The Daily Grind: Do you wish test realm characters could be transfered to live realms?

If we're talking about beta test servers then I find the habit of deleting chars at release a USELESS habit indeed. I REALLY don't get the reason behind it, but w/e... might just be my low IQ.

If we're talking test servers like the ones Blizzard employs (and I believe we aren't) then there would be no reason to be able to "save the changes" done to the chars on the test server and update the "original" char you duplicated in order to play on the PTR.

IMHO, if you played a beta to the point where you don't feel like leveling up again at live either the game is not worth playing because it is that boring or you spent too much time focusing on leveling during beta when you were supposed to be ironing out the bugs.

When I here people complain about losing their hard work from leveling in betas, it just makes me think why did they even let that person play the beta. Obviously they wanted to just play the game early and most likely did not add any useful feedback besides the occasional "I hate this feature!" or "There is a glitch and I am pissed so please fix!!!" instead of any useful suggestions/bug reports.

Now if a game wants to keep Open Beta characters and the game is already F2P I feel like that could be okay but I still have the feeling of "why even have an Open Beta?" because not even P2P games are going to work out all the bugs in a OBT and there is no reason to not just call it "Live" if it will save character advancement and be free anyway.

I have played in every major [P2P and most F2P] MMO CBT/OBT in the last few years and I look forward to actually testing the game and trying out a bunch of different races/classes/factions(while of course helping with the actual beta testing and feedback) and then finally settling on a main at launch which I get to start with a clean slate just like everyone else. If I were a casual gamer and started a game at official launch just to see someone 20 levels higher than me in the first hour I think that would be a major turn off.

I would like to hear others' opinions on this matter but a OBT of a F2P MMO that will keep character advancement seems to me to only be a developer being too lazy/impatient to finish a game before filling their user base and having the excuse to say "Oh that doesn't work? It is BETA you know!?"

IMHO, if you played a beta to the point where you don't feel like leveling up again at live either the game is not worth playing because it is that boring or you spent too much time focusing on leveling during beta when you were supposed to be ironing out the bugs.

When I here people complain about losing their hard work from leveling in betas, it just makes me think why did they even let that person play the beta. Obviously they wanted to just play the game early and most likely did not add any useful feedback besides the occasional "I hate this feature!" or "There is a glitch and I am pissed so please fix!!!" instead of any useful suggestions/bug reports.

Now if a game wants to keep Open Beta characters and the game is already F2P I feel like that could be okay but I still have the feeling of "why even have an Open Beta?" because not even P2P games are going to work out all the bugs in a OBT and there is no reason to not just call it "Live" if it will save character advancement and be free anyway.

I have played in every major [P2P and most F2P] MMO CBT/OBT in the last few years and I look forward to actually testing the game and trying out a bunch of different races/classes/factions(while of course helping with the actual beta testing and feedback) and then finally settling on a main at launch which I get to start with a clean slate just like everyone else. If I were a casual gamer and started a game at official launch just to see someone 20 levels higher than me in the first hour I think that would be a major turn off.

I would like to hear others' opinions on this matter but a OBT of a F2P MMO that will keep character advancement seems to me to only be a developer being too lazy/impatient to finish a game before filling their user base and having the excuse to say "Oh that doesn't work? It is BETA you know!?"

[My post keeps getting deleted?]

Beta characters should not be transfered to Live Servers. Unless its the very last few days of beta which is really just "pre launch PR" when all of the possible bug fixes and content exploits have been fixed.

3 Examples of why >

1) After the latest Beta Patch I discover By making Spoons I can get 7000% profit by selling them to Fred the Butcher. I do this for a few weeks and come live I am the richest player in game. Of course by launch this has been changed so spoons only offer 0.05% profit so nobody can do what I did now.

2) During Beta I find a solo npc that gives me 700,000xp per kill this is obviously not right but if I grind him for a day with each of my classes I'll have a full set of maxed out careers. Next week they fix this npc with a new beta patch but by then I'm done.

3) During Beta I find a way to collect an unlimited supply of "sword of a million donkey punches" by killing a raid mob which has mistakenly been given 1 hitpoint. I store them in my bank and use one for myself. The following beta patch fixes this issue. At launch I spend the first few weeks one shotting all the noobs who havn't got this sword yet. After I've got a few thousand kills and everyone wants the sword I then start putting it on the auction houses for huge sums of cash...few people buy it, start owning others, more people save up to buy it and the game starts to balance out but by then I'm already the lead killer and the richest player on the server.

Beta screws with game balance, players can play and do things unintended for launch. During beta developers do not have endless resources to monitor the testers because testers arn't paying any money they can't afford the manpower to police them. By wiping the server during beta and telling everyone to start afresh on Launch Day you ensure everyone has an equal chance to play the game and experience the rewards in the same way. If you're a beta tester you already know some of the tricks and usualy a good path of progression through the content.

A developer that offers such a service is evidently worried nobody wants to test their game and thus is offering an incentive to bother playing it. It also shows they arn't thinking ahead to their future customers which is something I'd be worried about especialy if they are going to ask for money after release.

Wow, people either have short memories, or don't play as many MMOs as they pretend. LotRO allowed beta characters to be taken into the live game. The catch? They could only be levelled to Level 15... but it was a sure-fire way of knowing your character name was secure from beta.

I simply don't get involved in testing realms or beta if I can't keep my character. I understand why companies prefer to eliminate beta characters. It's simply an easier task to wipe everything clean instead of hunt & pecking each beta avatar and altering the finishing changes. It also eliminates the probability for bugs and hacks.

"My problem with this is I am less likely to do quests on a test realm because I don't want to slog through them again later"

What on earth are you thinking if you're "playing" a chore? If it's not fun, don't do it out of some sort of twisted masochism.

Beyond that, HELL NO. I've simply written Neo Steam off, because of this. Character name reservation, maybe. Beta characters in live however:

1. If there's an exploit, it can be a disaster.
2. Massively disadvantages the majority of your paying customers.
3. Discourages actually TESTING in beta.

Beta is for testing. If the devs wipe the characters every Tuesday if they're bored, it should not bother you.

A few days pre-launch head-start for pre-orders and/or best beta testers, maybe. I'm just really, REALLY fed up with beta tests being little more than marketing tools instead of letting players actually get in early and go "No, that game mechanic doesn't work" or "The level 3 question explodes if you try doing it 70 times in a row on a Wednesday".

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

No.

Worst idea ever, which is why NOBODY EVER DOES IT.