Beta Character Retention

[GTGD]

I was wondering what the situation was going to be like this time around when the Beta ends. I know that there was a complete character wipe last time.

But I was thinking it would be really cool if the characters were just reset, and not deleted. That way if you made a character with a name, you can keep it. Also, now that they have implemented the merit system (and I can't see that going away), it would also be awesome if there was a special merit for Beta players. I know I loved having my veteran merits from before server merges.

That would also allow outfits to maintain their members (wipe the stats and whatnot) and it would get everything moving very quickly. Maybe let them have something that shows that the outfit was in existence since the Beta.

[Huma]

Sounds good to me :)

[MrVicchio]

They always, every game, deletes your toons.

[DashRev]

They always, every game, deletes your toons.

Not always, but close to it.

[Duddy]

I'm not sure what this obsession people have about wanting something special from being in Beta (I'm aware this thread doesn't pertain exactly to that, but it does follow the theme).

Can't people be happy that they were able to experience the game ahead of time?

No of course not, they need some way to say "Hey look, I'm better than you!"

Ridiculous.

[opticalshadow]

well things that would be nice from ebta would be having are names outfits and all already set up, its not a ton of work but its that much less.

[Hamma]

I would suspect if anything pre-orders would get early access or something. I highly doubt anything would be carried over from beta often times things just can't be carried over due to changes.

[WarChimp130]

I wonder if some people will go ahead on day one and use their extra character spots to make characters named dogtag and GODJOEY and Ash and all those other guys of yore. Hell somebody could probably just go ahead and be a dick and name them after people they just know are going to be coming back just to spite them.

[Zulthus]

I hope they have some sort of system in place that reserves your character names tied to your account.

[MasterChief096]

It would be nice to have reserved names and outfit rosters. Thats all that really matters to me.

[PsychoXR-20]

I would suspect if anything pre-orders would get early access or something. I highly doubt anything would be carried over from beta often times things just can't be carried over due to changes.

I'm not sure if early access would be a good thing for this game, considering for the first few days you would only be playing with a tiny tiny fraction of the total potential population. In a standard MMO it works, but I don't think it would in PS2.

[SKYeXile]

They always, every game, deletes your toons.

except for Hellgate London and dragons nest, but other than those games off the top of my head, EVERY GAME!

[Hamma]

I'm not sure if early access would be a good thing for this game, considering for the first few days you would only be playing with a tiny tiny fraction of the total potential population. In a standard MMO it works, but I don't think it would in PS2.

Yea it probably wouldn't work, but I can't see them doing much more than that other than maybe giving some customization to pre-orders or beta users.

[Goku]

Either your idea or just do a name retention. Though either way its the same thing lol.

[CutterJohn]

If they have the merits a beta merit might be nice, for those that care about such things.

Hopefully they'll let you keep names as well. But few ever bother with mine. :)

[Bruttal]

I don't understand the idea behind pre-ordering something that doesn't even have a release date. the money your giving to some company isn't going to help the game pockets any at all. and yea i get it its used to help determin how many "game copys" to order. and thats wonderful but really?, were still doing that?. Why wouldn't SoE open a Pre-order Digital Downloads, and have there money in hand.

Dunno what most peoples connnections are but i live in kentucky and I have a medium priced connection witch is 30mb down 2up most games are around 6-8 gigs now days so lets say it was 8 that't 1 dvd disc witch would have to be wrote packaged and shiped and then bought. or i could spend less then an hour downloading it.

[Tigersmith]

I would be pretty angry if someone took my name. It's a huge possibility. People love to spoof it everywhere. So yes I'm worried.

I'm gonna have to make sure I take days off work to just get my name locked down. Eh

[NewSith]

I would be pretty angry if someone took my name. It's a huge possibility. People love to spoof it everywhere. So yes I'm worried.

I'm gonna have to make sure I take days off work to just get my name locked down. Eh

I don't think PS players are that immature. Besides as long as beta will be for those who played PS1 mostly, and also the first wave of players is going to be these very players, I highly doubt someone will take a new name, that above all belongs to somebody. Plus one character per server makes this thing especially inconvenient...

[basti]

I actually hope they take the database from Planetside and just get our names reserved that way. I know a bunch of guys, including myself, that got names that are quite common. Planetside was the very first game where i could take basti as my characters name, it is usually taken within minutes of release. I want to keep it, and reserving those veterans names would be really the way to go.

[Quovatis]

I thought Smed said something about "taking care" of PS1 subscribers in PS2. Hopefully that includes a character name reservation function. You know there will be some ass out there that tries to take all the well-known PS1 names just to be a dick.

[NewSith]

I thought Smed said something about "taking care" of PS1 subscribers in PS2. Hopefully that includes a character name reservation function. You know there will be some ass out there that tries to take all the well-known PS1 names just to be a dick.

With 1 char per server his powers will be quite limited...

