about the ME3 ending are heavily lopsided. In every poll, the majority didn't like the ending.

Keep in mind, the market reasearch industry uses self-selecting internet polls, but gives them a 20% margin of error like I mentioned. A poll this large will have a smaller margin of error.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting 2% is the correct number for the population of ME3 owners that experienced the ending. It could be 10% or 30%, but it is almost certainly not 51%. It's not a majority.

Market research polls are used as curiosities, not for evidentiary purposes.  These polls weren't even created as curiosities, they were created by people who were trying to prove something; by people who were trying to gather evidence to support a theory.  A poll in that context not conducted to scientific standards is useless. 

[TheRealJayDee]

DA:O was my first Bioware game, I loved it. It did have several flaws, but I could esaily ignore them because the whole game was just too good to care about them. I hate DA2, not because it wasn't DA:O2, but because it was a
worse experience for me in almost every aspect AND imo didn't feel like Dragon Age as got to know it.

After DA2 I finally finished ME and loved it. I then played ME2, and while I still like the first game better I thoroughly enjoyed it, too. Now ME3... I have massive problems with the transition from ME2 to ME3, and several other problems with the game, though they wouldn't have bothered me if it wasn't for the abysmal ending(s).

Most of my friends who play games have played DA:O and the first two MEs, none of them touched DA2 and none played ME3 so far. Instead my non-gamer friends started asking me about the ME3 endings, because they read about it in some non-gaming context.

[Grimskull89]

Cazlee wrote...

Something is wrong with that #1 BSN poll with 70,000 votes because it allowed me to vote four different times. Another user also confirmed that he was able to vote more than once. Not all at one time, but on separate days.
 

I have noticed this too, not sure after how many days you can vote again but it does allow additional votes.

[Kuari999]

Gigamantis wrote...

Market research polls are used as curiosities, not for evidentiary purposes.  These polls weren't even created as curiosities, they were created by people who were trying to prove something; by people who were trying to gather evidence to support a theory.  A poll in that context not conducted to scientific standards is useless. 

Reason for a poll being created doesn't affect how viable it is.  How its conducted and the question that is asked along with the answer given is all that matters in terms of scientific standards, because the fact of the matter is, every poll is created for a reason.  There is no such thing as a poll created for completely unbiased reasons.  The goal is to make the poll itself as unbiased as possible, which frankly?  For an online poll?  Has been accomplished pretty damn well.  While complainers are attracted to forums, there are a lot bigger portion of people on forums who just lurk.  That fact is pretty often ignored though.

[Gigamantis]

Kuari999 wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

Online polls can be made viable, but what we're talking about is a hack-job that was taken from one carefully selected forum to the next.  The fact it can't be verified that the poll was not spammed instantly makes it irrelevant for any purpose other than entertainment.  You can't use a potentially tainted poll as evidence of anything. 

The hate for Skyrim was essentially about the game being broken to varying degrees of being completely unplayable.  As typical with Bethesda releases the game engine was a horribly optimized disaster and people were severely pissed off.  The forums were easily just as bad, but the complaints were a variety of technical issues instead of one specific one. 

Except not all the polls that share similar results were a result of that.  As I said, one that shared similar results was clearly very biased against the people complaining about the ending.  Various news sites have had similar polls with results that came out about the same.  The fact of the matter is, this subject hasn't just hit here.  The majority of gamers who bother to check online for anything involving games have probably heard by now and come across some sort of poll, and when you have the kind of results that we're seeing, yeah, something is up, and again, even BioWare has made it very clear that they've noticed for the most part, otherwise, guess what, the Extended Cut wouldn't even be an idea.  There would be no reason for it and it'd just be a waste of money.  Do you honestly believe that BioWare would be doing anything if there wasn't some big risk involved in doing nothing?

There was a very clear and concerted effort to spam review and news sites, so I'm absolutely comfortable claiming those results aren't serviceable due to being horribly tainted. 

Also, I'm not saying a lot of people weren't pissed off, I'm saying it's TYPICAL.  Bethesda fixed Skyrim after their s***storm.  Bethesda extended the FO3 ending after a moderate s***storm.  People complaining and companies reacting isn't new or unusual, and this certainly isn't any different. 

Modifié par Gigamantis, 12 avril 2012 - 06:48 .

[kbct]

Gigamantis wrote...

