Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
take down Lotharia and Shol realms, HOW some player testers feel
Gardosien
Member, Alpha Two
TO be Honest. Leading the player base of active player testers to believe severs will be up 24/7 than pulling them down to hopefully force population to the PTR is shady as fuck..
1,) People purchased active realm sever testing as advertised
2.) TRYING TO say anything in the realm of, "oh you can still test PTR is up." IS MORE bullshit because that was not the intent Phase 3.0.. When released and or sold to the gaming community.
TESTING things change... But advertising an item with major specific features,, pointing out and advertising those features,, If 24/7 outside of maintenance up time.. Than pulling the rug out from under the player base not even 10 percent into said testing is Bullshit..
90 Percent of Testers are Paying Players first that IS the reality.. This type of action is just piss ass poor customer service and a poor experience for many .
They should do their best to keep their word. And not break their word because it L FOR convince reasons...
VERY bad experience, does not reflect good on the company as whole.
Actions Always speak louder than words.
1,) People purchased active realm sever testing as advertised
2.) TRYING TO say anything in the realm of, "oh you can still test PTR is up." IS MORE bullshit because that was not the intent Phase 3.0.. When released and or sold to the gaming community.
TESTING things change... But advertising an item with major specific features,, pointing out and advertising those features,, If 24/7 outside of maintenance up time.. Than pulling the rug out from under the player base not even 10 percent into said testing is Bullshit..
90 Percent of Testers are Paying Players first that IS the reality.. This type of action is just piss ass poor customer service and a poor experience for many .
They should do their best to keep their word. And not break their word because it L FOR convince reasons...
VERY bad experience, does not reflect good on the company as whole.
Actions Always speak louder than words.
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Comments
Don't think they've confirmed any wipes yet, nor even new realms.
Here's what it says in the PTR notes: 'The PTR may not be available every day and may be frequently taken down for updates. If there is a banner across the top of the Launcher indicating that the realms are down, the PTR is not available at that time.'
'Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
'
This is definitely not 24/7 and the purchase price should not say that. It is false advertising and misleading to the consumer. They state that the realms can go down for updates I get that all good, but to turn the realms off to force people to the PTR that may not be available every day is where I have the issue. Not what I paid for.
This test is 24/7 as opposed to previous testing that was only a few hours, a few days a week.
It was always made obvious that the servers would come down as and when needed, that there would be wipes, rollbacks etc.
To be honest, since this is a test, taking frequent breaks is something we should all expet to do.
The main realms are coming down for a short while.
They've said they've no plans to wipe.
They'll be brining the realms back up again after the PTR testing.
Everything's good.
Just breathe.
We know there's plenty of features not working properly and it's a good idea to test this in mass on the PTR.
OR
Would you rather them push untested changes to the production potential causing a even longer downtime and possibly even a wipe?
Monday at 10 prod realms go down to focus test on PTR. No end time stated. To test the following.
Harbinger Event System
Summoner
Ren’Kai
Sport Fishing
Mules & Mounts
Archetype Updates & Balance Passes
Artisanship Improvements
Settlements
Lawless Events
Crates
Wars & Sieges
World Bosses
Dynamic Gridding
Bug fixes, including quests, economy, artisanship, UI, and combat improvements
Exploit and dupe-hunting days with rewards for testers who are first to provide reproducible reports!
And more surprises along the way!
That's a big list of things to test. I wish it'd be up longer so I could get through all of it.
it will be on the other testing severs
How I feel:
"The real progress and testing is made on the PTR"
False statement, different type of testing, maybe.. I can promise you that the "realms" have found more bugs than PTR over the last few phases.... May be due to the amount of players , playing, but still true..
"Taking down the production realms makes perfect sense"
Not at the cost of misguiding the majority of the testing community..
Not at the cost of losing player testers
Not at the cost of tarnishing costumer relationship standards
Not at the cost of missing out on more, testing time.
(players like myself will indeed be testing way less)
If the real progress and testing take place on PTR, leave the other severs up? We continue to put in weeks of "testing time" playing time to find bugs . (Happen to me last night).. Do not mind it, it is play testing, I bugged it and moved on.
Pealing back my/our testing progression, which we put massive amount of "testing time" in. To
control or influence us to go to PTR (other word is Manipulate) after stating this would not be done, is Frowned upon... and doesn't feel good, to be real about it.
