Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Game Testing - Which side are you on?

    • 9115 posts
    September 17, 2015 4:18 AM PDT

    Game testing - some like doing it and others would rather wait until the game is released, which side are you on, and will you be helping us test Pantheon?

     

    http://on.fb.me/1LzZTQj

    • 366 posts
    September 17, 2015 4:52 AM PDT

    Looking forward to helping you guys make Pantheon a great game (testing)! 


    This post was edited by Zarriya at September 19, 2015 5:03 PM PDT
    • 338 posts
    September 17, 2015 5:14 AM PDT

    I'm willing to do anything I can to help test Pantheon...

     

    Daily bug reports, trying to break everything, long winded theory crafting sessions, rallying some troops to test raid content, help stress test the servers... whatever is needed.

     

    Honestly there are lots of smaller mmo's coming up but none of them have any appeal to me... those games are not the spiritual successor to my favorite games of all time like Pantheon is.

     

    IRL I'm semi retired doing only a handful of projects a year... can't wait to jump into Terminus and do my part to get it ready for the masses.

     

     

    Thanks to the Pantheon team for all your hard work,

    Kiz~

    • 5 posts
    September 17, 2015 5:22 AM PDT

    Can't wait to do some testing...really looking forward to it.

    • 3 posts
    September 17, 2015 5:28 AM PDT

    Like i said on the Facebook Page: I would Love to Test the Game! I am looking for that one MMO experience that i have had for over 10 years on EQ2. I have tried all the latest and greatest MMO's and nothing has captured what I'm looking for. I think if i would get into test of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen I could really get the feel what the game is going to offer! For that reason that's why I pledged $150 to try to make that search for the experience happen! So yes I am in on any testing you would like to have!!

    • 9115 posts
    September 17, 2015 5:28 AM PDT

    That is really awesome to hear. I look forward to seeing you all in testing :)

    • 16 posts
    September 17, 2015 5:34 AM PDT

    Really looking forward to put my teeth into Pantheon and help you guys with testing the game and make sure we will have an great game!

     

    Xardu

     

     


    This post was edited by Xardu at September 19, 2015 5:04 PM PDT
    • 557 posts
    September 17, 2015 6:01 AM PDT

    OK, so I'm going to be the stick in the mud here - partially.

     

    I'm excited to test Pantheon, having been involved in testing previous games, doing extensive bug reporting, etc...   In fact I've been doing it professionally for various software projects for the past 15 years.

     

    However, I will say that being involved in Vanguard from Alpha did pretty much ruin the game for me.  After investing a lot of time and energy as a tester/player I was completely disheartened by the shape the game was in at launch.   I quit a month or two after launch and I don't think I ever went back.   If I had discovered Vanguard later when it was more stable, I probably would have played it until the day they turned off the lights on the server.

     

    During Alpha, you expect major bugs such as falling through the world, mobs warping, broken quest interactions, etc...   New features are still being added and our primary reason for existing in game as players at this point should be to provide feedback and help the devs find all the unexpected things that can and will go wrong.  In closed Beta, typically there's a freeze on addition of major game elements and we're strictly testing what was added during various Alpha roll outs.  We're still seeing big bad bugs, server wipes and all the stuff that's part of the testing ecosystem in a pre-launch MMO.  Public Beta's are now mostly about stress and load testing and have essentially become the new launch of a game.  Most public betas are now paid and the bulk of players are there for more of a jump start.  Like a Christmas present, they are eager to unwrap it and will toss it aside quickly if it doesn't meet their expectations.  NDA's are tossed aside normally by this point as the devs are looking for maximum coverage and buzz for the new game.  Significant bugs or any problems in Beta show up as negative press in game reviews in countless vlogs and forum threads.   The real testing by players has already been done by this point.  The only real testers in Beta are the ops/admin teams who are looking to see how shards and back end systems are performing under load.

     

    So ya, I'm really looking forward to helping make Pantheon the best game it possibly can be by public Beta, but not without some bitter sweet memories of games gone by.


    This post was edited by Celandor at September 17, 2015 6:59 PM PDT
    • 105 posts
    September 17, 2015 6:14 AM PDT

    I'm also looking forward to testing.  

