Does gw2 need a PBE?

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

After all those bugs and miss balancings I would say we are in dire need of it.

[Twyn.7320]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Game of Bones.8975 said:

@"Etheri.5406" said:I have more faith in the couple hundred top end pvp players than in the thousands of silver and bronze players with strong opinions. Same for PvE. Same for WvW.

If 90% of your customers are "silver and bronze players" those are the people you need to get your information from. On a bell-curve, the high-end players are the outliers.

You don't necessarily need to get any information at all.It might be valuable, or it might undermine the developer's creative inspiration. Ultimately ANet has every reason to develop their game to the best of their abilities, not their playerbase's. They are the content creators, not consumers.

A business can only survive whilst the consumers are still paying. They have a reason to develop to the best of their abilities, because they're providing a service/product. If they release something, and the consumers (players) dislike it, it's detrimental to the game's lifespan. So, releasing a PBE is actually extremely beneficial because it shows how the 'average player' experiences or uses the content or balance respectively, rather than using internal testing which is an extremely small sample size.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It can be publicly available, but they can still veto who accesses it. League of Legends places restrictions on who accesses it.GW2 can do the same. They can for example launch a PvP test build, and only open the server to players with 80+ rank on PvP and x amounts of matches, or plat+.

That still comes with all the issues of a public server, and none of the benefits of a private one. People with Plat+ or 80+ rank don't automatically become good testers, good at giving feedback, or even able to offer criticism that applies generally rather than their specific point of view. We have many such examples already of skilled players with myopic views about the game.

Again, player feedback is as useful as they find it. The true virtue of such a server is data (not player feedback, but server logs and statistics) that approximates closer to how it will behave on live, as opposed to how it behaves when being tested exclusively by the QA team.

And again, you're only looking at it from a player perspective. Yes, absolutely, it's valuable to find out that a particular skill or chat code only bugs out on a full map or that the stress-testing scripts missed a key factor of 100 humans playing together (or 10000 logged on at the same time). But it's an enormous amount of work to make it possible for the occasional situation in which

that

is the aggravating factor.

No, i'm not... Again, because you apparently didn't read the first 3 times: THEY ALREADY HAVE A PREVIEW SERVER SETUP! The cost to the company is already there.Besides even if they didn't,

especially due to their balance schedule

it's on their best interest not to constantly exclude players from their game because of bad balance decisions which take a 25% or more of a

YEAR

to get fixed. If they're only doing 4 balance patches a year, its on everyone's interest that they don't mess it up. Because not everyone is an Arena Net apologist, in fact most players aren't. And giving them a pass every time won't improve the quality of the game.

The point is that the amount of

useful

data is limited, and it's not favorable to the costs. There are set up costs, maintenance costs, and change & code management headaches. The hardware is the easy part; it's all the human resources that go into it that make it a bad deal overall.

It's limited to how much they want to limit it, and again, they already have those costs, and it's mostly for the sake of content creators getting early material. So cranking it up a bit and allowing them to use that to a more beneficial use for the overall quality of the game is way more cost-effective than just allowing Wooden potatoes to get some footage early.

Put another way, public test servers do prevent some issues, they create new ones, and they change expectations in unrealistic ways. We know that ANet has considered public testing, and rejected it. And from the remarks, it's likely that someone internally brings this up about as often as we do on Reddit or the forums, and each time, after consideration, they make a business decision that the game wouldn't be enough better off to make it worthwhile.

What? I've never seen any comment from their part about test servers, care to cite?Change expectations, how?Create what issues?Vague sentences without any backing up, really aren't much of an argument.

(Incidentally, there are many other things that ANet probably could change internally that would also result in fewer issues. Some of them are as simple as having the right people in change/code management positions. But like most process-oriented changes, they are more easily said than done.)

So by all means keep suggesting it. I think ANet should hear how unhappy people are with bugs, and especially those that seem to be preventable. Just keep in mind that, on their side of things, there are other considerations — it's a business decision whether it's the best way to deal with bug prevention. Make the suggestion and then let them decide whether its' "cheap" or easy or not.Again, if it's cheap enough to allow content creators to use it to preview, and for like half a year profit madly in-game from insider knowledge, it's cheap enough to be used to prevent bugs, even the slightest typo.

