Testing major game additions

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Brad
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Testing major game additions

Post by Brad »

There are several fundamental engine changes that I will soon need more than "spot" testing on.

Without getting into details, I would like to query feedback on what the best way to handle "large scale testing" is.

Specifically, if we create a player test server, how do we handle it..

1) Can players take characters back and forth? And if so, what do we do about bugged items, wacko exp and skill gains / losses, item losses/gains, etc. We don't have the manpower to even replace single items, let alone wipes, major dupes..

2) If we use COPIES of characters instead, what would encourage people to participate in the testing? Sure they will try it for a while, but what we will need is hard core play on the server.

3) How do we "not spoil" the "magic" of new changes, when they will have been played to death during a test process? (This has always been the one that bothers me).

4) How do we keep people from believing INTER test changes are tweaks/losses to their classes? (Example, we give barbarians +10 to hit on test to test it, but later decide it needs to be +5 or something like that, and the barbarian community barfs 8 pages of forum "you are ruining the class" messages)


I'm interested in your calm, rational thoughts on this matter.

Thanks,
Brad

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Mars
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Post by Mars »

Brad:

I would think copies of crits is the way to go. I agree, it might be "harmful" for items to come back to regular game until "all" the bugs are out.
I don't think you will have a problem with player base for testing.
And I'm sure, the players will understand test means test and not everything they see/do/get is final.

V/R

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Post by Drdrunk »

1. No, they shouldn't be able to go back and forth.

2. can new accounts be created that are only allowed to be on the test server? only the hardcore players would level highly, i'm not sure if that helps to answer 3 also or not.(only the hardcore testers would see everything{i think})

3. i'm not sure...

4. give them some terms they have to agree to before testing.
Last edited by Drdrunk on Thu Oct 24, 2002 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Mihey
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Post by Mihey »

Here are my opinions... Looking forward to participate in the testing :)

1. Should copy them. Look below...

2. Offer some kind of rewards for participating... For example permament hp, ep, exp & skill bonuses. Rewards should be linked to duration and intensity of one's participation... maybe like +2 hp every hour (to original crit of course). There should be some nifty items in too ;)

3. I dont understand this question. Clarify please?

4. Stress the TEST term :)

Let's see what others have to say...

Would be a good idea to pick reasonable options and start a poll out of them.
Last edited by Mihey on Thu Oct 24, 2002 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dragonslayer »

Maybe it would be an idea to Make a copy in the test server, and as soon as one enters that server, a copy is made, wich form then on is no longer linked to the other char.

A way to handle items, could be opening a portal, like 3 days long, once per month, in wich you can go back, only with items wich have been tested with good results.

To keep the magic to new stuff it 'might' be a good idea (might be a terrible idea though) to have a small world, wich gets resetted every 2 months, into a new, tougher world with higher cap's.

But that would be bad for those that can't play enough to keep their character strong enough for the new world
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Post by Valarc »

All to follow is IMHO of course

1. No way! There's too much attempted exploitation going on in drakkar already. Something that's experimental needs to be kept seperate so people dont start duping or cheating when they find bugs in the system.

2. I would say have an in-game reward for it. Do it something like a holiday event item. For people who play the new server make certain quests give benefits which can be redeemed for items/stat increases/whatever on their main crit.

3. I honestly don't know how to avoid spoiling the magic. If you limit the number of people who are allowed to participate in the test, you make people angry that they are left out. If you let everyone test, the excitement of it is spoiled. Perhaps enacting a rule/suggestion similar to that of CH is in order. If you play on the new servers, you are asked to not divulge information about what you see there, lest you lose your access to said server. Taking this one step further, the ability to participate in the new server could be linked to a quest of some sort. Much like CH, you complete some somewhat time consuming but not ridiculous quest to gain access to the test servers. Many will choose to go after the quest because the excitement of being the first to do something is there, plus the ability to gain nifty quest items for their normal nork crit (see #2) is always appealing. This quest idea would of course have to be tempered by what type of players you want on the new server. If you're testing new high end discs, then a high end quest is in order, but if you want to see how the change affects a lvl 1 it becomes a bit trickier.

