First of all, hello to all of you and thanks for having me as a member of PB; and it's good to be back on test.
On topic - this is a quote from the Dev's post about the upcoming changes to test server: "We will be removing the restrictions on Test Copy. Players will copy with full gear and platinum." If all or some of us simply decide to transfer off test and stay on a new server, then this doesn't matter. If, however, we decide we're going to stay, we should seriously consider transferring off and coming back. It will both be to our advantage and more importantly is probably the only way we're going to be able to keep up with anyone else who decides to transfer to test, because people are going to figure out all the following pretty quickly.
Suppose you have two accounts and sixteen characters and you have a million plat between all of them. You transfer off and when testcopy is re-enabled you copy them back one at a time. You give all your plat to one character who testcopies and then arrives here with a million plat. The plat is still there on the other server so you now put it in your shared bank, pick it up with another character and testcopy him, etc. etc. When you're done testcopying everybody back you have 16 million plat. If you cooperate with a couple friends or the entire guild, you can end up with a whole lot more than that, and... if you leave one character slot open here and testcopy new toons from one or more accounts over and over again you can just continue to copy that same million plat over as many times as you want to.
Bottom line is, from now on there is going to be an essentially infinite amount of plat on test server. We might as well get in on it - a lot of other people will.
The same thing is true for any tradeable tradeskill item, including tradeable crafted items. You make, for example, one extravangant breastplate here and transfer with it, you can hand it off to everyone you know before they transfer and voila, everyone has one. If the guild as a whole has 20 shimmering loams between us, we can probably multiply that into 2000 or more if we want to.
The same is true, in fact, for any tradeable item in the game. They can be duplicated as many times as we want to.
Beyond all that, if a lot of us decide we are going to come back, it might be to our advantage to transfer to Fironia Vie, as almost everything there is tradeable, including raid loots, and many items that are inaccessible to us currently are for sale in their bazaar. Those items won't be tradeable once we get back here, but they can be freely traded there, which means if we buy one item in the bazaar there, we can give one to every character who possibly needs one before we testcopy back. i.e. we only need one each of anything we might want. And we can more than recoup whatever plat we end up spending through the methods I described above.
I don't think any of this is right, and I'm not really comfortable about it, but people will figure this out quickly and if we don't take advantage we are going to find ourselves way behind the curve when we come back to test.
One more thing, if anyone decides they want to do the FV thing, or if we decide to cooperate as a guild it would probably be a good idea to prepare for it and server transfer a buyer or a few buyers on the very first day this is available, before a whole lot of other people start buying everything in the FV bazaar and driving the prices up.
I welcome everyone's thoughts on this.
About the server changes
Moderators: Yrys, Moderators
Oh wow, they are.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=176689
Here's the thread...Starting around June 9, 2011, and continuing for at least 30 days, the /servertransfer command will be available on the Test Server. Simply type /servertransfer and you will be given the option to transfer your character to any live server aside from the Time Locked Progression servers or the Al'Kabor server.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=176689
Piestro confirmed on the thread listed above that the scenarios I proposed are going to be allowed - i.e. essentially infinite plat if you want to.
I know that not everyone wants to (or can afford to) buy the expansions. Piestro has already said that you will lose your levels if you transfer and don't own the expansions but would get them back after you bought the expansion. I don't know if the same thing would apply if you copied back. I asked about it on the thread. I also asked about what would happen with items from an expansion if you don't own it. He also said you will lose any copied items if you transfer. I don't think that's an issue for most of us.
Even if you don't buy the xpacs, you could transfer and copy back lower level alts and mules and participate in some of the... ummm... duping of plat and items.
What is everyone planning to do? Leave for good? Just stay? Transfer and come back? Is anyone interested in planning or organizing anything around this? If there's any discussion of this going on in the private section I can't see it as I still don't have access and Malarkey said the boards were kind of 'screwed up' right now.
I could see ways, for example, that we could put anyone who wants to in full extravagant cultural with cosgrove augs and illustrious seals, but it would require some planning and preparation.
I know that not everyone wants to (or can afford to) buy the expansions. Piestro has already said that you will lose your levels if you transfer and don't own the expansions but would get them back after you bought the expansion. I don't know if the same thing would apply if you copied back. I asked about it on the thread. I also asked about what would happen with items from an expansion if you don't own it. He also said you will lose any copied items if you transfer. I don't think that's an issue for most of us.
