Guild Wars 2

I see no need for a PTR, if you can release a patch every 2 weeks and fix the bugs within a few hours of the patch I find it much more beneficial then testing out a patch for a few weeks with tons of spoilers.

They should keep it the same, put all the of the patch in a NDA and keep us waiting until the last day to see whats been added, I like the surprise… bugs or not.

Besides all of the serious bugs get kept and exploited anyways

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

Man, why does everybody talk in abbreviations all the time in this game. Sorry but what the heck is PTR?

Sartori.1962:

Man, why does everybody talk in abbreviations all the time in this game. Sorry but what the heck is PTR?

Test Server and yeah, I had to look this up as well…

I think it’s worth mentioning the Sky-pirates update introduced a bug in the Goemm’s Lab Jump puzzle that could get players perma-banned by falling in the wrong place.

A test server would allow the community to put new content through the ringer and get it ironed out before it hits the live servers.

Sartori.1962:

Man, why does everybody talk in abbreviations all the time in this game. Sorry but what the heck is PTR?

Public Test Realm. A beta server.

If you know how programming works, you will probably would want to have another beta server after the PTR (beta) one. I have seen quite disastrous things happen to untested codes…

Did you just say this game doesn’t need more testing before releases?

No. No no no no no no no. No. No.

http://www.sectalk.com/board/public/imported_images/i.lolzer.com/no-no-no-HELL-NO.gif

No.

No.

that pretty much summed it all up

tigirius.9014:

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources. The following happens on test servers:
- let’s raid orgrimmar (crashing test server hence no testing)
- let’s find exploits and keep them hidden for world firsts (hence no testing)
- let’s whine about justified nerfs (hence no positive testing)
- let’s check out profession X at max level (hence no testing)

End effect, almost no real testing and with a very high noise-to-signal ratio. Couple that with extensive exploit gathering. It is simply not worth it.

A.net actually has players testing in a group that can be constructive, objective and silent. There’s no reason to invite every troll and his mother to the test krewe.

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

I’m not in favor of public test servers either (and PTR seems like a stupid acronymn…so many other possible interpretations). SWTOR uses them and they still wind up with serious bugs on release. I suspect that it actually encourages the development organization to do less testing themselves, relying instead on input from the masses (something of a Microsoft mis-behavior).

I have mixed feelings about PTRs. I played with one in Rift and it was always dead. The problem is if people are playing there, then they aren’t in game. People are already claiming the world is dead. Do we want to split the player base further?

Furthermore, there were tons of leaks about upcoming content. Nothing was every a surprise. As it is, I think Anet gives out too much info about upcoming events. Too much guidance as to how to do things. Too many arrows and stars about exactly where to go.

So while I can see the use of a public test server, there are some very big strikes against it.

At any rate, I doubt Anet will ever create one, so I don’t think you have to worry OP.

A lot of people think that because there are bugs that they don’t test their stuff. They do test their stuff.

Bugs will appear with or without a Test server. However with a test server the main server will not get the players doing what they should be doing. Playing the game and enjoying the surprise of oh look new content.

marnick.4305:

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources.

Source?

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources. The following happens on test servers:
- let’s raid orgrimmar (crashing test server hence no testing)
- let’s find exploits and keep them hidden for world firsts (hence no testing)
- let’s whine about justified nerfs (hence no positive testing)
- let’s check out profession X at max level (hence no testing)

End effect, almost no real testing and with a very high noise-to-signal ratio. Couple that with extensive exploit gathering. It is simply not worth it.

A.net actually has players testing in a group that can be constructive, objective and silent. There’s no reason to invite every troll and his mother to the test krewe.

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

And none of what you said explains how it’s been the most effective system in testing and thus used by 90% of the games out there still to this day. If it were so ineffective than no one would use it. Please stop posting nonsense, even with all of the negatives, the majority of the testers are legit testers and report on the problems in the ui the combat and the mechanisms of the games update. It’s not like what we’re seeing in this title where they made claims about items being fixed and then have to go back and find all of the various groups of things they missed in the type of testing they use, as opposed to only finding 2 maybe at max 3 things wrong in the PTR testing system because of the ample reporting and free testing provided.

PTR should have been in this game at release. Every single update has numerous bugs that would not have been there if we had a ptr.