[Sinful.2165]

It really seems like the people voting no don’t grasp how a public test server works.

There’s a lot of ‘sky would fall’ posts based on grossly inaccurate assumptions.

[Airdive.2613]

@Twyn.7320 said:

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Game of Bones.8975 said:

@"Etheri.5406" said:I have more faith in the couple hundred top end pvp players than in the thousands of silver and bronze players with strong opinions. Same for PvE. Same for WvW.

If 90% of your customers are "silver and bronze players" those are the people you need to get your information from. On a bell-curve, the high-end players are the outliers.

You don't necessarily need to get any information at all.It might be valuable, or it might undermine the developer's creative inspiration. Ultimately ANet has every reason to develop their game to the best of their abilities, not their playerbase's. They are the content creators, not consumers.

A business can only survive whilst the consumers are still paying. They have a reason to develop to the best of their abilities, because they're providing a service/product. If they release something, and the consumers (players) dislike it, it's detrimental to the game's lifespan. So, releasing a PBE is actually extremely beneficial because it shows how the 'average player' experiences or uses the content or balance respectively, rather than using internal testing which is an extremely small sample size.

Any creation with the ultimate goal of catering to the consumer isn't art, it's fanservice at best.GW 2 wouldn't become a good game in the long run if they only listened to what the crowd thinks it wants.And also, I'm absolutely sure the "average player" couldn't care less about jumping through hoops to be blessed with the chance to play the less stable, worse balanced version of the same game they already own.

[Ayrilana.1396]

A test server isn’t some magic pill that people are making it out to be.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:No, i'm not... Again, because you apparently didn't read the first 3 times: THEY ALREADY HAVE A PREVIEW SERVER SETUP! The cost to the company is already there.No, they do not have a public server setup. They are setup for a private preview. With NDAs. With a focused invite list. It's different.

You apparently have decided to assume that there are no additional resources required, no additional impact to schedules, and will provide untold improvements to the game. If that were the case, then of course it would be nonsensical for ANet to choose not to implement a public test environment. Since ANet has successfully produced games for over 10 years, since they are apparently planning for years to come, it seems to me that it's more likely that their evaluation of costs versus benefits is "on the money." If you have examples from the industry that indicate otherwise, please share them. Otherwise, I suspect we'll just have to agree that we don't see the situation the same way.

[Khisanth.2948]

Having spent way too much time in the bugs section of the forums over the years I think the signal to noise ratio of the people writing bug reports contains way too much noise for that to be of any use.

There has also been plenty of "suggestions" that fails one basic requirement for any sort of PvP balancing. That being ... well balance which means the need to consider things from both sides of a fight. It is trivial to improve things from one side(lets add this, this, this, this aaaand that) but if you also make it annoying for the other side then you haven't done a very good job. I think one of the worse I've seen is giving a weapon's autoattack chain hard CCs.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:No, i'm not... Again, because you apparently didn't read the first 3 times: THEY ALREADY HAVE A PREVIEW SERVER SETUP! The cost to the company is already there.No, they do not have a

public

server setup. They are setup for a private preview. With NDAs. With a focused invite list. It's different.

No, in terms of the server itself, there may be some additional costs to running a larger player base, but those are small in context. The larger overhead of running a separate server, updating it, and managing it is already spent. Which, i believe were the costs you mentioned.Here, a quote:There are set up costs, maintenance costs, and change & code management headaches. The hardware is the easy part; it's all the human resources that go into it that make it a bad deal overall.Like you said, the hardware is the easy part, and that's the part that would need to increase in costs. The Setup, done, Maintenance, done, Change & code management, DONE.So your argument was? Again? Please, explain it...

I'll go ahead and give you a save here. If they do this and still want to give some players more access, via a NDA, than to others, they'll require more work in creating a back-end to better manage access, and probably a different release schedule for that server.

But my argument is much simple, you can't realistically claim that it's too expensive to run a test server that has real and measurable impact in the quality of the game's releases. The catastrophic failure that was Season 3 launch, might have been prevented with a big enough population of testers, on the other hand, that's something that they could simulate, so it might not. But certainly the Meteor Shower bug would have come up, the unintended effects of a lot of balance changes would be more apparent, leading to a better overall quality of service.

