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Beta server could use a revamp? (opinion/speculation)

qaccy

Emperor
Recently, there's been a trend of new features and functionality leaving the beta server 'early' in order to have limited testing in live servers. To me, this indicates that the beta server seems to be suffering from a lack of testers to gather feedback and data from. Why is this? I believe most of the reason is because in most respects, this isn't really a beta server. Here's my reasoning for thinking such:

  1. Gameplay here is identical to a normal server. I see this as a problem because FoE is a very slow and now very long game. It takes time to progress, especially when first starting out. How can new beta testers contribute to testing new features when they have to focus on building up their city from scratch first?
  2. Many players have to fully commit to this server in order to get established. This leads to players treating it more like another normal server rather than a test bench, and I believe this is part of why there ends up being a lot of complaints whenever something gets rebalanced here. The time investment required leads people to forget that this is supposed to be a testing environment, because it doesn't feel like one when everything takes just as long to do as on a normal server.
  3. A lot of potential candidates are locked out from participating because of the time requirement. Speaking for myself, I don't have the time to add developing a beta city to my routine so my participation here is limited to the forums and ultimately not very helpful as I can't test anything directly. I imagine I'm not the only one like this. It might even be the case that folks like me actually make things worse, offering feedback on things we have no actual experience with. However, again, I don't have the time to jump in and test them directly.

Ultimately, what I think all of this leads to is a beta server that's treated more like a normal server that gets to see new stuff early. I feel like beta needs to be significantly sped up compared to a normal server. Here are some ideas I have:
  • Significantly shorten the tech tree by making costs much lower than they are on live servers.The tech tree has already been thoroughly tested as it's the most important feature of the game. There's no reason why any new beta tester has to re-experience it in its entirety when they've already done so on their normal games. The obvious exception here would be new ages, which should use their planned live values in order to collect feedback and measure pacing.
  • Make gameplay faster. Reduce building costs and shorten timers potentially even including the FP bar. Place older GBs in the build menu and allow them to be built at level 1 for free.
  • This last one is the most controversial, but perhaps even resetting the beta server every so often or not having it open at all times could be useful as well. To go along with this, with every testing phase players can start out in a specific state, rather than from the beginning. For example, when a new age is released, players would start out already in that age and have all the tools necessary to hit the ground running with testing. Keep the testing window running until the feature is ready for a live release, and then shut down and wipe the server until the next testing phase begins. This keeps feedback focused almost entirely on the feature being tested, and most importantly allows anyone to jump in immediately in order to participate in the test.
Along with this, I think something that could be done if it's not too technically challenging is offering some sort of 'beta rewards program' that offers players incentives in their live cities for helping to beta test things. I think there's already something kind of like that here with bug reporting? I don't know if that applies to live servers though, probably just beta? In any case, perhaps a system could be designed where player rewards are distributed via codes that are then redeemed in a server of the player's choice. The specifics can be left up to Inno, but I think rewarding players for testing would probably get a LOT of peoples' attention.

In short, right now I feel like beta does provide that unstable 'things can change at any moment' feel like beta tends to do, but not much else. Is the intent really for beta to otherwise feel exactly like a normal server? Because to me that doesn't feel like a very good testing environment. Does anyone else have thoughts to share on this subject? Perhaps this is just me rambling, but who knows, maybe this could get the ball rolling towards something!
 

Thunderdome

Emperor
I used to play a game that a beta server was like that. Hence why I don't play it anymore.

Majority of us are proud of our achievements to be damned if the developers delete/wipe/reset everything. Many of us have come to play this server (like a live one) because of the stuff you can get early before release as well as diamonds (for those who don't want to spend money) to be used to our heart's content.
 

UBERhelp1

Viceroy
I think @qaccy is right. The server isn't really beta. It's just a sneak peek server.

I also think the beta server would work better if, say, you could start a new world and it would ask which age you want to start in, giving a basic city and supplies based on the age you choose. You could also have access to building GB from previous eras (lvl 1) for free. This way, players can experience new material without having to spend years getting there. As more ages are released, the players coming to test beta features have bigger mountains to climb to test those ages.

I know one beta server of a game I used to play (it was limited on who could join and was only open to the public when mass testing was needed) would make you play the game as normal until you reached a certain point, and then you could add to your score and resources to get to the latest released stuff. That way only committed players got there.

