So about that CLOSED beta testing????

[TUXs]

1.) We asked for a public test. This is a FACT. It's not up for debate.

2.) They chose to NOT have a public test. This is a FACT.

3.) The me launched with more bugs and regressions than acceptable. FACT.

4.) The overall product would have been more polished if they ran several builds through PTS. FACT.

 

Not to argue with you Anzel, because I think your points are very valid, but...call me a skeptic, but I don't think they've ever paid enough attention to testing for it to have made any difference at all. They seem to view PTS as a preview server, nothing more.

[AmericanNate]

Im still trying to wrap head around OP saying game is barely playable because the final boss is bugged.

 

One fight (and only if you do it solo is it undoable normally) doesnt make a entire product unplayable

 

YES, I also do not understand how this bug made it to release if ANY testing was done

Its NOT a server side bug

Its NOT a Lag issue

and it IS repeatable (IE: Happens more times then not) so easy to see.

 

There is a fundamental design flaw/issue in the final fight (IE using a dot more often then not breaks the fight and one of the NPCs that is always in fight has a dot attack). And the bugged portion of fight stems from that DOT ability thats applied by that NPC.

 

You can do EVERYTHING RIGHT on your side and the fight remains bugged because a NPC applies the DOT.

 

HOW does that make it past testing (if testing was truly done)

 

But thats 1 fight at the very end.

How that suddenly makes the entire product barely playable is beyond me.

 

But I also see why the product never went to open beta testing

its 2 days old and we are complaining about the final encounter being bugged

meaning a lion share of players already seen and done all (excluding ops that really only matter to a small minority of players anyways)

2 days and we are out of content once again on a PAID expansion

 

Dont get me wrong, loved my 2 days of Shadow of Revan

Rishii and Yacin 4 were great (for what they were)

but doubt ill be here in 363 days from now for the next 2 days worth of new content

Pretty sure Feb 24 will be my last day in SW:TOR because there is just to many good games (starting with Witcher 3 that day) coming out that will not get beat in 2 days.

 

I have guildies that now have 2 level 60s in 15 hours of play

 

Once again EA has shot themselves in foot making it to easy

 

I mean even in Rifts first expansion it held me for over a month with its content and areas

I doubt WOW players will be through all the content in 16 hours of play in their new expansion

 

SOR was a great concept made to easy that it ultimately holds only a few days (at best) of new content

the 5 levels take under 10 hours to acheive when not using xp boosts

the land mass is easily explored and completed

As a single player $3.00 DLC, SOR would be ok

As a $20.00 once a year MMO expansion,

it just doesnt live up to snuff

 

How it made it live through testing is simple. This bug didn't happen in test. This is only a result of being pushed live and interacting with live code. It didn't exist on test.

[Anzel]

Not to argue with you Anzel, because I think your points are very valid, but...call me a skeptic, but I don't think they've ever paid enough attention to testing for it to have made any difference at all. They seem to view PTS as a preview server, nothing more.

 

Having a closed test is good in order to gain focused feedback from a known group of people. That will NEVER give you the same insight as a public beta. People do things that you're not expecting. They click on stuff you haven't thought of. They go through scenarios you never planned.

 

This team ignored the community's request for a public test. They rushed this through so they could get more gambling packs on the market ASAP and get more and more and more money on top of the subs we already pay. I don't mind paying my sub. I don't mind paying extra for actual "extra" stuff. But this deployment was crap.

[LordArtemis]

I don't remember from the last time I was in testing....do PTS testers have to pay for skills?

[Kalfear]

Not to argue with you Anzel, because I think your points are very valid, but...call me a skeptic, but I don't think they've ever paid enough attention to testing for it to have made any difference at all. They seem to view PTS as a preview server, nothing more.

 

exactly and when your product only has 16 hours of content that free preview could massively backfire

 

They didnt PTS this "expansion" because then word would have leaked out how small of content upgrade t really was.

 

That's why in house private testing (theoretically) was done

 

If word leaked that for $20.00 we were getting 10-16 hours of actual game play (+ 2 ops) I think many pre orders would have not happened.

 

Love what there is of SOR

"But once again its far to little and far to easy"

 

EA could not take the chance that such a small content update got exposed before they collected as many pre orders as they could.

 

For a MMO expansion this honestly should have been 10-20 times larger then it was for same amount of money charged

[Orizuru]

There is zero guarantee that an open beta would have made any difference.

