Beta "testing" !?!?

[MelAn]

Ticks just stopped & i have to say i enjoyed playing beta( *bored in my holidays* )
I just played for fun in a "madly mixed gal" of ppl from both sides & to test Xandathrii, cause i was unsure what race to choose for r9.

Still i have to admit that i'm deeply disappointed by some people, who took the whole beta testing to seriouse!!!

Actions like:

- abusing ppl heavily (not only mails, also IRC, culminating in "personal hatred")
- banning ppl from private server for doing seriouse testing & not caring about "We are WoE" ( we are all nap'ed et cetera) *cough* Sakera *cough*
- Ally officials threaten other testers, that attacks on them will have huge effects on "real" planetarion r9 (e.g. Kick from your ally,...)
motto: "I'm a pa celeb, fear my connections" \0/
- ...

>>> No seriouse testing but stagnation &boredom

It was NO Speedround, no test of VOM vs WEE, nor a test which gal/player is the best!! Only a beta test to provide us a stable, "accurate" round 9!

Some ppl tested seriouse, some didn't...still it's sad that some ppl dictate others how to play a beta test & kinda ruined it with their ignorance! (..those ppl will be first who moan when some things won't work 100% round 9, i'm sure!!! )

-JustaBunny-

[Leshy]

People who take alliances serious in a Beta are fools.

[Bashar]

Is a realistic situation not the best way to test? Alliances realistically will happen. Testing is about more than just "Is there a bug" or "If you add the armour of all the ships together and square root it do you get a prime number???!!11". You have to look at the CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding such things also, and as alliances will be a circumstance in the real round, and as major one at that, then alliances do belong in the beta, otherwise you are testing things in a situation they will not be used in. I agree hatemail etc. is a little harsh, and threatening for the beta to affect real PA is also harsh, and I wouldn't do it, but it does help you test some things, such as how OTHER people react to certain attacks, and hence what is the most effective to send. I would rather people said that sort of thing to me if they would in real PA, as it tells me that the attack I am doing is a damn effective one!

But as I said, the most efficient testing situation is one which is as close to what a proper round of PA is as you can get. There does need to be some scope for "side-experiments" though, such as saying to someone "I noticed an anomaly in such and such, will you help me test it?". That is hard to do though without having a completely controlled environment, which is difficult to achieve without unlimited resources etc.

[bernhard]

can someone tell me what a parallel is (in PA)? Parallels did not exist in beta, did they?

and what about overburn, is it in or out in rd 9?

[Leshy]

I agree that a realistic situation is the best way to test the game, but the lack of private galaxies in the Beta excludes that possibility already.

The only real changes that need testing are the ship stats and the server load. To test server load, you just need people to play and to test ship stats you need combat. Not organised bashing, not stagnation, but loads of combat reports.

And hatemail and threats to kick someone from an alliance for attacking an allied player in the beta is ridiculous.

[Cloud9]

The only thing I really learned from the beta is that in cluster bashing and roiding will ofc remain very popular...(sigh)....and the 2 min ticks didnt help ofc....oh well, (to those that found a little gal in cluster with 3-4 actives only) and then went back, again, and again, and again...every d*¤n day, well done guys!!! you are the true spirits of 'old PA'...........roll on r10...

[Bashar]

Originally posted by bernhard
can someone tell me what a parallel is (in PA)? Parallels did not exist in beta, did they?

and what about overburn, is it in or out in rd 9?

Parallels are the SECOND galaxy coord, i.e. 5:6 and 6:6 are in the same parallel, and yes, they were in the beta. Both have a -1 traveltime.

No, overburn is not in.

