Changeover poll

[Jhaelen]

I highly suspect that there are a number of players who are still playing a campaign and just haven't made the switch.

Exactly. I won't switch in mid-campaign, so it's at least another year before I'll start playing 4E.

That I will switch at some point is practically a given.

I don't have the time, btw. to play both editions at the same time. I'm glad if we manage to have a D&D session every 3-4 weeks. I might be able to participate in the occasional one-shot, but that's about it.

 

[haakon1]

Yeah, I'm sure a poll on an internet forum featuring less than 70 votes is a real nail-biter for them.

Essentially consistent results from about a dozen polls on the biggest website where your product is discussed might be worth thinking about.

 

[Mark Hope]

You misunderstand inferential statistics. This is common. (I'm a part-time statistics professor).

The incredible beauty of the math behind the field of statistics is that it -- amazingly -- doesn't matter how big your population is. The percentage in the sample generally follows the percentage in the population, regardless of the relative sizes between sample & population. That can be a mind-bender for a lot of folks.

For example, our poll is currently over 300 votes. Standard polling "margin of error", at the 95% confidence level, is computed by E = 1/sqrt, where n is the sample size (notice that population size has no effect on this formula). So for our poll you'd calculate E = 1/sqrt(300) ~ 0.06 = 6%.

For example, the poll now says that 33% of respondents play all 4E now. Our analysis would say that in the larger population (regardless of how large it is) there is a 95% chance that the percentage of people playing all 4E is within 33+/-6% = between 27% and 39%. So it's an excellent bet that the population percentage is within that fairly narrow range.

Look closely the next time you see a political tracking poll. They usually only poll around 400 people (for margin of error = 5%), even though they're making inferences for a voting population of hundreds of millions.

Now, there are other legitimate critiques that can be made about our poll. It is in fact likely to be biased and reflect the opinion of people who attend ENWorld and like to vote in polls on the issue of 4E, for example.

But that's a separate, distinct criticism. The issue that we've got 300 votes and the larger population is in the millions has actually proven to be a non-issue by the mathematics behind inferential statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

Taking the above into account, I'm pretty surprised by the results of this poll so far. The percentage of those not changing over at all is far higher than I had expected to see. I know that there are those who are sticking with an older edition (I'm one of them) but to see 43% voting for "No Change" is a much bigger proportion than I had thought was the case.

I remember anecdotal tales that TSR lost around 50% of its customers when it shifted from 1e to 2e, but I was always skeptical of those figures. Now... not so much. I find it hard to believe that WotC didn't take this kind of reluctance to adopt 4e into account, given all the market research they did for 4e (or said they did, anyhow) so it seems clear that they are banking on drawing in a huge number of new players to replace those who are not making the change to 4e. It will be interesting to see how that marketing campaign plays out when it starts later this year. I recall that the plan was to get current gamers to shift over in the early phase of 4e (ie. now) and get new players later. I doubt that WotC would be happy with only snagging 50% to 60% of their current customer base, so they must have something pretty hefty in the works for attracting new players.

Very interesting perspective, Delta. Really casts the reliabilty of such polls in a new light for me. Here's hoping that this poll continues to draw attention... and votes!

 

[Cpt_Micha]

Complete change over to fourth edition here. After Keep on the Shadowfell there was and is no going back for us.

 

[Delta]

Very interesting perspective, Delta. Really casts the reliabilty of such polls in a new light for me. Here's hoping that this poll continues to draw attention... and votes!

Mark, thanks for saying that. I'm walking around all day thinking of how best to explain this stuff anyway (and noodling in graduate statistics texts), so I see a thread like this and it all comes spilling out.

 

[drothgery]

Taking the above into account, I'm pretty surprised by the results of this poll so far. The percentage of those not changing over at all is far higher than I had expected to see. I know that there are those who are sticking with an older edition (I'm one of them) but to see 43% voting for "No Change" is a much bigger proportion than I had thought was the case.

Unless I'm badly misreading the poll, it's about what people have already done -- less than six weeks after the launch of 4e -- not their long-term plans. My tabletop group was four months into a 3.5 game, and WotC's official policy is that it's better to start a new 4e game than convert. We'll certainly wrap that game up before we do anything with 4e, but I suspect there's enough interest to at least try it at some point (we moved to 3.5 gradually, running a 3.0 + XPH '3.25' game for a while before moving to 3.5 entirely).

If it's up to me -- and my opinion of the game doesn't change after actually playing it and/or running it at a tabletop -- we'll move eventually. Just not right now.

 

[Mark Hope]

Unless I'm badly misreading the poll, it's about what people have already done -- less than six weeks after the launch of 4e -- not their long-term plans. My tabletop group was four months into a 3.5 game, and WotC's official policy is that it's better to start a new 4e game than convert. We'll certainly wrap that game up before we do anything with 4e, but I suspect there's enough interest to at least try it at some point (we moved to 3.5 gradually, running a 3.0 + XPH '3.25' game for a while before moving to 3.5 entirely).

If it's up to me -- and my opinion of the game doesn't change after actually playing it and/or running it at a tabletop -- we'll move eventually. Just not right now.

I agree - it's early days yet. Very early days. I was just struck by the numbers. A year from now and another poll like this would make for some interesting reading.

 

[HellHound]

Haven't gotten a copy of 4E yet. So my current game of B/X is going ahead as planned (ie: slowly - we are mostly playing CyberPunk 2020 and Scion right now)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Well, we're approaching the 400 mark, but we have a ways to go yet. Need a thousand replies, really, before I at least give the poll credence.

I will admit, that the 43% to 43% split, with 16% in 'the middle', has been holding pretty steady since the poll started.

Vote in the poll! By all means, let's get the numbers up. This is ENWorld. We can get the vote number over 1,000!

 

[WereSteve]

I voted that we have not played 4e and are going to be playing an earlier edition. I read through 4e and found I did not like it and would not run it. A couple of others have skimmed 4e and none of them are interested. Since I am the only one willing to run a game right now, that means we will not be moving to 4e.

Similar situation to what my group is going through now, only the group consensus wound up being to revert back to 2.5e Skills & Powers for a change of pace. From what I have observed, this will be the second long running group that I have been a part of to hop in the Wayback Machine and return to 1995.