In the previous thread, out of ~2600 respondents, the overwhelming majority wanted ship transfer of some form. Of that majority only 25% wanted transfer to be instant. The other 75% were roughly evenly split on how long the transfer should take.
I only posted in that thread because I was linked to it because it's goofy - I don't read this forum usually because I have other things to do in life. So the sample is self-selecting and skewed towards people who are interested in this particular issue. If we assume that people who don't post on the forums are generally happy with the direction the game is going, we can assume that the people who have posted in that thread are going to be the ones who care about the issue, and the people who didn't post, the
vast majority, would have been fine with instant ship transfer.
Statistically speaking, for a population of 2 million, a sample size of 2600 gives us (at a 95% confidence level) somewhere +/- 2% of the actual results of this poll. Basically what it says is that we can say with 95% confidence that if we polled all 2 million players we'd expect the results to be within a margin of about 2% either side of the actual results.
Statistically speaking, none of this is true. For a population of 2 million a
random sample of 2600 would give us a pretty good confidence level, but this wasn't a random sampling, it was self-selected. So no, you cannot have the confidence level you are expecting. Test design is the critical difference between statistical masturbation and actual research.
We'll never know if it's truly only a vocal minority who want a delay. What Frontier have done is make the assumption that the original poll was statistically significant, and make that the new intended behaviour. If it *isn't* correct (and there are many good reasons why not) then as long as this new poll is publicised, it gives the "silent majority" the opportunity to provide their feedback (i.e. if this poll goes overwhelmingly toward "instantaneous" then it invalidates the original assumption and the original poll results). So, if you're really *really* against transfers taking time and you believe others are too, start spreading the word.
What Frontier has done is made an "official" poll using two extreme options because they couldn't use the self-selecting poll made on the forums or gather useful information from it. What they have failed to do is make the poll they have created here actually useful because most people do not follow through with polls that are emailed to them or bother to vote about issues that they do not care strongly about. So most people would likely be very happy with instant transfer, but will not vote because they trust Frontier to make the best gameplay decisions possible when designing the game (though I don't know
why they have that faith at this point).
Because most people trust the game devs to design a game that is fun and cool and not lame and boring, they don't bother voting in polls about gameplay unless they are of the sort that is afraid of fun, cool gameplay because they use Elite as a reality-substitute rather than an entertaining video game. To the latter, it is very important that Simguru Braben not make a game too fun because if they are having fun, they will realize that it is not actually their real life, which is joyless and tedious as all real lives are.
Basically, the statistical methods being employed here aren't actually meaningful and shouldn't
ever be used to influence actual game design, instead, simple tests should be employed, like "is it fun when we actually play it."
Sandro straight up said that they have tested it both with and without a delay, and a delay added nothing, when they actually played it. People who have not played it both ways are saying they would rather play it the not-fun way, but they cannot know that because
they have not played it either way. Instead, they are worried about their
immersion, which is a silly thing. I would rather gameplay decisions be made by people who have actually playtested it and not by biased polls.
