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Suggestion regarding FUTURE testing
glassguitar
Member Posts: 427 Arc User
I read this post in today's server maintenance thread and it got me thinking:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=13606901&postcount=49
Thanks to being a boot camp coach I had the opportunity during one of our early meetings to be in a Teamspeak session that Borticus and Branflakes both graciously attended. During this meeting we were able to gain some insight into the challenges the dev team faces everyday. Specifically I refer to the balancing of pressure from higher ups to keep NEW content coming, while also trying to achieve the QA goals they set for themselves, AND trying to please the playerbase desires. I believe the vast majority of players don't realize how tight the dev team budget can actually be and how hard they actually work.
That said, there is still a need for more extensive testing to be done before release of new content to avoid issues like the consumables issue created by S8 release. I offer the following suggestion:
Create a "team" of extensive testing "volunteers" and compensate them with in game rewards. These testers would have a specific meetup time set prior to the launch of new content and would be supervised by known players (testing coaches if you will) similar to the way Boot Camp was operated. During the "advanced testing session" these players will work together trying actively to "break the game" and locate bugs that may not show up during the type of casual testing that most players do on Tribble.
The "coaches" (for lack of a better term) would validate participation and forward the info to Cryptic in the same way we validated participation in Boot Camp and those coaches and other players who test could receive an in game reward. As we learned from boot camp, the reward does not have to be massive in value, just something that is valued by hardcore players. I was amazed at how excited the Boot Camp students were to receive a Respec Token (value 500 zen) and an in game title (cost: only some time by the programmer who set the title and key codes up) and the impact it had on Boot Camp turnout.
Imagine what kind of SERIOUS hardcore testing could be done at little additional cost to Cryptic/PWE by setting this up.
I hope this is a helpful suggestion and thank the devs for the great work they do.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=13606901&postcount=49
Thanks to being a boot camp coach I had the opportunity during one of our early meetings to be in a Teamspeak session that Borticus and Branflakes both graciously attended. During this meeting we were able to gain some insight into the challenges the dev team faces everyday. Specifically I refer to the balancing of pressure from higher ups to keep NEW content coming, while also trying to achieve the QA goals they set for themselves, AND trying to please the playerbase desires. I believe the vast majority of players don't realize how tight the dev team budget can actually be and how hard they actually work.
That said, there is still a need for more extensive testing to be done before release of new content to avoid issues like the consumables issue created by S8 release. I offer the following suggestion:
Create a "team" of extensive testing "volunteers" and compensate them with in game rewards. These testers would have a specific meetup time set prior to the launch of new content and would be supervised by known players (testing coaches if you will) similar to the way Boot Camp was operated. During the "advanced testing session" these players will work together trying actively to "break the game" and locate bugs that may not show up during the type of casual testing that most players do on Tribble.
The "coaches" (for lack of a better term) would validate participation and forward the info to Cryptic in the same way we validated participation in Boot Camp and those coaches and other players who test could receive an in game reward. As we learned from boot camp, the reward does not have to be massive in value, just something that is valued by hardcore players. I was amazed at how excited the Boot Camp students were to receive a Respec Token (value 500 zen) and an in game title (cost: only some time by the programmer who set the title and key codes up) and the impact it had on Boot Camp turnout.
Imagine what kind of SERIOUS hardcore testing could be done at little additional cost to Cryptic/PWE by setting this up.
I hope this is a helpful suggestion and thank the devs for the great work they do.
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