I’m very much in favor of through testing when it comes to development, with separate environments for the various testing applications. Development environment (tdd development, code coverage – unit testing, functional testing, possible automation testing all added to the cod and verified as passing), test environment (initial ‘feature’ testers), pre-production environment (integration and regression testing), and then finally released to the production environment (us, the users).

Testing with thorough scenarios is a GOOD thing. Do it!

Why not try this:

Get a whole lot of gamers (say 600-750, not sure) to sign up for testing. Let them agree to an NDA and have a set period (the entire week after the latest patch went live, maybe?). The chosen players can go crazy and play their hearts out during that week, submitting their finds.

When the time comes for the next patch, ANet can again invite the players they liked, while excluding those they didn’t (like info leakers or players who didn’t log the agreed upon hours). Also they invite new players, and keeping the ones they’re building a trusting relationship with.

Wouldn’t something along those lines work?

There is absolutely no reason to fear that a PTR will be implemented in GW2. The benefit of a PTR is quality content releases and it requires a longer development cycle for it to be even feasible, i.e., longer than a month. Otherwise, there is simply no way that it can be a part of the process as there’s nowhere to fit it in. With the move to two week releases there is even less reason to be concerned about the implementation of a methodology to improve the quality of code and content.

Azjenco.9425:

Why not try this:

Get a whole lot of gamers (say 600-750, not sure) to sign up for testing. Let them agree to an NDA and have a set period (the entire week after the latest patch went live, maybe?). The chosen players can go crazy and play their hearts out during that week, submitting their finds.

When the time comes for the next patch, ANet can again invite the players they liked, while excluding those they didn’t (like info leakers or players who didn’t log the agreed upon hours). Also they invite new players, and keeping the ones they’re building a trusting relationship with.

Wouldn’t something along those lines work?

Yes it would. Problem is what you described is NOT a Public Test Realm it is a test realm. ArenaNet already has one of those.

tigirius.9014:

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources. The following happens on test servers:
- let’s raid orgrimmar (crashing test server hence no testing)
- let’s find exploits and keep them hidden for world firsts (hence no testing)
- let’s whine about justified nerfs (hence no positive testing)
- let’s check out profession X at max level (hence no testing)

End effect, almost no real testing and with a very high noise-to-signal ratio. Couple that with extensive exploit gathering. It is simply not worth it.

A.net actually has players testing in a group that can be constructive, objective and silent. There’s no reason to invite every troll and his mother to the test krewe.

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

And none of what you said explains how it’s been the most effective system in testing and thus used by 90% of the games out there still to this day. If it were so ineffective than no one would use it. *Please stop posting nonsense, even with all of the negatives, the majority of the testers are legit testers and report on the problems in the ui the combat and the mechanisms of the games update. *It’s not like what we’re seeing in this title where they made claims about items being fixed and then have to go back and find all of the various groups of things they missed in the type of testing they use, as opposed to only finding 2 maybe at max 3 things wrong in the PTR testing system because of the ample reporting and free testing provided.

1/ can you back up that claim, because i’ve never, ever seen a single legit tester on PTRs in the time I played WoW. The PTR forums were full of vitiol without meaningful discussion about the content (let alone bug hunting). Even if there was a speck of meaningful testing, it’d be lost in all the noise. That’s personal experience though.

2/ stop posting nonsense, right back at ya.

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources. The following happens on test servers:
- let’s raid orgrimmar (crashing test server hence no testing)
- let’s find exploits and keep them hidden for world firsts (hence no testing)
- let’s whine about justified nerfs (hence no positive testing)
- let’s check out profession X at max level (hence no testing)

End effect, almost no real testing and with a very high noise-to-signal ratio. Couple that with extensive exploit gathering. It is simply not worth it.

A.net actually has players testing in a group that can be constructive, objective and silent. There’s no reason to invite every troll and his mother to the test krewe.

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

And none of what you said explains how it’s been the most effective system in testing and thus used by 90% of the games out there still to this day. If it were so ineffective than no one would use it. *Please stop posting nonsense, even with all of the negatives, the majority of the testers are legit testers and report on the problems in the ui the combat and the mechanisms of the games update. *It’s not like what we’re seeing in this title where they made claims about items being fixed and then have to go back and find all of the various groups of things they missed in the type of testing they use, as opposed to only finding 2 maybe at max 3 things wrong in the PTR testing system because of the ample reporting and free testing provided.

