Test Server Feedback

Got testing it out and so far it's pretty neat! Can imagine using this a lot while waiting for form ups or to Spring a trap or sitting in a pos!

So far my only main criticisms is the number of examples provided are some what limited. I will often find myself looking at a sample and be comparing two possible options - but not really definitively being able to decide which one to use. This seems to be reflected in some of the results. On the hover over for each one where it gives you an example image would it be possible to make this into a sideshow so it goes through a number of images? This will help people get a better idea for the variations of a particular example.

Secondly, some of the sample images are shown with filters set - this can somewhat confuse matters as you have to read the text, set the filter and then decide. If a particular example is best seen under that filter - can the button then be hilighted to indicate that when you have the filter selected? Or, when you select a filter can the example image also change to match?

Definitely like this idea +1

Spent 4 hours playing with this on a twitch stream earlier. Generally pretty happy with it. It's fun and simple, and gives me something to do actively rather than sit and spin my ship. Best of all it can be done anywhere as long as I'm logged into the client, so I can do it while sitting cloaked and waiting for a target, or while I'm docked and waiting for a fleet to form up.

I did find some issues, so I'm going to split them up based on what part of PD they are affecting.

User Interface:
Issue: The size of the Project Discovery window isn't adjustable.
Description: Some players (like me!) are going to have a lot of spare screen real estate to work with, and we'd like to make use of it. Allowing us to resize the interface would allow for players to use the space they've got available. As it is, the default window size is great for small or compact screens, and all of the UI elements feel like they fit neatly and effectively, but an expanded window size would allow for more effective use by players who want to spend time doing this. It would also help with some other issues I'll list below.
Suggested Fix: Make it possible to resize the window within reason. Tthere should, of course, be a minimum size - what we've got now works well for that.

Issue: Switching quickly between whole-image and a 'locked' magnified area is awkward.
Description: The click-to-lock-viewfinder behavior is useful but in order to view the whole image for a moment and then return to that zoomed in area, one must click in the image to unlock it, move the mouse out, then move the mouse back to where it was originally and click to lock again.
Suggested Fix: Add a keypress (or button) to quickly toggle between showing the whole image and the selected magnified area.

Issue: Minimap sometimes covers portion of image that user is trying to look at
Description: Using the magnifying glass functionality causes a small minimap of the full image to appear in the lower-right corner. If the user is attempting to look at the lower-right corner of the whole image, this map can get in the way.
Suggested Fix: Move the minimap out of the larger image entirely.

Issue: Magnifying glass functionality on image is awkward around edges of image.
Description: Because the magnifying glass functionality uses the relative position of the mouse cursor to the whole image itself, trying to look at things near the edges of the image is difficult because the cursor must be on the edge of the image in order to view things at the very edge, which, as one can imagine, results in the mouse cursor often going off of the image entirely and deactivating the magnification as a result.
Suggested Fix: Change the anchoring point for the mouse cursor so that it represents the center of the magnified area; this will also allow for a "deadzone" along the edges of the image. Alternatively, allow the user to click and drag on the minimap (if moved out of the main image, as in the previous suggested fix) to move the viewport around in the larger image.


Color Filters:
Issue: Need more filters.
Description: For some images, the four filter settings we have (red/green/blue, green-only, green/blue, green/red) are not enough to clearly discern certain cellular formations in the image.
Suggested Fix: Add filters for red-only, blue-only, and red/blue.

Issue: Colorblindness sucks.
Description: For people with normal vision, the minigame looks and works great. For people with colorblindness it could become nearly impossible to participate.
Suggested Fix: An option for players to select the colors they want to be used instead of RGB would probably be ideal if it is possible.

Issue: Some tooltip examples use color filters and some do not.
Description: Some of the tooltip examples for the cellular formations are shown under specific color filters. The ability to view tooltip examples under different filters would help users spot them more easily.
Suggested Fix: Show any given tooltip example under multiple color filters.


Gameplay:
Issue: Tooltip examples of the different cellular formations need a little more variety.
Description: There are a wide range of correct uses of each of the formations that players are trying to identify. A few more examples of each would help players identify them in some more obscure cases.
Suggested Fix: Add some extra examples for each tooltip.

Issue: 'Results' page is often wildly inaccurate.
Description: The results displayed on images that have not yet reached a "consensus" often appear to be so wildly incorrect that it is either an issue on CCP's end or users are deliberately being lazy ***** on sisi and clicking the wrong things and skewing the statistics as a result.
Suggested Fix: Not really sure, but it needs to be looked into. If it's an issue of users deliberately skewing the results out of laziness, then a way to eliminate and discourage that needs to be found. Other posters have touched on this already.

Issue: Player has no idea when his or her submissions will be factored into their accuracy ratings.
Description: There's no way to tell how long it will be before a particular image will have a consensus reached and accuracy ratings back-tracked for users that contributed to that consensus.
Suggested Fix: Include an estimate, either as a percentage of completion, or perhaps a time, for "pending" submissions in the history dropdown. If possible, of course.

Heyo!

As someone really interested into gamification, and who has participated in similar projects before: huge props! I really like the idea behind it, and the implementation is also really nice!