In fact, one might even argue that getting one or two devs from the balance team and putting them in charge of a Test server would be a more efficient use of those man-hours.

You apparently have decided to assume that there are no additional resources required, no additional impact to schedules, and will provide untold improvements to the game. If that were the case, then of course it would be nonsensical for ANet to choose not to implement a public test environment. Since ANet has successfully produced games for over 10 years, since they are apparently planning for years to come, it seems to me that it's more likely that their evaluation of costs versus benefits is "on the money." If you have examples from the industry that indicate otherwise, please share them. Otherwise, I suspect we'll just have to agree that we don't see the situation the same way.

Well this last paragraph is so risible that it kinda breaks my heart how i'll be dismantling it soon:

1) Never said there aren't additional resources, just that the resources currently being used in a Demo client for content providers might be better used in a test server.

2) The global success and MEME-ness of PvP gives credence to your words. Arena Net went from a game with a great story and a greater PvP, to a game with a great story.That's a story of success, right there!

3) They plan so far ahead that 5 years in they're still figuring out how to organize their work-flow. That's a hallmark of a 5 year plan. They also only took 3 years to figure out how they would monetize and expand the game. Planning ahead, again. They had a decent sPvP and WvW scene going in 2014, they've done a ton of improvements and while WvW seems to be improving on the coat-tails of the announced new servers, and some dev attention. sPvP is still failing.

4) Most important of all: Balance isn't even remotely something they can plan ahead years in advance. Like they've demonstrated on, and on, and on, things take a whole different life after hitting live servers, and changes that seem innocuous can grow to immeasurable proportions when it gets in the hands of millions of people. Just look at Scourge, and how they still haven't found a way to make it work. Look at Epidemic, almost 6 years in, and still a pain point.

5) League of Legends: has a PBE. Although entirely Free to Play (it's premium store doesn't even sell anything that can't be found a parallel in GW2's gem store) makes more money a year than GW2 made in it's lifetime. Also unlike GW2 they have by-weekly balance patches, so they could more readily just release into live servers and be on hand to fix it, but they don't.World of Warcraft: Public Test Realm. Uncontested most successful MMORPG in the world.Smite: Test Client. Another F2P, that's mildly successful.Overwatch: PTR. A rampant success game.I can carry on the list if you want

[Vayne.8563]

Game already has an alpha server, where specially selected people test stuff. We know raids are tested by raid guilds for instance. A while back someone posted some sort of application for being an alpha tester.

That would pretty much cover what a lot of people are saying. There's a difference between a public test server and a closed test server. This game has a closed test server. A public one, in my opinion, would be a massive waste of resources and accomplish little.

[VanWilder.6923]

Definitely need this PBE.Also can Anet split the balance among modes, WvW, PvP and PvE seperately?This 24th of July balance patch is mainly for WvW Elementalist but it ruins the PvE mode. And PvE players never ever ask for this Kitten balance

[Spurnshadow.3678]

Anet finds a lot of bugs from the players. There are folks out there who go through skills with a fine tooth comb. They're really into their profession and know when something is off in the description, or how things are functioning. Same thing with encounters. These are the type of folks who'd love to be on a PBTS. The issue now is that we are all subject to the bugs rather than the people who don't mind being subject to the bugs for the joy of seeing new content. I mean, it's free labor for Anet. I never understood why they don't have PBTS.

The other big drawback to what we have now is that if a bug exists, there's no urgency to fix it as it's already in the game, so players have been dealing with it, they can continue to do so.

Also, to those criticizing a PBTS because people are going to be advocating their class, or give unreasonable requests, etc., those things are ignored and those people will most likely not be allowed on test servers again.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I've played several MMO's that had public test servers. All of them had at least as many complaints about live changes as GW2, to go along with all of the complaints on the beta forums when the developer "Didn't listen to what the players thought." when "what the players thought" was in most cases in conflict with what some other players thought. Based on those experiences, I believe that the benefits of a test server are being overstated, while the costs associated with implementation, maintenance, and wading through feedback both helpful and not helpful are being understated.

