Poll results & comments - Oct. 8th, 2013

[Henhouse]

I apologize for being ~2-3 weeks late on posting this. If you haven't noticed already, I'm a bit behind on everything these days. Uni has me constantly swamped.

If you voted in the poll -- thank you! We collected a total of 2188 responses and 57 readable text-box feedback submissions.

Please remember the data we collect is for consideration and for gathering community opinions. The selections on here are you share with you the feedback we collected, and our thoughts on it.



Poll 1: Would you be in favor of a system weaking the use of using too much SWP gear? (a punishment for using too much SWP gear instead of PvP gear)

Wipe it all. 210
Implement a system to reduce the effect of SWP gear from using too much of it. 153
Do not change anything. 204

Response: This shows how incredibly divided the Smolderforge community is. Over the years it has become increasingly difficult for us to make major changes to the server anymore. From the data we gather, we're able to see that players tend to play Smolderforge for different reasons. Many people want something different, or are attracted to the things it already offers. Many people overreacted with this poll question assuming we were very serious on this decision. Please keep in mind, this is a poll, not an actual vote. We mainly did this to get a sense of what the community thought on this issue since the forums is not a viable place to gather feedback. We can clearly see that our assumptions were correct.


Poll 2: Do you believe the consumable system should be heavily altered on this server?

Wipe all consumables and implement a new system with earning them with a currency. 103
No, do not change it and do not change the way we earn them. 186
Get rid of all consumables completely. Make them unable to be used at all. 52

Response: Judging by the numbers recorded, not as many people voted in this question. This leads me to believe many people are just as undecided as we are about the effects of having consumables easily available on the server. We still have possible plans to make there still be a bit of farming involved to get the materials. Possibly scrap Isle of Quel'Danas daily grinding, and transition to Azshara Crater with the zone extended, new quests and farming for materials? Please let us know your thoughts.


Poll 3: When 3v3 returns with bonus rewards, how interested will you be to play this bracket?

Extremely interested. I want to make 3v3 a reality on here. 184
Depends what the rewards/competition are. 109
I have no interest in 3v3. 96

Response: We're pleased to hear there is interest in bringing 3v3 back. Due to the seasonal population drop, we may need to wait for the server to pick back up again in order to continue pursuing this option. However, we've also been thinking about enabling honor gain for skirmishes. Higher for 3v3, etc. to promote arena and its play. Thoughts?


Poll 4: How satisfied are you with the support team (GMs) on this server?

Very satisfied. 90
Somewhat satisfied. 63
Dissatisfied. 49
Okay, GMs are very limited. 81

Response: I was expecting there to be quite a bit of GM bashing, but surprisingly this was pretty good reviews on the team. Obviously we have a lot to continue to improve on, and definitely there is a lot of concern with the limited ability of GMs. Thanks for your feedback.


Poll 5: Should we enable flying mounts in the mall area?

Yes! Enable flying in the mall island area. 284
No, land mounts only. 146

Response: I'm actually shocked there was this much opposition to the option. Why wouldn't players want to be able to fly around the mall? There's many users with cool flying mounts they want to show off, but cannot. I think many people thought this would cause problems, but we really do not foresee any except actually causing less crowding in areas.


Poll 6: (DONORS ONLY) Should the SWP vendor in the donor mall be removed?

Remove the vendor for all future donors. 53
Do not remove the vendor so future donors can access it. 99
Undecided. Both options are a win-lose. 26

Response: Hmm, interesting. I suppose we should finally balance the vendor then.

[Zydian05]

Great heads up.
The skirmish Arena Point system sounds extremely interesting.

Keep up the exellent work.

[Mayore]

guess passion etc was voting from many accounts

[Rottingham]

Funny how people are against Flying mounts in the mall area, why?

And yeah, the SWP-gear outcome was what I expected, but I hope we do something about it =P

[Wamboye]

Funny how people are against Flying mounts in the mall area, why?

because cows (me and other evil cows) would block the bgmasters with netherdrakes and stuff.

[Abwyz]

Funny how people are against Flying mounts in the mall area, why?

Yes! Enable flying in the mall island area. 284
No, land mounts only. 146

Erm, almost 70% of people voted "yes". As for me, such a result means that overall majority is supporing the idea, so this feature should be available :)

[Xaru]

Response: Judging by the numbers recorded, not as many people voted in this question. This leads me to believe many people are just as undecided as we are about the effects of having consumables easily available on the server. We still have possible plans to make there still be a bit of farming involved to get the materials. Possibly scrap Isle of Quel'Danas daily grinding, and transition to Azshara Crater with the zone extended, new quests and farming for materials? Please let us know your thoughts.

