Why does Blizzard even have the PTR or Betas?

[Deleted]

For one PTR and Beta shouldn't be public it should be for a select few, currently PTR is used by Blizzard to promote hype

[VexxedFox]

Ok what do you do if you have 1000's of errors and 10000's of people giving feed back some comply useless? If you really think that they don't fix any of the bugs people point out your nuts.

Except this wasn’t some small issue, not a cosmetic issue of clipping of items or just some standard feedback. This was literally gamebreaking you either left the scenario and restart it running into the error over and over or you didn’t play.

You’re making excuses for them having launched with this error. And this was just ONE issue that I pointed out that you’re focusing on. It seems that they launch it as is and then we get Day 1 Hotfixes, Day 2 Hotfixes, Day 3 Hotfixes. They did not care on the PTR when this information was told to them and instead only when it hit the general public and people saw it.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Except this wasn’t some small issue, not a cosmetic issue of clipping of items or just some standard feedback. This was literally gamebreaking you either left the scenario and restart it running into the error over and over or you didn’t play.

You’re making excuses for them having launched with this error. And this was just ONE issue that I pointed out that you’re focusing on. It seems that they launch it as is and then we get Day 1 Hotfixes, Day 2 Hotfixes, Day 3 Hotfixes. They did not care on the PTR when this information was told to them and instead only when it hit the general public and people saw it.

Have you ever been on the ptr or beta? There was tons of game breaking bugs some get more attention then others and get fixed some always get though and then become a problem when reported by masses.

[Danuru]

I don't think I've ever played a game without some sort of bug or glitch, even years after release. Some game breaking, some not. Sure, you can test the hell out of something, but whether it was deemed low priority, missed, or even forgotten about while trying to fix other things, there are bound to be some things that slip through the cracks. At least we get things like hotfixes, it's actually one of the things I like most about Blizzard, if a patch breaks something unexpectedly, they're usually rather quick to fix it. There are many game companies who will wait months to address a major bug, if at all.

Sure, Blizzard isn't perfect, and they've fucked up a whole lot over the years, but they've also gotten many things right. So no point making a mountain out of a mole hill.

[sociald1077]

I’m wondering if you know how they real world works.

If I’m working on a project and there is a critical error on it, my team tells me there is an error on it (multiple times and in multiple ways), and I still launch with that error, I lose my job.

Why should we hold them differently? This glitch was gamebreaking and made it so you couldn’t continue and should have had highest priority as it was a customer facing negative impact item.

Do you know how the real world works?
Cause projects of all types, big and small, are shipped out everyday with bugs, errors, faulty parts, ext. These are products that are rigorously tested, and deemed good to send to market. And very few people are fired for it.
An example: My company is a world leader in our industry, our products are build to facilitate the technology infrastructure at the lowest level. Truly bleeding edge. We work very hard to find things before shipping, but inevitably things get through the testing process. We dont fire people for missing those things, we quickly fix it, and try to learn as much as possible from it. Thats how the real world works.

[Deleted]

Why does Blizzard even have the PTR or Betas?

Devs have a list of requirements from the business and when they put nice green checkmarks beside "PTR realms" and "beta testing", they always run risk of an audit fail if there's no basis at all for the nice green checkmark.

[VexxedFox]

Do you know how the real world works?
Cause projects of all types, big and small, are shipped out everyday with bugs, errors, faulty parts, ext. These are products that are rigorously tested, and deemed good to send to market. And very few people are fired for it.
An example: My company is a world leader in our industry, our products are build to facilitate the technology infrastructure at the lowest level. Truly bleeding edge. We work very hard to find things before shipping, but inevitably things get through the testing process. We dont fire people for missing those things, we quickly fix it, and try to learn as much as possible from it. Thats how the real world works.

Except you’re missing the whole “informed multiple times and through many ways” if someone misses something, that’s one thing. If you’re told about it over and over and over and there is no correction to it, you’ve ignored it and launched something that is customer facing and has a negative impact on them.