4) It should be pointed out right from the start that this is a testing situation. On every login to the server it should say "WELCOME TO THE TEST SERVER, THINGS WILL CHANGE HERE DAY TO DAY AS WE TWEAK THEM." Make people sign in blood at the get-go saying they realize nothing here is written in stone and it's all for the sake of testing and exploring possibilities.
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Post by King »

Here's my input, I would LOVE to see a test server and i would NOT mind having to start over. As to the questions

1)You should NOT be able to do this as Val had stated before many reasons one being expoiting some things.

2)A Copy might be ok sure on some lvls to test out things w/o being whipped on by monsters but i would prefer just starting over and actually get a feel of what is going on and will make a better gameplay and allow for a finer tweak to set what would REALLY need to be happened (i.e.-A lvl 20-25 char killing a Low lvl monster wont be as accurate as a low lvl Char killing the monster and allowing it to be tweaked to suit the need of the lvl of which it is on and to kill)

3)Implement a rule similar to CH and CC but put a much more severe punishment

4) Valarc hit this one on the dot

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Post by Mihey »

Reading above suggestions I have come to another idea...

Start from scratch, but accelarate experience, coin and skill... like tenfold or more, so we can grow big in shorter duration, yet still feel it out on lower levels by the way. However accelaration may have some unwanted side effects... No one knows what bugs may creep outta that...

Another option would be to implement a lair for boosting tester crits (would give like 1 meg exp and a ton of skill), so one could grow from level 1 merchant to level 50 paladin in short duration for purposes of testing. Access should be limited, though, otherwise there would be only 50/30 crits walking around :sarc
1 hp, #form enmiss, 1 meg and a whole skill level :D

Another problem with pure restart is gear. As newly rolled crits start out with merely a simple armor and a weapon (or two), it would be difficult to touch the areas designed for well geared players. Maybe gear would be acquired the same way like size (above).


To summarize, I think it would still be better copy existing crits, while dedicaded testers can always reroll one of copies and test it out from the frog perspective. ;) At least I would.
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Post by Dragonslayer »

Originally posted by Mihey


Another option would be to implement a lair for boosting tester crits (would give like 1 meg exp and a ton of skill), so one could grow from level 1 merchant to level 50 paladin in short duration for purposes of testing. Access should be limited, though, otherwise there would be only 50/30 crits walking around :sarc
1 hp, #form enmiss, 1 meg and a whole skill level :D
That sounds good, it might also be good to make a skill/exp lvl remover, so brad can ask for tesers of a certain lvl/skill whever he wants.

Maybe make dedicating to a other class possible?
ofcourse with a loss from disciples and/or any stat changes involved.
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Post by Valarc »

Now you're getting into a lot of ridiculously heavy coding. Brad wants to test new changes, not develop an entire new game to test the changes with. Always good to follow the KISS principle :)


Originally posted by Dragonslayer

Originally posted by Mihey


Another option would be to implement a lair for boosting tester crits (would give like 1 meg exp and a ton of skill), so one could grow from level 1 merchant to level 50 paladin in short duration for purposes of testing. Access should be limited, though, otherwise there would be only 50/30 crits walking around :sarc
1 hp, #form enmiss, 1 meg and a whole skill level :D
That sounds good, it might also be good to make a skill/exp lvl remover, so brad can ask for tesers of a certain lvl/skill whever he wants.

Maybe make dedicating to a other class possible?
ofcourse with a loss from disciples and/or any stat changes involved.
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Post by Kanak »

Well the trend seems to have been set and I for the most part agree. I asume that the goal is to get the maximum load on the game with the most diverse crit base.

1. characters on the tset server should be clone copies. No transport to the real live game should be allowed.

2. to gain the largest test base some reward should be offered. This reward does not have to be of practial value in the real game but instaed a symbol that the player helped in testing. Perhaps a simple robe or icon that is not in the real game. Rather than hitting area marks or test quest, I would recommend that any reward be based on hours played (perhaps in 10 or 100 hour increments)

3. maybe a nice seperate area in the forum should be made available for players in test so that they can talk without exposing folks to experimental happenings. (similar to ch cc). As to punishment for speaking in open chat, simply block these players from the test server.

