Quote from: jeff37923;279469So, does this show that 4E is losing its popularity now that it has been out for awhile?

It might show that 4e is losing popularity on EnWorld...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;279614It might show that 4e is losing popularity on EnWorld...

Seanchai

Because fanboi Zealotry will not allow you to possibly think otherwise, which is why I threw in the towel on this.

Quote from: StormBringer;279462I am thinking it is a good sample of how hardcore fans feel.

I'm hardcore. I like 4e.

Quote from: StormBringer;279462While the ENWorld folks are above and beyond the average hardcore player, in that they voice their concerns on the Internet, I don't think that extra characteristic, in and of itself, means the sample is useless.

The sample is useless for predicting patterns in the population because it isn't random. If you could somehow create a poll that randomly selected people to answer questions from a multitude of RPG forums, then you'd be

Quote from: StormBringer;279462Those samples are still used and trusted to represent the views of the population at large.

No, they're not.

Quote from: StormBringer;279478I would further narrow the audience to the hardcore 3.x fans and say they are not likely going for it in the numbers WotC would have hoped.

Except WotC has publicly and privately said that 4e's sales wildly surpassed their expectations.

Quote from: StormBringer;279478Let's say the ENWorld poll is rather overvalued, and the numbers are closer to 30%.  Out of, say, 10mil world wide, that is already 3mil.

WotC says there are 4.5 million D&D players world-wide. Personally, I think that number is far too large. But it would yield a number of 1.35 million folks unhappy with 4e.

But I'd literally eat my shorts if EnWorld's poll turned out to be a true representation of the population.

Quote from: StormBringer;279478Clearly, none of us here are at the top of the marketing field, but Toyota's retention rate of 64.6% is considered unusually high.

For the automotive field. In purchases that are tens of thousands of dollars. Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people eat at McDonalds only once? Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people read the second, third, fourth, etc., book in a series?

Seanchai

Quote from: RPGPundit;279553I was one of the biggest, best known cheerleaders of D&D and D20-supremacy, and had played a couple of 3e campaigns (one regular, when it first came out, and one Midnight campaign).

And then, based solely on the fact that 4e had been announced before you thought it was going to be, you literally announced that you were going to turn on WotC and hate 4e. You don't get to come back and say, "I was one of their biggest fans..." after that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;2795562. Pathfinder is working in a long-term and profound consultation process with everyone who wants to get on board with them, you can get to be a playtester and your feedback will be noted just by getting on their forums. Its the ultimate in interactive design and for that they deserve credit, IMO.

Profound consultation? Posting a message on a message board (using a handle like "UnicornLover83" or "Drizzt1234712364"), which may or may not be read, much less taken into consideration, is "profound consultation"?

If that's the case, then 4e's designers had "profound consultation" with the members of this board about 4e.

Quote from: RPGPundit;2795564e was basically not playtested.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Totally.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279556So what Pathfinder's differences from 4e mean is that Pathfinder will appeal to a cadre of loyal 3e-people, and they will cement their loyalty by the feeling that THEY are the ones getting to influence the "new edition".

Will? There are already loyal 3e fans turning away from it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279556But really, its a brilliant idea from a marketing POV for Paizo.

Right up until the point that it comes out. Then the game is going to fail to meet the impossible expectations it built up. Non-Paizo message boards are going to inundated with posts by people disappointed that their suggestions didn't make the final cut or that it didn't fix 3e in the manner they wanted. Then the folks who were on the fence or hadn't gotten around to buying it yet are going to reconsider purchasing it.

And then what is Paizo going to do?

All the above is just supposition, of course. Pathfinder might do great. Then it's no harm, no foul for Paizo.

But what if Pathfinder isn't the kind of success they need? WotC said it spent millions of dollars developing 4e. Pathfinder is similar in nature - although I doubt Paizo has spent millions on it yet. Regardless, the development cost has got to be high. They changed the direction of their company to one that's based around their in-house game. If it doesn't bring in the numbers they need, what are they going to do? Eat crow, say, "Whoops!," and start producing 4e adventures? Given their rather public distaste of 4e and WotC, I doubt that would be the outcome they choose...

