Massive testing breaks has killed every mmo attempting it before it launches. Crowfall, down to a few hundred returning players, mainly the fanbois. OfKingsandMen (destroyed whole heartedly by developers not being able to deliver.) Now has about 10 fanbois left. Revelations online a triple A mmorpg, took a MONTH break and delivered nothing new in the next CBT2, lost 75% SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT of its player base reported by each and every guild. It's beta do as you please, its a gift to test, blah blah, no its a gift to make it in this industry and doing so is a testament of your player base. Steer clear of choices that wounds, steals or punishes that player base, even a good guild leader understands this concept.
What do you lose by developing a running game with weekly downtime to input new changes, nothing you lose nothing. What do you lose with a month of downtime people playing new games where yours could not deliver the availability they expect out of the CIA triangle, player base you lose more player base than all your bugs could of destroyed. Imagine being that player who bought the game and could not log in EVER, then looks at the forums to see they took it down for a month, or had just bought it. That refund button and argument with the bank starts to feel quite worth it. Name me one successful game with CBT "waves" its a new concept that has failed every MMO trying it. Give people something to play, report more bugs and deal with being behind the curve, it eventually levels out, is this a business or a hobby? Maybe the availability of servers is not taught in Russia for successful products.
I will play a year whatever it takes you to iron it out, test more and break more for you. Many games historically succeeded perfectly fine without major month long down times, this concept is piss poor laziness, and maybe the role you chose in life should be reviewed if its just to much for you.
This is fact, any fanboi who wants to defend "for a more stable games take a year of downtime I dont care" (Then wake up call you do not care about the game at all, we already have under 1000 players on a map meant for X10 that). Many developers kept their servers running while making a more stable game, weekly updates is how you know they are actually utilizing the money you invest properly. What they are doing now is simply showing people a lack of dedication and how unstable they are as developers. As always I will remain, supporting the game, the decisions of the developers is forever short sited, hurtful to the game and make me come up with more bullshit lies to keep players interested.
Enjoy the new years that could of been easily done with a skeleton crew, and no updates for the next week while running the game for all these people buying into your product.
Hoping the voice of your players and the repeating post mean something to you. I am not moaning or threatening to leave, just pointing at the backlash, statistics of the path already taken and failed by others and the obvious elephant in the room when it comes to caring about the very lifeblood of your game, your players. (not here to argu, simple give my input as a tester wont reply to fanboi's and the uneducated, with no degree or testing experience.) I would buy a 10000 dollar pack to support this games development, especially if it meant a developer who cared to work, keep servers running and fix issues as the presented themselves, you know the job of a DBA, programmers and support team.