4. well its a test. Some will always be happy or unhappy with things that are or are not implemented. Heck I hate the DZ skill system. The answer to such players is GET OVER IT.

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Post by Morgar »

Originally posted by Brad

1) Can players take characters back and forth? And if so, what do we do about bugged items, wacko exp and skill gains / losses, item losses/gains, etc. We don't have the manpower to even replace single items, let alone wipes, major dupes..

2) If we use COPIES of characters instead, what would encourage people to participate in the testing? Sure they will try it for a while, but what we will need is hard core play on the server.

3) How do we "not spoil" the "magic" of new changes, when they will have been played to death during a test process? (This has always been the one that bothers me).

4) How do we keep people from believing INTER test changes are tweaks/losses to their classes? (Example, we give barbarians +10 to hit on test to test it, but later decide it needs to be +5 or something like that, and the barbarian community barfs 8 pages of forum "you are ruining the class" messages)


I'm interested in your calm, rational thoughts on this matter.

Thanks,
Brad

Beta testing is always a problem, and its especially difficult when dealing with integrating new and legacy code.

1 & 2 ) Clone player crits. The idea of allowing them to move back and forth is a bad one, and the idea of creating some sort of portal implies additional changes to the existing system which should be avoided at this point. IE Did the portal wipe out the teleports or is it something in the test segment? You definitely want to narrow the possible problem areas. So players would realistically have to log onto a different system in order to access a clone of their crit.

3) Not spoiling the magic? I assume you're talking about not giving away details of the new segment to others. Simple. NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT . I have participated in hundreds of beta tests, and have run betas for my own software, and not once, have I not had to agree to a non disclosure agreement before participating. In running beta tests for my own software I've had to supply the NDA to the testers.

The NDA isn't a perfect solution, but it does allow you to spell out penalties for premature disclosure. I might also point out that minors are not capable of agreeing to an NDA (they might think otherwise, but no court in this country will agree with that).

4) The simplest answer to this one is to tell people that all items/skill/exp gained under the test system WILL be wiped out at the completion of the test. No transfer of crits back from the test system, no allowing of gear to go back and forth. WIPED. The problem with this is what incentive can you use to make people participate in the test, and how will you determine who deserves a reward for helping you and who does not?

In running the betas for our Set Sim Pro and SpiderView software, every participant was told they would be rewarded at the end of the test period, provided they actively participated in test. In some cases I had test participants emailing me daily with their thoughts/ideas and bug reports, in some cases I recieved one long email from a participant with their ideas and comments and never heard again from them during the test period. Both instances resulted in my rewarding those people. The ones that signed up for the beta and never commented at all got zilch.

Participation criteria is something you'll have to decide for yourself. However if you clone the player crits and wipe at the end of the test, it will be necessary to in some way reward those that participated back in the main segment for sacrificing their time to the test. What those rewards will be are entirely up to you brad, but it seems to me that if you run the test for any significant length of time, you will have to make the rewards fairly substantial.

In all the comments made so far, and many of them have been good. Nothing has been said about the announcing a minimum level/skill needed to participate in the test. Considering the game that drakkar is, unless this new code is so pervasive as to encompass nork as well as other areas, I think you might want to set minimum lvl/skl limits. What good will it do to accept a 13/10 ment if the changes are designed to impact crits 20/18 or bigger?

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Post by Gothmog »

I just want to say i am totally down for beta testing even if it gets whiped and i get nothing it will be fun... It's just the chance to do something before it is publicly released
Last edited by Gothmog on Thu Oct 24, 2002 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by purg »

Well i guess it about time i sat down here and gave out some of my opinions


Hmm I think it would be best to have it as a totally seperate server. This way bugs dont go rampant all over nork and cob. Now once an item has cleared, all players within the testing area can have one, unless they will be quest items, then i think all players should have to do the quest to get it. This will help keep some of the magic.

Next, I really dont think players should get anything for testing. If you offer goodies out to everyone who tests, then most of them will be there just for the item and might do some half Arsed testing for you. Any Hard Core player who actually wants to see the game thrive will test without the worry of getting some item for the test.


They will just have to understand that these are just IDEAS and they may or may not be used.


