I'll start with the questions. Why is my character getting bumped to character select after only 11 minutes of not playing? Yes, I have minimized the window, but isn't getting bumped so quickly going to discourage players from playing on days when they know there will be a number of interruptions? I don't get bumped after 11 minutes on the Live servers so why Test? (Btw, it happened more than once today and at different lengths of time when I was inactive. If you want to provide a more bug-free experience for players on Live, why aren't veteran rewards (and similar rewards) separate from those on Live? Right now, I have to decided if the daily Heritage Hunt, and other overseer quests, are going to be run on a Live server or on Test. Why can't we run them on both since the point of Test is supposed to be to test content? If we run overseer quests on Test we use them up so our Live characters can't run them. That's a pretty hefty price to pay for testing content and will discourage players from playing on Test. When we buy the more expensive xpacs, why not give Test characters their own set of duplicate rewards that are normally limited to one per account? What we accomplish on Test isn't publicized so we aren't affecting the regular game if we get an extra portal, mount, set of armor, etc. and it would encourage players to play on Test. Now to the comments. Beta testing takes time, and a lot of effort, so beta testers are normally paid for their services (at least I got paid lol). But I realize that game development is far different from many other types of software development so game developers normally depend on players to beta test their content, for free, before it goes live. But just getting a preview of new content is obviously not a big enough reward in itself to get the number of players and variety of classes needed to effectively test new content--at least in this game as we have been plagued with buggy content for several years. Part of that comes from having a separate beta server instead of using the Public Test server because that way characters can be buffed to the level of the content being tested. But a lot of content is just tweaking of old content and doesn't affect actual leveling very much such as festivals and such. One way to repay players for testing this limited content is to double the rewards. With so much housing available now, I would think players could find uses for the extra rewards since they generally have to split their time between their Live server and Test. I would also urge you to rethink the bouncing of inactive characters so quickly on Test. I usually play on Test when I don't have to worry about what is happening in the game. If I know I'm going to have visitors coming and going or a lot of phone calls, etc., I play on Test rather than Live. And summer is a particularly busy time for most people with children off from school, yard work, repairs, etc., so it is hard to find uninterrupted time to play a game such as EQ2. And let's admit it, some people play the game at work, during down time, but need to minimize their game window when they need to do something else on their computers, so leaving the window up isn't always a workaround solution. There are also players, like me, who box multiple characters so logging to character select requires rebuilding groups which is time consuming and irritating. It is even more irritating when I'm paying subs on those accounts. So please quit bouncing characters so quickly.
Re: the booting to Character Select... Hey, you're lucky; there was a time where they were threatening to discipline us severely (up to and including banning to Drunder, or just plain booting completely forever) if we went /afk for any real length of time, especially if there was movement involved, because we might be -- sob! -- BOTTING a 17-year-old game. X-P There was a time when a buddy of mine would deliberately go /afk in order to craft a bunch of things at a time and get peace and quiet while doing so; we had guildies that were frequently very, very chatty and wouldn't take "sorry, I'll be busy for awhile" for an answer. She's no longer in the game, but if she had been not too long ago, she'd probably have gotten banned. :-/ I, too, get irritated when I've been booted to Character Select after not very long, which is why if I know I'm gonna have to be away from the keyboard for longer than 5-10 minutes, I'll deliberately go "outside" back to a city or other outer zone, if I'm in a house or guild hall; they'll typically forgive a lot of time spent out there, and not even consider you /afk for quite a bit, longer than if you were inside somewhere. I don't usually go dungeoneering that much any more, but I imagine how that would be a major PitA to have to get back to where you were from Character Select, or even Evac to outside of the dungeon just for something like a bio (eating, bathroom, etc.) break. :-/ But at least we're not getting banned again, so far as I know... Uwk who thought it was pretty darned silly, if they weren't so serious about it back in the day
Re: One per character vs. one per account for proper Public Testing: Yeah, I completely agree with that. We can't transfer over to Public Test (PT) from any other server, we can't transfer off (so far as I know; I haven't tried) from PT to a "real" server, we can't gift anyone anything from PT to a "real" server, even from the Marketplace, etc., etc., etc. We're already getting all kinds of perks for being there and bug squashing; why not test the big stuff before folks on Live make a horrific mistake with their one chance at [an awesome whatever] and make sure it works? :-/ We had that chance, sort of (not a complete analogy, since if you wanted to, you could buy these tokens for every toon you have on one account; I'm sure DBG wouldn't mind...), with the NPC merchants in Qeynos and Freeport that "sold" the Tradeskill and Adventuring max tokens for like 1cp (or maybe 0; it's been awhile), and now most of my PTers are level 110 in both; there's eight toons that are still "middle-aged" (late 40s-mid 60s) in adventuring, and only three like that in tradeskilling. ;-> I'd like those merchants back working again, please, o Test devs; there were a few toons I'd wanted to upgrade but can't any more, not without ungodsly amounts of money. :-/ As far as Beta Test goes, sorry, I can't offer any useful advice there, since I don't use it. :-/ Uwk
I was in my house when I kept getting bumped. And it wasn't just the one day so I didn't think it was due to service interruption from their IP. Perhaps the PT server can only handle so much traffic and they start bumping if traffic becomes heavy. Whatever their reason for bumping, I gave up and haven't done anything but basic maintenance stuff for awhile now. Maybe things will settle down once the new owner implements whatever changes he thinks need to be made.
Nah, yeah, one of the more notorious "short time before a bump" locations is in a house; I know exactly how you feel. It's really annoying, but I don't know how much they can do differently on Public Test than on Live servers (it also takes longer to log back in again to a house or guild hall than it does just about anywhere else, regardless of how many house items might be in it. Apparently, it has something to do with "server queues" or other such silliness now; I don't remember such lag back in the day). I do think that offering us a chance to try out the "one per account" stuff would be a lot easier than setting up a different timer for bumping us out to Character Select...but I could be wrong; I don't know what all goes on with the programming. :-/ Uwk
