Roleplayers' Perspective of Life on Balmung

[Ciel]

Hello, my friends!

 

I’m taking a survey specific to the roleplaying community on Balmung.  I’ve been asked by The Moogle Post to write an article looking at what life is really like on the server. 

 

My intention is to provide this insight in as fair of a manner as possible.  Thus… YOU get to participate!  Because an article written solely from one person’s opinion can be biased without consideration to the ideas of others.

 

It may look lengthy, but I ask that you please take the time to fill the survey out honestly.  A few questions have blanks you can fill in if there are no options available which fit your individual responses.

 

This survey will be available for two weeks starting today, 12/20/17, and will close on 1/3/18.

 

Thank you!

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY!

[Valence]

If I may add a but of feedback, I tried answering at first but had trouble with the form of the survey at almost every step.

 

Questions like "everyone is open to walk-ups but nobody wants to initiate" for example, cause me trouble. I want to check it because it's true, but at the same time what do we consider walk-ups? You're in the wild and not RPing, and someone walks up to you? You're in the wild and RPing, and someone walks up to you? Is that made unnanounced? Is that after an OOC warning? Or do we consider walk ups making connection/contact at first (on forums or else) and then arranging something to happen? To me, especially that last one, are totally different situations. I'm opposed to random walk ups except MAYBE when I'm already RPing, because I'm picky with whom I RP. But making preliminary connections and prospecting before hand? Sure, sign me up. So, should I check that choice or not?

 

I also have a problem with how the distinction between "too lore strict FCs" and "very flexible FCs" is written. I want an option "most FCs are too RP flexible" or else it's biased in my opinion. You are just presenting on side and the middle ground, but not the other side of the coin there. I had to specifically check "Other" to add it myself. I don't think that's good form.

 

Same on the ERP frequency question, why adding "when it adds character development" only for "once in a blue moon"? This doesn't really concern me a lot, but I feel that it's biasing the answers quite a lot.

[Kellach Woods]

The survey is biased to make Balmung look good and its admitting to its own bias in the preamble. Not exactly anything people can take seriously.

[Caspar]

If you rewrite the questions to be as neutral as possible and remove the requirement for a name, I'll be glad to participate.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

If you rewrite the questions to be as neutral as possible and remove the requirement for a name, I'll be glad to participate.

 

From my understanding, the name is just to validate the player has a character in use on balmung. It's not part of the actual survey or posted results.

[Nebbs]

Maybe you could tell us what the aim of this is, and why it is needed? Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or the community as a whole?

 

Perhaps, make it server agnostic or at least include all servers so a meaningful comparison can be given. Then when people ask what is the best RP server we can have a constructive answer.

 

I remain skeptical.

[Warren Castille]

Maybe you could tell us what the aim of this is, and why it is needed? Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or the community as a whole?

 

Perhaps, make it server agnostic or at least include all servers so a meaningful comparison can be given. Then when people ask what is the best RP server we can have a constructive answer.

 

I remain skeptical.

 

It's literally in the first paragraph and expanded on in the second.

 

Hello, my friends!

 

I’m taking a survey specific to the roleplaying community on Balmung.  I’ve been asked by The Moogle Post to write an article looking at what life is really like on the server. 

 

My intention is to provide this insight in as fair of a manner as possible.  Thus… YOU get to participate!  Because an article written solely from one person’s opinion can be biased without consideration to the ideas of others.

 

 

Ciel has been around forever and a day. If you need to elaborate on a question, there's spots to write in responses. I get being skeptical about random people jumping in with questions but I'm willing to trust her on this.

[Nebbs]

Maybe you could tell us what the aim of this is, and why it is needed? Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or the community as a whole?

 

Perhaps, make it server agnostic or at least include all servers so a meaningful comparison can be given. Then when people ask what is the best RP server we can have a constructive answer.

 

I remain skeptical.

 

It's literally in the first paragraph and expanded on in the second.

 

 

I trust Ciel, and I can see from her post a reason she is doing it, not what this is really for, what is the end game, why is it needed, what "thing" is it trying to address?

[Melkire]

fills out survey

 

Excellent idea, OP, thank you.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Maybe you could tell us what the aim of this is, and why it is needed? Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or the community as a whole?

 

Perhaps, make it server agnostic or at least include all servers so a meaningful comparison can be given. Then when people ask what is the best RP server we can have a constructive answer.

