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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Public Test Realm servers. Yay or Nay?
Asgerr
Member, Alpha Two
One interesting tidbit that came from the July livestream was that Alpha 2 will be a persistent world, existing up to the game's release. But not only that: Alpha 2 servers will become the Publi Test Realm servers.
Now, PTR is in theory a good thing to have people's feedback on new content and to balance it before release. At the same time, a number of former WoW players may tell you that a PTR is in fact a wonder-killer. That once the newt PTR patch is out, in the span of a day or two, the entire next patch/expansion is basically spoiled for everyone.
Those who engage in the PTR, will also have acknowledge advantage over those who decide to not interact with it or just don't have time for it.
Will there be a meta of the big sweaty try-hard guilds forcing their raid groups into the PTR so that once the new Raid Boss comes out in the live servers, they can be Server First?
Other games like FFXIV have never had a PTR, keeping all of their secrets close to the vest. It is however true that FFXIV is a far more narrative driven game, and spoilers would ruin the near totality of the experience.
So in your eyes and from your personal experiences; PTR: Yay or Nay ?
Now, PTR is in theory a good thing to have people's feedback on new content and to balance it before release. At the same time, a number of former WoW players may tell you that a PTR is in fact a wonder-killer. That once the newt PTR patch is out, in the span of a day or two, the entire next patch/expansion is basically spoiled for everyone.
Those who engage in the PTR, will also have acknowledge advantage over those who decide to not interact with it or just don't have time for it.
Will there be a meta of the big sweaty try-hard guilds forcing their raid groups into the PTR so that once the new Raid Boss comes out in the live servers, they can be Server First?
Other games like FFXIV have never had a PTR, keeping all of their secrets close to the vest. It is however true that FFXIV is a far more narrative driven game, and spoilers would ruin the near totality of the experience.
So in your eyes and from your personal experiences; PTR: Yay or Nay ?
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Comments
If that small testing base that wouldn't spread information to everyone is impossible, then I say no PTR.
I'm not really sure though overall since each game is different for what having extra information out can be like
"Alpha 2 will remain active in a persistent state till launch, then will become our Public Test Server."
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1791529601/ashes-of-creation-new-mmorpg-by-intrepid-studios/faqs
(From the question: What to do the different Alpha and Beta phases mean?)
Pretty much agree with you. PTRs are good in games like MOBAs, detrimental to the experience you have in MMOs.
Takes away the sense of wonder and discovery upon launch. Tight lipped till release of the content + inhouse testing is the best way to go. FFXIV shows, that this is possible and positive effects it has.
If a PTR, then use it for testing systems, not content. Testing content never is a good idea.
I think you have probably found the perfect middle ground for it yes.
As we know FFXIV is great because the internal testing is very strong. But it's also a much more solo player experience with little social systems requiring testing.
So testing the systems, even if it's not with the exact monsters/nodes/locations/ where they will appear in the game, is probably better than just throwing an entire raid area and boss at the players in PTR and then watch the raid be completed in 1 day once it reaches full release.
Without much narrative involved in the game, we're at least safe from story spoilers.
So you want to have no testing of a new patch before it goes live? In a persistent MMO world?
You know, I played a game that did that recently. It was called New World, where every patch broke either the economy, or the balance, or the weapons or the quests or something.
A PTR is absolutely necessary. More than in any other game. If a game like PUBG puts out a patch that breaks the game for a few hours, no harm done thb, the games that happened in those 3 hours are gone. If a patch in an MMO goes live with a bug it can ruin a server for months, even if it is fixed the next day.
If you are sooo afraid of spoilers (even though what you said about it being spoiled in the first 1-2 days still applies to when the patch goes live, but whatever), do what Sea of Thieves is doing, have the testers sign an NDA. If they break it, ban their live account. Easy.
Well there are some games that manage to do that internally without the need for a PTR. A PTR is almost entirely a Blizzard thing.
A ton of other MMOs and multiplayer games don't have them and still work wonderfully well.
My issue isn't so much the spoilers, as you say, because I also note that AoC is not remotely as plot driven as other MMOs. Thus spoilers aren't as much of an issue.
However, in races to world or server first, I do personally believe that it is far more interesting to have players go in blind on the day of the content's release. If people have already run defeated a raid boss a couple of times before the content is released, the only "difficulty" is then relegated to a potential third party coming in to screw with you.
I think testing of core systems and mechanics can be done on a PTR if there must be one, but finished content and bosses, should IMO stay hidden and be tested internally.
And the second it goes to live, there is gonna be a YT video about the mechanics. So whats the upside of pushing untested content out?
I fail to see what gear has to do with this. Top level guilds and raid groups will always be geared with BIS or close to it for whenever the new content will drop. So literally gear is a non factor. Knowing the mechanics ahead of those who don't decide to test the boss, is an insane advantage in server first races (I think World might be harder, considering the dependence on node progression).
There are a myriad of WoW content creators and players out there that also note how the existence of PTR robs the actual raid of any value, because by the times it's out in the live game, it's already been farmed on the PTR.
