Population of Test Server?

[Actfive]

I started a new tune on the Test Sever, just to have a look at the new content and maybe find a bug or two. Ran around the island, and leveled to six. Didn't do the Orc or Pirate quests, as it was impossible to get a group togther.

 

Been playing a couple of days now, and I must say running into another player has been a pretty rare thing indeed. A number of times that I did the /who command, I was the only one in the instance. Last night I did /who all, and a total of 28 people were listed. 28! Wandered over to the player merchant, and not one single player was selling goods. The highest tradeskill instance was deserted. Later during servers shutdown, I did /who all, and the population had jumped to 63. Seems to me, some people are only logging onto test when thier main toon's server goes down for maintence.

 

Being mid-week in an off time zone, maybe this was a bad example. Anyone else on Test have some sort of feel on the population of the server?

[Evadne]

Wow, I do a /who all all the time, generally day time pst, and primetime pst, and get over 100. I say over because the who truncates at 100.What time were you on?~EvaEdit, the other day, Tuesday evening I think I did a who all, got the 100+, but then I did a who all 30 50, and the result was 58.~Eva

Message Edited by Evadne on 03-10-2005 04:55 PM

[Actfive]

Aussie time, so from around 2.00am PST to 4.00am PST...Thanks for info...:smileyhappy:

 

 

 

 

[Miral]

/join test

its the channel where testers get together, and the only chance you have at those odd times I think (I play during that time... and well, all night... and all day... sometimes)

[Chath]

Is it any wonder that Sony "can't possibly" think of all the scenarios that players would come up with when the test server's population is so low?

 

The solution, should Sony choose to accept it, is test-server-only accounts which are absolutely free of charge.  Players shouldn't have to pay to beta test the software.  A free account, however, will be irresistible to some folks, especially the kind who might be inclined to exploit...  I betcha...

 

Being able to upgrade such an account to a full account and get a one-time character transfer to a low-population server might make it an even more appealing demo method than Trial of the Isle.  Having 2500-5000 or so such accounts active at any one time to limit the impact would nevertheless provide volumes of test data.

 

It would be a lot cheaper than hiring an army of dedicated QA folks, and complaints stemming from mistakes being passed onto the live servers would rapidly approach zero.  (Such test-only accounts should have their own message board, and only read-only access to these boards, so there aren't any complaints here about "why's the test server down", when, after all, it's a free account, and you get what you pay for!)

 

I can dream, can't I?

 

[Actfive]

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Miral wrote:

/join test

its the channel where testers get together, and the only chance you have at those odd times I think (I play during that time... and well, all night... and all day... sometimes)

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Cheers Miral, will do.  :smileyhappy:

 

[Bhagpuss]

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Chatham wrote:

Is it any wonder that Sony "can't possibly" think of all the scenarios that players would come up with when the test server's population is so low?

 

The solution, should Sony choose to accept it, is test-server-only accounts which are absolutely free of charge.  Players shouldn't have to pay to beta test the software.  A free account, however, will be irresistible to some folks, especially the kind who might be inclined to exploit...  I betcha...

 

Being able to upgrade such an account to a full account and get a one-time character transfer to a low-population server might make it an even more appealing demo method than Trial of the Isle.  Having 2500-5000 or so such accounts active at any one time to limit the impact would nevertheless provide volumes of test data.

 

It would be a lot cheaper than hiring an army of dedicated QA folks, and complaints stemming from mistakes being passed onto the live servers would rapidly approach zero.  (Such test-only accounts should have their own message board, and only read-only access to these boards, so there aren't any complaints here about "why's the test server down", when, after all, it's a free account, and you get what you pay for!)

 

I can dream, can't I?

 

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I completely agree that this is the only way to get a full server population on a Test server.

All of the other solutions just don't work. The status quo is attractive only to people who enjoy testing as their primary role and are prepared to pay to do it, and people who like to play EQ2 in a quiet, laid-back environment (obviously some cross-over there too).

Copying characters would creat a different environment but would not, in my estimation, improve things much, if any. By definition, your copied character is not your actual character. If you are already playing your 38th Wizard on a Live server, copying her across to Test won't suddenly double your available playing time. The copied character will gather dust while you carry on playing your "real" character and the general population level of test will remain much as it is now. People may well come across and play their copied character for a while when their own server is down or when a new zone is opened on test, but every hour you do that is a playing hour you paid for when you didn't play your actual character and again there won't be many people that find that attractive long-term.

