Clash of Clans Beta

So it's obvious that updates aren't tested enough, as there are only about 30 people on the Supercell team. I propose a beta version with a future new update implemented, before the update comes out. Bases will be premade, maybe a max town hall 11, and loot wouldn't really matter. We would just attack. Data can be completely reset at any time, probably back to a max town hall 11 with max loot. Maintenance will happen at any time, unexpectedly, since it isn't an official game. Clans will exist, and wars as well. The game will still be online, but data wouldn't really be stored, since there is no reason to. There are many more things that it can have that I can add on later. A game I used to play, League of Legends, had one, called Public Beta Environment.

What? Are you serious.
...
Wait, of course you are. :facepalm: never mind.

You know what should be labeled as a beta test? That piece of junk game ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that I just had to see how bad it was when I realized the money grabbing thing even excited. I can't believe ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ even published the thing, let alone not still lable it as a beta test version.

There is nothing in this update that obviously says this wasn't tested, beta test or otherwise. And how do you know that SC doesn't have a beta test team? The testers don't have to be paid, full-time, staff under SC's payroll; which means they won't be listed as 'staff' if they are just consultants.

Except for some (glaring) mistakes and glitches, the update seems thought out. It did look like they're implementing things they didn't have enough info on, namingly the numbers for the Personal Break system, and how players would react to it.

Statistically, the first rendition of the PBT might seem to have fit well with the numbers they had at the time, but with the horrible glitch and with players acting difficulty due to the lack of TH sniping, Murphy's Law decided to have fun with SC's plan and Troll the hell out of it.

All in all, it... (wait.. should I even say it?) ... uh.. OK, will say it, it could be have been worse. But the PBT glitch was bad enough, since that was like the absolute wrong time for something like that to happen.

Yes, I did leave a clue in the redaction. Page me if you want to see if you are right.

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

What? Are you serious.
...
Wait, of course you are. :facepalm: never mind.

You know what should be labeled as a beta test? That piece of junk game ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that I just had to see how bad it was when I realized the money grabbing thing even excited. I can't believe ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ even published the thing, let alone not still lable it as a beta test version.

There is nothing in this update that obviously says this wasn't tested, beta test or otherwise. And how do you know that SC doesn't have a beta test team? The testers don't have to be paid, full-time, staff under SC's payroll; which means they won't be listed as 'staff' if they are just consultants.

Except for some (glaring) mistakes and glitches, the update seems thought out. It did look like they're implementing things they didn't have enough info on, namingly the numbers for the Personal Break system, and how players would react to it.

Statistically, the first rendition of the PBT might seem to have fit well with the numbers they had at the time, but with the horrible glitch and with players acting difficulty due to the lack of TH sniping, Murphy's Law decided to have fun with SC's plan and Troll the hell out of it.

All in all, it... (wait.. should I even say it?) ... uh.. OK, will say it, it could be have been worse. But the PBT glitch was bad enough, since that was like the absolute wrong time for something like that to happen.

Yes, I did leave a clue in the redaction. Page me if you want to see if you are right.

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What are the hearts?

I know it was tested, but they need more testers that can test for free. I know many people that would jump at the chance to beta test an update like this. The reason we need more testers is for little glitches, such as: the war matchmaking, spell donations, grand warden ground/air, PBT in general, town hall click crash, lava hound glitch, war donating crash, clan castle tab, grand warden in army page, et cetera. The list goes on. More beta testers means that this will have a higher chance of being prevented. Isn't it better for 3,000 people to be testing rather than, like, 20?

And what clue?

The Farming mode is a better idea ☺

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Originally Posted by RicardoMN

The Farming mode is a better idea ☺

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1. That has no relation to my idea. It does not solve the problem I have presented.

2. Stop posting that idea everywhere.

3. It's not that great.

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Originally Posted by clashcon

What are the hearts?

I know it was tested, but they need more testers that can test for free. I know many people that would jump at the chance to beta test an update like this. The reason we need more testers is for little glitches, such as: the war matchmaking, spell donations, grand warden ground/air, PBT in general, town hall click crash, lava hound glitch, war donating crash, clan castle tab, grand warden in army page, et cetera. The list goes on. More beta testers means that this will have a higher chance of being prevented. Isn't it better for 3,000 people to be testing rather than, like, 20?

And what clue?

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The forum uses ♥ as a censor, and replaces each letter with one. So four letter bad words will show up as ♥♥♥♥, and five letter bad words as ♥♥♥♥♥. It won't censor the words I actually used, but I do believe outright mentioning some competing games could break the forum rules, since it could be seen as promoting it (which I doubt in my case :smirk:), or could cause some drama. So, I'm keeping the name covered publicly. I keep getting reminded of it, because personally, the stuff some irate people are saying are way more fitting to that game and isn't remotely close to CoC... which also annoys me.

As for the tests, we really don't know how much there was done, nor the numbers of who did test it; and even then, only so much can be done via closed testing. And you said it yourself, many people would want to test, because they want to know first. If wanting to keep something secret, like say... the biggest ever game update in your game's history, your pool of beta testers shrinks quite a bit. Each person you give a sneak peek copy of is another risk of info leaking too soon.