1/ can you back up that claim, because i’ve never, ever seen a single legit tester on PTRs in the time I played WoW. The PTR forums were full of vitiol without meaningful discussion about the content (let alone bug hunting). Even if there was a speck of meaningful testing, it’d be lost in all the noise. That’s personal experience though.

2/ stop posting nonsense, right back at ya.

There are tons of constructive posts in the WoW PTR forums, you clearly didn’t look or skipped all of them.

You’re entitled to your opinion, OP, but in this case, it doesn’t seem very well thought through. Players can opt out of reading spoilers in test server patch notes and guides and even turn in-game chat off if they want to, but it’s impossible to opt out of bugged content when you expect to be able to enjoy a patch.

I would prefer weeks of spoilers and honest anticipation of quality content leading to my own enjoyment of said content…

…over and above…

…anticipation of quality content and the resultant frustration when said content has anything from minor glitches to game breaking exploits on release.

marnick.4305:

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

^ Lie

Also a bad philosophy in General and the main reason things are so bugged and exploitable still. IoW: If all you do is invite the sheep/mice of the game, all you’ll get is meager casual testing and meek feedback at best. Anet’s problem since 2005 has always been that’s it AFRAID to work with a team of Rivals. And they’ve always built everything around Cronyism. Once it even got them in hot water over a scandal involving preferential treatment to non-employees in their shiverpeak themed Guild. It wasn’t quite CCP-tier of corruption… but their history shows they have no respect for people who think differently from them and they avoid as much as they can; anyone who doesn’t suck up to them all the time and tell them everything’s sunshine & lemondrops. (this also caused a huge falling out between them and Guru — which I was actually relieved by to be honest, but I digress).

Though there’s also the problem highlighted by past Test Krewe members who eventually quit from the first one they built. Infact It just so happened to be the main reason I DIDN’T join the Krewe when I had the opportunity: IE: that they would only use them for a very narrow line of bug-catching (mostly UI/graphic) and ignore them completely on major exploits and game-breaking imbalances on skill functions & Utility.

YOU CAN’T IGNORE TESTERS ON BALANCE/ABUSE ISSUES and still call it “Testing”.
That alone is a huge black eye for the entire industry when it comes to Testing.
The manpower to actually deal with it is there. They’re just not listening.

I love how so many people seem to think it has to be one extreme or the other – either they have a public test server that everyone and their mother can play on or they don’t test anything at all, ever.

IMO people who believe that the content Anet is releasing is completely untested either believe they have the best programmers in the world or they have never seen newly written code being run for the first time. Yes bugs get through, but it’s nothing compared to what happens when you first test something. If we were seeing entire servers crashing when an update was first added, or entire areas wiped or turned bright pink* or something then I’d believe they don’t test it.

Personally I think it should be fairly obvious they’re doing the same thing they did with GW1 – they have a test server but instead of letting everyone play there and hoping someone might happen to do something constructive they keep it in-house, with maybe a few trusted/experienced family and friends allowed in too.

This would also explain how they do things like give certain journalists and bloggers an early preview of the up-coming patch. It’s obviously not been added to the actual servers and creating an entire new one just for a short preview a few days early seems unlikely, so they probably let them play on the test server.

*Believe it or not that’s a genuine bug that used to come up quite often in another game I played that had a lot of 3rd party mods. There was a conflict between some art programs and some object compilers that caused anything with clear/invisible areas in its skin to turn bright pink. Very weird but kind of fun, and thankfully easy to spot as soon as you put it in-game. Unlike most bugs.

Tolmos.8395:

Chase.8415:

I see no need for a PTR, if you can release a patch every 2 weeks and fix the bugs within a few hours of the patch I find it much more beneficial then testing out a patch for a few weeks with tons of spoilers.

They should keep it the same, put all the of the patch in a NDA and keep us waiting until the last day to see whats been added, I like the surprise… bugs or not.

Besides all of the serious bugs get kept and exploited anyways

No. No no no no no no no. No. No.

http://www.sectalk.com/board/public/imported_images/i.lolzer.com/no-no-no-HELL-NO.gif

No.

No.