[Desse]

Originally posted by Bashar
Is a realistic situation not the best way to test? Alliances realistically will happen. Testing is about more than just "Is there a bug" or "If you add the armour of all the ships together and square root it do you get a prime number???!!11". You have to look at the CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding such things also, and as alliances will be a circumstance in the real round, and as major one at that, then alliances do belong in the beta, otherwise you are testing things in a situation they will not be used in. I agree hatemail etc. is a little harsh, and threatening for the beta to affect real PA is also harsh, and I wouldn't do it, but it does help you test some things, such as how OTHER people react to certain attacks, and hence what is the most effective to send. I would rather people said that sort of thing to me if they would in real PA, as it tells me that the attack I am doing is a damn effective one!

But as I said, the most efficient testing situation is one which is as close to what a proper round of PA is as you can get. There does need to be some scope for "side-experiments" though, such as saying to someone "I noticed an anomaly in such and such, will you help me test it?". That is hard to do though without having a completely controlled environment, which is difficult to achieve without unlimited resources etc.

Are you serious ?

Testing the servers has nothing to do with how PEOPLE react.
It is a question of creating load on the servers. Seeing if the stats are balanced etc.

When the top 10 gals refuse to hit each other during beta-test to generate some big combats, the alliances are working against the testing.
Who are you going to blame during r9, if there are bugs during combats with big fleets ?

The alliances ? I think not.
You will be here crying about Jolt and the creators not having done their job well enough.

I myself am very disappointed to have found out, that my GC was approached by Prince in order to create some combat testing, and refusing the request to hit other gals, because he is allied to them in pa.

And a bit annoyed, because I and a couple of other members in that gal asked to hit other big gals as well during the weekend.

Desse
Olympians HC.
THIS

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Leshy
I agree that a realistic situation is the best way to test the game, but the lack of private galaxies in the Beta excludes that possibility already.

The only real changes that need testing are the ship stats and the server load. To test server load, you just need people to play and to test ship stats you need combat. Not organised bashing, not stagnation, but loads of combat reports.

And hatemail and threats to kick someone from an alliance for attacking an allied player in the beta is ridiculous.

Actually, there WERE private galaxies in the beta, and you could move into one all the way up to the end of protection. Not enough people created private galaxies though, and too many intended to join them. I think that was due to the lack of a guarantee that you would get in though.

I do agree that hate-mails etc. in the beta is ridiculous, but equally, it is ridiculous in the proper game too. Though it is a fact, and as long as it isn't taken too seriously (by either person) - it is ok (i.e. if it is a simulation style), though I admit the case mentioned it probably wasn't, and that is ridiculous.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Desse
Are you serious ?

Testing the servers has nothing to do with how PEOPLE react.
It is a question of creating load on the servers. Seeing if the stats are balanced etc.

When the top 10 gals refuse to hit each other during beta-test to generate some big combats, the alliances are working against the testing.
Who are you going to blame during r9, if there are bugs during combats with big fleets ?

The alliances ? I think not.
You will be here crying about Jolt and the creators not having done their job well enough.

I myself am very disappointed to have found out, that my GC was approached by Prince in order to create some combat testing, and refusing the request to hit other gals, because he is allied to them in pa.

And a bit annoyed, because I and a couple of other members in that gal asked to hit other big gals as well during the weekend.

Desse
Olympians HC.
THIS

Hrmmmm, you really think it was load testing? If so, you are wrong - it was testing THE GAME, and that is what happened. There was more to test than just the stats too. A few other bugs appeared, and also, last round should have told people that the stats depend on the circumstances of the round. Last rounds stats were not really that ideal for a random universe, simply because of how so many went xan, and the impact that xan could have. This impact is nullified somewhat with private galaxies, and so you have to test the stats properly in the situations they will be used. These are private galaxies, clusters, parallels and alliances.

I agree that people should be willing to put such things aside when something specific requires testing. I am not saying that people in the beta were testing it the best they could, I am saying though that the alliance etc. involvement is essential. But saying no to a request for combat testing I do agree is wrong.

Also Desse (whoever you are), I can assure you that I do not come here moaning about bugs, if there are bugs in the combat, I tell the creators so they can fix them, moaning here achieves nothing. I think you don't know me if you think I would come here moaning about such things

[Ramihyn]

Originally posted by Leshy
The only real changes that need testing are the ship stats and the server load. To test server load, you just need people to play and to test ship stats you need combat. Not organised bashing, not stagnation, but loads of combat reports.