Market research polls are used as curiosities, not for evidentiary purposes.  These polls weren't even created as curiosities, they were created by people who were trying to prove something; by people who were trying to gather evidence to support a theory.  A poll in that context not conducted to scientific standards is useless. 

You think the ending was well written and well produced. You think the internet polls are worthless no matter the size or the skew. You think the market research industry doesn't know what they're doing when they ascribe a 20% margin of error to internet polls. You discount the user reviews. You discount the unprecedent media attention.

Not too many people here agree with you.

[Kuari999]

Gigamantis wrote...

There was a very clear and concerted effort to spam review and news sites, so I'm absolutely comfortable claiming those results aren't serviceable due to being horribly tainted. 

Also, I'm not saying a lot of people weren't pissed off, I'm saying it's TYPICAL.  Bethesda fixed Skyrim after their s***storm.  Bethesda extended the FO3 ending after a moderate s***storm.  People complaining and companies reacting isn't new or unusual, and this certainly isn't any different. 

Lets say that there was an organized effort to spam and crap, even though I call bull**** on that, but whatever.  WHY is there such an effort here and not in most other cases?  Either way, its an atypical situation, frankly though you're just clinging to a baseless assumption with zero evidence that supports your view that the majority against are immature.  Not what you're saying directly perhaps, but quite frankly that's how you come across.  Sorry, but you're in the minority here.  If you can't back up your statements with more than what amounts to calling people immature in indirect ways, there really isn't anything to discuss.

Modifié par Kuari999, 12 avril 2012 - 06:52 .

[kbct]

Grimskull89 wrote...

I have noticed this too, not sure after how many days you can vote again but it does allow additional votes.

I think the poll is user based, not IP based. We also don't know if the votes are counted twice if you vote twice. It's a good question though. Still, 71K votes can handle some shenanigans.

And it's obvious the people that liked the ending as-is don't know how to stack votes. Heh.

[Gigamantis]

kbct wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

Market research polls are used as curiosities, not for evidentiary purposes.  These polls weren't even created as curiosities, they were created by people who were trying to prove something; by people who were trying to gather evidence to support a theory.  A poll in that context not conducted to scientific standards is useless. 

You think the ending was well written and well produced. You think the internet polls are worthless no matter the size or the skew. You think the market research industry doesn't know what they're doing when they ascribe a 20% margin of error to internet polls. You discount the user reviews. You discount the unprecedent media attention.

Not too many people here agree with you.

I do think the ending was well written and had good production value.  I do KNOW internet polls are worthless despite the size and skew,  unless conducted in a very specific way. 

I also KNOW the market research industries 20% doesn't adequately account for the fact that I could blow up any online poll I want.  I alone could account for more than 20% of the votes on most polls.  There's a dedicated troll movement spamming up everything they visit regarding the ME3 ending.  The market research industry likely would not recommend online polling in this unique circumstance.

[kbct]

TheRealJayDee wrote...

Instead my non-gamer friends started asking me about the ME3 endings, because they read about it in some non-gaming context.

I heard statements like this many times now. It's just more evidence that the ME3 ending created a worldwide sh!tstorm. All evidence points to it.

[Gigamantis]

Kuari999 wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

There was a very clear and concerted effort to spam review and news sites, so I'm absolutely comfortable claiming those results aren't serviceable due to being horribly tainted. 

Also, I'm not saying a lot of people weren't pissed off, I'm saying it's TYPICAL.  Bethesda fixed Skyrim after their s***storm.  Bethesda extended the FO3 ending after a moderate s***storm.  People complaining and companies reacting isn't new or unusual, and this certainly isn't any different. 

Lets say that there was an organized effort to spam and crap, even though I call bull**** on that, but whatever.  WHY is there such an effort here and not in most other cases?  Either way, its an atypical situation, frankly though you're just clinging to a baseless assumption with zero evidence that supports your view that the majority against are immature.  Not what you're saying directly perhaps, but quite frankly that's how you come across.  Sorry, but you're in the minority here.  If you can't back up your statements with more than what amounts to calling people immature in indirect ways, there really isn't anything to discuss.

I'm not claiming to be in the majority; I'm claiming that neither of us really knows.  You're clinging to the most flawed method of analysis you can come up with to claim the majority here, and it's sad.  Come up with some real evidence or stop acting like you have answers. 

[Woodstock-TC]

Stanley Woo wrote...

