426 réponses à ce sujet

[zyntifox]

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

I am probably the only statistician on these boards, unfortunately there aren't many of us. And i agree that there is no statistical foundation to use just one of these polls due to self-selection bias. However, and this is something i have been researching quite a lot, you can extract information out of several biased polls if the question in the polls are approximately on equal footing.

And given the sheer amount of polls regarding the ending to mass effect i could easily extract useful data from them that you can use to draw statistical conclusions of the "average" player's opinion of the ending.

so .. the sheer number of relativley equel polls, the number of participants and the absents of outliers, could result in a relativly "save" assumption, that the endings were not recieved well?

That's not what i am saying. You can drawn statistical evidence from many "relatively" equal pools but the convergence rate to the true population parameters will be slow. Whether there are outliers or not is not relevant in this case. This could, in theory, give relatively good information regaring the population. But the two main things that will affect the statistical conclussion you can make from the data is:

1. Number of polls
2. Number of answers that can be picked in the poll

These two factors are key to clean up the data of the bias.

[iDeevil]

IanPolaris wrote...It was nominated.  There is a difference.  Also such polls are very small, unsicentific, and secret, and done by organizations that have an agenda.  Colour me suspicious.

And a number of the polls quoted are in places that a number of 'fans' have never been, don't go or don't know.  Yet, they are more factual?  Go figure.

We have absolutely no evidence that they did, and Bioware has refused to release any numbers when even one (cheap) scientific survey could have put this to bed immediately.

And we have no evidence that they didn't.

No can do.  She could have said something to the effect, "We are proceding with the new DLC based on what we think is best and will be best received."  She did NOT have to make the specific and objective claim that she did.  I cut her no slack for this.

Aren't we all high and mighty when we have more than 140 characters, and are not being personally attacked by people.

This wouldn't have come up except it seems to me (and apparently a lot of other people) like Bioware (or at least a Bioware rep) was caught making stuff up and was caught red handed.

-Polaris

No, you *assume* that she made it up.  Just like I assume you are telling me the truth about the qualifications you hinted at.  You haven't provided any evidence, but it doesn't mean you aren't telling the truth.

All of this is based on assumption and personal bias in reading.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Modifié par iDeevil, 03 mars 2013 - 01:44 .

[chemiclord]

Indy_S wrote...

Once again, it does not matter whether or not it a 'majority' is at work here. It remains a significant part of the consumer base and BioWare should not dismiss it. (Not saying that they are, just that they look an awful lot like they are)

Well, that's kinda the problem though isn't it?

The entire ending debacle has devolved into a binary assumption by the fanbase.  If they don't change the ending, that means they hate their fans and aren't listening.

That it might be A LOT more complicated than that even if they DO wish to change the ending seems to be lost on people.

Modifié par chemiclord, 03 mars 2013 - 01:48 .

[IanPolaris]

ElitePinecone wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

So why hasn't Bioware done this?

Becaue they don't feel like indulging the fantastical delusions of a few hundred people on their internet forum? 

Or maybe because contacting people through Origin to ask about a year-old video game for a scientific poll is a) possibly illegal, incredibly creepy, and c) completely unnecessary. Why would Bioware even do that? They got the message last time, they certainly don't need numbers. So what if they can't prove their point to the miniscule proportion of people who are still hanging around on the BSN? What's it to them if you don't believe the numbers they quoted?

Then why make an objective claim that they have such numbers?  No, this is a completely unforced error.

Quoting internet polls does your cause, whatever it is, no help. It's amateur, completely incorrect and reduces the credibility of any point you're trying to make. 

I agree up to a point.  However, when you have multiple internet polls from varying sources that all say the same thing, the chances that there is a real effect becomes a near certainty.  To quantify it, you would of course want to do a scientific survey.

-Polaris

No. Multiple polls, all unscientfic, don't somehow acquire legitimacy or validity just because there are more of them. Every single one has no sampling validity. Self-selection biases make them irrelevant for generalising about the trend in the wider population, and I won't even get started on the methodology of the questions. 