Aside from "balancing issues", which I'm sure you'll handle appropriately, here are some more suggestions, most of which have been mentioned by other people in this thread:

• "Colourblind mode": or at least something to make it more accessible to colourblind people. Unfortunately, I cannot help with a constructive solution myself... Because I'm colourblind. But let me know if you need any help with testing! :D
• "Skip" button: definitely something that is needed for when you can't really recognize one pattern from the other. Also helps colorblind people for when they can't recognize a pattern. Of course, "skipping" would give no rewards and no penalties.
• Reducing "Transmitting results..." wait time. That looks very fancy, but it's also unrealistically long for transmitting such a small piece of data. I would suggest just speeding it up.
• Rethink the "Rewards" screen. I see you want to show it after each successful task, to have someone feel actually rewarded for the effort they're doing, but some people might be there for the long haul, and therefore don't really care how many spacepoints they're making for each round, and might be already committed to making 10, 20 rounds. My suggestion here would be to transform the reward panel to a "notification icon" on the Project Discovery window that flashes every time you complete a task. That way you still give the players visual feedback for their successful completion of the task and a possibility to check how much they've made without annoying those users who want to commit more time into the minigame.
• Download all images at the beginning of the task. I would suggest downloading the RGB image first, then immediately queuing the other three images, so that when the user wants to switch between different filters, he doesn't have to wait.

Keep up the good gameplay and, of course, the science!

The payouts are fine just as they are. It works on diminishing returns.
And if you don't think players will random click on TQ just for a bit of LP, you don't know the Eve player base very well. Mini games in general suck, this one will be no different. Likely; It will be farmed (excessively) by a few and used for short term gain by many.

This will devalue SOE LP even with 200LP per click return, that alone could net a knowledgeable individual around 120K LP p/h. (risk free)
What would 500K per submission do to it? (greed is good until you get too greedy and devalue your income stream)


Oh and as this is Eve - Where is the "Risk" vs Reward side of this. It seems this is all reward and quite good rewards for a minority.

I read the dev blog and my first thought was "ooh, a new exploration mini-game?"

But instead, as a completely new mini-game, I worry there will not be much immersion feeling.

The rewards, ISK and LP, are boring. What about tying it to Research Points somehow?
Also as someone else mentioned, multiplayer options are important to keep people motivated.

I love the idea, hope this comes through and sees success.

WOW I'm impressed Someone nobody knows comes in here and tells eve players they are just scammers and their input worthless. Then that same person expects the Eve community to get behind his project which has absolutely nothing to do with Eve and is very likely (if successful) to simply break an aspect of the game. (that's down to CCP rather than your project)

Awesome way to introduce yourself and get the community behind you - Expect A LOT of data to be thrown out.

Using data off a test server that is used by less than 1% of the player base as your base line for data-analysis could cause you problems once it hits TQ but this is your thing and I wish you luck (lol) with the Eve community not just playing with your project. At a rough guess, having been around this game for 8 years - 1 in 100 (maybe) will take it seriously, the other 99 will do it to see how much LP can be made. If the rewards are too low, you lose those scammers (good right) and possibly many genuine contributors (because there are better things to do in eve than trying to decide what shape looks closest to a hit - for little reward). If the rewards are too high, the "scammer" (not a nice way to refer to people you don't know who simply may not be good at "pick the right shape" novelty games) will have a field day with it.

Is it scamming??
After all, a little green blob with red lines running through it, is just that - I find it hard to believe that little green blob is actually a blue blob with smaller green blobs in the middle of it. But what would I know, I'm just a scammer (a long time player of Eve with no scientific knowledge, who thought it might be cool to try something that looked interesting)...

I'm all for Eve players donating time to science - CCP can host your "game" somewhere else and those who wish to contribute can, while the "scammers" will not bother - because who scams if there is nothing to gain - and who would not "donate" their time to something they want to contribute to. You want this as a part of Eve you take the good with the bad (that is how eve works) but don't start out by insulting those you want help from.

Additional examples would definitely help. I think it's a great idea for a worthy cause and worth a try.

@Sgt Ocker, sorry you feel offended. I am not calling everyone "scammers", maybe it was a poor choice of wording. I am merely expressing that those who play the game with no intention of getting the correct answer will need to be filtered some how to prevent them from skewing our results. Hopefully that won't be a large percentage, but we'll see.

To clarify, we WON'T be using the data from Singularity in our overall results, rather to build the way in which the data is handled. This includes scripts for transferring the data back to HPA, parsing it and understanding the outputs from the gamers.

Anyway, thanks for the interest.

don't be,
we love a good auld manufactured outrage and hes just making a meal out of it,
also the prevalent attitude here is one of mistrust and thinly veiled hostility (its part of the charm) ,

welcome aboard mate, hopefully you actually take to the game.

@ CCP Paradox ,
imo the rewards are fine,
but i would like to be able to re size or make the image and/or ui for this fullscreen when im giving it my full attention.
yes the zoom is fine and works but i would rather just have a larger image,
i can see it fine and the resolution and coloring options are spot on but if im going to sit down and do this, ill get engaged and want it bigger

also

that link needs to be in the client somewhere obvious, i found i was using trial and error with the ui whereas having seen that im a considerably more informed now.

also +1 for the "i need an adult" button, some of these i cant answer without either guessing or giving a false negative , niether of which i would like to do.