Public Test Server

[cinderweb]

is that the fastest you can run em off? or do you have a plan for the future where you do everything yourself.

[Quinny]

Even if people may leave you still need to take into account for everyone here and now. Yes look to the furte but not as if the people here don't exist. Think as all the people here now a long with the many more that could be added not replaced.

Now as like on live the test is up work out the bugs with it. like I said before and I will put it here for you to refer to easily. Note these are my suggestions.
1. Only trusted testers and higher ups should beable to spawn. ( I know you are working on it now)
2. Don't tell a tester how to test but what they need to test. Yes using the same stats as live might be easier but there is such a wide variety of play styles all should be used for testing.
3. Make finding what needs to be tested easier. I know you said that in the futrue you will be useing pm's. Pm's work great for me I can see a short description of what you need and or a link to what it is and then know where to post if I need to about said test.
4. Talk to all the testers. Send out a PM and see who all answers and with what they suggest. If someone/s doesn't answer to your pm with in a reasonable amount of time (say a week) take them off the tester list.
5. We need a few more testers. After we/you get most of this worked out see about adding a few we don't need a whole lot but enough to make sure that all the thing that need tested are covered.
6. Let only lead Dev's (Wushin in this case) decide who needs to have what lvl of gm powers.

[cinderweb]

i agree wushin should be the one to give out gm powers to dedicated testers.
i want to try to work through this so i can be a dev and tester

[Quinny]

So what do others think?

[Freeyorp101]

I must admit I'm confused here. In the past, I've set up a [testing server] off the same login-server for testing. Accounts were periodically copied across, and people seemed happy with that at the time.

GM levels are handled by the login-server. If we run a testing server off the same login-server as production, then any account with GM levels on the testing server will inherently have the same GM levels on the production server. However, as it is the map-server that interprets what levels are required to perform commands, we can make the testing map-server no longer require GM levels to use certain commands. This means that everyone gets to use the same commands without needing any explicit setup, and without needing to be given GM levels on production.

What exactly are the objections that people have here?


---Freeyorp

[melkior]

Looking at the log dates, that testing server was running while I was away from the game. I can tell you straight away that I would've hated such a setup. I've used the testing server fairly often, more so recently, and the only thing that my characters on the main and testing server have in common are the character name and possibly Bunny Ears.

Right now, anyone can @summon as many monsters as they want to, but they can't @spawn anything, making testing certain things harder. On the other hand, if you add @spawn, anyone can crash the server, technically.

The objection here is that a discussion has been opened on this. The testers group was given barely 2 days to respond (after getting a private message), over the weekend, no less, and o11c proceeded to completely ignore that.

[Frost]

I must admit I'm confused here. In the past, I've set up a [testing server] off the same login-server for testing. Accounts were periodically copied across, and people seemed happy with that at the time.

GM levels are handled by the login-server. If we run a testing server off the same login-server as production, then any account with GM levels on the testing server will inherently have the same GM levels on the production server. However, as it is the map-server that interprets what levels are required to perform commands, we can make the testing map-server no longer require GM levels to use certain commands. This means that everyone gets to use the same commands without needing any explicit setup, and without needing to be given GM levels on production.

What exactly are the objections that people have here?

First, I think there are different kinds of testing that are useful. I described this in my post about 2 or 3 testing servers. I don't see how a single testing server can do in-development testing (devs throw stuff in and see how to break it), pre-release testing (after freeze, test until all bugs are gone), and main-server testing (if new content or code changes behavior of the game, players cannot play with representative setups on the testing server and bugs cannot be reproduced as easily.)

Second, we found on the caliban testing server that we needed different levels of access to GM commands. Some people spawned crap that interfered with testing. Some people used @goto, @recall, and such to harass others. This is just what happens when you give people the chance to try new abilities, but it interferes with the regular use of that server. Therefore, we had "regular people" GM 40, "official testers" GM 50, "devs" and "testing GMs" at GM 60, who could deal with troublemakers, and a few "admins" who were lead devs and could restart the server to test things.
Those lessons were learned through problems, and I think we should not forget them easily.

Third, I haven't yet seen either a stated purpose for this testing server, nor an explanation of GM commands, nor a discussion of rules or roles. The fact that a server is up means those decisions were made, so let's at least see what they are. Better yet, let's discuss if they're the right choices for TMW.

Fourth, anyone can set up a testing server. That doesn't mean it succeeds. I remember testing things on the old testing server you mention, getting frustrated about what to do, being ignored when I asked for help, and seeing it quickly fade into history as others had the same bitter experiences.

Fifth, I think we should use this testing server as a way to reach out to players and testers and get them excited about the game, and about how they can move it forward. Look at this thread. Discount my posts if you like, or anyone else who has expressed concerns. Notice how very few TMW testers participated. I sent a group PM. I've talked with some of them in the game. They're not getting involved. If that's not a red flag, I really don't know what is.