This beta server is WAY too much like a normal server. While it should accurately reflect the game as a whole, this isn't the correct way to go about it.
 

qaccy

Emperor
@Thunderdome That's one of the problems I'm seeing and attempted to address in my post. This SHOULDN'T be a normal server, and it shouldn't be treated like one either. It's currently very close to being one, but this is still intended to be a testing environment. New things come here first in order to be tested, not simply to be experienced. Admittedly, it's better to still be playing than someone like me who doesn't have the time to even do that, but only being here because you get free diamonds is not much more helpful in my opinion.
 

The Lady Ann

Baronet
true qaccy I really only come and play here when I know a new feature is due to be released so a sneaky peak if you like :)) have been waiting for guild battlefields forever lol
 

Leones

Marquis
Beta testing has multiple aspects. On one hand you want to know that new features work perfectly, on the other you want to know you're not breaking something else in the process.

Take guild battlegrounds for example, you want it to work fine for players of all ages, having a quicker progression curve would severely limit the amount of players testing it in the earlier ages. Same with new events, you want it to be balanced across the board and not just for the higher end players.

Sometimes you want a testing environment as close to a live environment as possible. Feedback from newer players or players in a lower age is as valuable as feedback from experienced players or those in a higher age, as that is how players will interact with it on live environments.
 

beelzebob666

Overlord
Pathfinder
Spoiler Poster
As far as I have seen, they are already doing it similar to what you propose. They already have one or more test servers (probably more of them running on different versions of the game) not open to the general public where everything is sped up and where they basically have a free roam (set technology progress back and forth) and unlimited resources - as could be seen in the previews of the settlement for example. Some players that are part of the FOE team have access to such servers for replicating reported bugs for example.

In such environments they can quickly test out, if things work out as intended conceptually.

But to get proper feedback you need a play experience as close to what it would be on live as possible. And that is what the Beta-Server is for. If the Beta server was sped up, you would get wrong feedback. How should a player on a sped up server decide if a feature is too easy or too hard when it will come to live on a totally different game speed?
 

Sl8yer

Regent
Majority of us are proud of our achievements to be damned if the developers delete/wipe/reset everything. Many of us have come to play this server (like a live one) because of the stuff you can get early before release as well as diamonds (for those who don't want to spend money) to be used to our heart's content.

And here you have your problem in a nuttshell. Players are not here to test. They are here to play and in that to profit from the free diamonds.
 

qaccy

Emperor
But to get proper feedback you need a play experience as close to what it would be on live as possible. And that is what the Beta-Server is for. If the Beta server was sped up, you would get wrong feedback. How should a player on a sped up server decide if a feature is too easy or too hard when it will come to live on a totally different game speed?

You bring up a good point. I touched on this in my post by saying new age research would not be 'sped up' as an example, but perhaps this can be clarified further to include any new feature. That bit was intended to convey that it should be clear that new features are tested in 'normal' conditions, but in a lot of cases under the current structure that's rather difficult for most players unless they've already been playing for years. My thinking is that this should be adjusted to allow as many people in as possible, even if it's their first day here. Currently, that's not possible in a majority of cases and I believe that both turns many players away from potentially becoming testers, and reduces the amount of feedback/data received on a feature because there's less people testing it. This leads to things like the changes to GvG being released on live servers still in a 'testing' phase, because there aren't enough players here to gather data from.
 

Thunderdome

Emperor
@qaccy and @Sl8yer yep, that's what's this server had become mostly. I got two cities (Angkor main; Yorkton IA experimental) that I sometimes play onto (when work doesn't get me in a bind or I can get an internet connection, mainly signal strength, in the areas I travel to) that are way lower than the one on the beta. Could I get the same number of buildings on live as I did on beta? Quite possibly if I can play it right (and yes, I tend to write down the quests I had done on beta to better prepare myself for when it hits live. My only pet peeve is that Inno is a few versions ahead on the beta part in the browser so they could not make certain things testable on the mobile app which many people are playing mostly from these days; hence, why my feedback scores back to Inno are lower than I can give them (gotta make it possible, on the same day it's released, to be played on the mobile app).

Five years ago, many people from Arvahall (where I had my city once ago before I left) took to the beta once it leaked out that one can get free diamonds and more things than they would in a live server. While the free diamonds might be nice, I play to get ahead of the game and to make sure I do not make mistakes when playing on the live server.
 
If the structure of the zz domain follows the structure of the other domains, there will be 3 more servers before being deployed to Dunasund. These could well offer the desired features for a closed group.

