End of the week with Major Malphunktion - Kobold Union Edition

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

maybe they don't want the job.
maybe they have too many infractions otherwise to be on the test server.
maybe we have hired people from the fanbase in the past and it has gone horribly wrong.

I don't look at my answer as an excuse at all. It is what it is. It is the nature of gaming. Our audience --gamers-- enjoy finding things that break. This has been true on every game I've worked on. Don't take it as a DDO exclusive.

[stainer]

maybe they have too many infractions otherwise to be on the test server.

You and 404error might consider a probationary period for some of these folks. There is sometimes a disconnect between forum and game.

Thanks for keeping us informed! You are doing great.

[gloopygloop]

I've worked both in games and out. Nothing matches the unpredictability of game testing...except aerospace. Players do unpredictable things.Automation does not deal with that. Automation only deals with what you tell it to expect. I agree we can tighten up on some of the item a breaking and stuff like that, but eyeballs on monitors is the best way to test games.
Think about it, do people say, use a video editor program, and the first night they get it, spend hours trying to break it? Gamers do that. Gamers find bugs for FUN. It is a bit whacky if you think about it.

I understand that gamers do odd things in the game sometimes. But a lot of the bugs that we find are just a straightforward test of reported functionality.

Things like "Ghost Touch now works with handwraps" shows up in the release notes and so we go out with a lootgen Ghost Tough handwraps, a crafted Ghost Touch handwraps and a named Ghost Touch handwraps and smack some incorporeal undead around to see if they now work. That's not too whacky if you think about it.

I will say that things are less rediculous since you took over the helm, but we still have seen things show up in the release notes as "fixed" when they aren't actually fixed and a straightforward functionality test by the players showed that. Thankfully, we no longer have QA folks and devs acting surprised when someone reports a bug on the live servers when that bug was repeatedly reported in Llama-land. I don't think that Turbine's QA efforts have gone far enough yet, but it is getting better.

[BOgre]

maybe they don't want the job.
maybe they have too many infractions otherwise to be on the test server.
maybe we have hired people from the fanbase in the past and it has gone horribly wrong.

I don't look at my answer as an excuse at all. It is what it is. It is the nature of gaming. Our audience --gamers-- enjoy finding things that break. This has been true on every game I've worked on. Don't take it as a DDO exclusive.

Yes, there are maybe's. I don't see the point in excluding a bug hunter based on infractions, though that doesn't mean there isn't one.

But my point is that there IS a resource for you to use. Right now that resource seems to be the extensive bughunting being done on Lammania, and when I read a comment by you saying that you view Lamma as a preview server and not a test/bughunt server, well that feels to me like you're wasting a valuable tool.

Anyways, thanks for sticking with us in the face of all the criticism. I do appreciate that. Also, I'd love a comment regarding ZAM.com's scoop... please?

[Auran82]

I applied the first couple of times but gave up because no-one could tell me if I was supposed to reapply every time they asked or if they used past applications. I also have one whole infraction (which expired like 2 years ago) that I got for a joke between friends that someone else took offence to and must have reported me for and I don't know if that excludes me from consideration.

I beta test a couple of other games as well as do it for a living (not in games though) and bug report stuff I see but if my services are not required I wont spend time applying.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

I know nothing of the Zam.com thing.

Lamannia IS a preview server. I agree. I would love to have a public facing test server, but by Turbine policy...and precedent in legal mumbo jumbo, i can't do that. I can have a preview server, which is better than nothing. Until that changes, Lamannia will be what it is. That said, I have plans to make Lamma land cooler. Stay tuned for my next madcap scheme.

Excluding a bug hunter due to infractions is this: they get to see stuff WAY early. We don't like leaks. It is bad for business, marketing and all that stuff. People who like the limelight seem to be more prone to it. There is a trust..beyond the NDA, that we have to have when showing people stuff really early.

[Hordo]

Excluding a bug hunter due to infractions is this: they get to see stuff WAY early. We don't like leaks. It is bad for business, marketing and all that stuff. People who like the limelight seem to be more prone to it. There is a trust..beyond the NDA, that we have to have when showing people stuff really early.

Just because some folks like pushing other's buttons when they act like dybbyks does not mean that they won't abide by an NDA. Some of us "limelighters" beta test other games with NDAs and still don't mention doodly that we are not supposed to. Your argument hold no merit whatsoever. Having a capable Alpha Testing group is much more important than bobble-heads just nodding accord when they should be pointing out errors.

[Dandonk]

Regarding infractions: Some of the more active people here may have had 1 infraction in 5 years and 10k posts. Does that mean they're like the "limelight"?

That people are active here would suggest to me that they care about the direction the game is taking, and thus would be the very people it would be good to have trying out stuff.

Infractions do not equal untrustworthy, IMO. But I suppose it's easier to have a set criteria... it's jsutu that, IMO, it excludes an important and competent set of testers.

