What would you improve about Test Realms in general?

[Dylan Windwalker]

Test realm has always looked the same for a long time now yet fewer and fewer players take the time to try out the updates. This makes it so that fewer bugs are found and more likely that bugs will get transferred into live realm because an incredibly low number of players are actively trying to look for problems or encounter them at all. The fact that test realm's population is getting diminished as time continues may tragically worsen the game in the future (especially considering the track record of Test Realm updates is not so pretty and Ki has not been actively listening to their majority audience's feedback).

What would you change about how Ki does Test Realm? What do you think would make Test Realm more popular?

I personally think the problem is mainly incentives, players gain very little from playing on Test Realm and that's a problem because there's no reason for players to go out of their way to play Test Realm in the first place. I think an ideal way to provide incentives is through giving back a certain amount of crowns based on something but that would be extremely exploitable and very difficult to determine how much crowns. I wouldn't want it to be super exclusive either because that disadvantages those who cannot play on Test Realm for legitimate reasons.

[Sierra SeaSong]

Give us more information on what content they are dropping so we can test it, as opposed to leaving us to trip on it like now. Where are the patch notes for test update??

[Pegasus Unbound]

Test realm has always looked the same for a long time now yet fewer and fewer players take the time to try out the updates. This makes it so that fewer bugs are found and more likely that bugs will get transferred into live realm because an incredibly low number of players are actively trying to look for problems or encounter them at all. The fact that test realm's population is getting diminished as time continues may tragically worsen the game in the future (especially considering the track record of Test Realm updates is not so pretty and Ki has not been actively listening to their majority audience's feedback).

What would you change about how Ki does Test Realm? What do you think would make Test Realm more popular?

I personally think the problem is mainly incentives, players gain very little from playing on Test Realm and that's a problem because there's no reason for players to go out of their way to play Test Realm in the first place. I think an ideal way to provide incentives is through giving back a certain amount of crowns based on something but that would be extremely exploitable and very difficult to determine how much crowns. I wouldn't want it to be super exclusive either because that disadvantages those who cannot play on Test Realm for legitimate reasons.

I'm sorry, but this is one of those times when I do not feel too "optimistic".

First, is how long it takes to even enter the Test Realm, not just the first time but EVERY time they shut it down to make "adjustments/updates" to it.

Then there is the lack of accuracy of your Wizard when enter it, always way behind where you actually are.

Incentives would be nice, however there is a greater problem that needs to be honestly addressed:

Why should anyone want to "waste" their time doing the Tests when 90% of the things we point out/report are "ignored" until AFTER it is released? Perhaps if they were serious about the entire thing then they would take more time in Test, pay real attention to what we report and do something about it BEFORE releasing it.

In all my years in various forms of business and the customer service industry, the most important thing was/is always to ensure the very quality of your product BEFORE it goes public. I would even go further to point out the lack of attention/respect that is given to our (The KI customers) feedback and opinions is, to say the least, lacking where the Test is concerned. It seems it is more of a tease to try and keep our interests in the game and what is to come.

If I remember correctly, the last Test Realm I even tried to do was back in Khrysalis Part 2 and even by that time the Tests were becoming meaningless (In my opinion) to even bother with.

Sorry to be a "downer" but until they care enough to actually release something when at least 95% of the bugs have been worked out, instead of the current 5%...well, I don't think it is worth the time or effort.

Side note: I recently deleted the Test Realm links, etc. from my computer and yes, the lag time and glitches have been reduces noticeably. Yeah, yeah, I know they are on different serves, etc., but the fact still remains that I am having less in game troubles now.

[Dylan Windwalker]

Give us more information on what content they are dropping so we can test it, as opposed to leaving us to trip on it like now. Where are the patch notes for test update??

Unless they don't actually write down the changes they're making into their games coding, this would be as simple as a copy and paste. If there's sensitive information that is better left covert, then it's nothing more than a 30min-1hour scan of a what I would suppose is a shared document and then releasing it. By making patch notes and even the update notes in general completely absent or very vague, it doesn't show those that are in Test Realm that they're actually being heard and their effort is being paid off. Being transparent is definitely critical to literally relying on on their fanbase to find their own problems

I'm sorry, but this is one of those times when I do not feel too "optimistic".

First, is how long it takes to even enter the Test Realm, not just the first time but EVERY time they shut it down to make "adjustments/updates" to it.

Then there is the lack of accuracy of your Wizard when enter it, always way behind where you actually are.

Incentives would be nice, however there is a greater problem that needs to be honestly addressed:

Why should anyone want to "waste" their time doing the Tests when 90% of the things we point out/report are "ignored" until AFTER it is released? Perhaps if they were serious about the entire thing then they would take more time in Test, pay real attention to what we report and do something about it BEFORE releasing it.

