Test shard

[Mikel123]

I've used the test shard plenty for non-PvP purposes. Mostly for testing house placement, which I think is pretty important. It allowed me to check some spots where a castle would fit, where on our "production" shard there were towers, 2-story houses, and/or 7x7's. Which allowed me to place a castle that wasn't there before. We currently have about 43 castles on our shard, versus the 60+ that would supposedly fit. I think more castles is a good thing, and more importantly, letting people test house placement is a good thing. It encourages deals, player interaction, etc.

I've actually never used the test center for PvP. But if that's the issue, couldn't you just eliminate the PvP arena and those reagent stones and such?

Test center was never intended for the use of trial house placement. This is not the original origin of test center. Test center was used and usually only put up sparingly on OSI to test new major mechanic changes. If you guys want to "test" duel/houseplace/craft etc then wake up at 6am and do during no-save server downtime just like it was on OSI.

To be honest, I don't really care that 12 people are on test center. Even if 10 of them are practicing PvP there because of not wanting to lose regs... do we really want those people on the production shard? If they're that loss-averse, they're just going to run away anyways.

I also don't think it's a bad thing that people can practice. Among the 9000 things that people whine about PvP, one of them is that there's not enough people into it. If this is a way in which people become comfortable with it so that they do it on the real shard later on, I think that's a good thing.

Mirage, you can't test house placement on the production shard if you don't own all of the houses you want to place over. Obviously. So test is a good place to check and see if your house/keep/castle will fit, and if so then you can work on acquiring the houses on the actual shard. Given that house placement is not quite accurate to 1999 at the moment, we have no way of knowing what fits where, and why or why not. Seems like this is a good way to make up for that.

And secondly, I don't care what test shard was intended for in 1999. 99% of the early history of UO is stuff happening that wasn't "intended". Last I checked, we try to recreate mechanics here, not experience. If you want a 1999 experience, get on a 56k, and I'll start bugging Derrick to make a Catskills, a Great Lakes, and a Atlantic for me to test on. And a Siege Perilous. Also, I'd like to be able to buy gold from Markee Dragon, and I'd like it if someone could please make an ImaNewbie for me. Thanks.

[Fwerp]

New players learn how to play here constantly, and I think this adds to the shard. If someone joins the shard and asks in IRC about the pvp, I just tell them the information for the TestShard.

I do play on the test shard sometimes, but I don't see how someone can legitimately care that 5 people are fighting on the test server. Even 12 people (an amount I have never seen, and I am sure it was laggy) causes me to shrug. I understand the principle underlying your complaint, but it's just such a minor thing that I have trouble recognizing why you really care.

[archaicsubrosa77]

I tested some things

on OSI if you wanted to "test" something you actually had to build the char and see if it passed or failed. you should have to do it here too.

This isn't OSI...there is no corporate anal retention unless you mean amongst players.

[Hemperor]

When I want to pvp (outside of events), I no longer hop on UO SecondAge and recall around endlessly for 45 minutes.

I log on Test shard.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Then you and your ilk are the problem not the test server itself.
I see maybe a handful of people on at a time if any at all.
You are making mountains out of mashed potatoes...

[Hemperor]

Then you and your ilk are the problem not the test server itself.
I see maybe a handful of people on at a time if any at all.
You are making mountains out of mashed potatoes...

Do you even pvp? When I said 12 were on yesterday, I wasn't lying, and it likely peaked near 20. These are all the "big" pvpers, there's no point for them to go on the real shard as it stands.

You really don't understand SecondAge if you think there are anymore than 15~ pvpers on at any given time. We're not counting the GY blue gank squads

[archaicsubrosa77]

!status

[Pristiq]

Test center is extremely important to those who need to build things for the shard.

[Galendae]

Although Hemp is wrong about lots of things, especially regarding the USA, he is 100% right on with this.

Throw 'em off test and get 'em in game!

Thanks
Galendae

[Eulogy]

Actually..

Back in the day on Test Center(before skill gates or set skills) the skills would fly up due to the fresh server and the fact that there were only around 100 peak users on at any time. I'm talking GM magery and resist in less than a week. This test center was only down for a week at a time, and when it came back everything was deleted and it stayed running for 1-6 months at a time.

When the skill gates were up (that eventually turned into full customization of skills), Test Center was running more like a full time shard. This was probably due to the success of servers like Abyss.

When full customization hit, there were TC Followers that exclusively played on Test Center.



In my opinion, leaving Test Center up as it is would be the best decision. This game already has such a high learning curve for people just getting into the game, so why take the only useful tool we have to train these people how to PvP somewhat?

Poeple for the removal of Test Center as a PvP learning tool only want to pwn newbs at teh gy.

[Hemperor]

Actually..

Back in the day on Test Center(before skill gates or set skills) the skills would fly up due to the fresh server and the fact that there were only around 100 peak users on at any time. I'm talking GM magery and resist in less than a week. This test center was only down for a week at a time, and when it came back everything was deleted and it stayed running for 1-6 months at a time.

When the skill gates were up (that eventually turned into full customization of skills), Test Center was running more like a full time shard. This was probably due to the success of servers like Abyss.

When full customization hit, there were TC Followers that exclusively played on Test Center.



In my opinion, leaving Test Center up as it is would be the best decision. This game already has such a high learning curve for people just getting into the game, so why take the only useful tool we have to train these people how to PvP somewhat?

Poeple for the removal of Test Center as a PvP learning tool only want to pwn newbs at teh gy.

Really? No one is learning on Test Center. The 12 people on (or more) are generally the whole mYm guild and random TB members.

Learning?

[JoshuaLee]

If I ever use test shard it is never for more than like five minutes. Wither I need to try a new skill, macro, or mess around with something technical about the game. Yeah it does kinda suck that people just hop on there and are pvping all the time. For the past week or two I have been getting on there a few times to try and test new skill percentages like smithing and other crafting skills. And everytime I get on I see some people running around with admin powers screwin around with everyone, then I go through the blue gate and there is like some major battle going on.

I think it should be how it use to be and it should only be open when there are actual changes to test, or else you might as well make the test shard a completely seperate shard for pvping because that is what it's being used for. Which in the end takes away from the real uosa.

[Zane]

Let's just make Hemp happy and disable PvP on Test unless there's something related that needs to be tested lol. (no, I do not actually support this)

[JoshuaLee]

Let's just make Hemp happy and disable PvP on Test unless there's something related that needs to be tested lol. (no, I do not actually support this)

Disabling PvP on test would be a great idea unless there are on going patch changes. It would make me happy as well.

[Zane]

Funny thing is, I said it because I've seen other shards advertised as PvP free... but I was expecting the Trammel comments as soon as I suggested it.



The only problem I see is sometimes we don't know what will impact PvP... though I suppose this can be overcome fairly easily.