Server wipes during and after beta are a necessary evil, or are they? Free Realms launched yesterday, to everyone's surprise, just like Chronicles of Spellborn launched in sneaky fashion last week. But Spellborn allowed players to keep their characters while Free Realms is starting everyone from scratch. With the state of beta testing today, is there one right approach?
That's our topic today in Loading... Forgetting to Wipe, and we also have several great articles including a City of Heroes five year anniversary interview with Matt Miller, new Free Realms and WoW guides, and more!
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Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle Editor-in-Chief - The Ten Ton Hammer Network
The whole "people getting attached to their characters" in beta is indicative of the mindset of a lot of beta testers. A mindset that's one of the big problems with a lot of beta testing these days.
when a game comes out of beta the client version should be 1.0 and all data from previous versions should be wiped. in beta people can and generally are trying to find exploits, those exploits should be removed prior to 1.0.
aside from that launching a game where the playing field is not balanced puts the game on the "shit list" as far as i am concerned. even though beta testers will generally know how/where to level quickest i see that as the payment they get for dealing with all the hassles that beta testing usually involves.
TCOS didn't have a character wipe for a very specific reason: paid subscriptions.
yes, thats right, during TCOS "open beta" players were required to open a paid subscription to level their characters past level 7. At this point, soliciting and accepting paid subscribers while in "beta" makes it more of a "pre-launch" or "soft-launch" then an actual beta. While playing the game in beta I encountered MANY players who had leveled beyond 7, meaning they were also paying subscribers. Once players are paying for the game, wiping characters would be a horrible move.
So the broken rule here is not so much about not wiping characters, but rather taking players money while the game is still supposedly beta...
This trend is something I have noticed spreading to a few other games as well. I won't specify which but I know of at least two games in open beta phases that are accepting paying subscriptions and/or money for premium content before the game is even launched.
So the broken rule here is not so much about not wiping characters, but rather taking players money while the game is still supposedly beta...
This trend is something I have noticed spreading to a few other games as well. I won't specify which but I know of at least two games in open beta phases that are accepting paying subscriptions and/or money for premium content before the game is even launched.
This is a whole other intriguing topic. I wonder if it isn't just a matter of semantics: call it "open beta" and people consider it wrong to have to pay to level beyond a certain point or explore premium content; call it something like a "pre-launch" and people could care less about paying for access. Gamers equate the word "beta" with "free."
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Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg
Public Relations & Resident Forum Goddess (All your posts are belong to me!)
"I fell asleep watching Jeopardy, and I snored in the form of a question "
~ Christoper Moore
Obviously if it is a paid beta as Cheetum notes then it's cool to me that they keep their characters. But in the other cases I think it is fair to reset everyone back to level 1 and those that did beta will know where to go and what to do. I know that with Wrath of the Lich King people were in Beta testing and were some of the first ones to get to 80 - but that was because they knew where to go - not because they got to keep the characters they copied over.
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The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
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