Curse

Adrir · Apr 03, 2011, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Greetings to everyone!

Please accept my apologies if this is a little invasive or presumptuous of me to invite members of this community to participate in my research, but I am eagerly seeking participants for an electronic survey.

I am a postgraduate student at Brunel University in the UK and I am currently undertaking a taught module in "Socio-Cultural Contexts in Digital Games". As part of my assessment, I am writing a paper on the different cultures in Guild Wars and their perception of reward/achievement systems - specifically, titles the Hall of Monuments (based on Nick Yee's, Jonas Smith's and Kunjanpaa's works). While this is not directly related to my thesis, I am using this opportunity to conduct a pilot study in the pursuit of my future research aims. An initial iteration to test the water, as it were.

You can access the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Culture_GuildWars01

In the pre-test it took 5-15 minutes for the test respondents to complete the survey, depending on how detailed their responses were to the optional free-text questions. A small number of outliers took longer due to the extreme depth of their answers. As it is a pilot study, there is a rather broad range of questions and some intended repetition / randomisation. Those of you familiar with Yee's or Bartle's works may recognise some of the questions - this is simply to help me codify my results based on their models and identify patterns that warrant further investigation.

I take research ethics very seriously and so I have ensured that all of the relevant precautions have been made - anonymity, confidentiality, security, storage and data protection. The data I collect is being used exclusively for my own use in research and will not be disclosed to a third party. Any personal data (such as age, sex, email, etc.) is protected by law in the UK under the 1998 Data Protection Act. No group or individual will be identified in the findings.

Just a disclaimer - I come from an academic background of Computer Science with experience in Systems Analysis, IT and Games Development. This is my first opportunity to apply myself in this particular discipline. Feel free to comment upon and criticise my work as this is largely an exercise for me to improve my skills in social studies and survey research.

I have over 921 hours of experience over a period of 52 months so it is fair to say I am extremely passionate about Guild Wars! I am contemplating conducting a long-term ethnographic/empirical study of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 next year so if anyone is interested in future participation, please keep in contact with me. It will be deeply appreciated.

Please let me know if you have any comments, concerns, questions or would like to talk about the role of achievements/titles/HoM/etc.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

With Regards,
Michael "Adrir" Scott

IGN: Ibuki Helios, typical GMT+1 (BST) 6.30pm-Onwards.
Email: [email protected]

Cale Roughstar · Apr 03, 2011, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Filled out a response. Good luck!

Masta Panda · Apr 04, 2011, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Just filled it out. Good luck with your research.

Schmerdro · Apr 05, 2011, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adrir

921 hours of experience over a period of 52 months

That means you played about half an hour per day, which isn't really that much. Anyway, I'm not saying you're not passionate about GW; I'm just saying that your in-game hours don't prove much.

I filled your survey and left my contact information if you want to contact me further.

Avatar of Healing · Apr 05, 2011, 05:06 PM // 17:06

finished the survey and left my contact information if you want a more in depth interview.

Adrir · Apr 05, 2011, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

I'm just saying that your in-game hours don't prove much.

No worries, and thank you for participating. I think it is fair to say that I have not played consistently over that period. I simply wanted to point out that I have some experience playing the game.

Adrir · Apr 30, 2012, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Hello again everyone!

I am now a fully fledged research student at Brunel University in the UK! Hurray! Anyway, due to the recent surge of activity thanks to the public beta weekend, I felt that now would be a good time to conduct a follow-up to the study I conducted last year.

So here it is:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6DW7MBQ

I have streamlined it a bit from last time. There are now 6 pages in total: 2 pages containing 40 statements to be rated on a simple scale; 1 page containing the 3 open-ended questions; 1 page asking for demographic data (age, sex, amount played, preferred in-game activity, etc); and introduction / conclusion. Those of you familiar with the work of Nick Yee and Richard Bartle may recognise some of the questions because I am using their frameworks to help classify the results. I am aware that this has created some repetition, and some participants complained. I have minimised this, but I decided to leave some of them in so I could measure response consistency.

It can take up to 15-20 minutes to complete the survey, depending on the level of detail you provide in the open-ended responses and whether you need to log into GW1 to help estimate your playing time (e.g. using the /age command). Most people involved in the pilot test were able to complete the survey in 10-12 minutes.

I am happy to share my findings with any participant. Simply provide an email address and indicate that you wish to be sent the findings at the end of the survey. Alternatively, you can email me at the address provided in the survey introduction.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here or email me.

With Regards,
Adrir

PS. Again, please accept my apologies if it is a little invasive or presumptuous of me to invite members of this community to participate in my research. I am seeking about 200+ participants so I am promoting the survey across several community websites. :-)