Should the test server be used for the upcoming expansion?

[Serancha]

Test Server Usefulness

The test server is only available on android, if I am correct. There is some question as to whether the use of this new tool is actually helpful or not. From the Halloween and Ursume events, I am going to say (from a player's point of view) that it is really not.

- most of the bugs reported on the test server were released in the live version in both cases

- people used the advanced information to get a jump on the markets

- when the content was released to everyone else, those who has been given advance access already had strategies and knew all the new items and pets - even being able to test them

- it is pretty clear that the test server is somehow interlinked with the live one, and adds some major lag and DC issues to both


Regarding the Expansion

The problem with using this pre-run test server for "some" players before an expansion, is that expansions are a really big deal, especially now when they are now so few and far between.

The race to cap is always a challenge, mostly because you also want to explore the new maps and discover what the devs have done. If a percentage of the population has already seen and experienced the new content, they have no choice to make. They know what is there, where everything is, and will likely already have runs mapped.

This kind of advance information for an expansion is unacceptable, in my opinion. It is bad enough that a select group of players gets to run every event first without giving them the expansion while the rest of us have to sit and be fed what they feel like sharing from the test server.


Summary

In short, expansions are all about the surprises of new maps, gear and pets, along with the "level first or explore first" struggle. Competition vs Curiosity.

I would like to appeal to the devs to make the expansion a one-release situation with no test server preview. If you need to hold it an extra week to do your own testing in house, so be it, but when the release comes, everyone needs to start together with the same knowledge.



Open to discussion but please keep it constructive and on-topic, thank you.