And finally:
I initially set up the caliban testing server as a way for devs to be more effective and maybe have more fun. I wouldn't dream of demanding that others shut down their servers so that my crap idea was the only game in town. If it's better than the alternatives, it will live. If it doesn't add value, let it die.
As I watch this situation unfold, I think TMW is ignoring (or worse) both players and game testers. I am prepared to again set up a "rogue testing server" to see if that adds value for TMW. Although o11c has asked me to shut down my services, this is not to spit in his face. I just like to find ways to give back to TMW, and if I can fill an unmet need, I think we all benefit. If there's no unmet need, then nobody would use it.

[o11c]

However, as it is the map-server that interprets what levels are required to perform commands, we can make the testing map-server no longer require GM levels to use certain commands. This means that everyone gets to use the same commands without needing any explicit setup, and without needing to be given GM levels on production.

There is just one problem with this setup - the fact that it *is* useful for official testers to use @spawn. Things have changed somewhat since the old days - it's no longer just developers (who already have @40) doing testing.

In the short term, since we're using a *copy* of the login database, I can grant the official testers a GM level on the test one. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to any copy of the gm account file (or command level config, which is why I messed up @spawn the first time) from the previous test servers, so I can't even try to recreate it (it would be difficult to coordinate accounts anyway). Therefore, I am waiting for a list of accounts to affect.

With the current code, it's not feasible to do this on a single-login-server setup. As much as I would like to think we can trust our testers, it pays to be paranoid, and it's possible to do some *really* nasty things even at @1. However, I do have a plan to change this in the future.

[tux9th]

A copy of the old data can be supplied at any time.

[Cassy]

I'm afraid I don't really understand.
The previous test server on caliban was totally fine for me.
Is it not possible to just set it up the same way again?
Hope I didn't miss a point in the discussion.

Why not just use the accounts from the previous testing server?
People (including me) had specific builds and item sets for testing. I had different accounts for different purposes too.

My regular game accounts have no value for me on the testing server. I already know how those characters work, and I don't need collections of items. My character levels are clustered around 80-95, which is not useful for testing. Besides that, I don't want to have the same character names on the testing server. I'm not role-playing on there; I'm testing.

I also don't want my real game logins and passwords to be migrated to future testing servers. We already see how casually one person can make this decision, and that's a warning to me for the future.

I agree with Frosty.

Also I agree with o11c that @spawn is useful for GM lvl 50.
I use it very often to test several things (new mobs, new equipment vs certain mobs, spells).
Example: when tux introduced the #wave spell on the test server I went to Candor, @spawn'ed 30 Demonic Spirits and tested how powerful the spell was in damage, tactic and costs.
Choosing this example because probably no one thinks that @spawn is also helpful in such a situation.

Besides I need a way to take revenge on Melkior when he scares me by doing @invisible @spawn Mouboo which is probably the most important thing on @spawn for everyone

About changing stats etc. several times:
Nothing's more annoying than this.
It doesn't even matter if it's every week, month, half year.
I know it's not really a huge effort but it's still annoying.
Imagine people want to go to the test server to test something and they are forced to set up all stuff about level, distributing stats, magical things, focus skill, equipment & inventory, ......
This is the typical situation when you think "I seriously can't be bothered doing all of this again, I just wanted to test but pfff I better go back to the main server than".
This is defenitely not theoretical, please don't underestimate this.
It discourages testers.

Hope this helps you

[o11c]

I'm afraid I don't really understand.
The previous test server on caliban was totally fine for me.
Is it not possible to just set it up the same way again?
Hope I didn't miss a point in the discussion.

The intent is to set this server up the same way, except that the actual character database is different and the numerical level of GM commands is different. This latter change should be completely invisible to testers, but since I've had to recreate it from scratch still might need some tweaking.

I've sent a PM to the testers for feedback regarding @command levels, but there seems to be a *lot* of confusion about why they can't still test on caliban etc.

About changing stats etc. several times:

Wow, I didn't realize it was that big a deal. But, that was why I left this discussion open after all ...

Hope this helps you

Definitely.

[Frost]

I'm happy to provide the caliban testing server accounts for this purpose.
So far, nobody asked.

[Platyna]

Just gotta exert your supreme authority over everyone don't you? You are a Duck child o11c a spoiled rotten little child. How many groups have you put yourself in charge of now? All of them?

He had the power over game development but it was not enough. That was the point of that whole take over.

Regards.

[Cassy]

Thanks for reminding me to post here to avoid confusion of not involved people:

This issue was solved on IRC.
Seems cinderweb had a hard day, but he realized it wasn't right and apologized pubicly.

Now we're living in peace again, dancing in a circle hand in hand around Confused Tree in Hurnscald while singing "what does the fox say"

Btw I highly admire o11c's skills to stay calm and also thumbs up for cinderweb apologizing

[Frost]

Does this new testing server do what you want?

If not, please explain what you prefer instead.