[maddmatt70]

Regarding infractions: Some of the more active people here may have had 1 infraction in 5 years and 10k posts. Does that mean they're like the "limelight"?

That people are active here would suggest to me that they care about the direction the game is taking, and thus would be the very people it would be good to have trying out stuff.

Infractions do not equal untrustworthy, IMO. But I suppose it's easier to have a set criteria... it's jsutu that, IMO, it excludes an important and competent set of testers.

Exactly. If somebody posts enough they will eventually pick up infractions especially if they do not sugarcoat things. I would imagine there is the rare heavy poster like say cupcake that likely has 0 infractions, but its the internet what have you. I have 4 infractions myself not that I would make a good tester or anything, but I imagine there are some folks just like me who would make excellent testers...

[Dark_Helmet]

I've worked both in games and out. Nothing matches the unpredictability of game testing...except aerospace.

I agree...and the lessons learned in dealing with aerospace coding can be applied to gamers. The rigid code of require flight path and constraints (rules of the game) vs "unpredictable" environmental factors (gamers themselves).

Players do unpredictable things.Automation does not deal with that. Automation only deals with what you tell it to expect. I agree we can tighten up on some of the item a breaking and stuff like that, but eyeballs on monitors is the best way to test games.

Predictive analytics are done to generate "random" possibilities based on past recorded behavior. It isn't 100%, but the risk profile is greatly reduced by replay of previous anomolies that are confirmed not to reoccur as well as common offshoots based on past behaviors. This doesn't preclude the "eyeballs", yet frees them up to test even more unpredictable behavior. It isn't just rocket science after all.

Think about it, do people say, use a video editor program, and the first night they get it, spend hours trying to break it? Gamers do that. Gamers find bugs for FUN. It is a bit whacky if you think about it.

That was the part of Open Source Software that companies didn't understand: People will gladly look for bugs just to get their names listed. You don't have to pay them as employees. Companies value the code more than their developers. If they understood that making the code open source they can spend more on development and less on bug testing makes a better product (unless there are developers who are smarter out there and make a better product).

[gloopygloop]

I know nothing of the Zam.com thing.

Lamannia IS a preview server. I agree. I would love to have a public facing test server, but by Turbine policy...and precedent in legal mumbo jumbo, i can't do that. I can have a preview server, which is better than nothing. Until that changes, Lamannia will be what it is. That said, I have plans to make Lamma land cooler. Stay tuned for my next madcap scheme.

Excluding a bug hunter due to infractions is this: they get to see stuff WAY early. We don't like leaks. It is bad for business, marketing and all that stuff. People who like the limelight seem to be more prone to it. There is a trust..beyond the NDA, that we have to have when showing people stuff really early.

One of the problems with excluding people who have infractions is that the people who have infractions are the ones who will stand up and call someone a ******* when they're being a *******. Excluding people who have too many infractions cuts out the people who are best able to call a spade a spade and point out shortcomings and pitfalls in future quests/classes/

Things like the new Holy Avenger longsword that drops in VoD on Elite. It's pretty. It's shiny. And it ends up doing negative DPS because it strips debuffs and DoTs off of bosses when you swing it. Somehow, no one pointed that out (or it was pointed out, but no one actually stood up and said, "Seriously you guys, you can't put this ***** weapon in the game. All it's going to do is act as a noob detector for looking up Paladins on my.ddo").

It's Turbine's server. Turbine sets the rules. That's your perrogative. But many of the decisions that Turbine makes really seem like secrecy is more important than actually having a good game. I don't understand that. And that includes both the Mournlands "no perceived naughtiness alowed" policy as well as things like Turbine's refusal to publicly say
A: trading TP for items is allowed,
B: trading TP for items is forbidden or
C: trading TP for items is still under discussion and no decision has been made yet
...as well as many other examples.

[BOgre]

I know nothing of the Zam.com thing.

Zam.com thing

Zam.com thing as it stands on the boards

In a nutshell, the media was given Nov 9 as the U12 release date, while the forum has had no official announcement (it's now day ZAM+2 without official word).

[Zengar]

Yelling at, or even yelling to, MajMalphunktion is not really going to help anyone out here.

A lot of the thing people are complaining about are not his department. He can and should bring them to the attention of those in the proper departments, if he has not already in the past done so, but it would be simply a bad idea for him to come on to a public forum like this and not go along with the official policy even if he dis-agreed with it in private. If the legal department decided that the lawsuit precedent was too risky and the CEO accepted their opinion, even if he argued in person to allow rewards for finding bugs, (I'm not saying he did, I have no knowledge one way or the other) then he would be wise to come on these boards and say that the lawsuit is the reason there are no rewards and then not allow himself to be drawn into further argument.