Even if you don't buy the xpacs, you could transfer and copy back lower level alts and mules and participate in some of the... ummm... duping of plat and items.
What is everyone planning to do? Leave for good? Just stay? Transfer and come back? Is anyone interested in planning or organizing anything around this? If there's any discussion of this going on in the private section I can't see it as I still don't have access and Malarkey said the boards were kind of 'screwed up' right now.
I could see ways, for example, that we could put anyone who wants to in full extravagant cultural with cosgrove augs and illustrious seals, but it would require some planning and preparation.
From Piestro on the thread referenced:Brutul wrote:Wow, I hadn't heard about this. I suppose it's been a long time coming but that's pretty much an official notice from SOE that they are no longer interested in the continuation of the test server community.
"We need a test server that is strongly focused on specific testing, rather than maintaining a dedicated community of testers."
So, yeah, evidently.
/wave Brutul
how about a new test server instead of this catastrophe of a plan?
I know I haven't played in a long time, but to destroy the community on an established server is absolutely absurd on Sony's end. Even if it is infact a "test server," Test has had a real server's community basicly since the beginning (regardless of the population).
I mean, it's cool that they are offering the transfers.. but still.. not everyone is going to agree to a new server. Friendships- new and old alike- are going to be crushed as people move to seperate servers... There's just so many things wrong with this.
Bogus imo. Bogus.
I know I haven't played in a long time, but to destroy the community on an established server is absolutely absurd on Sony's end. Even if it is infact a "test server," Test has had a real server's community basicly since the beginning (regardless of the population).
I mean, it's cool that they are offering the transfers.. but still.. not everyone is going to agree to a new server. Friendships- new and old alike- are going to be crushed as people move to seperate servers... There's just so many things wrong with this.
Bogus imo. Bogus.
Toadloc the Frog! - retired
Unless they actively want to boot the current Test population, I do not see what benefit any of this has.
I agree that they need a test server population that focuses on specific testing... but how is that incompatible with the current population?
When's the last time any of us were asked to test anything, apart from Betas?
Really do not get what they're attempting to accomplish with this.
I agree that they need a test server population that focuses on specific testing... but how is that incompatible with the current population?
When's the last time any of us were asked to test anything, apart from Betas?
Really do not get what they're attempting to accomplish with this.
It's a huge change, the server transfer is just an olive branch, at least we're getting that, shows they at least care alittle about the community. I think the ultimate goal for them is to have testcopy active with the ability to wipe the server clean or corrupt the hell out of it without pissing anyone off.
I really don't want to leave, but they really aren't giving us much of a choice. Our best hope I guess is like, deciding as a server where the majority of us will go to, let everyone know, and hope for the best.
I really don't want to leave, but they really aren't giving us much of a choice. Our best hope I guess is like, deciding as a server where the majority of us will go to, let everyone know, and hope for the best.
I'm not convinced that we have to leave and not come back, though I'm wondering about it. In the first post of the thread, Piestro said,Turlus wrote:It's a huge change, the server transfer is just an olive branch, at least we're getting that, shows they at least care alittle about the community. I think the ultimate goal for them is to have testcopy active with the ability to wipe the server clean or corrupt the hell out of it without pissing anyone off.
I really don't want to leave, but they really aren't giving us much of a choice. Our best hope I guess is like, deciding as a server where the majority of us will go to, let everyone know, and hope for the best.
"Once again we'd like to thank the Test Server community for all the time they have invested in helping to make EQ as amazing as it is, and we look forward to seeing you on the Live Servers."
which makes me think they are anticipating that we'll all leave. On the other hand, Piestro later said, in response to a question, "Test will still be playable as a server."
We've had people transferring from FV for a while now with uber gear and stuff and I haven't seen that it really ended up making all that much of a difference. I don't know if the new unlimited testcopy is going to make a huge difference or not and we probably won't know until after the fact.
I'd rather play on test, but... we could all pick a server and transfer off AND copy back when the time comes that it's allowed and then decide later which server we want to stay on. The problem with that is that if we transfer all our characters then everyone is going to have to buy the expansions on all their accounts.
If we decide we're going to stay here then we could just transfer alts and stuff, take advantage of the new tescopy rules and never have to buy any expansions. But then we don't have any options beyond staying on test.
One way or another, we need to decide. If a significant number of people decide they're going to leave for good then there's probably not much point in the rest of us staying.
