Guild Wars 2

Ok so the idea is simple, reserve a server for a beta environments and allow people to test out the updates you want to bring out. Whether it be balance updates or game changing updates, put it on the test server first. Then people can make blogs/fansites with news of what is on the testing environment so that the community as a whole can voice their opinions on balance changes and therefore you can make a balance change and revert it without looking like you’re stupid. Also if an update brings a bug (like the one that cost us a day yesterday) it can be spotted on the test server environment and therefore fixed.

Yes, i definitely agree with this. We need something like a “testing” server.

This might be useful

Discussing gw2 wiki and how it broke

ANet Stephane

RedGlow82

Weird way of applying updates. Don’t they have a staging and/or test server where to check if the updates work or not? It seems like these are pretty easy problems to check.
BTW, thanks for all the hard work with the wiki :-)

Our staging environment does not mirror exactly the live environment, for practical and resource reasons. Some of the errors that were on live yesterday could not have been caught during the tests and we’re going to look into ways to improve our testing on these updates.

Much of the time, bugs in MMOs are not found until they put the new code onto the Live servers. I have played many MMOs that do have test servers open to players and there are still bugs when the code is made Live. That is just the nature of MMOs.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

This might be useful

Discussing gw2 wiki and how it broke

ANet Stephane

RedGlow82

Weird way of applying updates. Don’t they have a staging and/or test server where to check if the updates work or not? It seems like these are pretty easy problems to check.
BTW, thanks for all the hard work with the wiki :-)

Our staging environment does not mirror exactly the live environment, for practical and resource reasons. Some of the errors that were on live yesterday could not have been caught during the tests and we’re going to look into ways to improve our testing on these updates.

Even if it doesn’t mirror it 100%, it can still help identify bugs, plus you can still use the testing environment for things like balance changes

People don’t seem to realize that they do have a test server. It just isn’t public. It is played on by testers taken from the community by invite only.

Many of the bugs don’t happen until you add the changes to a live environment, which means things break. Considering this is the first major boo boo bug in a LOOONG time, I think they are actually do quite well.

MokahTGS.7850:

Considering this is the first major boo boo bug in a LOOONG time, I think they are actually do quite well.

But on the other hand, I don’t remember a GW2 patch or update that did not required a fix for something soon after being implemented on the game servers.

Plus, it helps deal with the issues about content change leaks causing unfair advantage.

Let your favored reviewers have a test server account and give them a list of changes like you give the testers.

I’ve played two other MMOs which have test servers – Ultima Online and Elder Scrolls Online. Both have about the same amount of bugs that make it through to the Live servers.

In my experience the majority of people who play on public test servers aren’t actually interested in hunting down bugs, or even giving constructive feedback on balance changes. Mostly they’re interested in fooling around with the new content, or learning how to do it before it’s released so they can claim ‘first’ clear/kill/whatever or playing around with tools provided to facilitate testing (ESO for example allows you to make max level characters with a whole selection of end-game gear to choose from).

Sure it might occasionally generate useful feedback, but I doubt it’s really worth the time and effort the devs have to put into it.

Apply for job at ArenaNet … full access to test servers.

/closethread

Hexinx.1872:

Apply for job at ArenaNet … full access to test servers.

/closethread

You actually don’t need to work there…

Blanche Neige.7241:

MokahTGS.7850:

Considering this is the first major boo boo bug in a LOOONG time, I think they are actually do quite well.

But on the other hand, I don’t remember a GW2 patch or update that did not required a fix for something soon after being implemented on the game servers.

This might be true, but since the OP is suggesting that a public test server would help things more than hurt, I’m pointing out that MAJOR issues…like bugs that corrupt databases…happen once out of all the time GW1…and GW2 have been around.

Menmaro.4607:

Ok so the idea is simple, reserve a server for a beta environments and allow people to test out the updates you want to bring out. Whether it be balance updates or game changing updates, put it on the test server first. Then people can make blogs/fansites with news of what is on the testing environment so that the community as a whole can voice their opinions on balance changes and therefore you can make a balance change and revert it without looking like you’re stupid. Also if an update brings a bug (like the one that cost us a day yesterday) it can be spotted on the test server environment and therefore fixed.

I completely agree with this. It would also kill the “insider trading” issues that the game has. Granted, we’d all get an idea of what to expect before go live, but everyone else is doing it, so why not ANet?

Not enough resources? Servers don’t cost that much. Especially for a company throwing 200-400 THOUSAND dollars at eSport rewards (if not more, in some cases).

Lets logic that a bit: If a patch comes out and crashes servers, this means no sPvP arenas open. If no sPvP arenas open, then no eSports can happen. See how that works? Its all about the priorities, kids.

ANet, stop being so mysterious. You might think its cool, but seriously, really isn’kittens hurting your company, every time something like this happens.

You might think “But we’re not like other companies! We are innovating!” YES! You are, in-game, you’re doing great. Organization and management-wise, you are doing horrible. There is a REALLY good reason why other gaming companies, especially MMO companies, have test servers open to, or a portion of the public. There is a reason why everything is known, before it goes live.

slamfunction.7462:

Menmaro.4607:

Ok so the idea is simple, reserve a server for a beta environments and allow people to test out the updates you want to bring out. Whether it be balance updates or game changing updates, put it on the test server first. Then people can make blogs/fansites with news of what is on the testing environment so that the community as a whole can voice their opinions on balance changes and therefore you can make a balance change and revert it without looking like you’re stupid. Also if an update brings a bug (like the one that cost us a day yesterday) it can be spotted on the test server environment and therefore fixed.