[Daishi.6027]

not public, think only full access players (both plus future expansions) should have access.

[zealex.9410]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It can be publicly available, but they can still veto who accesses it. League of Legends places restrictions on who accesses it.GW2 can do the same. They can for example launch a PvP test build, and only open the server to players with 80+ rank on PvP and x amounts of matches, or plat+.

That still comes with all the issues of a public server, and none of the benefits of a private one. People with Plat+ or 80+ rank don't automatically become good testers, good at giving feedback, or even able to offer criticism that applies generally rather than their specific point of view. We have many such examples already of skilled players with myopic views about the game.

I dont think ppl that have little understanding oc things should have as much of a say to how balance goes. If i know fuck all about necro or thief or rev its not my plqce to see how these classes should be handled and whats good or bad.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Daishi.6027 said:not public, think only full access players (both plus future expansions) should have access.

They can also add more restrictions, like certain ranks, levels and mastery levels to ensure better feedback if they so require.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It can be publicly available, but they can still veto who accesses it. League of Legends places restrictions on who accesses it.GW2 can do the same. They can for example launch a PvP test build, and only open the server to players with 80+ rank on PvP and x amounts of matches, or plat+.

That still comes with all the issues of a public server, and none of the benefits of a private one. People with Plat+ or 80+ rank don't automatically become good testers, good at giving feedback, or even able to offer criticism that applies generally rather than their specific point of view. We have many such examples already of skilled players with myopic views about the game.

I dont think ppl that have little understanding oc things should have as much of a say to how balance goes. If i know kitten all about necro or thief or rev its not my plqce to see how these classes should be handled and whats good or bad.Agreed, to a point. While you maybe can't give as good feedback about how it works, you can give feedback on how it

interacts

with characters you like.For example, scourge on it's own, in a vacuum, or even vs other scourges was never a big deal. Because Necros don't push around many boons to begin with, and can deal with condis.Now pair a scourge with a firebrand, a chrono, druid, or any other class that coughs up boons as it breathes. And scourge becomes a beast.

[Game of Bones.8975]

Companies push product testing on the public for nearly everything before it is put on the market. Taste tests, movie/TV screenings, and comparison ad campaigns are all used to see what the general public wants, doesn't want, how much they will pay for it, and if there is a different market in different areas of the world in their influence.

I've done taste tests for colas, beers, and wines. (The beer and wine tasting lasted multiple hours and they shuttled you home afterward.) I watched a couple Paramount movie shorts to see whether the full movie should be made and what changes could be made to make it more interesting. (The most boring testing I've ever done.)

Feedback questions are all thought out in advance with no margin for individual input and everyone is asked the same question to validate the tests. The questions were usually whether you liked certain aspects of the subject on a 1-10 scale.

Because people use different language to describe the same thing the "sterile" 1-10 scale would be the best to use. "On a scale from 1-10 where 1 is 'wouldn't ever use it' and 10 is 'use it all the time',...."

Providing personal feedback would only confuse the people who are gathering data.

The devs would choose the race, profession, and skills they are testing for and players who log into the instance would be transformed and allowed to play for a certain amount of time and then the questions would be put to them to answer. Players shouldn't have any control as to what they play, because they don't know what information is being collected. It would have to be a blind study. If you are aware of what is being focused on before you begin, your play-style would change.

[Martnor.1746]

A lot of people seem to think that Anet doesn't test their content before they launch it. Of course they test it. It just isn't possible to plan for every possible scenarios given the wide range of computer specs that the players have. There will always be bugs. Look at league, they have a PBE server but players still find bugs on patch release.

But I think a PBE server could be a good idea to reduce the amount of bugs. Let's face it, when people complain about the people who try to get access to every little information as early as they can so that they can get an advantage, the fact that they are trying at all will likely mean that they will most likely be always ahead anyway. If they end up making the game better for the casual players, then why not?

[zealex.9410]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Daishi.6027 said:not public, think only full access players (both plus future expansions) should have access.