In all my years in various forms of business and the customer service industry, the most important thing was/is always to ensure the very quality of your product BEFORE it goes public. I would even go further to point out the lack of attention/respect that is given to our (The KI customers) feedback and opinions is, to say the least, lacking where the Test is concerned. It seems it is more of a tease to try and keep our interests in the game and what is to come.

If I remember correctly, the last Test Realm I even tried to do was back in Khrysalis Part 2 and even by that time the Tests were becoming meaningless (In my opinion) to even bother with.

Sorry to be a "downer" but until they care enough to actually release something when at least 95% of the bugs have been worked out, instead of the current 5%...well, I don't think it is worth the time or effort.

Side note: I recently deleted the Test Realm links, etc. from my computer and yes, the lag time and glitches have been reduces noticeably. Yeah, yeah, I know they are on different serves, etc., but the fact still remains that I am having less in game troubles now.

The time it takes for me to download Test Realm is actually my own main reason that I haven't participated in Test Realm (or at least see what's up, I'm not so optimistic about the state of Test Realms that I would dedicate a lot of my time to it). It's taken me an hour to simply get through the "Shared Bank World Data" alone right now as I was intending to do something with @Caspeen in Test Realm but at the same, don't I have this data already with the Live Realm launcher, why not be able to use that data in Shared Realm and only load the changes? yes the servers are different but that doesn't mean it's an entirely new game, some things that have not been updated at all should not be completely new downloads. Or at least that's what I think should be the case, I'm not completely sure.

Ki certainly doesn't show any respect to their Testers, honestly treating them like minions (not the minions from Despicable Me lol) doing their bidding. They don't listen to them, there's no evidence they even see what they've posted or at least take them seriously, and very little is done before Live Realm is scheduled to release (legit as in, if their time is up, they have no other choice but to release an incomplete update into Live Realm). Players aren't pawns, they're the Kings and Queens that keep the game going but that's not how Ki sees it and that's not any way anybody should treat anybody.

[Torpzun26]

Just make it so you don't require a membership or recent purchase in order to access it at all.

The allure of getting to play with new stuff in Test Realm is in itself exciting enough, it's just that most people can't even get on to playtest it. Test Realm is always a ghost town, except for the first few hours it opens up each update. And with so few people on to playtest anything new, it creates a paradoxical but still completely real situation where Test Realm is both too short and too long. People who can't or don't want to get onto test will start to claim that it's taking too long after about two weeks, but nothing new is ready to be brought to live anyway. There isn't enough feedback to get new features down to perfection within Test Realm, and this is something that you can't possibly solve by yelling at the players to get on Test Realm for. All the new features just sit there in the void for 2-3 weeks while everyone withers away into dust and then they're all broken.

That's probably all, really. I don't think we need to give rewards to incentivize finding bugs because that'll just have some very opportunistic people trying to report everything as a bug and flooding feedback. But then again, there are those bugs that players don't want KI to know about because they're beneficial to us. Like the old tomato basket glitch of the olden days, or more recently, the glitch that lets you one-shot enemies with Willcast Draw Power and become #1 in the Deckathalon without even trying.

[Sierra SeaSong]

They should bring back weekend test realm, the way it is now there are just not enough people on to test anything.

[Kingurz]

The amount of bugs/issues that make it to live after annotation on Central and/or official forums, typically gives me the feeling of "why bother". It seems that if you don't find the bug and somehow get it to the attention of the Devs in the first week of test realm....it starts to diminish in terms of chances for a fix prior to live. Submitting after an update goes live is almost a waste of typing effort (there are exceptional minor updates occasionally).

The in-game bug reporting system is the main reason I no longer "test" on test realm. Sending bug reports "as it's happening" is what I prefer, but I continually receive crashes from simply opening the bug reporting tool or submitting. That system is probably the most outdated item in KI tech. Yes, there are the forums for submission, but that way seems even less likely to be viewed by someone in a position to fix the bugs, especially if it isn't a common bug that is replicated by the majority of the community (only seems to be addressed if multiple threads are opened).

Most MMOs have a dedicated server for testing that is up and running consistently. Test realm only being available during work, school and sleep hours is a detriment (since there are still Wizard live events to log in and do). Several streamers during last night's guild raid testing "pushed through" late hours to make gains on testing progress primarily because it was the last night of test realm for the week (unavailable on Friday night). In fact, one of the Wiz CMs wanted to advertise test realm Beastmoon for the Friday Isleplay to get more community involvement, until reminded that test realm closes before Isleplay finishes. Since some items are randomly brought in and out during test realm, you aren't even guaranteed certain aspects of the game will even be available throughout test timeframe (KI forces you test certain things on specific weeks, so you don't know if you will have time to test the following week).

[bluedreamer]

Sierra brought up a great idea of having test realm up over the weekend to get more players have a chance to see it and find bugs. Also whoever said don't hide behind a pay wall, encourage all over a certain level without member/spent $6 in the last month. They likely have more time to test with less to do in live.