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<b>Message ID:</b> 19921 <br/>
<b>Date:</b> Wed Jun 21 14:52:23 BST 2000 <br/>
<b>Author:</b> Jamie Bedford <br/>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [eqbards] Player wipe on Test <br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-976156023">Hate to play the devils advocate here, but maybe verant planned that solB stuff just to see how greedy everyone who was supposed to be *testing* the game actually was?  I mean, how good of a tester are you if you&#39;re exploiting a bug for 10 hours?<br/>
<blockquote><span title="qreply">   ----- Original Message ----- <br/>
  From: Sylly Songsynger <br/>
  To: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:eqbards@egroups.com">eqbards@egroups.com</a> <br/>
  Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 9:36 AM<br/>
  Subject: Re: [eqbards] Player wipe on Test<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
  Read between the lines below.  I am hope when Lyrnia recovers from the total<br/>
  state of shock - can fill us in with more gory details.  In the meantime<br/>
  here are some rumors I heard.<br/>
<br/>
  ----- Original Message -----<br/>
  From: &quot;Gordon Hughes&quot; &lt;<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:ghughes@...">ghughes@...</a>&gt;<br/>
  To: &lt;<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:eqbards@egroups.com">eqbards@egroups.com</a>&gt;<br/>
  Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 8:13 AM<br/>
  Subject: [eqbards] Player wipe on Test<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
  &gt; Ouch! :(<br/>
  &gt;<br/>
  &gt; In case some of you don&#39;t know, the entire player-base on the Test server<br/>
  &gt; was wiped yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
  !Ouch!<br/>
<br/>
  &gt; Verant&#39;s reason being they wanted a clean slate to<br/>
  &gt; conduct ongoing tests.<br/>
<br/>
  &lt;cough&gt;BULLSHIT!&lt;cough&gt;<br/>
<br/>
  I heard that all mobs (many mobs? some mobs? GK&#39;s in Solb?) started dropping<br/>
  Naggy/Vox loots - heh!<br/>
<br/>
  &gt; I can only imagine what it must feel like to have built up a character<br/>
  over<br/>
  &gt; the last year to have it wiped, and with little or no warning from what<br/>
  I&#39;ve<br/>
  &gt; heard.<br/>
  &gt;<br/>
  &gt; Lyrnia, you had a high level Bard on test, didn&#39;t you?<br/>
  &gt;<br/>
  &gt; I read on the Gameplay board this morning that Brad is taking suggestions<br/>
  &gt; on:<br/>
  &gt;<br/>
  &gt; 1) Reinstating characters but wiping out all their items.<br/>
<br/>
  Heard that they tried a load from tape and it brought back all the GM Buffed<br/>
  & Itemized Level 60 chars from the Kunark beta as well. (more on that<br/>
  below.)  It restored every character recently created not just current<br/>
  characters or something like that.  On live servers they are able to restore<br/>
  chars from tapes they keep.  Not sure of the current cycle but about 6<br/>
  months ago a friend got restored but the save point was from a few days<br/>
  previous.<br/>
<br/>
  &gt; I can understand their reasons for going ahead with the wipe, but it still<br/>
  &gt; stinks nonetheless.<br/>
<br/>
  It stinks - big time!  Think about this happening on a live server or on all<br/>
  live servers. I guess that is why they have a test server but it also points<br/>
  out (yet again) the woefull lack of professionalism in Verant&#39;s procedures.<br/>
  Are they no more than a bunch of &quot;Cowboy Coders&quot; ??? They can&#39;t even do<br/>
  reliable tape back-ups??? Here is a valuable resource - test server and the<br/>
  testers.  The design of the game is such that you need to invest large<br/>
  amounts of time to get to high levels. To go for a year and allow folks to<br/>
  build their chars and test the new things without adequate protection is<br/>
  simply gross negligence.  To say &quot;its just a test environment and you knew<br/>
  that you could be pwiped at any given time without notice...&quot; is just<br/>
  legalise B.S. to cover their ass for their own incompetance.  I can see that<br/>
  level of  error allowable on in-house, alpha level environment or even<br/>
  closed beta.  To have run the closed beta on the test server - was a huge<br/>
  error on their part (thank you 20-20 hind site) but it smacks of their<br/>
  &quot;penny-wise, pound-foolish&quot; attitude.<br/>
<br/>
  If the test server and the testers there are truly valuable resources, then<br/>
  they should have had adequate safeguards in place to allow them to recover<br/>
  their test world to a previous save point.  This really hurts they<br/>
  credibility and shows what little respect they have for testers who are<br/>
  helping them.  Imagine how they regard the ones who merely play the game.<br/>
<br/>
  Sylly<br/>
<br/>
  p.s. I heard that in the beta GM&#39;s would &quot;buff&quot; their friends (testers) -<br/>
  make them level 60, give them any weps, any armor, and then they would try<br/>
  stuff.  I heard that folks saw these guys in this uber-garb but with weps<br/>
  equipped in the wrong hands and stuff.  When they (GM twinkies) tried to<br/>
  fight mobs, they got owned.  But not cuz of their gear that was for sure.<br/>
  They just did not know what they were doing: ie &quot;could not fight their way<br/>
  out of a paper bag, much less clear the way to Trak&#39;s lair.&quot;<br/>
<br/>
  But that is merely rumors.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] </span></blockquote></div>