Have You Taken the Altar of Malice Expansion Survey?
Have you taken the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion survey? If not, head here:
Personally as someone who has dedicated some time to writing good survey questions, this has to be one of the most generic surveys I’ve seen. On one hand, there is an entire page dedicated to the six raid zones in the expansion, yet the entirety of the tradeskill and heroic content are each distilled down to a single 1-10 rating question. What if you love the zones, animations, populations, humor, and the music, but you dislike difficulty, how would you rate that?
It’s pretty clear that Marketing largely referenced the expansion’s press release without much (if any) consultation with the EQ2 team. I wonder what if anything SOE will learn from this survey. I feel that the way the questions are written is prone to lead to invalid conclusions.
Here are the Questions preserved for posterity:
1. Please rate the Level 100 for Adventurers feature: [1-10 rating scale]
2. Please rate the Level 100 for Tradeskillers feature: [1-10 rating scale]
3. Please rate the New Prestige Abilities to 100 feature: [1-10 rating scale]
4. Please rate the Progression Structure: [1-10 rating scale]
5. Please rate character advancement through items found in Altar of Malice: [1-10 rating scale]
6. Please rate the Story Line in Altar of Malice: [1-10 rating scale]
7. Please rate the raid zone Zavith’Loa: The Molten Pools. [1-10 rating scale]
8. Please rate the raid zone Castle Highhold: No Quarter. [1-10 rating scale]
9. Please rate the raid zone Temple of Ssraeshza: Echoes of Time. [1-10 rating scale]
10. Please rate the raid zone Brokenskull Bay: Fury of the Cursed. [1-10 rating scale]
11. Please rate the raid zone Ossuary: Cathedral of Bones. [1-10 rating scale]
12. Please rate the raid zone Ossuary: Altar of Malice. [1-10 rating scale]
13. Please rate the raid zone Precipice of Power. [1-10 rating scale]
14. Please rate the new Overland Zones: [1-10 rating scale and comments field]
15. Please rate the new Contested Zones: [1-10 rating scale and comments field]
16. Please rate the new Heroic Zones: [1-10 rating scale and comments field]
17. Please rate the new Advance Solo Zones: [1-10 rating scale and comments field]
18. Please rate the new PvP Gear: [1-10 rating scale and comments field]
19. Did you purchase the Standard Edition or the Collector’s Edition? [Standard Edition / Collector’s Edition]
20. Please rate the Standard Edition in-game painting item Lanys T’Vyl: [1-10 rating scale]
21. Did you purchase the expansion during Early Access? [Yes / No]
22. Did you like Early Access, or would you prefer pre-sale as we’ve done with previous expansions?
[Continue with Early Access] or [Move back to pre-sale for expansions] and [Comments field]
23. Please rate the overall value of the Standard Edition Expansion: [1-10 rating scale]
24. What was your favorite part of the Altar of Malice expansion and why? [Comments field]
25. What did you like least about the Altar of Malice expansion and why? [Comments field]
26. Did you buy the Altar of Malice expansion for more than one account? [Yes/No]
27. Rate the Altar of Malice expansion versus our previous expansion, Tears of Veeshan: [Same, Better, or Worse and Comments field]
28. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about Altar of Malice? (Max 10,000 chars)
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Comments (18)
Omence
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I stopped half way through because I have not done any of the raid content and did not see an option to give a N/A type of response.
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Loch
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There was an N/A choice after 1-10, but really, it didn’t seem to make sense. Like Feldon said, an entire page of raid zone questions, but barely anything for the rest of the expansion.
How would you rate the level 100 feature asked three different ways. In the beginning I thought this was going to be some kind of 500 question survey I’d regret starting. It seems like whoever was writing it just got bored and gave up partway through.
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Feldon
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All the raid zones had “N/A” as a choice.
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Faelen
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I was very disappointed by the, as Feldon said, very lackluster and shallow survey, I was hoping for more in-depth questions regarding all the aspects of the xpac…
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Nefa
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I finished it and was able to note that I cannot, do not, do Raids as I am in Nagafen and there aren’t enough players to do a raid
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Edoo
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I left several notes where allowed
but you are right, it does feel like it was for raiders only
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Maddog
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Even if you are a raider most guilds have only gotten to the first 2 names in the first raid zone and maybe 1 or 2 in the second raid zone. Even for raiders the survey stressed raids to much.
