[Mod Approved] Mass Effect 2 Research

Aliasunknown

Hi, my name is Vincent Longa and I have a question.

What is it that we remember about our gaming experience? Specifically, do we remember the ludic elements (the mechanics of the game) or the narrative elements (the story components of a game)? I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember (about 30 years), and as I was playing through Mass Effect 2, I noticed that the game had a profound effect on my emotions. After I finished my first play through, I started wondering what made the game so emotionally charged for me. Then I started wondering if it was the ludic or the narrative elements, and that’s when I decided to conduct this study. I want to give you, fellow Mass Effect 2 players, a chance to have your voice heard. I want to figure out exactly which pieces of Mass Effect 2 linger with us.

Here’s where your part comes in

I am an undergrad Sociology student, and this question is my senior thesis, and I’ve decided to implement an online survey as my measurement instrument. The link provided below will take you to an online survey, which should take no more than 10 minutes of your time. While it is not likely, during the survey some people may encounter a question that is offensive or makes you feel uncomfortable; if so you may stop taking the survey and contact either myself (Vincent Longa) at vincentlonga@mail.weber.edu or Dr. Robert Reynolds at rreynolds@weber.edu. The responses you provide are very valuable to us, and will be kept confidential. Your responses will only be reported in aggregate (represented as statistics). This ensures that no one response can be traced to a respondent. Your identity will also be kept anonymous. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary, and you may stop taking the survey at any time. If you have any questions, please contact myself at VincentLonga@mail.weber.edu or Dr. Robert Reynolds at rreynolds@weber.edu.

I have obtained permission from this forum’s moderator to post this study here. If you are interested in helping us answer our questions, please follow the link below and take the survey. Thank you for your time

Here’s the link to the survey:

http://vplsurveys.limequery.com/81271/lang-en

Take the survey, and if you’d like to take it a step further, pass the link around on Twitter and Facebook. Thank you!

Tube

This is in fact a real thing that he asked permission for so don't be worried about the spam thread rules guys.

Renegade Wolf

Survey done.
Good luck with your thesis.

Berkshire

I think you picked a great game to base this research on. I could type at length (and would be willing to- if you're interested in my personal thoughts about the game, PM me. I understand if you're only looking for raw data, but I'd be happy to give you some kind of interview) about what was memorable to me in ME2. Of note is that you might want to make a correction to the question about "how many hours do you play video games per week?" as I don't think it specified what unit of time you were supposed to suggest. Maybe it's splitting hairs, but there could be some person out there who really loves their 15 minutes of gaming per week.

Seriously, though, best of luck with this. If games are ever going to be taken seriously, research into the subject will absolutely help. If it gets you a shiny (and very important) piece of paper, all the better!

dmit

Might want to reword the "implementing character's abilities" question, that makes little to no sense.

Also, I like how one of the options for "Did you finish the game at least once?" is "Yess", even if that was unintentional.

T4CT

Actually a fairly interesting survey to fill out. If you need more thoughts/more detailed opinions, feel free to contact me.

Waka Laka

Lewie P's Stepdad wrote: »

This is in fact a real thing that he asked permission for so don't be worried about the spam thread rules guys.

Cool, I'm on board now I know this.

Edit -> Survey seems to be timing out on all my browsers.

Tube

Also everyone should do this survey because I totally took a shit with my trousers on and forgot that I'd given this guy permission

EvilBadman

Pair of inquiries, hidden behind spoilers:

Were some of the questions intentionally missing the correct answers?
If you are examining game mechanic/lore retention with correct answers, I am curious to see what you are counting correct for the unlimited ammunition question.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Be interested in learning (at some point) what you were trying to measure. The survey seemed like it primarily asked me demographic information (after making sure I actually knew what went on in the game.)

I feel like generally, I only remember game mechanics stuff when it was bad, and mostly remember story when it was good, and I tend to blank out the reverses of both.

ed: badman: yeah, I interpreted that as a trick question

dmit

EvilBadman wrote: »

If you are examining game mechanic/lore retention with correct answers, I am curious to see what you are counting correct for the unlimited ammunition question.

My guess is they don't care about counting correct/incorrect answers, but rather want to know how the players remember the game. Did it feel like you had unlimited ammo and could shoot forever? Did it seem that you were able to avoid obstacles by jumping over them? Did the players see Shepard as a fleshed out character (and thus were more likely to remember his/her rank) or did they project themselves in the protagonist's role (and thus didn't care about rank or background)?

EvilBadman

dmit wrote: »

EvilBadman wrote: »

If you are examining game mechanic/lore retention with correct answers, I am curious to see what you are counting correct for the unlimited ammunition question.