 

Open betas are terrible sources for bug reports. Open betas are used almost entirely by both gaming studios and players as nothing more than an early preview or promotional material. Players just want to get in so they can say they saw it first. Bloggers and game reviewers just want in so they can try to be the first to publish a review. Devs just want as many people as possible in the game for stress tests and free advertising.

 

The bug reports are the last thing on anyone's mind during a public beta. The bulk majority of bug reports come from internal tests done by paid professionals and these are always the smallest group of testers that ever see the product before its released.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Orizuru

[KTap]

apparently I said too much Edited December 4, 2014 by KTap

[Sorwen]

Remember when everyone was all like, "Hey are you guys going to test this massive, fundamental change to the game we all pay for?"... and you guys were all like, "Oh, we're doing a special secret test. It'll be great!".

 

Yeah. Not so much. How about next time you know, maybe test something this big with people willing to help you out FOR FREE so that we aren't left with a bug ridden, barely playable system. Just because it builds on *your machine doesn't mean it's ok to deploy. Grace Hopper is rolling in her grave somewhere.

I just figured we all secretly were working for the Quality Assurance department and are just waiting for our first check.

[Drake_Hound]

Well have decided have beter things to do in my life then test a buggy laggy piece of crap.

So good luck testing, guess my original prediction will come true after all

 

Shame was good creative work, sadly implementation and people ego again stood in the way.

Too much balance and too little thought of fun.

Sounds exactly like original release maybe in 6 months all the flaws will be worked out.

Or wait other games waiting for me, that are more fun then this, especially during holiday season.

[LordArtemis]

There is zero guarantee that an open beta would have made any difference.

 

Open betas are terrible sources for bug reports. Open betas are used almost entirely by both gaming studios and players as nothing more than an early preview or promotional material. Players just want to get in so they can say they saw it first. Bloggers and game reviewers just want in so they can try to be the first to publish a review. Devs just want as many people as possible in the game for stress tests and free advertising.

 

The bug reports are the last thing on anyone's mind during a public beta. The bulk majority of bug reports come from internal tests done by paid professionals and these are always the smallest group of testers that ever see the product before its released.

 

It is a good point. Open betas in the past did little to stem bugs...either they were not discovered until it hit live, or they were reported and remained unfixed when it went live.

 

This is a general comment of course. This was not always the case.

[Anzel]

Well have decided have beter things to do in my life then test a buggy laggy piece of crap.

So good luck testing, guess my original prediction will come true after all

 

Shame was good creative work, sadly implementation and people ego again stood in the way.

Too much balance and too little thought of fun.

Sounds exactly like original release maybe in 6 months all the flaws will be worked out.

Or wait other games waiting for me, that are more fun then this, especially during holiday season.

 

And here lies the problem. Measure twice, cut once. If they just took a little bit of extra time to properly test such an enormous change to the system they would have had a smash hit. Instead they have a bug ridden deployment that is most likely hemorrhaging subs.

[Kirazy]

What exactly is 'bug ridden' and 'barely playable'? I've been playing all day yesterday and today so far with zero issues.

 

You must not have been to Yavin.

[Anzel]

You must not have been to Yavin.

 

I also believe that the training costs at level 56-60 are bugs as well. At least I keep telling myself that.

[MillionsKNives]

1.) We asked for a public test. This is a FACT. It's not up for debate.

2.) They chose to NOT have a public test. This is a FACT.

3.) The me launched with more bugs and regressions than acceptable. FACT.

4.) The overall product would have been more polished if they ran several builds through PTS. FACT.

 

Someone needs to reread the definition of "fact".

[AmericanNate]

And here lies the problem. Measure twice, cut once. If they just took a little bit of extra time to properly test such an enormous change to the system they would have had a smash hit. Instead they have a bug ridden deployment that is most likely hemorrhaging subs.

 

Oh please. How about we dial back the hyperbole a bit shall we. There are ZERO MMOs that launch expansions or patches with no bugs. I can name 3 right now that I've played in the last 12 months that had major issues upon patch release. Quite a few of these bugs didn't exist on test and only came about when the patch got put into the hurricane that is live. You act like no game ever has had issues with new releases, and issues ONLY happen in this game. Pfffft, hemorrhagic and subs. Lol, this is early access only. It'll be fixed

[Orizuru]

It is a good point. Open betas in the past did little to stem bugs...either they were not discovered until it hit live, or they were reported and remained unfixed when it went live.