People got angry when NWN came out and it wasn't BG.
People got angry when KotOR came out because it was a console game.
People got angry when Jade Empire came out because it was a different setting, and it was an action RPG.
People got angry when Mass Effect came out because it was a shooter.
People got angry when Dragon Age: Origins came out because it wasn't BG.
People got angry when DA2 came out because it wasn't DAO.
People got angry when ME2 came out because it wasn't ME1.
And now people are angry at ME3.

The cycle will continue as long as people feel they have an inalienable right to never be disappointed, or that their money entitles them to be rude or condescending to others, or that their opinions are the only, best, or right ones.

just compare Amazon and Metacritic feedback and scoring for these games. You will notice while there were indeed always ppl that were angry, the score and reveivs you guys get by the customers is tremendously decreasing.
thats a fact. putting it in a general statement may make you feel better but doesnt changes anything.
btw other companies manage to keep their level over the years even with higher selling numbers in the same "genre" as you guys are or were.

cheers

Modifié par Woodstock-TC, 12 avril 2012 - 07:58 .

[kbct]

Gigamantis wrote...

I also KNOW the market research industries 20% doesn't adequately account for the fact that I could blow up any online poll I want.  I alone could account for more than 20% of the votes on most polls. 

Okay, let's see you blow up this poll. Make the majority not like ME2:

http://social.biowar...093/polls/1659/

[Gigamantis]

kbct wrote...

Gigamantis wrote...

I also KNOW the market research industries 20% doesn't adequately account for the fact that I could blow up any online poll I want.  I alone could account for more than 20% of the votes on most polls. 

Okay, let's see you blow up this poll. Make the majority not like ME2:

http://social.biowar...093/polls/1659/

Too much work to set up; not interested.  If you think spambots and proxy servers are some kind of urban myth there's not much I can say, but if you know they do exist you probably have some concept of what I could do to any poll if I were dedicated enough. 

[MortalEngines]

I just have one thing to say about polls (especially BSN polls as they're pretty easy to exploit). Any poll can be exploited by easy to download free VPNs out there that will give you a new IP everytime. This why you can easily refresh and place votes. It doesn't take a 'hacker' to mess up polls.

[kbct]

Kuari999 wrote...

Except not all the polls that share similar results were a result of that.  As I said, one that shared similar results was clearly very biased against the people complaining about the ending.  Various news sites have had similar polls with results that came out about the same.  The fact of the matter is, this subject hasn't just hit here. 

I've even seen German and Russian polls with similar lopsided results as the ones in the United States and Canada.

I haven't seen ONE poll that shows the majority liked the ending.

[Grimskull89]

kbct wrote...

Grimskull89 wrote...

I have noticed this too, not sure after how many days you can vote again but it does allow additional votes.

I think the poll is user based, not IP based. We also don't know if the votes are counted twice if you vote twice. It's a good question though. Still, 71K votes can handle some shenanigans.

And it's obvious the people that liked the ending as-is don't know how to stack votes. Heh.

Not sure how many times you can vote/how many times it will register. Guess someone will have to create a personal poll and experiment.

I only realized I could vote a second time when someone linked all of Martyrs polls in a thread.

Haha.... perhaps the pro-enders didn't realize it. Or they are a minority, or they don't vote in polls. Too many variables lol....

[kbct]

MortalEngines wrote...

I just have one thing to say about polls (especially BSN polls as they're pretty easy to exploit). Any poll can be exploited by easy to download free VPNs out there that will give you a new IP everytime. This why you can easily refresh and place votes. It doesn't take a 'hacker' to mess up polls.

I think it's user based, not IP based.

I just changed my PC IP address and I couldn't vote. Then I logged off and couldn't vote. 

Then I connected anonymously from a laptop I don't normally use from my new IP address and couldn't vote. Then I logged in from that laptop and still couldn't vote.

If there are shenanigans, I think they're minor. Even if they let you vote twice, we don't know if it's counted twice.

[augustburnt]

I like the fact that Bioware has stopped giving a **** enough that the mods are now bashing people who don't like the ending... really professional.

[Grimskull89]

augustburnt wrote...

I like the fact that Bioware has stopped giving a **** enough that the mods are now bashing people who don't like the ending... really professional.

I have yet to see this, but you start a thread that isn't story related... I expect it to be locked. Mr. Epler has done an excellent job regarding this.