Ideas for testing

[cazador]

Ok the issue with publishes being dropped with bugs is worse then the bugs they are trying to fix so I'm suggesting this simply to enhance the bug testing process

Ask yourself how many actually log on to test to "test" for bugs and things like that I'm willing to bet only a handful...so with that in mind give some incentive to get the community involved rather then laying the brunt of it on the dev team but we all know people don't do anything just for the sake of doing it best way especially in UO as well as many other titles is pixel crack..nothing super good balance wise but hell give something rare let them sell the pixel crack that is what this game pretty much is now..now please don't give me the argument oh I play to play I test to test I want nothing in return because oh that great but you ARE in the minority so I propose items of a sort that are redeemable on any shard 10-20 hours of testing and you receive a robe named (I was a tester for Publish"insert #") now this is for major publishes not like hot fixes or whatever..if you submit a bug that has not already been addressed in a specific bug forum or page on UO.com you receive sandals with a 4% random eater named I found a bug in publish whatever it needs a better way of finding it etc but it would at least provide some incentive for the majority of the player base to test and help the devs do a good job rather then doing nothing and complaining about it which is also the majority..ideas?

 

[Petra Fyde]

To be honest, I test stuff on test center in an attempt to avoid losing stuff and having bad things happen to my regular characters. I find that sufficient incentive.

While your idea might have merit for more mercenary players, there's also a danger of people clogging up the system with invented bugs which waste lots of dev time in the hopes of tricking them out of an item they can sell as a 'rare'.

 

[Merus]

IMO they need a QA team that is paid AND held accountable for testing. Hire some people in house, hire some players remotely... I really don't care, but leaving the testing to the general population is an extremely poor strategy.

Customers are not paying for a work in progress, we are paying for a finished product. I don't buy a shirt and expect to go home and sew up the holes, I don't buy a car and expect to go home and finish building the engine.

 

[cazador]

To be honest, I test stuff on test center in an attempt to avoid losing stuff and having bad things happen to my regular characters. I find that sufficient incentive.

While your idea might have merit for more mercenary players, there's also a danger of people clogging up the system with invented bugs which waste lots of dev time in the hopes of tricking them out of an item they can sell as a 'rare'.

I agree with you on that but how many people find bugs on test say nothing and wait to see if they can exploit it..it needs to be a better system for bugs there are maybe at best 20-30 people that test to test..and I think that may be stressing it..all I ever see people on test doing is making super armor to go pvp at the gate not to actually test these huge publishes..I am guilty of that as well I can't lie the only thing I ever tested was Despise for about half hour and didn't like it..and then I character copied recently to see how bad the golem nerf was..I mean in all honesty I wouldn't even test for a rare pixel item i was just stating that the majority of the game actually would ..

IMO they need a QA team that is paid AND held accountable for testing. Hire some people in house, hire some players remotely... I really don't care, but leaving the testing to the general population is an extremely poor strategy.

Customers are not paying for a work in progress, we are paying for a finished product. I don't buy a shirt and expect to go home and sew up the holes, I don't buy a car and expect to go home and finish building the engine.

Unfortunately that has been a complaint FOREVER! and it'll never change it is sad but true..this game has been in downward spiral bug and gameplay wise ever since RG left..don't get me wrong EA has pumped out tons of content since..AOS Sam Empire Mondain legacy high seas Stygian abyss and 2 boosters..but the gameplay has just gotten worse and worse..but that is just my opinion it isn't fact minus the drop in subs

 

[Lythos-]

If you leave it to hours logged in then you'll have people simply staying logged in long enough to achieve the reward. Make it an EM event. Have the EM's gather groups of players to abuse the fixes and give rewards when finished.

But i do partly agree with Merus there with the exception that they don't need to hire paid people to test. They just need a solid group of volunteer test teams and longer wait times between Test Center patch and public release. They also need to all play the game themselves on regular non staff characters. We don't know the code changes and what it effects...THEY DO.

 

[Rumpy]

To be honest, I test stuff on test center in an attempt to avoid losing stuff and having bad things happen to my regular characters. I find that sufficient incentive.

While your idea might have merit for more mercenary players, there's also a danger of people clogging up the system with invented bugs which waste lots of dev time in the hopes of tricking them out of an item they can sell as a 'rare'.

I would be opted to do this too, except the fact I can't transfer my Siege character there and don't feel like having to spend a few hours piecing together a damn suit.

 

[Merus]

The point of making them paid is so they can be held accountable. Testers should have specific guideline and procedures, along with deadlines and KPI that are tracked. All of that should happen before it hits test center for UAT.

IMO that is how any software development cycle should be run.

 

[Viquire]

Some of us have done testing, been in groups, etc. I don't want to be a nannying nay-bob. But this kind of thing makes it really hard to wave pom poms.

 

[Picus at the office]

Just have the team play the game. Have them say this is what we are doing as we are going to make some changes so we are going to tram despise tonight so come join us. Or we are going to do a champ spawn lets all fight and test this change out. What ever they feel like doing but they really should play and interact with us.