I completely agree with this. It would also kill the “insider trading” issues that the game has. Granted, we’d all get an idea of what to expect before go live, but everyone else is doing it, so why not ANet?

Not enough resources? Servers don’t cost that much. Especially for a company throwing 200-400 THOUSAND dollars at eSport rewards (if not more, in some cases).

Lets logic that a bit: If a patch comes out and crashes servers, this means no sPvP arenas open. If no sPvP arenas open, then no eSports can happen. See how that works? Its all about the priorities, kids.

ANet, stop being so mysterious. You might think its cool, but seriously, really isn’kittens hurting your company, every time something like this happens.

You might think “But we’re not like other companies! We are innovating!” YES! You are, in-game, you’re doing great. Organization and management-wise, you are doing horrible. There is a REALLY good reason why other gaming companies, especially MMO companies, have test servers open to, or a portion of the public. There is a reason why everything is known, before it goes live.

Exactly this, I understand you may risk spoilers from these testers, but I’m sure the people who enjoy the game won’t go looking for them and would rather play the game enjoying the experience with any surprises found ingame.

Public Test servers for MMOs are often not worth the effort. Players are remarkably bad about using test servers to, you know, test stuff out. It’s also an extra level of difficulty to create a test server that is up to the standards that players are used to — it’s common in test environments to have bugs as some things are “in progress” and game developers can live with that, but players mostly cannot.

I can also guarantee that some people given access to test servers will seek out any possible exploit (economic or gameplay) and keep it a secret until they can benefit from it.

In short, it’s not likely to be worth the trouble to create a test server.

I’d certainly like ANet to be more careful. It’s my opinion that adding public test servers would make this harder for them to do. In general, the issues aren’t “testing”, they are about having systems in place that ensure that what is being tested is a good reflection of what will end up going live.

I think they already have this thing, but we’re not welcome there because we’re not huge on youtube or twitch. They only invite a select few individuals based on that and don’t care about truly dedicated players, who’d like to help too.

slamfunction.7462:

Not enough resources? Servers don’t cost that much. Especially for a company throwing 200-400 THOUSAND dollars at eSport rewards (if not more, in some cases).

The main cost isn’t the server – it’s the staff time (which Anet has to pay them for) and expertise to communicate what needs testing and inspire players to focus on that (remember this might mean running the same instance multiple times over, on an entirely separate server so you won’t get to keep any of your rewards or achievements) and then making sense of the feedback and organising it into a form that’s useful for the developers – who don’t have time to read a 5 page thread debating the pros and cons of every change in whatever order people choose to write about them.

Of course they have to do that already with their internal testers, but that will be a much smaller and more focused group.

Edit: Also I’m pretty sure the prize money for the PvP tournaments comes from the sponsors. That’s usually how it works in other contests – they donate items or money and in return get to plaster their name all over everything, insist that everyone uses their systems (e.g. the tournament must be shown on their web site) and basically get a lot of advertising, directly to their target audience.

There is a test server but it’s just reserved for alpha type testing for the people that ANet trusts explicitly, I don’t fall into that catagory but I know some one that does; out of respect for his precarious situation I can’t mention them by name not that it matters though because they respect ANets NDA not letting any thing slip.

Want to play on the test server? Here you go:

https://www.appone.com/maininforeq.asp?Ad=389217&R_ID=1032458&Refer=https://www.arena.net/&B_ID=44

Currently accepting applications!

I think adding a public test server wouldn’t change much. It’s still not the same as a live enviroment. People will never play 1000+ hours on a test server, craft a legendary item, buy gems, invest in crafting or gear.
Nor would you get the same amount of players on the test servers to have it reflect the live situation when it comes to load balancing and performance.

Being in the client + database management for about 12 years now I can tell you that about 87 to 93% of the bugs are found during testing in our facility the rest is found in production because of situation you could never have imagined during testing.

I’ve been in a game with a test server and it was not very successful.

First off, the devs never allowed enough time to fix any problems that turned up so there was a perpetually unhappy bunch of players who would report bugs and then see them go live anyway.

Second, many players used the test server as a means to gain an advantage, either through trading or new exploits. The prices of some materials in the live game would dramatically rise or fall in anticipation of the changes on the test server.

Third, as stated, many players were not even remotely interested in testing stuff – they were just impatient for the new stuff so by the time it hit live they were already bored of it and spoilers and trolls were widespread.

Finally, and this is the main point, plenty of major bugs still got through, because nothing tests the code as effectively as a million players all trying to do something in slightly different ways.

they have said before it was not possible just search on forum…

Agreed. It’s the humans that kill ya…

However, with the use of bots one could create a Test Harness that would run prior to dropping the patch and just after. I’d form the bots into groups that say run 10000’s of TP transactions, Gather, Craft, Run Events, etc. Then continue to refine the bots after humans find new ways to break the code. Of course, you’d build a bot maker to add new units as needed. In time, you’d have a legion of bots that’d run for say an hour and I suspect uncover a significant percent of problems before the humans found them.

Of course, it has the added advantage of being low cost and under in-house control.

Or you could just let us keep on being the Test Harness…

Danikat.8537:

Edit: Also I’m pretty sure the prize money for the PvP tournaments comes from the sponsors.

Who is sponsoring GW2 PVP tournaments?

Blanche Neige.7241:

Danikat.8537:

Edit: Also I’m pretty sure the prize money for the PvP tournaments comes from the sponsors.

Who is sponsoring GW2 PVP tournaments?

Councillor Phlunt, of course.

~EW

According to this

ESL, Nvidia and Sennheiser.

Josh stated the prize money comes from the advertising budget. The Devs feel that’s the best way to spend that (allocated for advertising-only) money.