Singularity Is Not For Player Testing Anymore

For years and years EVE Online players could hop on the Singularity test server and test out the latest changes to the game. While a test server provided by MMORPG developers is supposed to help test the games, often times players use access to such servers to mine game data to gain advantages or just brag that they know what is coming next. CCP has long wanted to restrict player knowledge of new content until a patch is deployed to Tranquility. Yesterday CCP Arcade made an announcement about future player use of Singularity.

Back in July we posted that Singularity would remain inaccessible throughout July and August and that we would provide a further update as September approaches. We’re now ready to update you on the plans for Singularity test server.

For the foreseeable future Singularity will only be open during specific testing windows rather than being always accessible. The aim is to focus testing on work-in-progress features rather than general access to all content. We will announce testing windows prominently via news articles or forums, socials, and other EVE community channels.

Currently, players who participate in organized mass tests on Singularity are rewarded with skill points on Singularity, we recognize that if the server is inaccessible then this would diminish this type of reward. We are discussing what other rewards could be used to incentivize participation in tests.

These days Singularity is mostly used to test deployments and architecture changes. Often bugs that are reported by players on Singularity have already found their way onto Tranquility. The hope is that by focusing testing on new features we can limit the number of bugs that reach Tranquility.

We don’t foresee this change severely impacting the ability for players to data mine changes when they are deployed to Singularity, but it should hopefully ensure that once a change is deployed to Singularity it is closer to a finished state and has already been put into context via dev blogs, news items etc.

Not every game has a publicly accessible test server. Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2 both do not have public test servers. Pearl Abyss' Black Desert Online opened up a test server in April 2022. The theory is that public test servers allow players to find bugs and make the game on the live servers less buggy. I played my first MMORPG, World of Warcraft, back in 2005. Let's just say I'm not convinced.

Of course, I have my tinfoil hat theory on why the extremely limited access to Singularity. Back in March CCP announced a $40 million round of funding for a new blockchain MMORPG, code-named Project Awakening. From the initial coverage of the game, the game is basically EVE Online utilizing blockchain tech. Something those outside the EVE community might not know is that the Singluarity test shard was used for testing both the versions of EVE running on the Tranquility and Chinese Serenity live shards. If CCP did not have the resources to run separate testing environments for two version of EVE, why would anyone thing CCP had enough money to spin up an additional test cluster for Project Awakening?

While $40 million is a good deal of money, CCP cannot rely on any financial backing from Pearl Abyss to progress the project. That money needs to last unless Hilmar can scrounge up enough interest in Project Awakening. Any cost savings is a requirement. 

Now, I don't know anything aside from the financial information published by Pearl Abyss and CCP. I also know EVE players would rise up and complain about losing access to Singularity to a blockchain game. Don't underestimate the power of EVE players. The complaining about CCP attempting to add NFTs into EVE resulted in Hilmar backing down from the plan. But if my tin foil theory is true, perhaps we will hear more about Project Awakening soon.