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Carnifex
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I would concur that the survey was pretty lackluster. Best case scenario is that people will actually read and interpret them.
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Edoo
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like the one question where they want to you to choose if you want early access or presale for future expansions. Is that presale with discounted prices? If so why not both? Presale discount and early access for subscribers.
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Eric T Lewis
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The entire survey was for raiders only. I wish they would have asked questions about solo/advanced solo/heroic zones. My raid guild died about 6 months back, and I not raided since due to time problems as in I am usually doing real life stuff and need a raid that starts at 9-10 pm cst. I took time to fill out answers in space given for free form. So I am going to say this to soe if any of them actually read over here.
(1) advanced solo should be called duo zones, I yet to finish and advanced solo with my merc, I always have to get the wife to do it. Where are the plat drops from each boss mob like other xpacs? Heroic zones, I not run them since they toned it down, quite frankly they were not fun. There that is what I got to say to soe.
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Pipsissiwa
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Yeah, for me at least I still haven’t successfully completed an Advanced Solo with my merc, even at max level. It seems I need the gear from AO (or better) zones in order to be able to do the AO zones, so I’m stuck in a Catch 22. The Solo zones are a breeze but I’m getting very bored of them, and of being rewarded with gear that is essentially identical to that which the Sig quest line gave me.
I was fine doing Advanced Solo in ToV, shocked I am having so much trouble in AoM.
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Loendar
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They didn’t even ask the most important question.
Now that you have the new expac. how to you enjoy the feature that crashes you back to desktop every time you zone from your Guild Hall to the new overland zones? This feature enables you to reload the game from scratch and gives us the ability to claim your perfectly functional hardware is suddenly broken. ;p
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Llwellyn
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At question 19, it branches. If you answered that you purchased a collector’s edition, you get the additional questions below:
20. Please rank the Collector’s Edition items: [1=Most Important and 7=Least Important]
* Lanys T’Vyl Painting
* Mage Tower Mirage Teleporter
* Prehistoric House Pet
* 3 Gems of Armor Advancement Upgrade
* 80 Days of Spell Research – 2 Potions
* Elite Battle Mystic Mercenary
* Striped Savage Pterodon Mount
21. Did you purchase the expansion during Early Access? [Yes / No]
22 is the same, about early access, and then you get this:
23. Please rate the overall value of the Collector’s Edition Expansion: [scale of 1 – 10]
Then, 24 – 28 are the same on the final survey page.
Just thought you might like to know that – since it’s an interesting (to me, anyway) shift in questions regarding the standard vs. CE.
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Pipsissiwa
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Was very annoyed that all the questions seemed to care about were raid zones – far too thin as regards the rest of the Expac experience.
I wrote them some essays at the end to say all the stuff they didn’t ask about, like the feel, the solo experience, crafting, lack of depth, the difficulty etc. Oh and the SE/CE pricing structure.
Bet they don’t read it tho.
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Wirewhisker
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I gave it the straight-2’s treatment, because I honestly don’t think they care that much about the responses and I figure they’ll drop the all-1’s on the floor, out of hand.
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Blargh
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@maddog:you might want to take a look at worldwide progression…some guilds are close to finishing 3rd and 4th zone, while most at least cleared one, killed the first two bosses in the next two zones and got the first in zones no4 and 5.
i admit, asking for feedback on Ossuary: Altar of Malice when no guild even got access yet is kind of an indicator that SOE doesnt have a clue where ppl are progression wise.
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Zzzz'z
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I also let them know how dissatisfied I am with the lack of players on my server too. SOE needs to do server mergers – they know it!!!!…. yet they refuse to help their player base so they can hold out for 25.00 per toon transfer fees.
Cross server dungeons are not the answer to low server populations. I’m on a server that struggles to fill the 4-5 raid forces we have. Long established casual players/guilds are not interested in raiding so everytime a raider gets fed up and quits or coughs up 25 bucks to move to AB we lose another chance to fill raids.
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Striinger
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The questions about comment no one has tried is out of touch, but raider hate makes no sense. You don’t need an MMO to play solo, and it’s a play style that kills the need for online gaming, really.
I can’t really answer most of these questions since they don’t ask, as Feldon noted, a question that can be consistently interpreted.
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