Would you be willing to play on a separate TEST server to help identify and report any future bugs?

falkenblackhand · February 2016

I'm interested in finding out if the average player would be interested in playing Neverwinter on a separate server in order to test out future content before it is published. I think that this would be a very effective way to seek out all possible bugs and eliminate them. The players would simply play as they normally would and if a problem occurred they could report it with the report function that would be built into the hub.

nullvaluepoint · February 2016

Absolutely, I would love to play on a test server in order to help identify possible issues.

I thought I was already playing on a test server. I experience bugs on a daily basis. Most of them have been in game for multiple mods.

Will there be a follow-up poll asking whether we think the devs will listen to our bug reports?

zephyriah · February 2016

It's already being done. The test server is PC only though. Mod 9 is up on it right now. The Alpha (invite only) and preview forums are currently providing feedbag and bug reports.

An Xbox one might be redundant since new mods will always hit PC first and I haven't noticed any real issues that only affect Xbox and not PC.

nightshift56 · February 2016

Absolutely, I would love to play on a test server in order to help identify possible issues.

zephyriah said:
An Xbox one might be redundant since new mods will always hit PC first and I haven't noticed any real issues that only affect Xbox and not PC.

I have to disagree with you. Issues like companion gear being compared to toon gear and the sixth bag not being displayed in the bank and vendors' screens are issolated to the XBox interface and will therefore not be discovered on a PC test server and I would consider those real issues.

mahburg · February 2016

No I don't believe that i would be interested in this.

Is it April the first already?

zephyriah · February 2016

nightshift56#8963 said:

zephyriah said:
An Xbox one might be redundant since new mods will always hit PC first and I haven't noticed any real issues that only affect Xbox and not PC.
I have to disagree with you. Issues like companion gear being compared to toon gear and the sixth bag not being displayed in the bank and vendors' screens are issolated to the XBox interface and will therefore not be discovered on a PC test server and I would consider those real issues.

I was not and am not aware of any existing problem relating the gear issue. I recall one from release, but it was fixed in one of the first few patches. I believe it was also an issue on PC during Mod 4 or 5, so it was not exclusive to the Xbox. If there is something else, I guess I haven't noticed.

There is/was a bag 6 problem on PC that got through testing. It seems to vary some from ours. It involves using an item like the black ice pick from the 6th bag. Doesn't work, got through testing. You can't buy Zen and there is no Zen store(Except to get free retraining tokens) on preview. Unless you had an unequipped extra bag, there would have been no way for anyone to test. You would have needed to buy an extra bag (that you had no use for) on your live character and then copy that character over to the preview, just to see how a 6th bag looked and worked. I would not have bothered to do it because the things on preview are not guaranteed to make it to live and I might have been out the expense.

Testing on a preview server is very different from live. Players don't use the AH, vendors, trades, crafting and other such things as you would in a real game. Everything is going to get reset often, so why bother. You are only playing a copy of your character. Your real character does not change. When you copy, you get your character and inventory, but nothing in shared storage.

It's about testing the new content and features. And even then, feedback is solicited in regards to only certain aspects of it. You can look at the preview forums to see what aspects they are taking feedback on. They say "official Feedback Thread" with a sub-category. Anything else, may or may not get seen or acted on. Sometimes, the new "features" are not able to be properly tested like the bags. Sometimes, like in the current testing, it is being tested by many players using a high level character and testing low level content. The Maze Engine new campaign is leveling content for 60-70 like Elemental Evil and serves to provide some needed variation in the long grind from 60-70. A level 70 with over 3000 iLvl saying it is too easy, while true, doesn't help the developers judge the difficulty for the target players.

arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9787053-developer-blog%3A-the-maze-engine-campaign

It goes live on PC March 15. So, for us, probably sometime in April.

For Mod 9, I have played a few times on Owlbear. When it's been up on Mimic, I was unable to play. But, I kept up by reading the Alpha forums. The preview and alpha forums are the best places to see developer interaction with the community.

