Guild Wars 2

This is seriously baffling to me. Anyone with the slightest amount of observation skills has noticed that with each of the past two patches supposedly fixing bugs and “improving” dungeons; that there have been vastly more problems created by the patches (and in the case of the dungeons FAR more serious) than are solved. Literally every other MMO out there does proper public testing of their future patches and planned content so that it launches and doesn’t break massive portions of the live game.

And as a side note to this, why are the devs so quick to fix something like the karma weapons exploit but making negative progress at fixing dungeons rewards and taking forever for even that much of an update?

You don’t know how companies work so let me explain it to you.

For a gaming company, specifically a MMO company, task are assigned to specialized teams.

For instance, you’ll have the dungeon team, the WvW team, the art team, small bug team, game combat team, class balancing team, gear team, and even a team that is making new content.

Now, these teams are usually not bigger than 5-10 people. Games aren’t run by a team of “Developers” but a small sub-section of the bigger team. These people usually have a priority list they keep around that is in constant flux depending on what people are having the most common troubles with and which are most gamebreaking. You also have to realize that replication bugs is a tough process. There are so many variables that can make a controlled test fail the bug squashing.

So in the end, it’s a long task to find bugs, ask any Computer Science major. Just have patience as I’m sure they’re all working diligently. You also have to remember that they need sleep and family time too.

Aristio.2784:

You don’t know how companies work so let me explain it to you.

For a gaming company, specifically a MMO company, task are assigned to specialized teams.

For instance, you’ll have the dungeon team, the WvW team, the art team, small bug team, game combat team, class balancing team, gear team, and even a team that is making new content.

Now, these teams are usually not bigger than 5-10 people. Games aren’t run by a team of “Developers” but a small sub-section of the bigger team. These people usually have a priority list they keep around that is in constant flux depending on what people are having the most common troubles with and which are most gamebreaking. You also have to realize that replication bugs is a tough process. There are so many variables that can make a controlled test fail the bug squashing.

So in the end, it’s a long task to find bugs, ask any Computer Science major. Just have patience as I’m sure they’re all working diligently. You also have to remember that they need sleep and family time too.

Let me tell you how testing works in MMOs, since you apparently don’t know or this is your first.

The company running the game has a limited budget and staff. As a result of this, they cannot afford to hire large numbers of testers or have their own people test things with any level of significance. Because of this, said company usually runs a test server, where the people who play the game all the kitten time (us) and are intimately familiar with how the systems (in application) work are able to spend thousands and thousands of man-hours checking absolutely everything. This is especially useful when preparing a patch so that new content or changes do not break things for the rest of the playerbase.

I don’t have confidence that the Anet team tests their code or pays any mind to bug reports made in game or on the forums (read: dungeon rewards doubly broken now).

Do you honestly think that if the diminishing returns code would have made it in the game like it is now if it was proper tested? If no, you prove my point; if yes, then why should we have ANY confidence that anet has any idea what they are doing?

Aristio.2784

You don’t know how companies work so let me explain it to you.

Given that its a very common practice for MMO companies to run public test servers, this statement is spectacularly daft.

Seems simple to me – they wouldn’t be able to put a cash shop on PTR. Time spent in-game is time building up the desire to purchase something on the cash shop to as they say, “enhance your gaming experience”.

Arugess.8754:

Seems simple to me – they wouldn’t be able to put a cash shop on PTR. Time spent in-game is time building up the desire to purchase something on the cash shop to as they say, “enhance your gaming experience”.

Doesn’t seem that way to me. Too much stuff is broken for me to even bother playing the game right now. I’ve got my exotics and plenty of money to walk around with so what is there for me to do? PvP? I have shooters and MOBAs for that.

Why? When they did BWEs and stress tests, public players for the majority just played did not bug test. So they’re better off doing it privately and in “family & friends” system, which all gaming companies do.

And your statement that “Literally every other MMO out there does proper public testing” is far from reality too. How did you know? You played “literally every other MMO out there” to know that they do “proper public testing”? I highly doubt that.

