Hi.
I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Toñja. I play Niaya and a host of other characters on the test server. As a matter of fact, my test server is full and most of my toons are in the mid to upper teens or higher.
Also, I’m a Software Test Engineer by trade. My main source of income is gained by sitting in front of a computer, being a member of a Quality Assurance (QA) department, working on the company’s games and interfacing with the community (test or otherwise).
I only tell you this because I wanted to give you a bit of insight as to my background and to answer the inevitable questions like “Who does this person think she is?” that could come up by reading the rest of this letter.
I’m writing because I’m concerned, specifically about test, but in about the health and vitality of the game in general. I’ve been silent as long as I could. I understand a community and company in transition. I had to deal with it when I worked for a major wireless company when they were bought out some time ago. I know the jostling. I know the fear and insecurities and I’ve nothing but sympathy for everyone involved. But I think now is the time for everyone to come together as a team and get this train back on track.
See, from my perspective, test players have a bit more tolerance and patience for things because we understand what we are dealing with. We expect a smaller community. We expect the bugs but what we are getting right now is incredibly disconcerting. As such, I’d like to bring my observations to you.
These are my concerns in the order I’m thinking of them – not in the order of importance:
- The alienation of guilds on test
- Don’t get me wrong, I understand “Ted’s Club” is a DEV guild. However the very name is exclusionary. There is a guild on test who is working very hard to grind its members to 50 so they can have a functional raid guild. However, when things are happening on test this guild and other members of the test community who worked their way to 50 are not included. This builds animosity and an “us vs. them” mentality that is not conducive to a healthy test environment
- Proposed solution – Change the “Ted’s Club” Guild name to “Devs”. This is a minor change but it has huge psychological impact. While this is still exclusionary, it now explains WHY it’s exclusionary. Also, I propose when you need something done, take a moment to ask some players on server of the appropriate level if they would like to help out. Explain you have focused testing and they will need to be able to follow directions, but if they are willing to help, let them jump in. This will go a long way towards making the test community feel as if we matter
- The speed at which the patches are released to live
- There have been a few times now where something has been introduced on test on a Friday and put into the build notes for the next patch on Monday. This leads to frustration within the test community because we don’t get adequate time to thoroughly test. Furthermore it adds to the frustration on live because they start asking “why wasn’t this found on test?” Even if we DO find it, there are 16 working hours (assuming 8 hour work days) for the devs who are stretched thin to fix all the bugs we enter. We may be a small community, but we find bugs.
- Proposed solution – Push to test on a Monday. Let the patch live on test until the following Wednesday – a total of 10 days. This will allow the testers to get some time in and hammer out the most glaring of the bugs and it allows the devs the proper time to address the highest priority concerns. One patch a week. Period. This does not push patches out the door quickly, but I’m almost willing to bet that the live community would rather have one patch a week that introduces a minimal of new issues rather than one that has not had appropriate shakedown time on test.
- The vacuum of silence (or inappropriate comments) from the dev staff on test
- This is leading to some serious animosity from the testers (see the us vs. them statement earlier). This needs to be addressed. Is a test server REQUIRED? Nope. Absolutely not. You can pull the plug anytime you want and force all of us to go to live and deal with it. Is it in the best interest for the game to do that? I don’t think so. I speak for myself and my boyfriend when I say we PAY $30/mo for the PRIVILEDGE to play on test. We prefer the smaller community, the opportunity to work with the staff (we had very active staff members on staff before the buyout), and the opportunity to make the game a better place for other players. We get our kicks like that
- Proposed Solution – First – Hire some help for Himmel. This man is taking the slings and arrows of the disgruntled few on test server VERY well. To date he’s not let it get to him. This will not last forever. Eventually he WILL burn out. I hate to see someone with such heart and dedication burnt out and cynical. Second – the impression that “IT does not interface with the public” needs to go. In wireless, that is ok. In an MMO that gets input form the community – not so much. Either there needs to be a QA staff who’s job it is to work with the test community (treat this sort of like a beta until the program undergoes a successful relaunch) or people (on both sides of the computer) need to think before they speak. I know some of the testers get out of line, but comments that have been sent in PM’s and can be screen capped and sent to the test community have detrimental effects on us all. It’s demoralizing and we have so few members already. A little common courtesy is all that is required to make this a little better.
- The lack of testers on test
- I really hate to say this, but right now, we just need warm bodies. I mean it’s really bad when I’m saying “Please, for the love of whatever diety you choose to acknowledge exists (or doesn’t – your choice) Let them doo character transfer! I mean, I’m not keen on character transfer, but it DOES help get people to test. Honestly, we need to do something
- Proposed Solution – Implement a character transfer. Character transfer will create a MIRROR of your character – like a snapshot – of what exists on live. Your live character is still there. When people transfer, they get the gear they are carrying on their back. No gold. Nothing else. Most likely they will want to come to test to do something very specific anyway so the loss of anything they are carrying and their gold will be of little impact. There is no way to transfer your test characters back to live. Period. It’s a one way snapshot. If a name conflict occurs, randomly assign a number to the end of the name. This is test server. I love to RP as much as those on the RP server, but on test – there is no time.
I have a few more floating around in my brain right now, but I’ve taken enough of your time. I really hope you take this as intended. A simple letter of concern from a tester who not only loves to game but used to come home and be thrilled to log in just to see my friends and the staff on test. I spent the last week reading over SOA’s rather than gaming… I chose to work over play and that is a sad state to be in.
May your die always land natural 20,
Toñja – aka – Naiya Bladesinger