One Month, followed by closure.

[Dein_Cathair]

The changes which are supposed to come with 1.3 actually are very complex and constitute a major change in server structure. I think that this requires a longer than usual internal testing period. Moreover, there is a lot of pressure on BW to get this patch right. Just imagine 1.3 hitting the PTS with severe bugs! The backlash for the game would be enormous.

Then there is the thing with character transfer which takes time to implement. I know some of the more dedicated players on the PTS, but there are so few of them that BW do not have to go to leaps and bounds to keep the server running just to accommodate a few.

If you chose to play on the PTS on a regular basis the possibility of prolonged down-times is always hovering in the back of your mind.

In my opinion there is another purpose for the PTS: Players are supposed to test it and then carry their experiences to their 'home'-servers. You can't do that if you select to stay on the PTS all the time.

Nevertheless, a more specific information policy by BW towards the regular testers might be advisable. But I do have to admit that contact to responsible personnel for the PTS has always been friendly and productive.

 

I guess we have to be patient and I look forward to seeing something happen.....soon.

 

I agree with most of what your saying. I only differ on one point.

 

I personally don't mind testing with bugs present. As someone who's probably played as much on test servers and preview servers in numerous games as much as I've played on live servers. It does not matter to me.

 

I really do agree about taking the knowledge back to the live servers, it happens all the time. The best/funniest is watching those who've played the internal private servers and transfer the knowledge to those on the test servers.

 

I kinda wish swtor had a private preview program beyond the friends and family program I assume exists, sometimes I think companies need a wake up LOL

[WrecklessMEDIC]

Frankly then, you should have had a copy tool at launch then. You encouraged people to roll characters on the PTS to help test the content. I rolled a character with the full intention of helping test. Now we hear that it isn't intended for permanent play. So what did this mean?

 

How in the world did you think a test server was meant for permanent play? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's for testing. That's it.

[Mailek]

Do you honestly think Bioware is going to give you game time lost on a PUBLIC TEST SERVER? Don't hold your breath buddy...

[Kubernetic]

She was most definitely not trolling.

 

There are dedicated players who primarily play on test servers in games. I am fully aware of the impact those players can have on the game the rest of us play. Hopefully Bioware comes to realize that as well.

 

As for Ivi? This isn't the first game she's played primarily on its test center for the purpose of both playing and enjoying the game. So no. She was not trolling.

 

That's understandable, but those players then need to realize that their experience will be substandard to the live play servers, and to be asking for compensation due to PTS issues just doesn't make sense.

 

If you want to play on the PTS primarily, that's fine. But no one, ANYWHERE, ever made ANY guarantees as to PTS uptime or longevity. That defeats the entire purpose of a test server.

[Goretzu]

She was most definitely not trolling.

 

There are dedicated players who primarily play on test servers in games. I am fully aware of the impact those players can have on the game the rest of us play. Hopefully Bioware comes to realize that as well.

 

As for Ivi? This isn't the first game she's played primarily on its test center for the purpose of both playing and enjoying the game. So no. She was not trolling.

 

 

 

Once upon a time the "Test" community of an MMORPG was something highly valued by the games Devs........... those days seem to be looooooooooooooooooong gone though.

[GorZie]

How in the world did you think a test server was meant for permanent play? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's for testing. That's it.

 

By your logic all weekend pass players should only play on the PTS and not on any other server !

[HexHammer]

Have to agree with this. Your trolling or just a bit simply to play on a public test server as your main?

I don't think he's trolling, just totally misunderstood the purpose of PTS and it's shortcomings.

[MbaxterBeau]

Is there a limit to the complaining that is done on these forums? Do people play MMO's to have fun anymore or just so they can complain about EVERYTHING on the games forums?

 

You play on a PTS and expect it to perform like the regular servers do and expect a refund for lost game play time on a PTS?

 

That's like buying a ticket to ride on public transit and then expecting a refund because someone's sitting next to you.

[thomasgallant]

Is there a limit to the complaining that is done on these forums? Do people play MMO's to have fun anymore or just so they can complain about EVERYTHING on the games forums?

 

You play on a PTS and expect it to perform like the regular servers do and expect a refund for lost game play time on a PTS?

 

That's like buying a ticket to ride on public transit and then expecting a refund because someone's sitting next to you.

