SOE's Beta testing or lack ofFollow

Anyone have an idea how much time Sony spends Beta Testing a new expansion? I don't have an exact time frame but I belive it the messages for DoD beta testers came out about 2 weeks before the release date. I am sure they have a small team that were testing prior to that but you would think they would allow it to be on a Test server with a decent population for a little longer time. Also they need to give the Beta testers that put forth the effort to write good reports some sort of incentive rewards for helping them debug a new expansion. Beta testers assigned, should be asked to preform a few tasks that need to be checked and tested and reported on. Currently to me at least it looks like they are in such a hurry to put it live they have no idea whats wrong with it or what it does to the exsisting game.

My good man.. you simply dont understand.

That would delay the release, and $ales .

See? Perfectly sensible explanation.
It is the same one used throught the software business.

How long has Micro$oft sold versions of software that didn't even ... wellll.... that's another post, isn't it.

Out of the 40 Players in the zone, 36 of them were AFK mooching the Uber EXP.......lmao

beta was longer than that. and he said 40 a zone, not total.

sounds kind of fun, i might have to try it next time :-)

The testing server is to test new features, spells, options, etc. This is different than the beta server.

Beta testing is more than just players testing it. Sony will beta test with their own employees. After which beta is opened up to public players. They test scripts, zones, mobs etc. They still try to keep some of the content and story line a suprise for when it goes live.

I cringed when I see anyone that states "Oh it's an easy fix, it can't be that hard". It's programing. Everquest has tons of lines of coding. Anytime you add something new it can break an older feature. A code change means you have to bring down the servers, insert the new changes, reset the server, do some quick tests, than bring the server back up for players. This is why they try to make a lot of changes in a single patch instead a lot of smaller patches. When an expansion goes live it can introduce a lot of bugs, exploits etc. If the problem is bad enough (like a dupe bug) they will patch asap.

Everquest is constantly changing and there will always be bugs. I've seen a program (unchanged as far as features, content, etc) that still had bugs that weren't found even after being out for 10 years.

Considering how much was changed in this expansion, I don't feel they did an awful job. The problems were (relatively) pretty minor. None of them stopped people from being able to log in, or deleted your characters at login.

Remember, it IS just a game.

I love when people give the comments "Its just a game." Yes its just a game, but how many players can honestly say they would not be sick to there stomach if they logged on and found every charactor they had back to being lvl 1 with cloth armor and rusty weapons?? Just because its a game doesn't mean anything when you think of the time people put into the game.

I think SOE should have seen the need to nerf the monster mission exp before they even started beta testing. I feel like it was there little purpose glitch to get people to buy (much like the fishing with gates). Its a very good sales tactic. Give people something amazing so they buy it, then take it away to even things out.

Id like to see pathing issues addressed personally. As a monk I am constantly having to take a hit when pulling DON missions cause of mobs getting stuck in corners. Be nice if they woudl fix the music in places like Freeport for instance where it sounds like your on Acid when walking near the monk guild.

You just made my point. People WOULD be sick to their stomach if all of their character reverted to lvl 1. That didn't happen here.

Folks lost a few hours of playtime, and had to patch a few times. For MOST players it's a very minor inconvience, not a catastrophic failure. Saying that "I got the short of the stick" is just an ignorant response. Sony doesn't gaurantee that their servers will be up 24 hours a day, nor do they provide a gaurantee that their service will be perfect and free of defects. It's important to understand that when dealing with software developement. Problems happen. Something changing one small thing affects 10 others unexcpectedly. In a rush to fix a bug, it can be easy to miss that during testing. It's happens with every software company, open or closed source. Don't pretend like it doesn't.

None of the problems that happened with this expansion (save for one that I know of, that was fixed within a day and items returned) degregraded any progress, or reversed any 'time people put into the game'.

It IS just a game. The time you put into it means nothing when you quit playing.