That actualy isn't true.  I will let our professional statistician explain further, but if you know there is self-selection bias, and if you have multiple polls that have large samples (and at least one of th quoted polls DOES screen to prevent double voting btw), then you can determine large scale trends.  It's part of a larger science of analyzing meta-polls, but I'll leave that to our resident professional to explain further.

All that internet polls can tell you is the breakdown of responses by the people who voted for them. Generalising from that to the general population of Mass Effect players, or "fans" as some kind of homogenous hive-mind, is not only preposterous, it's dangerously deluded.

For a single such poll?  Absolutely true.  However, if you have multiple such polls, then you can correct the data (such polls often have far more responses than scientific polls) and from such multiple polls, you can get a reasonable sample and draw reasonable conclusions.

Was there a comparatively large number of people who didn't like the endings, and who voted that way on polls they chose to participate in? Yes, it seems as if there was, based on intenet polls where highly-motivated people chose to respond. 

Except we know how many copies of ME3 were sold, and we know how many responses we got (and at least in 1-2 of these polls we know they were unique responses).   That means that we can correct (at least in part) for the self-selection bias.

What does that tell us about the playerbase as a whole? Nothing. A million other people (two million? three?) could've loved the game, or felt indifferent, or not completed it, and we have no idea if they did. To presume for them does your cause an enormous disservice, and it makes me uncomfortable to deeply dislike the ending too when people I'd normally agree with use this statistical nonsense to back up their claims. 

Even if I accepted all you said as complete gospel, even this isn't true.  At minimum it indicates that the emotional "enthusiasm" (which is a valid thing to measure btw) even a year later is on the "side" of the anti-enders.  This is valuable data.

-Polaris

[spirosz]

MegaSovereign wrote...

SyK18 wrote...

 People don't like that video or that poll here. It tells the truth. I mean "vocal minortiy".

Compiling a bunch of skewed polls is hardly truthful.

The "truth" is most people, whether they like the ending or not, have moved on.

[WoolyJoe]

Get over yourself, guy.

I'm sure if anyone's aware of the criticism their games have received, it's BioWare.
Some of their fans are happy, some are unhappy, and then some are simply ambivalent. Decide how you feel, move on, and get on with the rest of your life.

[IanPolaris]

Cstaf wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

I am probably the only statistician on these boards, unfortunately there aren't many of us. And i agree that there is no statistical foundation to use just one of these polls due to self-selection bias. However, and this is something i have been researching quite a lot, you can extract information out of several biased polls if the question in the polls are approximately on equal footing.

And given the sheer amount of polls regarding the ending to mass effect i could easily extract useful data from them that you can use to draw statistical conclusions of the "average" player's opinion of the ending.

so .. the sheer number of relativley equel polls, the number of participants and the absents of outliers, could result in a relativly "save" assumption, that the endings were not recieved well?

That's not what i am saying. You can drawn statistical evidence from many "relatively" equal pools but the convergence rate to the true population parameters will be slow. Whether there are outliers or not is not relevant in this case. This could, in theory, give relatively good information regaring the population. But the two main things that will affect the statistical conclussion you can make from the data is:

1. Number of polls
2. Number of answers that can be picked in the poll

These two factors are key to clean up the data of the bias.

Thanks for the clarification.  Have you seen the video?  It seems to me that based on your criteria and given the data as presented, a reasonable "first order" inference can be drawn that even a year later more people don't like the endings compared to those that do.  That's as far as I am willing to go given what I have seen.

What say you?

-Polaris

[Indy_S]

chemiclord wrote...

Well, that's kinda the problem though isn't it?

The entire ending debacle have devolved into a binary assumption by the fanbase.  If they don't change the ending, that means they hate their fans and aren't listening.

That it might be A LOT more complicated than that even if they DO wish to change the ending seems to be lost on people.

Remarkably, I don't want the endings changed. Never have. They're bad but they're what we have. It would be a lot more obvious that BioWare was listening to the fans if they were engaged in conversation with them. There is no discussion here. Fans yell, silence answers.

And that's what I want. I want to know why things happened like they did. I want to know why they just dropped Harbinger as a character. I want to know why they decided to give us two Pinnochio stories at once. I want to know why they thought that those endings would be excellent or even satisfying. But they won't tell me.