I would view this server as the last - public - (beta) test, if I look at the amount of bug tickets, that's a good thing.
The reasons with random players in larger numbers in the various ZA and ways of playing have already been mentioned.
 

Sl8yer

Regent
(and yes, I tend to write down the quests I had done on beta to better prepare myself for when it hits live.

Exact the reason why I started playing the beta, but now there is no reason for that anymore. You can use the Wiki.

I played the beta to test, but I hit SAM and are behind on the continent map, cause I could not be bothered by it. So now I am stuck. Getting unstuck will take weeks, so why bother.
 
Yep it has become just another city but with free diamonds, feedback/testing is just a waste of time as as I have found out recently, doesn't matter if no one that plays the game likes something or not, once its changed its to bad.
The amount of times over the last 6-7 years I see a new feature that effects something else in the game it gets past on straight to the live server, oh look, I remember when it did that in beta.
Reminds me of walking into them small cheap gyms in shopping centers, the PT's are fat and went to the gym 3 times and decide to be a PT....all you need to do is some star jumps and you in the running for Mr universe next year...
 
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I think the beta server should need you to apply for it because otherwise I think it is just becoming another city but with free diamonds . I also think that you should monitor how many times players find glitches and use that to work out how many diamond to pay people. The only problem with that is that players might lie . So my answer to that is that if the glitch is not real you should give them 4 warnings per age before giving them no diamond pay until the next age when the warnings reset . I myself have a life server account to play in and a beta account to help innogames . Though another thing is that you should be able to apply to skip an age in the beta server because if you want to test some new feature in space age mars then you need a lot of people in space age mars and when your focusing on testing the game that is hard to achieve.
 

FrejaSP

Viceroy
I believe Beta works fine, however there is one feature I would like to see. to make a copy of one of your live serveres to the Beta server. It took me long time to work up my Beta Town and I'm still 2 ages behind my Live Towns,
Yes I to play on Beta to know what is comming to Life servers but I do also play Beta as I like to help testing and give feelback to the Devs so the new stuff is working well and well balanced so it is good for the Live servers.
I guess it is not possible to make a copy to Beta as the Beta players came from different countries but maybe there is a way to convert a Live city for the Beta server.
 

UBERhelp1

Viceroy
I guess it is not possible to make a copy to Beta as the Beta players came from different countries but maybe there is a way to convert a Live city for the Beta server.
The problem with that is you could choose any city and voila! You have the highest player's city.
 
I play here to test new features in advance, I report bugs and I spent a lot of time on beta. And because I play it "like live" is the reason for that. If they wipe it and do it like proposed, I will not be here.

So big no to this suggestion from me.
 

qaccy

Emperor
I play here to test new features in advance, I report bugs and I spent a lot of time on beta. And because I play it "like live" is the reason for that. If they wipe it and do it like proposed, I will not be here.

So big no to this suggestion from me.

Why wouldn't you be here? A revamped beta would not only still allow you to test features and report bugs, it would also allow many new players to do so as well, without needing to put in what's essentially an equal commitment as any live server in order to do so. My issue with the beta server as it currently stands is that the barrier to entry is far too high, especially when it comes to testing features that are intended to appeal to advanced players, like new ages.

Much of the feedback that ends up making its way to the forums ends up coming from the same group of posters every time, many of which don't even actually play on beta and are merely commenting on what they see in announcements. I'm one of those people, as I don't have the time to play any more than the one city I currently play on. And without beta making any sort of concession to facilitate more accessible testing, that's unlikely to change for me. I feel like I'm not alone, either, as there have been several updates and changes to the game that have gone to the live servers in a 'beta' state, being released only to a limited number of players, often for an extended period of time before finally being available to everybody. My suspicion is that this is because there simply aren't enough players on the beta server to give Inno the data it's looking for regarding certain changes, which is gradually leading to the live servers becoming test servers in their own right. Does that not seem like a problem to you? That features are being tested outside of what's supposed to be a purpose-built testing environment?
 

Tanmay11

Regent
I play Beta as my main city....didn't realize that this was a test server until a few months later(i guess my country does not have a dedicated server so it took me to beta directly?). yes i do like the free diamonds but iv'e participated in bug reporting and feedback as much as i can until i went inactive for a few years.
It would be a shame if devs were to reset the progress, not just mine but many other players who have invested a great deal of time & effort.
 
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