New Beta Copy tool

[Ashlie]

Two things I noticed:

1. My /beta copy on the character select screen I got the message that "Copying to Beta will delete your previous copy of this character on the Beta server. Is that okay?" I said copy. I went to beta, and found all three of my original copies of the character there (done before the beta copy on character select screen update), as well as Armataxxy. I went back to try again and see what would happen. I have an Armataxxyy now.

2. The character I copied is a level 10 Fury who was camped on Queen's Colonly. When she appeared in Beta she found herself standing in Thurgadin. My level 9 version of her still finds her on the Island. If toons are being kicked off the island, I think that they should find themselves somewhere closer to home than Thurgadin.

[Tylia]

I was at character select and I clicked the Beta Copy button for my lvl 10 fury that is on Test.  For some reason she was on Thundering Steppes dock on Test, but she ended up logging in to Beta in Thurgadin.  I logged back to Test and used the /beta command.  I got the message about it deleting a previous copy and clicked copy.  When I logged back to Beta, my original Araliny was gone and had been replaced by Aralinyx.

Edit to add: The Aralinyx version logged in to Beta on Thundering Steppes dock, which is where I did the /beta command.

[Terrogaunt]

Thanks for the continued testing, guys!

The button and /beta work pretty much the same (with the exception of having to get your character loaded up while you're offline, of course).

I'm not exactly sure why you're seeing yourself go into zones like Thurgadin, but I will definitely look into it.

As far as the Copy, Copyx, Copy, Copyx. This is just how it's going to work for now, since the character with the default name exists still when it checks the name on the new one. It's an asynchronous process to delete a character and to create the new one, so it won't know to not add the x until the next time when the char is gone. I just kind of shrugged at it when it happened to me, so hopefully it isn't something of an annoyance for anyone else.

If there's anything else I missed, be sure to let me know

[Terrogaunt]

[email protected] wrote:

Two things I noticed:

1. My /beta copy on the character select screen I got the message that "Copying to Beta will delete your previous copy of this character on the Beta server. Is that okay?" I said copy. I went to beta, and found all three of my original copies of the character there (done before the beta copy on character select screen update), as well as Armataxxy. I went back to try again and see what would happen. I have an Armataxxyy now.

2. The character I copied is a level 10 Fury who was camped on Queen's Colonly. When she appeared in Beta she found herself standing in Thurgadin. My level 9 version of her still finds her on the Island. If toons are being kicked off the island, I think that they should find themselves somewhere closer to home than Thurgadin.

Oh! I forgot to comment on this part. The reason this happened is because the previous beta copies had unique values generated for them on copy. The new ones are holding onto their old value from the old server (that's how I know who to delete). So really only copies going forward (and possibly from the old tool) are going to be deleted. 

[ZUES]

Terrogaunt wrote

If there's anything else I missed, be sure to let me know

Yes. Buff bots. In Novemebr we are getting a level increase on adventure, tradeskill and guild levels. If you wanted us to test it properly, we will need all buff bots and a guild buff bot. But why not just leave them in forever? We are asking for this, so please, what's your reply?

[ArtemisClyde]

last night i tried again. i copied leonitas (20/25 zerk) from test. it warned me it would delete the older copy. i hoped it would NOT delete the copy of leonitas from freeport (92/320/92), as these are separate toons that were leveled legitimately on opposite servers that had the same name. i rolled the dice and wanted to see, and, thankfully, it didnt delete anyone. it added an x. i gotta say, the way it was running maybe 2 days ago was better, where it wouldn't attempt to delete anyone, and would copy up to xx. I would be mortified to delete someones toon on an account not mine, because they shared the same name. i think originally/last year it would make all the copies your account had free slot for to hold. but, yeah....i honestly dont like it attempting to delete toons, we can do that manually. renaming=cool, deleting=not cool imo. just my two cents. speaking of deleting...why can't we delete toons that were made on test copy? i realize they were likely wiped when it was switched to beta, so now they're just hogging test slots. they aren't deleteable because it shows that server as offline. is there some sort of work around to allow us all to manually delete our test copy toons on our own and free up those slots? thanks

[ArtemisClyde]

