Test server status

[capricious]

Does anyone know why the Test Server is locked and when it will be available again?

Cap

[Caledonia]

I get to Character selection screen, but have the "Waiting for World Servers" msg and no actual character models of my toons show...

Presuming it's down still....tho, it was doing this last night for me as well...
Never have quite made it in yet.

-Cale

[Darkmoore]

Remember folks, only those who were in Beta can log in right now. If you didn't have a character in Beta, you can't log in. They are working on getting more and more in.

[Tybr]

Originally Posted by Darkmoore

Remember folks, only those who were in Beta can log in right now. If you didn't have a character in Beta, you can't log in. They are working on getting more and more in.

I got on tonight at about 7pm EST. Go ahead and give it a try now.

[Tyrlar]

I got in also around 6 central. Didn't see anyone else though.

[Tybr]

Originally Posted by Tyrlar

I got in also around 6 central. Didn't see anyone else though.

Me thinks it will take some time for Test to catch on. Mostly, people I know who are avid testers are waiting on the Official rules on how the server will be run.

[Wolfstein]

Me thinks we have had many Test Servers since launch. The entire game, really began a new phase of beta testing on Jan 26th.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I think a dedicated Test Server has merit. But for the life of me I don't see how you will attract folks to the Test Server, when they are testing the game daily on the live servers. I think you are going to have to do more than wave the "be the first to test new content carrot" in front of the players. At the very least, directives, anticipated new content to test, and so on would be in order.

Finally, make it EASY to get onto test. Right now, everyone is doing hoola hoops, renaming directories, downloading unnecessary files, and so on. It just makes for a very frustrating experience for the user, and most will not have the patience to sort through the muck to get on test.

Just my coppers.

[Ysharros]

Originally Posted by Wolfstein

Finally, make it EASY to get onto test. Right now, everyone is doing hoola hoops, renaming directories, downloading unnecessary files, and so on. It just makes for a very frustrating experience for the user, and most will not have the patience to sort through the muck to get on test.

This I definitely agree with. I've been waiting for my Live launcher to patch for about 30 minutes now, because it keeps hanging on various files. Sure, I'll do a full scan sooner or later, having restarted and that didn't work - but I shouldn't have to. This after trying to get onto Test, I mean.

As for why people would play on a test server (despite having live test-servers ), one I can think of is that some people just enjoy it. I know I do, and I like the smaller, closer-knit communities you get on test servers too. That said, I've also seen such communities become amazingly snobbish and rude to anyone who dares enter "their" domain, so it's not all roses.

Test server communities are always smaller than live ones, at least the half dozen I've seen. That doesn't stop a good deal of content testing from going on - we're pretty good at breaking stuff even in small numbers, after all.

For now, I too have decided to wait until there's a stable way to play on BOTH live and test. The current jumping through hoops is unprofessional and irritating.

[Zoefyah]

Originally Posted by Wolfstein

Finally, make it EASY to get onto test. Right now, everyone is doing hoola hoops, renaming directories, downloading unnecessary files, and so on. It just makes for a very frustrating experience for the user, and most will not have the patience to sort through the muck to get on test.

Originally Posted by Ysharros

For now, I too have decided to wait until there's a stable way to play on BOTH live and test. The current jumping through hoops is unprofessional and irritating.

Hear! Hear! I have been anxious to get on test but have run into many problems from files that refuse to download to files redownloading themselves over and over again. After tossing everything I'm facing download times of up to 20 hours or more. Admittedly I'm on satellite but it shouldn't be this difficult. Frankly I would have preferred an eq2 approach where there is a text.exe and you copied over most of the Vanguard files into a test sever file.

But that's just me, I have the room to do that. Some don't...

So, I'll just keep trying and in the meantime play something else as I don't want to "mess up" my current "test" folder.

[Selene1212]

Is there a tutoral / guide / thread somewhere about how to access the Test server? I play semi-frequently on EQ2 test and am very interested in joining this one as well.