Has the EQ2 team ever concidered Test Copying?

[Za]

<DIV>Stollen from City of Heroes, but wondering if SOE had concidered it, and if not, why?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you don't know what I'm talking about.... </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In City of Heroes, they allowed you to make an exact copy of a current main server character onto their test server.</DIV> <DIV>The test copies came over with no money, just their level and powers, and was an exact duplicate at the time copied, but had no relationship back to the server it came from.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This made it very easy for main server people to jump into the test environment and help test future changes. </DIV> <DIV>Ecen high level changes got tested thoughoughly, because high level main server players could easily hop over with their already high level chars and test the changes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I can see SOE having some restrictions... like no copying of money, or maybe even gear, but the base idea sounds like a great way to get more people involved in testing, esp at the higher end of the game. This allows SOE to look at "real server" impact of changes, without subjecting the entire playbase to the changes. I think thats a good thing for everyone.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>BTW, the CoH copy functionality was done via a website, Seems that the Players.com site would fit perfectly their. </DIV>

[Proudfoot]

<span><blockquote><hr>Moorgard wrote:Our goal is to enhance the Test community by adding players who consistently want to be at the forefront of improving the game, and the best way to achieve that is to offer the chance to make Test server your character's permanent home.<hr></blockquote>A freeform character copy tool will not help much. It didn't really help much with CoH for the months I was there at release either. How come? Players with the instant-gratification mentality are the ones who would use this tool. Will they maintain any pressence on the Test Server to help test/find bugs? No. Also, CoH do not have inventories to worry with. That helps a ton btw. Mythic really started this entire char copy system with DAoC. But I'm not really sure how many people out there, including yourself, understand how much this backfired on their game. Much like it probably would on EQ2. Backfired how? The Pendragon server, once it was opened about 2 weeks after DAoC release, started to build a playerbase. A community of players who played ON THAT server. From release (around october/november of that year) through January the Pendragon server grew to about 150-200 players at primetime/peek hours. Then came Mythics innovative character copy tool. Around Feb./March of the following year. Result? Peek load of Pendragon plumeted to 40-50 players. Why? Because not only did the players who based their play time there feel betrayed (for many reasons), but it also totally broke any community. ESPECIALLY since those who did copy over had no respect for anyone who was already on that server. Its funny, everyone always blames the "test server" players of being snotty and arrogant, when it turns out most of the ones who COPY are the arrogant jerks feeling that if you play on Test you must be mentaly challenged. This drove away the players that Mythic had on their Test realm. It has NEVER recovered. Its in SOE's best interest to get the population up on Test, yes. Nobody is disputing this. Its the method that needs to be worked out, and a generic character copy tool isn't really going to help all that much. Offering up another round of transfers would be a good step, as many players have come/gone since the last round, back in Feb.</span><div></div>

[Za]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Proudfoot wrote:<BR><SPAN> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Moorgard wrote:<BR>Our goal is to enhance the Test community by adding players who consistently want to be at the forefront of improving the game, and the best way to achieve that is to offer the chance to make Test server your character's permanent home.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>A freeform character copy tool will not help much. It didn't really help much with CoH for the months I was there at release either. How come? Players with the instant-gratification mentality are the ones who would use this tool. Will they maintain any pressence on the Test Server to help test/find bugs? No.<BR><BR>Also, CoH do not have inventories to worry with. That helps a ton btw.<BR><BR>Mythic really started this entire char copy system with DAoC. But I'm not really sure how many people out there, including yourself, understand how much this backfired on their game. Much like it probably would on EQ2. Backfired how? The Pendragon server, once it was opened about 2 weeks after DAoC release, started to build a playerbase. A community of players who played ON THAT server. From release (around october/november of that year) through January the Pendragon server grew to about 150-200 players at primetime/peek hours.<BR><BR>Then came Mythics innovative character copy tool. Around Feb./March of the following year. Result? Peek load of Pendragon plumeted to 40-50 players. Why? Because not only did the players who based their play time there feel betrayed (for many reasons), but it also totally broke any community. ESPECIALLY since those who did copy over had no respect for anyone who was already on that server. Its funny, everyone always blames the "test server" players of being snotty and arrogant, when it turns out most of the ones who COPY are the arrogant jerks feeling that if you play on Test you must be mentaly challenged. This drove away the players that Mythic had on their Test realm. It has NEVER recovered.<BR><BR>Its in SOE's best interest to get the population up on Test, yes. Nobody is disputing this. Its the method that needs to be worked out, and a generic character copy tool isn't really going to help all that much. Offering up another round of transfers would be a good step, as many players have come/gone since the last round, back in Feb.<BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I never personally saw this in CoH at all.... In fact I and MANY of the changes they made on test changed dramatically by the time they made it to the live servers based entirely  feedback from live server players that went to test specifically to preview the changes. The perspective that live server players have is a little different from pure test server players. Sometimes its not the statistics that matter, but more the feeling of the implimentation. You can provide that. We live players can provide that. EQ2 database queries can't!</P> <P>Jerks are jerks. What you experienced in CoH is unfortunate, I'd recommend that SOE seriously limit the kind of copying and such, but there's no difference between someone making a clean L1 char on test and copying one over with seriously limited gear. We're not saying copy over things that would impact that community or economy, just the chars, so that powers and such can be effectively reviewed by more people that are qualified to test at a given level. </P> <P>I'd never blame you guys on test, I think you perform a viable service full time, all I'm saying is that if SOE if going to continue making sweeping changes that have such a large change on the live game, that they give people the opportunity to participate in that aspect of the design without having to sacrifice their actual live server character development to such a drastic degree.</P> <P>If  I have a L40 char on main, I'm very illqualified to go to test to create a new test char, just to critique changes made to the under 10 game that I haven't personally experienced in weeks or months. But I'm highly qualified to critique chages to the game at the levels I'm playing at now or have been in the recent past.</P>