They can also add more restrictions, like certain ranks, levels and mastery levels to ensure better feedback if they so require.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It can be publicly available, but they can still veto who accesses it. League of Legends places restrictions on who accesses it.GW2 can do the same. They can for example launch a PvP test build, and only open the server to players with 80+ rank on PvP and x amounts of matches, or plat+.

That still comes with all the issues of a public server, and none of the benefits of a private one. People with Plat+ or 80+ rank don't automatically become good testers, good at giving feedback, or even able to offer criticism that applies generally rather than their specific point of view. We have many such examples already of skilled players with myopic views about the game.

I dont think ppl that have little understanding oc things should have as much of a say to how balance goes. If i know kitten all about necro or thief or rev its not my plqce to see how these classes should be handled and whats good or bad.Agreed, to a point. While you maybe can't give as good feedback about how it works, you can give feedback on how it

interacts

with characters you like.For example, scourge on it's own, in a vacuum, or even vs other scourges was never a big deal. Because Necros don't push around many boons to begin with, and can deal with condis.Now pair a scourge with a firebrand, a chrono, druid, or any other class that coughs up boons as it breathes. And scourge becomes a beast.

Thats my point someone whos not familiar will just see scourge destroying and he/she will be like "well scourge is busted" which to some extend is not true.

[Substance E.4852]

PVP testing, yes.

General PVE testing, no.

Specifically no simply because I don't see them really gaining helpful data in any real way.

The most useful data Anet could gather is what brings in new players the best which would be near impossible to test since everyone would want the system to be based on some largely arbitrary system like account age or AP which would preclude new players obviously.

Based on how people treat new content we do get, current players would just bitch that new content isn't as rewarding as their Istan loot hose or that there isn't enough to do because they went full NEET mode and did everything in a day playing 12 hours straight.

They can easily test out stuff like raids or fractals but they already do the former and the later isn't so complex as to need the extra cost in something we barely get as is.

PvP testing is obvious and it still amazes me that we don't get like a temp beta weekend a week before a major patch to find all the shit they inevitably over/under tuned. Because it always happens.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Substance E.4852 said:PVP testing, yes.

General PVE testing, no.

Specifically no simply because I don't see them really gaining helpful data in any real way.

The most useful data Anet could gather is what brings in new players the best which would be near impossible to test since everyone would want the system to be based on some largely arbitrary system like account age or AP which would preclude new players obviously.

Based on how people treat new content we do get, current players would just kitten that new content isn't as rewarding as their Istan loot hose or that there isn't enough to do because they went full NEET mode and did everything in a day playing 12 hours straight.

They can easily test out stuff like raids or fractals but they already do the former and the later isn't so complex as to need the extra cost in something we barely get as is.

PvP testing is obvious and it still amazes me that we don't get like a temp beta weekend a week before a major patch to find all the kitten they inevitably over/under tuned. Because it always happens.

You do realize PvE also needs balancing, right? And actually, that's pretty much the only area where they have had players testing content. Kinda invitation only, but they did have raiding guilds testing some upcoming raid wings. Not sure if they still do it or not, but they have in the past.

@"Vayne.8563" said:Game already has an alpha server, where specially selected people test stuff. We know raids are tested by raid guilds for instance. A while back someone posted some sort of application for being an alpha tester.

That would pretty much cover what a lot of people are saying. There's a difference between a public test server and a closed test server. This game has a closed test server. A public one, in my opinion, would be a massive waste of resources and accomplish little.A public test = more people. More people = more reliable data. That's what a public or semi-public server would achieve. Again, the resources are already being "wasted", the cost of scaling the servers is very small compared to the cost of setting them up already.It's more of a question of are they using those resources correctly with the really limited number of players being allowed in, or would the game benefit more from more data, especially for balance purposes. In my opinion, and given the sorry state of the game's balance. I'd say yes.

[Sylosi.6503]

@VanWilder.6923 said:And PvE players never ever ask for this Kitten balance

Most PvE players would never ask for a nerf regardless of how broken OP something is, because they play for shiny things, not gameplay, so frankly most PvE players opinions when it comes to balance are worthless.

[CJH.2879]

I've always believed in public beta testing for any major/significant changes to GW2, to be fair I'd recommend selecting players at random to get a more general idea of the final results.

