So I've been playing on the Test server for about six months now. It's amazing, but for some reason it's really short on people, so I thought I'd spell out why it's so amazing and hope that encourages more players to give it a try: First, you get as many free gold level accounts as you want, with all expansions enabled. Want to six-box? Go right ahead. Second, double experience ALWAYS on, triple experience while live servers are getting double xp. Third, you can bring your characters over from live with the /testcopy command. This used to be not so great, because it brought you over with no money and all of your gear flagged as no trade. You also couldn't turn in copied quest items, so if you came over halfway through a quest you were kind of boned. Now you can bring over everything on your character, keep all your money, and you don't lose quest progress. To sum up: you don't have to start over from scratch and you don't arrive broke. The only thing you can't copy, as far as I know, is the Doll of Character - all other gear copies, even marketplace and loyalty stuff. Fourth, if you DO want to start over from scratch, there's an entire cottage industry of players who will gear you up on Firiona Vie (for a moderate fee), so you arrive on Test with bags of raid gear ready for you to grow into it. Fifth: If you're looking for folks to relive the glory days of EQ with, we have a couple of active progression guilds. We also have several active grouping guilds and one guild raiding through reasonably modern content (RoF/CoTF) Sixth: You get to see new stuff first and you have the opportunity to give feedback on stuff before it goes live, so you actually have the chance to influence the direction of the game. It's pretty awesome. This actually should go first, but I thought I'd appeal to peoples' pocketbooks first. Downsides: First, well, it's test, so it gets taken down on occasion during prime time hours. Usually it gets brought right back up. Upside is, while live is down for patches, test is still up. Second, YES, there was a character item wipe once, back in 2000, because kobolds in SolB were dropping Nagafen loot and the developer reaction to the sudden influx of dragon gear was, well, drastic. That isn't going to happen again. Third, there's not enough people sometimes, and the free gold accounts mean that there are a lot of folks who like to just set up their box group somewhere and play by themselves. You would THINK that a largely empty server would be great - camping pretty much any named you want, that sort of thing - but sometimes it gets a little lonely. To sum up: Test is great, quite possibly the best way to experience Everquest. Please give it a try
I play on test right now but I choose to maintain 3 gold subs recurring monthly. Anything that keeps the game plugged in - I'd feel bad just playing gold for free ad infinitum.
Please enlighten us with bullet points, because my experience on Test Server has been awesome over the past year and a half.
I bet it has, constant double experience, no need for expansions, no monthly fee? Why don't you tell us what you have tested personally.
I used to mess around on test. Then I made the mistake of using the heroic char option on my main to get a few extra perks since I had nothing else to use it on. Now I am unable to ever /testcopy.
So...your automatic thought is everyone on Test server is a freeloader that doesn't test anything? I'm sure there are some, don't get me wrong, but the people I personally know that moved to play on Test and dropped their gold sub allocated the money they aren't spending on subs to be spent into the marketplace. And quite a bit of us do test things...there are test update threads on these forums that often go several pages deep, and that doesn't even include bug reporting done in-game. We usually have at least one or two downtime patches between the update patch and when the live patch goes out.
/bug Soandso says "your" when he really meant "you're." K I did my part. Yay FreeQ /eyeroll Unless you want Test locked behind a gold sub and copies disabled (especially from FV), I'd recommend strongly tonihg down the pro-Test propaganda.
I think allot of people would be surprised how many bugs (regardless of how minor) do not make it to the live servers due to the Test folks reporting them. I don't see an issue with trying to get a few more folks on to the server or the FV folks helping out so that upper end content can be played and tested as well. I play both Test and Xegony . I like both for different reasons. I think both should be supported. There is nothing wrong with playing Test and nobody should be made to feel bad for doing so. As an example, I am currently /bugging and working with the SOE team to find out why I suddenly do not have access to my Krono's and Loyalty Points. I am almost positive this is something nobody would want to have hit the live servers..... I don't know, maybe it already has. Either way, Test is important for everyone IMO, it has it's place to help the entire community. So yes, I do like Test and recommend it to more people. Just my thoughts. **Update** - Just got a final answer to my /bug report. It seems my issue stems from the Marketplace not being available currently. Regards, Droc
Testcopy was actually improved a few years ago to its current state; it's unlikely that that will be rolled back as it remains a strong incentive to play on Test. It also means that test players tend to spend money in the marketplace because your SC purchases go a lot further. Obviously I don't have the numbers but I suspect SoE makes a good bit of money off Test, even with the lack of gold subs / expansion sales.
if any corrupt csr/gms are reading this. i'd pay $500 usd to get off of Test even if naked. don't be shy
You can get off Test any time you want. You know that little ability to change from Test to Live or Beta on the Patcher? Yeh next time you use the patcher change it to Live.
Thanks for adding your two cents Droc You make a good example of another benefit to test - getting to play with people who as pleasant and positive. It's not that the server is some sort of bizarre utopia without its own occasional drama, I'm not going to claim THAT by any means, but we seem to dodge a lot of drama just because the economy is so weird.
Good job, that's SRO, not the arena. Each server's winner got the 51-54 title, top 4 on test got the 55-59 title, winner got the level 60 title. Sobe and I both lost in the first round on test server. Ormus has a fake druid botb title that he got from a FanFair contest of some sort, I teased him about that cause he wasn't in my logs from the test server botb finals. [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] Players on EverQuest: [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] --------------------------- [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [3 Druid] Ibbuny (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [18 Paladin] Galadriel (High Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [ANONYMOUS] Carran [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [1 Druid] Drinalnews (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [1 Rogue] Cnet (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] AFK [60 Hierophant] Erondiel (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Fenani (Human) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Talwena (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Fluidru (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Voron (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [ANONYMOUS] Erico [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Sobex (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [59 Preserver] Xendros (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Nuldan (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] * GM * [60 Grave Lord] Dartok (Ogre) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Archelon (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [59 Preserver] Kenner (Human) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Pekkx (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Raifx (Human) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Lenenx (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Tenilx (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Jandir (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Baurx (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Feleciax (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Rollius (Human) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Sabastianxx (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [1 Warrior] Prexusnews (Ogre) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Glovian (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Praxxx (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [58 Preserver] Tsalarian (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [60 Hierophant] Gadinx (Half Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:39 2001] [1 Cleric] Ryldd (High Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] * GM * [60 Arch Mage] Namdarie (Gnome) <Verant Interactive> [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Llyath (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Gazellen (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Roxy (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Zwinx (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [23 Shadow Knight] Sorarak (Iksar) <Stormbringer Legacy> [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Dalien (Halfling) <Tribe> [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Semedix (Half Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [58 Preserver] Buddro (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Berrax (Halfling) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [ANONYMOUS] Greatsmith [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] [60 Hierophant] Iilax (Wood Elf) [Sat May 19 15:37:40 2001] There are 44 players in The Arena.
Oh the good old days of Very Specific EQ fansites. I remember needing to read two or three message boards PER CLASS to keep up on all the happenings.
Yes, /testcopy leaves your original character in place. As Tarrin pointed out earlier, it doesn't work for heroic characters but any other character can be copied over.