 

I remain skeptical.

 

It's literally in the first paragraph and expanded on in the second.

 

 

I trust Ciel, and I can see from her post a reason she is doing it, not what this is really for, what is the end game, why is it needed, what "thing" is it trying to address?

 

Lemme see if I can answer some of these.

 

Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or its community as a whole?

 

It's a survey about Roleplayers specifically on Balmung. The roleplay experience is different on every server. For every game/community. It's not designed to paint a picture about roleplay in general or roleplay in FFXIV. It's a specific focus.

 

What's the aim of this? What is it trying to address?

 

As stated in the first sentence, it's for an article on The Moogle Post to write an article looking at what life is really like on the server. I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory. Like any survey, the larger the sample size, the more accurate the results. But also just like any survey, it could be completely inaccurate if only a certain group of people answer the survey questions. And the questions themselves may not cover all possible options. Valence addressed a few. So did I on tumblr.

 

So really? What's to be skeptical about? Perturbed by some of the questions, maybe. I feel like they could have used a little vetting before the survey went live. Perhaps they were. In lieu of -other- things going on on tumblr, I'd say this is a pretty benign and harmless thing to do. With its reason stated directly from the start.

[Nebbs]

Maybe you could tell us what the aim of this is, and why it is needed? Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or the community as a whole?

 

Perhaps, make it server agnostic or at least include all servers so a meaningful comparison can be given. Then when people ask what is the best RP server we can have a constructive answer.

 

I remain skeptical.

 

It's literally in the first paragraph and expanded on in the second.

 

 

I trust Ciel, and I can see from her post a reason she is doing it, not what this is really for, what is the end game, why is it needed, what "thing" is it trying to address?

 

Lemme see if I can answer some of these.

 

Why does it single out Balmung? Who would be helped by this? What's in it for Balmung or its community as a whole?

 

It's a survey about Roleplayers specifically on Balmung. The roleplay experience is different on every server. For every game/community. It's not designed to paint a picture about roleplay in general or roleplay in FFXIV. It's a specific focus.

 

What's the aim of this? What is it trying to address?

 

As stated in the first sentence, it's for an article on The Moogle Post to write an article looking at what life is really like on the server. I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory. Like any survey, the larger the sample size, the more accurate the results. But also just like any survey, it could be completely inaccurate if only a certain group of people answer the survey questions. And the questions themselves may not cover all possible options. Valence addressed a few. So did I on tumblr.

 

So really? What's to be skeptical about? Perturbed by some of the questions, maybe. I feel like they could have used a little vetting before the survey went live. Perhaps they were. In lieu of -other- things going on on tumblr, I'd say this is a pretty benign and harmless thing to do. With its reason stated directly from the start.

 

Normally there would be a reason to do this to answer some premise or such. That was what I was as after. As it stands it seems that "purpose" will be added after the evidence is gathered.

 

I have not even looked at the questions, but I will go and fill it in anyhow.

 

[update] I filled it in and..

• Overall fairly innocent questions but..
  
• There seems to be an overly large interest in ERP
  
• Some of the questions already discount some answers
  

[Hollow]

Normally there would be a reason to do this to answer some premise or such. That was what I was as after. As it stands it seems that "purpose" will be added after the evidence is gathered.

 

The purpose is writing an article. It's not a scientific survey seeking to answer a premise. It's just gathering data for the article. There's no higher purpose to it.

[Edvyn]

survey looked like fun so i filled it out, questions look pretty innocent to me and i'm curious to see how the article ends up - roleplayers are a fascinating bunch

[Askier]

Questions seemed pretty fair to me and only took like a minute.  Curious to see end results.

[Delilah Scythewood]

I filled it out myself. If the purpose can't be gleaned from it being repeated and stated multiple times and you still have skepticism, you don't have to fill out the survey. I didn't see an issue with the questions and how they were worded though some of the questions make it hard to be more specific.

 

But like with any survey just pick whatever answer best suits you if you do fill it out. It helped that many of the questions allow you to pick more than one answer to help encompass more possibilities.

 

It's being used for an article. Participate...or don't. It's really not that difficult.

[Nebbs]

Sorry my skepticism triggers so many comments, though no ones's comments have actually addressed my concern.

