the Black Temple will NOT be ready for burning crusade release.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by benbadman

Haters aside, WOW is pretty much the best fantasy RPG in terms of streamlined, fun (see: not tedious) gameplay--except for farming potions for Naxx bosses, which sucks.

WoW has many good things but at lvl 60 there is a lot of tedious gameplay. Faction grinding is one of the few ways to advance and faction grinding is generally quite tedious (AB being one of the few exceptions).

[Gaereth]

Originally Posted by eXnihilo

I don't understand why players feel it's okay to test content without compensation. You're doing work and paying the employer to do it. There's no reason they can't test the content themselves. The bugs that usually pop up are blantantly obvious most of the time. Being taken advantage of like that would just piss me off.

Even before WOW was released, in FnF and closed beta, the game was fun enough that it could have been payed for. People testing TBC now are finding bugs and problems, but on the whole they are getting a taste of the new game and having fun.

This isn't like the VG betas where tons of people are complaining and half the people are saying "Its only beta, you can't expect much". WOW is an extremely polished and play worthy game during betas that just need a bunch of kids with hammers running around and seeing what will break.

[Cybsled]

I'm glad I'm done with WoW. The idea of public testing is atrocious. As if instancing wasn't enough to completely kill immersion (thanks to millions of people killing the same boss I just killed, not to mention me already having killed him time and time again) they just go and put it all out there for "testing."

That sounds like a gripe about shit respawning to me!

I stand by the statement of you sticking to single player RPGs.

[Utnayan]

MMORPG's need public testing. If only for the fact that you cannot simulate a live server load and what it will do to the code.

More companies need to be upfront like this in the future. It builds a trust and a foundation for people to want to continue playing a game, especially when they know what works and what doesn't.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Gaereth

Even before WOW was released, in FnF and closed beta, the game was fun enough that it could have been payed for. People testing TBC now are finding bugs and problems, but on the whole they are getting a taste of the new game and having fun.

This isn't like the VG betas where tons of people are complaining and half the people are saying "Its only beta, you can't expect much". WOW is an extremely polished and play worthy game during betas that just need a bunch of kids with hammers running around and seeing what will break.

Way to compare a late/final Beta (WoW) to a middle Beta (Vanguard).

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by eXnihilo

I don't understand why players feel it's okay to test content without compensation. You're doing work and paying the employer to do it. There's no reason they can't test the content themselves. The bugs that usually pop up are blantantly obvious most of the time. Being taken advantage of like that would just piss me off.

Most people "test" things on PTRs/Betas far differently than they would if they were getting paid for it. During the WoW Beta I reported ~100 bugs that were eventually fixed, but I never went out of my way to find bugs. In exchange for typing /bug and a short paragraph every few hours, I got to play a fun game for free before most people did. I spent maybe 5 hours "working" over 6 months of beta (including time spent talking to GMs while doing other content), which at $12 a month is $14/hour, which is about what I'd expect to be paid for an entry-level testing position. I could have easily never reported a bug, and simply played for free for 6 months, if I didn't consider the time I spent filing bug reports worth it.

[Suineg]

Originally Posted by tad10

Way to compare a late/final Beta (WoW) to a middle Beta (Vanguard).

Reread his first line and slap yourself.

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Suineg

Reread his first line and slap yourself.

Except it wasn't accurate for the timeframes he quoted - there were still a few people saying "Wow this blows" or "Wow this is awesome" in probably similar percentages.

Welcome to the internet where people will bitch or praise anything.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

Except it wasn't accurate for the timeframes he quoted - there were still a few people saying "Wow this blows" or "Wow this is awesome" in probably similar percentages.

Yeah, I'm going to have to call horseshit on that. You're trying to claim that, proportionally, WoW had as many people unhappy with the beta as Vanguard does?

[holymight]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

MMORPG's need public testing. If only for the fact that you cannot simulate a live server load and what it will do to the code.

