Guild Wars 2

I think Gw2 would benefit greatly from a Test-Server that could be used to benchmark new content in terms of Server-Stability, Bug-testing, and general balance changes.

STO for example has their main-megaserver “Holodeck” and their Test-megaserver “Tribble”, that people can choose to log on to via the game-launcher to pre-view the new content and help their devs to polish it.

If a-net would consider to expand their QA-Team with a crew that maintains and observes what actual impact balance-changes or new content will have, the developers would have a much better feedback for implementing stuff that actually withstands a crazy horde of players, all rushing the same content^^
Furthermore one could set up WvW test events on a weekly schedule to live-test small changes in the WvW rules, or monthly, bigger events with bigger content-changes (like parts of a new map / new siege / new objectives, a.s.o.)
Such a public test-server would also help to live-test class-balance changes before they are made permanent and therefore open up a faster, more evolutionary balance process, that not only involves the opinion, but also the experience of the community, expressed on a proper sub-Forum for this cause (Don’t bring back class-balancing, but introduce a general Test-Server Subforum then).

I have no idea if the File-Structure of the Gw2 client would even allow a alternative Server, paralleled to the actual game, but if it is technical possible, I’d really like to hear your opinion about it, a-net.

I have played a couple game that had test servers. There is one draw back the test servers don’t have the player base like the regular servers have.

Many games have test-servers.
The vast majority of those games still have issues when things go live.

Public test-servers are basically a waste of time and resources in most cases.

They actually did try the whole semi-public test server back before Edge of the Mists was released. And they changed stuff based on that feedback. Yet when it was actually released people raged like made about how it was the worst thing ever and how it was not at all what they wanted, despite it being tested and changed based on actual player feedback.

They DO (or at least did) have players alpha (and closed beta) testing content before it gets announced/added to live.

Tbh, in my opinion the concept behind Eotm is totally fine, they simply did not get the expected player-base.
PPT-ers feel actually ashamed when having to enter eotm since they know they don’t contribute to their server.
GvG-ers can’t use it since they mostly end up on the wrong instances of the match and are locked to it once they entered it once (unless it overflows in the meantime)
Roamers actually like to troll there, and occasionally get some nice duels.
And the rest are mostly PvE’ers or Upscaled that just run it for karma / xp / wxp / badges. Same goes for the commanders there, even tho some do it for so long, that they actually became pretty good at it.

So yea, everybody is just k-training 24/7 there, or trolling people with cc’s
The map itself is totally fine, but will not be used ever for serious competitive game-play since all PPT’ers will rather support their actual Server, which was a kinda foreseeable aspect of Eotm. But in its attempt to become a time-filler for people stuck in a map-Que, it totally succeeded.

I would think WoW’s recent fiasco with their WoD launch would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that test servers don’t do squat.

Broken, buggy, unbalanced, unstable servers, chock full of poor design decisions – they even started issuing refunds it was so bad. They are still pushing out hotfixes or taking down the servers on an almost daily basis almost a month after launching.

It was on public test servers for 5 months.

Err…
blizzard =! A-net.
You can’t blame a concept for incompetent execution.

Karizee.8076:

I would think WoW’s recent fiasco with their WoD launch would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that test servers don’t do squat.

Broken, buggy, unbalanced, unstable servers, chock full of poor design decisions – they even started issuing refunds it was so bad. They are still pushing out hotfixes or taking down the servers on an almost daily basis almost a month after launching.

It was on public test servers for 5 months.

Arantheal.7396:

Err…
blizzard =! A-net.
You can’t blame a concept for incompetent execution.

Yes, let’s blame Blizzard and discount test servers for not accounting for over 3 million players returning to their game and overloading almost every server. That is not something that would’ve been fixed from test servers.

Anyway, there are actual problems with test servers, such as motivation. Why would players test your content for free unless doing so offered an advantage for their live characters? This is why barely anyone tests world changes in WoW, but elite raiders will flock to test raid bosses as much as possible.

Simple: offer such rewards for your main.

Another problem with this would be that a select (limited) group of players would have access to the new content and any new materials or items. Depending on the content it would have the possibility of affecting the market. (They may know of a new recipe or reward item and be able to capitalize on it prior to the full release.)

except that we already have a small beta /alpha-testing group, and the market is not really impacted by that as well.
Also, my proposal is a public test-server, so everybody would have at least the option to get that info. Which in its own may be already enough motivation to actually check by on it, therefore being a solution to Yuki’s concerns.