 

there is no limit to the complaining.. even when bioware does what these people claim they want bioware to do... still complaining.. it wasnt done fast enough, or right, or it ruined this or that..

 

then couple the legit complaints with the people who quit the game but are wasting their remaining time subscription on the forums badmouthing the game, not to improve it .. just to bad mouth it and this community is about as healthy as a guy with inoperable brain cancer and only 2 days left to live

[GorZie]

there is no limit to the complaining.. even when bioware does what these people claim they want bioware to do... still complaining.. it wasnt done fast enough, or right, or it ruined this or that..

 

then couple the legit complaints with the people who quit the game but are wasting their remaining time subscription on the forums badmouthing the game, not to improve it .. just to bad mouth it and this community is about as healthy as a guy with inoperable brain cancer and only 2 days left to live

 

So you are complaining about complainers, but doing the same. Catch 22

[thomasgallant]

So you are complaining about complainers, but doing the same. Catch 22

 

nope not complaining.. the poster before me asked if there was an end to the complaining.. i answered him.. and sadly i am right:P

[Blackardin]

For those who played on the PTS last month, will remember we had around 30 days (a calender month) or an Evasion bug making fighting Melee combatants a gamble even with lowly weak NPC's... would they reset, or not?

 

The problem increased with the targets number and type; making Golds impossible to defeat unless they glitched twice over (the standing still bug).

 

That aside, you finally patched the server, which broke. A 2nd patch hit the PTS - as well as not reopening the server.

 

I only play this game to play with my friend, who cannot play on live due to lag issues. I've effectively lost a month's normal gameplay as did my friend. So I was wondering -two- things.

 

One: Will the PTS players receive compensation for time lost, through either goodwill items or a reduction in costs for their next subs to reflect the substandard levels of gameplay during the time?

 

Two: When will you be opening the PTS, if the answer is a cookie cutter "with 1.3" then a simple timeframe as to when 1.3 hits would suffice.

 

I'm making this thread, because as it stands... I'm paying my sub to login to an Offline server.

 

Are you serious?

 

ITS A TEST SERVER.

[MbaxterBeau]

Are you serious?

 

ITS A TEST SERVER.

 

^ ^ this!!!!!!

[Blackardin]

So you are complaining about complainers, but doing the same. Catch 22

 

Nonsense statement. Sophomoric at best. Typically used by the negative to deflect from their activity.

 

Calling someone on negative behavior is not, in and of itself, negative behavior....especially when citing negative behavior that has no intent beyond its own negativity. Now, if the responder was reproving post that were of a constructive nature rather then simply negative, childish banter, one would have reason to cite his post. That is not the case. His statement is absolutely valid in its intent.

[blur]

To the point I think you should get off the freaking forums and think before you post in an honestly ticked off customers thread with angst instead of helpful comments.

 

Seems to be par for the course now. Seems no one can post heart felt comments about a game that I think all of us truly wanted to love, but which let us down so profoundly. But if we "dare" say that, the Bioware fanboi's leap out of the woodwork, swinging axes and not listening to a damn thing we've said

[Onyx]

The Pubic Test Server is down because they're not testing anything. That's it, simple as that. Period.

 

That's all. As the dev said, it's not meant for permanent play.

 

Bit like asking why a prototype jet fighter isn't flying between test flights.

 

You couldn't be much more wrong.

 

With software, there is ALWAYS something to test and with MMOs there's more than most others.

 

Some folks will hop on a test server to just test new patches/updates--and most of those are to check out the new shiney things. But that means they are limited by the fact that they are only hopping on for that reason. Others actually plan out their testing in order to find unintended changes, processes, and so forth. Intensive testing including attempting to break things.. To do that, you can't just roll a new character and test. You need to be established as well as having a base-group of people you know and trust to test with.

 

The OP of this thread and at least one other person posting do this. You'd be shocked at the literal game-breaking bugs/issues/exploits/etc. that get caught by these people and squashed by devs. As I said earlier, hopefully Bioware will soon realize the value of these folks. They come with some pretty high-level credentials and recommendations.

 

 

I don't think he's trolling, just totally misunderstood the purpose of PTS and it's shortcomings.

 

Read my response above. SHE knows full-well the purpose even if others in this (and similar threads) do not.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Onyx

[sakshale]

Once upon a time the "Test" community of an MMORPG was something highly valued by the games Devs........... those days seem to be looooooooooooooooooong gone though.

