Battlefield 4 has been an astronomical mess. Since launch, it’s been plagued with problems and when one thing gets fixed, something else awful rears its buggy head. It’s been over six months since it launched, and the issues persist.
Not ready to be defeated, even after all this time, DICE is trying something new: the community test environment. Obviously something is wrong with the studio’s QA process, and this could be, if not a solution, at least more eyes spotting problems.
“The Community Test Environment (CTE) will provide passionate fans the chance to evolve Battlefield 4 with us and become a part of the development process,” DICE announced on the Battlefield blog. “We’ll be able to test new ideas and solutions to current issues before we roll them out to all Battlefield players.”
On the top of the list of priorities is the netcode, says DICE. The developer wants to tweak this aspect of the game’s innards as well as improve the tickrate of the servers.
“By launching this new program, not only will we be able to address player feedback at an early stage, but also increase the overall quality of the game,” DICE continues. “We are excited to explore the possibilities together with you.”
In a peculiar move, the CTE is only available to Premium members. I can only hope that this is because it’s a very simple way to make sure everyone doesn’t just jump in all at once, rather than a suggestion that doing free QA for DICE and EA is somehow a privilege that you need to pay a little more for. Because it isn’t. QA is not much fun.
It will be expanded eventually, however, hopefully to include people who didn’t pay extra for Premium membership.
To access the CTE, you’ll need to download a separate client after going here and agreeing to the terms and conditions. Well, that’s what you would do if DICE was accepting any more testers. Which it is not, at least right now.