[Kais Endac]

I don't know how many units Mass Effect 3 sold. But the fact is that what the majority of fans think is not representative of what the majority of players think.

Now I am a fan, who is disappointed with the ending I got. The fact is though casual players (those people who make up the majority of units sold) who liked/dislike the ending, will most likely not get worked up and make their comments known. I know that if I am not a fan of a series, how it ends matters very little to me I will just move on to something else (like most casual players have).

I honestly don't know what the majority of players thought in regards to the ending, at this stage though it matters very little. The ending will not change and it's late enough in the day that any change that could be made would not make it to the majority of players anyway (since most have moved on).

I do know how I feel.....disappointed, that a conclusion to my all time favorite trilogy ended like it did. I'm under no illusions though Mass Effect 3 is a brilliant but flawed game but it's also a game that I will forever look upon with not with excitement(as I do with 1&2, and did with 3 until release) but rather disappointment.

I still trust Bioware to make good games, but not to end them in a manner that appeals to me as a player.

Edit:  Bioware to me still remains one of the best studio's out there, and what I feel about the end often clouds over the fact that until the end I love playing the game. Its one of the most enjoyable games to play even with it's flaws.

Modifié par Kais Endac, 03 mars 2013 - 02:02 .

[Jadebaby]

chemiclord wrote...

Indy_S wrote...

Once again, it does not matter whether or not it a 'majority' is at work here. It remains a significant part of the consumer base and BioWare should not dismiss it. (Not saying that they are, just that they look an awful lot like they are)

Well, that's kinda the problem though isn't it?

The entire ending debacle has devolved into a binary assumption by the fanbase.  If they don't change the ending, that means they hate their fans and aren't listening.

That it might be A LOT more complicated than that even if they DO wish to change the ending seems to be lost on people.

The whole argument is pointless anyway, BioWare already stated that people who dislike the ending are in the minority, and I trust them implicitly. People who are unhappy now should just move on now, because nothing is going to change. I have it on good authority that BioWare are hoping to ban a lot of these people when they revamp these forums.

[Indy_S]

Jadebaby wrote...

The whole argument is pointless anyway, BioWare already stated that people who dislike the ending are in the minority, and I trust them implicitly. People who are unhappy now should just move on now, because nothing is going to change. I have it on good authority that BioWare are hoping to ban a lot of these people when they revamp these forums.

You don't quite have Birdie's... obliviousness to pull that off.

[chemiclord]

Indy_S wrote...

Remarkably, I don't want the endings changed. Never have. They're bad but they're what we have. It would be a lot more obvious that BioWare was listening to the fans if they were engaged in conversation with them. There is no discussion here. Fans yell, silence answers.

And that's what I want. I want to know why things happened like they did. I want to know why they just dropped Harbinger as a character. I want to know why they decided to give us two Pinnochio stories at once. I want to know why they thought that those endings would be excellent or even satisfying. But they won't tell me.

1) Bioware employees DO reach out.  Just not HERE.

2) If you've seen the environment here, you know WHY they don't reach out here.  While I don't agree with the company decision to go silent and let the trolls run wild, it doesn't take much to understand that if Hudson or Walters would attempt to post here, they would be gutted, eviscerated, and spit on with venom.

[Dr_Extrem]

Jadebaby wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

Indy_S wrote...

Once again, it does not matter whether or not it a 'majority' is at work here. It remains a significant part of the consumer base and BioWare should not dismiss it. (Not saying that they are, just that they look an awful lot like they are)

Well, that's kinda the problem though isn't it?

The entire ending debacle has devolved into a binary assumption by the fanbase.  If they don't change the ending, that means they hate their fans and aren't listening.

That it might be A LOT more complicated than that even if they DO wish to change the ending seems to be lost on people.

The whole argument is pointless anyway, BioWare already stated that people who dislike the ending are in the minority, and I trust them implicitly. People who are unhappy now should just move on now, because nothing is going to change. I have it on good authority that BioWare are hoping to ban a lot of these people when they revamp these forums.

creating peace by obliterating the opposition? ..


well .. "the endings applied to the real world"

[IanPolaris]

iDeevil wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...It was nominated.  There is a difference.  Also such polls are very small, unsicentific, and secret, and done by organizations that have an agenda.  Colour me suspicious.