This is a brilliant idea! At the moment you have to farm with quests to get professions, if there was a way to do it by PvPing it would be awesome. It would attract people to try new things, with many people showing little or no interest in Azshara Crater I believe if you made it known to people on the server that they can gain bonuses such as professions by doing PvP quests it would interest a lot of people. Of course this may only serve to increase the number of people with professions, so it would have to be balanced accordingly so that it takes a fair amount of effort to gain the rewards. However I believe if you make it too hard to obtain materials you will only serve to upset a lot of people, instead what about if materials cost honor? Or if in order to access the vendors with the materials you had to pay a fee of BoJ?

Response: I'm actually shocked there was this much opposition to the option. Why wouldn't players want to be able to fly around the mall? There's many users with cool flying mounts they want to show off, but cannot. I think many people thought this would cause problems, but we really do not foresee any except actually causing less crowding in areas.

The reason why people are against the use of flying mounts is because a lot of people play this server for Nostalgia reasons. They enjoy the memories they had in TBC, and turning this server too much like a Cataclysm/MOP server upsets a lot of them, me included. Also, a lot of people may be against flying mounts in the mall is because flying mounts are huge, and having a lot of flying mounts near the BG masters could prove frustrating, and perhaps really laggy for a lot of people who may play here because their computers cannot handle future expansions. A lot of people also do not enjoy change, even if it's for something fun and different. As always this server is the most unique out there, always coming up with new things for people to enjoy. Would you actually be able to make it possible to use flying mounts in Azeroth? That's awesome.

Response: Hmm, interesting. I suppose we should finally balance the vendor then.

I could rage at this, since as you know I am vehemently opposed to any change to the SWP system we have here, believing it to be a major part of the server and something that people will miss terribly if it is removed, however I must admit that considering these are donor votes it is quite clear that the majority of the server wants something done. However, I believe that removing SWP gear will complicate things in the long run, and only serve to give people temporarily respite followed by loss once they realise they can never experiment with PvE gear in a PvP setting again.

I have a lot of respect for you Henry. You come from a good background but even so you are more concerned about the players than for your own benefit. Removing SWP gear from the $5 donation deal would reduce the number of donations people make to the server, guaranteed. Yet you are willing to do it if it makes people happy.

Do you remember back when people could get SWP gear just by doing ZA? I think the server was much more fair back then. Back then you didn't have to fight full SWP geared donors, if you was not a donor you could farm SWP gear yourself and have a chance against them, even if you were still technically handicapped by having no resilience. I believe there is a way to revive PvE and PvP on this server, as well as calm the playerbase, and that would be to allow SWP drops from low level instances, such as Zul'Aman, like before, but once the PvE picks up I think you should then remove this system, and add it instead to a higher level instance, building up the PvE community. This is just an idea though. ._.

[Cube]

However, I believe that removing SWP gear will complicate things in the long run, and only serve to give people temporarily respite followed by loss once they realise they can never experiment with PvE gear in a PvP setting again.

What the fuck did I just read?

Edit:

I believe there is a way to revive PvE and PvP on this server, as well as calm the playerbase, and that would be to allow SWP drops from low level instances, such as Zul'Aman, like before, but once the PvE picks up I think you should then remove this system, and add it instead to a higher level instance, building up the PvE community. This is just an idea though. ._.

You see, the thing is that the reason a lot of people dislike swp gear isn't because they don't have it, it's because it's there, and the stat inflation is retarded, making the game retarded. You think introducing even more easily accessible swp gear would calm the playerbase? Really?

[Xaru]

You see, the thing is that the reason a lot of people dislike swp gear isn't because they don't have it, it's because it's there, and the stat inflation is retarded, making the game retarded. You think introducing even more easily accessible swp gear would calm the playerbase? Really?

I don't recall people whining back then, so yeah.

[Exsurgo]

Really? I remember vividly the casters at the big S4 3v3 tournaments commenting on how badly pve gear upset the game. And that was with s2/t5 gear. There was huge dissatisfaction with pve gear in pvp at that stage of the game.

Edit: completely mistook the context of the above conversation. Time for coffee break.