 

This is a general comment of course. This was not always the case.

 

Its actually fairly routine in the software industry. Even for software that isn't gaming related.

 

I did an internship while I was in college with a company that produced accounting software. My job was to organize the test groups. We had paid testers in the office who were responsible for finding bugs and submitting reports on how to best fix them. In some cases, these testers were also programmers and would even re-write some of the code. We also had groups of users who had volunteered, usually with a promise for a discount on their next upgrade. We would never allow the public testers to meet with the paid testers because the public testers where not allowed to know what role they were really playing. They submitted bug reports, but nobody was reading them. What were actually doing was allowing them to think they were helping us find bugs, while we were just monitoring how they used the software. We would track how many used tab keys to navigate around versus clicking into a field with the mouse cursor. We would track the order they clicked on things so we could try to reduce the distance the mouse cursor had to travel during repetitive tasks.

 

What I'm getting at though, is each wave of testing and each group of testers withing those waves had a very specific role they were playing. In some cases they were aware of their role and they were given specific goals that they were to achieve. However, these tests were always done by in-house professional testers because they were the ones that we could trust to follow the instructions and return with good reports on the results. Any testing that was done with volunteers and users was always done with some kind of goal that involved nothing more than simple metrics. We didn't really care what they did, as long a they were doing something. It was setup so that as long as they were using the software in some capacity, we were getting the results for specific metrics.

[venomlash]

ALL HAlL THE MEAT TREE

[Arkerus]

What am I reading?

 

/facepalm

Edited December 4, 2014 by Arkerus

[AmericanNate]

What am I reading?

 

/facepalm

 

I wish I knew

[Sarfux]

There are little glitches it seems but it's not unplayable or anything like that. That's just exaggeration.

[Anzel]

There are little glitches it seems but it's not unplayable or anything like that. That's just exaggeration.

 

I would invite you to look at the Dev Tracker and/or the Bug section and/or the Customer Service section. Or... go visit Yavin. Have fun

[Andryah]

Its actually fairly routine in the software industry. Even for software that isn't gaming related.

 

I did an internship while I was in college with a company that produced accounting software. My job was to organize the test groups. We had paid testers in the office who were responsible for finding bugs and submitting reports on how to best fix them. In some cases, these testers were also programmers and would even re-write some of the code. We also had groups of users who had volunteered, usually with a promise for a discount on their next upgrade. We would never allow the public testers to meet with the paid testers because the public testers where not allowed to know what role they were really playing. They submitted bug reports, but nobody was reading them. What were actually doing was allowing them to think they were helping us find bugs, while we were just monitoring how they used the software. We would track how many used tab keys to navigate around versus clicking into a field with the mouse cursor. We would track the order they clicked on things so we could try to reduce the distance the mouse cursor had to travel during repetitive tasks.

 

What I'm getting at though, is each wave of testing and each group of testers withing those waves had a very specific role they were playing. In some cases they were aware of their role and they were given specific goals that they were to achieve. However, these tests were always done by in-house professional testers because they were the ones that we could trust to follow the instructions and return with good reports on the results. Any testing that was done with volunteers and users was always done with some kind of goal that involved nothing more than simple metrics. We didn't really care what they did, as long a they were doing something. It was setup so that as long as they were using the software in some capacity, we were getting the results for specific metrics.

 

^^ Exactly.

 

The above comments dove-tail very well with my experience managing large software projects over the years.

 

UAT, as a practice, is poorly understood by the consumer.

[Andryah]

I would invite you to look at the Dev Tracker and/or the Bug section and/or the Customer Service section. Or... go visit Yavin. Have fun

 

With respect......folks with your temperament, IMO, really should not play new releases of games, or game patches, or expacs. You simply lack the patience to do so. So... wait a few weeks, after all the spiders and roaches that are making you scream are squashed by professionals.

 

You need bug free?.... then wait until something is bug free. I don't see the point when playing an MMO, since you can easily do other things until some bug is fixed... but hey.. different strokes I guess.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Andryah

[azudelphi]

With respect......folks with your temperament, IMO, really should not play new releases of game, or game patches, or expacs. You simply lack the patience to do so. So... wait a few weeks, after all the **** roaches that are making you scream are squashed by professionals.

 

Sorry, I had to laugh at the censorship of that bug,

[Andryah]

Sorry, I had to laugh at the censorship of that bug,

 

LOL.. yeah. I had to expand the list of "bugs" to get rid of that.