Beta MMORPGs w/o Char Wipes

[Portents]

Any MMORPG in beta with announced NO Char Wipes ?

L2 was weird and probably the only one I recall.

[Ellianora]

L2 was out of the ordinary far as I know. No other mmoporg ever has done that. Most do a wipe. Only CoH came close, letting you keep your names

[GhostDog]

It's not a bad marketing strategy to allow carry over, but Blizzard have said WoW OB chars will be wiped.

[Twiz]

Originally Posted by GhostDog

It's not a bad marketing strategy to allow carry over, but Blizzard have said WoW OB chars will be wiped.

I would disagree. For those "in" beta it would be nice, but the rest of us would feel somewhat put off at the head start the beta testers got. After all, beta testers get to take advantage of lots of things that never make it live, like holes in the game, easy leveling, dumbed down IA (as well as ramped up AI), etc. In the end, they got to play a different game than what is actually launched. Now, if it was an entirely open beta, it would make sense, because anyone that wants to can get in.

Last I read there were 7k beta testers in EQ2, not counting the 4500 from over this past weekend from fileplanet. Is it really fair for them to have an advantage at launch?

[CampWater]

I don't think it's fair to have a group of players being already high levels on day 1. That would be like skipping a huge step of the game and bypass a ton of stuff.

It can only befenit everybody to start over and take advantage of what blizzard has been doing for the past few years.

[GhostDog]

Originally Posted by Twiz

I would disagree.

I don't mean it's a good marketing strategy from the point of view of people not in beta - more that if they allowed open beta testers to keep their character, some people would no doubt get the game who might not have if they lost 'all their work'.

But I'm all for everyone starting with a clean page in retail.

[Ellianora]

Would have to agree some would be put out by having charcters higher then them by virtue of a lukcy drawd. The purpose of a beta has normally been to test the game, making sure it is ready, not so one can get a head start. Normally one goes into a beta with the understanding this is not permenant and they are to report any problems or make suggestions. Lineage 2 had a wide wide open beta near the end ie you signed in and you were in, more like a pre-release subscription then a beta. That is a good ploy to pull people in the game, but unless the developers used the same tactic I doubt it would work, even with Lineage there were some difficulties.

[Twiz]

Did L2 do a pre-open beta wipe before the open open open beta?

[kreebog]

Originally Posted by Twiz

Did L2 do a pre-open beta wipe before the open open open beta?

Don't know about L2... but I could see it being a useful marketing tool for WoW to allow Open Beta characters to carry over into retail, assuming that the Open Beta is equally open and available to
everybody. It would get people into the game and almost be like they released the game early, which would probably grab some undecideds from EQ2.

[Karmajay]

L2 let you keep your characters when retail came out.

Yes I'd rather have everyone start over also.

Otherwise you have super leet powergamers complaining about high level content the week the game comes out.