This is sorta my issue too. Id be happy to dig into specific things but as it is all Im finding are typos and a lot of the stuff Ive reported as bugs Im not even sure gets looked at. So Ive sorta just said meh and went back to training my character in Prime.

I do get the feeling though that the big stuff has been fixed for the most part. Which is why Ive said I think it would be better to just see it come out and then just stay on top of any bugs found. Im hoping soon the GMs will start chiming in on stuff now that the holiday season is winding down so that we can see where we are.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>>The short and sweet, I would imagine is "play like you would normally, and tell me if anything breaks."

And while I agree with you there is a reason this isnt going to work... no one is testing anymore at this point. You have at best 3-7 people that are actively testing. Thats pretty much it. Not only is this not finding bugs its also skewing the data towards a few peoples specific playstyles. The latter of those I am so against its not even funny (read any of the discussions involving PvP usage of skills/spells and youd think it was the only real thing in DR).

My feeling as stated before is that the major bugs are out. And I dont think we are gonna find the others until its being "tested" by the 200-500 Prime players hammering away at it.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>>Then again, knowing DR players, trying to make them do anything doesn't seem to work out well.

Heh no it doesnt. My guess is that the forum would be on fire and the instance would still be empty. On the converse they might get a little test instance love if they bribed people with something (item, title, etc), but thats the only real way I can think of that theyd get anyone into test. Hence why Im voting to release it to Prime.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

ya,the last time i was in test, i was doing such "amazing" things as seeing how much DO i could accumulate without being struck down by a god. Any god.

And whether i could really get to the center of a tootsie pop without being tempted to chew the candy.





<<The real thing DR needs is to get out there to the kids who actually read books.>>

I would sign into test more if I could be in test AND prime at the same time.

______
Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Mechanical Lore Grand Master of M'Riss

How about offering Riot the Aftermath quest be run in test? Move us back after we are done and tweak the scrip we get and let us choose end prizes there?

______
Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Mechanical Lore Grand Master of M'Riss

Leolind has a good point here, albeit less than ideal. As was said earlier, trying to force a particular behavior onto the player-base is a bad idea and leads to alternative behaviors that were never intended. Dropping the world into an unbalanced beta without warning is going to make for some unhappy, unquiet customers. That said, it probably won't be efficiently tested any other way. There is a reason people hate instability; and this another case where there is no real good way to handle a situation without modifying the nature of the participants.

I'll quit talking here because further discussion will devolve into political debate and that would be the pinnacle of counterproductivity.

--Wryhk

1st grade tl;dr version:

Numbers didn't change. Words changed. Words don't matter. Numbers all that matters.

--GRIM45

>I wonder if it would be beneficial to shut down Prime for a day and essentially force people to go to test prior to it being rolled in.

>Then again, knowing DR players, trying to make them do anything doesn't seem to work out well.

Knowing how paying customers would react to being locked out of the instance they actually pay for to be beta testers instead, it probably wouldn't work out well.

You don't see anything wrong with saying "Sorry you're paying for this, do us a favor and play this instead"? The much easier solution is to open up dual prime/test playing. Create a page-long bold warning when opening Test to address the GM hand wringing over potential AFK inattentiveness in Prime, if you have to. I think the concerns are a little silly myself since people multitask all the time while playing Prime, whether it's watching TV, posting on the boards, etc. I see little in how the AFK threat is suddenly amplified more than it would be with any other distraction. Since I don't believe dual instances have ever been allowed it appears more hypothesis than statistically based.

Once again, my combat experience with 3.0 is pretty limited and all at minimal ranks. My expience wasn't just that a new player can't learn or takes longer to kill things. My experience is that a new character, depending on their weapon of choice, may likely be completely unable to kill insignificant enemies like rats before they stop learning from them.

Roll up a new character, grab a spear from mylgrym, and try to kill a rat with it before you get 20 ranks. I couldn't do it. I think that's a problem. Someone else, using a dagger, was averaging 120 actions per kill. Even at a 2 second rt per action with a half second between, that's a problem. If you want it to take 45 seconds per at-level kill, that seems slow but I understand the idea. Don't make it take 5 minutes to 5+ hours to get a kill.

Skinning and thanatology absolutely require corpses. There may be other ways to work box skills, but for the most part locksmithing requires corpses. New players are going to want lootable or skinable corpses to make money from. They won't be satisfied learning endless weapon skills without any cash reward to put toward better gear or crafting.

--Wryhk

1st grade tl;dr version:

Numbers didn't change. Words changed. Words don't matter. Numbers all that matters.

--GRIM45

They should be; I rolled up a newb for some testing some time ago, though she has been eliminated since then.

Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

Reroll an existing character in the test instance. It won't effect your prime character.

--Wryhk

1st grade tl;dr version:

Numbers didn't change. Words changed. Words don't matter. Numbers all that matters.

--GRIM45

Honestly, letting people be logged into either won't solve that much. Sure, it will let people be logged into both, but that means being afk in one instance or the other.

If you want to increase testing productivity, what we really need is a list of bug fixes that have already been done. I brought my necro in for the first week or two, testing out combats and necro abilities, as well as skill training. Most everything we found troublesome has been tweaked or outright fixed.

With a list of bug fixes already done, we'll at least have an idea of what's been fixed/tweaked, so we know what no longer needs testing.

I'm gonna throw together a general test night to try to group people together so we can get in some nice testing. Gonna wait until the GMs are done with their extremely long holiday break (they aren't allowed to have breaks I thought), and hopefully we can do it while a couple are in test to monitor stuff.

