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I have qualms about how the testing server is being operated.
ozewa
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
It is a fairly simple complaint. People are able to get on the testing server months in advance and know what, if anything, they're going to want to stockpile for the upcoming update.
The certainty is the problem is that equation. Not enough is being done to firewall the prospective changes from the actual changes. People knew months in advance that they would need a lot of X, Y, and Z, and that led to a lot of stockpiling by a bunch of people.
I can't get mad at the people for it, because that is natural behavior. If you know you're going to need something, be it a car or supplies for a hurricane, you go and procure it immediately. The responsibility lays solely on Cryptic.
An NDA would not help, about the only thing that would help is a change in how they test things. A lot of people don't like last minute changes between test and live but it is those same people that have been testing things that have been stockpiling things and they do not deserve to be rewarded for engaging in anticompetitive behavior. I would go so far as to speculate that the only reason those people would be mad is that they engaged in that bad behavior and were not rewarded for it.
As it stands though, since the live economy has already been messed over and if those people engaging is that bad behavior HAD found a bug that was exploitable... they wouldn't have reported it. They would have kept the exploit to themselves and waited for the game to go live and then exploited it for their own benefit.
So since everything on live is already messed up, twer I Cryptic or PWE I would prepare for a database rollback and go live with the stuff on the test server.
The certainty is the problem is that equation. Not enough is being done to firewall the prospective changes from the actual changes. People knew months in advance that they would need a lot of X, Y, and Z, and that led to a lot of stockpiling by a bunch of people.
I can't get mad at the people for it, because that is natural behavior. If you know you're going to need something, be it a car or supplies for a hurricane, you go and procure it immediately. The responsibility lays solely on Cryptic.
An NDA would not help, about the only thing that would help is a change in how they test things. A lot of people don't like last minute changes between test and live but it is those same people that have been testing things that have been stockpiling things and they do not deserve to be rewarded for engaging in anticompetitive behavior. I would go so far as to speculate that the only reason those people would be mad is that they engaged in that bad behavior and were not rewarded for it.
As it stands though, since the live economy has already been messed over and if those people engaging is that bad behavior HAD found a bug that was exploitable... they wouldn't have reported it. They would have kept the exploit to themselves and waited for the game to go live and then exploited it for their own benefit.
So since everything on live is already messed up, twer I Cryptic or PWE I would prepare for a database rollback and go live with the stuff on the test server.
President of the Amnian Illithid Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Please spread the word that the term "Mind Flayer" is a derogatory term to our kind.
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@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
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Wow.
Basically what I'm saying is that if they threw the extra 4-20 man hours at it they could bulletproof their system so that any disseminated information would only be specifically true in 5% of cases, and then making the swap to the live missions once they go live. Also, doing so might lead to some interesting developments that could be a lot of fun.
Like how if they had tested the current starbase missions internally and put up a random daily quest for fleets to complete, like collecting borg parts or cardassion impulse engine parts or something.
Just to clarify on a few notes
TRUST and THANK the brave pioneers of Tribble and red shirt
if you gain an advantage from this thats ok.
You earned it and we do not grudge you it
THANK YOU for your hard work
nothing is getting transferred from tribble to holodeck. the code and graphics that are implemented and being tested on tribble will be implemented on holodeck. players will have a knowledge advantage if they took the opportunity to test the functionality, however they will still have to build up their bases etc just like everyone else.
there will be no rollback, there is no reason for a rollback. this is why they are testing on tribble and the suggested release date for season 6/starbases has come and gone because they are taking their time with the testing. really i think you are reading something into this that isnt there.
I am also sure that cryptic have server logging and backups up the wazoo. in case. but they would be uses as a last resort - and they would have to be careful around zen purchases etc on live being lost as part of a rollback.
@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
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Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I concur. I would also add that even if Fleet A could stock pile everything needed, the development of the bases is time-gated by the system, and even if Fleet B did not stock pile everything needed and fell behind Fleet A, Fleet B is not barred from progressing just because Fleet A got there ahead of them, which makes the whole "anti-competitive" basis of the OP a bit mind-boggling. This is especially true since there is no NDA and everyone will be readily able access the information needed to stockpile everything that can be stockpiled without once setting foot on Tribble. Besides, other than bragging rights, what "competition" is there? And since fleets are of varying sizes and have various amounts of participation, I don't know where the OP gets the idea that this is some kind of wide open and fair competition.
One teeny weeny little minor HUGE CATASTROPHIC consequence of this. The content they throw live would not have been tested leading to exactly what you fear. HUGE game breaking bugs finding their way on to the live server.
Heres the point. Cryptic don't just rely on people reporting bugs. They data mine, they observe and they pull reports on what people are doing on the test server. Yes, someone may not report a bug because they think they can exploit, but in reality they are being watched and Cryptic are seeing these bugs. Yes, some may get through here and there, thats a proven fact. Has happened before and will happen again.
However, completely untested content? That scares me.
700 Day Veteran Newb[/sigpic]
ALL of this. People can say what they want about Cryptic not fixing things, but a lot of things in S6 right now are broken, though S5 this early was way more broken, with multiple ways to duplicate currency, exp and cxp exploits, and entire blocks of nonfunctional UI. None of those things went live, because people DO report most of them, and even ones that don't still get caught - Cryptic tracked down the exp and cxp exploits within a day, and even purged affected characters.
Late in S5, they reskinned the doff UI and simultaneously rebalanced the doff system from outcome percentages to commendation rewards. I'd consider that change to be analogous to making fake systems for testing as the OP suggests, because it invalidated a lot of what people already knew about the system (none of the old rewards remained, and even the strategy for picking doffs was fundamentally changed) but didn't change any of the back end. Thing is, those changes also broke the system, and it was about a week before some of it was working again.
It is not supposed to be a fully working product in a test server and will always have bugs and glitches that is why it is a test server. They are operating the server the best that they can with the resources that they have. but they also have to do more than read posts on the forms about the bugs people post. they read every thing from game chat logs to other items that could help them finish the product that they are hoping to release.
There will always be things that we don't like about a test server but they have a job to do and that is to fix the product that will be going to main server. and they need us to help them with that. they spend hours redesigning something or trying to find a bug that was reported and making this game more fun. i would cut them just a little slack and not complain that they are not doing their job or being lazy in how they update the content.
Wow, a post by sollvax that actually makes sense... I'm impressed. :eek:
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It's as simple as that.
The STF bug with Armitage is a perfectly good and recent example for that.
join date: Jan. 2012
very much this^
join date: Jan. 2012
The worst that could possibly come of this is that some exchange prices go up because people are saving what they earn instead of trading it. But isn't that a whole lot better than a rollback or convoluted 'hiding' of what the system uses just so it hits us all as a surprise?
Nobody's disadvantaged here. Everybody is earning what they then choose to stockpile. One might be mad that a fleet bank isn't receiving as much generosity as it used to, but this isn't at all like insider trading. People are just looking at what's coming and adapting, like anybody here can.
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
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Seriously??? Most who play tribble As in many games with test servers enjoy finding bug exploits and reporting them. Its part of the fun of testing. MAYBE you should go test aswell then youd have that Great Ability to Advance on the main game aswell!