And a number of the polls quoted are in places that a number of 'fans' have never been, don't go or don't know.  Yet, they are more factual?  Go figure.

DIfferent fans from different parts of the world hang out in different places.  If anything it makes the different polls quoted more valid not less.  However, we know that the 'professional' publications (esp IGN) took a stand hard and early.  Given the lack of transparency in their awards process, I have every right to view them with suspicion, even the so-called "fan awards" from such places.

We have absolutely no evidence that they did, and Bioware has refused to release any numbers when even one (cheap) scientific survey could have put this to bed immediately.

And we have no evidence that they didn't.

Actually absence of evidence in this case is evidence, albeit weak evidence.  If Bioware had conducted such surveys over the (fairly small and tight knigt by global standards) ME community, we'd almost certainly have heard about it (just as we did hear about such early DA3 marketing surveys before the game was even announced).

No can do.  She could have said something to the effect, "We are proceding with the new DLC based on what we think is best and will be best received."  She did NOT have to make the specific and objective claim that she did.  I cut her no slack for this.

Aren't we all high and mighty when we have more than 140 characters, and are not being personally attacked by people.

She didn't have to go out on a limb and make an objective claim she wasn't prepared to back up.

This wouldn't have come up except it seems to me (and apparently a lot of other people) like Bioware (or at least a Bioware rep) was caught making stuff up and was caught red handed.

-Polaris

No, you *assume* that she made it up.  Just like I assume you are telling me the truth about the qualifications you hinted at.  You haven't provided any evidence, but it doesn't mean you aren't telling the truth.

All of this is based on assumption and personal bias in reading.  Nothing more and nothing less.

The evidence I have to date suggests she might have made it up.  If I get further data that suggests otherwise, I will change my opinion on this accordingly.

-Polaris

[spirosz]

All these "numbers" don't really add up to anything, think about it - say out of ten surveys, about 10,000 people vote on each, do we know it's 10,000 different people voting or is it the majority of the same people just voting on a different website?

We don't know if these are all different individuals on each site, it can be the same person voting on ten different sites, so showing all these different polls doesn't mean much.

At least, that's the way I view it.

Modifié par spirosz, 03 mars 2013 - 01:55 .

[abch4]

Jadebaby wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

Indy_S wrote...

Once again, it does not matter whether or not it a 'majority' is at work here. It remains a significant part of the consumer base and BioWare should not dismiss it. (Not saying that they are, just that they look an awful lot like they are)

Well, that's kinda the problem though isn't it?

The entire ending debacle has devolved into a binary assumption by the fanbase.  If they don't change the ending, that means they hate their fans and aren't listening.

That it might be A LOT more complicated than that even if they DO wish to change the ending seems to be lost on people.

The whole argument is pointless anyway, BioWare already stated that people who dislike the ending are in the minority, and I trust them implicitly. People who are unhappy now should just move on now, because nothing is going to change. I have it on good authority that BioWare are hoping to ban a lot of these people when they revamp these forums.

Why wait, shoulda been sorted out a while back. As in 4 months deep into the hate.

I do find it concerning that you have this info on good authority though, not a fan of mod bias

[Indy_S]

chemiclord wrote...

1) Bioware employees DO reach out.  Just not HERE.

2) If you've seen the environment here, you know WHY they don't reach out here.  While I don't agree with the company decision to go silent and let the trolls run wild, it doesn't take much to understand that if Hudson or Walters would attempt to post here, they would be gutted, eviscerated, and spit on with venom.

It's a little shameful that their own forum has got away from them. This should be THE place to talk to them. I understand but I believe the rewards for toughing it out in a discussion here will outweigh the venomous comments during the discussion. But I'm not the person who can make that call, of course.

[Jadebaby]

Indy_S wrote...

Jadebaby wrote...

The whole argument is pointless anyway, BioWare already stated that people who dislike the ending are in the minority, and I trust them implicitly. People who are unhappy now should just move on now, because nothing is going to change. I have it on good authority that BioWare are hoping to ban a lot of these people when they revamp these forums.

