Help us QA stuff, by improving Risia

[pjw]

Back story: I logged in to Risia, and all my chars were level 12. I am not really interested in re-levelling them, so I could not look at new ritutals, did not enjoy playing my stale characters, so only ran briefly around 3BC, then logged.

Alternative: Add two Djinn to the harbour, Alf and Bill.

Alf will grant or take away XP. Want to see what new low level content is like *at* low level, no problem.

Bill will give you any item you care to specify. Want to try dual wielding WoP Rapiers? No problem. Just navigate down a tree, and add some properties. It may be sensible to prevent Bill giving people shroud ingredients, but I'd say he should be able to provide any in-game item (even ingrediants) -- or perhaps add Charlie in the shroud, so at least you have to complete the shroud to buy ingredients.

Finally, at least every 3 months, copy our characters from other servers. Though, with Alf and Bill, this is now less important.

Oh...and give us 5 bank slots if you want us to run as lowbies as well.

Another game I play, EVE Online, has a system whereby virtually all in-game items can be purchased cheaply on the test server. Want to test-drive the latest dreadnaught technology? That'll be 100 credits. Means that a lot of stuff gets tested and play-balanced by good players, before it goes live. Yep, some "secrets" get out (akin to shroud recipes), but in the end, the player base is a lot happier.

[DaveyCrockett]

Test server= Mournlands
Preview server= Risia

[pjw]

Test server= Mournlands
Preview server= Risia

Is there any problem in making the preview server (the one everyone has access to) more suited to actually previewing and testing/balancing the content?

My experience may or may not be representative, but I *do* use the EVE Online test server, and I make only the briefest use of Risia for the reasons outlines in the OP.

[Borror0]

Hopefuly, they'll update Risia for Module 8, the next cap raise.

[pjw]

Hopefuly, they'll update Risia for Module 8, the next cap raise.

Yeah, but without Alf and Bill, I probably won't devote much time to it.

[Borror0]

Yeah, but without Alf and Bill, I probably won't devote much time to it.

Alf and Bill??

[pjw]

Alf and Bill??

lol...see OP

[fatherpirate]

lol how do you get to play on the mournlands?

[Borror0]

lol how do you get to play on the mournlands?

You get an invite from Turbine.

[fatherpirate]

ahh cool, thxs for info

[Dark_Helmet]

Back story: I logged in to Risia, and all my chars were level 12. I am not really interested in re-levelling them, so I could not look at new ritutals, did not enjoy playing my stale characters, so only ran briefly around 3BC, then logged.

Alternative: Add two Djinn to the harbour, Alf and Bill.

Alf will grant or take away XP. Want to see what new low level content is like *at* low level, no problem.

Bill will give you any item you care to specify. Want to try dual wielding WoP Rapiers? No problem. Just navigate down a tree, and add some properties. It may be sensible to prevent Bill giving people shroud ingredients, but I'd say he should be able to provide any in-game item (even ingrediants) -- or perhaps add Charlie in the shroud, so at least you have to complete the shroud to buy ingredients.

On Mournlands they just roll out the warforge and you can get items Problem was everyone was decking out with uber stuff and the minority were actually adventuring with standard items. BY having snapshots of everyone, they can try to get a cross section of people at various levels to run content with almost normal items (yep a lot of people are twinked).

The problem is too many "casual" gamers are really exploiters and are not providing proper feedback for stuff broken. Instead, they are saving bugs to exploit for later.

It is a shame as when I was play testing on there it was hard to get groups going. I really wish they had Dev lead events to be in group and watch the play style as well as see bugs in action...

[pjw]

It is a shame as when I was play testing on there it was hard to get groups going. I really wish they had Dev lead events to be in group and watch the play style as well as see bugs in action...

I think that's they key; make it open to a lot more people (ie. Risia) so that you can get a lot more feedback.

In EVE Online, I use the test server not only to test their software, but also to test strategies and weapon combinations (without having to buy them on the main server). This provides an incentive for more players to use the test server more often, and increases the chance of honest feedback.

In reality you have to accept that there will always be people who use test servers purely for personal gain (especially if it is a small elite group), but with a broader audience who find it beneficial as a testing tool for themselves, I think you will see higher quality feedback.

The second key issue will be responsiveness; if I test something on a test server and report a bug, I'd prefer to see it fixed before the new content goes live.

Combine the two, and I think you would have a winner.