I think every single spell/ability should be skimmed. Examine how things work according to how that particular guild is setup. All it really takes is a few strong testing nights and I think they would have DR ready to go for 3.0, while of course there will still be some leftover bugs here and there that will be squashed not long after it's released.

I'd also like to get a list of syntax/messaging bugs since there's a lot of them, but only after the majority of combat is balanced.

---

Individuals, families, countries, continents are destroyed at the heavy hand of Vinjince.

-GM Abasha

>> I would assume that there are technical limitations that prevent it though

Yup, there are. As for me, I prefer to not have to divide my attention too much! ;)

When do you want the testing done? I've got a range of chars from newbies and lowbies to fairly high. The upper end does tend to have a lot of coverage.

Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

Decided to log in as my little trader and try out rats:

Level: 14

Strength : 15 Reflex : 12
Agility : 12 Charisma : 29
Discipline : 12 Wisdom : 12
Intelligence : 12 Stamina : 14

Concentration : 68 Max : 68


SKILL: Rank/Percent towards next rank/Amount learning/Mindstate Fraction
Shield Usage: 32 07% considering (6/34) Light Armor: 1 00% clear (0/34)
Chain Armor: 18 11% analyzing (18/34) Brigandine: 4 53% clear (0/34)
Plate Armor: 4 53% clear (0/34) Defending: 23 83% ruminating (8/34)
Parry Ability: 15 14% pondering (7/34) Large Edged: 18 05% engaged (22/34)
Brawling: 1 49% clear (0/34) Melee Mastery: 8 10% very engaged (23/34)
Arcana: 3 09% clear (0/34) Evasion: 32 03% thoughtful (4/34)
Athletics: 18 00% clear (0/34) Perception: 18 12% dabbling (1/34)
Stealth: 6 72% clear (0/34) First Aid: 14 00% clear (0/34)
Outdoorsmanship: 42 00% clear (0/34) Skinning: 32 00% clear (0/34)
Scholarship: 42 53% clear (0/34) Mechanical Lore: 75 96% clear (0/34)
Appraisal: 50 71% dabbling (1/34) Tactics: 28 00% clear (0/34)
Trading: 60 77% clear (0/34)

I've been attacking the same rat for over 4 minutes and it looks like this:
You see a ship's rat.
The ship's rat has faint scuffing to the head, a severely swollen and deeply bruised right arm compounded by deep slashes across the right arm, minor swelling and bruising around the left arm compounded by cuts and bruises about the left arm, minor swelling and bruising around the right leg compounded by cuts and bruises about the right leg, tiny scratches to the left hindleg, faint scuffing to the right foreleg, faint scuffing to the left foreleg, minor swelling and bruising in the chest area compounded by cuts and bruises about the chest area, minor swelling and bruising in the abdomen compounded by cuts and bruises about the abdomen, faint scuffing to the back.
The ship's rat is bleeding with discoloration in the right foreleg and from the right foreleg.
It is wearing nothing!
It is carrying nothing!

I'm too tired to swing my sword now:
A slender liscis with a leather-wrapped hilt is a heavy edged melee-ranged weapon.
A slender liscis with a leather-wrapped hilt trains the large edged skill.

You guess that it could do:
low puncture damage
heavy slice damage
low impact damage
no fire damage
no cold damage
dismal electric damage

The slender liscis is poorly designed for improving the force of your attacks.

You estimate that the liscis is fairly balanced and is poorly suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

You believe that the slender liscis is particularly weak against damage, and is in pristine condition.

The slender liscis is made with metal.
The slender liscis has a bit of weight to it.
You are certain that the slender liscis is worth exactly 18750 kronars, 15000 lirums, or 13530 dokoras.
Roundtime: 8 seconds.

I would be extremely turned off from playing if I were a new player and couldn't kill a rat in under 1 minute. It was 4 minutes when I started this post and now it's up to 6 minutes. Rat is still alive and I'm still too tired to do anything, so I've decided to leave the room to rest and give it another go. I'll try again later.

Wow, something must have severely changed because I was killing rats in fairly short order using a rapier in plat when it went live over there. Let me roll up another noob to test.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

>>I didn't touch a guide for WoW or any other MMORPG until I decided to take up crafting. Leveling/combat never required outside help.

Yeah, that might be a thing. I'll need to test to make sure nothing has changed, but I had rolled up a noob in all of the guilds to make sure circles 0-10 were playable and they all were over in Plat.

It sounds to me like either...

1) Something changed in a big way from when I tested, or
2) I had insider-knowledge on how best to kill things at the time, which may be a problem in and of itself if the common new player can't kill things using the intuitive commands.

Will roll up a newb in the Test instance tonight or tomorrow and post my results.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

Not arguing that it is impossible. I eventually killed the rat. The problem is the time invested. I was able to dance with 4 rats and barely took damage, but it was not cool watching the time slowly tick away as I inflicted one tiny wound after another. I decided against counting hits because I didn't want to get too upset over the matter.

I'm not big on testing. I only popped in as my lowbies because I saw that there was concern over low level characters and new players. I'll try a level 1 character later.

Once again, when I joined the barb guild and bought a spear from mylgrym's, I had over 10 ranks of pike before I did any location damage at all.

--Wryhk

1st grade tl;dr version:

Numbers didn't change. Words changed. Words don't matter. Numbers all that matters.

--GRIM45

Was a tog. And the problem wasn't that I wasn't making contact. The problem was that every hit was harmless, glancing, or light, the RT for each attack was something like 9 seconds, and my fatigue was getting wiped out, so I'd have to wait. By the time I got my next shot in, the thing had regenerated any health I knocked out of it.

--Wryhk

1st grade tl;dr version:

Numbers didn't change. Words changed. Words don't matter. Numbers all that matters.

--GRIM45