Quote from: RPGPundit;279556...well, everything about how they released 4e, and would get such a HUGE number of people pissed off with them to the point that they would be more interested in Pathfinder.

Give us an idea of what you mean by "huge." Put a number on it. Is it ten folks? One hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;279621I'm hardcore. I like 4e.

The survey doesn't say 100% of ENWorld hates it.  There are roughly 40% of that group that likes it too.  Your assertion doesn't make it invalid, it puts you in the minority.

QuoteThe sample is useless for predicting patterns in the population because it isn't random. If you could somehow create a poll that randomly selected people to answer questions from a multitude of RPG forums, then you'd be

Most polls aren't random.  Public opinion polls are random, and those are the ones people hear about the most.  Marketing surveys, usability reports, customer satisfaction surveys and dozens of other surveys are also self-selecting, and those are taken quite seriously.

QuoteNo, they're not.

In fact, they are.  General public opinion polls are statistically designed to account for many factors, and are accepted as representative of an entire population as a whole.  No one dismisses a Gallup poll because the participants are 'self-selected as people who like to take surveys'.

QuoteExcept WotC has publicly and privately said that 4e's sales wildly surpassed their expectations.

No one is expecting WotC to announce that sales are shit, and they are ready to go out of business.  No company that is interested in staying in business says their product is crap and no one is buying it.

QuoteWotC says there are 4.5 million D&D players world-wide. Personally, I think that number is far too large. But it would yield a number of 1.35 million folks unhappy with 4e.

Which is 1.35 million folks who are telling their friends not to waste their time and money on it.  I defy you to find any marketing literature that claims bad word-of-mouth is irrelevant to sales.

QuoteBut I'd literally eat my shorts if EnWorld's poll turned out to be a true representation of the population.

Not a risky bet.  No poll claims to be a 'true' representation, just one that is close enough, statistically, to matter.

QuoteFor the automotive field. In purchases that are tens of thousands of dollars. Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people eat at McDonalds only once? Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people read the second, third, fourth, etc., book in a series?

Precisely my point.  For a purchase of tens of thousands of dollars, they have a proven 65% retention rate, which is likely lower than a survey would show.  Hence, 58% on a survey would indicate that a lower percent actually follows through with additional purchases.

Eating at McDonald's is less a matter of satisfaction than convenience.  How many people would suggest McDonald's for a business dinner?  Or a place to impress your date?  Nothing about McDonald's popularity suggests 'satisfaction' or 'preference'.

Regarding sequels, they only rarely earn more than the original, for movies at least.

Quote from: Article from 2003Of the 19 sequels released last year, only four generated more ticket sales than their original, according to figures from Box Office Mojo.com, another box office tracking service. And many of the sequels had higher costs than their originals for production, marketing or both, according to available figures.

They sold fewer tickets, but had higher costs.  Not a recipe for success.  Books are not much better.  In fact, rather than earning more money on their own, there is some evidence they have more effect in boosting sales of the original.

Quote from: jeff37923;279619Because fanboi Zealotry will not allow you to possibly think otherwise, which is why I threw in the towel on this.

No, I took a class in statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)

"Nonprobability sampling is any sampling method where some elements of the population have no chance of selection (these are sometimes referred to as 'out of coverage'/'undercovered'), or where selection probabilities cannot be accurately determined. Either of these conditions places limits on how much information a sample can provide about the population...In the former case, the sample can never provide information about the part of the population that is out of coverage."

In other words, an EnWorld poll doesn't tell us anything about what's happening outside of EnWorld because only the folks on EnWorld were "covered."

That aside, zealotry is having every indicator that 4e has been a success, including outside, objective ones, and still refusing to accept it because, presumably, it impinges on one's feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, et al..

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;279655No, I took a class in statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)

"Nonprobability sampling is any sampling method where some elements of the population have no chance of selection (these are sometimes referred to as 'out of coverage'/'undercovered'), or where selection probabilities cannot be accurately determined. Either of these conditions places limits on how much information a sample can provide about the population...In the former case, the sample can never provide information about the part of the population that is out of coverage."

