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Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 July 2024 is YE 46.5 in the RP.

2015 Planning Survey Results

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Preliminary results are in!

2015 Survey Results
"Mr. Wes, tear down this wall!"

37 SARPers responded to the poll so far.

65% were against limiting RP to the existing starmap. In fact, people really want the map expanded! 73% said want the map expanded. Only 5% didn't. This was the most agreed-upon part of the survey. 70% want to both expand the map's borders and allow separate star clusters.

Support for rescaling the map was much less than expanding it.

43% said to rescale, and 41% said not to rescale. Opinions on how to rescale varied widely:
  • Double them 24%
  • Triple them 5%
  • 5 times 5%
  • 10 times 19%
  • Other 32%
Most of the "Other" were "Don't rescale" etc. and the Other votes didn't reach anything resembling a consensus.

When it camp to expanding the map's borders vs. rescaling the distances between known stars, expansion was strongly favored (81% combined) and support for rescaling was weak (46% combined). Specifically, expansion-only came out on top:
  • 46% Expansion only
  • 35% Both
  • 11% Rescaling only
  • 8% Neither
57% of members want new map artwork, and 44% say the existing map is okay. 62% of members were in favor of the proposed map art commission.

The "Instant stars" proposal, where stars aren't added to the map until GMs put them there, was narrowly favored by 51%.

Factions and Metaplot

49% of you think we do not have too many factions and 30% say we have just enough. 19% said we had too many.

In regards to halting approval on new playable factions for a year, the vote was split 51% in favor and 49% against.

46% want to see a new metaplot event, 36% are unsure, and 16% don't want one.

Will the Misshu return in YE 37? 43% weren't sure about this idea, 30% said yes, and 24% said no. With regards to a revamp of them, 39% were unsure, 32% said no, and 27% said yes.

70% of members are against instant adult access for $1. It's a shame, this would have saved me work and made some change for the site!

Xenforo: 32% of members like XenForo better,27% said it was about the same, and 11% (4 dudes) said it was worse. 30% were not sure or never tried the old phpBB forums. 68% of members said we now have enough themes for XenForo, although there was some minor support for additional dark (22%) and light (11%) themes.

Preliminary Conclusions

Based on the survey of SARPers, it looks like:
  1. RP will not be limited to the existing space map! No more running along the invisible zone wall, MMORPG-style.
  2. You'll be able to submit new map extensions and off-map clusters as needed/desired.
    • I also hope to make a new, free "expansion pack" for Star Army with a new sector to the South.
  3. Distances between systems on the main map will stay the same as they've always been.
  4. We're keeping Xenforo but will not purchase more new themes.
Some of the other results are hard to call, due to being close. The "Instant Stars" one is one of these. The survey ends Thursday morning around 1oam so we'll know more then.

A lot of you also wrote suggestions. Thank you for those! The staff and I will be going through them soon to see what we can do.
 
Click to expand...
Moogle said:
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of non-rescalers are people who don't really RP on the forum anymore?
Click to expand...

My point still stands. 37 users is pretty much maxing out the people we have, by my estimate.
 
I don't have a way to easily measure that, but looking at the names of the overall respondents, the vast majority of them I recognize as currently active members.
 
With only 37 votes. It's like 17 vs 12 on Expansion only vs both. So that's 5 people different. And while it's good we got a good turn out it looks like a good number of votes are from people who aren't really active, or who haven't been around for a month not to mention 3 months. So I would think there are a fair share of votes from people who aren't truly up to date on what's going on in SARP. And regardless of how the results end someone is gonna call that out as a reason that going strictly by the voting result is not a valid way of deciding the future of SARP.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Also I'm wondering who received an E-mail about the survey in the first place. I myself checked my email and did not receive an email informing me that the survey was up. Someone else did not receive one either. So I'm wondering, Wes what was the criteria for receiving this email?
 
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The email was sent to all registered users who opted to get emails from the admin. If the users opted not to get emails from the admin, their preference was respected. This is in your user options.
 
I have all email notifications checked on my end. In Preferences, Alert Preferences, and in Contact Info sections of my settings. I also have a folder on my email that auto receives emails from SARP, and I checked all my mail folders just in case. And there is no email for the Survey there.
 
I think that it is far too soon to end the Survey and draw conclusions. The Survey should be allowed to stay open and all members not just those who were emailed should have a voice.

Heck, if I hadn't done it this morning my votes would have been missed. And at no point in the Email or the Survey thread was a 1 day deadline mentioned.
 
@Nashoba, the survey will be open until 72 hours have passed, which will be Friday morning. These are only preliminary results. The survey was announced by forum notice, email, Facebook, and Twitter, and posting in the news forum, so there are multiple ways of seeing it.

@Syaoran: Sent you a test email to see if the email system is working normally. Make sure to check your spam folders too.
 
Test email was received in the same area as the rest of my SARP emails, my 'updates' section, where all email from this address is sent. But I checked all my mail folders, including spam for the other one.
 
I'm not sure why the test email made it and the survey one didn't. It's possible there may have been some sort of internal spam prevention email restriction triggered with my webhost due to the quantity of emails sent in a short span, but I'm just guessing here. Anyway, everything I send out on email is always posted on the forum too.
 
That's possible, Wes, since I didn't get one either, and god knows my emails have been enabled since 2007.

Also, could we get the raw data either posted or linked at the end of the survey? I'm curious.
 
I just checked and apparently there's a limit of 100 or 200 (not sure which) outgoing emails per hour. I may be able to talk with the hosting company to increase this.
 
Okay, so it's been 3 full days now so I'm closing the survey. I guess most everyone already responded on the first day because we only got 3 more responses since the preliminary results were shared.

Code: 
The Starmap
How often do you reference the site's star map?
1    6    15%
2    12    30%
3    12    30%
4    7    18%
5    3    8%

Invisible Wall of Plot
Yes    13    33%
No    26    65%

Expand the Map?
Yes    29    73%
No    2    5%
Maybe/Unsure    9    23%

Expansion Type

Expand borders    4    10%
Independent clusters    9    23%
Both    27    68%

Rescale the Map?
Yes    16    40%
No    18    45%
Maybe/Unsure    6    15%

How much rescaling?
Double them    9    23%
Triple them    2    5%
5 times    2    5%
10 times    8    20%
Other    13    33%

Rescale vs. Expansion
Expanding    20    50%
Rescaling    4    10%
Both    13    33%
Neither    3    8%

New Map Artwork?
Yes    22    55%
No    18    45%

Commission Map Art?
Yes    25    63%
No    14    35%

Instant Stars
Yes    20    50%
No    19    48%

Factions and Metaplot

Too Many Factions?
Yes   7   18%
No   20   50%
Just Enough   12   30%

Stop Approving New Playable Factions?
Yes   20   50%
No   20   50%

Metaplot
Yes   17   43%
No   9   23%
Maybe/Unsure   13   33%

Mishhuvurthyar Return?
Yes   11   28%
No   12   30%
Maybe/Unsure   16   40%

Mishhuvurthyar Revamp?
Yes   10   25%
No   15   38%
Maybe/Unsure   14   35%

Adult Fee?
Yes   9   23%
No   29   73%

Forum Software
Yes   13   33%
About the same   12   30%
Worse   4   10%
Not sure/Never tried the old one   11   28%

Does Star Army need more forum themes?
Yes, light themes   4   10%
Yes, dark themes   9   23%
No, we're good.   27   68%
 
I have responded yet simply because most of the questions are on stuff I have no way to form an adequate opinion about without extensive prior reading. <,<;
 
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