A sector with no WHs connecting to it, with a station which sells all the current weapons and ships for free, with no level or medal restrictions, and additionally any modified weapons/ships the devs wanted play tested. This would involve 1 time making a duplicate set of weapons/ships for this testing. I don't know how difficult this would be "it's problematic for us to put new weapons on the production server" -Inc. After that the devs could just change the testing weapons/ships. (Alternatively a smaller set of weapons and ships could be duplicated, allowing a smaller number of things to be tested).
By permission of the Devs players could create characters that would be warped to the testing sector, and never able to leave.

This would allow a group of people to heavily play test changes which would save the time of building a client for the test server. Even better, the testers wouldn't have all the emotions of the main server as winning/losing fights wouldn't matter at all. Therefore these testers could reach balance more effectively, without reacting to how the changes effect their personal playing.

I like this idea, its a good place for people to get combat exp, to test out ideas in a somewhat controlled environment, (no point for pie-rats) and it would allow the devs to make better decisions, and have the support of the people who can make real judgments on the whole matter, having tested them all out.

major stamp of aproval

wow, what a great idea. i'm all for it.

(of course i say this in complete ignorance of the implementation feasability...)

one shortcoming is that it would only really test things in a PvP environment, i.e. no ctc, traders couldn't really be tested, and no cap ship (nice to be able to say that). but since most of the balance issues are PvP-related this wouldn't be much of a problem. and there's no doubt it would be heavily used. maybe the devs could gather more detailed stats than they already do since it would be such a relatively small and constrained environment.

yep, great idea eldrad.

DP, it wouldn't be a good place for people to get combat experience. There would probably be a diversity of skill of those allowed in but it wouldn't just be for practicing.

Cajal attack traders and running from pirates could be tested. If you mean how long it takes to make money that can easily be calculated by the devs. PvBots (including the cap ship) could be tested by inserting bots into the neighboring sectors (all in the same unattached system).

Eldrad - maybe it could just be two interconnected sectors so people could see how well they could run to the limit and get out. Drop a cap ship in the other sector. Who knows? But just make it a sort of "mini universe" to test weapons and ships

It would most likely be an entire system 256 sectors as that seems to be easier for the devs to quickly code. But you would want to keep the number of sectors with things of interest to a min since there would most likely be few testers at any given time, and it wouldn't be a good idea to spread them out.

I like this idea. Gets my vote.

/vote "test system"

:D

..does this mean we'll be fighting amongst ourselves for invites??

((omg; major brainstorm: have a universe-wide mega-contest, testing PvP skill, trading savvy, the works... the top five or the top ten players win invites to the Dev-System-Of-DOOM))

The sector should be limited to certain people only. We don't want to drag people away from the actual universe.

incredible idea eldrad! i do hope it is feasable for the devs and that i shall one day grace it's sectors with my presance! however who shall we choose for such an honor? people with the most pk's? people with a tech background? how eldrad how?!?! perhaps a few players from some warring guilds? (black lance and vipers!)

i think the best choice would be to grant this honor to those alpha players since they have done the most debugging in game and have a very good idea of how bad it is when things go wrong. i believe the alpha's get my vote on that... maybe some of the more long term betas too.

/vote "deathmatch sector for alpha and some betas" yes

I don't think alphas should get a headstart over betas or over later joined. I know I'm an alpha, but that means nothing.

In my opinion the people in it should be:

1) the top 10 ranked people. This will also increase the intensity of dueling and give a direction to it.

And if one of these persons does not want to do it, then he can either choose somebody else or the next person in the line (top 10 -> top 11) to get access.

cheers

PS: and letting the devs pick, might be unfeasable since it might create an idea of favoritism. And I wouldn't want it to affect any ingame relations.

To be the top 10 duelists has logic since those guys surely know how to duel.

However no dev has replyed in this topic. It would be nice to know if this is interesting for them or not.

Moriel
IDF

They've already said that dueling as it is now is in an unfinished state and that prizes were going to be added later, lets just wait and see what they come up with.

Dueling means almost nothing. Most of it comes from knowing how to pick and choose your fights. Although, once the fight is chosen, it's all skill from there on.

Who would be invited in would be up to the devs (and most likely implemented by the guides). I doubt they would bother coding up something like basing it on duel scores because that would take more time and wouldn't measure anything about how a player is at balance testing, reporting results of the tests, etc.

true eldrad,

But I have the feeling, that it will be only alpha and beta players, and that will or might create problems within the community like jealousy and stuff.

If it was some way of non favored rankings then that would be best, since everybody would consider that to be 'fair'. And seeing that duels are the only rankings that are within the game and have anything to do with pvp, it strikes me as the easiest way to impliment some of it. They don't even have to create anything else..., since the ranking has already been made. It is in my opinion just tieing different options into one and at the same time take advantage of a feature to

1) increase compettetiveness
2) add a reward without even the need for coding it
3) 'fair' decissionway

Especially since most people will anyway wonder why person X gets the advantage over person Y. There are more then enough people that can not stand one of the others. And then the devs choosing this one will tick the other off. Besides you can always kick them out or increase the numbers to the top 30 or so if you notice that the people don't act or test as you hoped them to be. Not to mention that even if htis is implimented, it will not work from the first time... since everybody is different and will have a different opinion about everything, just as me and you differ from opinion now :D.

cheers

putting privilege and competition on a position which needs dispationate reason, time and repsoncibility seems like a bad idea. There won't be any advantages. It will simply be a task they are assigned to do.

I don't know eldrad, I consider the people going for a high duelrating to be very passionate about the game and able to use weapons in an effective way. And who else then them are better able to judge the power of a weapon?

Besides I never stated that the devs can't kick them out once it is noticeable that they do not take it seriously... or replaces them with the next in line.

As you said its a privilidge, this privilidge in itself will make it so that people will try to do their best to keep this priviledge. So in the end you will get a group of people that are reasonable, put a lot of time in it and wayu more responsability then anybody else. Just so that they can keep on being part of this testingmechanism.

But your probably right, it just seemed to be a good implimentation that tied several nods together, took advantage of some of the peoples passion for the game and seemed to be the fairest and non-favoring method to select candidates.

I however think that using your method will be hard considering everybody thinks of his opinion as being funded (just as I think my opinion is funded) and therefore reasonable and responsible. Not to mention that what looks balanced in one mind is unbalanced in the others mind. But hey, I don't mind either way.

I just didn't want to see only alphas in it, what I am afraid of what will happen, since some if not all already proved to the devs what they did and from which the devs they know they can count on. And trust me, if there will be only alphas in it, then this will cause friction within the playerbase. There is already friction (but I'm not going to tear up an open wound).

"What happens in Bizarro World..... STAYS in Bizarro World..."

:o

Well I dunno about dueling stats. I mean, I never duel. I like PvP, but the formality of dueling... well... I dunno. Even if I'm going to duel someone from a different nation, I'd rather opt to not challenge them to duel, but just say go and start fighting.