Plus, you incur the "risk" of guilds forcing people to play in the PTR to then join in the raid groups. "Oh you haven't pre-learned all of the mechanics in the PTR? Sorry you're not in the raid team this time."
I don't think what I'm saying is disingenuous. If other companies can manage to test things internally and have them come out functioning well and presenting a challenge to people, why should Intrepid be any lesser?
Yes guides will be a thing once it's beaten doesn't mean guides should be out before the content is on the live server with people knowing the best way to kill it ahead of time.
One could even argue that if your group figures out the mechanics and is able to farm the boss, that you could perhaps keep the guide/secrets hidden from others to further cement your own position at the top of the server, as well as keeping a temporary monopoly on the materials dropped by it.
Other guilds may try to spy on you fighting the boss to try and learn the way to beat it, which could have its own consequences if the raid group fighting decides to have other members stand guard etc.
Have the bosses in random places on the PTR instead of their designated nodes and give those bosses randomized new abilities (if there are any new ones). The people wouldn't know which nodes to level up before the new patch, they wouldn't know which boss has which abilities - all while still testing if the overall boss AI works fine and whether the abilities work properly.
In other words, separate the core of the content from the final version of the content. If that's possible and if it would achieve the goals set for the test itself.
Them getting an advantage before its live on the server is the whole point on being bad. They shouldn't have an advantage before it goes live on a server, bosses don't need to be on PTS and should be tested internally.
It might not even be anything interesting like raids or dungeons. It might just be simple stuff like - when a player interacts with x quest item does it work as intended?
Even if it's actually new enemy mechanics or encounters; you might just be fighting a generic red blob in PTR and they'll throw in 10 different attack patterns to see how players react or see if the damage numbers make sense. No guarantee any of it will identically be pushed to live.
If the game doesnt have public test servers, the live servers will be the public test servers.
Man you really have never played that tested their content in house, and released it in working condition have you?
I have played many, many MMOs, and every single one of them had a testing server.
Some were invite only, and much of the population didn't even know they existed - but they all had such a server.
I feel like the games that need a PTR are those games where the devs don't actually play their own game.
Literally no doubt about that at all.
Having seen the criteria that a number of games have for people they offer testing to, you wouldn't meet it - so if you have played any of those games, you wouldn't know test servers existed despite people like me providing you with that pre-launch testing so that the expansions and patches can get to you with as few bugs as possible. I mean, you can feel this all you like - doesn't mean it's correct.
And even if it were correct, this isn't a particularly good argument. The company should have systems in place to ensure the best quality of product that it can, regardless of if the developers wish to go home from working on a product for 8+ hours to then using that same product.
Sure, we all like it when game developers are passionate about the game they are making, but you had better believe that if I had a job where I was working on a game for 8+ hours a day, when I came home I would not be all that interested in logging on to that game to play it. I'd go and do something else - anything else.
And you've made plenty of fallacious arguments. Throwing one that requires proving a negative is quite the leap in challenge rating though.
Are you making the assumption that because a lot of top end players tend to spend some time on test servers in some games, that top end players make good testers?
As a general rule, the value of someone in a testing environment has no relation at all to how good they are at anything in that game. Being a good tester is a mindset thing, it's about how you look at things.
If you are an analytical person, you are probably going to be a good tester. If you make assumptions based on how you "feel", you are not going to be a good tester.
Fun fact, most games with public testing also have earlier alpha testing on expansions. The earlier testing is where most of the actual bugs are found, and the later beta tests are more for load testing - both server technology, but also how well the content itself handles loads.
I've yet to be involved in a game that has not had invite only testing - including Ashes.
Hmmm let me see...
Ah yes, there it was. Sounds pretty much like: "I'm good at this and you're not thus you can't get invited and can't ever disprove anything I say."
Are you saying that a specific mindset makes a person better or worse?
Keep in mind, your comment was "you're just not good enough to be invited" There was no qualifier as to what the person was not good enough. I disagree that a person is not good enough based on the things that are in the discussion here.
My point was that if a game company is holding specific, invite only testing, they are going to only invite people they think will be good at testing what they are testing.
Now, if you want to amend your statement to say something more like "you're just not good enough at testing and giving the kind of feedback to be invited", then I would agree with your statement.
The thing is, if you are talking about limited numbers in testing, I think even you would agree with that statement. If you have limited testing available, you want to bring along people that you think would be good at testing the thing that you are testing.
An example of this would be solo content - I wouldn't invite myself along to test solo content in a situation where there is limited test spots available - but I would invite Dygz.
Does that mean I do not think I am good enough? Or does it mean there are specific things that are desired?
Really, I am unsure what your complain here is.
Games have invite only testing. Even Ashes has already had some invite only testing. If you do not know about games having invite only testing, don't go bitching to me for informing you of this fact - and that is literally all I have done here.
Might as well just refer to it as the dev branch used only internally. I think this is quite different from a PTR.
I'd like to think most MMOs have a dev branch for testing.