Yes, but sadly you dont see combat reports unless you participated. I would have needed two planets and enough res (the 2 min ticks definately helped), to make some more serious combat tests. This way - with small unit numbers - the error due to random is too high. If you have combat ratios of 3.087 and 2.91 and a reference value of 3.23 - it doesnt really help :/

The hard way would have been to take others combatreports and calcing out the effect of other units - but combat reports arent included in newsscans anymore :/

So, sadly the beta wasnt to useful for me to verify these things - only a few minor things :/

A "havoc" alike period of 2 or 3 hours at the end, where everyone would get a lot res to play with, would have helped a lot. Maybe next time ? :/

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Desse
Are you serious ?

Testing the servers has nothing to do with how PEOPLE react.
It is a question of creating load on the servers. Seeing if the stats are balanced etc.

When the top 10 gals refuse to hit each other during beta-test to generate some big combats, the alliances are working against the testing.
Who are you going to blame during r9, if there are bugs during combats with big fleets ?

The alliances ? I think not.
You will be here crying about Jolt and the creators not having done their job well enough.

And rightly so. The creators are responsible for running the beta--from selecting the participants to setting the "rules" to enforcing them. When the creators aren't too discriminating about who gets into the beta, don't set (m)any rules, and don't enforce the rules, then it's hardly surprising when people "play" instead of "test."

And it's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened in pretty much every other beta. :/

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Ramihyn
Yes, but sadly you dont see combat reports unless you participated. I would have needed two planets and enough res (the 2 min ticks definately helped), to make some more serious combat tests. This way - with small unit numbers - the error due to random is too high. If you have combat ratios of 3.087 and 2.91 and a reference value of 3.23 - it doesnt really help :/

The hard way would have been to take others combatreports and calcing out the effect of other units - but combat reports arent included in newsscans anymore :/

So, sadly the beta wasnt to useful for me to verify these things - only a few minor things :/

A "havoc" alike period of 2 or 3 hours at the end, where everyone would get a lot res to play with, would have helped a lot. Maybe next time ? :/

Yup, as I said earlier, it is hard without unlimited resources, but I don't think they were testing the stats, they have had other betas going to do that, slightly more exclusive ones (i.e. invite only). This one was purely to get people in en masse and see if they could track down any remaining little bugs, the rare ones that people do tend to get annoyed with and find halfway through the round (or such was the impression I recieved).

[bernhard]

Originally posted by Bashar
Parallels are the SECOND galaxy coord, i.e. 5:6 and 6:6 are in the same parallel, and yes, they were in the beta. Both have a -1 traveltime.

universe layout is then a 2-dimensional matrix. clusters as rows and parallels as columns or vice versa. this means you have 9+(x-1) galaxies to access with eta -1 where x is the number of clusters in universe.

I haven't had a closer look at the traveltime descriptions on the military page, but I thought it did not mention parallels.

[xtothez]

Originally posted by Bashar
Parallels are the SECOND galaxy coord, i.e. 5:6 and 6:6 are in the same parallel, and yes, they were in the beta. Both have a -1 traveltime.

It was -2 in the beta.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by xtothez
It was -2 in the beta.

I am 90% sure it was -1, it may be -1 until you get to eta -3 or eta -4 or something, but I am sure in the end it is -1. And it was announced several times that it will be -1 in the actual round anyway.

[Desse]

It was -2 in both cluster and para.

No doubt about it.

[Shev]

Jup.

I was launching Pod fleets at eta 6 in c and Cr fleets at eta 7.

[berten]

I'm sure you are right.
I was part of WoE and all the same we didn't take things to serious either.
Whot we did want to do is test our fleets at maximum capacity hence make ya fleet it's name worthy and get roids.

I've personally learned alot from this beta and know now whot race i'll choose.

