Turbine - How can we help?

[Titus_Ovid]

(Beware, flexing my sarcasm muscle).

Open letter to Turbine:


Dear Turbine,

Over the last few years we all have come into the pleasure of your professionalism. And knowing that this game is a monumental, let just say a challenge on epic elite levels I dare to offer the support of this fine community.

My suggestions ...

1) We can test changes for you beforehand so that you can adjust the code and correct the error ... Oh wait, some of us are already doing that, you just don't react to most of it. So let's say the ball is in your court.

2) We can help out with bug reports ingame and postings on the forums. Maybe even post a suggestion that works because there are actually quite smart people out there... See answer to point 1.

3) We can have a constructive discussion with you on the forums ... Ok, both sides suck at this. Scratch that.

4) Maybe the easiest way is to cheer you on. I'd be honest, it is pretty difficult to do so if you are foaming with rage over a bug you stumbled upon which is months old... But we will try really really hard.

5) Last idea from my side ... Bribery!
What will it be?
Money? My brother in law runs this unsuspicious bank on the Cayman Islands ...
Worship? I can fake that, really I can. I played Little Orphane Annie in the 4th grade.
Or maybe swapping bodily fluids? ... Nah.

But seriously, tell us Turbine how can we help out? I am sure we can arrange something.
Just one thing, I won't accept the answer ****Noobs.


Yours truly,
Titus Ovid

[Phemt81]

3) We can have a constructive discussion with you on the forums ... Ok, both sides suck at this. Scratch that.

Roflcopter hitting the sky! +1

ibtl

[soulaeon]

You may not be aware, but "player testing" actually does more harm than good. Turbine does not seem have professional beta testers, which is actually a significant part of the problem.
Beta testers can see problems with games and code in a way average players can not. Every time you play on Lamania, you are saving Turbine money at the cost of correcting real problems with DDO.
If you really want to help, do not play on Lamania, and insist Turbine do real beta testing with professionals.

[Phemt81]

Beta testers can see problems with games and code in a way average players can not.

No.

Beta testers are basically people with years of gaming experience willing to use their knowledge to help coders improve gameplay and discover bugs.

Coders = Developers.

[soulaeon]

No.

Beta testers are basically people with years of gaming experience willing to use their knowledge to help coders improve gameplay and discover bugs.

Coders = Developers.

There is a whole education system for people interested in game development and professional gaming. That is what I am referring.
Also, "average" players dont have years of experience and what you might call knowledge.

[Flavilandile]

Beta testers can see problems with games and code in a way average players can not.

Not only beta testers...
You'll have to trust me here, but testing/troubleshooting is a mindset more than a sum of knowledge.
If you have the mindset you will note broken thing as you stumble upon them and you will be able to reproduce them ( most of the time. )

Beta testers are basically people with years of gaming experience willing to use their knowledge to help coders improve gameplay and discover bugs.

Not only.
Testers, troubleshooters are people with the right mindset and, yes usually ( but not mandatory ), years of experience at working with the system they are troubleshooting.
They also ( usually ) have writeups of how it should behave when they do an action... which helps determine if the system under test misbehave.

There is a whole education system for people interested in game development and professional gaming. That is what I am referring.
Also, "average" players dont have years of experience and what you might call knowledge.

But most, if not all, of this education is oriented towards coding, graphical artistry, and game design, not in the troubleshooting and tinkering with fiddly bits category. The backside of a MMO is more in the category of the industrial softwares than in the game industry. The frontside ( the client and all the graphic rendering ) is just a tiny part of the whole game.

Turbine has 3 main problems when it comes to troubleshooting DDO :
- The code is 6 years old, and most if not all the original coders are gone.
If it hasn't been documented precisely ( and I doubt it has been ) then today's coders have no idea of what is going to happen if the change a few lines of code in some place. ( thus some of the weird bugs we see like
mushrooms and doors )

- As the code is not documented, we can also expect that the expected behavior is also not so well documented too, thus making the job of the testers ( Basic Tests, Function Tests, Beta Tests ) much more difficult.
This is where the way you make bug reports is important. If you put in the bug reports all the steps to reproduce a bug, the troubleshooters will be able to trace what happens and give the coders all the informations they need to fix it.

- While I have no idea of the backoffice testing.
Lamannia has never been a beta test server. ( except during the few month when they worked on the expansion ). It's a preview server. As such what we see there is almost what we will see on live. ( for whatever reason Turbine loves to force down our throat all the unpalatable things in an update straight to live, compounding the risk of getting bugs )
What Turbine needs is a real Beta Test server and a way to reward on the live servers those that comes to that beta server and do some tests, fill in bug reports and such.
( say 10 TP for reporting a bug, 25 TP if the bug is reproduced from the bug report, 50 TP when the bug is fixed )
Also needed for that beta server to work is the full updates, and not what Turbine wants to show us. If we really go into beta tests ( I prefer to call that pre-production tests ) we need to have everything to test, otherwise bugs will be missed and they will show up on live, where it's too late to deal with them.
Last thing needed is a real flow of information between QA and those that will take part of that pre-production server, so that people know that bugs are being dealt with... I can only suggest that all the bugs reported during a week are posted and a status ( valid, invalid, reproduced, fixed, Fix in development ) given for each.

[Phemt81]

Also, "average" players dont have years of experience and what you might call knowledge.

I do agree.

[clanks]

Armor kits or coloring kits for Defenders so we may change their appearance. That would be really cool!!

[Titus_Ovid]

It's interesting how a thread changes its direction so drastically.

I wonder if a test server will do them any good since they seam to have no clue of the original code. Maybe just start DDO 2nd Edition ... or ADDO .

[Ungood]

It's interesting how a thread changes its direction so drastically.

I wonder if a test server will do them any good since they seam to have no clue of the original code. Maybe just start DDO 2nd Edition ... or ADDO .

They Have Mournlands and Lammy. Mournlands is a Test Server, while Lammy is more a preview Server.

Anyway. Yah. Suggestions and Ideas, never seen a Dev Post here, Don't think I ever will. This is the place ideas come to die, not be born. Really wish they had a place to post suggestions and ideas as opposed to General Discussions.

[grayham]

@TitusOvid

I don't understand the motivation for this post. Is it Epic Elite? Myself and a goodly number of gamers actually really like Epic Elite. It's a serious challenge. Turbine have released a bucketload of bug fixes lately, and as far as I can see the number of "OMG this game is unplayable" type threads are way down.

Now, is there an issue regarding the huge gulf between Epic Hard and Epic Elite? Yes, very much so.