 

Exactly! I lived on the EQ1 test server. It was a great community! We didn't have the population related problems that the live community players had to deal with and the low population made game play dramatically different.

 

We constantly interacted with the development team, who used to put together pickup groups to test new features.

 

I started here on PTS with the hopes of building the same type of community. And, that community began to develop, but support kept putting up barriers, which have pretty much killed it.

• No forum for players to use to discuss PTS stuff.
  
• Constant deletion of any helpful posts we placed in the Test forum (we now have one sticky)
  
• No interaction with the development team.
  

I'm the only player left from one of the first guilds on PTS and I'm playing on a live server. (Population is low enough that there isn't much difference.) All the others have simply stopped playing. As an example of the type of interaction I was looking for, we had one level 50 developer join our guild so he could test out some of the new guild features. (If I remember right, that was before any of us hit level 40.)

 

Having normal players on Test will lead to finding problems that will never be looked at by transferred in players. For example, no one who has a character copied to the server will look at Codex issues. That simply isn't of value to a copied character.

 

For those of you who can't understand why anyone would want to play on a Test server, don't bother trying. We simply are "different". I've never asked for special treatment or rewards. I simply enjoy exploring area and digging out bugs.

[HelinCarnate]

You couldn't be much more wrong.

 

With software, there is ALWAYS something to test and with MMOs there's more than most others.

 

Some folks will hop on a test server to just test new patches/updates--and most of those are to check out the new shiney things. But that means they are limited by the fact that they are only hopping on for that reason. Others actually plan out their testing in order to find unintended changes, processes, and so forth. Intensive testing including attempting to break things.. To do that, you can't just roll a new character and test. You need to be established as well as having a base-group of people you know and trust to test with.

 

The OP of this thread and at least one other person posting do this. You'd be shocked at the literal game-breaking bugs/issues/exploits/etc. that get caught by these people and squashed by devs. As I said earlier, hopefully Bioware will soon realize the value of these folks. They come with some pretty high-level credentials and recommendations.

 

Speaking of wrong....

 

Since the devs only update the PTS for major patches, any bugs or exploits found are useless because it is not the same thing as what is live. For that matter, what is normally on the test server will never go to live. When they open the test server for 1.3, then you should start actual testing.

 

Is this how it should work? IMHO, no. But that is how it is. Currently the devs value secrecy of new patches more than having decent testing done on those patches.

Edited June 2, 2012 by HelinCarnate

[Aurojiin]

So, basically... we have some people who expect the PTS to deliver a similar standard of service to live servers?

 

You guys have issues.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Aurojiin

[Goretzu]

Exactly! I lived on the EQ1 test server. It was a great community! We didn't have the population related problems that the live community players had to deal with and the low population made game play dramatically different.

 

We constantly interacted with the development team, who used to put together pickup groups to test new features.

 

I started here on PTS with the hopes of building the same type of community. And, that community began to develop, but support kept putting up barriers, which have pretty much killed it.

• No forum for players to use to discuss PTS stuff.
  
• Constant deletion of any helpful posts we placed in the Test forum (we now have one sticky)
  
• No interaction with the development team.
  

I'm the only player left from one of the first guilds on PTS and I'm playing on a live server. (Population is low enough that there isn't much difference.) All the others have simply stopped playing. As an example of the type of interaction I was looking for, we had one level 50 developer join our guild so he could test out some of the new guild features. (If I remember right, that was before any of us hit level 40.)

 

Having normal players on Test will lead to finding problems that will never be looked at by transferred in players. For example, no one who has a character copied to the server will look at Codex issues. That simply isn't of value to a copied character.

 

For those of you who can't understand why anyone would want to play on a Test server, don't bother trying. We simply are "different". I've never asked for special treatment or rewards. I simply enjoy exploring area and digging out bugs.

 

 

 

Yup it's a strange one. Functional Test commumities like EQ1's were a huge boon to Devs, and you have to wonder how many of the patch bugs that went Live a Test community like EQ1's would have caught for the Devs.

[Ashlian]

Speaking of wrong....

 

Since the devs only update the PTS for major patches, any bugs or exploits found are useless because it is not the same thing as what is live. For that matter, what is normally on the test server will never go to live. When they open the test server for 1.3, then you should start actual testing.

 

Is this how it should work? IMHO, no. But that is how it is. Currently the devs value secrecy of new patches more than having decent testing done on those patches.

