2020 Year-End Survey Results!

Hey Star Army, I love you!

It looks like we've gotten all the survey results we're going to get so it's time to discuss the results! I posted the raw stuff on the staff forum where we're looking things over and I'm going to give the summary here with some analysis.

General Information

We got responses from 15 people on Google Forms. Answers were anonymous because I wanted people to feel 100% free to speak their minds and be honest and so we could look at them without any bias. I didn't answer the form myself.

1. What do people love about Star Army?

Our unique sci-fi setting / vibrant lore (8 mentions)
Our friendly community / new friends (4 mentions)
The RP! (3 mentions)
World building (2 mentions)

Favorite responses: "I'm starting to love some of the people I'm RPing with." and "I love being able to roleplay within a setting that is rich, has backstory, lots of different things going on in it at a time, and has some seriously fun people in it."

2. What the main reasons you're active on SARP?

Roleplaying Characters (80%)
Worldbuilding and writing lore (66.7%)
I love the community here (53.3%)
Building Characters (33.3%)
Running RPs / Being GM for others (33.3%)

Most of here are here to RP! That's a good thing!

3. What features do you use?

100% of you use the wiki, the forums, and the Discord.
Creation Creation Form (33.3%)
Star Army Facebook (20%)
Star Army DeviantArt (20%)
Star Army Twitter (13.3%)
Random Generators (6.7%)
PHP Autotemplate Character Form - (0%)

This shows how the Discord chat integration has REALLY become an important and loved part of Star Army. In previous surveys we never had 100% use of the site-based chat or the old IRC channel we used to use back in the day (which was around 50% IIRC). Discord has made OOC chatting and RP planning very easy and we love to share pictures and links there. The Discord bot has been one of the best things ever and I love seeing the post notifications as they happen.

If I had another chance to write this survey (maybe in the future) I'd add other features like email notifications, push notifications, and progressive web app (lets people put Star Army as an app on their phone desktop) to see who is using those.

4. What factions do you currently roleplay in?

Yamatai (15 players - 100%)
NDC (7 players - 46.7%)
Nepleslia (4 players - 26..7%)
Independent (2 players - 13.3%)
Elysia (1 player - 6.7 %)
Neshaten (1 player- 6.7 %)
Hidden Sun Clan - None
Iromakuanhe - None

It looks like a few factions are basically unused and should probably be considered NPC factions rather than playable. Also, and this is important, there are some people who have expressed dismay about the idea that the site's many side factions are sucking players away from the core faction, the Star Army of Yamatai. This survey completely blows that myth out of the water. Every single person who responded RPs in Yamatai to some extent. This shows that the other factions aren't Yamatai's competition, they're more like bonuses that help diversify what Star Army has to offer and let people experience the universe in different flavors.

5. Does Star Army have enough playable factions?

There's enough but we don't need more (46.7%)
There's more than we need or can support (26.7%)
We could use more playable factions (26.7%)
There should only be one playable faction - no responses
Get rid of factions in general - no responses

It looks like most people support the status quo and don't want to add more playable factions for now. Nobody wants there to be just one faction, we love the variety.

6. What does SARP need to do to grow the community?

Some answers we got were:

Generally, make it as easy as possible to get started.
- Always keep an Open RP open for new players to just drop into/"Go and play"
- Keep being a welcoming place
- SARP should be something you can just sit down and start on without a needing to research too much
- Leverage tropes and pop culture to provide familiarity
Be open and willing to listen
Getting everyone involved with Yamatai since it's the centerpiece
Use social media to showcase artworks and RPs more
Some individuals need to check their behaviors
Adding more worldbuilding with the non-playable factions
Advertise more on search engines, etc
Get someone who advertises every day
Focus RP on on Yamatai and Nepleslia that defines and improves their relationship
Find more active people so it's not the same people playing together all the time
More Star Army of Yamatai plot starships including an 18+ one
Retain existing players better
GMs and thread OPs need to post consistently and often (preferably at least daily)/slow responses kill engagement

Open RPs have been a huge winner for the site and have been repeatedly mentioned in the survey. People really, really want more fast-paced open RPs to join.

7. Is NSFW content an important part of SARP?

Yes (53.3%)
No (33.3%)
Unsure (13.3%)

The majority of Star Army members like the Star Army offers NSFW content. That said, I don't really see a lot of NSFW RP happening on the forums, to the point where almost all the factional NSFW forums have been closed for inactivity and merged into a single forum. Maybe they just mean the pictures?

8. Which staff members are doing their job well?

Wes (85.7%)
Ametheliana, Syaoran, Jack Pine (42.9%)
Nashoba (21.4%)
Andrew (7.1%)

It looks like most people are happy with me. Thanks for your support! Most staff members have some room for improvement. Nashoba and Andrew have been away a ton due to medical issues so they just haven't been around to show their faces much in 2020. We just added Whisper and Demibear to the staff after this survey and they're already doing great things. Also, I totally forgot to add Sageshooter so I'm just going to assume we all love him. <3 I will keep working to give you the best SARP I can.

