For the foreseeable future Singularity will only be open during specific testing windows rather than being always accessible. The aim is to focus testing on work-in-progress features rather than general access to all content. We will announce testing windows prominently via news articles or forums, socials, and other EVE community channels.
Currently, players who participate in organized mass tests on Singularity are rewarded with skill points on Singularity, we recognize that if the server is inaccessible then this would diminish this type of reward. We are discussing what other rewards could be used to incentivize participation in tests.
These days Singularity is mostly used to test deployments and architecture changes. Often bugs that are reported by players on Singularity have already found their way onto Tranquility. The hope is that by focusing testing on new features we can limit the number of bugs that reach Tranquility.
We don’t foresee this change severely impacting the ability for players to data mine changes when they are deployed to Singularity, but it should hopefully ensure that once a change is deployed to Singularity it is closer to a finished state and has already been put into context via dev blogs, news items etc.
This is extremely disappointing. Singularity represented a safe way to test the efficacy of fits or test how well you can do certain content without having to put billions of isk on the line when you are not practiced at it. It was more than just a way for testing future releases into the game. This news is awful news and I can’t understand why this direction is being pursued.
I think ultimately this comes down to what the intent was for SISI. Practising can be done on TQ and you could argue that practising within the sandbox increases the chance of messing up and generating content inside the sandbox, rather then absolute safety outside of it.
I’m a little concerned about this change. With no testing server and no web tool to report bugs, there’s simply going to be a lot less player testing and more bugs will slip through.
What exactly does this new focus on testing works in progress entail? Also, is there an update on the timeline for the bug report tool to come back?
I, for one, think its a good change. I hope noone will ever get any advantage from data leaks. Players who just plays the game itself should not be behind players spending a lot of time at hoboleaks site.
This is a big deal. Theorycrafting and testing your mission fits / plex fits / abyssal fits would cost a pretty penny without access to a “safe” testing environment. Is there any worry that this will put an unfair barrier to entry on the poorer players, keeping them from doing high end content while the rich who can afford the initial losses get the lion’s share of current and future PVE content? I can see this aggravating “class inequality” in eve so to speak.
make a poll but I’d wager skins for TQ would be a pretty nice reward… like a new batch of SKINS that look like those dummies used in car accidents…
oh and btw, good riddance.
get ■■■■■■, sisi warriors. the test server is there to test game features not your playground.
here we go again, ccp making bad decisions. “better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.”
do people play on sisi a lot? no, but its very valuable as tool for teaching and testing. like
“how many paladins can i multibox and still be effective clearing the site,”
"whats a dread escalation look like, will lancers cause escalation?
“does my cheap armor fit paladin with claymore linking armor links because none of the armor burst ships can even get close to 3.6k ehps?”
another downgrade of life quality the game used to have, I like to tell the new player about that kind of thing to make they realize they need to quit the boat
Test server was great for testing high value fits that i couldn’t afford to lose testing on TQ. take a 6bil abyssal fit for example, fly it wrong its gonna pop regardless of whether or not the fitting is capable and the average player won’t be buying many of them to try and try again at that price!
As above, limiting access to high value/high risk content to only those that can truly afford to take the losses getting it right.