It would be the same if marketing decided that forum infractions meant to great a risk of leaks. It is not QA's decision to make as to whether marketing's opinion is correct. They can argue in an internal meeting for or against the merits of a rule like that, but once it has been decided a good employee is going to tell the public "this is company policy" and not "I'm sorry but this is stupid". Not that I am saying that this particular policy is stupid, I could see the argument that the majority of infraction recipients are a risk for leaks and that the exceptions could be be provided with, well, exceptions on a case by case basis. Or maybe not, I am not a Turbine employee, I am not a beta tester here, and I don't have any infraction, so I have no way of knowing what their actual policy might be.



TLDR; If someone decides to be a public face for a company, they are going to tell you company policy regardless of whether they like it themselves or even might be trying to change it internally. Otherwise, they don't work there for very long.

[Solmage]

Just because some folks like pushing other's buttons when they act like dybbyks does not mean that they won't abide by an NDA. Some of us "limelighters" beta test other games with NDAs and still don't mention doodly that we are not supposed to. Your argument hold no merit whatsoever. Having a capable Alpha Testing group is much more important than bobble-heads just nodding accord when they should be pointing out errors.

But if you can't get your point across right now without insulting every single current tester, is that someone you would hire/want to work with?

Also, you may think someone's awesome, but if someone can't abide by simple rules of civility, what makes you think that someone will abide by the rules of not using the knowledge for personal gain/private exploits among a tight-knit group?

[knightgf]

Until that changes, Lamannia will be what it is. That said, I have plans to make Lamma land cooler. Stay tuned for my next madcap scheme.

Looking forward to it. Maybe for once ill actually have a little motivation to try Lamannia.

maybe they don't want the job.
maybe we have hired people from the fanbase in the past and it has gone horribly wrong.

The former is, at the moment, how I feel about Lamannia. Beta test something with no reward that carries over to live? Nah. The latter though is curious. I have a hunch people tried to sue you over it, they didn't perform to Turbine's expectations, or other lawsuits showed up, hence why it has gone horribly wrong.

Maybe, I'll say, maybe.

[Jahmin]

Excluding a bug hunter due to infractions is this: they get to see stuff WAY early. We don't like leaks. It is bad for business, marketing and all that stuff. People who like the limelight seem to be more prone to it. There is a trust..beyond the NDA, that we have to have when showing people stuff really early.

I generally just skip over the silliness of your excuses, but this takes the cake. The problem is not with the people posting and getting infractions; the problem is with the people giving them. You want us to take you seriously as Quality Assurance and you go on at length about your qualifications, yet the forum ‘moderators’ were hired for their ability to plan parties.

The mediocre moderation has directly led to the general malaise of these forums, by those that sold out the very community that supported them. ‘Infractions’ are mocked and worn as badges of honour and a rite of passage.

YOU limiting your testers because a ‘moderator’ thinks female underwear is sexual explicit or does not know the difference between their, there and they're is pretty much as dumb as the infractions are.

The game is rated Teen. When we had real moderation the forums were a vibrant community. Stop thinking that the problem is people trying to limelight and realize where the problem actually is.

Frankly I have great difficult relating your stated qualifications and goals with what you actually post. The complete disconnect is sadly typical turbine

[Razcar]

Zam.com thing

Zam.com thing as it stands on the boards

In a nutshell, the media was given Nov 9 as the U12 release date, while the forum has had no official announcement (it's now day ZAM+2 without official word).

Maj is the head of the testers. You are barking up the totally wrong tree. So give the guy a break and please stop asking him about the Turbine Marketing department's decisions.

[gloopygloop]

Maj is the head of the testers. You are barking up the totally wrong tree. So give the guy a break and please stop asking him about the Turbine Marketing department's decisions.

I agree with Razcar that Maj is not the person that we should be complaining to.

However, the people that we *should* complain to on the forums (Tolero and Cordovan and Fernando and whoever took Victorie's former position) have been hiding recently, so Maj is all we have.

It's unfortunate that people (myself included) bring our issues to the only official Turbine people who show up to talk to us, but the biggest reason for that is that the official Turbine people who we should talk to don't show up in threads often enough.

[mystafyi]

I would love to have a public facing test server, but by Turbine policy...and precedent in legal mumbo jumbo, i can't do that.

I do feel sorry for you in this regard. awful hard to do your job when your hamstrung by turbine policy. the number 1 best way to find bugs and balancing issues is by using the user base.

We don't like leaks. It is bad for business, marketing and all that stuff.

I realize this, but buggy software is also bad for business. I guess I should just accept the fact fernando piaz doesnt believe players will leave his game for any reason. (as he said at pax)

[mystafyi]

However, the people that we *should* complain to on the forums (Tolero and Cordovan and Fernando and whoever took Victorie's former position) have been hiding recently, so Maj is all we have.

I noticed the senior community rep is now developing content. thats prolly why.
as for fernando, he doesnt talk to wallets