 

I did fill it in, so I can at least comment on that with some certainty.

 

I await the results with interest.

[Warren Castille]

Sorry my skepticism triggers so many comments, though no ones's comments have actually addressed my concern.

 

I did fill it in, so I can at least comment on that with some certainty.

 

I await the results with interest.

 

You're overthinking this.

 

It's an article reflecting the general opinion of life on Balmung, as viewed through the people who play on Balmung. In order to get that information, you need to, you know, collect it. There's not really an easier way to explain it.

[Kage]

Roleplayers on Balmung always seem to have issues when the clickbait articles are written up on Kotaku and the like (reddit perception). I don't see why you would be opposed to knowing what people perceive about it.

 

Is the ERP overstated? Is it not?

[Nebbs]

Sorry my skepticism triggers so many comments, though no ones's comments have actually addressed my concern.

 

I did fill it in, so I can at least comment on that with some certainty.

 

I await the results with interest.

 

You're overthinking this.

 

It's an article reflecting the general opinion of life on Balmung, as viewed through the people who play on Balmung. In order to get that information, you need to, you know, collect it. There's not really an easier way to explain it.

 

You are probably right, and there is no more to it than simplistic trivia. At least now I am engaged enough to see what comes out of this.

 

Alas, I'm an old soul with old ways - “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22

[Ciel]

It's just to collect data, folks.  The questions were selected based on things I'm sure we've all heard from time to time:  that Balmung is all kinks and ERP (thus the ERP question), that there are cliques (and there are), that there are so many negatives about it.  Kotaku's just an example of writing being biased toward all the negatives.

 

I'm trying to show that our server has so much more to it than the sum of all of these negatives which, to be honest, is all most people hear about us.  I like to think I was pretty balanced in the options provided for each question. 

 

I did refine a couple of things after Franz posted some feedback on tumblr about it, but it received so many responses so quickly that I couldn't keep going back to make more changes.  Every time something is changed anywhere on the form, that means there will be inaccuracies in the final data, because some of the previous submitters will either not go back to redo or edit it, or there will be duplications.

 

Since it was first posted, we have received a sample size of nearly 250 unique submissions.  That may still only be a small slice of Balmung's population, but that's still a much bigger sample size than I was expecting and I'm grateful to see so many people have been willing to participate.

 

This wasn't something "needed", to answer the question.  This was voluntary.  I was asked to write the article, and while I could have gone off of my own perspectives it would not have been fair to anyone else who might have differences of opinion.  I created the survey so the players could add their voices and make the results as authentic as possible, and yes, everyone who contributed WILL be counted - even the fill in answers which didn't have exact options available.

 

This is not being done in response directly to Kotaku, or to the Balmung Blunders blog. Neither one of them will be mentioned at all in the article, and this was in discussion with the head honcho at The Moogle Post a week or two before the BB blog became a thing.  The survey and its results are not intended to be something to inspire judgments or callouts, it's neutral and the results are entirely up to those who choose to fill it out.

 

Balmung is what the players make it.  But I think we deserve better than to be known as a cesspool if we have the opportunity to prove there's more to it.

 

Thank you all for your interest.  I look forward to sharing the results with you all at the beginning of February.

 

Also, if it helps, I'm the only one who has access to the results, so no one else is seeing the submitters' names or details. I have full control over this information, and it's not being shared. What's going in the article will be mostly numbers and stats. If I feel a need to add quotes from submissions, I will get in touch directly with the submitters I'm getting it from to get permission first.

 

So don't worry!

[Teadrinker]

Based on prior comments and my own curiosity: Will results still be counted if the participant chooses to not cite a character?

[Nebbs]

Thanks Ciel that helped ease my mind.

[Valence]

It's just to collect data, folks.  The questions were selected based on things I'm sure we've all heard from time to time:  that Balmung is all kinks and ERP (thus the ERP question), that there are cliques (and there are), that there are so many negatives about it.  Kotaku's just an example of writing being biased toward all the negatives.

 

I'm trying to show that our server has so much more to it than the sum of all of these negatives which, to be honest, is all most people hear about us.  I like to think I was pretty balanced in the options provided for each question. 

 

I did refine a couple of things after Franz posted some feedback on tumblr about it, but it received so many responses so quickly that I couldn't keep going back to make more changes.  Every time something is changed anywhere on the form, that means there will be inaccuracies in the final data, because some of the previous submitters will either not go back to redo or edit it, or there will be duplications.