ZUES wrote:

Terrogaunt wrote

If there's anything else I missed, be sure to let me know

Yes. Buff bots. In Novemebr we are getting a level increase on adventure, tradeskill and guild levels. If you wanted us to test it properly, we will need all buff bots and a guild buff bot. But why not just leave them in forever? We are asking for this, so please, what's your reply?

i concur. there may not be a ton to test right now other then /beta copy functionality, but, NotD should be coming up soon, and many people are chomping at the bit looking for things to test.  And we would be happier and life would be easier with some better buffers. theres lady luck for crafting and pq at least, theres guild buffers, omd and an adorn buffer for raids and tougher content, or at least bill the goat for people who have nothing, all bill helps is really just jumping in and being able to run wl overland quests for basic legendary gear or skyshrine solo etc, omd would really save us time for toons that didnt copy over as already-geared 92's. there has to be a way to code these buffers in without em despawning, as thats how it was on test-copy: lady luck in kelethin and td were always there, dlw and halas seemed less reliable for her, and guild buffers were always there.  but, why not make it easier on us to test, and then when beta content comes, sure we will have to sign up and get flagged, but then when approved, the toons will have already been setup and raring to go, pre-beta!   if its too much work to keep them popped even after server updates, maybe they could have sellable stacks of adorn baubles, so that good hearted testers like myself can hand them out to people by hand once the buffers despawn. someone brokered a couple stacks of bill's bauble, but somebody always comes along and buys em all out for themself if you price them low enough for everyone to afford. =/

[RandomWalk]

ArtemisClyde wrote:

last night i tried again. i copied leonitas (20/25 zerk) from test. it warned me it would delete the older copy. i hoped it would NOT delete the copy of leonitas from freeport (92/320/92), as these are separate toons that were leveled legitimately on opposite servers that had the same name. i rolled the dice and wanted to see, and, thankfully, it didnt delete anyone. it added an x. i gotta say, the way it was running maybe 2 days ago was better, where it wouldn't attempt to delete anyone, and would copy up to xx. I would be mortified to delete someones toon on an account not mine, because they shared the same name. i think originally/last year it would make all the copies your account had free slot for to hold. but, yeah....i honestly dont like it attempting to delete toons, we can do that manually. renaming=cool, deleting=not cool imo. just my two cents. speaking of deleting...why can't we delete toons that were made on test copy? i realize they were likely wiped when it was switched to beta, so now they're just hogging test slots. they aren't deleteable because it shows that server as offline. is there some sort of work around to allow us all to manually delete our test copy toons on our own and free up those slots? thanks

I too was concerned about the possibility of deleting someone else's toon as the description of the process referred to names.  I have two accounts and so was able to create toons with the same name, one on test with one account and three on beta with the other account (toon, toonx, toonxx).  Using the /beta command on the test toon did not wipe the already existing beta toons (copied as toonxxy).  Clearly the process refers to some other identification data and then checks the name later to determine whether to append x. xx, xxy or whatever.

I also don't like it attempting to delete toons.  There are legitimate reasons why you might want multiple copies of the same toon on beta - for example testing your parses with different combinations of equipment/prestige points.  Yes I know you could do that with one toon by keeping all your equipment and using a mirror - but that is more time consuming and you have to remember what configurations you used.  Much easier with multiple copies of the same toon.

[Terrogaunt]

Well, the reason for deleting the character was essentially to keep our database healthy and happy. Now that I've fixed the issue where you couldn't spam create characters (naming conflicts, really), there needed to be something that slowed that flow.

The way the old system worked was that it would only let you create a character once per day, period. This way, I let you copy that character as many times as you want, but you have to give up the previous character who was holding that space on the server. Since you were only able to copy once per day anyway (and after so long of waiting), it shouldn't actually be that much of an inconvenience to replace the character for instant results.

[Soresha]

Terrogaunt wrote:

Well, the reason for deleting the character was essentially to keep our database healthy and happy. Now that I've fixed the issue where you couldn't spam create characters (naming conflicts, really), there needed to be something that slowed that flow.