    • 81 posts
    September 17, 2015 6:27 AM PDT

    It depends on the game that I am being asked to test. I get emails to test a wide variety of games. I end up testing a lot of First Person Shooters and MMO's. First Person Shooters, however, do not have much dev interaction. After the test concludes, there is a survey gathering info but that's about it. MMO's tend to be more in depth. I have been in several MMO betas but spending most of my time in EQ2, WoW, and Vanguard. Those are the games I cared most about, so they were given a majority of my testing attention.

     

    My wife used to work with a guy who was in EQ alpha if I recall or at least one of the earliest non-in-house tester groups. He was the one who introduced me to game testing and the site where you could register so companies could contact you for testing. It has been so long now I can't even remember the name of the site. Out of all the games I have tested the most enjoyable was Vanguard. I was in pretty early, and the cool thing was the dev interaction. As a tester, you felt like your comments and feedback mattered. We would meet with certain devs regularly to provide feedback about classes. Our likes and dislikes and so on. It was cool to see our ideas implemented. Although not all of our ideas were used, I still felt like our opinions were evaluated.

     

    I look forward to having a similar testing experience testing Pantheon when I find the invitation in my inbox!

    • 148 posts
    September 17, 2015 6:40 AM PDT
    Celandor said:

    OK, so I'm going to be the stick in the mud here - partially.

     

    I'm excited to test Pantheon, having been involved in testing previous games, doing extensive bug reporting, etc...   In fact I've been doing it professionally for various software projects for the past 15 years.

     

    However, I will say that being involved in Vanguard from Alpha did pretty much ruin the game for me.  After investing a lot of time and energy as a tester/player I was completely disheartened by the shape the game was in at launch.   I quit a month or two after launch and I don't think I ever went back.   If I had discovered Vanguard later when it was more stable, I probably would have played it until the day they turned off the lights on the server.

     

    During Alpha, you expect major bugs such as falling through the world, mobs warping, broken quest interactions, etc...   New features are still being added and our primary reason for existing in game as players at this point should be to provide feedback and help the devs find all the unexpected things that can and will go wrong.  In closed Beta, typically there's a freeze on addition of major game elements and we're strictly testing what was added during various Alpha roll outs.  We're still seeing big bad bugs, server wipes and all the stuff that's part of the testing ecosystem in a pre-launch MMO.  Public Beta's are now mostly about stress and load testing and have essentially become the new launch of a game.  Most public betas are now paid and the bulk of players are there for more of a jump start.  Like a Christmas present, they are eager to unwrap it and will toss it aside quickly if it doesn't meet their expectations.  NDA's are tossed aside normally by this point as the devs are looking for maximum coverage and buzz for the new game.  Significant bugs or any problems in Beta show up as negative press in game reviews in countless vlogs and forum threads.   The real testing by players has already been done by this point.  The only real testers in Beta are the ops/admin teams who are looking to see how shards and back end systems are performing under load.

     

    So ya, I'm really looking forward to helping make Pantheon the best game it possibly can be by public Beta, but not without some bitter sweet memories of games gone by.

     

    I have to agree with this. I also tested Vanguard from the start and didn't touch it after the first free month of buying the game at release for the same reasons. I've beta tested a slew of other MMO's and am always eager to help, but I have found that playing less during testing and a class / race you don't plan to play at launch is better, as sometimes it ends up spoiling the game come launch.

    • 62 posts
    September 17, 2015 7:17 AM PDT

    With all the games that come out early or are unfinished... if I'm being honest, I'm kind of burnt out. I think I'd rather wait for the finished product. Maybe that's lazy of me, lol - but I don't want to see the bad and what isn't working anymore. I just want to see the polished, finished product!

    • 154 posts
    September 17, 2015 7:45 AM PDT

    I am excited for the testing process. I have never done it before normally because I had more interesting games to occupy my time instead of half baked ones (or so I thought). When Pantheon eventually does get released I will probably be one of the most casual players on the Forums but I really want to do the testing and participate in the game so I can help make it great for everyone else to get a chance to enjoy it. Everquest ended up meaning so much to me growing up and I really want to help give the chance for others to have that same sort of feeling.