In other words, an EnWorld poll doesn't tell us anything about what's happening outside of EnWorld because only the folks on EnWorld were "covered."

That aside, zealotry is having every indicator that 4e has been a success, including outside, objective ones, and still refusing to accept it because, presumably, it impinges on one's feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, et al..

Seanchai

How can I argue with the logic of putting your hands over your ears and yelling, "Nah-nah! I can't hear your heresy against 4E!"? I have already said that I was throwing in the towel on this one.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Public opinion polls are random...

Pretty much not ever.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648General public opinion polls are statistically designed to account for many factors, and are accepted as representative of an entire population as a whole.  No one dismisses a Gallup poll because the participants are 'self-selected as people who like to take surveys'.

Actually, many people involved in the utilization of, say, Gallup polls do indeed question their validity for many of the reasons you've stated. And there is utterly no comparison between the confidence interval of a Gallup poll and an ENWorld poll.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648No poll claims to be a 'true' representation, just one that is close enough, statistically, to matter.

And do you have any evidence at all that this particular poll is "close enough, statistically, to matter?" Look, I'm not saying you can't inform your opinion with this poll, and I agree it's useful to do so, but this poll cannot be assumed or believed to be anything reflecting reality. The sample size is too small and the nonresponse bias is utterly unknown. It's just not "close enough, statistically, to matter."

Pathfinder is dongs, unfortunately.  It had potential, but then the devs decided to shit on it.  It fixes some of the overwhelming issues that 3e has, but it leaves others untouched.  It's basically a set of houserules with excellent artwork that gives 3e that shiny, new system feel, but it's really just a coat of paint over the moldering, termite-infested shack that is 3e.

But damn, I do love that shack.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Most polls aren't random.

I agree. And most polls don't accurately reflect or accurately portray anything about the greater whole.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Marketing surveys, usability reports, customer satisfaction surveys and dozens of other surveys are also self-selecting, and those are taken quite seriously.

Taken seriously as an indicator of how the sample feels or taken seriously as an indicator of how the greater whole feels? People are right to do the former.

A poll conducted in K-Mart or on K-Mart's website will accurately reflect the attitudes of K-Mart shoppers. It should be taken seriously if that's its purpose. It won't, however, tell you how Wal-Mart shoppers or shoppers as a whole feel.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648No one dismisses a Gallup poll because the participants are 'self-selected as people who like to take surveys'.

media.gallup.com/PDF/FAQ/HowArePolls.pdf

"Probability sampling is the fundamental basis for all survey research. The basic principle: a randomly selected, small percent of a population of people can represent the attitudes, opinions, or projected behavior of all of the people, if the sample is selected correctly.  

...

Thus, it is Gallup's goal in selecting samples to allow every adult American an equal chance of falling into the sample...

When setting out to conduct a national opinion poll, the first thing Gallup does is select a place where all or most Americans are equally likely to be found. That wouldn't be a shopping mall, or a grocery store, an office building, a hotel, or a baseball game. The place nearly all adult Americans are most likely to be found is in their home. So, reaching people at home is the starting place for almost all national surveys.  

...

...Today, approximately 95% of all households have a telephone and every survey reported in this book is based on interviews conducted by telephone."

In other words, EnWorld's poll isn't a random sample. Gallup uses random samples because it is only through random samples that we can get an mostly accurate picture of how the whole population feels.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648No one is expecting WotC to announce that sales are shit, and they are ready to go out of business.  No company that is interested in staying in business says their product is crap and no one is buying it.

Those are two different things. Companies - even RPG companies - do comment on their sales, letting the public know when sales are low. But, that aside, there's a difference between announcing bad sales and crowing about great sales.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Which is 1.35 million folks who are telling their friends not to waste their time and money on it.  I defy you to find any marketing literature that claims bad word-of-mouth is irrelevant to sales.

I'm not saying word-of-mouth advertising isn't important.

I'm saying a) you don't understand statistics, b) EnWorld's poll doesn't mean what you think it means, c) there aren't 10 million D&D players out there, d)

Quote from: StormBringer;279648No poll claims to be a 'true' representation, just one that is close enough, statistically, to matter.