The way the old system worked was that it would only let you create a character once per day, period. This way, I let you copy that character as many times as you want, but you have to give up the previous character who was holding that space on the server. Since you were only able to copy once per day anyway (and after so long of waiting), it shouldn't actually be that much of an inconvenience to replace the character for instant results.

I'm going to /agree with the concerns about deleting toons - my own nevermind anyone elses! I do NOT want to end up in a situation where:

I copy my toon, do a load of testing, maybe I'm halfway through the questlines in a zone. I want to repeat some testing, so I copy again intending to make a 2nd copy of the same toon to use. Instead I end up wiping over the previous copy which I'm still in the middle using. This would be very very bad!

Also I admit I'm not totally following how it's working now, but as a tester I NEED to have multiple copies of the same toon available to use. This is a basic requirement from my experience.

If there's a limit on how many copies of the same toon you can have (say 2 or 3?), then I'd rather see this scenario:

You request a copy. The toon is already on beta as name, namex, namexx and you're at your limit. Fine, it just fails to copy (preferably with a nice message if possible). You log over, see it failed, and choose which copy to delete. Then go back and re-request and the copy goes through.

Given the copy process is now instantaneous, this is much safer and gives us more control over maintaining and creating the characters we need to do our testing.

Sorry if we're giving you a hard time Terrogaunt, but this is really kinda important.

Edit: Oh yeah, and why is spam creating characters really a problem? I mentioned this before, if you try you're just going to hit the character limit on your account for the server. You can type /beta 50 times if you want, but you won't make 50 copies.

I know deleted characters aren't really deleted. But Beta server will be periodically wiped. These total resets will surely keep the server much cleaner and healthier over the years than any of the live servers.

[Tylia]

Terrogaunt wrote:

Thanks for the continued testing, guys!

The button and /beta work pretty much the same (with the exception of having to get your character loaded up while you're offline, of course).

I'm not exactly sure why you're seeing yourself go into zones like Thurgadin, but I will definitely look into it.

As far as the Copy, Copyx, Copy, Copyx. This is just how it's going to work for now, since the character with the default name exists still when it checks the name on the new one. It's an asynchronous process to delete a character and to create the new one, so it won't know to not add the x until the next time when the char is gone. I just kind of shrugged at it when it happened to me, so hopefully it isn't something of an annoyance for anyone else.

If there's anything else I missed, be sure to let me know

I tried out the Beta Copy button on character select screen again.  Araliny is still on Thundering Steppes dock on Test.  When I logged to beta, she was at the Drednever Crash site, in The Bonemire.  (Thank goodness for the Call Home spell.  Getting out of that one could have been tricky for a lvl 10! )

[ArtemisClyde]

meh...but we weren't able to spam per se, we had to copy toon1, log them in on beta, go back to test, copy again, get "toon1x", back to beta, log that toon in, back to test, copy, get "toon1xx", and thats where it stopped. i liked that way much better then it attempting to delete someone. id be scared it deletes the wrong toon. but, beggars cant be choosers, and im thrilled that it copies so fast, and cant wait for that to reach live so people can bring their main toons over. I understand the cleaner database, its just that there can be so many nice uses of multiple copies right now, especially with no buffers and no guild buffers for status.

edit: and what about renaming? ill point out beta is unlimited sc. maybe terrogaunt could keep it this way but if we want extra copies of the toon we just buy a rename pot before copying another copy? could work? *wink*

[Hordolin Awanagin]

ArtemisClyde wrote:

meh...but we weren't able to spam per se, we had to copy toon1, log them in on beta, go back to test, copy again, get "toon1x", back to beta, log that toon in, back to test, copy, get "toon1xx", and thats where it stopped. i liked that way much better then it attempting to delete someone. id be scared it deletes the wrong toon. but, beggars cant be choosers, and im thrilled that it copies so fast, and cant wait for that to reach live so people can bring their main toons over. I understand the cleaner database, its just that there can be so many nice uses of multiple copies right now, especially with no buffers and no guild buffers for status.

edit: and what about renaming? ill point out beta is unlimited sc. maybe terrogaunt could keep it this way but if we want extra copies of the toon we just buy a rename pot before copying another copy? could work? *wink*