*Put me on the list if you want. I will donate my time to test, i dont want anything return, Ill just be happy if it gets everything back on the right road again*
Last edited by purg on Thu Oct 24, 2002 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by buho »

While not endangering my real crits, any solution is good for me (crit cloning or starting from scratch). For that matter, starting a fresh crit or cloning an existing one need to be based in the level of the tested areas (starting a fresh crit to grow it to lvl 20 to actually do the test dont appear to be a good way :)).

A Non Disclosure Agreement will be in order, and some agreement about frecuency of reports will be too.

Personally, I dont need any kind of compensation... but a mark 'Ive survived the beta-test' for some of the real crits gear will be nice :). May be a NPC in SF with the beta-testers name list, making them able to do the marking (as the Fun House one).

I dont think I can use too much time as tester, but I promisse to use at least half of my gaming time for test.

buho.

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Post by Braindead »

Don't know if anyone played T4C, but I remember testing for a new land that was built in that game. Was a good idea, IMO. Everyone got a new crit, but it was beefed up a bit. It was the minimum level, to enter the land, and it had fairly decent gear. Everyone one of these crits would start out the same. This way, if a newer player wants to hunt but doesn't have a big enough crit to clone and hunt, they would be able to try also.
After testing, all of these new crits could be completely wiped. I think it is enough of a reward to get to test, and nothing more is required. (other than maybe something like a list of people who survived the testing)

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Post by Roland »

I think perhaps the best way would be:

Firstly, don't allow ANYTHING at all PERIOD to go into existing game, someone sees new items and asks, and eventually word will get out, is a tight community. Also, this way any bugs won't affect longterm of game, any bugged items that someone may have stashed will be wiped when test server is shutdown.

As far as crits for people to play:

Sounds tedious, but I'm sure someone could think up a quick way of doing this. For ALL testers, have them play a pre-made crit with standard gear, that they know they will lose when test is over. Basically make each test a new temporary account with a crit on it of the size of crit you'd like to see for the tests.
For example: All pallys for test could be 20/18, and all paladins will have same gear, and be same exp/skill lvl, this way you have something to base results on also, things can be quite different to a 31/30 pally as for a 20/18 pally. If you need some lower lvl'd crits for testing also, could include a small crit on the account, so each tester gets 1 big and 1 small crit to test with, of course both will be the same class.
They could just have generic names such as TP-12 (test pally 12) or whatever.
Then before test starts, have people who you want to participate in the test, tell you what class they'd prefer to do the test as, and also ask people to try to stick with the class they know the most about, like me doing test with a barb wouldn't do you much good cause I know very little about barbs. Have to keep in mind, we are comparing to the present system, and eventually be porting crits from present system to new system.


As for lairs and such, to preserve some of the NEWNESS of it, when testing lairs, just make a portal at some general part, and announce in forums that you are testing so and so lair. This way people just get portaled to the lair crit iteself, not revealing any questing or location of lair itself. Also, might be a good idea to put up temporary roadblocks around vacinities of any new lairs, so that paths and such remain unknown to the players. From what I imagine, testing of questors accepting gear and such is easily testable by Brad and probably doesn't need 50 people doing the quest to see if it works.

Gonna be kinda tricky with the characters though, quite a few people have all 4 slots of their main accounts filled up, thereby leaving no room on account for a 'clone' of their crit of choice to do the test.
If you decide to stick with player's characters already made, best would be to have everyone interested in test email you , and provide you the account name of theirs they wish to use, and then have Brad make a new account name such as Roland-TEST, that would be an exact clone of my present account and have on that server, but server CANNOT be tied to the rest of the game, cause doing that way , people WILL have twigs and TP's and healer recalls to the rest of the game.

One thing people will need to fully understand, is that this is a TEST. And in knowing that, Brad can only provide access to certain areas, is gonna be testing certain things, so not everything needs to be available. Idea is to put the least number of changes in , cause you wanna test the world, not add more variables that could needlessly cause more bugs. And personally, think adding a strategically placed impassable wall somewhere to prevent players access to an area behind it shouldn't be that hard to implement, as long as you remember where you put all the temporary walls later when it comes time to remove them and open up for the general population of game.
And once you make temporary test accounts for all players on an unlinked server, you won't have to worry about testers polluted rest of the game with TEST items. Cause all TEST accounts will be wiped and deleted and end of the test period. Just may take some extra time to set up the accounts and such of the testers, but in the end will force ALL players to remain honest.