I've reported bugs like expected from beta testers.

And i had funning doing this all.

[Desse]

Not sure which gal you were in.

I was in 9:7(formerly knows as 3:7 untill, Prince's "mishap").

And both me and Melan were told frequently, we could not hit any other gal tagged WoE.

I also heard a WP-member quit, because he was bashed by another WP-member, so the part about WoE not taking this seriously only goes for some members.

Don't get me wrong. I had loads of fun in the beta with my galmates. I am just a bit disappointed, that today the last day was boring, and we were told not to hit the only targets we had in range, because they were allies.

[Devo]

Originally posted by Shev
Jup.

I was launching Pod fleets at eta 6 in c and Cr fleets at eta 7.

Ditto, although I didn't finish the final speed tech till Sunday evening (I was away Thursday, and slept at night).

Originally posted by Cloud9
The only thing I really learned from the beta is that in cluster bashing and roiding will ofc remain very popular...(sigh)....and the 2 min ticks didnt help ofc....oh well, (to those that found a little gal in cluster with 3-4 actives only) and then went back, again, and again, and again...every d*¤n day, well done guys!!! you are the true spirits of 'old PA'...........roll on r10...

I agree totally, although I think it won't be so bad thanks to the reduced ETA in parralel as well... Hopefully anyway.

I was in 4:2 (we sucked ffs), and ended up allying with 4:4 and 4:5. We then went and wiped out 4:7 \o. Then we decided to ally with 4:7 (Once we had knocked em down quite a bit... sorry guys), and take on 4:3 and 4:9.... Great fun. Yes, it was during 2 minute ticks and Yes, everybody will claim that 'they weren't playing seriously', and that it means nothing... Well it does! Moha!

[Teh_Necro]

Too an extent, i agree with both MelAn and Bashar...

I think people complaining about other people taking it seriously are just as silly though.

It's a beta, its free, people aint seen any pa action for months, do you really blame them for jumping in and having a good time?

Although personally i played around with Cathaar, even let attacks go through on me b/c i wanted to see what certain dmg my fleet would take against such attackers.

The first few days of beta i played with a bit of effort, orginising raids and what not, and i don't feel ashamed of it one bit.

-Necro

[SantaClaws04]

i'll admit i maybe played a bit seriously. i dont see this as a bad thing tho. if i hadnt i wouldnt have ended in top 30 (or so) in a random gal. my gal was WoE tagged, and i got some attacks from other WoE gals. kinda shocked me that they would attack their own, be it beta or not, trust should not be broken at any time in my book.
but from the 4-5 attacks from major people i got pulled off i learned something about combats too - simply by running their fleet thru a battle calc. simply scanning other people can give ya good knowledge about combats as well, as u would be able to do many more with no risk. and when u do attack, u can test weather target will run from that fleet, or stay and maybe get some losses. its all part of the game...
i dont know what im talking about

/me salutes Bashar

[Cochese]

The previous round was closer to actual testing, though the universe was tiny, and most testers lost interest after the first day (or even a matter of hours).

Still, sending recall mails (and hate mails or whatever) is just silly. It makes me wish for betas of old, where Oreo would tell them to "**** off" and delete/reset their planet.

[SantaClaws04]

so i should go happily into death without fighting?
and anyways i didnt actually expect the targets to recall since i wasnt WoE (or any other alliance for that matter), and i was ready to die
my captain will go down with his ship - and its only a beta anyways... but that doesnt mean the captain will go down without at least trying to fight

[Telest]

Nothing wrong with the classic "Hey, we are allies, why are you attacking us?"

Abusive mails are, of course, a different matter.

I can't think that anyone seriously imagined a beta like this one could be used for stats testing, without people knowing the stats and the ticks being too slow (if people are too bored to be around to play, with 2/3 people per galaxy online, the results are just not realistic).