I was going to point out the rename bit but you beat me to it

[Terrogaunt]

ArtemisClyde wrote:

meh...but we weren't able to spam per se, we had to copy toon1, log them in on beta, go back to test, copy again, get "toon1x", back to beta, log that toon in, back to test, copy, get "toon1xx", and thats where it stopped. i liked that way much better then it attempting to delete someone. id be scared it deletes the wrong toon. but, beggars cant be choosers, and im thrilled that it copies so fast, and cant wait for that to reach live so people can bring their main toons over. I understand the cleaner database, its just that there can be so many nice uses of multiple copies right now, especially with no buffers and no guild buffers for status.

edit: and what about renaming? ill point out beta is unlimited sc. maybe terrogaunt could keep it this way but if we want extra copies of the toon we just buy a rename pot before copying another copy? could work? *wink*

The only reason you weren't able to spam was because of naming conflicts which have since been resolved . And renaming won't prevent deletion, since it doesn't go off of the character name. There's a unique value on each character and I'm using this to find the previously copied one.

[email protected] wrote:

I tried out the Beta Copy button on character select screen again.  Araliny is still on Thundering Steppes dock on Test.  When I logged to beta, she was at the Drednever Crash site, in The Bonemire.  (Thank goodness for the Call Home spell.  Getting out of that one could have been tricky for a lvl 10! ) 

I have a feeling that it's throwing you into whatever server is currently available. I'll look into forcing you into a proper location.

[Hordolin Awanagin]

Terrogaunt wrote:

And renaming won't prevent deletion, since it doesn't go off of the character name. There's a unique value on each character and I'm using this to find the previously copied one.

This is the way I would do it too. I personally don't have an issue with deleting on copy. But I do agree there are instances where it would be useful to have multiple copies of the same character for testing.

[ArtemisClyde]

Terrogaunt wrote:

ArtemisClyde wrote:

meh...but we weren't able to spam per se, we had to copy toon1, log them in on beta, go back to test, copy again, get "toon1x", back to beta, log that toon in, back to test, copy, get "toon1xx", and thats where it stopped. i liked that way much better then it attempting to delete someone. id be scared it deletes the wrong toon. but, beggars cant be choosers, and im thrilled that it copies so fast, and cant wait for that to reach live so people can bring their main toons over. I understand the cleaner database, its just that there can be so many nice uses of multiple copies right now, especially with no buffers and no guild buffers for status.

edit: and what about renaming? ill point out beta is unlimited sc. maybe terrogaunt could keep it this way but if we want extra copies of the toon we just buy a rename pot before copying another copy? could work? *wink*

The only reason you weren't able to spam was because of naming conflicts which have since been resolved . And renaming won't prevent deletion, since it doesn't go off of the character name. There's a unique value on each character and I'm using this to find the previously copied one.

[email protected] wrote:

I tried out the Beta Copy button on character select screen again.  Araliny is still on Thundering Steppes dock on Test.  When I logged to beta, she was at the Drednever Crash site, in The Bonemire.  (Thank goodness for the Call Home spell.  Getting out of that one could have been tricky for a lvl 10! ) 

I have a feeling that it's throwing you into whatever server is currently available. I'll look into forcing you into a proper location.

I think he's saying we don't have to worry about it deleting a toon that has the same name as ours, just an exact copy of the same toon from same server.  So this would be why baby leo from test didn't overwrite/delete big leo from fp. 

Still, sounds like the majority of the posters here would prefer extra copies to be allowed. But if sacrificing them extra copies is the cost of having this instant copy method work and STAY working, i understand and i can handle that trade off. But, in the past, extra copies were allowed, and did work, albeit not as fast, but usually within an hour or 2 when the script was running/working. Not trying to be a pain here, but i did the past 3 betas so i do remember the extra copies working and just appending an "x" at the end, or xx, etc.  

But erm...how close are we to seeing this go to live servers?

[RandomWalk]

Soresha wrote:

Terrogaunt wrote:

Well, the reason for deleting the character was essentially to keep our database healthy and happy. Now that I've fixed the issue where you couldn't spam create characters (naming conflicts, really), there needed to be something that slowed that flow.