I've seen quite a bit of evidence that SC Staff isn't stupid. If they could get away with it, they would do testing on a larger scale. You know, or will find out pretty quick, that people with partial information can come up with some wild ideas and assumptions and could do quite a bit of damage if they are holding a fragment of something they can prove came from SC's development department. Too much info leaking about something really neat too early, before SC can decide if it is viable or not, or is ready to put into the game soon, could ruin it's impact when it is released, or causes the playerbase to get their hopes up too soon, or too high, and then get discouraged and/or angry as time goes on.

Not to say the idea of testing is bad, I'm all for it! Just in this case, I can't see how they could have done something as big as you are suggesting (with thousands of people) and kept things a secret, and managed customer expectations properly.

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

The forum uses ♥ as a censor, and replaces each letter with one. So four letter bad words will show up as ♥♥♥♥, and five letter bad words as ♥♥♥♥♥. It won't censor the words I actually used, but I do believe outright mentioning some competing games could break the forum rules, since it could be seen as promoting it (which I doubt in my case :smirk:), or could cause some drama. So, I'm keeping the name covered publicly. I keep getting reminded of it, because personally, the stuff some irate people are saying are way more fitting to that game and isn't remotely close to CoC... which also annoys me.

As for the tests, we really don't know how much there was done, nor the numbers of who did test it; and even then, only so much can be done via closed testing. And you said it yourself, many people would want to test, because they want to know first. If wanting to keep something secret, like say... the biggest ever game update in your game's history, your pool of beta testers shrinks quite a bit. Each person you give a sneak peek copy of is another risk of info leaking too soon.

I've seen quite a bit of evidence that SC Staff isn't stupid. If they could get away with it, they would do testing on a larger scale. You know, or will find out pretty quick, that people with partial information can come up with some wild ideas and assumptions and could do quite a bit of damage if they are holding a fragment of something they can prove came from SC's development department. Too much info leaking about something really neat too early, before SC can decide if it is viable or not, or is ready to put into the game soon, could ruin it's impact when it is released, or causes the playerbase to get their hopes up too soon, or too high, and then get discouraged and/or angry as time goes on.

Not to say the idea of testing is bad, I'm all for it! Just in this case, I can't see how they could have done something as big as you are suggesting (with thousands of people) and kept things a secret, and managed customer expectations properly.

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I know that the hearts mean profanity, I was just wondering what you meant to say. So a different game? Okay.

Maybe the update testing can come after sneak peeks. The last update had about a week, I think, after sneak peeks before the update came out. They could release sneak peeks even earlier to compensate.

Just no...

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Originally Posted by clashcon

I know that the hearts mean profanity, I was just wondering what you meant to say. So a different game? Okay.

Maybe the update testing can come after sneak peeks. The last update had about a week, I think, after sneak peeks before the update came out. They could release sneak peeks even earlier to compensate.

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Yeah, a Clash-clone game... anyway...!

I'm not sure how useful a beta test option would be, or what form it would take. A new program/app would have to be made, a beta test server made, something to manage version control, and something to help guard against haxors from just doing whatever to the new content.

Sorry. :( Just when I try to process the reality of it, I keep getting road blocks.

But it depends on what kind of beta test; an open or closed beta test. The latter would mean being registered and approved to handle new content, which will mean new responsibilities and will make that casual game... less casual, but would be more likely to be done. The former, that's only done when most of the critical testing has been done by experts (more or less) and needs a larger pool of people to better test out other aspects that a few people couldn't realisticly do themselves. Open beta testers aren't as well trained or experienced, and are mostly there to see if the new game, as a whole, operates before being going live.

The kind of tests that's needed for testing brand new stuff, like in this last update, would be done in a closed beta test, which precludes much of the playerbase. Technically it could be said that we are doing an open beta test right now with the new features, since I know SC put these changes in with the understanding that there was a risk of things not quite working exactly as planned, and later need to make an update to patch things that went wrong rather quickly. Now that I think about it, the Halloween and X-mas update cycles would be ideal for a real big change, since they are pretty close to eachother, but not too close.

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Originally Posted by PureEnergy66

Just no...

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Thank you for your very useful addition to this thread. It is truly appreciated.

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

Yeah, a Clash-clone game... anyway...!

I'm not sure how useful a beta test option would be, or what form it would take. A new program/app would have to be made, a beta test server made, something to manage version control, and something to help guard against haxors from just doing whatever to the new content.

Sorry. :( Just when I try to process the reality of it, I keep getting road blocks.

But it depends on what kind of beta test; an open or closed beta test. The latter would mean being registered and approved to handle new content, which will mean new responsibilities and will make that casual game... less casual, but would be more likely to be done. The former, that's only done when most of the critical testing has been done by experts (more or less) and needs a larger pool of people to better test out other aspects that a few people couldn't realisticly do themselves. Open beta testers aren't as well trained or experienced, and are mostly there to see if the new game, as a whole, operates before being going live.

The kind of tests that's needed for testing brand new stuff, like in this last update, would be done in a closed beta test, which precludes much of the playerbase. Technically it could be said that we are doing an open beta test right now with the new features, since I know SC put these changes in with the understanding that there was a risk of things not quite working exactly as planned, and later need to make an update to patch things that went wrong rather quickly. Now that I think about it, the Halloween and X-mas update cycles would be ideal for a real big change, since they are pretty close to eachother, but not too close.

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Yes, new app, server, and separate updates, but h4ck guarding would be the same as the real game. I do think it should be open, because they don't all have to send in suggestions. Just the ones that want to can do it. It's just like the random little bugs that the average users found out, as I listed earlier.