9. What did Star Army do well in 2020?

Coming together and keeping the community healthy during really difficult year
Welcoming new members and their ideas with open arms
Providing opportunties for site-wide RP
Keeping established RPs going strong
Kuvexian War Plot and also finally ending the Kuvexian war plot
Bringing back old members and old RP partners
Yes.

It sounds like the party events and battles like the Third Battle of Nataria were huge hits because everyone could get involved in them regardless of their main plot or faction. We should keep doing those!

10. Where does Star Army need to improve in 2021?

Even More RP Opportunities!
Worldbuilding for other factions
GMs must keep posting regularly
Recruiting
Make Yamatai more likeable
Plan the relationships between factions better
Avoid cliques and faction tribalism
Put player characters where the action is

11. What things could be done to make SARP more interesting or engaging for you?

Be a little more flexible
Reduce wiki requirements a little
Keep the focus on Yamatai
More engaging plots
More exploration/diplomacy/human aid than just combat - Some RPs with a "Star Trek" vibe
More positive players / Get rid of negative or toxic people
Planned community game nights (CAH, etc)
Flesh out more destinations in the setting
Make every faction feel valued by staff
Keep things interesting for established factions (Yam, Nep) by working on scale issues
- giving more opportunities where ships are "on their own" and not 5 minutes from 1000-ship backup fleets.
- more small-scale skirmishes/minor conflicts and friction between factions

Favorite comment: "SARP is richer for having a diversity of locations, themes, and peoples to play with. While SARP, at its core, will always be about the titular Star Army, I think that a broad background and lots of options for how we play is important for keeping people engaged and coming back time and again."

I agree with all of these suggestions.

12. What would help you post more RP posts on the forum?

It's a toss up between my motivation and memory to post, and whenever the GM of my plot posts. But then again, 2020 happened so I can't blame either of us here
Other than my own OOC self-motivation, opportunities to play characters in meaningful military situations regardless of their rank. That's why the Kuvexian War open RP in 2019 and 2020 was so great.
If each faction had an open RP, I would probably maintain an active character for each of them.
More consistency from fellow posters.
A good GM will make a story that keeps me excited to post, but that's so subjective that I can't give a good answer.
I should be posting more often, but its easier to get my head into worldbuilding than roleplaying sometimes.
If other people would post to keep the thread going.

Basically, players just need opportunities to RP in a meaningful way and for their RP partners to be reliable.

13. What RP events would you like to see happen in YE 43?

Oh, this survey question gave some wonderful ideas.

The galaxy kinda chilling for a while, and a lot of rebuilding from the devastation. Give it a year or two. If you want action go poke remnants of old enemies such as the Mishhu, various space pirates and the like. But no more big wars.
Yamatai political RP. Maybe bring back the Senate in some way that doesn't necessarily involve legislation.
Kuvexian Victory Day parade where everyone gets to wear their medals and dress uniforms around Kyoto.
A conference with the Kuvexian remnants would be interesting just to establish and grow them.
A formal Star Army event/gala where everyone's expected to wear their Class A's.
War games exercises between plotships since we're going to be in peacetime and need to keep skills sharp.
Golden Age of colonization and exploration
Yui issues some kind of empire-wide emergency that affects all Yamataian plots and possibly nearby factions
Holiday events and varied open RP, basically what's going on already
Some kind of augments on, augments off Olympics? Another excuse for cross-faction roleplay, in other words.
More inter-faction events of a noncombat nature.
The rumored Yam civil war would be really exciting. More interfaction RP events. Would be nice to take a break from external enemies and focus on things at home for a while.
With the war ending, there's all kind of opportunities for chaos to [ensue]. I personally would like a story where a ship captain or a ship itself gets hijacked at the the crew must get her back.

GMs: Here's your plot fuel! Also I will definitely do the gala and victory day events people asked for!

14. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions?

Clear out inactive staffers
Break down the user joining process into a multi-stage funnel model and analyze where people are getting stuck and fix those places
Provide a way for new player factions to grow organically through RP
As a new person I find adding stuff to the wiki very intimidating
Show that new submissions are wanted
SARP was more of a refuge this year than any. It was really a warm and cozy place to be in a tough time, so thank you.
I really appreciate all the work that Wes and the other staff put in to keeping things running smoothly. SARP has a lot of things going on and it's been a great place

Thank you.

Okay, here's some fun stuff!

15. What's the best fictional space military?

Star Army of Yamatai (33.3%)
USNC from Halo (20%)
Starfleet from Star Trek (13.3%)
Imperial Guard from 40k (13.3%)
U.N. Spacy from Macross (6.7%)
Star Forces of the Humankind Empire of Abh from Banner of the Stars and Crest of the Stars (6.7%)
The Persean League from StarSector (6.7%)
The Empire from Star Wars - no votes
The Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers - no votes

Woo! The Star Army won!

16. What's the best Sci-Fi Roleplaying Forum on the internet?

Star Army (93.3%)
Not sure because SARP is the only one I'm been in (1 response - 6.7%)

Nice.

Conclusion

We got some great ideas from this on what we're doing right and where we need to improve. Thanks for your time and ideas everyone who took our survey!

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2020 Year-End Survey Results!

hyralt

Well-Known Member