by Jeff Woleslagle on Apr 29, 2009
Welcome to the 1,068th Edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Server wipes during and after beta are a necessary evil, or are they? Free Realms launched yesterday, to everyone's surprise, just like Chronicles of Spellborn launched in sneaky fashion last week. But Spellborn allowed players to keep their characters while Free Realms is starting everyone from scratch. With the state of beta testing today, is there one right approach? That's our topic today in Loading... Forgetting to Wipe, and we also have several great articles including a City of Heroes five year anniversary interview with Matt Miller, new Free Realms and WoW guides, and more!
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The Pulse
First, you vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Hammer Pulse (What is Pulse?). Here's the top 5 this week:
World of Warcraft Aion: The Tower of Eternity (UP 21!! - Why?) EverQuest 2 Age of Conan EVE Online (UP 2 - Why?)And here are the biggest movers in the Top 20 this week:
Lord of the Rings Online (UP 7 to #11 - Why?) Aion: The Tower of Eternity (UP 9 to #19) EVE Online (UP 9 to #8)Loading... Daily
Today I received a cheerful email from the Free Realms people informing me that since the free-to-play mini-games and gigglefest (that's hooked an alarming number of Ten Ton Hammer staff, I might add) went live suddenly yesterday, and as went beta so went my character. To compensate me for the loss, I'd get a "virtual military hat." I'll stick it in the bank next to my virtual million dollars.
The server wipe wasn't a great loss for me; I'd played a total of about 15 minutes, which is precisely how long it took to reach my cuteness limit for the day. But I am starting to wonder 1) whether going stealth with your release date and then uncloaking at a juicy plot hitch like a Romulan Bird of Prey is in the F2P game making manual somewhere, and 2) whether beta wipes are a good idea anymore.
The pros of a server wipe after beta are pretty obvious - game imbalances might make it easier for players to develop their characters during beta, and letting them keep these characters could be viewed as an unfair advantage (since the same opportunity wasn't available to everyone). The cons are likewise obvious - you often build an affinity to your first character, and taking that away (even if you've been warned it'll happen) probably won't make even the grittiest blueblood tester smile.
But let's contrast the Free Realms launch with another of its semi-free-to-play Romulan pals, Chronicles of Spellborn. Both saw their North American surprise release this month and both were released in sneaky fashion, but Acclaim let Spellborn folks keep their beta characters. Granted, by all accounts, Spellborn players probably had more to lose with a wipe than the more ADHD-prone Free Realms playerbase, and CoS had the testing advantage of being live in Europe since November 2008. Free Realms, by contrast, was in open beta for a little over a week.
Whether you keep your character is probably a function of how finished the game is when you start playing in beta, or should be. If beta isn't really about testing at all, but rather marketing (as our recent beta testing article posits, is there a good reason to prevent players from keeping their characters? Should everyone start from square one on launch day? Do games benefit from having a massive wave of players starting out together, or is it better to stagger the field? Your opinions are welcome in the Loading... forum, or feel free to email me.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day
From our SWTOR: General Discussion
No Homosexuality in Star Wars?
Ten
Ton Hammer community manager, Savanja, brought this little tidbit to
our attention. According to an article at 1up.com, BioWare has managed
to irk the gay community by censoring certain words from the Star Wars:
The Old Republic forum. According to the article:
Now,
this thread is just getting rolling, but I can spot an epic discussion
in the making here. No gays in Star Wars? I mean, are we really sure
Lando's flirting with Leia wasn't just a front to disguise his
preference for leather-clad scoundrels?
At one time, the word
"gay" (though not "homosexual" or "lesbian") was censored on the Ten
Ton Hammer forums, not because we wanted to avoid gay and lesbian
topics (although they can often spin out of control), but because we
know the Internet is full of people who use the word "gay" in a
derogatory manner. We've since found out that our forum community is,
for the most part, exceptionally cool, so we removed
the censorship and let discussions like this one commence.
The drama on the SWTOR forums, for now, seems to have ended,
and BioWare has re-opened controversial threads and lifted some of
their censorship restrictions. Even so, it's a hot topic for
discussion. Can you appreciate BioWare's stance? Or do you think they
were narrow-minded, and limited their potential player base by
offending the gay/lesbian community? Voice your opinions here!
==============================
Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread
"As
for those words being banned, it's not because BioWare are
anti-anything, it's because asshats on the forums will make posts using
those terms in a negative manner. It's a sad fact that the majority of
good people can't use them because a few jerkwads would abuse them."
- AngryBeaver
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Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!
4 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 132 in April! 518 in 2009!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
Exclusive Aion Class Interview #1 - The GladiatorReal World News
Woman stabs priest during confession
Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
-- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team