You don't quite have Birdie's... obliviousness to pull that off.

Actually, you'd be quite surprised how oblivious the BSN can be itself.

[Dr_Extrem]

chemiclord wrote...

Indy_S wrote...

Remarkably, I don't want the endings changed. Never have. They're bad but they're what we have. It would be a lot more obvious that BioWare was listening to the fans if they were engaged in conversation with them. There is no discussion here. Fans yell, silence answers.

And that's what I want. I want to know why things happened like they did. I want to know why they just dropped Harbinger as a character. I want to know why they decided to give us two Pinnochio stories at once. I want to know why they thought that those endings would be excellent or even satisfying. But they won't tell me.

1) Bioware employees DO reach out.  Just not HERE.

2) If you've seen the environment here, you know WHY they don't reach out here.  While I don't agree with the company decision to go silent and let the trolls run wild, it doesn't take much to understand that if Hudson or Walters would attempt to post here, they would be gutted, eviscerated, and spit on with venom.

tbh ... the current state of the forums could have been avoided, if the devs would have talked to the fanbase from the beginning.

this is partially their own fault.

[zyntifox]

IanPolaris wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

I am probably the only statistician on these boards, unfortunately there aren't many of us. And i agree that there is no statistical foundation to use just one of these polls due to self-selection bias. However, and this is something i have been researching quite a lot, you can extract information out of several biased polls if the question in the polls are approximately on equal footing.

And given the sheer amount of polls regarding the ending to mass effect i could easily extract useful data from them that you can use to draw statistical conclusions of the "average" player's opinion of the ending.

so .. the sheer number of relativley equel polls, the number of participants and the absents of outliers, could result in a relativly "save" assumption, that the endings were not recieved well?

That's not what i am saying. You can drawn statistical evidence from many "relatively" equal pools but the convergence rate to the true population parameters will be slow. Whether there are outliers or not is not relevant in this case. This could, in theory, give relatively good information regaring the population. But the two main things that will affect the statistical conclussion you can make from the data is:

1. Number of polls
2. Number of answers that can be picked in the poll

These two factors are key to clean up the data of the bias.

Thanks for the clarification.  Have you seen the video?  It seems to me that based on your criteria and given the data as presented, a reasonable "first order" inference can be drawn that even a year later more people don't like the endings compared to those that do.  That's as far as I am willing to go given what I have seen.

What say you?

-Polaris

I have not seen the video. I have a habit of not watching an video of someone trying to make statistical inference who is not a statistician. It usually never ends well.
But to make it clear; it is not enough if you have 10, 100 or 1000 polls that says one thing to claim that to be the truth. You need to extract the bias of the aggregate of the polls prior to make an inference. And it is not certain after clearing the data of bias that you can draw a statistical conclussion of it given the relatively high standard error of the estimate this method produces.

[Edorian27]

I belive he has a point and the majority of fans didn't like the ending. Not everyone who stayed silent liked it, they disliked it as well, and there seem to be only polls indicating the ending was not received well. I also belive most people have moved on on this topic.


I didn't like it (IT would have saved it) but came to peace with it. Just uninstalled the EC and headcanoned IT, it works well. 
However, IF BW had changed it into IT, there would have been hundreds who said: I imagined IT to be different, this sucks.. and hundreds that said "I never wanted IT, give back the original endings".. they were in a position where they just couldn't make it right, so they followed their original trail which makes sense.
All they probably could do is taking the feedback into accout for their next games, and I hope they do, to make it more a more roleplay and lore friendly game.

On a sidenote: The MP section proves that BW actually listens to the fans, they gave them A LOT of what was requested and contact between fanbase and BW seems to be quite positive there.
I grew fond of the MP myself, and yes, it made up for the ending a bit. I'll definetly keep interested in what they'll publish next.

[IanPolaris]

spirosz wrote...

All these "numbers" don't really add up to anything, think about it - say out of ten surveys, about 10,000 people vote on each, do we know it's 10,000 different people voting or is it the majority of the same people just voting on a different website?

We don't know if these are all different individuals on each site, it can be the same person voting on ten different sites, so showing all these different polls doesn't mean much.

At least, that's the way I view it.

