A test server makes sense when you have a pipeline of content and changes to release. SE is in the position of having their pipeline drastically shortened. Since they claim they are committed to bringing out the changes ASAP, a one-week run on a test server delaying the release of the content/battle changes to the live servers by a week is out of the question. They don't have a version waiting for a release date; when they do it will go straight to the live servers.

Quote Originally Posted by Nipa View Post
I want one of SE programmer, one who is actually able to understand exactly why, for instance, adding mailboxes or LS remote control is so hard, to explain the broad workings of their whole client-server architecture, as well as their development chain.
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More transparency. Way more transparency.
Releasing architectural information to the public is out of the question. Among other things, making such information public gives the inevitable network hackers a starting point, and is not in the best interests of the company, the players or the shareholders. There may not be anything innovative about their architecture, but releasing such detailed information to the competition is also potentially damaging.

Private corporations lack transparency in these regards for very good reasons.

Quote Originally Posted by Neptune View Post
You know you have a point. The battle system blueprint, released a couple of weeks ago, shows a surprising lack of finalization. How it could take the team more than 7 months to complete their analysis of the battle system baffles me. What else is a good example of something very slow going that might be unrelated to programming?
Quote Originally Posted by whoopeeragon View Post
@Neptune: I think they only really started with the battle system revision around 4 months ago, when the player poll # 2 came out, since I believe that where they got the information from. (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't looked at the past topics on the lodestone in a while). Since that's where most of the 'community' cried out for a new battle system, and seeing how SE acts, I don't think they would have noticed how bad the battle system was until the community vied for it. As such, it leads me to think they started probably only 4 months ago. Just a thought. Not saying you're wrong, just adding a different perspective. ^^
Quote Originally Posted by Neptune View Post
It's true that it wasn't a main priority until 4 months ago but according to the interview with Yoshida above, the new team was in place before the announcement in November and they had already started problem-solving then. So the question is, 7 months later, why is there a "blueprint" for battle instead of a finished list of changes? The blueprint didn't even indicate that the changes were final and that programming was the only thing incoming. A lot of stuff was very vague, as noted above, and completely up in the air. 7 months later.
It's not finalized until it's been implemented and tested.

Inputs from the community regarding the battle system were received less than 4 months ago. Mid-June would be a 4 month turnaround; until then, they had to analyze everything, not just the battle system. And the team is split up, to develop the battle system and the related content in parallel.