 

And frankly, I have failed to understand any part of BW's thinking in not having a fully updated Test server, and the old excuse I continue to hear that "it's their first MMO" doesn't hold much water with me when only a few years' experience as an MMO PLAYER would be enough for any dev to have a decent idea of a good system to follow. It wasn't just EQ1 that had a permanent test server. EQ2 did as well, and considering what we all saw make it live, every EQ2 player knew how much got caught on Test that we never saw. If one bug made it live, there were a hundred that got caught by the permanent community on Test.

 

As a longtime player since the launch of EQ1, I played occasionally on Test when they were looking for additional info from copied toons or toons given immediate max level and gear through a buffbot process before an expac arrived. Just that occasional feedback took serious time and effort if you did it right. I didn't have the time or energy to play on Test in addition to a regular server, and I had the utmost respect for the people who chose to make it their permanent home. They made a huge difference to the rest of us. And it is disappointing that BW thinks their inhouse QA can possibly match a permanent Test community. No chance.

 

Asking for refunds for time lost on Test might be asking too much, but asking BW why they don't support an actual Test community on a permanent Test server is not. The people who think otherwise must not want a game that's very well tested. There is no WAY that any QA team tests with anything like the breadth of a Test community, in large part because they're mainly testing only the newest content and rarely create characters to play through. They make them the level they want them and test from that. I hope they change their policy at some point, but honestly, I don't blame the hardcore testers for abandoning the game. And what a loss.

[Daethorz]

PTS: Ment for testing and nothing but testing.

They can take it down or put it up any time they wish without any rules.

 

If your freind is having issues on the "Public Game", then mabye try a different server or a server located near that person?

 

Either way: PTS is for testing, not playing.

[blindxsecrets]

I've never actually played too much on a Test Server before, but for TOR I was (and still am) really interested in playing there often and trying to grind a toon the "honest" way. I don't see a problem with someone making their home the PTS, and I think that what those testers do is amazing and they shouldn't be penalized for playing on a Test Server because of all the hard work they do. But then again, Bio does have the ability to shut it down whenever they see fit so I guess there is the threat of random downtime if you play there.

 

PTS's page does say it's up and the pop is light. Maybe it'll be officially back in the next day or two?

 

BTW I'd love to see a community going over there and if there are any guilds I'd be happy to join it.

Edited June 4, 2012 by blindxsecrets

[qAsandra]

Just to clear up a few things....I am the "friend with a bad computer" and for the record, I have not always had lag issues. I started playing in early access and my PC ran just fine, except for 2 areas, until 1.1. It wasn't lag that made me start playing on the PTS, I went there to test this game and minimal lag was just an added plus to playing there. I still play on live, just not on my PC. I know I need a new video card in mine, but the lag issue is not all client side and I don't have a mom or dad to buy me one like some of you little trolls do. Why won't mom and dad buy me a new one? Because I AM the Mom and I have my own little troll to support. As for choosing a server closer to me, I live in Colorado, east or west, it doesn't matter, I'm stuck in the middle.

 

All I wanted to do there is level a toon to 50 and test the "future content". I know the risks of playing on a test server, but it is MY choice and I never asked for compensation for down time.

 

In any case, find another topic of conversation besides me and my "bad computer".

[deags]

Just to clear up a few things....I am the "friend with a bad computer" and for the record, I have not always had lag issues. I started playing in early access and my PC ran just fine, except for 2 areas, until 1.1. It wasn't lag that made me start playing on the PTS, I went there to test this game and minimal lag was just an added plus to playing there. I still play on live, just not on my PC. I know I need a new video card in mine, but the lag issue is not all client side and I don't have a mom or dad to buy me one like some of you little trolls do. Why won't mom and dad buy me a new one? Because I AM the Mom and I have my own little troll to support. As for choosing a server closer to me, I live in Colorado, east or west, it doesn't matter, I'm stuck in the middle.

 

All I wanted to do there is level a toon to 50 and test the "future content". I know the risks of playing on a test server, but it is MY choice and I never asked for compensation for down time.

 

In any case, find another topic of conversation besides me and my "bad computer".

 

Well case closed then, you chose the server knowing the risk and you are willing to wear it, your friend (the OP) should just do the same, nothing more to discuss here really.

Edited June 4, 2012 by deags