     

    Oh yeah and it will be super cool!!!! :)

    • 9115 posts
    September 17, 2015 7:52 AM PDT
    Perplexing89 said:

    With all the games that come out early or are unfinished... if I'm being honest, I'm kind of burnt out. I think I'd rather wait for the finished product. Maybe that's lazy of me, lol - but I don't want to see the bad and what isn't working anymore. I just want to see the polished, finished product!

    Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all mate, I know a lot of people in the same boat, I burnt out testing ArcheAge through Alpha, Beta and then Launch (4 max level characters, 2 before the game even launched), it was painful to even log in which sucked because I had so many friends playing it and having fun! :) 

    • 429 posts
    September 17, 2015 8:29 AM PDT

    Looking forward to falling through YOUR world :) can't wait to swat them bugs .


    This post was edited by Shea at September 24, 2015 12:21 PM PDT
    • 160 posts
    September 17, 2015 8:29 AM PDT

    I can test the game, and I would even love to do it, provided a few things:

     

    1) The developers need to tell us >>what exactly needs to be tested<<.

    If you don't give us any specific targets, we'll go around aimlessly and do what we usually do in MMOs - level up, get items, level up some more.

    We might report bugs as we find them, but it leads to 100 people reporting the same bug again and again.

     

    2) Critical issues really need to be looked at, and fixed, not ignored.

    Example: I was in Vanguard since... it was called beta 2 or something. The most critical issue of all was that the graphic was extremely slow. I threw about $2000 worth of upgrades onto my PC, in addition to hardware that was in it to begin with, which brought Vanguard from "unplayable" to "somewhat playable solo and in small groups". Raids? No way. And that was on a rig that, if not the fastest PC in the world at the time, was maybe within 5% of that.

    And people talked about it. The talk was, half the time, drowned out by a chorus of fanboys who kept saying "it's a debug build, it will be fixed at launch". It wasn't and it wasn't. And we all know the consequences. People tried and left. By the time graphic was sped up a bit, a lot of the initial players were gone. Eventually the paying player-base was not sufficient to support any new development, and it all went nowhere.

     

    How does this relate to testing? Simple: the most critical problem was ignored.

    What, then, was the purpose of testing?

     

    If I know that something is being done about issues we find, I will put some serious time into it, and I will test, find and report issues.

     

     

    • 89 posts
    September 17, 2015 9:50 AM PDT

    I am interested in testing the game as well. I really want this game to be around for years so if we can help make the release smooth all the better.

    • 384 posts
    September 17, 2015 1:13 PM PDT
    I'm really looking forward to testing Pantheon! The first mmo I beta tested on was Dark Age of Camelot and I couldn't tell you how many since. I was trying remember if I was in VG's beta, I think I was but the state of the game at launch was such that I'm not sure. :) I hope I can contribute on some way to Pantheon's development. I think I give pretty good feedback and I'm really good at breaking **** too! :)
    • 378 posts
    September 17, 2015 3:08 PM PDT

    Me and the Rift are waiting to test ;)

    • 9115 posts
    September 17, 2015 6:17 PM PDT
    Aethor said:

    I can test the game, and I would even love to do it, provided a few things:

     

    1) The developers need to tell us >>what exactly needs to be tested<<.

    If you don't give us any specific targets, we'll go around aimlessly and do what we usually do in MMOs - level up, get items, level up some more.

    We might report bugs as we find them, but it leads to 100 people reporting the same bug again and again.

     

    2) Critical issues really need to be looked at, and fixed, not ignored.

    Example: I was in Vanguard since... it was called beta 2 or something. The most critical issue of all was that the graphic was extremely slow. I threw about $2000 worth of upgrades onto my PC, in addition to hardware that was in it to begin with, which brought Vanguard from "unplayable" to "somewhat playable solo and in small groups". Raids? No way. And that was on a rig that, if not the fastest PC in the world at the time, was maybe within 5% of that.