[Airdive.2613]

@CJH.2879 said:I've always believed in public beta testing for any major/significant changes to GW2, to be fair I'd recommend selecting players at random to get a more general idea of the final results.

And what will make these randomly selected players run an incomplete, unstable and imbalanced GW 2 build instead of the current one?

[Twyn.7320]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Twyn.7320 said:

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Game of Bones.8975 said:

@"Etheri.5406" said:I have more faith in the couple hundred top end pvp players than in the thousands of silver and bronze players with strong opinions. Same for PvE. Same for WvW.

If 90% of your customers are "silver and bronze players" those are the people you need to get your information from. On a bell-curve, the high-end players are the outliers.

You don't necessarily need to get any information at all.It might be valuable, or it might undermine the developer's creative inspiration. Ultimately ANet has every reason to develop their game to the best of their abilities, not their playerbase's. They are the content creators, not consumers.

A business can only survive whilst the consumers are still paying. They have a reason to develop to the best of their abilities, because they're providing a service/product. If they release something, and the consumers (players) dislike it, it's detrimental to the game's lifespan. So, releasing a PBE is actually extremely beneficial because it shows how the 'average player' experiences or uses the content or balance respectively, rather than using internal testing which is an extremely small sample size.

Any creation with the ultimate goal of catering to the consumer isn't art, it's fanservice at best.GW 2 wouldn't become a good game in the long run if they only listened to what the crowd thinks it wants.And also, I'm absolutely sure the "average player" couldn't care less about jumping through hoops to be blessed with the chance to play the less stable, worse balanced version of the same game they already own.

Okay, there's a lot of assumption in the reply. So to break down each thing:

1) 'Any creation with the ultimate goal of catering to the consumer isn't art, it's fan service at best.'

It's a balance of the two. If you don't listen to your consumers, you'll lose business. This idealistic idea that 'multiplayer gaming is art' isn't true anymore, only in a technical sense. Gaming has become an industry, where finances and growth are exceptionally important over the art style of a product. This is only broken by single-player games, which require substance over monetary gain to attract consumers, which is why lootboxes in Shadow of War, and other RPGs gain so much negative press.

2) 'GW2 wouldn't become a good game in the long run if they only listened to what the crowd thinks it wants.'

This is fundamentally ignorant of game design and consumer importance. There are multiple examples of where this has occurred, and it's brought survival to a dying game. Look to Star Wars Battlefront 2, which after the revamped progression system, saw a huge, noticeable growth in players. They listened to their consumers, and the consumers returned. Whilst player count has slowed down recently, it's due to a lack of content. Additionally, look towards World of Warcraft: Classic. Blizzard saw the demand for Vanilla, the subscriber count for the game was dropping due to disillusionment with the current model, and the hype for Classic brought many Vanilla players back to the current model.

The idea that Guild Wars 2 would drop in quality if it only listened to the 'crowd' isn't true. On the flipside, the lack of transparency and communication in recent months has led to a huge disillusionment, especially in PvP. So, your argument alludes to the fact that Guild Wars 2 is a good game, because it doesn't need to listen to what the crowd wants. So, in this case, Guild Wars 2 defies corporation logic and trends. It's just not the case, as idealistic as you want it to be.

3) 'I'm absolutely sure the "average player" couldn't care less about jumping through hoops to be blessed with the chance to play the less stable, worse balanced version of the same game they already own.'

Again, an assumption. If you look to Early Access games, which are riddled with bugs and issues, you often see that the games are filled with players because they like the concept, the rate of communication, and the frequent updates. Instead of assuming that they wouldn't take an interest which is factually not the case, as MMO players regularly sign up for Closed Betas and attend Open Betas, wouldn't it be better to give people the chance and see what happens? Personally, people should have the option to help ArenaNet with the development decisions of Guild Wars 2. You're allowed to disagree, but don't assume that everyone follows your opinion. You can be 'absolutely sure' but it's typically a buzz-phrase to avoid saying 'I don't really know for sure, but I adore hyperbole'. The only people that are absolutely sure about a game are the developers, and the decision to make a PBE rests with them. However, if they don't want one, we need more and more communication about the upcoming updates to the game.