You say this now, but the first time they release a patch that wipes your bank of every item in it, you’ll be the first on here saying “WTF?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TEST THIS CRAP?!”. And if you think that’s not possible, go check WoW. It happened. Twice.

Point proven, World of Warcraft has months of testing and yet major exploits slips through such as the ability to run Game Master commands and kill an entire town all day long.

Then there’s also numerous infinite gold exploits, quests exploits and so forth that happened after months of beta testing.

Azjenco.9425:

Why not try this:

Get a whole lot of gamers (say 600-750, not sure) to sign up for testing. Let them agree to an NDA and have a set period (the entire week after the latest patch went live, maybe?). The chosen players can go crazy and play their hearts out during that week, submitting their finds.

When the time comes for the next patch, ANet can again invite the players they liked, while excluding those they didn’t (like info leakers or players who didn’t log the agreed upon hours). Also they invite new players, and keeping the ones they’re building a trusting relationship with.

Wouldn’t something along those lines work?

Anet already had this on their alpha server.

Chase.8415:

Tolmos.8395:

Chase.8415:

I see no need for a PTR, if you can release a patch every 2 weeks and fix the bugs within a few hours of the patch I find it much more beneficial then testing out a patch for a few weeks with tons of spoilers.

They should keep it the same, put all the of the patch in a NDA and keep us waiting until the last day to see whats been added, I like the surprise… bugs or not.

Besides all of the serious bugs get kept and exploited anyways

No. No no no no no no no. No. No.

http://www.sectalk.com/board/public/imported_images/i.lolzer.com/no-no-no-HELL-NO.gif

No.

No.

You say this now, but the first time they release a patch that wipes your bank of every item in it, you’ll be the first on here saying “WTF?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TEST THIS CRAP?!”. And if you think that’s not possible, go check WoW. It happened. Twice.

Point proven, World of Warcraft has months of testing and yet major exploits slips through such as the ability to run Game Master commands and kill an entire town all day long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWafpAuRSk

Then there’s also numerous infinite gold exploits, quests exploits and so forth that happened after months of beta testing.

Point proven because somebody was hacking the game? Please. There are so many bugs that don’t make it to the live servers because of the PTR, don’t pretend otherwise.

They have a test server, it’s under strict NDA and most of us aren’t invited to test it.
How else do you think patch notes get leaked before we see them? It’s like the first rule of fight club.

zerorogue.9410:

Sartori.1962:

Man, why does everybody talk in abbreviations all the time in this game. Sorry but what the heck is PTR?

Test Server and yeah, I had to look this up as well…

I think it’s worth mentioning the Sky-pirates update introduced a bug in the Goemm’s Lab Jump puzzle that could get players perma-banned by falling in the wrong place.

A test server would allow the community to put new content through the ringer and get it ironed out before it hits the live servers.

That bug has been in there for much longer than that. The only reason it became more noticeable is because the cache basically forced a lot of people who have otherwise ignored it.

zerorogue.9410:

I think it’s worth mentioning the Sky-pirates update introduced a bug in the Goemm’s Lab Jump puzzle that could get players perma-banned by falling in the wrong place.

That bug wasn’t introduced in any recent update. It existed for months, had numerous threads in the bug forum and was never fixed.

Exactly what Elthurien said. There is a test server, it’s simply private and is populated by people who have access to it specifically for testing.

Public test servers simply aren’t a good idea. You split the player base and create a large group of people who have zero impact on the game economy and basically get to exist inside some pointless bubble – the majority of whom end up not actually playing in it because they want to help test for bugs but rather because they want to experience content before everyone else.

ilr.9675:

marnick.4305:

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

^ Lie

I never, ever lie. It’s bad practice and doesn’t work on the long run. Furthermore I’m not smart enough to remember all my lies, the truth is so much easier to remember. But you could call it an opinion you don’t agree with.

Also a bad philosophy in General and the main reason things are so bugged and exploitable still. IoW: If all you do is invite the sheep/mice of the game, all you’ll get is meager casual testing and meek feedback at best. Anet’s problem since 2005 has always been that’s it AFRAID to work with a team of Rivals. And they’ve always built everything around Cronyism. Once it even got them in hot water over a scandal involving preferential treatment to non-employees in their shiverpeak themed Guild.

Do you need any tinfoil?