    And people talked about it. The talk was, half the time, drowned out by a chorus of fanboys who kept saying "it's a debug build, it will be fixed at launch". It wasn't and it wasn't. And we all know the consequences. People tried and left. By the time graphic was sped up a bit, a lot of the initial players were gone. Eventually the paying player-base was not sufficient to support any new development, and it all went nowhere.

     

    How does this relate to testing? Simple: the most critical problem was ignored.

    What, then, was the purpose of testing?

     

    If I know that something is being done about issues we find, I will put some serious time into it, and I will test, find and report issues.

     

     

    Just to touch on #1, I understand what you're getting at but this isn't always a good thing, it is great to have some direction and there will be many times that the team issues specific instructions to test a specific element of the game but giving specific details for every test session removes the randomness of finding issues/exploits/bugs etc. for example, if the Devs ask everyone to just test combat on human mobs, there is no telling that it will have the same effect on undead or other races when different AI and spells/abilities come into play, so letting everyone run wild while we record that data is actually more beneficial to us for a lot of the testing. The more people reporting the same bug the more information and chance of reproducing it which leads to a solid fix, so it does help us even though it may sound like extra work to you guys :)

     

    #2 is a bit more complicated than that and I feel your pain with VG as I was one of those testers from early Alpha through to launch, but this isn't VG, we have a smaller and more dedicated team that is relying on everyones feedback and testing to help us capture as many issues as possible before launch, we are already internally testing some aspects now, I can't even count the number of pages of bugs/suggestions that I have reported to the team and the majority of those get patched within the week. So I think you will find this testing experience will be a lot different to VG's beta 8-9 years ago by a different company ;)

     

    Please don't let other companies bad experiences testing dampen your mindset for our testing, many of us have experienced those testing sessions too and know how we felt during them, so I wouldn't worry about seeing it happen here. We appreciate everyones feedback and support and you can expect to see a lot of Dev interaction during testing phases and of course, I will be there to relay as much information as possible too.

     

    On a side note, I worked with Daniel Krenn, our Technical Director to help put together a nice bug reporting tool for in-game, which I think you guys will like a lot and it will make the reporting process much easier for everyone :)

    • 2138 posts
    September 17, 2015 7:07 PM PDT

    I am willing to help test

    • 999 posts
    September 17, 2015 7:21 PM PDT

    Sign me up to test; however, similar to Aethor, I believe some direction given on what to test is a good thing, but I do agree with your point Kilsin that the majority should be unscripted as the random unintended gameplay by players are usually where the bugs are found.  However, I don't think it's a bad idea to provide some sort of guidelines of what's expected of a tester, or, you will get many who will just use the testing phase as early access to play the game (which is how I would interpret Aethor's point #1 on guided testing).

    • 557 posts
    September 17, 2015 8:02 PM PDT
    Kilsin said:

     

    On a side note, I worked with Daniel Krenn, our Technical Director to help put together a nice bug reporting tool for in-game, which I think you guys will like a lot and it will make the reporting process much easier for everyone :)

     

    That is simply awesome.   Having good back end tools will make all the difference.   Certainly the software industry as a whole (including gaming) has matured substantially in the past decade.  We're seeing far more sophisticated tools and the concept of crowd sourcing feedback has grown right along with this.

     

    Now I'm even more excited.

     

    I hate you, Kilsin.

     

    • 41 posts
    September 17, 2015 8:19 PM PDT
    Kilsin said:

    Game testing - some like doing it and others would rather wait until the game is released, which side are you on, and will you be helping us test Pantheon?

     

    http://on.fb.me/1LzZTQj

     

    Most definetly willing to test here.  I think most of us who have donated are willing to test for the good of the game.  Someone else had a great idea in previous threads --- When testing, play a race/class you ordinarily wouldnt play during the actual game.  It will keep the true live-experience fresh!

    • 724 posts
    September 17, 2015 11:25 PM PDT

    I'm looking forward to testing. As I've said before already, I really hope there will be a good open bug tracking tool for both the developers AND the players. To avoid multiple bug reports on the same topic, and for the devs to give feedback ("we are aware of this").