Yep that was test Don't forget live servers in TO is kinda like beta version of other games. To be fair, this is becoming a new standard now. World of Warcraft "pre-released" Legion expansion few weeks prior to the "launch day" hammering down everything to new top 110 level. People ended up not being able to even kill some event bosses prior to launch because they were scaled to new top level while nobody had new top gear yet. At the same time the devs had solid 3 weeks to test everything on live servers, iron out changes and fix bugs generally bypassing quite a chunk of testing process.

It's not a new thing anymore. Testing is done to the extent of making sure game features are stable and the whole thing is working, then new patch or xpac drops and for next few weeks/months things are being fixed:P Many MMO companies do this. Being an old school I think it is total BS to "employ" your whole player base to do testing for you for free. But, hey that's me. I am getting older every day