It wasn’t quite CCP-tier of corruption… but their history shows they have no respect for people who think differently from them and they avoid as much as they can; anyone who doesn’t suck up to them all the time and tell them everything’s sunshine & lemondrops. (this also caused a huge falling out between them and Guru — which I was actually relieved by to be honest, but I digress).

And yet guru hosts the state of the game, openly questioning devs in their face. The facts clearly speak against you.

Though there’s also the problem highlighted by past Test Krewe members who eventually quit from the first one they built. Infact It just so happened to be the main reason I DIDN’T join the Krewe when I had the opportunity: IE: that they would only use them for a very narrow line of bug-catching (mostly UI/graphic) and ignore them completely on major exploits and game-breaking imbalances on skill functions & Utility.

I have a hard time believing you refused to join and be proud of it. Occam’s razer demands you were never invited at all. The rest is just a figment of your imagination.

YOU CAN’T IGNORE TESTERS ON BALANCE/ABUSE ISSUES and still call it “Testing”.

Of course not. But let’s just look at the actual facts, latest blog post:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-new-skyhammer-pvp-map/

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from our playtesters,” Bearce says. “Pretty much as soon as we threw this in for testing, our internal playtesters said, ‘This has to go on Live.’”
Claypool adds, “People who have played this map already have been more excited about playing PvP.

Emphasis mine. You’re wrong. I take a.net’s words over yours any day of the week if you don’t mind.

o. o
….. they test things in this game?

ilr.9675:

If all you do is invite the sheep/mice of the game,

“Constructive,” “objective,” and “non-troll,” do not equate to sheep or mice.

They do equate to important traits of a useful tester though.

Someone who is constructive and objective is, by definition, critical where criticism is merited.

ilr.9675:

YOU CAN’T IGNORE TESTERS ON BALANCE/ABUSE ISSUES and still call it “Testing”..

Of course you can, and probably should some or even most of the time, when dealing with volunteer (especially player) testers.

Balance and abuse issues are generally much more subjective than UI/graphics bugs and issues. Keeping those issues most subject to bias away from those most likely to be affected by bias is perfectly reasonable.

Another thing to bear in mind – a lot of people who like the idea of a test server seem to think Anet don’t have one because they want to keep new content secret and have suggested that they could just require testers to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), like they did for the early beta tests, up until the press beta and the pre-purchase betas.

But if that’s the case then how would we know if they have one or not, or what’s tested in it, since no one would be able to tell us?

If you’re insisting they should have one and should require an NDA then you’ve got yourself into a Catch-22 because you’ve set up a perfect situation for them to have a test server without you (or any of us) knowing about it. Add on the fact that it’s a fairly obvious idea and the sensible assumption is that is exactly what they’ve done.

For the record I still think in-house testing is more likely because as other people have pointed out the other issue with players testing the game is they’re rarely interested in actually testing it, which usually requires doing the same things over and over again in exactly the same order and recording exactly what you did so any bugs can be easily found, and usually just play as normal which makes finding bugs much less likely.

As you probably know video game tester is a real job (has anyone here not considered it at some point?) but it’s not as popular as you’d expect because it’s actually incredibly boring.

We know for a fact they have one, because it’s been referred to. Anet has said straight out that there’s a server that they test things on, and that it’s constantly in a state of flux. That they’re trying new things out on it all the time. In fact, we know some journalists that have been invited to that server to see content, prior to it being released.

I don’t think I have ever played an MMO without a PTR, seems silly not to let the players flood through and find the issues.

The only place I have ever seen it be kind of a problem was with world firsts in WoW, and even then that was very debatable.

+1 for giving a PTR.

The only issue. Use it only for bugfinding/testing/fix.

Don’t use it in any shape or form for balancing.

Just look at forums, think if all those QQers had a word in a PTR for balance the game.

Primernova.5791:

I don’t think I have ever played an MMO without a PTR, seems silly not to let the players flood through and find the issues.

The only place I have ever seen it be kind of a problem was with world firsts in WoW, and even then that was very debatable.

It’s only silly if you have enough players to test both the test server and populate the main server. In a game like Guild Wars 2, where you need people in the open world for group events, and what have you,. it wouldn’t be smart to siphon people out of the real world.

Vayne.8563:

Primernova.5791:

I don’t think I have ever played an MMO without a PTR, seems silly not to let the players flood through and find the issues.