Your point is well taken.  We don't know if all the people responding to all those polls are in fact different people.  In fact chances are they are not.  That's why they are unscientific polls.  However (and I will defer to the experts), the more such polls you have, the less and less likely you will get duplication over ALL the polls in question.  As I understand it, this (at least in part) is what permits a stasticial convergence to take place and permits one to get valid data from multiple polls, but it's a difficult process.

Certainly I'd be much happer with even one true scientific poll.

-Polaris

[iDeevil]

IanPolaris wrote...

DIfferent fans from different parts of the world hang out in different places.  If anything it makes the different polls quoted more valid not less.  However, we know that the 'professional' publications (esp IGN) took a stand hard and early.  Given the lack of transparency in their awards process, I have every right to view them with suspicion, even the so-called "fan awards" from such places.

Not necessarily different fans mate.  Some are the EXACT same fans.  It all depends on the level of gamer fandom people run in, how likely they were to seek out polls etc. 

I look at ALL internet polls with suspicion, and have every right too when I know how easy it is to stack the cards.  This is possible even when there are so called 'measures in place' to stop it from happening.

Actually absence of evidence in this case is evidence, albeit weak evidence.  If Bioware had conducted such surveys over the (fairly small and tight knigt by global standards) ME community, we'd almost certainly have heard about it (just as we did hear about such early DA3 marketing surveys before the game was even announced).

No, actually it doesn't.  It just proves that if we did the people they contacted didn't let you or others know.  Lack of knowledge is not evidence that polling did not take place.

She didn't have to go out on a limb and make an objective claim she wasn't prepared to back up.

She also didn't have to back it up, despite what you may think.

The evidence I have to date suggests she might have made it up.  If I get further data that suggests otherwise, I will change my opinion on this accordingly.

-Polaris

And the fact that something *might* have happened does not make it true.  It just makes it a possibility.

[OdanUrr]

Like I've said before, these numbers share the same problems. First, they're very small samples of the people who've played the game. Second, it is more likely that the people willing to answer these polls are the ones who are still angry about the endings. Think about it, people who liked or feel indifferent about the endings probably won't bother answering any polls. As a general rule, people who are angry about something are more vocal about that something than those who are not.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 03 mars 2013 - 02:04 .

[Dr_Extrem]

Cstaf wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Cstaf wrote...

I am probably the only statistician on these boards, unfortunately there aren't many of us. And i agree that there is no statistical foundation to use just one of these polls due to self-selection bias. However, and this is something i have been researching quite a lot, you can extract information out of several biased polls if the question in the polls are approximately on equal footing.

And given the sheer amount of polls regarding the ending to mass effect i could easily extract useful data from them that you can use to draw statistical conclusions of the "average" player's opinion of the ending.

so .. the sheer number of relativley equel polls, the number of participants and the absents of outliers, could result in a relativly "save" assumption, that the endings were not recieved well?

That's not what i am saying. You can drawn statistical evidence from many "relatively" equal pools but the convergence rate to the true population parameters will be slow. Whether there are outliers or not is not relevant in this case. This could, in theory, give relatively good information regaring the population. But the two main things that will affect the statistical conclussion you can make from the data is:

1. Number of polls
2. Number of answers that can be picked in the poll

These two factors are key to clean up the data of the bias.

Thanks for the clarification.  Have you seen the video?  It seems to me that based on your criteria and given the data as presented, a reasonable "first order" inference can be drawn that even a year later more people don't like the endings compared to those that do.  That's as far as I am willing to go given what I have seen.

What say you?

-Polaris

I have not seen the video. I have a habit of not watching an video of someone trying to make statistical inference who is not a statistician. It usually never ends well.
But to make it clear; it is not enough if you have 10, 100 or 1000 polls that says one thing to claim that to be the truth. You need to extract the bias of the aggregate of the polls prior to make an inference. And it is not certain after clearing the data of bias that you can draw a statistical conclussion of it given the relatively high standard error of the estimate this method produces.

i think it is clear, that poll are not accurate.

could you as a statistician say, that there is a trend?


data from a real, indepentand survey (sample size 1000- selected randomly out of game owners) would be helpfull right now.