^_^

Shael.4703:

Why? When they did BWEs and stress tests, public players for the majority just played did not bug test. So they’re better off doing it privately and in “family & friends” system, which all gaming companies do.

Because those were for 3 days at a time and a pre-live version of the game (and many players there were bug testing as many players in the live game are doing at this very moment). They’re clearly NOT better off doing it internally because it isn’t being done. Robert over in the dungeons forum was apparently completely ignorant of the fact that his diminishing returns code was entirely broken when he pushed it out in to the last patch.

Shael.4703:

And your statement that “Literally every other MMO out there does proper public testing” is far from reality too. How did you know? You played “literally every other MMO out there” to know that they do “proper public testing”? I highly doubt that.

I’ve played most p2p and many many f2p MMOs and I cannot think of a one that didn’t have a public test realm. The practice is simply too effective for companies not to do because the alternative is what we have here: broken patches that break more things and bugs that don’t get fixed.

p.s. I edited out your stupid face from the quote

Arugess.8754:

Seems simple to me – they wouldn’t be able to put a cash shop on PTR. Time spent in-game is time building up the desire to purchase something on the cash shop to as they say, “enhance your gaming experience”.

Counterpoint: Time spent on PTR is time not spent on the production server. Time not spent on the production server causes you to fall behind. Falling behind makes you want to buy gold with gems.

That’s a good question. Any professional software developer thoroughly tests their products before release. Including major patches. Even small MMO devs like CCP (EVE Online) have a test server. Arena Net seems like amateur hour in comparison to other heavy hitters in the industry. From things like deploying untested patches to using Reddit for customer service to launching an MMO without sufficient hacking protection and account restoration. Hopefully they figure it out while they still have customers, because getting people to return once they’ve left is next to impossible.

Public test servers only work and are needed with games that have long periods of time between updates. With anet releasing small updates every couple of days, making a public test server just won’t work like you think it will and will just slow everything down.

what ever they decide to call it,PTS PTR
on all the ones i have played and tested on,remember this one quote a dev said
“what happens on PTS stays on PTS”
meaning rewards, money,any gain, weps gear and so forth does not transfer in any way too live. so on a pts for testing purposes they can freely give you anything
their is no need for a cash shop on a pts/ptr

@Finaldeath.1059
Every couple days would be a week and a half, a second update further breaking things that were broken by the previous update. Orr events and skill points are still broken, MANY instances are bugged and blocked, the new diminishing returns system is entirely broken and screwing people over badly.

Things need to be tested before being put in the live version of the game. They aren’t doing that. They need to.

When I played Everquest 2, I was on the public test server. It was pretty awesome.
The upside is that you get to see changes before they go live, and play with them and report on them.
The downside is that the population is very small, so actually progressing a character is difficult. Also you get rollbacks, so you can’t really get invested in a character.

Redfeather.6401:

When I played Everquest 2, I was on the public test server. It was pretty awesome.
The upside is that you get to see changes before they go live, and play with them and report on them.
The downside is that the population is very small, so actually progressing a character is difficult. Also you get rollbacks, so you can’t really get invested in a character.

That is exactly the point. It isn’t by any stretch meant to replace or substitute normal play. It is there to give the bored dedicated players something productive to do, to crowdsource the bug testing, and get the obvious and most of the subtle bugs worked out well in advance of giving the patch to the entire game’s playerbase. What they are doing now is simple incompetence and there is no good excuse for it.

Vicwolf, you’re comparing major post-launch content patches for other MMO’s with incremental improvements in mid-launch, and you decide all these incremental improvements need a full month on a PTR? You would be complaining too if that were the case.

A.net is doing the best they can, and compared to other launches (not content updates) this is far and beyond what any other company, including blizzard, ever achieved. Yes, sometimes updates break stuff, but overall there’s progress. With a test server we currently would have our very first patch (if any). Also given the horrendous reputation of testing on a PTR, which is more like content spoiling for world first, I’m not sure a PTR helps in any way. In other MMO’s content still launches with major bugs and exploits because a PTR is not used for testing but for gaining experience with content.

