Suggestion On How To Help Us, Help You (SOE)

[BWShellShocked]

<DIV>Wrote my ideas down in the Non-Game Play forum, but figured it would also be good to mention it here as well.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Here's the link:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=Non-Gameplay&message.id=141097" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=Non-Gameplay&message.id=141097</A></DIV>

[otlg]

<DIV>BWShellShocked:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You must be a mind-reader because I was going to post almost all of those suggestions myself today after reading the 'why NOT play on test' thread.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Excellent post.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Osiri</DIV>

[BWShellShocked]

<P>Mind reader.. no.  But yep, it was that thread that inspired me.  I'm not immune to the knee jerk bash SOE syndrom that happens each time new code makes it to live and causes havoc for a few days.  But after I calm down, I always try to identify the problem and come up with constructive criticism.</P> <P>Hopefully this is read by those that matter, and it gets their brain trust department grinding on a system that creates competition and provides a real goal oriented Test Server environment.</P> <P>How cool would it be to have scrolls like we get for the coin collection quests, and Froglok quest, but for real.. to hang on our walls? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Ceruline]

<P>I certainly don't agree with everything, but there are good ideas there.  I've actually proposed incentive based testing in the past, so I obviously agree there (My idea was more in the form of an experience/status bounty for confirmed bug reports.  Be the first to report a major exploit?  Have a free level!)</P> <P>At this point, you can't go wiping rarely played characters on test.  At the very least, no character started on Test should ever be deleted.</P> <P>If copies are allowed in, they need to be VERY carefully controlled.  90% of the high level people who think they'd be good testers, wouldn't be.  What I'd do is allow a player to apply for a character copy once they've reached level 30 on test, at which point the request could either be approved or denied by QA.  I've found that generally the copies from live servers aren't particularly productive, or interested in testing (There has been limited copying going on), whereas players from Live who are willing to come here and start from scratch are generally more effective testers, and more mature players.  That way, before they bring a high level character over, they're already familiar with the community, and already familiar with the pitfalls of playing in a Test environment.</P> <P>A lot is made of the compensation for Testing.  One of the big issues, especially with copies, is that those of us who currently play on Test view not having copies and keeping our community intact as a significant part of our compensation for paying to be game testers.  Some copies are fine, but allowing anyone who wants to copy over will violate what most testers feel are the implicit conditions of us playing on test full time.</P> <P>I play Test because I want to be closer to the source of changes in game design.  I'd love to be a game designer myself some day, and being on test allows me much more opportunity to talk to the people who create the content.  Playing Test, in a sense, is a game within a game.  There's EQ2, but for me it's also a game to examine design decisions, make recommendations for improvements, and figure out if I can break the design in some way that's to my character's benefit (And then report it of course)</P> <P>Test, while it could use more incentives to attract population, is not a broken system.  We catch a lot of bugs, exploits, and poor design decisions.  The population is now reaching the level where we can test raid content on our own (The reason there are copies on test at all is that we didn't have enough high levels yet to do high end raid testing).  Only if population cannot be addressed by offering further inventives for mature, knowledgeable individuals to start playing full time characters on test should the prospect of more copies be brought up.  (We've recently had a good number of good testers come in who've given up 40+ characters on Live servers to come play Test.  We need more of them, not more people who will log in for a few hours after a patch, and then whine about it on the boards without giving constructive feedback)</P>

[BWShellShocked]

<P>Thanks for the 1 star.  Care to share with me exactly what was so offensive to deserve it?</P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ceruline wrote:<BR> <P>I certainly don't agree with everything, but there are good ideas there.  I've actually proposed incentive based testing in the past, so I obviously agree there (My idea was more in the form of an experience/status bounty for confirmed bug reports.  Be the first to report a major exploit?  Have a free level!)</P> <P>At this point, you can't go wiping rarely played characters on test.  At the very least, no character started on Test should ever be deleted.</P> <P>If copies are allowed in, they need to be VERY carefully controlled.  90% of the high level people who think they'd be good testers, wouldn't be.  What I'd do is allow a player to apply for a character copy once they've reached level 30 on test, at which point the request could either be approved or denied by QA.  I've found that generally the copies from live servers aren't particularly productive, or interested in testing (There has been limited copying going on), whereas players from Live who are willing to come here and start from scratch are generally more effective testers, and more mature players.  That way, before they bring a high level character over, they're already familiar with the community, and already familiar with the pitfalls of playing in a Test environment.</P> <P>A lot is made of the compensation for Testing.  One of the big issues, especially with copies, is that those of us who currently play on Test view not having copies and keeping our community intact as a significant part of our compensation for paying to be game testers.  Some copies are fine, but allowing anyone who wants to copy over will violate what most testers feel are the implicit conditions of us playing on test full time.</P> <P>I play Test because I want to be closer to the source of changes in game design.  I'd love to be a game designer myself some day, and being on test allows me much more opportunity to talk to the people who create the content.  Playing Test, in a sense, is a game within a game.  There's EQ2, but for me it's also a game to examine design decisions, make recommendations for improvements, and figure out if I can break the design in some way that's to my character's benefit (And then report it of course)</P> <P>Test, while it could use more incentives to attract population, is not a broken system.  We catch a lot of bugs, exploits, and poor design decisions.  The population is now reaching the level where we can test raid content on our own (The reason there are copies on test at all is that we didn't have enough high levels yet to do high end raid testing).  Only if population cannot be addressed by offering further inventives for mature, knowledgeable individuals to start playing full time characters on test should the prospect of more copies be brought up.  (We've recently had a good number of good testers come in who've given up 40+ characters on Live servers to come play Test.  We need more of them, not more people who will log in for a few hours after a patch, and then whine about it on the boards without giving constructive feedback)</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>And based upon the above, you would certainly fall into the category of what I would deem a "Quality" tester.  As I said, I'm not one of those types, nor am I interested in paying to become one... but that's just me.  But since I'm not in your category, I'm also quite naive about the finer points of playing purely on the test server.  I sincerely appreciate you pointing some of those out to me, as I really had no idea what motivates your type to play solely on test.</P> <P>I didn't necessarily mean a carte blanche wipe of all toons, but more of an active tracking system, to have a better idea of how many main toons are actively playing at any given time, so that those numbers could be looked at cleanly, and compared to live server population.  I don't play on test much myself, and if my toons were wiped for that reason, I would honestly feel that wipe was justified.</P> <P>And no, I never said that the test system is broken, it most surely is not.  You and those like you do a great job of catching bugs, and I appreciate your efforts.</P> <P>But, from my perspective, there needs to be a great many more testers of your caliber.  An experienced, mature player giving up a 40+ toon on live to start from scratch on test isn't the norm... but it should be, and I think it could be, given the right incentive.  I am merely trying to point that out, in hopes of generating enough discussion on the topic that perhaps SOE can come up with a way to attract so many quality type testers, that they have to begin turning them away due to lack of space on the server <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <p>Message Edited by BWShellShocked on <span class=date_text>06-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:10 PM</span>