What could they have learned from this? Listen to the people that are giving you feedback on PTR/Beta which they have shown that they don’t.

[Nihilan]

Many issues are not apparent to matter how cleverly you test. Some become apparent only when the server is under duress (stress-testing). Contrary to popular belief, Blizzard is not some monolithic megacorporation with the bottomless pockets necessary to employ legions of testers. This is why public betas exist. The utter chaos of thousands of people doing stupid shit for hours at a time has a tendency to unmask even the most obscure bugs.

Once found, a bug or perceived imbalance issue has to be isolated, reproduced, and analyzed. If it is an easy fix, it gets fixed for the next weekly maintenance patch or, ideally hotfixed overnight. If it is a more complex issue, it goes on a prioritized list. The less important the issue is, the less likely it is to ever actually get actioned because new items are always being added to that list. Some of which are going to bump that thing that just happens to bug you so much.

As far as the cries of "Blizzard didnt listen!" When you are actively subbed and playing the fixes come at you one or two at a time in an organic fashion. This occurs over the course of months and it can sometime seem like little gets accomplished. All you have to do is step away from the game for a few months. Come back after a multi-month absence and you will have a far greater appreciation for just how much has been done by Blizzards dev team since alpha or even Legion launch.

[Blamblam41]

I cant think of a single developer ever that used beta feedback very well.

I can think of hundreds. Microsoft, Google, Apple just to name a few tech giants off the top of my head.

Just because Blizzard has lowered your standard of quality to bedrock levels does not mean that beta feedback is useless or is not used properly for other companies that do shit correctly.

- - - Updated - - -

Many issues are not apparent to matter how cleverly you test. Some become apparent only when the server is under duress (stress-testing). Contrary to popular belief, Blizzard is not some monolithic megacorporation with the bottomless pockets necessary to employ legions of testers. This is why public betas exist. The utter chaos of thousands of people doing stupid shit for hours at a time has a tendency to unmask even the most obscure bugs.

Once found, a bug or perceived imbalance issue has to be isolated, reproduced, and analyzed. If it is an easy fix, it gets fixed for the next weekly maintenance patch or, ideally hotfixed overnight. If it is a more complex issue, it goes on a prioritized list. The less important the issue is, the less likely it is to ever actually get actioned because new items are always being added to that list. Some of which are going to bump that thing that just happens to bug you so much.

As far as the cries of "Blizzard didnt listen!" When you are actively subbed and playing the fixes come at you one or two at a time in an organic fashion. This occurs over the course of months and it can sometime seem like little gets accomplished. All you have to do is step away from the game for a few months. Come back after a multi-month absence and you will have a far greater appreciation for just how much has been done by Blizzards dev team since alpha or even Legion launch.

You're right, they get their players to test their games for free and still can't even get that shit right.

You ruined your own argument in the first paragraph, mate.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Because they're useful for feedback and testing.

Duh. Of course, this will never be apparent to the "I have an objectively superior sense of quality and would do SO MUCH BETTER!!"-crowd...

[Aliven]

Do you know how the real world works?
Cause projects of all types, big and small, are shipped out everyday with bugs, errors, faulty parts, ext. These are products that are rigorously tested, and deemed good to send to market. And very few people are fired for it.
An example: My company is a world leader in our industry, our products are build to facilitate the technology infrastructure at the lowest level. Truly bleeding edge. We work very hard to find things before shipping, but inevitably things get through the testing process. We dont fire people for missing those things, we quickly fix it, and try to learn as much as possible from it. Thats how the real world works.

You sure about it? Because there is lots of facts about people losing their job because they fucked up a project one way or another. Be in commercial, video game, etc. Also, @VexxedFox talks about game breaking bug. Almost worst of the worst. I get i may take some time to find a solution but now entire PTR phase.

As far i know, blizz use PTR in wow to sneak some boss previews for those FatBoss videos...

[thilicen]

Oh boo hoo they didn't do what I wanted them to, this proves they don't listen to any feedback and they hate the players etc etc.