Launch is the worst time for any MMO and patching often feels like going to Echternach. However I have confidence they pull through since overall, more is being fixed than is being broken. And that’s what counts.

marnick.4305:

Vicwolf, you’re comparing major post-launch content patches for other MMO’s with incremental improvements in mid-launch, and you decide all these incremental improvements need a full month on a PTR? You would be complaining too if that were the case.

A.net is doing the best they can, and compared to other launches (not content updates) this is far and beyond what any other company, including blizzard, ever achieved. Yes, sometimes updates break stuff, but overall there’s progress. With a test server we currently would have our very first patch (if any)

Launch is the worst time for any MMO and patching often feels like going to Echternach. However I have confidence they pull through since overall, more is being fixed than is being broken. And that’s what counts.

I can’t think of a single MMO in recent history that didn’t run a PTR for each and every upcoming change no matter how minor. WoW is the only example I can think of that didn’t keep theirs up 24/7 but theykittensure put it up for the significant changes (such as a major modification to the loot/reward system for running instances).

There is no evidence to support the idea that anet is doing “the best they can” because if that was the case they wouldn’t have rolled out the last two patches they did considering how much BIG stuff they broke with them.

Yes, with a test server we probably wouldn’t have gotten a patch yet, because the patches they have rolled out broke more stuff than they fixed.

Didn’t they just fix dungeon rewards?

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

Vorch.2985:

Didn’t they just fix dungeon rewards?

if by fix you mean break in a way that sometimes gives the proper reward and more often than not gives between 45 and 6 badges instead of the proper 60 for a run, then sure.

Spawn.7014:

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

This doesn’t deserve a response but I’ll give it one anyways.

Yeah, they do. For one, servers don’t cost that much to build and run relative to the amount of money they are swimming in since the launch. For another, they already have an internal server they use for their “claimed” QA team (who aren’t very diligent apparently).

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

This doesn’t deserve a response but I’ll give it one anyways.

Yeah, they do. For one, servers don’t cost that much to build and run relative to the amount of money they are swimming in since the launch. For another, they already have an internal server they use for their “claimed” QA team (who aren’t very diligent apparently).

How much money do you think their pulling in now since there is no monthly fee to play?

How much money did they make with the release of game and how much did it cost to make the game.

trust me, all of their staff is working on fixing the game as fast as they can. But with little income (gem store + more people buying the game) and with the game in its current state they dont have the time nor the money to creat a PTR.

I wish they did because they freaking need one BAD! but with the PTR they make no $$$ off it.

Spawn.7014:

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

This doesn’t deserve a response but I’ll give it one anyways.

Yeah, they do. For one, servers don’t cost that much to build and run relative to the amount of money they are swimming in since the launch. For another, they already have an internal server they use for their “claimed” QA team (who aren’t very diligent apparently).

How much money do you think their pulling in now since there is no monthly fee to play?

How much money did they make with the release of game and how much did it cost to make the game.

trust me, all of their staff is working on fixing the game as fast as they can. But with little income (gem store + more people buying the game) and with the game in its current state they dont have the time nor the money to creat a PTR.

I wish they did because they freaking need one BAD! but with the PTR they make no $$$ off it.

Lots, the cash shop pulls in metrickittentons of cash relative to the cost of maintaining it.

I’m not going to educate you on the f2p model and why it is often more lucrative than p2p these days so we’ll leave it at this: you’re provably wrong and if you actually cared about being right you’d do even a little research and see exactly how wrong you are on this subject.

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

This doesn’t deserve a response but I’ll give it one anyways.

Yeah, they do. For one, servers don’t cost that much to build and run relative to the amount of money they are swimming in since the launch. For another, they already have an internal server they use for their “claimed” QA team (who aren’t very diligent apparently).

How much money do you think their pulling in now since there is no monthly fee to play?

How much money did they make with the release of game and how much did it cost to make the game.

trust me, all of their staff is working on fixing the game as fast as they can. But with little income (gem store + more people buying the game) and with the game in its current state they dont have the time nor the money to creat a PTR.

