Testing Incentives Program

One reason I do it is to test out things w/o any risk to my real character.

 

Well, i won't lie. I play either on QA a lot, but i am indeed interested in the rewards (not the COTOs, really, but all other deco. I love the decos). I am not just playing to "catch" bugs, but i do catch them and will even use my full expertise as a programmer (and not why, kinda of "game developer") to help the team as best as i could.

I already volunteered for translation without expecting "rewards" of any kind, and that itself is a immense work, so my share of altruism is there (between sacrificing game time to do other stuff). But it is also satisfacting to a person who never had a chance to "work" in a real game to participate in a project and be part of the "team", even more knowing that Mr. British played a HUGE part in my life to learn to program, to have interest in game development, RPGs, etc since 1980's. This influence had a larger impact on me than anyone could expect, so this is the major reason i am hanging out here this much. Of course, i don't see any problem with people testing only for rewards either. The more people, the better, no matter what reason behind hehe.

I do not care too much about testing to my benefit, because i could just do it in offline mode with much more efficiency.

Anyway... ^_^

 

@Berek @DarkStarr

How are the prizes on this going? I am prety sure i've tested and reported both live and QA A LOT in the past 2-3 releases and up to now i didn't receive not a single one of the proposed rewards (only 5 COTOs last release). :/

Did anyone else got something more than COTOs (that btw, i also did not receive to this release yet)?

I am asking because soon i will go on vacation, without access to the game, so i think i'll probably lose the next release window for testing.

 

I have good news there! We have awarded a bunch of the latest awards needing to go out. The Royal Pest Controller and Butterfly Chair awards to the most contributor is being awarded later today, including the new Insect Leg Table. These are super rare items for awards.

Thanks again to all that have helped out the program, we very much appreciate it!

 

I love the program and I believe that it helps. However I dislike the stress that I have to find problems to get anything. So I've pretty much ignored the program and just went about QA testing like I always have. I do find things and report them, but I refuse to make it a competitive event.

 

Hmm, what about the insect paintings? I guess they were released on R35. I don't understand straight this program... are the rewards for that month only, how "super rare" are those, what you consider when you select "top contributors", etc. ( i also think that making this a competition may be very undermining for a colaborative task, as because we know most of all do not have the whole day to hunt bugs)....

I mean this also, because i know i've reported a ton of bugs, but many times they were "known issues", that only devs and bug brigadists had access, and other times i condensed a lot of bugs in a single video, instead of making multiple reports. I don't need to be on bug brigade for this right?

Hope this is taken into account.

Thanks again.

 

One of the people who has the most bug hunter rewards isnt bug brigade.

 

Also, lacking any kind of dev notes on what has been changed and what needs to be tested makes it hard to hit whatever it is you want us to hit.

I don't count the Release draft notes from Starr, because those don't always reflect what is implemented on the QA server at any one moment.

 

As mention above, Bug Hunters like me are not the one that got the most rewards. We spend most of our time sorting thru bug reports, reproducing them and filling the doc for the dev !

And no, you dont need to be on the Bug hunter squad to get the rewards.

 

I totally get this! I log onto to QA to test specific things. I think most people do. Especially things specific to my build.

I dont think this is on Port tho. I just dont know if I am cut out for bug reporting. They really want you to get in and just play QA. I get in, test what I wanna test and get out.
The majority of bugs are things like;

• Spite: Fixed oddly stretched bottles, and adjusted material on Flowers in Mortuarium Vases.
  

• Fixed transparency issue with player avatar eyelashes that made them look solid black
  

• Ardoris: Fixed floating bamboo.

So while I agree, notes of some sort would be nice, I think most specific things get tested on QA and heaps of minutia gets missed, or ignored (by me anyway).

• 
  
  

 

I've submitted 40+ bugs, only a handful of which were confirmed with a jira number. How many are required for some of the cool items? I don't know. That's my largest issue with the TIP. I was going to hop on to qa for r37 and put in my 4 hour minimum (because at least I know that requirement), but decided not to. It's hard to aimlessly drive around without a destination in mind. I put in 15+ hours of testing and reporting on qa, with 10 cotos to show for it.

At this point, I'm taking a step back from reporting bugs [at all] unless they negatively impact my play style or until a better road map is provided.

 

Compared to most games the fact we get anything is impressive.

Im really pleased we have the chance to get something, do I want a bug cloak? Darn tootin I do, have I got one? no. shame.. but Im still pleased we get anything

 

Agree completely. However, if one can forgive the comparison, ... Torture does not and never will yield greater intelligence. Incentives are just torture in reverse to everyone that is really testing.

I would have much preferred a covert, gift giving program that was at the whim of the paid QA team.

 

It kind of feels like this already.

 

And suddenly the fog clears... . I finally realize why I am a developer and not a test engineer. I just suck at it.

 

Thank you everyone for your contributions so far everyone! Thank you for your patience as we work through the details of this new program. We truly appreciate everyone's patience as you have worked without us providing a ton of details on how the items are awarded.

I have updated the original post and the web page with more details about how we determine the rewards and what the various ranks are. I hope this helps everyone understand better how the program works.

 

Sweet OP update. Thanks!!!

 

Unfortunately, I think a large number of bug reports that I made since I started went unnoticed.

 

Started what?

 

since the bug team came on board all bugs get logged, or directly responded to, it may seem like a lot were missed but lets work from here on out and make the game better, surely thats the reason we look for bugs, not so we get fancy gear or toys?