The way the old system worked was that it would only let you create a character once per day, period. This way, I let you copy that character as many times as you want, but you have to give up the previous character who was holding that space on the server. Since you were only able to copy once per day anyway (and after so long of waiting), it shouldn't actually be that much of an inconvenience to replace the character for instant results.

I'm going to /agree with the concerns about deleting toons - my own nevermind anyone elses! I do NOT want to end up in a situation where:

I copy my toon, do a load of testing, maybe I'm halfway through the questlines in a zone. I want to repeat some testing, so I copy again intending to make a 2nd copy of the same toon to use. Instead I end up wiping over the previous copy which I'm still in the middle using. This would be very very bad!

Also I admit I'm not totally following how it's working now, but as a tester I NEED to have multiple copies of the same toon available to use. This is a basic requirement from my experience.

If there's a limit on how many copies of the same toon you can have (say 2 or 3?), then I'd rather see this scenario:

You request a copy. The toon is already on beta as name, namex, namexx and you're at your limit. Fine, it just fails to copy (preferably with a nice message if possible). You log over, see it failed, and choose which copy to delete. Then go back and re-request and the copy goes through.

Given the copy process is now instantaneous, this is much safer and gives us more control over maintaining and creating the characters we need to do our testing.

Sorry if we're giving you a hard time Terrogaunt, but this is really kinda important.

Edit: Oh yeah, and why is spam creating characters really a problem? I mentioned this before, if you try you're just going to hit the character limit on your account for the server. You can type /beta 50 times if you want, but you won't make 50 copies.

I know deleted characters aren't really deleted. But Beta server will be periodically wiped. These total resets will surely keep the server much cleaner and healthier over the years than any of the live servers.

Terrogaunt I appreciate the work you are putting in to making the /beta copy command work fast and reliably. 

However from the practical point of testing quest lines I could not agree more with Soresha.  Say you are testing a quest line that comprises a series of 10 or more quests which you have to do in order.  The recent Qeynos revamp is a good example - to progress you have to complete ALL the prerequisite quests.  It is not uncommon when testing a new quest series to find that the early ones did not work quite as well as they should.  So you have your copied toon halfway through a long series and some changes are made to the earlier quests.  You want to go back and test the changes with the same toon but you don't want to lose the progress with the copied toon - to have to repeat the long questline again would be (in my opinion) a waste of useful testing time.

It really depends on the aspect of testing you are looking at.  For combat mechanics and testing dungeons/raids the overwriting is not a big deal.  But for testing long drawn out series of quests it is.  Is there no way that the process could allow for two or three copies of the same toon?  In anycase the number of available slots you have on an account would act as a natural barrier for spam copies.

Thanks for listening

Aeriel

[tkia]

[email protected] wrote:

For combat mechanics and testing dungeons/raids the overwriting is not a big deal. 

Aeriel

I'd argue this point too.  When I do beta I typically have several copies of the same toon active, all wearing different gear sets so that I can test mob balancing for different play styles.

[feldon30]

Great improvements to the tool. But being able to copy over multiple times, with each copy being preserved, is important. Maybe... /beta copy will replace Feldon on the beta server with my current version of Beta. /beta new will copy Feldon over and add however many 'x's are required so it doesn't replace Feldon.

[Cloudrat]

Guild window bug with copies.  Although the copies didn't erase the guild person they are connected

When I promoted  the recruit Ohoh the Officer Ohoh was promoted. Not sure which ohoh is in the guild lol  the recruit one doesn't promote. I am sooo confused hehe

[Terrogaunt]

Cloudrat wrote:

Guild window bug with copies.  Although the copies didn't erase the guild person they are connected

When I promoted  the recruit Ohoh the Officer Ohoh was promoted. Not sure which ohoh is in the guild lol  the recruit one doesn't promote. I am sooo confused hehe

Ooo.. That sounds interesting. Can you get me any more details on that? Feel free to PM me if you need to.