I wish they did because they freaking need one BAD! but with the PTR they make no $$$ off it.

Lots, the cash shop pulls in metrickittentons of cash relative to the cost of maintaining it.

I’m not going to educate you on the f2p model and why it is often more lucrative than p2p these days so we’ll leave it at this: you’re provably wrong and if you actually cared about being right you’d do even a little research and see exactly how wrong you are on this subject.

Trust me i know what the F2P model is considering i own a gaming company working on an MMO. it’s a topic we have been discussing for a long time now. The gem store is not brining in as much as you think. and this is because you can convert gold to gems. and sadly you can buy gold cheeper from a farmer then you can from converting gems to gold.

Trust me they are working their crews to the bone to get this game working. I am not disagreeing with you that this game needs a PTR but in the eyes f a company it will not make them any money. WHo in their right mind would buy gems on PTR?

Spawn.7014:

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

vicwolf.7862:

Spawn.7014:

you guys are funny. Heres why.

they dont have enough money for another server to test stuff.

This doesn’t deserve a response but I’ll give it one anyways.

Yeah, they do. For one, servers don’t cost that much to build and run relative to the amount of money they are swimming in since the launch. For another, they already have an internal server they use for their “claimed” QA team (who aren’t very diligent apparently).

How much money do you think their pulling in now since there is no monthly fee to play?

How much money did they make with the release of game and how much did it cost to make the game.

trust me, all of their staff is working on fixing the game as fast as they can. But with little income (gem store + more people buying the game) and with the game in its current state they dont have the time nor the money to creat a PTR.

I wish they did because they freaking need one BAD! but with the PTR they make no $$$ off it.

Lots, the cash shop pulls in metrickittentons of cash relative to the cost of maintaining it.

I’m not going to educate you on the f2p model and why it is often more lucrative than p2p these days so we’ll leave it at this: you’re provably wrong and if you actually cared about being right you’d do even a little research and see exactly how wrong you are on this subject.

Trust me i know what the F2P model is considering i own a gaming company working on an MMO. it’s a topic we have been discussing for a long time now. The gem store is not brining in as much as you think. and this is because you can convert gold to gems. and sadly you can buy gold cheeper from a farmer then you can from converting gems to gold.

Trust me they are working their crews to the bone to get this game working. I am not disagreeing with you that this game needs a PTR but in the eyes f a company it will not make them any money. WHo in their right mind would buy gems on PTR?

You keep saying to trust you. You have no credibility, there’s no reason to take anything you are saying at face value.

“Trust me i know what the F2P model is considering i own a gaming company working on an MMO.”
Oh? What’s your company name? What’s the project name? Your statement flies in the face of nearly half a decade of mounting empirical data that is diametrically opposed to your supposition (not to mention the laughable statement that they cannot afford a PTR).

So why should any one listen to you then? Where is your credibility? do you work for Anet? where is your empirical data? you come off like a kitten does that mean i should follow your ever word?

Project name and company name are not ready to be released at this time. they will be released with the release of the website. still going through the leagel team for naming issues.

Spawn.7014:

So why should any one listen to you then? Where is your credibility? do you work for Anet? where is your empirical data? you come off like a kitten does that mean i should follow your ever word?

Project name and company name are not ready to be released at this time. they will be released with the release of the website. still going through the leagel team for naming issues.

I’m not here to do research for you. The reason anet went with f2p in the first place was because it is a proven system that in many cases (Allods, Maplestory, Blacklight) have made substantially higher profit rates than their respective p2p competitors with the caveat of Blacklight competing with CoD’s already monolithic popularity.

Also your reluctance to front any information at all about your “company” further supports the idea that you’re full of kitten.

My empirical data is the history and development timeline of EVERY MMO in the past decade. Hell, even WoW will be going f2p within 2 years.

GW2 is revolutionary. There are 24 public test servers open at launch!

It’s just like the “endgame!” “You’re playing it now.” =P

Because “kitten it, we’ll do it live!”

