Guild Wars 2

I am posting this again, since it hasn’t been mentioned (that I’ve seen) in the following months after my previous post on the subject. I think a PTS for the community to log into and test new additions to the game alongside the devs would make leaps and bounds towards improving game updates and bug fixes before they go live.

Prior to live updates players, either selected by the devs or open to the whole community, could log into the PTS and test upcoming changes before they are put on the live servers. The community has shown that we have A LOT of testers that thoroughly investigate bugs that have arisen after updates or even those that have plagued the game since beta. I don’t find it fair that their intelligence and desire to improve the game goes wasted and unused before sometimes game changing updates are implemented which required to be fixed immediately without much thought as to how it will effect the game or the update that was just put into play.

There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to this however.

[u]Disadvantage[/u]

Players could easily get burnt out on or learn ways to abuse these new updates before they are ever put into the live game. This could be detrimental to a game that offers a f2p business model. That’s why I feel that player/tester selection should be chosen by the devs themselves; even this has it’s potential to effect the game as leaks and such could still be an issue if they were concerned about them.

A PTS could also slow down development or implementation of updates and changes to the game. More people testing and finding more bugs takes more time to fix and test, sometimes spiraling into a never ending circle of fix one thing break another. I think the potential to improve the game, however, far outweighs this.

A competitive edge could also be a problem in a game that has wanted to be seen as an e-sport with pvp. Testers could leak numbers, builds, etc. and give competitive players a step up on the competition before the changes are even made.

[u]Advantage[/u]

As I already stated, it lessens the possibility that bugs go unnoticed prior to a live update. More testers means more data and more data means better results. Better results mean a happier community and a more stable game play environment for everyone both in PvE and PvP. Balance changes are noticed easier, responded to faster and fixed accordingly as devs already have the numbers.

Another advantage is that those that get bored with the game but still wish to have something to do can log into the server and help test things themselves, but this is only if the devs make it public rather than a selective thing.

Although I haven’t listed a large list under the advantages, I think a more balanced game with less bugs outweighs most everything. I personally have never implemented a PTS but I have seen it work successfully in past MMO’s that I have played as there were far fewer bugs with updates and expansions. As such the game play was more challenging and fun for everyone, even those that tested it. It was more rewarding to do things without having the chance to rely on bugs; and if there were bugs left they were fixed faster and thus the challenge to find a new way arose again.

Anyway, it’s just a thought and it may not go anywhere. But I do think it is something that should be considered.

Your assuming they test the updates they make. Given the quality of some of the most recent ones, that’s one long shot.

I do support the idea of a PTS, but I don’t see it happening. They won’t give patch notes until after the patch goes live – what in the world makes you think they’d let us see content before it went live?

stale.9785:

Your assuming they test the updates they make. Given the quality of some of the most recent ones, that’s one long shot.

You obviously know nothing of game design. The updates have been extremely smooth in comparison to other games.

As for public test servers, I do not support them at all for this game. There is simply way too many ways to take advantage of a test server. If they got rid of the trading post completely, only then would a test server be at all viable. Of course, if they do that, there will be much more to worry about then updates.

Jrunyon.3012:

stale.9785:

Your assuming they test the updates they make. Given the quality of some of the most recent ones, that’s one long shot.

You obviously know nothing of game design. The updates have been extremely smooth in comparison to other games.

As for public test servers, I do not support them at all for this game. There is simply way too many ways to take advantage of a test server. If they got rid of the trading post completely, only then would a test server be at all viable. Of course, if they do that, there will be much more to worry about then updates.

The only thing I know of game design comes from playing them for more than 20 years, and assuming it’s not too different from general programming.

I’ll grant that the updates haven’t outright broken the game, and they’re rolled out smoothly – but virtually every update has been very limited in scope – they focus on one part of the game, with 0 regard to how they will affect other parts of the game.

At best, this is short-sighted. At worst, they were never tested outside of S/Tpvp.

We have had specific updates to things, like dungeons, and each one of them has had major issues that require patching to fix what was patched. For most of a decade, Anet’s approach has been: “Patch the game.” “Patch the patch, to fix what was broken.” “Patch the patches patch, to fix what the fix broke.” “Revert the changes after 4 months and admit they pood the screwch.”

They have gotten better than this, but even so – were they in the business of releasing software for major corporations, they would have been out of business years ago.

There are so many gamebreaking bugs that came out with the last patch…. I honestly wonder if they even test these patches at all before they release them.

Star Trek Online created a separate shard for the test server where things you did there would not count towards the “real” server. A system like that stamps out any possible abuse. They’d usually give small rewards to people who played on the test server for some number of hours. A link to the FAQ as to how that one worked is here. In the case of GW2, they could give out a mini or something of the sort for playing on the test server so there’d be some motivation for people to test the updates.

It’s clearly possible to do, and if implemented in this way or something similar I’d be in full support. If it can only be implemented in a manner that loopholes to abuse it exist, just don’t do it.

Other games have done it as well…even the parent company of ANet.