[HOWTO] Test Experimenal Builds / Help the Dev´s to improve Quality

[Sloddor 167]

Hello DayZ SA Community,

 

As some of you may have recognized, the Experimental Servers are nearly Empty.

If you want to help out testing the newest Builds of the game, here is how you do it:

 

Step 1:  Setup Steam Options properly to recieve the newest Alphabuild.

 

 

-Right-click on DayZ in your Steam Games Library

-Switch to the Betas Tab

-Select Experimental from the Pulldown Menu

-Close

-Steam will automatically start downloading the newest Build now

 

 

 

Step 2: Setup your Serverbrowser to find Experimental Servers

 

 

 

-Click on Filter

-Type Exp or Experimental into the Host filter

-To be sure you reach all servers with the filter set the max ping to 200

-Set Full servers on Show

-Click Okay

 

The Serverbrowser should look like this now:

 

 

-Check the Version Number to be sure you are joining the latest Build.

 

 

 

Step 3:

-Test the Build, give Feedback in the Bugs section, have fun.

 

 

Character Saving Explanation:

 

-Experimental Characters are saved on a Seperate Hive. Data loss is possible.

-If you switch back to play on the public hive, your other Character is loaded again. Be Careful, i cant guarantee no Dataloss.

 

 

Why should you test?:

The devs need to get Data from you to improve their patches and check if they are stable. So its a win/win. You get to see new Stuff and improvements, and they can get their Patches out faster and more stable. This is what we are here for.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sloddor

[raynor009 204]

So you just discovered this now.... ?

[Sloddor 167]

So you just discovered this now.... ?

No smart Sir, i discovered that lots of people dont know how to do it. There were lots of Questions form the Community regarding this. But hey want to do it, so heres a little how to. As stated above, the Experimentals are nearly empty.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sloddor

[Zedicologist 162]

As of right now all the servers are night time servers.  The last time i played on them they had 2 daytime and 2 nighttime.

 

@raynor009 

He's posting this for people who are not up to date with every single thing ab this game like some of us are.  Most people have no clue the Exp servers even exist because they are usually never full or half full for that matter.  

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Better put that ping filter down to 0 so it shows all the servers. Always a chance that the server just has a lag spike.

[sleuny 3]

Whats new in 113953? Can't find any changelogs
Only thing i noticed was the battleeye support.

[Gugolas 228]

Daytime is back guys! But the servers are almost empty...come test with us!

[dromagewok@hotmail.com 164]

Daytime is back guys! But the servers are almost empty...come test with us!

 

What's wrong with the night time?

[Gugolas 228]

Some may prefer to play by day, as (maybe) Zedicologist up there. That's kind of obvious.

The emptiness of these servers during night time sadly states that.

[HIHBGaming 14]

Good guide to getting on the experimental servers, will be beneficial for a lot of people.

It's a great thing to be able to test an experimental build, more should do it. The one thing that makes me unable to properly test things is my ping of over 320(from Sydney, AU), especially things concerning the network side of it.

 

Was on one of the experimental servers yesterday and it seemed as though the rubberbanding was mostly fixed but at times I still did. Not sure if this was because of my outrageous ping(which I suspect) or it wasn't fully fixed. Did like that BE was switched on though.

 

Only thing I wish is that they had some servers setup in the U.S. one being in L.A. so at least my ping wasn't atrociously high and could test properly, AU would be great but don't see it happening.

[Sloddor 167]

 

Was on one of the experimental servers yesterday and it seemed as though the rubberbanding was mostly fixed but at times I still did. Not sure if this was because of my outrageous ping(which I suspect) or it wasn't fully fixed. Did like that BE was switched on though.

 

I have a Ping of 23, but its still sometimes rubberbanding.

[Dchil 829]

The rubber banding for me (Ping of over 1000, sattelite NBN sucks sometimes) was smaller in regards to distance change.

[m.cab 83]

Why does a random user (no offense Sloddor!) tell the rest of the community how to play the test servers?

Do the devs really want to play "everybody" on the test servers?

Why didnt they comunicate it so that everyone joins it and helps testing/developing the game?

[HIHBGaming 14]

Why does a random user (no offense Sloddor!) tell the rest of the community how to play the test servers?

Do the devs really want to play "everybody" on the test servers?

Why didnt they comunicate it so that everyone joins it and helps testing/developing the game?

 

I think there actually have been some posts about the experimental servers but not like this one that shows you how to do it, I could be wrong. The more testers on the experimental servers the better imo, could potentially get a patch out quicker if more would test them.

Edited January 5, 2014 by R.Neville

[Sloddor 167]

Why does a random user (no offense Sloddor!) tell the rest of the community how to play the test servers?

Do the devs really want to play "everybody" on the test servers?

Why didnt they comunicate it so that everyone joins it and helps testing/developing the game?

 

I tell you how to do it when you want to =) Second line in my post.

If you want to help out testing the newest Builds of the game, here is how you do it

Also i heave read in another post wich was sticky for some hours that the Devs communicated via skype that they need testers. SmashT confirmed that.

Well, with the actual build they raised player maximum to 50. Hicks was online for several hours, but the servers didnt get near 25 players, wich was sad.

So i decided to write a howto. i dont want to force anyone to play on exp servers =) you can do whatever you want.

 

Hope you didnt get confused because of my bad english.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Sloddor

[WilsonWoebeck (DayZ) 7]

Nice one! That helps a lot

[Gekkonidae 270]

Thank you for posting this. I'll be among the lab mice. :)

 

It would be nice if we could get TS running so that some of the testers would have some other folks to talk to while on the servers.

[IIIBYRDIII 0]

Currently Instable.

Severe studdering issues.

One step freeze, two steps freeze. It's like an anticheat system doing memory checks every 7/10 a second and freezing during the check.

[mintypie007 57]

People who use my teamspeak and the people I play with try to play the experimental servers when they are up. Join us if you want, We try to test things out (bullet damage, blood bagging with wrong blood types, etc).

[m5xjr 0]

I just tried.  Version 977, but can't find any servers right now.  I'm guessing they just aren't up right now????  Thanks for the nice information.  I'll check for the servers periodically.

[Hetstaine 10852]

still nothing up for 977 yet.

[sYs 133]

so.. how do we know what we are testing? :D 

[deebz1234 243]

I have yet to try this, but I remember in arma 3 having to download 0.5gb-1gb files when switching builds.

extremely annoying...

 

Is this the case with steam/SA?
 

Edited January 6, 2014 by deebz1234

[360Nation 60]

Let everyone know this! :D

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

I would try the experimental builds, but without a thread stating what is actually changed in the exp build, I will not do this