I would love to see your empirical data. you keep useing this as your fall back, but yet refuse to provide any supporting documentation. from where im sitting you have no data at all. Yes some F2P games make good money not disputting that. But if you combine the monthly $$ wow makes vs F2P MMO’s, Wow wins. Wow still has 9mill players paying monthly. i’ll do the math for you 9,000,000 X 15 = $135,000,000 (thats assuming every one is paying 15$ a month and not multi month subs)

Please tell me what F2P MMO is making $135mil a month?

i would put 1mil on that fact that GW2 will never make that much a month. EVER.

@Spawn – Name another P2P MMO with WoW subs? At least 3-4 million at the very least. Can’t? Then don’t bring it to the table. There are TONS of P2P games that struggle to get 1 million subs then hold them.

It doesn’t cost much to run a PTR and they can even swap internal servers if they really wanted since you don’t need to run a test server 24/7 like SoE usually does. Though I doubt they would use their internal servers for Public use.

Member of EQ1 Test server since 2006. There is my “credentials” I suppose.

vicwolf.7862:

“Trust me i know what the F2P model is considering i own a gaming company working on an MMO.”
Oh? What’s your company name? What’s the project name? Your statement flies in the face of nearly half a decade of mounting empirical data that is diametrically opposed to your supposition (not to mention the laughable statement that they cannot afford a PTR).

My real name is Marnick Sluismans. My linkedin is www.linkedin.com/in/marnick. I work for Beckhoff Automation as a Support Engineer and was on the front lines when we rolled out our new software package, TwinCAT 3, which has many parallels to Guild Wars 2 (breaking the norms, unthinkable innovations). When bugs inevitable happen in every stage of development, I’m the one being called. I have seen behind the curtains what a beta looks like, both internal and external.

My professional experience with software development and customer support tells me Arena.net is doing an extremely good job.

Kind regards and stop feeding the troll

Marnick Sluismans

Once again i AGREE this game needs a PTR. but i understand why they haven’t put one up YET. For all we know they could be working on it and i hope they are

Spawn.7014:

Once again i AGREE this game needs a PTR. but i understand why they haven’t put one up YET. For all we know they could be working on it and i hope they are

For content updates, that’s a given. But for fixing launch problems, it would be extremely redundant and silly, considering the way the GW update system works.

marnick.4305:

For content updates, that’s a given. But for fixing launch problems, it would be extremely redundant and silly, considering the way the GW update system works.

Can definitely agree with that. They have a ton more on their plate than most MMO’s.

It just EQ has been using a 24/7 test server with no server wide wipes in years (which now that I quit I will state that it had full rights and we were considered gold status players even though we had no sub). So when I read that it would be too costly it was eyebrow raising since EQ isn’tkitten maker for SoE. Even Vanguard has a test server iirc and that REALLY isn’t/wasn’t turning tons of profits.

Then again I am using SoE as an example and they have many MMO’s to support/leech money from.

What? you mean this isn’t a beta server? :o

Dead.7385:

marnick.4305:

For content updates, that’s a given. But for fixing launch problems, it would be extremely redundant and silly, considering the way the GW update system works.

Can definitely agree with that. They have a ton more on their plate than most MMO’s.

It just EQ has been using a 24/7 test server with no server wide wipes in years (which now that I quit I will state that it had full rights and we were considered gold status players even though we had no sub). So when I read that it would be too costly it was eyebrow raising since EQ isn’tkitten maker for SoE. Even Vanguard has a test server iirc and that REALLY isn’t/wasn’t turning tons of profits.

Then again I am using SoE as an example and they have many MMO’s to support/leech money from.

That’s because test servers aren’t used for bug hunting but more for testing what a class plays like at max level with free gear. Them being open 24/7 is effectively giving casuals an easy way out (which is a good thing imho). But that’s just my experience with test servers, they were usually just about crashing the server by raiding Ironforge.

Since testing a profession at max level with free gear is already implemented in the current game, there’s no inherent need for a 24/7 test server. A true test server should be limited to the content that needs testing, eg a single dungeon or area. Tell me a single game where this holds true?