I tried to copy a character from live to test and got some sort of message that it was disabled? What's going on?
You only need to 1:1 copy a character now onto Beta (formerly Test Copy), not Test. Members of the Test server start at level 1 and work their way up as on a normal server, whereas Beta may require an exact copy of your max-level character to test endgame content. I assume Beta copies aren't working right now because the server's not in use.
Test Copy has been disabled as of a little while ago (I'd link back the original post, but we lost it in the forum move) and rolled into Beta. Now the only server to 1:1 copy on from here on out is Beta, by invitation only or if they open it up for everyone as they did in COE, not year-round as before.
So basically when they make changes they don't wamt them tested for fear of outcries of disapproval from the players. Boy I remember when all major changes went to test copy and you were encouraged to go and test them and provide feedback. Obviously this new team DOES NOT WANT ANY FEEDBACK FOR FEAR IT WILL BE NEGATIVE.
I think you're misunderstanding. Test Copy is now Beta, and before we were beta testing CoE worked just like Test Copy (in fact, that's where we tested the new character copy to Beta). Thursday it was locked; it's unavailable right now; I'm sure they will bring it back when they've finished settling CoE in. Here's the post Liz mentioned, from September: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2old/posts/list.m?topic_id=521240
They do want feedback. They did take feedback from open beta. It didn't launch perfectly, but what does - just because they don't have a year-round copy server doesn't mean they don't want feedback, and won't listen to suggestions. It just means that to test most things now, you'll have to go to Test instead of having the choice to go to Test Copy at will. And thank you Calthine, you're the best!
The problem is the game is riddled with bugs and they are NOT fixing them but are busy nerfing instead, and their lack of presence on fora tells me they don't care what players think or are saying!! Stop defending the indefensible -- they threw COE out the door without proper testing of all areas of the game. People paid $20 extra for the collectors edition for the mercs -- which are BROKEN - but they can't fix those but they can nerf TS -- their priorities are NOT right. ANd I get sick of people defending what cannot in all honesty be defended.
I agree with Guiscard but to play devils advocate would you rather they have a dev solely to respond to forum posts? I am sure that if they are indeed working on fixes that they are more worried about that then they are responding to forum posts. That aside CoE shipped FAR buggier than it should have. I would have been fine hearing "Chains of Eternity is still showing plenty of errors and we have pushed back the release date by *number of day/months* to adequately address them" Since I was rather enjoying Skyshrine believe it or not.
I don't disagree with your there. I feel things have generally been a little rushed lately. I have an (unconfirmed) belief that QA's just been utterly overwhelmed, what with EQII's xpak, Planetside 2 launching, and EQ's xpak. And please don't think that I'm making excuses for it, just stating facts. Maybe everyone can catch their breath now and the new year will start out cleaner. But having met Windstalker and devs old and new at SOE Live this year I an holding tight to my new optimism. I cannot believe that the team I met would deliberately blow off bug reports and player feedback. OH, randomly - my Test Copy toons were there for Beta, and I'm hoping they will leave previously copied toons in place when they get Beta back up.
Wish I had that experience but yes I find it hard to believe they generally have this much disregard for the players. What has happened to me (and I am speaking as a game major not a player); simply is that they had too much and things slipped through the cracks to meet deadlines. The game industry runs on them, players want content, and they want it when you said you would have it, period. I plan on DLing Planetside 2 shortly and seeing how it works. Sony has a good thing with EQ and EQII just there are many aspects that as we can see on the forums players disagree with. To name a few below. The new focus on solo content: Many think it's almost to the point that they forgot to add depth to heroic and raid content levels which can be expressed that the gear progression is in 2 categories; Plane of War+ and... not Plane of War. Tradeskills have been flipped over: the new Prestieges have radically changed the market and how people go about harvesting which ultimately is affecting the price. People who relied on TS to make money are rightly worried but like most things the market will settle down and new ways to make plat selling items will be apparent. PvP balance: New abilites always mean new bugs and things arising from old. Was the "forced combat dismout" bug that came in with DoV a big issue before monks could attack from 70 meters away? Maybe but not so much. BG's are interesting with the new gear tiers albeit the token prices are absurd to me; 6.5K Havok Marks for 1 BP?
They should have slipped the release date -- they have done so in the past - I believe DOV was pushed back several weeks. They should have pushed back COE also. The quality of testing was subpar -- in so far as there were a lack of test tools for player-testers. I remember testing for previous expansions - we had buffers -- you got sacks of armor for the testing - you got free TS books and mats etc. etc. What happened to those tools - I didn't see a lot of them around this time. Did they throw out the code for them? Just like the writs - writs are already in the game - I am sure they are or should be using the same code and all they have to change should be the selected recipes/tasks and the reward -- it is not like they have to rewrite them from scratch. They should have been in the game from DAY 1 or the game should not have shipped. Why were the CE edition Mercs included in the testing - people paid extra to get them and they are broken and only a vague promise they will be fixed. I look at the fix list when it comes out and I see an over emphasis on the raid part of the game which is dwindling with each expansion. Yes I am glad they put in more solo content as it was needed -- but I still say we haven't had a good expansion since Kunark - all the rest have gone downhill.
I would argue TSO and SF were alright at least Heroic content was decent and in SF there was a healthy community of EM/Casual raiders the real decline appears in DoV+ but yeah, RoK was really THE raid expansion imo.
Guiscard, I have no idea what you are talking about with half your complaints. There was a beta buff to 92 320AA and a bag of Gear from the get go of open beta, and over the last 3 or 4 days of beta there was another beta buff to 95.(but I made 95 on my own in hours) Every bug I found and reported to SOE was fixed before it went to release. I had very good response from both GM's and at least 1 programmer I talked to. I found no showstopping bugs on release day.(that doesn't mean it was not buggy) Yes there are zone bugs that make some of the instant zone randomly not able to finish, but they can be reset in 90 mins and usually work the second time. I get the feeling from you that if there was 1 bug in the game and it effected you the game would still be unacceptable. I have yet to see a MMO or much less off line Computer Game that wasn't buggy.
I am particularly concerned about the lack of a TS buffer,. TS mats, testing Presige line, Testing CE merc etc. - there was a time when these were properly tested!!
They were properly tested, ask Niami. It took about 15 minutes on Beta to get from level 92 to level 95 crafter. Watched her do it Several nasty bugs were hammered out (and some obviously required live tweaks).
I have to say, I saw a lot of people on beta copy reporting lots of bugs with crafting and adventure in channel chat as well as on the forums, and to be fair I don't think I've seen any of those make it to live. Some possibly slipped through, some were probably missed. Human error happens. Obviously the more beta testers there are, the more will be found, particularly for group and raids, maybe you could hound some of your server friends/guildmates in future into helping beta test stuff, the more hands on deck the better. I was a bit sad that I missed out on all the double xp bonuses on live while I was on test, would have loved to level my alts but I also wanted to help test the expansion (which I really enjoyed doing).