However, requiring people to buy the EQ2 software at retail but waiving the monthly subscription if they start an account that can only be played on Test would probably fill the server up in a day. It does beg the question of whether such a population would be interested or motivated to actively test stuff, and I strongly doubt that bugs which affect players positively (like vendors paying too much for items) would get reported all that quickly, but a full population server would probably find major bugs fast enough whether people were looking for them or not.

EQ1 has gone for 6 years with big issues introduced in patches needing extended downtime and repatching, though, so i am a bit surprised people aren't used to it by now. One useful thing everyone that is complaining could do would be to start a character on Test that they play during this downtime. That way you can not only avoid some of the frustration of not being able to play, but also help to reduce the chance of it happening next time round.

[Chath]

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Bhagpuss wrote:

However, requiring people to buy the EQ2 software at retail but waiving the monthly subscription if they start an account that can only be played on Test would probably fill the server up in a day. It does beg the question of whether such a population would be interested or motivated to actively test stuff, and I strongly doubt that bugs which affect players positively (like vendors paying too much for items) would get reported all that quickly, but a full population server would probably find major bugs fast enough whether people were looking for them or not.

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I personally wouldn't require purchasing the EQ2 software at retail (assuming one has a friend with the disks), because that's still making testers pay, but it would probably be more acceptable to Sony's accountants.

 

Whether or not such a population would be motivated to test can be easily encouraged by rewarding bug reporting.  Give the first person to report a blatant plat-generating exploit a blue flaming sword or something.  Make lesser bugs worth silver or better once confirmed and/or fixed.  Treat them something like quests.  Maybe each confirmed bug counts toward the player's "quest total" on the test server.  Maybe a new exploit found (and confirmed and fixed) could count toward the "item found" count.  Have each confirmed bug report give personal status or guild XP for that player.  Whatever.  There are many ways to motivate folks using the systems already in place.

 

When the team has its status meeting and reviews bug reports, fixed bugs that were reported get some reward on the test server, and whoever closes out the bug reports goes in and grants the reward to the first X people (3?  10?) having reported the bug.

 

And we don't care how uber people become on the test server.  We don't even care if they get "better" equipment, since they'd have to test out the consequences of that "better" equipment, so naturally they'd "have" it first, and they'd be the ones to suffer equipment nerfs to test balancing the items.  They'd get to see spells first, spell effects, whatever, and they'd suffer the nerfs, not the paying players.

 

So how about it, Sony?  No one ever said quality was cheap.

 

[Shantee]

Ever thought what would happen if they made it free. That's a bad idea, makes my head hurt. You'd get thousands upon thousands of ppl playing and not caring bout bugs or reporting them. The quality would go down. I like playing on test due to the small population. I would leave test if they did that. I'm sure many other of the testers would do that as well. I don't care bout getting stuff first or not. It's the community I like and not having a huge population. I have no problems finding ppl to do things with and I'm among the higher lvl players.

[Chath]

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Shantee wrote:
Ever thought what would happen if they made it free. That's a bad idea, makes my head hurt. You'd get thousands upon thousands of ppl playing and not caring bout bugs or reporting them. The quality would go down. I like playing on test due to the small population. I would leave test if they did that. I'm sure many other of the testers would do that as well. I don't care bout getting stuff first or not. It's the community I like and not having a huge population. I have no problems finding ppl to do things with and I'm among the higher lvl players.

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That sounds pretty selfish, Shantee.  You like playing on test because of the small population, and yet the small population is precisely why bugs are not caught until after they're release to the live servers, so what you're really saying is that you don't care what bugs or other issues hit the rest of us, as long as you get to have what you want -- a low population server.

The purpose of the test server is to test the game before it's released to the rest of us, not to serve as a low population server for folks who are willing to tolerate potentially buggy code.

It would not be terribly difficult, I'd wager, to automatically scan for certian things -- the sudden appearance of excessive coinage, for example.  Heck, on the test server, they should be running debug code which audits lots of system events and shoots off e-mails when various limits are reached or quirks are triggred, anyway, which would obviate the diligent reporting requirement that you (probably correctly) assert would not be typical of a "free account" test player.  With such mechanisms in place, plus thousands of players instead of hundreds, it would be relatively easy to catch the kinds of bugs which result in half-day outtages when mistakenly placed on the live servers.

Finally, I fail to see how quality would "go down".  You asserted this, but you didn't develop the argument.  Perhaps you could convince me?