"The basic principle: a randomly selected, small percent of a population of people can represent the attitudes, opinions, or projected behavior of all of the people, if the sample is selected correctly."

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Precisely my point.  For a purchase of tens of thousands of dollars, they have a proven 65% retention rate, which is likely lower than a survey would show.  Hence, 58% on a survey would indicate that a lower percent actually follows through with additional purchases.

It's not precisely your point because your point isn't that people are less stringent about purchasing items with lower MSRPs.

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Eating at McDonald's is less a matter of satisfaction than convenience...Nothing about McDonald's popularity suggests 'satisfaction' or 'preference'.

That old chestnut, huh? You don't like things to be convenient? Moreover, people have no choice but to go to McDonalds?

Quote from: StormBringer;279648Regarding sequels, they only rarely earn more than the original, for movies at least.

They sold fewer tickets, but had higher costs.  Not a recipe for success.  Books are not much better.  In fact, rather than earning more money on their own, there is some evidence they have more effect in boosting sales of the original.

Neither which address my question: "Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people read the second, third, fourth, etc., book in a series?"

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;279670A poll conducted in K-Mart or on K-Mart's website will accurately reflect the attitudes of K-Mart shoppers.

Worse, a poll on K-Mart's website can only reflect the opinions of visitors to K-Mart's website who saw the poll, read the poll, and replied to the poll; these people may not be shoppers, they may not understand the questions, they may not answer accurately even if they do...and this assumes the questions themselves are worded in the most accurate possible way for all people who might respond!

Statistics is a very, very complex affair, and treating a poll on one website as accurately describing anything like the whole is just plain ludicrous, and anyone who wishes to accept those results as universally valid is either deluded or attempting to delude others.

Quote from: Seanchai;279670The place nearly all adult Americans are most likely to be found is in their home. So, reaching people at home is the starting place for almost all national surveys.

Which is huge cause for nonselection bias, since it cannot reflect the positions of people who work during the hours most surveys are conducted, people who have unlisted numbers, people using cellular phones [as a rule; this is changing], or people without phones. Or people who hang up, which is an enormous, enormous, enormous percentage. Even the most carefully-built statistical model is riddled with inaccuracies; it is the art of the statistician to weed them out. Just reading poll numbers will almost never tell you anything meaningful.

Quote from: Seanchai;279670You don't like things to be convenient? Moreover, people have no choice but to go to McDonalds?

That's a very good point. You can't divorce preference from all the things that effect preference; yeah, a McDonald's hamburger isn't the best-tasting thing you can eat, but given its price and ubiquity and convenience, it is often preferred to other hamburgers. Good catch.

Quote from: Seanchai;279670I'm saying a) you don't understand statistics, b) EnWorld's poll doesn't mean what you think it means, c) there aren't 10 million D&D players out there...

No, but 10mil is an easy number to throw percentages at.  You aren't really hinging an argument on my choice of population size, right?

Quote"The basic principle: a randomly selected, small percent of a population of people can represent the attitudes, opinions, or projected behavior of all of the people, if the sample is selected correctly."

Aside from your assertion, how are the people at ENWorld not a 'randomly selected, small percent of a population'?  Are you saying their attitudes and ideas are exactly the same across the whole membership?  Or because they happen to congregate at the same place?  The latter one will knock a whole lot of surveys out of the running.

QuoteIt's not precisely your point because your point isn't that people are less stringent about purchasing items with lower MSRPs.

My point in that case is, they would be.  I would expect people to be much less discriminating about dropping $8 on the next paperback in a series than $18,000 for the same brand of car.  Yet, the opposite appears true.  Fewer people go to a movie sequel, sometimes by half.  Later books in a series often have lower sales, but increase sales of the earlier books.  You are trying to make the point that people will get the next in a series almost reflexively, yet they appear far more discriminating about their entertainment dollar.

QuoteThat old chestnut, huh? You don't like things to be convenient? Moreover, people have no choice but to go to McDonalds?

Old chestnuts tend to get that way because they are accurate.  You are implying sales are through the roof because 4e is way better than the previous version, while dredging up McDonald's as an example of repeat business.  I think you will find almost no one to vouch for the quality of McDonald's food.