One free tip from the beta: make sure that after all 10 people have joined the galaxy that you elect the GC after that, my galaxy didn't get the GC/minister bonuses for about first 40 ticks until we had some re-elections.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by SantaClaws04
i'll admit i maybe played a bit seriously. i dont see this as a bad thing tho. if i hadnt i wouldnt have ended in top 30 (or so) in a random gal. my gal was WoE tagged, and i got some attacks from other WoE gals. kinda shocked me that they would attack their own, be it beta or not, trust should not be broken at any time in my book.
but from the 4-5 attacks from major people i got pulled off i learned something about combats too - simply by running their fleet thru a battle calc. simply scanning other people can give ya good knowledge about combats as well, as u would be able to do many more with no risk. and when u do attack, u can test weather target will run from that fleet, or stay and maybe get some losses. its all part of the game...
i dont know what im talking about

/me salutes Bashar

Hehe, you did great

The sort of player everyone wants to fill their gal with, and I enjoyed my time with you in the beta, I had fun, hope you did too!

[Lerxst]

Personal insulting and threaten other ppl with "I'll make you get kicked out of you ally if you land" in beta is just too pathetic to be true... If some "p3ons" behave this way it's sad. If HCs act like that it's just plain ridiculous.

[RealJames]

I played the beta on the WoE side to meet a few people and get to know my new allies. I got my fleet wiped like three times and I didn't care. tbh if people keep whining like this I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see another free open beta.

Grow up fs.

Originally posted by xtothez
It was -2 in the beta.

I noticed that. I do hope the creators did too.

[Tomkat]

ITS AS IMPORTANT AS #ALLCOMP OMG IT TESTS THE TRUE ALLIANCE SKILLLLLZ!!!!1!1!!

....yes

[RealJames]

Originally posted by Tomkat
ITS AS IMPORTANT AS #ALLCOMP OMG IT TESTS THE TRUE ALLIANCE SKILLLLLZ!!!!1!1!!

....yes

lol

[Petru]

That was a server test, not a gamplay/balance beta.

Nothing more.

Stat testing/balance was done with a small team a few days before. Large scale play testing wasn't deemed much of a necessity, but could be done anyway in the load test.

But in essence, it WAS just a load/stress test, hence why there was no involvement really from our side. If anyone in HQ decided half way through to try and make something useful of it, I imagine again that it was for load reasons, ie large fleet numbers etc - not game balance.

There are always people who take things too seriously, who treat any form of testing as personal speed rounds or alliance playgrounds. No matter what you do, whether you take a random selection or hand pick every man jack of them, they always get in somehow. Just pity them, nothing else

[Petru]

Originally posted by MelAn
[i]- banning ppl from private server for doing seriouse testing & not caring about "We are WoE" ( we are all nap'ed et cetera) *cough* Sakera *cough*

If this part is true, then jesus Sakera, go get laid or something, but lighten the fk up.

[SantaClaws04]

Originally posted by Petru
That was a server test, not a gamplay/balance beta.

the fact that bugs were found and stats werent released till after beta had been going on for a few days makes me think otherwise actually...
people play for different reasons, some for testing fleet setups, some maybe to find bugs, some to win, some just to do it - i dont care how people play - i play my way, and i dont think anyone should care. stop the bitching about people's playstyle, please.

[Petru]

Originally posted by SantaClaws04
the fact that bugs were found and stats werent released till after beta had been going on for a few days makes me think otherwise actually...
people play for different reasons, some for testing fleet setups, some maybe to find bugs, some to win, some just to do it - i dont care how people play - i play my way, and i dont think anyone should care. stop the bitching about people's playstyle, please.

Stats weren't released because they just hadn't been written up yet. And because there was no intention of releasing them purely for the delight of the 580 power players within the 600 randomly picked players.

The stats released were no different than those finalised a week before, trust me, I think I can speak with a bit of authority on this

[Tomkat]

The main reasons I played were...
1) I was having PA withdrawal symptoms. WHAT? Don't you all try and deny you're not a crappy loser like myself.
2) I was bored. And PA beta beat having a wank. Well. Beat having a 5th wank that night.