An Idea for more effecient testing
DnOberon
Join Date: 2010-07-25 Member: 72806Members
Join Date: 2010-07-25 Member: 72806Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Didn't really know that to put for the title...</div>I must say first of all I"m a very happy customer. I'm extremely glad I pre purchased NS2 and have the chance to see this game develop from the ground up. Thanks for all the hard works devs!!
Now the problem I see, is that the day after the patch the servers were basically half/full and people were playing a little, seeing all the changes etc. Now however, there is next to no one in the servers. I'm not the type of person that will go in by himself and start messing around to see all the bugs, those who do that, thanks because you help make the game better, but I think that there are a lot of people that are in my same boat here. I find it hard to join a server with 1 to 0 people in it and hope it fills with a couple of other people. This isn't good for the devs either frankly.
My idea, is that as a community we choose one night a week and a six hour period in that day to all get on the servers. Just a huge meetup, join the servers you can etc. Then the next day we make a post describing the night before and all of the expierences and bugs we found.
Let me know what you think of this idea!
Now the problem I see, is that the day after the patch the servers were basically half/full and people were playing a little, seeing all the changes etc. Now however, there is next to no one in the servers. I'm not the type of person that will go in by himself and start messing around to see all the bugs, those who do that, thanks because you help make the game better, but I think that there are a lot of people that are in my same boat here. I find it hard to join a server with 1 to 0 people in it and hope it fills with a couple of other people. This isn't good for the devs either frankly.
My idea, is that as a community we choose one night a week and a six hour period in that day to all get on the servers. Just a huge meetup, join the servers you can etc. Then the next day we make a post describing the night before and all of the expierences and bugs we found.
Let me know what you think of this idea!
Comments
Let me know what you think of this idea!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it will go nowhere as long as it just remains talk on the forums; I also think it takes so little time to just bang it toghether and get the ball rolling that it's better to do, not ask.
So here's a quick little steam user group that will announce gathers every saturday and sunday at 8 pm CST6CDT for americans and 8 pm CET for Europeans: <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2PAG/" target="_blank">http://steamcommunity.com/groups/NS2PAG/</a>
I have added announcement up to new years eve. OP, if you'd like to take charge of this thing, just join the group and tell me so I can escalate your priviledges to allow you to change everything you want/need to change.
I haven't a clue if it's going to work. But it's better to spend half an hour trying to make it work than to spend half an hour talking about it.
This is the stated purpose:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This group exists for the purpose of using steam event notifications to loosely organize gathers every saturday and sunday at 8 pm.
There are two notifcations for each gather; one at 8 pm CET for Europeans and one at 8 pm CST6CDT.
The organization of gathers is loose because it does not specify any particular server; instead it is requested that you follow these two rules:
1) Browse servers and join a server that has players and reasonable latency.
2) If no populated servers exist, join the server you deem most appropriate and idle for a few minutes. Others who are interested in playtesting will use rule 1) to find you and join the server you are on.
If the player population does not rise sufficiently within 10 minutes for an enjoyable/useful playtest; check your server browser again, if there are no sufficiently populated servers; consider the playtest a failure and leave if you like.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If 10% of players who recieve the notification actually bother to follow it, it will be necessary to have at least ~100 members in the group from each continent in order to successfully fill up a server. That may take a little bit of cajoling.
To others; if you're interested, just join. You can join or leave steam groups at any time. The worst that can happen is that the announcements mildly annoy you.
and weekends at 20:00 in EU, sounds good to me
now just make a "playtest report thread <date>" before every playtest and sh*t will seriously happen
If not, it will still be fun to help testing the game.
I am in Europe, Sweden to be exact (gmt +1), so I guess I will show up at the 8 pm events and not 3 am (the american, which is one you forgot to event for the saturday this week).
Also, add an event midweek for this first week, to be as soon as the new patch is out (mentioned in twitter feed). And immediately after any other patch :P. Well maybe more like 1 hour after or similar, so everyone have time to dl and see the notice.
I suggest we try and get some "official bugtest servers" which members have a higher priority to join for this event, thus making it higher chance they all join same server (when there is connecting issues the current way would be used though).
Oh right!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't a clue if it's going to work. But it's better to spend half an hour trying to make it work than to spend half an hour talking about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess I take the initiative to get some server owners to take the initiative to help us then XD
Anyone got a server they would like to add to a list of "official" (sounds more official if you call it official, even if it is an unofficial steam group ;D) testing servers for this group during the events?
Not to many though, as then the whole purpose (concentrating people to a few servers) would get negated!
Just tell us the IP, so we can use the console to join.
Adding a [NS2PAG] tag to the name would be appreciated aswell, as then we can use the server browser.
I hope this takes off!
No server owner who wanna add a [NS2PAG] tag? Well in that case I will try and play on armorychambers servers, I like them (seem more stabile than others with as low ping) :P.
At tram, at the hivel ocation closest to starting hive, if you go to those stais and look up the wall, you see pipes that go into the wall, and an opening that seems good for skulks. The floor of that opening isnt textured.
I think Hydras doesnt lag much when spawned, but once they are built they start lag alot. I was placing hydras until I started feeling some lag, but after that it kept increasing, and I guess it is because they got finished one after another (ending up lagging server to near-death). That or maybe they have memory leaks or something :P. Their lag also seems to have to do with usermessages (or whatver its called in ns2), as the chat is delayed, and any other input from clients, while the actuall game still seems to be working allright.
Gorges should actually get a way to undo their own hydras if you ask me, like a table of placed hydras which remove topmost hydra on keypress.
Macs doesnt only go trough walls, but sometimes also stop inside walls, I assume that has to do with an ordering bug actually telling them to get inside the wall.
Nades seem to lag extremely at the moment they explode.
And ofcourse the fact that the soreboard is often incorrect, and shows to many/to few people.
Also putting bugs in this thread is counter-productive, since the devs have asked all bugs to go to their 'getsatisfaction' page so they can track them all from one place.
Also putting bugs in this thread is counter-productive, since the devs have asked all bugs to go to their 'getsatisfaction' page so they can track them all from one place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But apparently get satisfaction is down.
Source: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111377&hl=" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=111377&hl=</a>
Any chance we could sticky this thread for anyone incoming who hasn't seen it yet?