proposal -- open a Test server
 

recently some patches have introduced bugs that, while difficult for a small dev team to catch, probably would have been caught if the patches had been tested out by a few dozen players before being pushed to the live P99 servers.

i.e. the mobs spawning on roofs after this last patch

maybe once Velious beta is done that server could be converted to a test server?

This is a good idea.

Who is going to donate enough time testing enough of the spectrum of mechanics/content for this to be useful?

Velious seems to be a good example of how the vast majority of the server chooses pixels over helping out.

Was just about to say look how many people are doing Velious beta

Velious beta is going to disappear and all progress will be lost. Test server would never delete characters... at least thats the way it works on EQLive's Test server, which i also currently play on in addition to playing on P99.

the Devs have a test server....

letting players log in and shout "Hey your patch broke mobs, they are spawning on the roof" on the test server is not going to fix the problem any faster than the actual Devs logging into the test server and noticing the event happening.

^ that assumes that the Devs have time to run around to every zone and look things over in addition to their programming work.

they obviously don't have the time for that, though, or stuff like the rooftop mobs wouldn't make it to live.

it just makes sense to let some players run around to test out stuff before it gets pushed out to P99 en masse.



to reiterate my earlier post -- lack of participation on Velious beta isn't a good example of why this wouldn't work out, though, because the Beta progress isn't permanent. my proposed model would be like EQLive's Test server, which has its own little community and permanent character progress. yeah, shit breaks on there fairly often and there's no economy to speak of, but its a nice atmosphere that some people (myself included) prefer over crowded Live servers.

You are assuming that players will actually play there and run around and test stuff out.

One of two things would happen, if it was permanent it would create a second blue server. If it was temporary nobody would use it unless you were rewarded on blue/red with an exp bonus or something for finding and reporting bugs on the test server...which isn't going to happen. Only a handful of people who were really serious about kissing staff ass would even bother, and even then you would probably have an average pop of 2-3 people.

personally my incentive would be that it would be less crowded and boxing would likely be allowed. i definitely would participate.

and before you naysayers accuse me of selfish motives -- there's nothing wrong with a "you scratch my back i'll scratch yours" scenario like this imo. human nature being what it is, there has to be some tangible incentive... or else you end up with a ghost town like the Velious beta.

If this test server had boxing it would be awful tempting to swap over there. Boxing is good fun once you hit max level.