[WarChimp130]

I don't think PS players are that immature. Besides as long as beta will be for those who played PS1 mostly, and also the first wave of players is going to be these very players, I highly doubt someone will take a new name, that above all belongs to somebody. Plus one character per server makes this thing especially inconvenient...

Are you kidding? Planetside players can be just as immature as anybody else. I had an alt named OzziKingsBowlCut. We likes to fucks with each other.

And they never said one character per server, I don't think that'll be the case. Maybe one EMPIRE per server, but they will almost definitely give you multiple characters per server.

[NewSith]

And they never said one character per server, I don't think that'll be the case. Maybe one EMPIRE per server, but they will almost definitely give you multiple characters per server.

I think it's 1 char, because there's a confirmed "Imaximum-Ihaveall" concept. Thus there's no real point in having a second char on the same empire. Except for probably extra OS, but that's BS.

[FastAndFree]

I think I would like one character per account, but remember that even EVE allows 3

On the original idea, yes please! While I doubt my name is in danger of getting taken, that might not be the case for everyone else. (Actually, another character name of mine was contested during the Gemini merge, for example)

Outfit names even more so, losing your character name to a random person is inconvenient.
Losing your outfit name to a "funny" jerk is aggravating

[Graywolves]

Keeping character name would be all I need.


1 character per server would kind of bum me out, 1 empire would too. But that's a discussion for a new thread.

[Hamma]

Are you kidding? Planetside players can be just as immature as anybody else. I had an alt named OzziKingsBowlCut. We likes to fucks with each other.

For sure, I've met some real asshats in PlanetSide who set out to make people's lives in game miserable. There are always interweb tough guys who think they are cool.

[Quovatis]

yep, there are asses out there. For 3 years the VS had to put up with GeneralVega on Markov and later Gemini. His long play sessions consisted of doing all he could to piss off the empire. He'd go around friendly bases and destroy every friendly mine he saw. He'd take our mods out of the cradle when the base was hacked and run them toward enemy territory. He'd TK LLU runners and start running the wrong way. He'd get an AMS, sit in it, then undeloy and move on purpose before you got gear. He'd block bridges with and AMS. He'd intentionally kill the generator at an enemy base with 10 seconds left on the hack. He'd kill the lobby term at every base we were attacking. I could go on....

And for 3 years, SOE did NOTHING about it. Great eh?

[Hamma]

Holy crap :lol:

Sounds like that dude is a real failure.

[exLupo]

Well, since part of those 3 years included Gemini, they also included zero real support. I'd be really surprised if intentional harassment like that got very far in a game with things like income and SOE attention.

@OP - Wipes are common housekeeping to make sure you don't have any beta characters with junk content and feature data still attached to them. Clean start. It'd be possible to replicate the name/skills/level but then you'd still get new players bitching about fairness. I expect preorder headstart for name reservations and that's it.

[SKYeXile]

I would be pretty angry if someone took my name. It's a huge possibility. People love to spoof it everywhere. So yes I'm worried.

I'm gonna have to make sure I take days off work to just get my name locked down. Eh

Yea my guild (TRF not FC) jumps around games a lot and people have gone out of the way on occasions to steal our character names, though iv never had mine stolen, except "Xile" but thats rather common so figure it wasn't deliberate, but in a new game Im always on at launch. I guess some people are just bitter for one reason or another... i can totally understand if planetside people hate me, i was like a full retard on the forums and i probably reaver spammed them, many times.

In WAR one of our guys had all his names stolen, we eventually found out who it was, since he made a point in playing the character, turns out it was some of my members former raid leader from WoW, the one who got his name stolen actually ended up leading their raids and the guy got all EMO... they were complaining about bad mage DPS in AQ40, me having not played for months joined as friend in the guild, played for a raid, smashed their mages on DPS...next day im kicked for no reason(yea it was a friend rank...) but anyway all my friends in the guild left and we made our own guild...amusingly enough the guy who stole my friends name generally goes by the name "hatred."

It would be nice if you can reserve 1-3 of your character names from PS1 in PS2 though.

[Goku]

yep, there are asses out there. For 3 years the VS had to put up with GeneralVega on Markov and later Gemini. His long play sessions consisted of doing all he could to piss off the empire. He'd go around friendly bases and destroy every friendly mine he saw. He'd take our mods out of the cradle when the base was hacked and run them toward enemy territory. He'd TK LLU runners and start running the wrong way. He'd get an AMS, sit in it, then undeloy and move on purpose before you got gear. He'd block bridges with and AMS. He'd intentionally kill the generator at an enemy base with 10 seconds left on the hack. He'd kill the lobby term at every base we were attacking. I could go on....

And for 3 years, SOE did NOTHING about it. Great eh?

Wow. I heard this guy's name before, but I never knew why it was so widely mentioned. That is BS. This guy around when your could still blow friendly tubes/gens? Lol, he would of had a lot of fun with that depending on his grief level. If you use boomers and blew a gen at once how much grief would people get? I blew a few friendly gens for shits and giggles on empty conts, but I don't really remember grief levels with it.