PC Server names and general uses:

Owlbear= Preview- open to anyone with a PC when live (usually about 6 weeks before a new Mod)
Mimic = Alpha testing/additional testing-Invite only.
Dragon = Live server

Edit: clarified free retraining tokens only in Zen store.

nightshift56 · February 2016

Absolutely, I would love to play on a test server in order to help identify possible issues.

Yes, the gear comparision issue was patched prior to the Elemental Evil mod, but when Elemental Evil was released, the patch was not incorporated into it. Ever since then, the companion gear has reverted back to being compared to the toon's gear instead of it's own gear. Check it out, it's still acting that way.

zak3056 · February 2016

I'm not sure, maybe with an incentive for my time.

zephyriah said:
There is/was a bag 6 problem on PC that got through testing. It seems to vary some from ours. It involves using an item like the black ice pick from the 6th bag. Doesn't work, got through testing. You can't buy Zen and there is no Zen store(Except to get free retraining tokens) on preview. Unless you had an unequipped extra bag, there would have been no way for anyone to test. You would have needed to buy an extra bag (that you had no use for) on your live character and then copy that character over to the preview, just to see how a 6th bag looked and worked. I would not have bothered to do it because the things on preview are not guaranteed to make it to live and I might have been out the expense.,

Some of us have/had extra bags, anyway. Since they're bound, there's not a lot you can do with them after your upgrade to a better one. Not that the above is important at all (realistically, the bug was either going to be fixed or not when it hit xbox, and player testing before hand would not change the build that was being pushed out, given the update cycle imposed by Microsoft) but it does illustrate something that happens all the time in software development: this use case seems unimportant to me, and no one is going to need it anyway, so it's not worth looking at.

Also, I know a lot of people who would kill to have access to free retraining tokens so they could test various changes to their builds before buying a real one on the live server. Saying "Pfft, the only thing there is free retraining tokens" is really rubbing people's noses in it.

zephyriah · February 2016

zak3056 said:

zephyriah said:
There is/was a bag 6 problem on PC that got through testing. It seems to vary some from ours. It involves using an item like the black ice pick from the 6th bag. Doesn't work, got through testing. You can't buy Zen and there is no Zen store(Except to get free retraining tokens) on preview. Unless you had an unequipped extra bag, there would have been no way for anyone to test. You would have needed to buy an extra bag (that you had no use for) on your live character and then copy that character over to the preview, just to see how a 6th bag looked and worked. I would not have bothered to do it because the things on preview are not guaranteed to make it to live and I might have been out the expense.,
Saying "Pfft, the only thing there is free retraining tokens"

That's your interpretation, not my intent. However, your attempt to put words in my mouth by manufacturing a quote is deliberate.

I simply clarified that there was nothing to purchase or obtain from the Zen store on the test server except retraining tokens.

zak3056 · February 2016

I'm not sure, maybe with an incentive for my time.

No intent at all to put words in your mouth. In hindsight, I did indeed misstate your position, and you have my apologies.
That said, plenty of xbox people would be interested in a test server, if for no other reason than free respecs for build testing.

silverkelt · February 2016

dudes.. ive played on pc side for 3 years.. i spent one mod (mod 3 iwd) testing everything on DC.. and again tested alot for mod 6.. with both cw/dc

Literally we have had bugs go.. ummmmm a year, 2 years.. 3 years! without being fixed.

They usually get around to the "worst" game breaking ones. MOST of the time.. within a 2-3 month time span.. this is the best we are ever going to get.

But literally there are powers/feats that havent EVER worked right, or proced weapon enchants, or stacked buffs correct.. since inception.

Trust us.. we already have probably found 99% of all bugs.. and reported them.. in fact shown a few of them with video /act reference back up.

Would you be willing to play on a separate TEST server to help identify and report any future bugs?

Would you be willing to play on a separate TEST server to help identify and report any future bugs? 23 votes

Comments