CoH over 100k subscribers.

[Shockeye]

Read the dirt here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=419812

[Comstar]

100K? This is good news, showing you CAN be a success without having elves and wookies and crap.

If you make a good solid, WELL MADE game, people will buy it. Looks like the super hero curse is over, at least for the time being.

[schild]

We'll see what happens in 2 weeks with their first content patch.

[Rasix]

We'll see what happens in 2 weeks with their first content patch.

I predict meltdown, crash and rollback.   They've made a solid game, but their patches so far have been really lackluster efforts.  Has a single one of them not been repealed yet after being published?

[schild]

In beta the patches had very few problems. Hopefully they'll throw the patch up on a server and say - for the next 2 days nothing counts - there will be a rollback after 48 hours - it is just to test the new patch. If not, well shit, they better do it right the first time.

[Aslan]

Hopefully, once the test server goes live, they can do that 48-hour test there rather than rollback everyone's characters.

[Furiously]

Decent first patch.

Would like to see a test server - not that I would play on it unless I could char copy or buff myself to a higher level. (Test how I spend char points? Seems to me this would be almost as good as a respec).

[daveNYC]

Hopefully, once the test server goes live, they can do that 48-hour test there rather than rollback everyone's characters.

Fuck that, they better get the test server up and running before they do any patches.  Dumping code into the production environment without any sort of testing is stupid.

[Alkiera]

Dumping code into the production environment without any sort of testing is stupid.

I doubt it's without ANY sort of testing.  Just not the level of testing really required for projects as complex as MMOs...  Like EQ eventually started doing with the Bard Regression Tests, where every patch they had someone log in a bard on their internal server to see if the class still functioned, and run thru a bunch of actions.

CoH doesn't have a nexus of gamebreaking powers like the bard class, but I'm sure they'll work out what kinds of things tend to break when they change stuff, and work out a testing scheme.  It can take awhile, but hopefully not the 3+ years it took EQLive to start releasing somewhat stable patches.

--
Alkiera

[Bipolar]

Definitly a test server is a must now a days.  I am sure the developers test (unit and system) but nothing will find bugs like a rabid fanbase on a test server.  I have seen many users who dedicate many hours on test servers in EQ and DAOC to find every little bug and such and, I think, have become an invaluable part of the UAT for a game patch.  Hope ncsoft does it, it will help to ensure a better product for us all.

[Tisirin]

Absolutely a Test Server is a must.  We hoped to have one up before now but, for better or worse, we used that server set for a live server in order to avoid overcrowding immediately after launch.

Good news is that we'll have a Test Server up this week, I'm pretty sure.  I'm wary of making guaranteed-or-your-money-back predictions.  Least said, soonest mended and all that.

Tisirin

[cevik]

Good news is that we'll have a Test Server up this week, I'm pretty sure.  I'm wary of making guaranteed-or-your-money-back predictions.  Least said, soonest mended and all that.

Do you have a s00per seekrit strategy for luring players over to the test server this late in the game?  I'd think that most players would rather not abandon their characters at this point to play on an unstable test server, which is often the most neglected server on any MMOG.

[Alrindel]

Test servers aren't really usually that unstable per se, they just sometimes get kind of interesting in unexpected ways.

Anyways, I think the "luring players" is a little less of an issue in a game like CoH than it traditionally is in other MMOGs.  Between relatively painless rerolling and the sidekick system, the only real barrier is how complicated the installation of the test server client is, and how much space it needs on your hard drive.

[Velorath]

Absolutely a Test Server is a must.  We hoped to have one up before now but, for better or worse, we used that server set for a live server in order to avoid overcrowding immediately after launch.

Good news is that we'll have a Test Server up this week, I'm pretty sure.  I'm wary of making guaranteed-or-your-money-back predictions.  Least said, soonest mended and all that.

Tisirin

Seems like you guys could probably use a few more normal servers as well too pretty soon.  When I logged on last night two servers were showing a heavy load and the rest were medium.  Numbers seem to be a lot higher than most people would have expected from CoH a few months ago.

[Tisirin]

Good news is that we'll have a Test Server up this week, I'm pretty sure.  I'm wary of making guaranteed-or-your-money-back predictions.  Least said, soonest mended and all that.

Do you have a s00per seekrit strategy for luring players over to the test server this late in the game?  I'd think that most players would rather not abandon their characters at this point to play on an unstable test server, which is often the most neglected server on any MMOG.

Good question.  I think the first task is to make sure the Test Server gets up and running how we would like it.  After that, there are always a variety of incentives that can be offered to testers.  It's something we're talking about now.

[Velorath]

Do you have a s00per seekrit strategy for luring players over to the test server this late in the game?  I'd think that most players would rather not abandon their characters at this point to play on an unstable test server, which is often the most neglected server on any MMOG.

Hopefully they'll have a character copy like DAOC does on Pendragon.  I'd probably spend a lot of time on the CoH test server just because testing patches is entertaining to me.  Maybe if you could respec your enhance slots after you char. copy too, it would give players more incentive to spend time on the test server since they would be able to try out slight variations of their characters to see how to more effectively enhance their powers.