[Brusi]

I can't help thinking that GeneralVega is awesome. That is some seriously dedicated trolling. 3 YEARS?! wow, even i got bored of being a dick online within the first few months of discovering the internet as a kid... and my sense of humor is pretty low-brow.

At least i know whose name to steal on Day-1! hahah

[Vanir]

Beta character retention? No.

[Tigersmith]

Im sure ill be fine. and if someone takes my name ill choose another one. :) new game

[Malorn]

I haven't seen a major MMO carry over beta characters in a long time. Doing so would also mean that you have players working to advance themselves during beta and not trying out different parts of the game and giving feedback.

It also destroys some of the value in early-access for special editions and pre-orders and what not. That's the strongest motivator in getting people to buy early and order special editions.

And then there's the fairness factor of people who didn't get into beta feeling cheesed out of advancement time because they weren't in beta and want a fair shake. Early access is early access to anyone who pays and so that's a fair shake. Beta rollover is not a fair shake.

There's 3 good reasons why a game company shouldn't do beta character rollover. They hurt themselves and the game by doing so.

[Baneblade]

I'm not sure what this obsession people have about wanting something special from being in Beta (I'm aware this thread doesn't pertain exactly to that, but it does follow the theme).

Can't people be happy that they were able to experience the game ahead of time?

No of course not, they need some way to say "Hey look, I'm better than you!"

Ridiculous.

I want it for a different reason. Almost everyone says they were in beta, whether it is true or not.

[SKYeXile]

Any game that has an item mall up in open beta will probably see the beta characters rollover to live, so it could be a possibilty.

[EASyEightyEight]

There's also the concept that during beta cert training may be exponentially faster just to see results we'd otherwise wouldn't see until years later. They'll want to wipe those characters.

As for early access? That works in MMORPGs with PvE mobs as it spreads the pre-release and release crowds out, so it's not one massive cluster-**** on launch day but for PS2... that's precisely what we want. I can't see an early release helping PS2 over a standard launch. Where PS is concerned, the more people there are on day 1+, the better.

[Duddy]

I want it for a different reason. Almost everyone says they were in beta, whether it is true or not.

And what reason might that be? Because from the latter part of your statement it sounds like you feel the need to be able to prove you were in Beta over others.

Which kind of just goes back to this point:
No of course not, they need some way to say "Hey look, I'm better than you!"

That said, I'm fine with people being able to identify Beta testers, but it can't have any meaningful purpose.

With Global Agenda they gave us a forum tag for being Alpha/Beta testers, and that was alright, though it did lead to use of said tag to try and reinforce ones argument.

What would you propose that testers get?

[exLupo]

It's less about the beta peen (tho, that is sexy) and more about calling BS on people trying to play the "I was in beta so I'm clearly an expert" card. I don't remember any of the tagged testers in GA doing that but I left the forums after the first few months of live.

[SKYeXile]

It's less about the beta peen (tho, that is sexy) and more about calling BS on people trying to play the "I was in beta so I'm clearly an expert" card. I don't remember any of the tagged testers in GA doing that but I left the forums after the first few months of live.

people are retards, I would beleive it, they somehow think that playing longer means they're better or are more knowledgable and therefore right

When somebody says they have played since beta, i normally respond with equal stupitidy and say iv played since pre alpha.

[Chaff]

It would be nice to have reserved names and outfit rosters. Thats all that really matters to me.


I second this whole heartedly.

:cool:

[Kurtz]

Hell somebody could probably just go ahead and be a dick and name them after people they just know are going to be coming back just to spite them.

[True story]
I'm convinced that some douche is running around buying games on Day 1 just to take my name even though he doesn't use it....just because I called him out for being a douche.

So im changing my name...



to WarChimp130

[EASyEightyEight]

[True story]
I'm convinced that some douche is running around buying games on Day 1 just to take my name even though he doesn't use it....just because I called him out for being a douche.

So im changing my name...



to WarChimp130

It's frankly more memorable, and I'd probably giggle even if my name were on the right side of the weapon icon.

[Baneblade]

And what reason might that be?

I already stated my reason.

Because from the latter part of your statement it sounds like you feel the need to be able to prove you were in Beta over others.

The latter part of my statement unequivocally indicates no such thing.

That said, I'm fine with people being able to identify Beta testers, but it can't have any meaningful purpose.

Identifying the Beta Tester is the meaningful purpose.

[exLupo]

When somebody says they have played since beta, i normally respond with equal stupitidy and say iv played since pre alpha.

You could have been in the FnF pre-alpha. It's possible!

[Kouza]

I like Beta name retention not, returning from planetside one holds though. I had so many names that I could not use, that I wanted to that were already taken.

INCLUDING, Kouza (Haven`t seen him on in 3.5 years I am constantly typing /who)

Why should he get that name held?