The only place I have ever seen it be kind of a problem was with world firsts in WoW, and even then that was very debatable.

It’s only silly if you have enough players to test both the test server and populate the main server. In a game like Guild Wars 2, where you need people in the open world for group events, and what have you,. it wouldn’t be smart to siphon people out of the real world.

Only certain players tend to do the PTR thing and it (usually) only strengthens a guild for the insight. They also only tend to do it in off hours and away from group/guild event times.

The flood of players can provide valuable data for Anet to squash bugs and prevent exploits before a major patch. They can watch how players behave with buffs and nerfs and respond accordingly too. I can think of several class changes that would and have been tweaked/reverted, if they had been observed before release.

Primernova.5791:

Vayne.8563:

Primernova.5791:

I don’t think I have ever played an MMO without a PTR, seems silly not to let the players flood through and find the issues.

The only place I have ever seen it be kind of a problem was with world firsts in WoW, and even then that was very debatable.

It’s only silly if you have enough players to test both the test server and populate the main server. In a game like Guild Wars 2, where you need people in the open world for group events, and what have you,. it wouldn’t be smart to siphon people out of the real world.

Only certain players tend to do the PTR thing and it (usually) only strengthens a guild for the insight. They also only tend to do it in off hours and away from group/guild event times.

The flood of players can provide valuable data for Anet to squash bugs and prevent exploits before a major patch. They can watch how players behave with buffs and nerfs and respond accordingly too. I can think of several class changes that would and have been tweaked/reverted, if they had been observed before release.

The problem is, the off hours are particularly the hours we need more people in the world. I’m in Australia, not America. There are plenty of times when America is sleeping when the population is too low already. Not a big problem during prime time, more than enough problems later in the day.

So if more people are not playing off hours and some of those people will, it still remains a problem for a percentage of the population.

And it’s still irrelevant, because I’m relatively sure Anet will never do it.

I’m an American, but kind of a night owl so have been in several Aussie and Hawaiian guilds.

Love Oz, kitten I want to move there one day…

I do know what you’re saying though. Aussie servers and ping, have always been an issue for MMOs.

Thing is, not a lot of players will do it in my experience. I never did it much, I don’t want to download a second client and keep it all updated. I just always learned from players that went to a PTR and respected them for taking the time to have a look. And, as I said, it gives ANet a big sample of bugs/exploits.

On a side note, my favorite raid leader was an Aussie. She sat in a room full of screaming pet birds, yelling at us to stop being bad lol! Good times.

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

marnick.4305:

tigirius.9014:

PTRs are hands down the best tried and true way of testing anything. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind in the argument against the OP. Time and time again with patch updates that include major changes to classes bugs still exist in each patch that they’ve claimed are gone, some of which stayed for months with no one listening to the complaints in the class forums about these bugs still being there.

Yeah I’d say it’s time for a PTR.

No offense man but PTRs have been tried and been shown to be completely ineffective time and time again. It’s a worthless waste of resources. The following happens on test servers:
- let’s raid orgrimmar (crashing test server hence no testing)
- let’s find exploits and keep them hidden for world firsts (hence no testing)
- let’s whine about justified nerfs (hence no positive testing)
- let’s check out profession X at max level (hence no testing)

End effect, almost no real testing and with a very high noise-to-signal ratio. Couple that with extensive exploit gathering. It is simply not worth it.

A.net actually has players testing in a group that can be constructive, objective and silent. There’s no reason to invite every troll and his mother to the test krewe.

You too can be invited to this test krewe. Be a positive, non-trolling member of the community and created objective, constructive and non-trolling threads. Keep your head cool at all times in the forums and in-game. One day you might get a PM with attached Non Disclosure Agreement inviting you to the Test Krewe.

And none of what you said explains how it’s been the most effective system in testing and thus used by 90% of the games out there still to this day. If it were so ineffective than no one would use it. *Please stop posting nonsense, even with all of the negatives, the majority of the testers are legit testers and report on the problems in the ui the combat and the mechanisms of the games update. *It’s not like what we’re seeing in this title where they made claims about items being fixed and then have to go back and find all of the various groups of things they missed in the type of testing they use, as opposed to only finding 2 maybe at max 3 things wrong in the PTR testing system because of the ample reporting and free testing provided.

