The Daily Grind: Should beta testers be allowed to keep their characters?

Good practice. Heck, I'd love for games to do it more often during their retail lifespan too, but that would create too much outcry ;)

Whenever a new server opens up for whatever game I'm playing I like to create an alt or two there. When everything is fresh and new for everyone you usually have a much better time grouping up and going through low level content.

Good Practice. The newb rush at the start of an MMORPG can be one of the most fun times to play simply because everyone is in fact such a low level.

Good practice, absolutely, no question about it.

Beta is for testing. Character wipes _during_ beta shouldn't be a suprise, let alone after. If people want pre-launch time for pre-orders, that's a separate matter, but beta characters should absolutely be wiped before launch.

I do vote yes on wipes, but it's not entirely without hesitation. The purpose of a beta is testing. The good news is, there will always be someone who decides to level a new character class to max level (or even an old class with a new race), or grind out a lengthy faction grind, even knowing it's a beta. The bad news is, that player may not be representative of what actual players will do on live servers with their own characters.

The problem is, you WANT to test what will happen when half the server converges on one repeatable quest. You WANT to find out what solo players do when they get halfway to the level cap so you'll find out whether there's enough content for them to continue advancing. You WANT to find out whether level 10 characters can dodge aggro and ninja all the minerals in your level 45 zones. Players don't do these things if they know there's going to be a wipe (if for no other reason than to preserve some choice "creative uses of game mechanics" for live servers), and, no matter how clever a company thinks they're being by quietly not responding to threads asking whether there will be a wipe because confirming it would affect testing behavior, most players are smart enough to expect one without having it confirmed.

I'm not saying that more accurate testing is worth the issues that max level characters on launch day cause. From a cynical point of view, a wipe means more time from launch until you have players who are out of content, and that reason alone is enough to convince most companies to wipe. I'm just saying, the knowledge that what you're playing is a test and not the real deal affects behavior, and ultimately the quality of the live product suffers for it.

Absolutely! Beta is usually home to many unchecked exploits, balance issues, and general brokenness in the balance between players, and allowing beta testers to keep those characters could hurt the economy or balance permanently. Not to mention the major issue of newcomers to the game being at an enormous disadvantage compared to beta players, who already have personal experience on their side.

Beta testers should be given the right to reserve a character name, and usually a special ribbon or item to designate them as beta players, but nothing more.