[Ute]

I played on SWG's test center for well over a year. In fact, it was my home in that game and I enjoyed it and all the wonderful people I met there. Speaking from my experience there:Small player populations of dedicated testers who willingly choose to help and be part of test center because they care about the game, are absolutely vital to good quality testing. These are the testers who are going to see all the tiny, small bugs and will sit down and focus test a bug on their own then give a detailed bug report.That said, there is a place for huge population testing too. For one, large scale testing really helps when it comes to stress testing changes. Secondly, while the quality of bug reports often goes down, more players means you are more likely to catch some things.So, how do you find a middle ground between the two methods? Well, we had a lot of debates in SWG, and the devs made a lot of decisions along the way that didn't go over too well and ended up having them lose more testers than they gained. But, in the end they *did* come up with the perfect solution:SWG now has two test centers.1) Test Center(or TC-Prime) operates just like EQ2's test center. The server is totally "normal" and you have to progress your characters normally. This server has a smaller population, of course, but it is filled with dedicated testers to the game, and because character progression occurs naturally, it is nice for spotting progression types of bugs.2) TC2(or TC-Servername) is the new addition the devs have made in the last couple of months. This server is a complete copy of a live server. The live server chosen rotates around every few weeks. In addition to it being a live server copy, they have character builder terminals that let players change their characters skills(SWG equivilant of classes and levels) at will.Now, you can imagine that with SWG, being a game that also has PvP, the sort of players TC2 attracts. Frankly the server is really icky and a lot of bad players use it to just cause havok. I wouldn't set foot on it if you paid me But, it does serve its purpose very well: it lets the devs stress test patches and catch things that only mass numbers of players might catch. In the mean time, the more calm, focused, and detailed testing still happens on TC-Prime. It lets the devs get the best of both worlds by having two different types of test centers.Anyway, EQ2 would probably benefit from a similar system. Having one server that is like test center is now, but adding in a second server with special rules that would just attract players for mass testing stuff.

[Mindgamer]

Great answer Bhagpuss. Test server, despite everyone's enjoyment of a very friendly, quiet little server, is not performing it's intended function as well as it could. This not a lack of effort on the player's part, simply a lack of numbers overall. The server transfers that were supposed to happen stopped after 3? groups, and very few higher level players were motivated enough to help test to take advantage of the server transfer, easier to sit back and complain about the testing process. Plus the server transfers were announced on very short notice.

 

Test needs to have a more comparable adventuring population, economy, crafter population, and level distribution, to provide realistic testing for live servers. Whatever incentives it takes to develop that population, SOE needs to listen to.

 

Agedone, 38th Mystic, TEST

[Shantee]

No it's not selfish. I test, I report bugs, I deal with bugs, I talk to the GM and help them out when I can. What I'm saying is, if you open the test to be free, you'd not ony have more ppl, which I'm not opposed to having more aroun, but you'd have a population MUCH higher than you have on the regular servers. I play on a regular server as well, and it is difficult to find places that aren't already taken. You'd get ppl who don't care bout the game, only there to cuase problems, cause its free. If that ever happened, I think ppl would leave due to the problems that arrise . I agree some things can't be tested correctly due to not having enough of the higher lvl players right now, but that is changing. There are many bugs that are reported in Test, that are not fixed before it goes to live server. Does this suck? yes, it does. But sometimes other bugs have to come first over other ones, and sometimes those are the bugs that need addressed over other fixes that seem to come first.

[Proudfoot]

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Shantee wrote:No it's not selfish. I test, I report bugs, I deal with bugs, I talk to the GM and help them out when I can. What I'm saying is, if you open the test to be free, you'd not ony have more ppl, which I'm not opposed to having more aroun, but you'd have a population MUCH higher than you have on the regular servers. I play on a regular server as well, and it is difficult to find places that aren't already taken. You'd get ppl who don't care bout the game, only there to cuase problems, cause its free. If that ever happened, I think ppl would leave due to the problems that arrise . I agree some things can't be tested correctly due to not having enough of the higher lvl players right now, but that is changing. There are many bugs that are reported in Test, that are not fixed before it goes to live server. Does this suck? yes, it does. But sometimes other bugs have to come first over other ones, and sometimes those are the bugs that need addressed over other fixes that seem to come first.

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Shantee is correct. If you made product free, you'd end up with a playerbase on Test that was so horribly ineffective, you'd be defeating the purpose of having a Test Server.It would fill up with the rejects who couldn't bring themselves to pay montly for a game. Even though its still the most cost effective method of entertainment per month than: Movies (theater or renting)BarhoppingEating outAmusement parksFishingCamping (in a national park)Strip clubsAbout the only thing cheaper than the online game per month is being a Mall Rat. Ohh joy to that.

