They wiped the characters, as you stated you already knew that had reserved the right to do. The fact that they hadn't done a full wipe before has no bearing on it.
They had reasons for wiping it.
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Presumably, they had a good reason.|
Originally Posted by cohRock
So I felt fairly confident you'd have a good reason if you ever did need to permanently wipe it.
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Whether all the work you did there was a waste of time is something only you can decide. Posting on the forums about it when, by your own admission, you've always known the risks, probably is since, due to the previously mentioned good reasons, they're not likely to say "Oops!" and put everything back the way it was.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
They wiped the characters, as you stated you already knew that had reserved the right to do. The fact that they hadn't done a full wipe before has no bearing on it.
They had reasons for wiping it. |
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Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker
Presumably, they had a good reason.
Whether all the work you did there was a waste of time is something only you can decide. Posting on the forums about it when, by your own admission, you've always known the risks, probably is since, due to the previously mentioned good reasons, they're not likely to say "Oops!" and put everything back the way it was. |
To the OP, did you really expect anything else ? I am sure there was an excuse/explanation/reason for why test was wiped, it might be something as simple as an accident or that they didn't want to go through the trouble of applying the latest conversions to test.
What is a little harder to stomach is if it wasn't an accident why wasn't any warning given ? At the very least people could have taken screen shots of bases, saved costumes and such.
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Possibly because, every time I've read the information regarding stuff on the Test server, it's said "without warning" in conjunction with the whole "could be wiped" disclaimer. Don't remember if it was specifically in the Test server EULA or not, but I've never had any illusions about the permanence of anything I did there.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
What is a little harder to stomach is if it wasn't an accident why wasn't any warning given ? At the very least people could have taken screen shots of bases, saved costumes and such.
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I'm still not sure if this was the intended result, however. I mean, why would they just replace everything on the Training Room with characters from the Freedom server?
I am also one of those who had characters that were only on the Training Room. Since it has been down, I have recreated most of them on Exalted. Test Boy is the exception, since he belongs on the Training Room, and had been there since it opened.
I guess we will see.
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Originally Posted by WHTJunior
I'm still not sure if this was the intended result, however. I mean, why would they just replace everything on the Training Room with characters from the Freedom server?
I am also one of those who had characters that were only on the Training Room. Since it has been down, I have recreated most of them on Exalted. Test Boy is the exception, since he belongs on the Training Room, and had been there since it opened. I guess we will see. |
There's plenty of reason they'd might want to do that: To test copy rates across databases springs to mind given that they are apparently moving servers and stuff around over the last two weeks.
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I'm still not sure what to expect. The Freedom characters could be a temporary state, with the pre-existing Test characters restored in a few days. Even if all they have is a 6-week-old backup of Test characters and SGs, loading that back on would be a better situation than a copy of a live server.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
To the OP, did you really expect anything else ? I am sure there was an excuse/explanation/reason for why test was wiped, it might be something as simple as an accident or that they didn't want to go through the trouble of applying the latest conversions to test.
What is a little harder to stomach is if it wasn't an accident why wasn't any warning given ? At the very least people could have taken screen shots of bases, saved costumes and such. |
IMO, there has always been an unstated pact between the developers and testers. "We'll give you a little extra reason to play on the Test Server, if you take some time and give feedback before changes go live." I know the formal stated position was just the opposite, "We can wipe the Test Server at any time for any reason. We can even stop having a Test Server." Still, I think they appreciated the feedback they got. Plus its just easier to test when you have a mature environment, such as bases with portals, etc. -- not to mention spending play time with characters that are not simply vain copies of what is already live.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
What is a little harder to stomach is if it wasn't an accident why wasn't any warning given ? At the very least people could have taken screen shots of bases, saved costumes and such.
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Uhm. Because it's the TEST server? It's not meant to be a normally playable standard server.
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And to be honest the test server has no real use anymore besides testing. It was used by the pvp folks on a regular basis but the pvp revamp killed that overnight.
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Again, I never was under the impression that the Test server was anything OTHER than temporary, and I'm quite sure this notion didn't pop into my head from nowhere. I had my share of level 50 characters there that existed nowhere else, and I got a lot of mileage out of using them to test stuff... because I always knew that's what they were for, so whether they still exist or not is irrelevant to me - I got what I wanted from them, and will do the same with the next batch.|
Originally Posted by WHTJunior
I'm still not sure if this was the intended result, however.
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I can understand being disappointed, especially if some of the now-wiped characters had been there a long time. Some of mine had been there almost four years. But in the end, no matter how long they were there, being blind to the fact of their eventual deletion is only the fault of the player, not the Devs.
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Rift - Faeblight - Bloodspeaker
LotRO - Gladden - Aranelion
STO - Holodeck - @Captain_Thiraas
Obviously, I don't care about NCSoft's forum rules, now.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Uhm. Because it's the TEST server? It's not meant to be a normally playable standard server.
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The concept is common courtesy, which seems even more uncommon than common sense.
There are bases on test that people went to great trouble to build, with the new issue there are an enormous number of respecs that need to be done. Its really not to much to expect, that they could take five minutes to post a note to the forums giving the details of a planned change.
It really doesn't get much simpler than if you are going to inconvenience people you can at least let them know about it.
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I hear you. I had a pretty well developed and stocked base on test, and it made it possible to actually test things.
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Originally Posted by cohRock
I'm still not sure what to expect. The Freedom characters could be a temporary state, with the pre-existing Test characters restored in a few days. Even if all they have is a 6-week-old backup of Test characters and SGs, loading that back on would be a better situation than a copy of a live server.