My guess is they don't care about counting correct/incorrect answers, but rather want to know how the players remember the game. Did it feel like you had unlimited ammo and could shoot forever? Did it seem that you were able to avoid obstacles by jumping over them? Did the players see Shepard as a fleshed out character (and thus were more likely to remember his/her rank) or did they project themselves in the protagonist's role (and thus didn't care about rank or background)?

I'm a big trivia nerd so:

Most people'll remember Shep's rank if they messed with the Citadel salesmen and did a endorsement for them.
You can't freely jump in Mass Effect 2.
The minigame had 3-5 pairs to unlock, generally 4.
You had unlimited ammunition, but had an amount of thermal clips for cooling.

Nuzak

EvilBadman wrote: »

dmit wrote: »

EvilBadman wrote: »

If you are examining game mechanic/lore retention with correct answers, I am curious to see what you are counting correct for the unlimited ammunition question.

My guess is they don't care about counting correct/incorrect answers, but rather want to know how the players remember the game. Did it feel like you had unlimited ammo and could shoot forever? Did it seem that you were able to avoid obstacles by jumping over them? Did the players see Shepard as a fleshed out character (and thus were more likely to remember his/her rank) or did they project themselves in the protagonist's role (and thus didn't care about rank or background)?

I'm a big trivia nerd so:

Most people'll remember Shep's rank if they messed with the Citadel salesmen and did a endorsement for them.
You can't freely jump in Mass Effect 2.
The minigame had 3-5 pairs to unlock, generally 4.
You had unlimited ammunition, but had an amount of thermal clips for cooling.

the ammo question sounds like a neat way to figure out whether the mechanics or the narrative had more effect on your memories of the gameplay- the lore says you have unlimited ammunition, but thermal clips are for all intents and purposes ammo

dmit

Nuzak wrote: »

EvilBadman wrote: »

I'm a big trivia nerd so:

Most people'll remember Shep's rank if they messed with the Citadel salesmen and did a endorsement for them.
You can't freely jump in Mass Effect 2.
The minigame had 3-5 pairs to unlock, generally 4.
You had unlimited ammunition, but had an amount of thermal clips for cooling.

the ammo question sounds like a neat way to figure out whether the mechanics or the narrative had more effect on your memories of the gameplay- the lore says you have unlimited ammunition, but thermal clips are for all intents and purposes ammo

Technically, ammo wasn't unlimited, just enough to last a lifetime. Conservation of mass and all that. But there is no way to distinguish the "Hmm... I don't remember running out of ammo" people from the ME lore buffs with a Y/N question, which is why I'm sticking with my theory. :P

BlackDove

Can you post the results of the survey publicly when you're done collecting?

Also, done.

Leitner

How many options were there on the hacking minigame?

That (and the ammo question) were the only ones which tripped me up.

Though I imagine the results here might skew somewhat, given the presence of a fairly active Mass Effect fanbase.

Bethryn

Given Dr Reynolds of Weber State University is of apparently of the Anthropology faculty rather than the Psychology faculty, I assumed any mistakes were typos rather than complex psychological trick questions designed to provoke a particular response in respondants.

Pete0r

The hacking options were 1/3/5/7
The ones I remember from the 360

the ressistor, the earth, the capacitor and the 'C' shaped one.

Maybe on the PC there are more?

Dragkonias

Interesting survey, I liked how some of the questions were structured so they could be answered from a gameplay or lore/story perspective.

Unknown

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BlackDove

Yeah, Insanity was the one I ran with exclusively. Did the game the first time on normal though.

Bethryn

Don't read if you have yet to complete the survey:

On all but two Bypassing minigames, there are 5 pairs that need to be correctly paired.

There are two versions with only 4 pairs; one in the Husk-infested mine side-mission and one in a loyalty mission somewhere.

takyris

"Okay, so ammo isn't technically unlimited, since Wrex tells that story about... And they probably just mean the thermal clips, anyway."

"Oh god, how many symbol pairs did we actually ship with?"

"Wait, could I jump in the last game?"

"I am probably skewing their data."

Delta Assault

No option for Hardcore or Insanity difficulty? Some people played that the most, ya know.

EDIT: This question is wonky:

"When an enemy is killed but NOT vaporized or thrown off screen, what happens to their body?"

Two of the options are:

-It remains temporarily
-It disappears after a period of time

Those two mean the same thing.

dmit

Delta Assault wrote: »

EDIT: This question is wonky:

"When an enemy is killed but NOT vaporized or thrown off screen, what happens to their body?"

Two of the options are:

-It remains temporarily
-It disappears after a period of time

Those two mean the same thing.

Must be a glass half empty/half full thing. :P

BlackDove

takyris wrote: »

"Okay, so ammo isn't technically unlimited, since Wrex tells that story about... And they probably just mean the thermal clips, anyway."

"Oh god, how many symbol pairs did we actually ship with?"

