Guild Wars 2

There was something that bothered me for a long time without knowing what it was.

Now I know what it is!! It is a testing arena/zone for devs to test stuffs and players give feedback!!

Because with all due respect, a lot of patch notes seem to hint that devs are not fully understanding the issue or the possible impact the changes can bring.

So give us a test arena or zone which we can actually try things out and tell you how it may may not work out!!

We won’t even really want anything in return!! [well, some acc bound minis or sth may be nice :P]

The… what was it, the mist sth that is coming out [sorry i just cant remember the name] for testing out wvw features, right?

So give us something for profession balance as well!! This arena will be so much fun for players to try something totally weird and also can lead to the players knowing that devs are not just sitting there making themselves pretty.

I definitely support this – mostly because it might lead to cutting down on bugs and improving notice of lackluster implementation.

JKLeetro.6935:

The… what was it, the mist sth that is coming out [sorry i just cant remember the name] for testing out wvw features, right?

Edge of the Mists, which isn’t so much for testing stuff as it is to provide people waiting in WvW queues with stuff to do.

EDIT: misread the OP

For testing like you describe, I don’t think it’s feasible for them to set up such infrastructure. Not to mention a lot of the stuff that would theoretically be in there is a work in progress, and the details are generally not released to the publikittenil such time as the team deems it ready.

Additionally, they already have their own team of in house testers to do that sort of stuff. Increasing the number of testers isn’t bad in principle, but that assumes that the people using such a “beta version” would bother to provide meaningful feedback, and the sample size would still be restricted.

The thing is that the “meta”, as it’s called, can change over time. I remember Jonathan Sharp giving an example about how berserker stance received a buff to a 6s duration and a large number of people said it was garbage. As such, the team decided to buff it to 8s. Some time later, warriors started to prove to be really powerful in PvP and WvW and people were calling for complete nerfs to this ability. When he was questioned as to why the team buffed this ability, he pointed out that it took several weeks for warriors to reach this point, and simply having a slightly larger number of beta testers wouldn’t have been able to provide any indication of the current state of things.

So while this isn’t a bad idea in principle, it’s value is questionable.

They do have an ample testing program, which goes on for months before anything is released. The people involved are just bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so you never hear about it.

Gulesave.5073:

They do have an ample testing program, which goes on for months before anything is released. The people involved are just bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so you never hear about it.

So how come the moment players logged on after the patch that changed iWarden, the very first summons of the phantasm immediately resulted in an unmissable bug, which were reported on the forums immediately (still not fixed)

Bug at work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99EEcUU2YyY

Me logged in post patch and testing for it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2sT6iEqQvc

There are an overwhelming number of cases displaying the devs lack of understanding of what X change means in the meta, and seemingly a totally inept internal testing crew. Sure, perhaps there are some cases where more testers wont produce any results, but in cases like with iWarden, it was very clearly never tested properly to begin with.

In every instance where players have been included in the process, problems have been pointed out, bugs have been found.

Does that mean we need a special player testing instance? Not necessarily. If you think about it, the live world becomes the ultimate testing zone, and the thing there is that those bugs that are found? They’re never if rarely fixed or reverted.

If this will work as a way to also test builds (besides using useless dummies in LA) then count me in. Actually count me in either way

Gulesave.5073:

They do have an ample testing program, which goes on for months before anything is released. The people involved are just bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so you never hear about it.

Ample testing. Yes. I…honestly don’t think this can possibly be true – have you ever seen the Turret buglist?
There are twenty-seven bugs, some subtle, some blatant, some crippling and some not.
In semi-recent patches, they put out the wrong version of a turret, and managed to make another turn off entirely when overcharged.
If the testing that let those, and other issues pretty much every time they try to do anything to Turrets, through is what anyone would call ample, I call for a raise of the bar, because that is not ample. Ample does not result in an almost-thirty-item-long buglist for a set for six skills. That’s four and a half bugs per skill in the set.
Ample, the testing ain’t.

ok this has ben bugging me XD
in pvp . when u r by your gear locker …. if u look on the map there is this lil island all by its self !
and if u go to the end of the lvl u can kinda see the island !
there should be some rings u can duel in there so people can test there gear
and not just on the lame npc u have every where else in the pvp common area

I agree. Anet is wading through incertain waters by abandoning the trinity, and I believe getting more feedback will only benefit everyone.