More companies need to be upfront like this in the future. It builds a trust and a foundation for people to want to continue playing a game, especially when they know what works and what doesn't.

Sure, things like the first encounter in BWL might not have been predictable and I can forgive them from that. However, if they hired 40 testers (that raided with no access to any GM tools) they should be able to get all the bugs except for a few rare ones. Blizzard has the money to do this. Raid content should stay off public testing servers.

BWL had so many bugs that any idiot could have picked up. The only way they could have missed them is if they never tested it like a normal raid team would and instead used GM controls to speed it up.

I think it is a sad state when a MMO can't even release a finished expansion after more than 2 years of development. They need to work on their tools to make them more streamlined because that is not normal.

[zach]

Originally Posted by Deris

it was about an aspect that 99.9% of all players LIKE about WoW : a good testing/PTR/Beta process.

WoW isn't the game for those of you who liked the secrecy behind EQ's new encounters, and how loots weren't leaked nor shown to anyone for months ala Vulak'Aerr. Deal with it. Maybe you can make Vanguard that game, but probably not .

99.9%? What game are you playing? Blizzard's handling of WoW's PTR/beta/testing has been horrendous. Maybe because the rest of us gave up on WoW a long time ago. BWL was not a product of what happens when you don't use public testing, it was a product of what happens when you don't test it at all.

I'll agree, I'd much rather them be up front with players instead of hiding it until they figure it out on their own, but really, Blizzard is far from perfect, and you can put me down in the .1% as disappointed in WoW's QA/Testing, both internal, and PTR.

edit. I do think it's a lot better now, but, as someone who's an active subscriber of quite a few MMO's, I still think EQ2(SONY!! OMG!!) has the best dev team and player communication.

[Wodin]

*shrug* Lineage 2 expansions were far from complete(mobs not dropping one of the components for a set of armor in C1 is the one I remember), EQ you can't even begin to try(lol cloth cap), EVE does ok but there were some hideous bugs in some of the earlier expansions. Can anyone speak to FFXI or DAoC?

The entire beta experience for TBC has been surprisingly polished. They could release it tomorrow and people would whine about the bugs but it would be no worse than release WoW.

[zach]

Originally Posted by Wodin

*shrug* Lineage 2 expansions were far from complete(mobs not dropping one of the components for a set of armor in C1 is the one I remember), EQ you can't even begin to try(lol cloth cap), EVE does ok but there were some hideous bugs in some of the earlier expansions. Can anyone speak to FFXI or DAoC?

The entire beta experience for TBC has been surprisingly polished. They could release it tomorrow and people would whine about the bugs but it would be no worse than release WoW.

I didn't play DAoC extensively, but FFXI had an amazing QA team from what I could tell. Granted, I never really got into the high end of the game, but I never heard of huge bugs/missing zones like this getting through.

[GrobbeeTrull]

One needs look no further than the beta boards and PTR build discrepancies, the fact that no one knows but Blizzard what the mythical "goal" of all these changes are in beta, and the fact that their own CM's dont know what's going on with PTR at the moment to see that they're floundering.

Now, take a minute, step back, quell the rage, and look at it in perspective. They are floundering in their testing process. They are NOT losing customers at any meaningful rate. The game is indeed still fun. But they are not squeeky clean, never-do-wrong developers. There are a lot of bugs that need ironed out. There are bugs that have been reported, "confirmed", and then that disappear without a trace only to have us be told "please make a post in the bug forum!" after a year. Uh, ok.

I know it hurts a lot of people's feelings, but no one is saying "EQ2 rox, WoW Sucks!"

We're saying "The way they are doing things right now sucks, we deserve better!".

But you can't see past your rabid devotion to the Blizzard cock to see that you're slowly treading down the abused housewife path. It's easy to see for people with no real attachment to this game, that things have deteriorated.

Blizzard is by no means struggling, but this TBC beta/development thing is disgustingly inefficient.

[Goliath]

Lol wow.

Big deal.

You won't be in Black Temple day 1 anyways.