If you think you need to reward the testers, at the end of the test, set up an NPC at the end of the test, who the testers talk to if they want their name added to an ingame permanent memorial. Basically, each crit who was in testing will talk to NPC, his name will be recorded, then when things go public, a small memorial of sorts will be put into town area listing all who helped test. Is a nice honor to have name permanently programmed into a game for all eternity.
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Post by Roland »

After re-reading Brad's initial post, this testing sounds as if it mostly just a change of the already existing game world's game engine. Not a new scenerio or new content change.
Perhaps a new and better skill system? Perhaps his way of removing skill and exp caps, along with addition of new skills, psi, chis, and foci for higher end skill lvl/exp lvls.

If this is the case, then preventing the newness of things is pretty much unavoidable, and just make it general knowledge that if anyone reveals any information publicly or generously to the general public about test, then they will have their TEST account deleted and no longer be able to contribute to the testing phase, and may miss out on being the FIRST to do something in the test phase or find a NEW area if any in the test.

If perhaps you wanna provide something to motivate testers, other than my memorial idea. Perhaps give players a goal, top 10 testers with highest % of exp and skill gains during the test will receive some sort of special item or recognition, or perhaps based upon most active hours played on test server, not sure how you would do that, but something along those lines would give the players motivation to play ALOT on the test server.

Ideally, to get the quality of testers you need to accurately test things (will need pretty good knowledge of game as is) , limit it to perhaps silver, gold, or players with Cob access, or a main crit at some set size. Sure may discriminate against the player who has been playing for a couple years 1-2 hours a day, but you really need testers to have a working knowledge of alot of the facets of the game, and know what their class does normally, so they can provide educated results in the test phase, and also for a test you want testers to play for alot of hours during the test, so that the bugs show themselves.
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Post by Thundar__RELM »

Well maybe the thing would be to reward by lowering the fee that testers pay during testing phase. Will not be much fun to pay $10-30 a month for 4 or 5 months knowing that you get nothing for it. That will mean that players will not spend as much time in testing area becuase it will be deleted anyway and they will do just enough to learn what it is they need. Not sure that free is the answer but definatly need to balance out that truly they will be getting less for their dollar.

I think it would be a bad idea to limit to big people, people with alot of game time, or anything else that stops new player from testing. The reason for this is simple. New people aren't set in their ways so they try different stuff. Things that every level 18 and above will pass over a new person will try. That will give a better chance of bugs being found. Otherwise when new people do get in you run into dozens of little bugs that they find because no one actually thought to type hit the monster or whatever. New players can be some of your best bug finders that way becuase they try things that were never intended to be done by the programmers.

As far as keeping it secret, I don't know. I would like to say that just ask people not to tell and they would not but unfortunatly there are to many dishonest people playing. I think it would need to be more serious than just saying you can't test anymore. If I am dishonest and I see the new stuff and don't really care about the test anyway why not go ahead and tell my friends stuff if the only penalty is that I can't test anymore. I think maybe more like 3-6 months of ip address blocked from entire game would be a better punishment if you tell after agreeing that you will not.

For the testers I think maybe the best way to keep it new is not let anyone person test the entire area. Maybe break the area into 5 or more subsections and you are limited to that in your test. If it is not new areas then break it into sub tests. One group tests skill gain, another tests new items, another tests new areas, another tests new lairs. Those groups would not be allowed to talk to each other either. That way when the game goes live no one knows everything. If you had a skill testing group you could have people representing new players to lvl 50's in that group and randomly give them different size crits. That way everything gets fully tested. Repeat that with all groups and then you will keep at least a little newness for everyone.

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Post by buho »

Roland:

> Perhaps give players a goal, top 10 testers with highest % of exp and skill gains
> during the test will receive some sort of special item or recognition, [..]

Sorry, Roland, you are rewarding game play, not game test. A seriuos tester will repeat the same thing again and again to ferret out a glitch (or what he feel its a glitch), slowing his xp/skill gain.