[Chath]

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Shantee wrote:
No it's not selfish. I test, I report bugs, I deal with bugs, I talk to the GM and help them out when I can. What I'm saying is, if you open the test to be free, you'd not ony have more ppl, which I'm not opposed to having more aroun, but you'd have a population MUCH higher than you have on the regular servers. I play on a regular server as well, and it is difficult to find places that aren't already taken. You'd get ppl who don't care bout the game, only there to cuase problems, cause its free. If that ever happened, I think ppl would leave due to the problems that arrise . I agree some things can't be tested correctly due to not having enough of the higher lvl players right now, but that is changing. There are many bugs that are reported in Test, that are not fixed before it goes to live server. Does this suck? yes, it does. But sometimes other bugs have to come first over other ones, and sometimes those are the bugs that need addressed over other fixes that seem to come first.

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If you say so...

I already countered the "MUCH higher" argument in an earlier post with the suggestion that only 2500-5000 such accounts be allowed at any one time.  Beyond that, Utess pointed out SWG's method, to have two different servers; SoE could easily implement something like that.  The point is -- Sony needs to assume responsibility for getting testing done properly, not subjected paying players to it, and if it means having a server decicated to the gaming scum-of-the-earth at SoE's expense, then please, Sony, bite the bullet and do it.  Frustrating customers repeatedly and mentally shielding one's self from the shame that ought to attend repeated failures with those magical word, "but there will always be bugs", should not be acceptable to the Sony brand.  Imagine the beating the Playstation 2 would have suffered if it were inherently as problematic as Sony's MMORPG's are.  "But..." nothing.  Is Sony about quality or not?

The people who cause problems are more likely to find the exploits and other things that give SoE fits when discovered on the live servers and result in outtages.

Then, truly, SoE does not really care about the quality of its own game.  Not a good reflection on the Sony brand.

If bugs are being fixed faster than new ones are being added, this is acceptable.  When bugs continue to creep into code with every "fix", compounded with broken promises, faulty logic, further untested game material...  It's amazing what we addicts are willing to endure for our fixes.

 

[Ute]

Now, in all fairness, having played on SWG's test center. Building up a good test center filled with lots of quality testers takes a lot of time and nurturing. When I joined SWG's Test Center it was about 6 months old and I joined in as part of the 3rd big population explosion.When I mastered Dancer on that server, I was the 5th ever(in swg you are normally looking at about a month to master a profession to put this in perspective). 6 months after I joined the population on Test Center had more than tripled. When I joined there were just 3 player cities on TC. When I left SWG there were over 10.It wasn't until really about the time I joined TC that it really started to develop into its full potential. Given that perspective, EQ2 is only about three and a half months old. So, test center really hasn't had that much time to grow.But, all that aside, I think EQ2 borrowing some of the things learned from SWG's testing(specifically creating a second free for all test center) would be a good thing to implement early on. You'd also find a small number of players who joined this other TC would like the adventurous atmosphere but seek something more stable and personal, these good testers would then join the main Test Center we have now and further expand that community.From the perspective of someone who loved a game and was an active member of its test center, I can say that while it is common for players to blame testers for missed bugs, or accuse them of acting superior, that isn't really what is happening. The testers on the server just care a very great deal about the environment they test in. Because testing bugs often involves working together, and because the population is usually low, testers will develop a very close relationship with each other. For me, the people and guildmates I knew on TC were and are like family to me. They care a great deal about the game, and they care about being able to test the game and make it the best it can possibly be. I can only assume the same is true here because it seems to be a universal thing. As I said, a good test center must be nutured to grow and become a great environment to work and live in. And that is all the people of this TC seem to want to. Which is why I think a second TC would be a good route to take here because it seems to have worked well in SWG. It makes all players happy and lets those who want to test here and there on something that is important to them, do so. In the mean time it lets the great stable normal test center environment grow, flourish, and test successfully.

[Shantee]

So I'm being selfish for spending time on the test server, to help get bugs out before they hit live servers. I guess so then. But well I could say the same bout ppl on live servers, wanting everything perfect in a perfect world. This is a game that evolves, it grows, they introduce new ideas, how else are they to get bugs out? Soooo if you say the PS2 doesn't have bugs with your online games, well that is a set game, it doesn't expand, the code is written on the disk. And there are bugs in those games.Anyway, everybody sees things different, I have been playing online games for over 11 years. Never have I seen one perfect, that didn't have bugs creep in.Have fun.. I know I do