QuoteNeither which address my question: "Do you really think fewer than 65 percent of people read the second, third, fourth, etc., book in a series?"

Actually, they both do.  And while I don't have the exact numbers for each book being published currently, I would not be surprised if they were in the 65%-75% range, possibly less.  At best, the second book in a series would have high sales, dropping off as the series progressed.  I would not expect book 5 to have the sales of book 1, so your contention that follow up products necessarily have similar popularity as the original is unsupported by the evidence or common sense.

Quote from: Seanchai;279629And then, based solely on the fact that 4e had been announced before you thought it was going to be, you literally announced that you were going to turn on WotC and hate 4e. You don't get to come back and say, "I was one of their biggest fans..." after that.

Possibly, unless perhaps if you'd dedicated the last several years before that to defending D&D, D20 and WoTC and was known as one of the most (in?)famous defenders of the game against its detractors...

QuoteProfound consultation? Posting a message on a message board (using a handle like "UnicornLover83" or "Drizzt1234712364"), which may or may not be read, much less taken into consideration, is "profound consultation"?

Except that its a process a lot more involved and honest than that.  I don't know if you really don't know that, or if you're intentionally trying to distort facts here, I'll try to be generous and assume its the former...

QuoteRight up until the point that it comes out. Then the game is going to fail to meet the impossible expectations it built up.

Dude, the BETA version has been out for quite some time now, and is apparently one of the top five bestselling RPGs of the year... Paizo is already making a killing here...

QuoteAll the above is just supposition, of course. Pathfinder might do great. Then it's no harm, no foul for Paizo.

But what if Pathfinder isn't the kind of success they need? WotC said it spent millions of dollars developing 4e. Pathfinder is similar in nature - although I doubt Paizo has spent millions on it yet. Regardless, the development cost has got to be high. They changed the direction of their company to one that's based around their in-house game. If it doesn't bring in the numbers they need, what are they going to do?

Yes, that's quite a conundrum, but couldn't you really say that about any game company, about any game? I mean shit, if 4e doesn't end up living up to WoTC's expectations, you could say the same about them. If Hackmaster 5e or the new Traveller or White Wolf's latest gamble doesn't pay off, then that'll suck for their companies too. You're not really making much of a revealing point here, or at least not relevant to this discussion.

RPGPundit

Pathfinder looks almost exactly like 3rd edition D&D to me.

Sure, some things have been tweaked, but nothing really changed.  Nothing that I really care about, anyway... I wasn't of the Boy Who Cried "Balance".

In a way, I admire that Paizo is trying to do something worthwhile... keep an outdated gaming system alive.  That aspect I totally respect.  They also tried to fix some things that people thought were broken... that's ok too I guess.  I never had any problems with 3e, at least concerning the things they addressed.  My bones with 3e are a lot more fundamental, that necessitated me moving to a different game altogether.  That's a story for another day, however.

The crowd rallying around Pathfinder is really those who wish to continue a style of fantasy gaming I'm no longer genuinely interested in.  I suppose that *if I was* I would certainly get the books, because I've come to like the idea of playing an in-print game.  I would probably be running Pathfinder exclusively.  If you spill coffee on you're book, you don't have to go hunting on ebay to find a replacement.

I however will be running Labyrinth Lord for the time being... a game made for many of the same reasons Pathfinder was, only using a different game as the basis.

Quote from: Engine;279677Statistics is a very, very complex affair, and treating a poll on one website as accurately describing anything like the whole is just plain ludicrous, and anyone who wishes to accept those results as universally valid is either deluded or attempting to delude others.

Or they're just misinformed. Having taken a statistics class, worked on a degree in marketing, and having helped organize surveys and focus groups, I'm aware of how stringent you have to be when selecting a sample. Others may not be. But now they know.

Quote from: Engine;279677That's a very good point. You can't divorce preference from all the things that effect preference; yeah, a McDonald's hamburger isn't the best-tasting thing you can eat, but given its price and ubiquity and convenience, it is often preferred to other hamburgers. Good catch.

Thanks. I've had some practice with the whole McDonalds-quality thing.

Seanchai