How usable is Uru Live for you?

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:33 pm

I dithered over whether this should be in the UL General Discussion forum or the OB Technical Discussion forum - in the end I decided it was a "technical" post :wink:

A lot of you will have seen the "0 secs bug" thread - from the discussions there and from posts in various other threads, it is clear that Uru Live works really well for some people and not very well (or not at all) for others: I guess the majority of us fall somewhere in between the two extremes.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on: Most posts are "negative", ie they're made when something doesn't work, so we can't easily see what does work. Posts can be scattered throughout the forums. They can be partly anecdotal. Mainly, they only offer a limited view of the PC and networking setup in use, so it's difficult to draw comparisons.

I've created an on-line survey to collect player's experiences along with some details of their hardware and internet connection. The aim is that the data will help to identify those factors which most contribute to Uru Live "working" or "not working".

The survey takes a bit of time and effort to complete, and I know some people will find it difficult to do. But I think it's important we start to get the information in an orderly, analysable form: We need input from those who have no problems logging in and rarely experience lag as well as those who are plagued by problems.

The following page is a set of guidance notes for the survey; there is a link from there to the survey form itself. Please contribute if you have the time. Thanks.

http://www.mcintoshuk.plus.com/urulive/survey.html

And in case anyone's worried - the most "personal" bit of information you're asked for is your forum username, and even that's optional.

Teknobubba · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:25 pm

Don't you think Cyan has this kind of info in, say, spreadsheet form from those in beta? Could this be duplicating efforts?

No idea, myself. Just asking.

macnbc · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 4:53 am **Posts:** 859

I think both the forums and the survey will bring biased results.

Here's why:

Say you're a new player, if you download Uru from Gametap A-OK and it runs perfectly fine (or even moderately OK) for you, then what are the chances that you're going to go looking for technical help (or go to a forum titled technical discussion)?

The forums are always going to portray a negative experience with Uru simply because the people who can play it very well tend to be in the game rather than here. And since the survey is linked FROM the forums, then its results are going to reflect that too.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:31 pm

Well, I asked Cyan if I'd be wasting my time - they said it was fine for me to go ahead.

Teknobubba · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:40 pm

Mac_Fife wrote:

Well, I asked Cyan if I'd be wasting my time - they said it was fine for me to go ahead.

Coolness.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:41 pm

macnbc wrote:

The forums are always going to portray a negative experience with Uru simply because the people who can play it very well tend to be in the game rather than here. And since the survey is linked FROM the forums, then its results are going to reflect that too.

I understand your reasoning, but I'd disagree with the premise that people who don't have problems don't visit the forums - it's pretty easy to run off a long list of regular posters in the forums who are also regularly to be seen in the cavern.

But I do agree that it's important to document the positive experiences as well as the negative.

Maratanos · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 9:44 pm

Mac_Fife wrote:

macnbc wrote:

The forums are always going to portray a negative experience with Uru simply because the people who can play it very well tend to be in the game rather than here. And since the survey is linked FROM the forums, then its results are going to reflect that too.

I understand your reasoning, but I'd disagree with the premise that people who don't have problems don't visit the forums - it's pretty easy to run off a long list of regular posters in the forums who are also regularly to be seen in the cavern.

But I do agree that it's important to document the positive experiences as well as the negative.

Great. So we are basically representing two groups in this poll... Regulars from the forums that aren't going to quit trying to play Uru even if it's not working for them, and people for whom it really IS not working...

SOOOOOOOOoooooooo representative... :wink:

BladeLakem · **Joined:** Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:58 am **Posts:** 582

Heh, I don't think the survey is gonna hurt. So why not?

I took it.

ToriaURU · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:19 am **Posts:** 1300

I did it.

Why not?

Maratanos · **Posted:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 1:11 am

I took it too. I'm just saying I'm doubting it will be very representative.

semplerfi · **Posted:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:01 am

i took it too.

when can we see some results? :wink:

either way they will be interesting.

belford · **Joined:** Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:01 pm **Posts:** 1890

I have filled it out.

However, I worry that people are going to report common experiences differently. So: the City is very responsive for me, except that whenever someone links in, the client freezes completely for a few seconds. (As far as I know, this happens to everybody, although the freeze duration varies.) Is that "sometimes for a few seconds", "often", or "too often to be able to move easily"? (Any of the above, depending on whether a lot of people are linking in right then.)

Auzho · **Posted:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:39 am

For some strange reason my internet connection type answer changed from DSL as it should be to something else it shouldn't be.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:16 pm

I don't know how useful this survey will be: I know what I hope to gain from it, but I'm not pre-judging anything and it may well be that we learn very little in the end or it shows up that I'm asking the wrong questions (or even asking the wrong people :shock:

).

Maratanos wrote:

I took it too. I'm just saying I'm doubting it will be very representative.

Time will tell. There's about 20 submissions so far and at the moment there's a fair spread of opinions.

belford wrote:

Is that "sometimes for a few seconds", "often", or "too often to be able to move easily"?

Some things are very difficult to measure, so the answers must be subjective: So, it's whatever you think applies best. For any given set of circumstances, you'll get a distribution of opinions - some people will be very tolerant of lag, others very intolerant. With a large enough sample (and we're getting there), the extremes can be filtered out and the data normalised.

semplerfi wrote:

when can we see some results?

There's a results page that myself, Greydragon and one or two others can see. I don't want to make this public, because I'm treating the info as supplied in confidence - I'm concerned, for example, that some submitters may be bombarded by "helpful" PMs on how to improve their setup, when they're not asking for help. But I'll look at writing up a new PHP/mySQL script to "anonymize" the results.

Auzho wrote:

For some strange reason my internet connection type answer changed from DSL as it should be to something else it shouldn't be.

No problem - I'll modify the entry in the database for you. And I'll do the same for anyone else that spots an error after the submission. Alternatively, redo the survey and add a note to kill the earlier submission.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:51 pm

Auzho - I've fixed your entry (I did wonder when I saw "Cellular" in the submission)

OK - for the curious, here's the link to the submission summary:

*click here*

Forum names have been removed to protect privacy, and some entries have been adjusted to standardise format, but individuals should still be able to recognise their own submissions.

How usable is Uru Live for you?

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