A way to prevent patches like GU4/GU2?

I'm a patient man. I can wait, and so I have. Seeing the patch notes come up today, I was admittedly a little bit dissapointed in the actual content, but that made me hope for something else. Maybe, just maybe, this patch wouldn't have as many bugs, and that they wouldn't be *as* game breaking.

BUT.

Despite delaying the patch & scrapping several of the main features, it still comes out like this? Massive reduction in performance, fully aerial Magriders, TONS of new bugs (and tons of old ones left unfixed) & ridiculously long loading times just to get into the game.

I'll be 20 this year. I've been playing video games since I could sit steady on my behind. I have never experienced this amount of consecutive patches/game updates that are just filled with bugs, I mean, is the game developing team severely understaffed, or are they simply not qualified to do their job?

It's very disheartening to enjoy a game so much, just to see it repeatedly crash & burn because the so called GU's bring more bugs than they fix & bring less new content than advertised.

Solution:

A way to fix many of these problems is to allow X amount of players on a -TEST- server, to both conduct tests on stability/performance & large-scale bug testing. While and after testing, the X amount of players that are allowed onto the -TEST- server could gain access to a private forum section, where they can easily report issues/bugs on the build that they're playing on.

A -TEST- server would also allow for easier weapon/game balancing, as recieving feedback directly from players on the private server is likely to prove more fruitful than the vocal minorites on these forums.

SOE does not want to pay the costs related to a test server. Patches like this are the norm, if you don't like it you should seek out a new game to play ^^;

i said this in the thread the devs made when they first said GU4 was going to be 'delayed for more QA time'

A test server will not expose most of the bugs and probably would not expose the FPS issue as you never get enough people on test to really stress it. People want to play on live.

The QA department needs to do much much better. I know they have one as the interviewed the head of it.

This is just not acceptable to me or most.

I did not say most, I said many. Many could have meant that bugs such as the infiltrator cloak not working could have been fixed before the release of the patch. This is just a very brief example of the potential of a test server ofcourse.

As for population, I don't think there'll be an issue. Everyone's eager to test out upcomming content, there's no denying that fact .

I think it's something we have to get used to. I don't see it changing in the future.
Game is unplayable for me now as well. I get the flashing bug pretty regularly now, and have to disconnect. And its a slideshow in any major battle.
I too was calling for a test server, but I don't think we will get one. At least I have heard no mention of one. We are stuck with the QA people they have now.

Its best to just assume that there will be performance issues after a patch. GU time means wait a few days for a hotfix, then play.

They will figure it out in a couple of days. It will get fixed. Hopefully by the weekend, maybe Monday.

It'd be better if it did not get released, and instead of the hotfix we got the actual patch a couple of days later.
But it's quite obvious they need us to globally find the bugs that their mythical Q&A team should've done.

A test server would solve those problems. Lay off the supposed Q&A guys, and invest in a much cheaper method of preparing patches, a test server !

The only real issue I had tonight was a couple of client freezes. It seemed related to sound but I can't say if it was something someone was doing (like the old hex crash exploit that was sound based) or was just something that is happening.

The main things that were bothering me I don't think a test server would help with because I don't think they would care what my opinion is. When I open my map now I just feel like blind or disoriented. Why did someone feel a need to change it? It certainly isn't going to be friendly to new players and what was the point of wasting dev time on changing something that was working just fine?

^^ That's the kind of thing that irritates me.

I know that I saw mention of a FPS problem which I was not having... and the game just felt totally off I guess because of that. I'd hear shooting and see dots on the map.. run out to find a dead ally and gun down like 6 enemies who did at best minor damage to me. So after my second client freeze I just logged for the night because believe it or not.. it was simply not interesting for me to be killing people that easily when I know most of their names (and they are at least as good and mostly better at the game than me.)

^^ That's the kind of thing a test server could help with and I expect the game was even less interesting for those players I was killing. Sure I died a few times tonight but overall it was like .. well obviously something was very off and I'll just leave it at that.

Why not simply stop this nonsense of throwing a single big patch every one or two monthes, since SOE clearly not have the man power to do so, and do a tiny weekly patch so we can immediatly sort out the potential bugs and test the new feature(s) without breaking the entire game?

That would be a win-win situation for both SOE and the players.
Players wouldnt spend entire months feeling that the game isnt improving itself, and often with various annoying bugs, SOE could more easly test the little features/bug fix/performance improvement, and if something get broken, the entire game wouldnt end up ****** up and the origin of the issue could be easly spotted.

Weekly updates would be swell, but as it is now, SOE is dead set on doing large game updates more sparsely. And yes, they either lack the manpower, or they simply lack sufficient skill.

now that they have closed down a Us west , im not sure why they haven't made a test server yet, 2 launchers 2 gamen clients keep it all seperate

most of the key devs who built the game have been moved to the next-gen everquest game. what you're witnessing now is as good as it's going to get.

as an addendum the fully aerial magrider bug almost seems like poetic justice we get for mocking the VS the <24 hours they were broken.

Small changes are always better from a QA QC standpoint. Massive patches such as this require sorting through so much more code than making small incremental additions.

Honestly, I dont think adding more and more stuff to a game that already has performance issues is a good idea at all. I like the game a lot, and Im a paying customer with a sub and occasional drops on other items. But I dont like it enough to put up with much more of this.

Easy, stop listening to the bloody forums... Instantly fixed Patch issues.

The higby hears, the higby listens

Posted 26 minutes ago by Higby:

"Within the next week or so (fingers crossed!) we will launch our new Public Test Server"

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...for-indar-and-a-bit-more.103900/#post-1386086

Overreacting much?

Sure, FPS's went down to a whole lot of people, and right after the patch it was posted that they were looking into it and will hotfix it as soon as possible.
I've been playing all night, despite the big FPS drop, and I didn't run into any patch specific bug whatsoever. Just waiting on the hotfix now.

I fail to see how you can classify anything about GU4 as "gamebreaking".

oh nope, nothing "gamebreaking" about that for anybody, nosiree.

I can't run the game. Warpgate I get 35 FPS, normal battles 22, bigger battles 15 and lower. I previously never dipped below 30. That's not gamebreaking?