[Tisirin]

Do you have a s00per seekrit strategy for luring players over to the test server this late in the game?  I'd think that most players would rather not abandon their characters at this point to play on an unstable test server, which is often the most neglected server on any MMOG.

Hopefully they'll have a character copy like DAOC does on Pendragon.  I'd probably spend a lot of time on the CoH test server just because testing patches is entertaining to me.  Maybe if you could respec your enhance slots after you char. copy too, it would give players more incentive to spend time on the test server since they would be able to try out slight variations of their characters to see how to more effectively enhance their powers.

Respeccing enhancement slots at will is a good idea.  We're definitely going to go with some kind of character copy.  But I worry that this won't give us enough of a "spread" of levels.

[HaemishM]

To make the CoH test server effective, I think you are really going to need some kind of instant level command. Especially if you are talking about using it to add new high-level content.

Let the test server be a true tinkering environment and be damned will all this talk about trying to create some form of community there. There will be a dedicated few who will play it as their main server, but you're likely to get better, more broad results from a tinkerer's paradise than a tester's closet.

[Velorath]

To make the CoH test server effective, I think you are really going to need some kind of instant level command. Especially if you are talking about using it to add new high-level content.

Let the test server be a true tinkering environment and be damned will all this talk about trying to create some form of community there. There will be a dedicated few who will play it as their main server, but you're likely to get better, more broad results from a tinkerer's paradise than a tester's closet.

You'd have to put in some safeguards though to keep people from just trying out all the levels and powers for a few minutes each and then just getting bored of the game and leaving.  I could picture people going to the test server, doing /level 50 a few times, check out the high end zones and powers, and then quitting.  Maybe only allow most testers to jump back and forth through levels up to the max of the character they copyed, while allowing some of the more active testers a wider range of /level.

[Krakrok]

You'd have to put in some safeguards though to keep people from just trying out all the levels and powers for a few minutes each and then just getting bored of the game and leaving.

I see your point but heaven forbid that they actually let their paying customers experience ALL the content they paid $50 (without having to grind-for-Jesus). *gasp*

I doubt I'll ever see anything past lvl 20.

[Velorath]

You'd have to put in some safeguards though to keep people from just trying out all the levels and powers for a few minutes each and then just getting bored of the game and leaving.

I see your point but heaven forbid that they actually let their paying customers experience ALL the content they paid $50 (without having to grind-for-Jesus). *gasp*

I doubt I'll ever see anything past lvl 20.

But you wouldn't be experiencing all the content.  You'd miss out on the mission and task force storyarcs.  It's like using a gameshark on a single player game.  After the novelty wears off of being able to skip though most of the game it makes the game seem pointless regardless of how good the game might have been.

Anyhow, you seem to have missed the point that we were discussing how best to implement a test server, not trying to come up with a server that would allow casual gamers to experience all the content so they can cancel their subs after a couple days of playing around.

[Soukyan]

Hopefully, once the test server goes live, they can do that 48-hour test there rather than rollback everyone's characters.

Fuck that, they better get the test server up and running before they do any patches.  Dumping code into the production environment without any sort of testing is stupid.

But... but... SB does it and all the fanbois still rave about that steaming pile. ;)

[Kyper]

I was thinking character copy would be enough to get people to the test server, but while writing this, I changed my mind.  Letting players set their own level is the way to go.

What I don't want to see is a "club" of insider testers who wind up having an undue influence on the direction of the game.  I was worried this might happen in beta with a certain supergroup, but the devs seemed to keep them in check.  

By being able to set their level, all players would have a chance to test new content and changes and give their feedback to the dev team.

For example, if there big changes proposed for scrappers, you bet I would be on test trying them out at different levels and giving feedback as appropriate.

[Krakrok]

Anyhow, you seem to have missed the point that we were discussing how best to implement a test server, not trying to come up with a server that would allow casual gamers to experience all the content so they can cancel their subs after a couple days of playing around.

No carrot, no testy test (except for the few masochists).

I'd settle for faster experience gain.

[Velorath]

I was thinking character copy would be enough to get people to the test server, but while writing this, I changed my mind.  Letting players set their own level is the way to go.

What I don't want to see is a "club" of insider testers who wind up having an undue influence on the direction of the game.  I was worried this might happen in beta with a certain supergroup, but the devs seemed to keep them in check.  

By being able to set their level, all players would have a chance to test new content and changes and give their feedback to the dev team.

For example, if there big changes proposed for scrappers, you bet I would be on test trying them out at different levels and giving feedback as appropriate.

The only way I could see /level work other than for a select group of people would be a scheduled temp /level.  For instance, say they're testing some 45-50 content.  For a few hours each day for maybe a couple off weeks, let people make characters in that range and restrict them to the zones the content is being added in.  If a certain power is being changed, have a period where characters with that power can /level.  Have the devs organize the tests like they did with the stress tests during the beta.  Just adding /level though isn't going to give people incentive to actually test things, it would just give them incentive to play around with it until they get bored.

[Kyper]

good points

I would like to see this kind of directed testing, but it could take too much time and manpower.  It all depends on how much NCSoft is willing give to testing.