Another Stress Test before release is needed

[LordMega]

Firstly, the last stress test MO2 had did not have a large number of concurrent players online. There wasn't much publicity unfortunately, and the test was somewhat short. Secondly, a lot of major features, such as housing and keeps, will be added into the game, and the game needs a good stress test before launch following the implementation of these mechanics. In order to ensure the best performance possible in the timeframe until launch, another stress test is needed. This will help MO2 have the best possible performance and optimization when the game launches, ensuring that the game gains traction and retains a sizeable playerbase. It is essential.

 

[Woody]

I wouldn't be surprised if there is an open beta of sorts where people can try the game up until launch.

 

[Xunila]

Public tests always help, In worst case players are sending too many bugs, in best case some new players try the game and subscribe.

 

[Farligbonde]

Would rather see the devs continue to fixing bugs and staying on track on the current roadmap than sinking a lot of time down on a stress test.
Henrik said these stress test steal a lot of time from development.

 

[Deleted member 44]

What's with this poll? Yes or yes? No, we don't need another "stress test".

 

[LordMega]

What's with this poll? Yes or yes? No, we don't need another "stress test".

So you were satisfied that the last stress test was sufficient to iron out performance issues?

Let's not be impatient here, guys. "Take time away from other features" these are weak excuses that sound like players who can't wait to have a release. All of us want a release soon, we can't wait to play, I get it. But it needs time to be done right. I wouldn't care if they added another 6 months or another year to release date if that is what it takes to get it right. Instead, let's just have a stress test to get server performance and optimization done as well as possible. Don't be impatient- that's being shortsighted. Some of you might not care about this game's population, some of you might think it's great if there isn't much competition. Some of you were fine with MO1's small population. It's not okay, it's not healthy for a game to only have a couple hundred active players supporting it. All those new features you're so impatient to see in the game will never arrive if the playerbase isn't healthy and the game doesn't make money. We need another stress test, probably late december or early January would be a good time. Would it really matter if a dungeon boss gets postponed until the patch after release, in exchange for greater performance and stability?

 

[Tzone]

So you were satisfied that the last stress test was sufficient to iron out performance issues?

Let's not be impatient here, guys. "Take time away from other features" these are weak excuses that sound like players who can't wait to have a release. All of us want a release soon, we can't wait to play, I get it. But it needs time to be done right. I wouldn't care if they added another 6 months or another year to release date if that is what it takes to get it right. Instead, let's just have a stress test to get server performance and optimization done as well as possible. Don't be impatient- that's being shortsighted. Some of you might not care about this game's population, some of you might think it's great if there isn't much competition. Some of you were fine with MO1's small population. It's not okay, it's not healthy for a game to only have a couple hundred active players supporting it. All those new features you're so impatient to see in the game will never arrive if the playerbase isn't healthy and the game doesn't make money. We need another stress test, probably late december or early January would be a good time. Would it really matter if a dungeon boss gets postponed until the patch after release, in exchange for greater performance and stability?

SV wants money for dev. Thats why they were going to release in Sept. Now that they have money they can wait till jan. I dont think SV can wait much longer with out risking the studio survival.

I dont think the game is in good shape, I dond really care if the game doesnt release in jan but SV's soul purpose is to make sure MO2 survives.

 

[Deleted member 44]

So you were satisfied that the last stress test was sufficient to iron out performance issues?

Let's not be impatient here, guys. "Take time away from other features" these are weak excuses that sound like players who can't wait to have a release. All of us want a release soon, we can't wait to play, I get it. But it needs time to be done right. I wouldn't care if they added another 6 months or another year to release date if that is what it takes to get it right. Instead, let's just have a stress test to get server performance and optimization done as well as possible. Don't be impatient- that's being shortsighted. Some of you might not care about this game's population, some of you might think it's great if there isn't much competition. Some of you were fine with MO1's small population. It's not okay, it's not healthy for a game to only have a couple hundred active players supporting it. All those new features you're so impatient to see in the game will never arrive if the playerbase isn't healthy and the game doesn't make money. We need another stress test, probably late december or early January would be a good time. Would it really matter if a dungeon boss gets postponed until the patch after release, in exchange for greater performance and stability?

No amount of waiting is going to improve the server without major server hardware upgrades. SV doesnt want to pay, plain and simple. Last stress test was barely populated compared to the first one.

 

[Raknor]

No amount of waiting is going to improve the server without major server hardware upgrades. SV doesnt want to pay, plain and simple. Last stress test was barely populated compared to the first one.

Last I heard (from the outage they had a week or two ago) they use a cloud provider. Scaling up new servers (assuming the architecture of MO2 allows it) should not be an issue if there are enough subs to pay the cost - and if there are not enough subs there is no need to scale anyway

 

[LordMega]

No amount of waiting is going to improve the server without major server hardware upgrades. SV doesnt want to pay, plain and simple. Last stress test was barely populated compared to the first one.

All this just points to how a stress test is needed. You can use it to more accurately gauge an interest in the game and see what the playerbase might look like at launch, and have the server ready to go. Furthermore, Shmerrick, it's not only a question of 'is the server good enough', there are issues that can be improved within the game client performance as well as the server netcode that might only really be acknowledged during a stress test. It's not as simple as 'upgrading hardware.'