(Many of enjoy that type of testing environment, and is what we paid for.) If others like PTR, have it..
:PUSH it live with bugs, we will break it , so they can fix it..
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.:
Keeping your word, ,, Realms here clearly mean the us, eu severs they are taking off line, for other reasons than maintenance and update.
And 95% plus of the population are play testers, being players first.(and will continue to be) I know this is not ideal but is the reality.. So the whole, are you a tester or a player thing,, is just false wishful thinking... That needs managed in another way imo... In addition it is not valid argument because we all know the reality of the situation, state of the game and community as a whole...
In addition it is not marketed as come test our game, but come play test our game,, I believe for the most part.. I could be wrong... But is how i felt when looking at it to purchase.
Bottom line these types of action hurt community relationships between the Brand itself and player base.
Multiple types of these action can lead to a failed Brand... That is untrusted by the player base..
Maybe I am over thinking here, but I look at the Brand different now...
:Subject to change":, is a phrase in any MMO that is a gold standard,
MMO players are used to, on top of this it is testing,,, So Massive amount of change will take place.
Most changes are acceptable,,,
This Phrase doesn't provide a "Permanent" socially acceptable pathway to breaking all things said, nor does the fact the game is in testing..., Social Standard still exists.. The line has clearly been crossed.
Marketing x amount of play time on x severs, charging people $ for it than changing it to manipulate the player base to play on PTR. ,,,, Is breaking social standards for many of us. For multiple reasons listed above.
Many of you may be fine, with going to the PTR,,, Maybe I am alone here, but highly doubt it.
+1
I just see the live service as a way to test RMT related stuff and maybe networking tests, and possibily to keep a decent testing population.
It shouldn't have been a 24/7 live service (or live service at all) until ALL the features were in. So Beta maybe.
Progression, stats, balances, are all out of wack. Live services hurts more than it helps.
If you don't like then the best way to make your voice/s heard is to walk away. Vote with your feet. It's going to ebb and flow, you're going to like some stuff, you're going to hate some stuff. It's not a game. It's a test, if you can't test what you want then don't test. If it's down it's down. I just don't understand why you're so upset.
That's a fair point. But it's not a big deal. It's couple of days...chill. If you don't like it don't get on the PTR, and stop testing on the live service.
Terrible idea.
1. Focus on either Prod or PTR. Not both, or it becomes even harder to actually develop and fix bugs.
2. Pushing too many bugs to Prod will lead to resets, more down time, and lead to even more people walking away.
Weak argument. It could easily be taking down production to get ready to push all the PTR changes to production. PTR is a realm anyways. PTR = Private Test Realm.
IF that's try, then it's also true that 95% of those players will be disappointed testing a game in Alpha. The truth is for an Alpha state Ashes is far beyond any other mmorpg.
I knew what I was getting into with testing a game in Alpha, wipes, downtimes, bugs, exploits, don't bother me at all. It comes with testing any software. The fact they have it as a live service is amazing, but I believe is wasteful.
True, but it's the nature of testing. And I think open development at this point was a mistake overall. Alpha should have been kept to a more limited number of people, put behind a pay wall and testing application or lottery. Normal players are going to get sour with the game before it even launches.
Well, they are not "breaking all things said". I don't think they've broken anything in this respect. You and others who feel like you, just assumed the Realm you wanted to play on was always going to be up. Now you fill 'manipulated' or 'swindled' because you can't play for two days? Not to be mean but I find that laughable. It's a mmorpg in alpha hosting live development with a live service. And you can't get to the character or realm you want for a day or two and you feel so betrayed you want to quit testing and threaten to walk away. You probably should just take a break for a few weeks anyways if you're this upset.
We could talk more about the marketing as a whole and mistakes they made but they're human and they'll make mistakes. If you can't accept that then testing simply isn't for you. Don't preorder, don't pay to test, unless you are prepared to be disappointed.
Pushed Alpha 3 severs out stating 24/7 outside of maintenance. Sold it and marketed it on the concept for months to the community.
Than pick to go back on their word to force people to PTR, in less than 60 days ?
I GET(assuming) the reasoning behind it,, but still shady asf.
Does not set a good standard in my honest opinion..
Besides this I feel they are doing great!