[Hordolin Awanagin]

In playing, I deleted the Ohoh that was tagged as Officer, re-copied. Then someone guild invited the new one as a recruit. I don't think I've deleted again since then. The Officer Ohoh that you saw should have been a deleted character. I think what it's doing is showing the character twice in the guild members and it promoted both promoted the officer because it's first in the table? And /or because they're the same character ID.

Terrogaunt, check the character delete part of /beta to make sure it's hitting guild too when it erases toon.

[Terrogaunt]

I just tested this out a bit on my own. I had a character copied over and I promoted him to junior member. After that, I copied him again (deleting the old in the process), reinvited, and started promoting again. It seemed like it worked just fine that way.

Is there some different step that I was taking that is making my results different?

[Hordolin Awanagin]

I don't know. Hopping over to beta to play with it some now.

[Hordolin Awanagin]

This is the sequence of events. Copied Ohoh with OLD /beta command. This Ohoh was promoted to Officer.

Did runs through Sleepers. Created Ohohx with NEW /beta. Deleted Ohoh from character select. Copied with new /beta which deleted Ohohx and created Ohoh. Copied with new beta which created Ohohx and deleted Ohoh. Copied again which created Ohoh. This is the Ohoh that's currently in guild as recruit. I see Ohoh in guild as officer and Ohoh as recruit. The recruit version shows me as where I currently am. Logging in another account with Officer status to see if I can boot the old copy and the new copy and start the process over to try to reproduce it.

[Hordolin Awanagin]

Kind of a revelation. The Ohoh that's tagged as Officer. was made with the old beta command. I deleted that character from character select after copying Ohoh (to Ohohx) with the new beta. I believe the entries in the guild members data will have different ID's BUT the promote/demote functions in the guild window work off of name instead of ID. It all boils down to, for some reason, the Ohoh copy made with the old beta command didn't get removed from the guild when I deleted it.

[Terrogaunt]

Hordolin Awanagin wrote:

Kind of a revelation. The Ohoh that's tagged as Officer. was made with the old beta command. I deleted that character from character select after copying Ohoh (to Ohohx) with the new beta. I believe the entries in the guild members data will have different ID's BUT the promote/demote functions in the guild window work off of name instead of ID. It all boils down to, for some reason, the Ohoh copy made with the old beta command didn't get removed from the guild when I deleted it.

You are correct, sir! The guild commands are definitely going off of the name of the character. Should that guy have been active when it was used, it would have seen him as the target for it. 

If that's all it is, then I'm going to stop worrying now.

[Terrogaunt]

Also, I'm looking into the destination zone right now. It appears that the /beta command is taking what zone you're in and setting that as the final destination but the button has a random server handle the request.

Given the above information, do you guys think you'd be happy with having your character being sent to the Commonlands docks when copying from the button?

[Hordolin Awanagin]

Terrogaunt wrote:

Hordolin Awanagin wrote:

Kind of a revelation. The Ohoh that's tagged as Officer. was made with the old beta command. I deleted that character from character select after copying Ohoh (to Ohohx) with the new beta. I believe the entries in the guild members data will have different ID's BUT the promote/demote functions in the guild window work off of name instead of ID. It all boils down to, for some reason, the Ohoh copy made with the old beta command didn't get removed from the guild when I deleted it.

You are correct, sir! The guild commands are definitely going off of the name of the character. Should that guy have been active when it was used, it would have seen him as the target for it. 

If that's all it is, then I'm going to stop worrying now.

No worries now. Just have to boot the old Ohoh out so the new one can be permissioned.

[Hordolin Awanagin]

Terrogaunt wrote:

Hordolin Awanagin wrote:

Kind of a revelation. The Ohoh that's tagged as Officer. was made with the old beta command. I deleted that character from character select after copying Ohoh (to Ohohx) with the new beta. I believe the entries in the guild members data will have different ID's BUT the promote/demote functions in the guild window work off of name instead of ID. It all boils down to, for some reason, the Ohoh copy made with the old beta command didn't get removed from the guild when I deleted it.

You are correct, sir! The guild commands are definitely going off of the name of the character. Should that guy have been active when it was used, it would have seen him as the target for it. 

If that's all it is, then I'm going to stop worrying now.

No worries now. Just have to boot the old Ohoh out so the new one can be permissioned.