IMO, there has always been an unstated pact between the developers and testers. "We'll give you a little extra reason to play on the Test Server, if you take some time and give feedback before changes go live." I know the formal stated position was just the opposite, "We can wipe the Test Server at any time for any reason. We can even stop having a Test Server." Still, I think they appreciated the feedback they got. Plus its just easier to test when you have a mature environment, such as bases with portals, etc. -- not to mention spending play time with characters that are not simply vain copies of what is already live. |
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Why would they let anyone know about it ahead of time when there's nothing the players can do to save those characters? You can't transfer them anywhere, even to Beta.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The concept is common courtesy, which seems even more uncommon than common sense.
There are bases on test that people went to great trouble to build, with the new issue there are an enormous number of respecs that need to be done. Its really not to much to expect, that they could take five minutes to post a note to the forums giving the details of a planned change. It really doesn't get much simpler than if you are going to inconvenience people you can at least let them know about it. |
Building a sand castle on the beach accomplishes the same results. It looks nice until the tide comes in, which everyone knows is gonna happen ahead of time. Don't get mad at the ocean for wiping away your masterpiece.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
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The same thing will happen on live... Eventually.
Hopefully that'll be far off in the future. Still, knowing that there will be a time when 7+ years of creations will be lost forever isn't pleasant. Such is life though, digital or not.
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I sorta have to agree with the OP. After 6+ years of particular behavior, suddenly changing your stance is unexpected. Even if it were only for the purpose of getting some goodbye screenshots, or deciding on saving copies of costumes, it wouldn't have hurt anything to give a day or two advance notice. I guess I will have to re-make my favorite of my Test Server only alts....
If only I could remember exactly how I had him set up....
Rend this space....
We do sometimes take a long while before wiping the Training room but data removal/modification/replacement is to be expected on there.
The Training Room is the environment that is the closest to the live environment and using it to implement changes on the front end or the back end is infinitely valuable to us. Unfortunately that means we seldom create back ups for characters that are created on the Training Room since nothing on there is meant to be permanent.
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Yep. So did I. Copied my main toon over multiple times to convert inf to prestige to build it. Not going to go through that again so I guess I won't ever be testing anything base-related again. (shrug) Whatever.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I hear you. I had a pretty well developed and stocked base on test, and it made it possible to actually test things.
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Everyone feel free to post how stupid I was for thinking that stuff might stick around (like some of you have already been doing). I'll continue to hold the opinion that it was stupid to wipe the Test Server because it makes it less likely that people will - DUH! - actually TEST things.
Edit: Oh, bravo. I just went to make a copy of my main character for records/testing purposes and the copy tool is down.
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Actually, a permanent wipe of the server has never been done. I've had characters on it since it started, leveled (legitimately) several of them to 50. Having permanent resource on Test was very convenient before character copy started bringing over inf. Now, it's not such a big deal.| We do sometimes take a long while before wiping the Training room but data removal/modification/replacement is to be expected on there. |
I'm not going to go off on a tear if the policy has finally changed, but it would have been nice to know in advance, even if nothing could be done about the impending loss.
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Yeah I lost all my level bumped characters. Not a huge deal, but it does inhibit my ability to test stuff. One at least had an "error" on it back from when Forts could take both Build Up and Aim. I would log it in periodically to make sure that that combo was still disabled.
Weird builds can find errors sometimes though. I thought it was good to have a few of those around.
How sad! I wasn't very attached to them, but I had several characters and a base built on test too!
Aw well.
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ive copied over about 12ish toons, but since i expected they could be wiped at any moment i was rarely on there except to see new stuff, test something, or go to dev event
i think i only been on test once in the last year lol
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Costume files can be saved, screen shots can be taken of bases and enhancement slotting. Heck we could have had a good bye party like we did for GC - old test had been around for years. |
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Why would they let anyone know about it ahead of time when there's nothing the players can do to save those characters? You can't transfer them anywhere, even to Beta.
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Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Building a sand castle on the beach accomplishes the same results. It looks nice until the tide comes in, which everyone knows is gonna happen ahead of time. Don't get mad at the ocean for wiping away your masterpiece.
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http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes#
I would have liked to have known, at least. The "sand castle" analogy fails in that there isn't a person somewhere who decides when the ocean is coming in after many years of it not doing so.
I fully understand that the Test Server may need to be wiped. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't been wiped more often TBH. However I would definitely be very curious as to why the server was wiped. Even if it was just a matter of "Hey, we wiped the server for testing, and our backup was borked because we're not as careful with the backup because it is just the Test Server" would be enough. The fact you can copy character (or will be able to again soon, hopefully) from any other server mitigates the impact of the server being wiped.
I could have been worse. I've been through worse, back in the early years of EverQuest. Without boring everybody with the entire story, they wiped their Test Server without warning within 2 years of EQ's launch, even when they explicitly said they'd never wipe it. Guess what server I played on, and guess what game I quit a long time ago? 
I've been active on the test server for 5 years. In that time, I've made a number of native Test Server characters, built up an SG (The Petri Dish), did actual testing, and had fun. I knew that NCSoft reserved th right wipe the server of all characters at any time, but year after year you didn't. In fact, several years ago you wanted to run a special test, saved everyone's characters, SG's, etc, ran your test, and several days later restored the server back. So I felt fairly confident you'd have a good reason if you ever did need to permanently wipe it.
Logging on this evening, I saw that my characters were gone, replaced by the two underdeveloped guys I have on the Freedom server. Is this a temporary state, or has the test server gone "beta" in that everything can go away on a moment's notice, or with no notice at all?
<Posts, knowing that there will be at least 5 responses that I should not have wasted my time on the test server in the first place.>
-- Rich
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