 

Since it was first posted, we have received a sample size of nearly 250 unique submissions.  That may still only be a small slice of Balmung's population, but that's still a much bigger sample size than I was expecting and I'm grateful to see so many people have been willing to participate.

 

This wasn't something "needed", to answer the question.  This was voluntary.  I was asked to write the article, and while I could have gone off of my own perspectives it would not have been fair to anyone else who might have differences of opinion.  I created the survey so the players could add their voices and make the results as authentic as possible, and yes, everyone who contributed WILL be counted - even the fill in answers which didn't have exact options available.

 

This is not being done in response directly to Kotaku, or to the Balmung Blunders blog. Neither one of them will be mentioned at all in the article, and this was in discussion with the head honcho at The Moogle Post a week or two before the BB blog became a thing.  The survey and its results are not intended to be something to inspire judgments or callouts, it's neutral and the results are entirely up to those who choose to fill it out.

 

Balmung is what the players make it.  But I think we deserve better than to be known as a cesspool if we have the opportunity to prove there's more to it.

 

Thank you all for your interest.  I look forward to sharing the results with you all at the beginning of February.

 

Also, if it helps, I'm the only one who has access to the results, so no one else is seeing the submitters' names or details.  I have full control over this information, and it's not being shared.  What's going in the article will be mostly numbers and stats.  If I feel a need to add quotes from submissions, I will get in touch directly with the submitters I'm getting it from to get permission first.

 

So don't worry!

 

Thank you for the clarifications.

 

They still raise some concerns to me and I will respectfully disagree that half the questions weren't biased toward a goal, which you implicitly admitted below (to give another image/perspective of our server). I feel that the part on ERP tries to push people to vote for the only option where it was mentioned "for character development", which naturally leads to wash away all the ERP centric image we often see associated with Balmung. Similarly, the absence of RP elitism answers where the only answers were about "FCs are too lore strict" or "FCs are fine and diverse", will naturally make the result seem more attractive and less cliquish to readers.

 

The fill in answers sure help to alleviate the issue quite a bit, but they don't remove the bias of the survey. Not that with something more neutral I expect to see much difference in the results anyway, since that bias seems to represent pretty well the mainstream of the community: people naturally tend to answer that they do less ERP than they do in reality (a lot), and not a lot of people are concerned about the lack of strong RP themes in FCs anyway.

 

So I guess my issue lies more in a problem of principles/form, and that form tends to smother even more the minorities. I sincerely hope that will be taken in account in the article.

 

In short, I don't like the agenda behind, it biases everything. This is just my opinion of course.

 

On a matter of principles, I also would be very happy if you could delete all the characters names once you did your character check. I'm not that annoyed that someone knows exactly how I feel on most of those questions since they aren't especially personal, but I certainly feel uneasy knowing that all those names and their preferences are kept in the care of a single person.

 

Now then, if you don't, that's fine. We chose to answer and knew what we were going into. I just feel it's a matter of good etiquette.

 

I hope you'll understand.

[Ciel]

As stated in the disclaimer on the survey, I need the names so I can confirm that the respondents are actually on Balmung and not just throwing information into it to throw off numbers.

 

I can't make any further changes to the form to add additional options, as I also stated, and I explained why.  I'm sorry you feel it's biased. I feel I did my best to not make it that way.  I'm human, I'm not a scientist or a statistician.  I'm just someone who plays a video game.  I did NOT bias the answers toward being all positive, and allowed plenty of opportunity for negative responses and individual elaborations which will be counted when it's time for the final tally.  If you feel it's biased, I'm afraid you're reading too much into it.

 

The data, including the names, isn't going to be retained anywhere once the article is completed.

 

I appreciate peoples' feedback, but I'm going to step back from here.  Again, if someone doesn't feel right about filling it out, then don't.  It's not that big of a deal.

[Marisa]

Only question I didn't like was the ERP one. I never ERP, so my only option was "I stay as far away from it as possible." That makes it sound like I have something against it, when I don't. I just don't find it fun, and even if I did, my character is a child so it'd be... weird. That said, I have no issue with people ERPing near me or even being a third party for ERP, just as long as its not my character being sexual.