News: INCGamers Interview

[Captain1nsaneo]

I'm interested how they're doing balance testing with 1/10th of potential population and only doing open beta for server stress tests. It seems that you'd want to keep balance in mind though open beta as well as some parts will scale differently.

[Crator]

Higby said they are currently using bots for testing.

[Slepnair]

Originally Posted by Crator

Higby said they are currently using bots for testing.

i believe he said they used bots to flood the server for internal stress testing.

[Graywolves]

Unless it's all bottlenecked into 50/50/50 engagements, I don't think that testing balance with their resources will suffice.

[Minigun]

Originally Posted by Hamma

Also I'd like to note that if something like that was sent to me, I would forward it back to SOE and not post it here. Not willing to jeopardize the community relationship with SOE over one leaked photo/video.

*as he forwards it back to soe he saves it to his harddrive and sets it on infinite replay as he drools*

Lucky bastard

[Legion]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

Unless it's all bottlenecked into 50/50/50 engagements, I don't think that testing balance with their resources will suffice.

I remember that the Planetside Beta ran very well and then when the game went retail it ran terribly because the server loads were much higher. I hope they are cognizant of that when they do stress testing and beta testing now.

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

Unless it's all bottlenecked into 50/50/50 engagements, I don't think that testing balance with their resources will suffice.

In all honesty, if you've got, very optimistically, 1000 players per side, spread out across a big map with lots of contestable real estate, a 50vs50vs50 battle will likely be considered a big one in the full game.
Even assuming only two empires per battle (which is typical), that's only enough population for thirty (30) 50v50 battles. And I can't stress enough that there will be a lot of contestable territory, spreading out the population a whole lot.

In terms of weapon/class/vehicle/mechanic balance, 50vs50vs50 seems like more than enough, especially if they mix it up and also do 70vs70 battles.

The real problem is that devs are naturally blinded to many flaws and imbalances in game systems, because they've been playing them from scratch. They will intuitively use cookie-cutter tactics they've learned as the game was developing. As a result, they may ignore those that a fresh beta player might try out, only to find that they're broken.

Bottom line is, they can easily get enough statistical data from playtesting with 150 players, but nothing beats a proper alpha/beta/focus test with fresh, or relatively fresh, people.

[IceyCold]

I thought it sounded about normal, the OPEN beta will be for stress testing.

So Closed beta is still going to be balance focused most likely.

[NapalmEnima]

Originally Posted by FIREk

The real problem is that devs are naturally blinded to many flaws and imbalances in game systems, because they've been playing them from scratch. They will intuitively use cookie-cutter tactics they've learned as the game was developing. As a result, they may ignore those that a fresh beta player might try out, only to find that they're broken.

That's pretty common in software development in general. The occasional fresh pair of eyes is invaluable.

And if you can come up with a couple thousand fresh pairs of eyes? Yeah, that's helpful too.

[Hamma]

Bots are really just until the game is ready for us to beta it.

[basti]

Originally Posted by Hamma

Bots are really just until the game is ready for us to beta it.

Hope that day comes soon, im bored as fuck.

[Talek Krell]

I look forward to the day where I don't have to make arguments based 50% on conjecture and dev hinting.

[Shogun]

just hope they do a real developement beta and not just a "check for last problems at last minute before release" kind of beta, that seems to be common nowadays. the last 3 betas i took part in were the bad kind.

and all of those games went into the shelfs, not being ready for release. buggy as hell.
please soe, do a decent beta and if beta shows off problems, show some nuts and delay release until it is really ready, doing some more beta testing until it really works.

ok, since the game is free to play, it is not that of a big problem, to release and use the customers as after-release-beta-testers. but if the game has a box price, this is a nogo, and just think of all the bad press that a bugged release gets.

[2coolforu]

Even if it is F2P they should never release it bugged, a delayed release can give you more publicity whereas a bugged up release can kill a game and leave a bad taste in the mouth. There are very few games that were released in broken states and went on to be critical successes because the bad taste from a buggy start just hangs around the game and puts people off.

[Heaven]

[QUOTE=basti;593593]Hope that day comes soon, im bored as fuck. :]

Ill second that