 

[Deleted member 44]

Last I heard (from the outage they had a week or two ago) they use a cloud provider. Scaling up new servers (assuming the architecture of MO2 allows it) should not be an issue if there are enough subs to pay the cost - and if there are not enough subs there is no need to scale anyway

Yes, they SHOULD be able to dynamically scale and alocate resources with load, but IF they will do this is the question. Given that this typically costs money, my bet is no.

 

[Hielo]

Another stress test will do good right before they go into the polish stage so they can get as much data as they can and can add this data to the to do list for the polish stage

 

[Najwalaylah]

First of all, it can do no harm.

Second, if something's going to break or just act weird, the sooner, the better.

Third, if there is anything that SV's overlooked of which the community cannot convince them, testing might do the trick.

Shake it 'til it breaks.

 

[Najwalaylah]

Make the game have some interesting parts before you run another stress test.

So another couple years of Beta?

I'm neither for nor against that. It's just the meaning I take from what you wrote.

 

[Fargus]

So another couple years of Beta?

I'm neither for nor against that. It's just the meaning I take from what you wrote.

A sentiment that I complete agree with this is no where near ready for a release. I am of the opinion at the very least you should have all of the aspects of MO1 you plan to keep implemented before you release a sequel.

 

[LordMega]

A sentiment that I complete agree with this is no where near ready for a release. I am of the opinion at the very least you should have all of the aspects of MO1 you plan to keep implemented before you release a sequel.

I think a lot of us would quite like a release that had more (or all) of the mechanics from the first game. The problem is that it simply isn't feasible. One thing you have to look at, especially with smaller indie game developers, is what is a realistic goal. And unfortunately you can't simply look at it from the perspective of a player to have that understanding of what is realistic. Take a look at it from the perspective of an investor. Yes, as a gamer you are aware that the better a game is when it releases, the more successful it will be and so on. But these guys don't want to wait another couple of years in order to see a return on their investment. They want their money. So you have SV under pressure from the investors to get this game released so that the money can start flowing in.

Keep in mind, this game was originally scheduled to release about a year ago. Another thing to keep in mind is that a few months ago, we thought it was going to come out yesterday, October 25th. When your funding is limited, your options are limited as well. You can't have a team of hundreds of developers just pumping out content and patching bugs at a crazy pace. You do what you can to make the game as good as possible with as many fun features as possible. But the money isn't unlimited, the developers have to sleep at some point, and things just have to make sense from what is going to really happen.

That said, we realistically have a limited timeframe for SV to work with before they have to push the game out. Once the game is out, hopefully it will see some good success and make a decent amount of money so that the Dev team can grow. With more funding, StarVault can push out all that sweet sweet content that we're waiting for like addicts. More mechanics can be implemented because the money will be there to bring them about- and it will be done faster than if the game sat in development for another 2 years not making money.

All of that said... let's do another stress test to get this baby polished as best we can for a successful release.

 

[Azzerhoden Razeri]

What is the purpose of the stress test you are proposing? To test server load? I think the previous stress test probably provided enough data regarding the changes made from the previous stress test. Having another stress test to gauge the success of the last round of changes might be a good idea, but only if combined with the testing of other key components of the game/launch.

What I would like to see (along with another stress test), is a complete wipe and a test of skill gain at a multiplier of 10 (rather than the current multiplier of 100) to test what launch might look like. What would Haven look like with 10,000 players running around a single instance? If the plan is to spin up additional Haven instances as needed, does that mechanic work as expected?

Because a successful launch is so critical, testing what that would look like is also critical. Probably no need to test this at the moment of course, but sometime at the mid or end of December would likely be a good time for this.

 

[LordMega]

What is the purpose of the stress test you are proposing? To test server load? I think the previous stress test probably provided enough data regarding the changes made from the previous stress test.

Did you actively play during the last stress test? There weren't that many players, and performance was horrible at times. The stress test was also short, so we did not get to see the 'performance improvements' that should have been implemented as a result.

Having another stress test to gauge the success of the last round of changes might be a good idea, but only if combined with the testing of other key components of the game/launch.

What I would like to see (along with another stress test), is a complete wipe and a test of skill gain at a multiplier of 10 (rather than the current multiplier of 100) to test what launch might look like. What would Haven look like with 10,000 players running around a single instance? If the plan is to spin up additional Haven instances as needed, does that mechanic work as expected?

Because a successful launch is so critical, testing what that would look like is also critical. Probably no need to test this at the moment of course, but sometime at the mid or end of December would likely be a good time for this.

I'm okay with this, however, if we were to wipe for the test, I think early January would be the best timing.

 

[Jhackman]

Yeah they’ll need another stress test maybe two weeks before launch in order to make sure it doesn’t go to shit. Hopefully they up the server capacity before the stress test and can properly gage what is the servers limit and what they need to do client side for the best possible release.

If they can get keeps and housing in with one or two dungeons, a maybe 4-5 more mobs, populate the world a bit more with them and fix the mounts and pets glitching on nodes I think they’ll be in a pretty good shape for release. Everything else can wait.

My biggest worry about sv is they like to “fix” things in game that make it easier to do things like being able to get off your mount and run while your mount regains stam or having your mount at full capacity and still able to run full speed and it makes the game even more of a time waste/pain to enjoy.

 

[LordMega]

Sigh. I mean I am OK with MO atm, not paying for it. That's really all I can say. I don't want the game to beta for years, but this game is not sustainably playable IMO. It's gutted. A lot of the QoL changes go unnoticed because of the gut. I know how they feel!!

Gutted implies they've taken things out. What was removed?