Battle Orders Survey Results

Day 1,453, 23:07 • Published in Canada Canada • by Gary Hubert

Hello eCanada!

Sorry for the delay in getting the results out, but here they are!

I had hoped for 100 or more responses to the survey, but only achieved 82. That's still a fairly good response.


Through which of the following methods do you receive battle orders?

1) MU Daily Order - 69/82 - 84%
2) Campaign of the Day - 46/82 - 56%
3) IRC - 26/82 - 32%
4) Newspaper - 25/82 - 30%
5) Battle Orders Script - 20/82 - 24%
6) Private Message (PM) - 11/82 - 13%
7) Forums - 10/82 - 12%



So, as I expected, the MU Daily Order is the most important tool in getting battle orders out there. MU coordination is the biggest aspect by far that we have to look after but also one of the hardest to control. We can tell Captains and Commanders which battle need to be fought in but we can't actually set these orders ourselves. As hard as we try, MU orders will just never ever be perfect, it's down to the Captains and Commanders to set the orders regularly. MU orders also can't accommodate sudden changes, like finishing off an important mini-battle because they can only be updated in a tiny 5 minute window between mini-battles.

The second highest was the Campaign of the day. This is again expected. It is on EVERY eCanadian's home page. Again, this method has a few limitations. The CP needs to be on in a 5 minute window to change it and it can't accommodate sudden changes.

The third highest was IRC. This surprised me a bit, I thought IRC would be a little less important just because it's a hassle to log on and check a channel for orders. The nice thing about IRC is that it can be updated by many people and can accommodate sudden changes in orders, as long as someone's around.

The fourth highest was the Newspaper. In seeing these results and hearing comments from those who read the paper regularly, I will try to keep orders fresh and updated everyday for those people.

The fifth highest was the Battle Orders Script. This one surprised me a bit. The script delivers orders right to your home page! Why would you not use it? Is it not promoted enough or are people just against downloading some addon for eRep? I don't know but I encourage everyone to use it! It is so incredibly useful and is probably THE most updated place for battle orders. Download it here!

The next highest were Private Messages and Forums. They're just not terribly useful for getting the word out. It would be impossible to send PMs to every soldier and not everyone is willing to check a forum for orders everyday.

Do you feel that battle orders are updated often enough?

I asked every respondent to rate the frequency of updates for battle orders on a scale from 1 to 5. 1 being the worst and 5 being the top.



The average response was 3.30. This is not good nor bad. It means we are doing an average job of keeping orders updated.

When looking through the data though, I found something interesting. Those who had rated a 1 or a 2 had only chosen 1 or 2 methods for getting battle orders. Of those methods, they were almost always the MU Daily Order and Campaign of the Day. To me this suggests that there is a problem in the frequency of updating of the MU Daily Orders and the Campaign of the Day. It also might mean that other ways of getting orders are hidden or are not accessible to everyone.

Are you a member of an in-game MU?

Pretty simple one here, 98% said yes, 2% no.

This just emphasizes the importance of the MU Daily Order in the distribution of battle orders.

Do you use the battle orders script?

This one was a little redundant as I asked the same thing in the 1st question. 34% said yes, 66% no. Again, why more people aren't using it, I don't know. It probably need to be advertised more vigorously. A good question I should have asked was "Have you heard of the battle orders script?" to determine if people just don't know about it or if they just don't want to use it.

Do you check secondary battles and fight there if needed?

71% said yes, 29% no. I asked this one because I was curious, do people understand the primary battle/secondary battle system and do they follow it? I started to question this method once the MU Daily Order came out. With the promise of a bazooka and energy bar for fighting in a battle, would people still be trying to spread their damage effectively? It seems that most do. It is important to effectively spread our damage over all important battles and not just run the bar up to 60% in our primary.

Are you willing to move to other countries to fight in other battles?

No one likes moving fees, so I thought it was important to figure out whether or not people do move to fight in those RWs around the world. 80% yes, 20% no. This is a good result. When we need people to fight in RWs, it seems that people are willing to move to do it. Of course, how people answer a survey and how they actually act when it comes to saving $60CAD can be totally different.

Are you willing to fight in more important battles if it means you won't get your daily bazooka and energy bar?

This question is related to the primary/secondary question. If your MU order is set to some battle with the bar at 60% and we need damage in a really tight battle, are people willing to sacrifice a bazooka and energy bar to fight in that more important battle? 73% yes and 27% no. Again, this is a good result. It's nice to see that people are willing to spread the damage to more important battles even if it means not getting a few extra kills a day.

MU Captains and Commanders ONLY: Do you receive regular updates from the government on priorities?

This one really surprised me. I had 16 people respond to this question. 56% said yes and 44% said no. I don't really know why I am seeing this result. Addy and the executive have a message that has every MU Captain and Commander in it. The orders in there are updated every few hours it seems. That message is probably the most updated place for battle orders. It comes straight from Addy. His decisions are immediately sent to every MU Captain and Commander. This one is an upset. Maybe we need to find another way to get priorities out to MUs.

Overall, this really opened my eyes into the world of battle orders. From this information, I am taking away a greater understanding of where more effort needs to be put in and where effort is wasted. I now know what people are willing to do and what they aren't. Hopefully, we can use this information to bump that 3.30 rating to a 4 or even a 5 sometime in the future.

Note: I wrote this from 1-2am in the morning. There are probably grammar and spelling mistakes.