EVE General Discussion

A Brief Introduction

This past Monday, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak with CCP Explorer while he was in Providence, RI. We kind of skipped around from topic to topic before he got swamped with people from 38 Studios to interview, but one of the subjects that came up was one that'd been in my mind for a while: how the playerbase makes use of the test server, and how it affects CCP's development of the game.

I figure it's probably safe to assume that the majority of people reading this know about the test server Singularity and its sister (cousin?) Duality. In case you're not in that majority, Singularity and Duality are CCP's public testing servers for the playerbase to test new features for upcoming patches using slightly outdated copies of your characters from the production server Tranquility. You can find installation instructions elsewhere on the forum or on EVElopedia.


So What's the Problem?

The problem is that there is a fairly wide gap between how CCP sees the test servers and how the playerbase uses them. While generally harmless, this gap can have some pretty nasty side effects when the things being put on the test server are going to change things on Tranquility at a very fundamental level.


Try Before You Buy: How CCP views the test servers

CCP wants to provide its customers with the best experience it can. One way that they attempt to do this is by including the playerbase in the development process for features with devblogs, forum posts and, you guessed it, builds on the test server.

Singularity and Duality provide the players with the opportunity to play with and provide feedback on upcoming features and changes to the EVE client while they are still in development. These features can range in scope from a graphical change to a whole new UI element or even new ships or modules. To facilitate testing of the latter group, most charges, modules and ships have been 'seeded' at 100 ISK/unit at several stations in each region.

CCP's hope is that players who have the time and spare disk space will install a copy of the Singularity (or on rare occasions, Duality) clients and test these in-development features, as well as fixes to bugs that have been reported by player and dev alike. The opportunity to get involved and get some practice and experience with upcoming features before they are pushed to production should be motivation enough to log into the test server on its own. Being able to play around with ships and modules for cheap is just a side dish.


EFT Warriors Unite: How the players use the test servers

Unfortunately, some of the things that CCP does to help facilitate testing of new features, changes and bug fixes are also a big part of why the players frequently use the test server for things that do very little to actually help CCP improve the game. (I'm sorry, but testing out your latest theorycrafted Moa fit in 6-C, while fun, does not help CCP in the slightest. Get over it.)

Seeding ships, modules and ammo at cheap prices has the side effect of turning the test server into not a place where testing features, changes and bug fixes is the priority, but into a magical playground where every kid can summon (nearly) any toy they want out of the aether. It brings people's focus and interest in the test server to what is effectively multiplayer EFT/pyfa/etc, rather than making sure things work. Who wants to check out some random new UI feature when you can fit and fly that ship you've always wanted to try out on Tranquility but never had the ISK to buy the hull? Who wants to take a look and see if that bug that makes the game unplayable for 3% of players was properly fixed when you can take that ship into combat and see how well it works?

The answer? Not enough people, which is a real shame.

The majority of the playerbase seems to view the test servers as the aforementioned playground - a simulator, if you will - but not as the opportunity to help participate in the development process that it is. Most people on the test server are interested in testing ship fits. This in and of itself isn't a problem, and in fact it's just fine. It's a perfectly valid use of the test server and I don't hold anything against anyone for it. The problem is that it typically comes at the expense of everything else that CCP needs the players to be testing.

(continued)

All I can think to say is well done. That was one of the best thought out, well detailed and well written posts I've seen on General Discussion for a very long time. I fully support your suggestions for both CCP and the players. I for one would be much more likely to spend time on the test servers if I had an actual reason to be there.

I think that perhaps that is part of the OP's point. Changes need to be made on both ends. CCP need to be a bit more forthcoming with information on what exactly needs testing, and perhaps use some of the new CCL members to act as go betweens so that the players feel like their concerns and ideas are being addressed. And players need to stop treating the test servers only as a zero risk/zero cost version of TQ and remember that it has another, proper, purpose.

THIS, a hundred times.

Sisi is not just full of EFTwarriors and free duels types. There are many people who actively go out and test new features, whether to just check them out before everyone else or to genuinely help CCP release a better game. But our feedback is met with only silence for weeks, followed by a release which contains exactly the same problems as dozens of people pointed out. Then CCP goes on to say "what an unexpected outcome, we appologize and will try to fix things ASAP". Then they ask for more feedback, completely failing to acknowledge any of the points the testers on Sisi brought up.

Yeah, that makes me want to spend my time working as a betatester for CCP for free so much more.

I love Sisi and I'm so grateful for you guys who test things there and give me feedback. Thank you:)

I didn't ask that, primarily because I didn't think it would be appropriate to ask that at what was effectively a recruitment and interview session. It's a touchy subject for a lot of people, so I wanted to skirt around that and leave it be.

That said, the Unified Inventory is part of why I wanted to make the post, and we did briefly discuss the Inventory - specifically the case with POSes being totally unusable when having large numbers of modules anchored - and that's where the use-case bit in my post came from. Whoever was doing the internal testing set up a POS, but likely didn't set up a particularly large one. They know better for next time, though, which is the important part there.

He also mentioned iteration timeframes - we as players are generally impatient little buggers and expect that iterations are going to be quick and easy for everything. Unfortunately, they're not, because some features don't allow for it. However, the UI is on a short iteration schedule, as we've already seen - it's being updated a couple times a week, and it's really good to see that. I noted that at this point the only major remaining gripe I have with it is that I can't tell the client what I want double-clicking and shift-clicking to do.

Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves.

Too bad you don't use any of the feedback.

Punkturis listens and fixes Some other devs listen, test then fix

Truth can indeed be painful.