"Wait, could I jump in the last game?"

"I am probably skewing their data."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTUOLV7OqMk

EmperorSeth

Bethryn wrote: »

Don't read if you have yet to complete the survey:

On all but two Bypassing minigames, there are 5 pairs that need to be correctly paired.

There are two versions with only 4 pairs; one in the Husk-infested mine side-mission and one in a loyalty mission somewhere.

I'm going to formally declare this a system difference, because I played it on the 360 and only remember 4 symbols except in those two instances. I even checked a youtube video about this and I SWEAR I never saw that "Y" symbol before. Huh, how strange. I can't believe it took us this long to notice this.

Aliasunknown

Wow, thank you all for your feedback and input. I think some of the comments here will definitely inform the methodology section of my research paper. Let me try to address some questions here.

Dr. Reynolds is actually my supervisor. He makes sure I'm doing everything in an ethical manner, and is guiding me through the research project. That being said, he has never played ME2, so any errors on the survey are my (undergrad) bad. He's what is known as a 'Principle Investigator'. He's been doing research since before most of us were born (worked with the head of the Census Bureau back in the 80s). While he has extensive knowledge about survey design, he doesn't have specialty knowledge about ME2, so he wasn't able to give input on those questions. Oh, and he's a Sociologist; the Sociology and Anthropology departments are combined at Weber State.

The 'Yess' was a typo, but I think it looks like I intended it to be there, so we'll go with 'I meant to do that'

As for the specific questions about ammo, jumping, and the hacking mini game; I can't say anything to those questions right now. Once I close the survey out I'll elaborate all of the questions there. But until then, survey respondents should read the question and answer it to the best of their ability. The reason I can't comment on those is because doing so would steer respondents to respons in a certain way, and that would influence my data, which (at the worst) could be interpreted as unethical, or (at the best) make me have to throw out the question in the end.

As of this moment, I have 184 responses, which is OUTSTANDING Monday I'm going to send emails to gaming media folks (Mike & Jerry, Michael Abbott, Jeff Gerstman, Brian Crescente, etc.) and try to get some more publicity on this survey. 300 responses is my goal, but the more the better. I don't think I'll come lose to having a representative sample, as millions of people played ME2 so I'd have to have somewhere in the hundreds of thousands to make a statement like "ME2 had this effect on society...". All I'm shooting for is a statement like "There is evidence to suggest that ME2 had this effect...".

As for the results, I will ABSOLUTELY report them here. One of the things that irks me about academics is they are often distanced from the people they are talking about, and that's a trend I want to break (another conversation for another time). So keep an eye out here, and if you email me asking for information specifically, I'll make certain I reply. The research will be wrapped up on April 22nd, but I should have some preliminary data within a few weeks. I'll post a summary of the findings, and (a link to) the entire report. For now, I'm posting my literature review in pieces on my blog at http://livingoffcampus.wordpress.com/

Again, thank you all so much for your time, and conversation!

Blurbl

Done and done.

OP, I'd put [Mod Approved] or something in the thread title, I only read this after I thought, "Hey, this spam thread has been here a long time."

Aliasunknown

Blurbl wrote: »

Done and done.

OP, I'd put [Mod Approved] or something in the thread title, I only read this after I thought, "Hey, this spam thread has been here a long time."

That's a GREAT idea

Spoit

I'm not entirely sure how representative a sample you can get from a self-selecting audience anyway, but I did the survey anyway

BlackDove

Aliasunknown wrote: »

Blurbl wrote: »

Done and done.

OP, I'd put [Mod Approved] or something in the thread title, I only read this after I thought, "Hey, this spam thread has been here a long time."

That's a GREAT idea

It's a great idea that you yourself can rectify, as you're the OP.

Hit "edit" on your thread starting post, and edit the title of the post to the great idea.

Alfred J. Kwak

that wasn't very difficult - I think I only screwed up the hacking question. Where's my price?

Unknown

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milk ducks

I had the same questions about jumping, ammo, etc, so I won't touch base on any of that. Only other question that stood out was the one that asked what difficulty we play on. I think the choices were something like Casual, Hardcore, and Veteran, or something? The hardest difficulty in Mass Effect is "Insanity".

Feels Good Man

Bethryn wrote: »

Don't read if you have yet to complete the survey:

On all but two Bypassing minigames, there are 5 pairs that need to be correctly paired.

There are two versions with only 4 pairs; one in the Husk-infested mine side-mission and one in a loyalty mission somewhere.

That's because you played it on PC.

Alfred J. Kwak

you heathen

Unknown

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apotheos

The religion question has an narrow range or acceptable replies, and no "other".

BlackDove

"Not religious" was good enough for me (as long as atheist was there as a choice as well to differentiate).

The race question needed an "I don't know/care" field.

Unknown

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