Thundar:

> New players can be some of your best bug finders that way becuase they try things that
> were never intended to be done by the programmers.

Very very true.

One of the best ways I know for 'massive bug searching' is having two equips: the first equip for 'raw bug searching' and the second equip sistematically testing the bugs reported for the 'raw' equip. Im asumming gameops will be the second equip; inexperiencied people has proven to be the best 'raw bug searchers' (as Thundar said, they will do some crazy things you never wondered).

buho.

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Post by buho »

Brad:

You have said nothing about organizing and working with the bug reports and the needed feedback between testers.
May be an equip of 3..5 players pre-viewing the reports, asking for claryfing, sorting and formatting the whole thing before sending them to programmers will be of help.

buho.

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Post by Ravaillac »

I think all tests should be done on a new server.

I think the incentives to play on the test server could be:

1) take your biggest character from the main server, copy it to the test server, and CHOOSE WHATEVER CLASS YOU WANT. So if I have a level 50 character on the main server, I get to play a level 50 of the class of my choice on the test server.

2) Make gains on the test server 5x normal or 10x normal.

3) Conduct EVENTS on the test server only during the testing period. Scavenger hunts, Sysop events, mega-lairs, etc.

Put in a "Reset Character" trigger on the test server, so if you screw up your test character you can restore back to how you started.

I dont think you need to reward players on the main server. The improved game should be the reward. Or reward testers by making a new segment and letting them have access to it 2 weeks before non-testers. :-)

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Replying to Topic 'Testing major game additions'

Post by Watcher »

The problem with having players as testers is that some figure out they can test and play on the dedicated "Test Server" for free. This of course creates a problem of resource usage for the developer, plus the fact that some players may cut back on their expenses paid out in the real game. Revenue loss is never fun for the developer.

The other problem is "loose lips." There are some that will 'spill the beans' on events or new things run in a beta server, not meant for release. I've seen where people have signed non disclosure disagreements one day and everything they know about what is being tested is circulated in the production game the every next day. Believe me, this happens.

Related to the second problem are insights into the game that would not normally be related by the developer that are exploited by the playtester. People have been known to stretch the use of design flaws or unknown facts gathered in testing to their own advantage in the production game.

Lastly, there is a relationship that is built up between the developer and the testers. Neither one may be totally conscious of it, but there will be some unconscious decisions made that are favorable to the testers that influence their play in the production game.

My opinion is that a very small cadre of testers should be maintained. There are ways to do things in testing that don't need a large population of testing. I don't need to go into that here. :>

Pol
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Replying to Topic 'Testing major game additions'

Post by Pol »

Originally posted by Watcher

The other problem is "loose lips." There are some that will 'spill the beans' on events or new things run in a beta server, not meant for release. I've seen where people have signed non disclosure disagreements one day and everything they know about what is being tested is circulated in the production game the every next day. Believe me, this happens.

Related to the second problem are insights into the game that would not normally be related by the developer that are exploited by the playtester. People have been known to stretch the use of design flaws or unknown facts gathered in testing to their own advantage in the production game.
imho, there should be some form of NDA, would seem odd testing without one personally, which could contain all kinds of promises of dark deeds if information does leak out, but I kinda figured the magic Brad was talking about spoiling was for the testers themselves as much as anything... myself, i'd risk that to think i was doing something to help the game advance.

Flaws or facts should be treated the same way as any other form of bug abuse, although it might be a lot easier to spot since the original test environment was closely watched, i dunno, might make it easier to see the same things happening back in the main game.

cloned crits to be deleted at the end has to be the way to go tho, that way even if people are figuring they're playing for free it doesn't matter, they keep none of the glory/extra levels etc for doing it.

just my 2 cents after tax, either way i'd be up for it
Polgara

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Thundar__RELM
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Replying to Topic 'Testing major game additions'

Post by Thundar__RELM »

One way around the pay issue would be to lower cost or make free for testing period. During that period a person would not be able to play in the regular game, but when they came back provided they were gold they would have all hp gains as if they had been playing gold all along. That way people are benefiting some from the game and fully committed to testing.

Thundar__RELM

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