1/ can you back up that claim, because i’ve never, ever seen a single legit tester on PTRs in the time I played WoW. The PTR forums were full of vitiol without meaningful discussion about the content (let alone bug hunting). Even if there was a speck of meaningful testing, it’d be lost in all the noise. That’s personal experience though.

2/ stop posting nonsense, right back at ya.

1: there’s no need the very fact that just about every major title out there uses PTRs to this day is enough to know how well it works.

2: Not posting nonsense posting facts sorry you can’t keep up.

The PTR if it were implemented in this title would have caught the months of bugs still existing in the game to this day from the BWE2 forward and would have made clear the priorities to the devs thru the standard reporting system NOT the forums (forums are never used for the reporting system unless the standard bug reporting tool is down).

Lack of QA and polish has been my main complaint since for the last few months since they sped up the release schedule. So I would welcome a PTR or Test server setup.

I would prefer them investing the necessary funds into into internal testing instead of using the player base, but any bug fixing and polish is better the last few releases where each of them had several medium to severe bugs.

Worst offender Dragon Bash most of the content was actually disabled within hours of the patch release to limit the damage ist was causing to the game economy and stop exploiting of achievements. But Southsun and Sky pirates had their share of bugs too (Goemm’s lab bans among others) and all three were less polished then the release game or F&F.

They need to improve their polish and QA, badly.

AndrewSX.3794:

+1 for giving a PTR.

The only issue. Use it only for bugfinding/testing/fix.

Don’t use it in any shape or form for balancing.

Just look at forums, think if all those QQers had a word in a PTR for balance the game.

Actually no, see that’s part of the problem with this game. the PTR should be used for PVE balancing, it would solve a ton of problems especially in PVE. It would immediately remove the problems of weak classes, make the classes balanced around the principles of numbers rather then touchy feely combat senses, and it would make the trait system actually make sense giving traits to the weaker classes that the stronger classes take for granted. It would most certainly eliminate what we’re seeing with dungeons where the playerbase demands a certain single set of classes for dungeon runs because of their strengths because the devs would have a set of real reports to work from in the bug report system whereas right now they only have the forums and ignore them completely as it is.

Mastruq.2463:

Lack of QA and polish has been my main complaint since for the last few months since they sped up the release schedule. So I would welcome a PTR or Test server setup.

I would prefer them investing the necessary funds into into internal testing instead of using the player base, but any bug fixing and polish is better the last few releases where each of them had several medium to severe bugs.

Worst offender Dragon Bash most of the content was actually disabled within hours of the patch release to limit the damage ist was causing to the game economy and stop exploiting of achievements. But Southsun and Sky pirates had their share of bugs too (Goemm’s lab bans among others) and all three were less polished then the release game or F&F.

They need to improve their polish and QA, badly.

Internal testing is at best 12+- people… PTR would be thousands or more!

Like little insects, scouring for bugs and exploits.

I, for one, welcome the insect overlords.

I wouldn’t want a Public Test Server on GW2. The community here is incredibly bad, so such server would end filled with whiners and exploiters using it for their own betterment in detriment to everyone else.

its actually nice imo with no PTR, everyone is on the same page and no ones like ‘’do this do that’’ everyone figures things out together.

the one thing i hate about other MMO’s is ‘’this NEW raid is coming out!’’ but by the time its released from the PTR (which anyone can get and play) its old news and everyone knows what to do and where to go, you loose the magic if you ask me.

tigirius.9014:

The PTR if it were implemented in this title would have caught the months of bugs still existing in the game to this day from the BWE2 forward and would have made clear the priorities to the devs thru the standard reporting system NOT the forums (forums are never used for the reporting system unless the standard bug reporting tool is down).

If a bug has existed since the second beta, which was effectively a PTR, what makes you think lack of testing/reporting is the issue?

Unless you think no one reported it to the devs during the betas (which would be an issue in itself) that should be proof that player testing doesn’t solve all the bugs as some people seem to think.

Knowing there is a problem to fix is only the first step. It’s like knowing your car makes a strange noise when you start it up – it doesn’t fix itself the first time you notice it. You have to open it up and try to find exactly where that noise is coming from and what’s causing it, and then work out what you can do to fix it, and then wait and see if it’s worked and try something else if not…

And cars are much simpler beasts than video games.