swordscomic
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2024 Survey Results
🕑 Added 2024-09-12 05:09:16 +0000 UTCHi, here's some stats that came out of the survey, from over 1000 responses:
Have you read the entire series (Swords: The Webcomic)?
Yes (67.4%)
No (20.1%)
Not sure (12.5%)
Which aspects of Swords do you care about the most?
Funny one-offs andpuns (eg. Edgesmith) - Mostly "Like"
Lore and world-building (eg. Kargob) - Mostly "Love"
Cute and wholesome (eg. Quest Sprout) - Mostly "Love"
Cool characters andmoments (eg. TheNeverwarden) - Mostly "Love"
Sexy characters (eg.Durengal) - Mostly "Like"
Lore and world-building was the most "Loved" and Sexy characters had the most "Disliked"
Have you ever purchased Swordscomic merch or directly supported the series financially?
Yes (29%)
No (71%)
Are you aware of Swords: Cut the Deck, the card game coming soon?
Yes, I have preordered (14%)
Yes, I have not preordered (57.9%)
No (28.1%)
Almost a third of people didn't know about it, which lets me know I'm not being too overbearing with my advertising. That's a good thing!
Which Swordscomic character would it be most exciting to see as a Makeship plushie?
Quest Sprout (15%)
Lake Monster (6.4%)
Rapier Tapir (5.7%)
Bread Knight (4.5%)
panDEMONium (4.1%)
Durengal (3.9%)
Kargob (3.7%)
Demon Swords (3.3%)
Chad the Bastard Sword (3.1%)
Momma Sprout (2.7%)
A Sword (2.5%)
Demon King (2.4%)
Jest Sprout (1.9%)
Other (40.8%)
About half of respondents answered this question, and there is also some recency bias because Kargob, Quest Sprout and Durengal were all mentioned in another part of the survey. Some people also wrote long lists and some people listed the Demon Swords by name which are therefore counted in "other", so some answers may not be properly represented.
The Lake Monster being a popular pick surprised me quite a bit!
"Pandemonium plush series. Make it be the 8 demon swords that if all are bought, it can connect together via a couple magnets!"
I'm not really confident people will wanna buy $250 worth of plushies to make one big plushie, but it's a fun thought experiment.
Are you aware of Swords Sticker Club, available on Patreon and Ko-Fi?
Yes, I am a member (5.2%)
Yes, I am not a member (44%)
No (50.8%)
I'll do more to hype this up for the Christmas Sticker Club
What content, service or product would make you excited to join the Swords Patreon page?
Most people took the opportunity to talk about their own lack of finances, but otherwise words like "Lore", "Exclusive Comics" and "DnD" came up the most
Do you have a pain-point with regards to the series?
Most people mentioned the lack of a rigid upload schedule, unexpected hiatuses, long gaps between plot progression and gripes about the lack of a chronological story. There was some confusion that people thought the chronological ordered stuff was locked behind a paywall (it isn't). There were also some complaints about the website having a prompt to accept cookies (a legal requirement) and having popup ads sometimes.
A few people complained about Quest Sprouts prominence, but in some cases they also acknowledged that he doesn't feature nearly as often anymore, which I can't do much to fix! Other people rightly complained he doesn't show up enough.
I couldn't help but notice that the people who were generally the most adversarial in their feedback and threatened to stop reading entirely were the people asking for more NSFW content in every other field...
This is an optional space to leave any additional comments you might have. Thank you for taking the time to answer the rest of the survey!
I'll take this opportunity to publicly answer a few comments:
"foremost I feel like the funny possesed tree character just got left in the dust."
"i want to see more Motar"
- Motar was a Patreon Tournament character and he got left in the Patreon Tournament
"How about a [insert weapon here] spinoff?"
"I feel like some jokes using bows would not go amiss?"
"More alt universes stuff please"
- I currently have three great artists, InkyRickshaw, AdmiralWonderboat and RdsToNowhere who are keen to help me extend the Swords universe with spinoff comics, when I figure out how to reliably pay them to do it. It's something I'll keep striving towards as we build up Patreon.
"Swordcomic is a good 8.7/10 web comic"
- Hello comfort zone!
There's lots more comments, including some really nice ones! Thank you for responding to the survey! Overall, I think it was much more positive than last year - but last time filling in some of those harder questions was mandatory too. Silence is golden?
Thanks!
Comments
Dominic Corbin
I chose Lake Monster because I thought she has a cool design that would look good in plush form, and hasn't been done yet. I am not bothered if it doesn't happen. If another Quest Sprout will sell out it is hard to say you shouldn't do that
Dominic Corbin
Now I HAVE to refresh my knowledge of this Motar guy...
second
Hi, thanks for the update on the swords: cut the deck!
Lightning Eyed
I know it's probably not an option on Makeship or would just be prohibitively expensive, but a to-scale Momma Sprout plushie (like squishmallow sized to be extra big in comparison to Quest Sprout) would be so cute. Then again, the anti-sprout squad might not agree π€·ββοΈ
Matthew Wills
I'll see what I can do...
Andrew MacLeod
Love it, he's always been my favourite D&D character to play. Any chance of him being in the crowd in the second half of the Swornament?
Matthew Wills
About 5 or 6 people asked for Motar as a plushie, which surprised me because he hasn't appeared in a comic for about a year now. Star potential.
Andrew MacLeod
Lots of responses here showing that you'll never please everyone, unless you can somehow have quest sprout in every comic while also having him in none. Also, happy to see some Motar love β€οΈ it wasn't even me asking for more of him (this time...)
Matthew Wills
I did ask for feedback. I think people have all sorts of valid reasons to feel frustrated, but yes, it does seem a little short sighted to think I'll make those changes under duress... A few people specified they wanted a "better" Rapier Tapir or a "glow in the dark" Kargob, but I think most of those answers were genuinely from people who weren't aware of either campaign - it's just hard to reach people with the way social media is fractured and hides whatever it pleases these days. It's frustrating because some people see the ads way too much while other people never do. I think the survey was very positive overall! It was only 4 or 5 out of 1000 people who took the time to be Demon Swords of Unreasonable Silliness.
Matthew Wills
There are all kinds of reasons people would pick Quest Sprout. They only care about him and already have him, they missed out the first and second time, they aren't into plushies but its logically the best pick... etc. etc. etc. Makeship have one permanent offering which is Emotional Support Demon, but that sells a LOT of units. I'm not sure what their appetite would be like to support Quest Sprout in that way, even though I've been working with them for a long time now. It may be that I just release slight variations every year or two. The other option is to create my own line of plushies, where I control everything, but that's a little beyond my scope for now. At least until the card game has shipped and people are willing to trust me with another creative campaign - letting them overlap is a little ikky.
Jacob Sabin
Who chooses to take a survey for this and then threatens the creator that they'll stop reading it? Who the hell does that?!...π On a lighter note, I think it's funny (more-so strange) that many people suggested Makeship items for characters that have already received plushies. I don't think that Makeship does it, but maybe miniature plushies or more "comic" looking ones could be in store for Quest Sprout or even Rapier Tapir? Regardless of what's in store for the future, thanks for all you do, Matt!π€ And hey, at least ONE person appreciates ya and doesn't take a survey to bag on the person asking for input...
PhlubbaDubba
Honestly the plushie question looks like people want a permanent Quest Sprout Plush, which, the little dude and basically every other sprout character are more or less a perfect storm of plushability. Yes even Mama Cactus
